The Spinoza Problem (12 page)

“Alfred, I think I can explain what you feel. I’ve experienced it myself, and I’ve seen it in others. You’re not responding to the memories I’ve shared. It’s something else. I can best explain it by speaking in a philosophical mode. I, too, have had much philosophy training, and it is a pleasure to speak with one of similar inclination.”

“It would be a pleasure for me as well. I have been surrounded by engineers for years and yearn for a philosophical conversation.”

“Good, good. Let me start in this way: remember the shock and disbelief toward Kant’s revelation that external reality is not as we ordinarily perceive it—that is, we constitute the nature of external reality by virtue of our internal mental constructs? You’re well acquainted with Kant, I imagine?”

“Yes, very well acquainted. But his relevance to my current state of mind is? . . .”

“Well, what I mean is that suddenly your world, I refer now to your internal world, constituted so much by your past experiences,
is not as you thought it was
. Or, to put it another way, let me use a term from Husserl, and say your
noema
has exploded.”

“Husserl? I avoid Jewish pseudo-philosophers. And what is a
noema
?”

“I advise you, Alfred, not to dismiss Edmund Husserl—he’s one of the greats. His term
noema
refers to the thing as we experience it, the thing as structured by us. For example, think of the idea of a building. Then think of leaning against a building and finding that the building is not solid and that your body passes right through it. At that moment your
noema
of a building explodes—your
Lebenswelt
(life-world) suddenly is not as you thought.”

“I respect your advice. But please clarify further—I understand the concept of a structure that we impose upon the world, but still I’m puzzled about the relevance for Eugen and me.”

“Well, what I’m saying is that your view about the lifelong relationship you had with your brother is, in one big stroke, altered. You thought of him one way, and suddenly the past shifts, just a bit, and you find out now that he sometimes regarded you with resentment—
even though
, of course, the resentment was irrational and unfair.”

“So you’re saying that I’m dizzy because the solid ground of my past has been shifted?”

“Precisely. Well put, Alfred. Your mind is on overload because it is totally preoccupied with reconstituting the past, and it has not the capacity to do its normal jobs—like taking care of your equilibrium.”

Alfred nodded, “Friedrich, this has been an astounding conversation. You’re giving me a lot to ponder. But let me point out that some of this dizziness preceded our talk.”

Friedrich waited calmly, expectantly. He seemed to know how to wait.

Alfred hesitated, “I don’t usually share this much. In fact I hardly talk about myself to anyone, but there is something about you that is very—what shall I say—trusting, inviting.”

“Well, in a way I’m family. And, of course, you know that you can’t make old friends anew.”

“Old friends anew . . .” Alfred thought for a moment, then smiled, “I understand. Very clever. Well, I started the day feeling estranged—I just
arrived yesterday from Moscow. I’m alone now. I was married for a brief time—my wife has consumption, and her father placed her in a sanitarium in Switzerland a few weeks ago. But it’s more than the consumption: her wealthy family strongly disapproves of me and my poverty, and I’m certain our very short marriage is over. We have spent little time together and even stopped writing much to one another.”

Alfred hastily took a swallow of his ale and continued. “When I arrived here yesterday, my aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews seemed glad to see me and their welcome felt good. I felt I belonged. But not for long. By the time I woke this morning I once again felt estranged and homeless and walked around the city looking and looking in search of . . . what? I guess, for home, for friends, even for familiar faces. Yet I saw only strangers. Even in the Realschule, I met no one I knew except for my favorite teacher, the art teacher, and he only pretended to recognize me. And then, less than an hour ago, came the final blow. I decided to go where I truly belonged, to stop living in exile, to reconnect with my race and to return to the Fatherland. Intending to join the German army, I went to the German military headquarters across the street. There, the enlistment sergeant, a Jew named Goldberg, flicked me off like an insect. He waved me away with the words that the German army was for Germans, not for citizens of combatant countries.”

Friedrich nodded sympathetically. “Maybe the final blow was a blessing. Maybe you were fortunate to get a reprieve, a pardon from a senseless, muddy death in the trenches.”

“You said I was an oddly serious child. I guess I’m still that way. For example, I take my Kant seriously: I consider it a moral imperative to enlist. What would our world be like if everyone deserted the mortally wounded Fatherland? When he calls, his sons must answer.”

“It is odd, isn’t it,” said Friedrich, “how we Baltic Germans are so much more German than the Germans. Perhaps all of us who are displaced Germans have that same powerful longing you describe—for home, a place where we really belong. We Baltic Germans are in the midst of a plague of rootlessness. I feel it especially keenly at this moment because my father died earlier this week. That’s why I’m in Reval. Now I, too, don’t know where I belong. My maternal grandparents are Swiss, and yet I don’t really belong there, either.”

“My condolences,” Alfred said.

“Thank you. In many ways I’ve had it easier than you: my father was almost eighty, and I had his full healthy presence my entire life. And my mother is still alive. I’ve spent my time here helping her move into her sister’s home. In fact, I just left her napping and must rejoin her shortly. But before I leave, I want to say that I believe the issue of home is deep and urgent for you. I can stay a bit longer if you’d like to explore that more.”

“I don’t know
how
to explore it. In fact your ability to talk about deeply personal things with such ease amazes me. I’ve never heard anyone express his inner thoughts as openly as you.”

“Would you like me to help you do that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean help you identify and understand your feelings about home.”

Alfred looked wary but, after a long slow gulp of his Latvian ale, agreed.

“Try this. Do just what I did when I dredged up my memories of you as a child. Here’s my suggestion: think of the phrase ‘not at home,’ and say it to yourself several times: ‘not at home,’ ‘not at home,’ ‘not at home.’”

Alfred’s lips silently mouthed the words for a minute or two, and then he shook his head. “Nothing comes. My mind is on strike.”

“The mind never goes on strike; it is always working, but something often blocks our knowledge of it. Usually it’s self-consciousness. In this case, I imagine it is self-consciousness about me. Try again. Let me suggest you close your eyes and forget about me, forget about what I will think of you, forget about how I might judge what you say. Remember I am trying to help, and remember that you have my word that this conversation will remain only with me. I’ll not share it even with Eugen. Now close your eyes, let your thoughts pop into your mind about ‘not at home,’ and then give voice to them. Just say what comes to mind—it doesn’t have to make sense.”

Alfred again closed his eyes, but no words came.

“Can’t quite hear you. Louder, a little louder, please.”

Softly Alfred began to speak. “Not at home. Nowhere. Not with Aunt Cäcilie, or Aunt Lydia . . . no place for me, not in school, not with other boys, not in my wife’s family, not in architecture, not in engineering, not in Estonia, not in Russia . . . Mother Russia, what a joke . . .”

“Good, good—keep going,” urged Friedrich.

“Always outside, looking in, always want to show them . . .” Alfred grew silent, opened his eyes. “Nothing else comes . . .”

“You said you want to show them. Show who, Alfred?”

“All those who mocked me. In the neighborhood, at the Realschule, at the Polytechnic, everywhere.”

“And how will you show them, Alfred? Stay in your loose frame of mind. You don’t have to make sense.”

“I don’t know. Somehow I will make them notice me.”

“If they notice you, will you be at home then?”

“Home doesn’t exist. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“I have no preordained plan, but I do now have an idea. It’s just a guess, but I wonder if you can ever be at home anywhere, because home is not a place—it’s a state of mind. Really being at home is feeling at home in your own skin. And, Alfred, I don’t think you feel at home in your skin. Perhaps you never have. Perhaps you have been searching for home in the wrong place all your life.”

Alfred looked thunderstruck. His jaw sagged; his eyes riveted on Friedrich. “Your words speed right to my heart. How come you know such things, such miraculous things? You said you were a philosopher. Is that where this comes from? I must read this philosophy.”

“I’m an amateur. Just like you, I would have loved spending my life in philosophy, but I have to earn a living. I went to medical school in Zurich and learned a lot about helping others talk about difficult things. And now,” Friedrich rose from his seat, “I must leave you. My mother is waiting, and I must return to Zurich the day after tomorrow.”

“Unfortunate. This has been enlightening, and I feel as though we were just starting. Is there no time for a continuation before you leave Reval?”

“I have only tomorrow. My mother always rests in the afternoon. Perhaps the same time? Shall we meet here?”

Alfred restrained his greediness and his wish to exclaim, “Yes, yes.” Instead he bowed his head in just the proper manner: “I look forward to it.”

A
t the van den Enden academy the following evening, Clara Maria’s assiduous Latin drill was interrupted by her father. He bowed formally to his daughter and said, “Forgive me for intruding, Mademoiselle van den Enden, but I must have a word with Mr. Spinoza.” Turning toward Bento, he said, “Please come to the large alcove in an hour and join the Greek class, where we shall discuss some texts by Aristotle and Epicurus. Even though your Greek is still rudimentary, these two gentlemen have something important to say to you.” To Dirk he said, “I know that you have little interest in Greek since it is, disgracefully, no longer a requirement for medical school, but you may find aspects of this discussion useful in your future work with patients.”

Van den Enden bowed again formally to his daughter. “And now, Mademoiselle, I shall leave you to continue putting them through their Latin paces.”

Clara Maria continued reading short passages from Cicero, which Bento and Dirk took turns translating into Dutch. Several times she tapped her ruler on the table to alert the distracted Bento, who, rather than attend to Cicero, was caught up entirely with the delightful movement of Clara Maria’s lips when she pronounced her
m
’s and
p
’s in
multa
,
pater
,
puer
, and, most wonderfully of all,
praestantissimum
.

“Where is your concentration today, Bento Spinoza?” said Clara Maria, trying hard to contort her most pleasing thirteen-year-old, pear-shaped face into a stern frown.

“Sorry, I was, for a moment, lost in thought, Miss van den Enden.”

“No doubt thinking about my father’s Greek symposium?”

“No doubt,” dissembled Bento, who had been thinking far more about the daughter than the father. He also continued to be haunted by Jacob’s angry words a few hours earlier, predicting his destiny as a lonely, isolated man. Jacob was opinionated, closed-minded, and wrong on so many issues, but in this he was right: Bento knew he could have no wife—no family, no community. Reason told him that freedom should be his goal and that his struggle to free himself from the constraints of the superstitious Jewish community would be farcical if he were simply to exchange them for the shackles of a wife and family. Freedom was his only quarry, the freedom to think, to analyze, to transcribe the thunderous thoughts echoing in his mind. But it was hard, oh so hard, to wrench his attention from the lovely lips of Clara Maria.

Van den Enden began his discussion with his Greek class by exclaiming, “
Eudaimonia
. Let’s examine the two roots:
eu
?” He cupped his ear with his hand and waited. Students timidly called out “good,” “normal,” “pleasant.” Van den Enden nodded and repeated the exercise with
daimon
and received a more invigorated chorus of “spirit,” “imp,” “minor deity.”

“Yes, yes, and yes. All are correct but in consort with
eu
the meaning veers toward ‘good fortune’ and, thus,
eudaimonia
usually connotes ‘well-being’ or ‘happiness’ or ‘flourishing.’ Are these three terms synonyms? At first they appear to be, but in fact philosophers beyond count have discoursed on their shades of difference. Is
eudaimonia
a state of mind? A way of life?” Without waiting for an answer, van den Enden added, “Or is it sheer hedonistic pleasure? Or might it be connected to the concept of
arete
, which means?” Cupping his ears, he waited until two students simultaneously called out “virtue.”

“Yes, exactly, and many ancient Greek philosophers incorporate virtue into the concept of
eudaimonia
, thus perhaps elevating it from the
subjective
state of feeling happy to a greater consideration of living a moral, virtuous, desirable life. Socrates had strong feelings about that. Recall your last week’s reading of Plato’s
Apologia
, in which he accosts a fellow Athenian and raises the question of
arete
with these words . . .” At this point van den Enden assumed a theatrical pose and recited Plato in Greek and then, slowly, translated the text into Latin for Dirk and Bento: “Are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible,
while you do not care for nor give thought to wisdom or truth or the best possible state of your soul?”