The Thanatos Syndrome

was not interested.
    I? I let it go at that too—though I didn’t know what he meant. Catholics part of the “Judaic conspiracy”? I could not translate that into American or New Orleans terms, where there is, as you know, a kind of tacit, almost tolerant, anti-Semitism from Catholics and a species of ironic anti-Catholicism from Jews. Catholics and Jews go to a lot of trouble pretending there is no such thing, behaving toward each other with a sort of Southern Protestant joshing and jollification, like good old boys from Mississippi. But it’s there. I remember a fellow telling me in the Lorelei Club that he had been bested in a business deal. By whom? somebody asked. By Manny Ginsberg. Nods, winks, looks all around, that’s all. You know exactly what I mean.
    Or: once, before I became a priest, one night I was attending a symphony concert in New Orleans. I was talking to a friend of the family, a splendid old lady from a noble Jewish family and president of the symphony board—New Orleans Jews, God bless them, keep the arts alive. She was telling me about her recent trip to Italy. She’d been to Rome, where she’d seen the pope carried aloft around the square in a throne. She too winked. It was the way she said the word pope that was in itself outlandish. It made him sound like some grand panjandrum borne aloft by a bunch of loony Hottentots. As a matter of fact, she was right. I never did see why they hauled the pope around in that sedia —and I’m glad John XXIII put a stop to it. But it was the way she said the word pope —it made me think he was absurd too.
    But Catholics as part of the Judaic conspiracy? Helmut said it. He took it as a matter of course. I couldn’t make head or tail of it—then. Imagine hearing that from a young SS cadet, with his German eagle and death’s-head on his cap and lightning bolts on his shoulder patch. Of course, in his own mad way he was right, but not quite in the way he meant.
    I am ashamed to say that I did not question him or argue with him, at the time not having much more use for Catholics than he did. I thought of them as a lot of things but never as part of the “Judaic conspiracy.” In defense I can only say that the expression would also have amazed both New Orleans Jews and Holy Name parishioners.
    My father and I went on to Bayreuth. I remember hearing Tristan and Isolde with him. He had graduated from Puccini to Wagner. His eyes were closed during the entire second act. I confess I felt contempt for him and admiration for Helmut.
    Do you know that I don’t think he ever noticed the Nazis or Hitler or the SA or the SS that entire summer—any more than he noticed Huey Long when we got home?
    I decided not to stay in Germany, after all. I came home and went to Tulane, tuition-free because of my father’s academic connection.

15. DURING THIS STRANGE , rambling account, I noticed with surprise that the old priest’s voice grew stronger. Toward the end he pushed himself up to a sitting position and began gesturing vigorously—for example, holding out both hands, palms up, to show how Helmut had presented him with a bayonet inscribed with Blut und Ehre.
    Now he is struggling to get up.
    â€œWhy don’t you just stay here, Father,” I suggest. “You need a good night’s sleep.”
    â€œI’m fine! I’m fine!”
    â€œBut you suffered some sort of attack and I’m not sure what—”
    â€œOh, I’ve had those before. It’s an allergic reaction.”
    â€œAllergic reaction? Maybe, but it may be something more serious.” Like temporal-lobe epilepsy. Hence the vivid recall of smell, place, memory of Germany in the 1930s.
    But he insists on getting up, back to his post, as he puts it, as firewatcher. I help him onto the stool, on condition that he come in for a CORTscan and an ECG. He agrees.
    I am anxious to leave. I am worried about Claude Bon.
    â€œOne question, Tom.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    â€œOf what? The Nazis?”
    â€œNo. Your colleagues. The Louisiana Weimar psychiatrists,” he says ironically.
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œNever mind,” he says quietly. “What do you think of my experience in Germany?”
    There is nothing to do but answer truthfully, without saying that I was more interested in his story as a symptom of a possible brain disorder than in the