However, Rönne says, this process would not have been possible without the distracting maneuver that every magician uses to divert attention from his actual manipulations. It was produced by the inter-regnum of the intellectuals. The radio dominates reality. An enormous backdrop of chatter is erected. The most obvious evidence: Professor Hertzog and his intervention in the intellectual magma of the primal community, his distracting game of supposedly bringing order to the chaos. The radio broadcasts journalistic imitations of it in the evening while actual politics (e.g., Bonn’s appointment of General Neunteuffel) takes place behind a curtain of threadbare news reports.

When Rönnekamp talks, his incisors drop down from behind his upper lip and appear very large. Does he have not very well seated false teeth? Very disconcerting. I have to force myself to pay attention to what he’s saying and not to the epiphany of his front teeth.

Herr von Rönnekamp thinks that given the currency reform, the intellectuals can be dispensed with. Protesting loudly, they’ll recede into the background of what’s happening. The new German world time—shelled so wonderfully out of the preceding time by the de-valuation that there is absolutely no remaining connection between yesterday and today—is now in step with universal world time. Gathered home into the American Reich. Hertzog a prime example of that as well: his remorseful (Rönne says “raymorzfoll”) return to the Freudianism he had opportunistically sworn off during twelve Nazi years. Among the survivors of the primal community, its founder (actually only its host) Nagel is also an example of developments: from fiction to film. Rönne prophesies an age of media.

All that, however, stands in the spotlight of what is happening in the Russian Zone. There, politics is not a morally fraught concept whose retroactively disastrous effects get registered in questionnaires. On the contrary, it’s the central word of a new ethos. While on our side, the God who (based loosely on Nietzsche) no longer exists still casts a terrible shadow from his cave, in the Eastern Zone he’s dressed in new clothes and shines in his old glory. His radiance does not admit of any guilt feelings. His yoke rests lightly on shoulders used to carrying it under his old name.

Exhilarated, we bid each other farewell. Rönne’s handshake is like a suction cup, as is his parting glance. It seems to be saying, “Haven’t you recognized who you are yet?” Like all queers, he surmises one of the brotherhood in every man, just like a masochist suspects everyone else of masochism (while hoping for a sadist). His long front teeth flash in his good-bye smile as though firmly rooted.

• • •

On Christa and Aristides:

In order to remind him that as his wife, she has a claim to part of the money he supposedly rakes in bushels of working for Stoffel & Co. (in reality, he works without pay as an idea man and besides, he has pulled back almost completely to leave the field free for Nagel, its lawful occupant), she decides to buy some new clothes. She’s surprised to discover how familiar he is with questions of feminine couture, but of course has no idea that his knowledge comes from the shopping sprees on which he accompanies Gisela as an advisor. With his bad conscience, A. can only half appreciate the humor of the situation.