Our very last stop is the Spy Museum. Ben grumbles because I seem to have picked the only museum in the city that is not free. He says he’ll wait in the lobby. I’m happy though because we narrowly missed having to go to the Holocaust Museum.
Eli is excited about this place. We are given a cover story, must memorize it quickly, then answer a series of questions. There is a hidden passageway that kids can crawl through. I limp around, looking at the exhibits. There are lipstick guns. Camera guns.
But the best thing is an ordinary-looking pair of glasses. Cyanide tipped. To be used if you are caught by the enemy so you don’t betray anyone.
* * *
…
It’s going to be too much, Sylvia said. People who do this kind of work will break down, people will get sick and die. I remember what she said when I called her the day after. Up in smoke! Up in smoke!
She predicted all of this before it happened. In chaotic times, people long for a strongman, she said. But I didn’t believe her. Hardly anyone did.
But now there’s a woman in the bathroom and there’s shit all over the floor. I hand paper towels under the door. Expensive-looking boots, I note. We don’t speak and later I am careful not to look at the shoes of anyone.
At the circulation desk, Lorraine is being shown the X-rays again. Patiently, she nods her head. She used to sing in a club, someone told me. She has grown children and a husband who is dying of some slow, awful thing. I don’t get into people’s business, she told me once. The only piece of advice she’s ever given me was: Take care of your teeth.
But later, I see her in the break room yelling at our coworker. “You are a child! You have acted like a child!” she tells the one who decided not to vote.
Ben’s sister told him there is a sign now on the door of the fancy grocery store in her town. NO POLITICS, PLEASE, it reads.
Q: How can I tell if those around me would become good Germans?
A: There is a historian named Timothy Snyder who has studied in great detail how past societies have descended into fascism. In his book On Tyranny, he made the following suggestions:
Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
My book-ordering history is definitely going to get me flagged by some evil government algorithm. Lots and lots of books about Vichy France and the French Resistance and more books than any civilian could possibly need about spy craft and fascism. Luckily, there is a Jean Rhys novel in there and a book for Eli called How to Draw Robots. That’ll throw them off the scent.
There is a period after every disaster in which people wander around trying to figure out if it is truly a disaster. Disaster psychologists use the term “milling” to describe most people’s default actions when they find themselves in a frightening new situation.
That’s the name for what we’re doing, Sylvia says.
* * *
…
“Get everything done now,” Ben insists. He is worried one or both of us will lose our jobs. But I don’t like to go to the dentist. Won’t he just have bad news for me? “Please, Lizzie,” he says. “You’ve had that temporary crown for years.”
* * *
…
A woman walks into a dentist’s office and says, “I think I’m a moth.”
The dentist tells her, “You shouldn’t be here. You should be seeing a psychiatrist…”
The woman replies, “I am seeing a psychiatrist.”
The dentist says, “Then what are you doing here?”
And she says, “Your light was on.”
* * *
…
Henry’s always calling me for advice too, cajoling me to come over. And when I do he hands the baby to me and lies down on the couch and stares at the ceiling. He lets everything go to hell all day, then does a mad rush to get everything together before Catherine gets home at seven. I’ve been treading lightly, but he seems worse, not better. Luckily, Iris is an easy baby. It’s Henry who seems ready to burst into tears.
Ben isn’t much better. He turns the volume off so he never hears his voice, but sometimes I listen. Now he is talking about something in space. The moon maybe. How we should go there again. I woke up in the middle of the night last night. The dog was barking, or maybe it was just in my dream. Today NASA found seven new Earth-size planets. So there’s that.
* * *
…
The sky is dull, a soft feathery gray, streaked here and there with clouds. Well, yes, I would, sir. I would like to hear the GOOD NEWS. I will read this pamphlet forthwith!
* * *
…
Ben looks into the Israel thing; I look into the idea of true north.
“The problem is it’s matrilineal,” he says. “I mean, you guys would have to convert.”
“I don’t want to live in Israel. That’s even worse.”
“I know,” he says. “You’re right.”
I think about those people shouting, Blood and soil! Blood and soil!
“But let’s keep it in our pocket,” I tell him.
Now when I see my neighbors the voice in my head gets all Jesusy. One of you will betray me. But which? Is it you Mrs. Kovinski?
* * *
…
Take care of your teeth, take care of your teeth, take care of your teeth, my monkey mind says. The class is thinning out again. This morning Margot talked about the difference between falling and floating. With practice, she says, one may learn to accept the feeling of groundlessness without existential fear. This is akin to the way an experienced parachutist or astronaut might enjoy the wide view from above even as he hurtles through space.
She gave us a formula: suffering = pain + resistance.
* * *
…
Today Mr. Jimmy starts up a conversation with me as soon as I get in. I’m so tired I hardly listen to him, just nod here and there. Now he’s going on about background checks again. “I check all my drivers. I mean, when I had other drivers I did. You have to be careful.” I nod, sure, sure. “Otherwise you could just have some Mohammed come in, get a car to drive, fill it up with explosives…”