The Magician by Colm Toibin

Author:Colm Toibin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

When he showed the letter to Katia, Thomas presumed that she would have much to say about the many ways in which Erika, since the day she was born, had attempted to control their lives. But Katia said nothing.

He was aware that the shunning of him that Erika threatened would possibly become widely known. He knew also from Alfred Knopf that the reading public in the United States were coming to see him as the most significant German writer alive, and one who was in exile because of his opposition to Hitler. It would not be easy to explain his silence to them.

Up to now, he had seen himself as exceptional, and that was why he had not wanted to join the dissidents. But more than anything else, he had been afraid. This was something that Katia understood, but not Erika nor Klaus nor Heinrich either. They did not understand timidity. For them there was only clarity. But this, Thomas believed, was a time of clarity just for the brave few; for the rest, it was a time of confusion. And he belonged to the rest in a way that did not, now, make him feel proud. He presented himself to the world as a man of principle, but instead, he thought, he was weak.

When a telegram arrived from Klaus adding fuel to Erika’s fire, Thomas went for a walk by the lake on his own. It was so typical of Klaus to wait until Erika had sent her letter! He was inclined to write to both of them to suggest, since they were so astute, that they add up the amount of money they had received from him during their time in exile.

What irritated him more than anything was the knowledge that Erika and Klaus were right.

He was working each day on the next volume of his long work based on the story of Joseph in the Old Testament; he still felt that there would be readers for such a book, even as the sound of warmongering became shriller in Germany. Once he spoke out against the regime, however, he would lose his German readers. The words he was writing would lie dead on the page. They would depend on translators. And he would be forever on the Nazi blacklist, and Katia’s parents would be hounded by them further. But as he faced towards home, he told himself that this was happening to all the other writers, and to many other people.

He had been loyal to his publisher; he had wanted to keep his German readership. He had prevaricated and delayed. He had tried not to think about what he should do. He lived in dread of facing the fact that Germany was lost to him already. If he spoke out, he would have no choice.

Of course he would denounce Hitler! But doing so at the behest of his daughter, with all the family watching him, made him feel powerless. If only Erika could be quiet, then he would act.

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