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I want you to do whatever you can to keep the collection from being destroyed, if this becomes necessary . I think you understand me. It is especially important (and this is part of your assignment) that your rescue only be attempted . . . ” Then he stopped, looking for the right word: “ . . . at the right time . Yes. At the right time. I think you understand me. I am speaking in the interests of science more than anything (which in this case are also the interests of your race): Do not allow this collection to be destroyed . ”
    “ I don ’ t understand, ” Jakob said. “ I truly do not understand. ”
    “ This means nothing to you? ” Dr. Nietzsche asked, almost offended.
    “ That ’ s not the point, ” Jakob said. “ I simply don ’ t understand what my assignment actually consists of — nor my favor in return. ”
    “ Well then, ” Dr. Nietzsche continued, after a brief, strained silence: “ I will have to leave the matter up to you. It ’ s up to you to convince yourself that I am not in a position to act contrary to an order even when my personal opinion runs contrary to it . Or if I have individual scientific reasons to disobey. ”
    And so Doctor Nietzsche was now breathing rapidly and sounded asthmatic:
    “ From the highest level , ” he said as if he were speaking the first lines of Genesis . “ From the highest level we have received orders for all traces of our experiments, including the collecting of Jewish skulls and skeletons, to be destroyed. Not yet, of course, but as soon as it proves necessary ” ; he was gaining momentum: “ Well, so now I too am delivered into your hands . . . Do you know what they call what I just told you? — Treason! ” His pathetic whisper continued: “ Betrayal of military secrets at the highest level . . . As you can see, we ’ re not talking here about adherence or non-adherence to professional ethical principles but about military, wartime accountability . I am telling you this only because I want once more to underscore the delicacy of the situation and the untenability of my own individual initiative . . . ”
    “ In concrete terms, wherein does my individual initiative lie? ” Jakob asked. “ In my violation of a direct order from Himmler? ”
    “ C ’ est ç a , ” Nietzsche said. “ . . . In the interests of science. And (perhaps, in the event that the wind begins to blow in our favor again) also of your race. There isn ’ t a Nazi anywhere who would do this: it contravenes, you know . . . contravenes our conception of autocracy. ”
    “ All right, ” Jakob said. “ What is it that I have to do? ”
    “ You have to wait, ” Nietzsche replied. “ And to keep quiet . . . For now, that ’ s it. ”
    “ And after that . . . ”
    “ Providing that it becomes apparent to you that our side has completely collapsed, the German side — you know exactly what I mean — and if I am absent from the scene (and you should assume this will be the case), then there is nothing for you to do, and there is no need for you to prevent anyone from doing what he will with the collections. ” Then, after a short pause in which he took another breath, he continued with pathos: “ But if it seems to you — according to your own findings — that the time for that has still not come, then endeavor to prevent the destruction of these valuable collections that could wind up being the only remaining evidence of your extinct race. ”
    Nearly twenty-four hours would have to pass before Jakob could explain to Marija the meaning of this whole tragicomedy, titled “ The Fanatic: or, in the Service of Science, ” because Dr. Nietzsche wanted, as Jakob said, to have in him (that is, in Jakob) a reliable witness in case he should one day fall into the hands of the Allies, a likelihood that he ’ d now had time to think through. But it was not as the strange case of Dr. Nietzsche that all this mattered to her; rather, the experience was for her a sign and an