THAT CHEKHOV SMILE

She had a dark and a roving eye and she sailed peacefully through Munich’s gardens.
“Love is all that will be remembered,” she smiled at him. It was summer 1938 and she had her ever-present notebook with her, jotting down her thoughts for doing good and spreading love as they occurred to her.
“That makes me very happy,” he said. “Now I can relax.”
Her version of Hitler went like this:
There was this very unhappy man who didn’t have enough love in his life when he was a boy. He had been born under an incompatible zodiac sign. And he didn’t try hard enough in his early ventures. Gave up on them. After the First World War, he discovered discontent, runaway inflation and unemployment in his adopted country, Germany, and became a determined man of zeal.
Then he became the dictator of Germany and started killing people because his zodiac sign was out of whack with his intentions. But you never know what will happen, and each one of us has to try to bring out the love not just in ourselves but in one another, including Hitler. Then, according to Lila’s version, when he changed, everything would be good again.
Her friend tried and tried to reason with Lila. “But we can’t just surrender to him. We need to resist him.”
It was now November 1938.
Lila kissed herself with love and jotted the thought down in her notebook on this beautiful November day in Munich. An enigmatic sort of Chekhovian actress smile flitted peacefully over her kind face.
“Not surrender, not give in,” she said, “but try to teach him, make him see reason and love.”
“I guess my wife is out to lunch with your mother.”
“I don’t think so. My mother is in Berlin.”
“Again?”
“She’s going to the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue. She’s donated money to it but she’s never been there.”
“Haven’t you heard the news?”
When Lila got nervous, her voice got nasal and she laughed. Her laugh now gurgled on and on.
“What news?”
“The Sturmabteilung. The storm troopers. They’re going after the Jews again. In Berlin.”
Lila’s enigmatic Chekhovian actress took her far away and she became oblivious to what was going on around her or in Berlin, or anywhere else. That Chekhov smile held her fast and played on her face.
“You’d be surprised,” he said, “how many people are slightly out of their minds.”
“Memories of past sorrows are pleasant,” Lila said. “Don’t you think so?”
“I think they like it that way. They don’t have to pay attention to what’s going on.”
“I think that love is all that will be remembered.”