Tom Murphy Chapter 15

I think Adolf Hitler is a great figure in the world,
said my seminary brother Pat to Gustav.

Pat had accepted Mrs Rosenblum's invitation to come to tea in their garret. I was sitting at the kitchen table between Gustav and Maria. I was too busy navigating my way through Mrs Rosenblum's distraught cooking to pay much attention. But the name did stir a vague recollection. I thought that was the name that kept coming up oddly in the magazine in Woolly Jack's hut.

There was a silence which was a unique event in this chatterbox household. I looked up. All the Rosenblums were sitting like stone.

There are things I don't agree with Mr Hitler about,
said Pat, his sandy complexion blushing.

What things? asked Gustav.

I don't think he should lock people up just because they hold different opinions. And I think he should extend Jesus' mercy to the Jews.

And what do you admire him for? asked Gustav.

Pat leaned back and swallowed a cup full of tea.
How do I start. The modern world is full of ugliness and corruption. Mr Hitler has begun the spiritual transformation not just for his own people, but as an example for all peoples. In one year as Chancellor, he has done more than any other world leader has done in the last hundred. Man has in the last hundred years thought himself wise but has become foolish. He has disdained the gnats of a moral life and has swallowed the camel of rationalism.

This was getting a bit too deep for me. Pat was the brainy one in our family. Dad's old joke was, Pat must have been the last baby of the old faith in the neighbourhood. All the angels had left was a brain.

‘Our family have always valued throats more’, Dad would conclude under Truth with a snigger after an ear bashing from Pat.

But Pat's words at the Rosenblum table did ring a faint bell of recollection and meaning to me. Wisdom and foolishness, camels and gnats were mixed nostalgically with Mum's caresses, home cooking and wise cracking jolly priests.

Pat swallowed another mouthful of tea, and leaned forward to deliver a sermon. I wondered if this was all a ruse to avoid Mrs Rosenblum's burnt pudding.

Where in Germany there was ugliness in intellectual thought, in art, in the environment of the people, the National Socialists are redeeming it with beauty. Where the corrupt capitalist or worker had been turned into a God, they have restored the higher nature of man to its divinity with the catholic living God.

The Rosenblums remained in a stony silence. The meal had been forgotten which was perhaps best for everyone.

Pat turned to Gustav.
Before this lovely dinner made by your good mother, you showed me in your room your prints of the twentieth century German master artists. You also showed me prints of your favourite old German masters. Oh Gustav. I cannot question their technical skill. On that matter, I have no education. But as a simple seminary priest, what excruciating and blasphemous ugliness. I would sooner have been the confessing thief on the cross next to Christ, than to be one of those master artists.
A people, for ever surrounded by such visual corruptions, could only sink into the abyss of substituting their Christian morality with these images. You showed me images of Christ where all that remained of his living body was his cadaver and his tortured face. You showed me terrifying images of great crowds of men suffering torments in pits of fire and desert. You showed me–

I showed you images of Heaven by an old German master that enchanted you, snapped Gustav.

You gave me a glimpse of Heaven that will be mine for eternity, said Pat meditatively.
But the same master produced images that are as disturbing to a troubled soul as they are meaningless. In the Garden of Delights you showed me the fountain of life in one corner and the damned contorted on musical instruments in the other.

Pat laughed. Your master artists should be locked away in a lunatic asylum. There they can only torment themselves with these crazy juxtapositions of Heaven and Hell.

Give him a peanut, said Gustav sourly.

Maria gave a wild laugh and in her nervous excitement spilt her cup.

Both of you children remember your manners, remonstrated Mrs Rosenblum and her nervous hands fluttered.

Pat raised his hand. We modern priests give it and can take it. Go on, Gustav.

Gustav banged his fist on the table and only his mother's presence kept down his anger.

When the modern German master artists were painting their masterpieces, where was your hero? When Paul Klee was painting his Young Man Resting in 1911 in Munich, he might have heard a knock on his back door. Who might it have been? It might have been your hero peddling his pathetic picture post cards. Klee would have bought one out of pity, and thrown it out with the rubbish.

That is very good, Gustav, said Pat.

I shuddered. I knew how condescending Gustav would find his words. But he stayed silent, and Pat went on with his sermon.

Maybe Mr Klee should have taken young Adolf into his studio. In a catholic world we all have something worthwhile to learn from the other. Instead of throwing the youth out like trampled dust, Mr Klee might have taught him better draughtsman skills so he could earn a better living.
The youth might have shown the master artist that there still is beauty in the world that we see with our own eyes. In the youth's soul and in the souls of those that admired his art, however amateurish, there was still that aesthetic vision. I cannot say that about Mr Klee.
At the Day of Judgment, his worldly success will be less important than the hairs on his head. Furthermore, young Gustav, whoever goes door to door, believing in his wares, is blessed. They are doing the same as did Christ's disciples. I forget you are not of our faith. But I never forget the first people to nourish and educate Jesus Christ were your countrymen.

Our religion is Liberal Judaism, but we are Germans,
said Mrs Rosenblum sharply.

Aah, said Pat with aplomb.
You have put in a cinch where your great problem lies. Germany is the land of German Christians. You were God's chosen people in the Holy Land. The German Chancellor has given you a chance, the first in two thousand years, to leave the lands of the Diaspora and return to your homeland in Palestine. Don't squander his beneficence, it may never come again. Go forth and shake the dust from the Christian and infidel lands.
It is the blessing and curse of God's mission for you that you will never find a refuge among us.

I looked around. Pat was blushing furiously into his red hair. The Rosenblums were staring at him and not breathing with their mouths wide open.

Then Gustav spoke and his voice was shaking.
Agree with Pat. There is no place on this earth for us unless we find a land without a government and without a people. Then we can live like a real people again with our own government and our own laws. Then we can make Pat our pet priest, and he can eat his corpse God in his tomb in Palestine.

Then Maria leant over and struck Pat again and again and screamed hysterically. This was so absurdly childish. It was as if she was an infant in a tantrum. Pat just covered his eyes. Mrs Rosenblum, suddenly distraught, struggled with her daughter. She picked her up and carried her to the children's bedroom. She shouted at Pat as tears flowed down her angry cheeks.

Now, see vot your prejudiced words have done, Mr Murphy. We left our country to escape them. She has not suffered an attack since we left Germany.

I was gaping and my heart was thundering. It was not the words of Pat that shocked me. Only years later did I understand their meaning. Even Mrs Rosenblum's anger did not disturb me much. I was long used to the final exit of Dad's housekeepers. It was Maria. I had always seen her round petite face as cherubic and enchantingly happy. It was never still but melted every moment into a new smile. Now it was grimacing through her tears into idiotic contortions. She could now have joined the ship of fools above Gustav's bed pillow.

My brother and I had better leave now, and I am sorry to have confused ideas with your suffering,
said Pat quietly to Gustav.

We two Murphies fled to the safety of our Catholic neighbourhood.