Randy Ford Author- Revised INFLATION, DEFLATION, WAR! 57th Installment

Pauline, we know, came from an aristocratic family. They were obsessed with money, so they constantly worried about inflation and deflation, or any fluctuation of their currency. They talked about it all the time, and they lived accordingly. They had faced disaster before and saw it coming before most people did. So they hedged their bets with gold and silver, which they hid in Switzerland. The idea was that if and when the currency became worthless (and even if the banks collapsed) they?d have a cushion, or something ?real? that they could rely on. Though they couldn?t prepare for every contingency, they were more prepared than most people. Sometimes they seemed overcautious to Pauline. But what they really wanted was to buy insurance, when there was no such thing. Having experienced the world war and its aftermath, they should?ve known it. At the same time they were far-sighted and kept a step ahead everyone.

Fritz could?ve easily remained a casualty of war, but instead he returned to his position as a clerk of the court. He liked law, though he didn?t have the gumption to become an attorney so he never became a judge. Still he lived with a great deal of pain, and that was because he came home from war to an unfaithful wife. And it seemed to him like everyone knew it since she hadn?t kept it a secret from him. At the same time Fritz, who was not rich like his in-laws, couldn?t support a mistress. That was why he fooled around with Eva, his sons? nanny, who incidentally was a Jew, and he did this in spite of the strong anti-Semitic sentiment that was brewing around him. It was the beginning of the end for Austrian Jews, and Fritz would be among the first to know it. The beginning of the end for Eva too (as well as any hope of her ever becoming anything other than a servant), and Fritz would know that too. But he refused to admit it. He refused because he loved her, loved a Jew, just as he loved his wife who along with her parents were converted Jews. While people often said, ?Once a Jew, always a Jew? and made scapegoats out of them, particularly if they were rich. Fritz actually rarely thought about it. He also never considered the women in his life to be whores. This broad-mindedness (perhaps partially because he didn?t know the extent of his wife?s waywardness) came from Pauline herself. Some of it rubbed off on him because he secretly admired her openness; it was something that he made himself admire.

He couldn?t help but be influenced by many of the ideas about women that were floating around then?how he considered it normal for women to act and look like whores and then blame them if they got raped. He also found it exciting (though he knew nothing about his wife and Herr Lippert) that both he and Pauline were having affairs, so he never made a scene. Remember they were adults living in age when little girls were taught to exaggerate their ?sex appeal? long before they reached puberty, and sex seemed to be on everyone?s mind.

Eva, whenever she wanted to, could turn herself into Fritz?s little whore. She was petite, full-breasted (she would?ve describe it as heavy-breasted) and didn?t need the surgical enhancements that so many women then deemed necessary. She was not deformed or disabled in anyway and looked attractive and could?ve easily turned sex into a commodity, which she thought she hadn?t because she believed that she and Fritz weren?t breaking any rules. They certainly knew what they were doing and knew where each other stood, and it helped that they knew that Pauline didn?t care. At least at first she didn?t. But the fact was that times were changing. For one thing, after the civil war the Christian Democrats came into power and the National Socialist were making noises. The Nazis had begun beating up people and marching marched around with noticeable arrogance. Among other things that distinguished them was that members of the Nazi party were handpicked and had to be ?racially pure.? But no one then predicted that within a few years that they would be in control of the country. Fritz then would say, to no one in particular, ?Things were worse before, and they couldn?t gotten much worse,? and Eva and his wife often looked the other way, and if Fritz had looked closely he would?ve seen expressions of grief on their faces. But before then and even during the Great Depression, when things did get far worse, male dominance was abetted by a moral double standard: Pauline and Eva were denigrating themselves, while men were rarely criticized for having affairs or keeping mistresses. Sometimes Fritz saw how his wife seemed melancholy, yet he couldn?t see how he could help her and perhaps knew that they had gone too far to start over. Still he gave her every opportunity to talk about it. They were sensitive to each other in this regard, but found that they really didn?t have anything to say to each other, and maybe they realized that real communication needed to be an exchange.

Pauline and Fritz would?ve had basically the same upbringing. And, since no one can really see him or herself, they both relied on cues and perhaps knew each other too well?just as Frederic and Herr Lippert wouldn?t have been surprised by anything the other did.

Randy Ford

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