Mother Night

Helga—still pretending to be Resi—speaks to the youth core of The Iron Guard of the White Sons of the American Constitution. She delivers a speech on the evils of Communism, though she needs prompting from Jones to attribute those evils to the Jewish and Asian populations. Before Campbell delivers his speech, a 15-minute recording of one of his broadcasts is played. While listening to it, Campbell reflects that his “schizophrenia” is what allows him to live with what he has done (179). (Campbell is not referring to a mental health diagnosis, and he uses the term ‘schizophrenia’ in a metaphorical manner). Just before he delivers Krapptauer’s eulogy, someone slips a note into Campbell’s pocket. Signed by Wirtanen, the American colonel who recruited Campbell, the note requests that Campbell sneak out of the cellar for an immediate meeting.

Campbell’s war crimes attorney suggests testimony from Wirtanen would help his case, but Campbell has no proof Wirtanen exits, nor any evidence of his own work as an American agent. Campbell has only met Wirtanen three times; he reflects on their second meeting, immediately after the war, when he was taken from the custody of the American army and brought to a secluded location. In this flashback, Wirtanen explains that he will assist Campbell in fleeing to America and assuming a new identity. Wirtanen calls Campbell his most successful agent and a very successful Nazi. At first, Campbell pushes back against being called a Nazi, then realizes that to all outside observers, he is nothing more than a Nazi. Wirtanen offers to pay Campbell for his work, but Campbell refuses the money; a common reaction, according to Wirtanen, who suggest that espionage simply “offers each spy an opportunity to go crazy in a way he finds irresistible” (191).

Campbell sneaks out of Jones’ cellar and meets Wirtanen in a vacant shop across the street. Wirtanen explains that he was brought out of retirement to liaise with Campbell and determine why there is such sudden interest in him. Campbell finds little mystery in why the Israelis want him but is mystified at hearing of the Russian interest in him. Wirtanen admits that both Kraft and Resi Noth are secret Russian agents; The US government has allowed Resi into the country just so they could learn what she hoped to do.

Campbell complains that in one fell swoop Wirtanen has cleaned him out of “‘Friend, dream, and mistress’” (197). Wirtanen details Kraft’s plan: alerting Jones to his whereabouts and firing up O’Hare and other veterans against him, all to uproot him from New York. Russia seeks to get Campbell to Mexico, where it will be easier to extrajudicially kidnap him and bring him to Moscow. Once there, Campbell is expected to admit German and American collusion before World War II. If he does not, the Russians will kill the girl he has come to love: Resi.

Campbell is surprised that it was Resi’s job to get him to love her, but he also admires her success. Wirtanen explains that Resi had access to all of Campbell’s manuscripts, as they had been held in Moscow for some time. A Russian soldier named Bodovskov originally found the trunk of manuscripts in Berlin during the war, but afterwards translated the works into Russian and assumed credit for writing them. Much of what he released became wildly successful, including Campbell’s erotic novel, Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova. Campbell is shocked to find out there is an illustrated edition.

Campbell is upset that his intimate memories of Helga are now widespread, but Wirtanen says there is nothing he can do about it. The book is wildly popular and extensively distributed. Wirtanen explains that Bodovskov, the soldier who translated Campbell’s novels and published them under his own name, was later tried and executed for writing a satire about the Red Army. Wirtanen then warns Campbell that he needs to leave right away, as the government has Jones’s house surrounded and will soon arrest everyone within and deport Kraft and Resi.

Campbell decides he would rather remain in the fantasy of his life with his love and his best friend than face reality and flee, and he returns to the cellar. He discusses Werner Von Braun with Kraft, and Resi expresses her excitement about going to Mexico. When Resi presses Campbell on why he looks “‘worried’” (214), Campbell reveals that he knows they are both Russian agents and are planning to bring him back to Moscow. Resi declares her love for Campbell and swears she wasn’t going to go through with it, which Kraft confirms. Campbell then tells them about the American agents surrounding the building.

Campbell informs Resi that she is facing nothing worse than deportation, expecting her youthful exuberance to carry through to that next adventure. Instead, Resi is surprised Campbell won’t fight the incoming agents to remain with her. The damage wrought by her traumatic childhood becomes apparent as she grows distraught, accusing Campbell of abandoning the belief that love is the one thing worth living for. She demands Campbell give her something else to live for. The agents flood into the cellar, arresting everyone. Jones complains that he has simply been fighting the corruption the government should have been fighting. When one of the agents points out that Jones’s two best friends, Keeley and Robert Wilson, are a Catholic and a Black American, the groups Jones accuses of corruption, Jones shrugs off the observation, stating they all believe “the same basic thing” (223), that the country is being handled by the wrong people, and it will take a violent social revolution to restore it to the right. Witnessing this exchange, Campbell finds it emblematic of the flawed thinking that allows atrocities to happen, likening it to a “cuckoo-clock in Hell” (224), which, although it functions, has faulty gears, and is incapable of telling the actual time.

The Iron Guard youths are arrested, and many are excited, finally finding the persecution their paranoia has been insisting upon for years. The head agent informs Kraft that if he had returned to Russia he would have been killed, but Kraft can’t accept this and declares himself a painter, not a Russian agent. The head agent attempts to joke with Resi, but she is very serious, declaring she is in love with a man who doesn’t love her back. She then promises to show the agent “‘a woman who dies for love’” (230), places a cyanide capsule in her mouth, and immediately dies in Campbell’s arms.