2
Beyond Carlos: An American Interrogation
Beyond Carlos ben 
Carlos, beyond Carlos Kiner Rossman, beyond Berri and Gingi and Mordico, I like to use myself as a species of un-American, an example of the kind sounded in poetry, ESL inscribed within ESL, English as a Second Language confronted by English as a Sovereign Language, but with a difference.
Unlike the immigrant I was, or even the child of an immigrant I was, which I can claim I am like Amy Tan, I don’t want you to think about the particulars of my identity, about my deferential second-language status, about my inspirational difference from others to which every immigrant is welcome as a subject—so is America represented as a nation of inspirational difference-from-others-stories to which everyone is welcome as a subject—since who are you when I do claim this but someone who is obliged to relate, to be inspired, to be different like me, only different. I want you to be more than that. It is only the blind groping weirdness I want to relate. And the stuff of poetry: everyone is not welcome. That’s the difference.
It’s not that I am of the kind—that species of un-American—who has English as a Second Language, even as, yes, I do, and can at the same time say yes to American. Or that I can distinguish like Amy Tan the distinct Englishes which appear in my novels—she goes on in the clear essay about how her mother’s “broken” English among other Englishes has informed her writing. That is very much something a teacher of English can do, and can only apply to its appearance in my novels.
The fact is: I have no novels, and I don’t remember English as anything but my first language even as it unclearly was not, so that it’s a matter of hearing it as a second language only within my feeling—this oceanic feeling one can absorb, in fact, through a conch shell—that it was anything but my first, which is crucial and the stuff of poetry.
If you care, poetry, I have overheard, comes like this kind of underwater English to one who speaks like this, because poetry is already the sounding of a second language within an American culture that does not count it among its facts, its culture of evidence, and, in my case, it becomes a triple threat, the ESL boy—not to be pitied like iron-lung boy—who falls in love with poetry as a second language cadence which must always resist English as a sovereign language cadence, even as the boy must live and breathe it within its nation, as his mother sounds it otherwise, as if he will never have arrived. It’s the matter and the mother of hearing all this I am after.
This is why I want you to hear Parnell Thomas or Robert E. Stripling, interrogators of the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and the composer Hanns Eisler—Leipzigborn and brother of Gerhart Eisler, whom the committee was really after since he was, according to his sister, who testified against him before the committee, “a leading agent of the Russian police,” she said, “a most dangerous terrorist,” she said, “the perfect terrorist type,” she said, a breeder of future al-Qaeda secret cells and watchwords—when they appeared separately in 1947 before the House Un-American Activities Committee investigating so-called communists among us, before you were born, to expose “that secret monotony of our intonation” of which Carlos said “there is much to tell.” In the tone of this dominant species of American, I want you to hear words spoken as if they had no right to exist but much to tell. Perhaps other languages have this tone, but I only hear it in this one:
MR. STRIPLING: Now Mr. Brecht, what is your occupation?
MR. BRECHT: I am a poet and a playwright.
MR. STRIPLING : A poet and a playwright?
MR. BRECHT : Yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Where are you presently employed?
MR. BRECHT: I am not employed.
There is much to tell in Stripling’s “a poet and playwright?”— as if these words had no right to exist, specifically in America. In America, in fact, Stripling’s words sound alien before they can even represent aliens, before, that is, they represent poet and playwright humans not fit to be employed and, therefore, who look quizzical just standing around. This is what the un-American feels, his condition, if you care, is that he appears to others like a poem, quizzical, without much use, just standing around.
It makes one wonder why in the drama of Brecht and Eisler’s forced testimony in front of the Un-American Committee, the witnesses’ brief focus on the American poem and the fate of poetry in translation goes rarely mentioned. Given the specter of deportation on the grounds of their alliances with the Communist Party in any country, as the lead chairman put it, it’s no wonder that any commentary on poetry and translation would sink under the radar. (To think, if this were my testimony, that these words could come back to haunt me, is to realize how un-American they might appear since no one says it like that here, as Carlos’s friend once said. For sure, any commentary on poetry might “pass” or “slide under the radar” but it would never “sink,” or it would only sink if somehow, like a submarine, no one saw it coming…) Yet it is exactly their testimony on poetry and translation which is a window into the house of the un-American, as if it were The House on 92nd Street, a 1945 semi-documentary noir film about American Nazis recruited by Germans in America. Curiously, this is also about the time that the U.S. government’s Operation Paperclip is in full throttle, recruiting German Nazi scientists, doctors, engineers, and so on into the American technological war against the Soviet Union. Historically, what we’re caught in here is a VISE—a Virtual Intelligence School Exchange program—you give me your Nazi experimental science guys—you know who they are—and we’ll give you and the world our Hollywood propaganda films with just the facts of our stentorian narrators.
At the time, one could agree or argue with the role of the Un-American Committee in determining political alliances or questioning who among the native-born or naturalized among us was or was not a patriot, just as today FBI counter-terrorism media consultant man Brad Garrett can warn us about the thoughts of a Muslim citizen of America who, himself, may not be capable of being a threat to the country but, with those “bad thoughts,” may be drawn to “the bad guys”—Brad’s words—who are not citizens but bomb-capable, which is why we have to be in a state of vigilance towards the un-American American’s “bad thoughts”—Brad’s words—which back in the day, a little history tells us, belonged to the communists among us and, if we go further back in the day, well… it’s bad. This is only to say that, politically, one can determine who belongs to the un-American camp at any time, and that is your opinion, and on that opinion the accused lose jobs and reputations for life. No small thing. But the point is, even these so-called Un-Americans look deeply American—at least one dominant species of deeply American—next to Mr. Brecht and Mr. Eisler, so that, concerning Mr. Brecht and Mr. Eisler, the committee got their un-American camp right, although they had no clue what it was, as they got right in the face of the timidly appeasing appearances of Mr. Brecht, for whom translation is a ruse, yes, but a ruse with integrity. Why else, with his English as good as it is, does he accept the chairman’s friendly offer of a translator as if the chairman were saying, “please, Mr. Brecht, have another smoke,” with Brecht’s cigar in full view, “Yes, thank you, I wouldn’t mind having another at the ready,” Mr. Brecht says, as if Mac the Knife were appearing as Wally Cox in the voice of Mr. Peepers—and the chairman, of course, square-jawed, earnest, stentorian, starts asking questions within the culture of evidence he knows, one that demands he have confidence in the questions’ abilities to answer themselves:
MR. STRIPLING: Have you ever, Mr. Brecht, made application to the Communist Party?
I would like to ask Mr. Brecht whether or not he wrote a poem, a song, entitled “Forward, We’ve Not Forgotten?”
And, Mr. Brecht, did you not collaborate with Hanns Eisler on the song “In Praise of Learning”? Now I will read you the words and ask you if this is the one:
MR. BRECHT: No, excuse me, that is the wrong translation. That is not right. (Laughter.) Just one second, and I will give you the correct text.
MR. STRIPLING: That is not a correct translation?
MR. BRECHT: That is not correct, no; that is not the meaning. It is not very beautiful, but I am not speaking about that.
MR. STRIPLING: What does it mean? I have here a portion of The People, which was issued by the Communist Party of the United States… Page 24 says: In Praise of Learning, by Bert Brecht; music by Hanns Eisler. It says here:
MR. BRECHT: Mr. Stripling, maybe his translation—
THE TRANSLATOR (MR. BAUMGARDT): The correct translation would be, “You must take the lead.”
THE CHAIRMAN: “You must take the lead”?
THE TRANSLATOR: “The lead.” It definitely says “The lead.” It is not “You must take over.” The translation is not a literal translation of the German.
MR. STRIPLING: Well, Mr. Brecht, as it has been published in these publications of the Communist Party, then, if that is incorrect, what did you mean?
MR. BRECHT: I don’t remember never—I never got that book myself. I must not have been in the country when it was published. I think it was published as a song, one of the songs Eisler had written the music to. I did not give any permission to publish it. I don’t see—I think I never saw the translation.
MR. STRIPLING: Do you have the words there before you?
MR. BRECHT: In German, yes.
MR. STRIPLING: Of the song?
MR. BRECHT: Oh yes; in the book...
MR. STRIPLING: Not in the original.
MR. BRECHT: In the German book…
MR. STRIPLING: Did you ever, Mr. Brecht, make application to join the Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: I do not understand the question. Did I make—
MR. STRIPLING: Have you ever made application to join the Communist Party?
MR. BRECHT: No, no, no, no, no, never.
But who takes the lead here between interrogator and witness? Who is spinning? Who is leading whom? “I don’t remember never… I think I never saw the translation,” Mr. Brecht says. This is how he takes the lead, how he never answers by thinking, as if this dialogue is a dance and things start spinning away. Everyone is at a remove. The un-American lives at a remove, with leading answers to leading questions. He removes himself, he is alienated before Mr. Stripling, stripping the hearing of its self-evident character, and Mr. Brecht becomes that little alien man, you know, “you are a curious little man, Herr Brecht,” at a remove, as Mr. Brecht is from the House Committee, as the translator is from Mr. Brecht, as Mr. Brecht is from his collaborator, Hanns Eisler, and is further from Eisler’s brother, whom the committee is really after when they go for Mr. Brecht, who spins them into airing his views on translation and his misunderstanding of politics when they want their questions, answered, their facts on the ground. “I am certain,” he says, “I think I never saw the translation,” he says, and removes himself. Mr. Stripling and the chairman insist he stay:
MR. STRIPLING: Mr. Brecht, since you have been in the United States, have you attended any Communist Party meetings? [Leading the witness, assuming he knows what Communist Party meetings are]
MR. BRECHT [sounding quizzical] : No, I don’t think so.
MR. STRIPLING: You don’t think so?
MR. BRECHT: No.
THE CHAIRMAN: Well, aren’t you certain?
MR. BRECHT: No—I am certain; yes.
THE CHAIRMAN: You are certain you have never been to Communist Party meetings?
MR. BRECHT: Yes; I think so. I am here 6 years—I am here those—I do not think so. I do not think that I attended political meetings. [Leading the interrogator by assuming Communist Party meetings are “political,” sounding as if he does not know if they are or are not.]
THE CHAIRMAN: No; never mind the political meetings, but have you attended any Communist meetings in the United States?
MR. BRECHT: I do not think so; no. [Well, of course, if they are not political, then it is as if he has not attended them. That settles that.]
THE CHAIRMAN: You are certain?
MR. BRECHT: I think I am certain.
THE CHAIRMAN: You think you are certain?
MR. BRECHT: Yes, I have not attended such meetings, in my opinion.
As he is entitled to in America, Mr. Brecht, as Hannah once told him it appeared to her, states his opinion. “Yes, I have not attended such meetings, in my opinion.” In fact, and strangely maybe only in America is this possible, he turns the fact of his non-attendance at Communist Party meetings into an opinion, as if he were standing in for another’s view, perhaps at one remove from what actually happened, which he remembers having once been told is the true significance of having, in the ancient Greek polis, an opinion, not in order to understand another’s view but to stand in for it, perhaps like the United States itself, being only an opinion, only standing in for the republic it used to be.
But who knows? The committee seems satisfied that he is trying hard to answer the questions, and that’s all that matters, even if Mr. Brecht keeps himself from the certainty of the facts, which he can do only in America by stating his opinion. Where else can a fact be accepted as an opinion except in a country that keeps faith in the facts, to which everyone is welcome.
But who knows what really happened? Did he attend meetings? Did he collaborate with Eisler’s brother? Are the songs rallying cries to take over the hearts of the American people? Obviously, the committee seems satisfied with his answers, most likely because he has established himself as a good boy, an innocent: how could he possibly have known of let alone attended Communist Party meetings if he never attended, as he says, political meetings. In fact, in Brecht’s facts, he may not even have known what Communist Party meetings might be, as if they’re a bit quizzical, as he says, like Mac the Knife being Wally Cox in the Bavarian voice of Mr. Peepers: “I sink I am certain I never attended,” like a good boy. Even the committee thinks so: “Mr. Brecht, you are a good example to the other witnesses,” a statement Bert did not take to. “What do they mean, I’m a good example. Let me tell you something,” he once told his friend Eric, a year after he sat in the House Caucus Room: “The Americans were witch-hunters, true, but they were polite and sincere,” Bert said, “as if everyone was welcome to the hearing. They even let me smoke my cigar in the room. I could never have smoked my cigar in front of the Nazis, but in America anything was possible, as long as you got straight to the point. So, when they were questioning me, I smoked it, I tapped it, I jerked it, and no doubt it was seen in silhouette, like a hand puppet shadowing a wall in front of the cameras. I used it to manufacture pauses with between their questions and my answers. No doubt, in Germany, they would have never let me act like that, and I would have been arrested before I took the first puff. That’s why I say in America, with the right cigar, anything is possible.”
And everyone is welcome, except, perhaps, for Bert’s friend Hanns Eisler.
Accused of being the brother of Gerhart Eisler, “the terrorist type,” he says: “Does the committee believe that brotherly love is un-American? The committee hopes that by persecuting me it will intimidate many other artists in America whom it may dislike for any of various unworthy reasons…. It is horrible to think what will become of American art if this committee is to judge what art is American and what is un-American…. This is the sort of thing Hitler and Mussolini tried. They were not successful, and neither will be the House Committee on Un-American Activities.”
Perhaps. But the fact is Eisler does judge, does distinguish between American poetry and German poetry, when he addresses the committee about his work, the words “between those sheets of music,” which they ridicule:
MR. MCDOWELL (FROM THE COMMITTEE): I think all members of the committee should examine these exhibits, which ridicule the law, which oppose the prohibitions of abortions, which could not be sent through the U.S. mail. I don’t know what the custom is in Germany or Austria, but such words as are between those sheets of music have no place in any civilization.
MR. EISLER: They are considered great poetry.
MR. MCDOWELL: They are considered as what?
MR. EISLER: Great poetry.
MR. MCDOWELL: Well, great poetry as we are taught in America has nothing to do with that kind of truck.
MR. RANKIN: I am conscious when I look at this filth here—
MR. EISLER: Excuse me—it is not filth. May I ask you: how are you familiar with American poetry?
MR. RANKIN: American what?
MR. EISLER: Poetry.
MR. RANKIN: Poetry.
MR. EISLER: And American writing. This is not American poetry or writing. This was written in German. It is not translated. It was written in Berlin in 1927. I say again it is great poetry. We can have different tastes in art, but I can’t permit that you call my work in such names.
MR. RANKIN: I suppose that I am as familiar with American poetry and with English poetry generally as any member of the House. And anybody that tries to tell me that this filth is poetry certainly reads himself out of the class of any American poet that has ever been recognized by the American people.
Mr. Rankin and Mr. Eisler: they look at each other and talk about the American poem and the fate of German poetry in translation, about the American and the un-American. Mr. Eisler is a stranger to this House, an un-person, an un-person who wants to infiltrate the House with great poetry, with the roundness of German poetry vs. its American translation. But Mr. Rankin is rankled—he wants the facts while he offers opinions. He wants them in earnest, with a sincerity that is stubborn, stentorian. This is how facts are performed in the House, in public, with a sincerity and confidence that is stubborn, why the straight-talking Wyoming senator Alan Simpson, years later, can be admired when he demands that it is “time now for the facts. In America, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but no one is entitled to their own facts,” as if adopting and ascribing an aristocratic neutrality to the facts in order to justify their conviction, like Mr. Rankin, when he faces this stranger, the un-person, and references “poetry” as this fabled thing outside the facts he knows, this fabled quizzical thing which the un-person asks Mr. Rankin if he knows:
MR. EISLER: May I ask you: how are you familiar with American poetry?
MR. RANKIN: [in the hard-of-hearing dismissive tone] American what?
MR. EISLER: [in the full, round seductive tone] Poetry.
MR. RANKIN: [flatly with disdain] Poetry.
With a disdain for the Germans’ poetry, for the witnesses who speak of its alien presence, Mr. Rankin seems rankled by the fact of it. He resembles Mr. Brecht’s Mr. Keuner in his Stories of Mr. Keuner, who said: “I, too, once adopted an aristocratic stance (you know: erect, upright, and proud, head thrown back). I was standing in rising water at the time. I adopted this stance when it rose to my chin.”
For this committee and its nation, one could only wonder when the time would come for an un-person’s poetry to take its revenge and flow through the House like floodwater.3
3. Our Mediterranean