Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - Nightvision

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

After testing positive in Lisbon, your host assesses Portugal's expat and exile scenes.  Plus! lunch with the writer Joseph Roth at a hotel on the waterfront.

This installment is called Night Vision. Positive. On December 27th, 2021, after two solid years of fear, panic, and anxiety, two faint lines emerge on my rapid antigen test. Positive. At first, I go into denial. Surely this has to be a mistake. How could this happen to me? I'm too lucky to get COVID. But well, I just spent a week with 23 family members in a chalet in France. A ski vacation, complete with daily bus rides

to and from the slopes. Bus rides packed with British tourists. The Omicron odds were steep and totally stacked against me. Almost. You see, on the 24th, Mathilde, her sister, and I took our mandatory within 48 hours of our flight from Geneva to Portugal COVID tests,

and all three of us were negative. So we were able to fly to Lisbon on the 26th. Perhaps if we'd gotten stuck in France, perhaps then I might have spent more time lingering with anger, negotiation, and depression. But since my luck did hold out, since we tested positive on the day after we landed in Lisbon, I skipped straight ahead to the fifth and final stage of grief, acceptance. For five days, we did our best to isolate ourselves from other people. Every morning, we drove out to the coast. Arcto and his cousin played soccer on the beach.

Mathilde and her sister dozed in the sun. And I, I lost myself in the crashing waves. In the evenings, we watched movies. You ask me to believe this, that you, Captain Von Trapp, are singing in a concert? Believe me, it will be a performance beyond anything even I've dreamt of. I just hope we're not too late. On the 27th, our first night in Lisbon,

we watched The Sound of Music. It says here only the names of the children. It says the Von Trapp family singers. And I'm the head of the Von Trapp family. Am I not? Well, a slight delay in my orders will not be serious. Therefore, you will sing.

That night, I dream. I dream I am the patriarch of the Von Tropp family singers. And I am desperate to escape the new regime that's transforming America into a fascist nightmare. My plan is to sneak the family out of the U.S. and immigrate to Portugal. But in order to get our exit visas, we first have to demonstrate our singing abilities. Arcto and Mathilde pass with flying colors, but when it's my turn, my throat seizes up. The immigration official shakes her head in disgust as I

rasp, croak, and wheeze out a version of my favorite things. I am denied. I weep as I watch the airplane carrying my family away to safety take off. But I'm not down for the count. No way am I going to let these bastards win. I order a pair of hiking boots and a vintage leather rucksack from Amazon, and some matching wool gloves and a hat. And after they arrive, I set out to climb every mountain that separates me from my family and America from Portugal. I dreamed like this for five nights straight. This was the extent of my battle with COVID.

Crazy, fevered night dreams. But this first dream was rooted not in COVID, nor my viewing of the sound of music, but rather my all-consuming Weltuntergangsgefühl. That's the German word for doomsday feeling. Actually, there isn't really a great word for it in English, which is why I'm sticking with Weltuntergangsgefühl. Now, I've been living with Weltuntergangsgefühl for a long time, long before COVID, but the

pandemic has most definitely accelerated things. Here in America, there are fresh horrors now every day. The window keeping the country democratic is closing. Authoritarianism creeps closer and closer. It's difficult to imagine a future that doesn't include violence, disintegration, collapse. Over the past few months, I've become obsessed with escape, exile, and Lisbon. Mathilde's sister moved to Portugal last year, so we now have a family connection. Also, I've heard some encouraging stories about Lisbon's culture, nightlife, the expat experience. Portugal's become my exile north star. This is why I was willing to take the risk of traveling during Omicron.

I wanted to see Portugal with my own eyes. And this is why I was almost grateful to the virus, because since we were positive, I was stranded in Lisbon. So I changed my ticket and extended my stay. Thank you. So last week, the US CDC identified several cases of COVID-19 infections or outbreaks on cruise ships. Here in Lisbon, just behind me, is the Ida Nova ship, which has been held here since December 29th, when it arrived in Lisbon. At the moment, 68 cases have been detected on board the ship. We were not the only ones stranded in Lisbon. A few days after we arrived, a COVID outbreak grounded a cruise ship carrying over 4,000 Germans. I could see the top deck of the mammoth boat from the window of Mathilde's sister's apartment.

Germans drinking and dancing at all hours. The more I thought about these brave and bold, intrepid explorers, the more I wanted to know more. How were they doing it? Were they living with blinders on? Or did they board the ship with full knowledge that their December holiday could be derailed by the virus? Surely none of these Germans were suffering from Weltuntergangsgefühl.

My curiosity turned into obsession, and on January 1st I set out with my microphone and recorder to hunt down as many of these Germans as I could. Arcto came with me. After watching The Sound of Music, he's become obsessed with Nazis. He even figured out how to type Hitler into the YouTube search bar. Of course, I explained to him that Hitler existed in another era and that there are no Nazis on the cruise ship, but he insisted on accompanying me. He wanted to see for himself.

But we were too late. On New Year's Eve, under cover of darkness, the Germans were taken off the boat and loaded onto buses, and then transported to the airport, where they were herded onto planes and shipped east. The cruise ship was empty, save the convalescing crew. But I wasn't ready to give up. Surely there had to be a few Germans who chose to remain. Arcto and I scoured the outdoor cafes on the docks. We interrogated waiters and hotel clerks. We canvassed markets and gift shops.

Finally, at the Museum of Beer, we hit paydirt. Papa, come, Germans! Arcto and I'd split up. He'd taken the right side and I'd taken the left. It must have been the YouTube Hitler videos. I mean, I don't see how else the kid could have recognized that Rolf and Adele were speaking German. By the time I made it to their table, Arcto was already sharing his theory about COVID.

The dinosaurs had a boom and people had a boom, he said. The dinosaurs' boom was the asteroid, and our boom is the virus. I nervously explained that we were trying to find Germans from the ship to interview for my podcast, but Rolf and Adele aren't from the boat. They're from Munich, and they're in Lisbon on a romantic holiday. As we walked home in defeat, Arctel asked me how we could tell Rolf and Adele were good Germans and not Nazis. For a moment, I thought about explaining the historical relevance of the term good German, and how after the Holocaust, many Germans had seized upon the term good German and how after the

Holocaust many Germans had seized upon the term in an attempt to assuage their guilt and deny their complicity. But then I'd have to explain to him how the Holocaust never would have happened if this was true. I would have to explain to him that it was the ordinary good Germans who turned Europe into a mass grave. So in the end, I turn to Joseph Roth, who in his book The Antichrist, provides us with a more palatable definition of good German. Someone who can both hate and love, and who hates hatred and loves love. Thank you. On January 30th, 1933, Adolf Hitler became Reich Chancellor. That same day, the Austrian writer Joseph Roth boarded a train in Berlin for Paris, never to return. He knew what was coming.

Violence, disintegration, collapse. But Hitler was not the root of Joseph Roth's Weltuntergangsgefühl. It went much deeper. He understood that people had become blinded, incapable of recognizing good from evil, true from false. You see this in all of his writing, in his journalism, and his fiction, and especially in the book he wrote just after taking up residence as an exile in a hotel in Paris, The Antichrist. There are no demons who smell of sulfur in The Antichrist, only people, people who've become so blinded that they now believe shadows to be real and the fake true. The Antichrist is a very difficult book to categorize.

Roth himself called it a novel. But the main character in the book is also named Joseph Roth. And the J.R. in the Antichrist is also a journalist, just like the real Joseph Roth. The J.R. of the book promises to help us see the Antichrist. But in order to do this, he says, we must first confront our blindness. The blindness that is written will befall us at the end of time.

It is a hellish blindness, J.R. tells us, for although we were blinded, we think we can see. We do not recognize the Antichrist because he comes dressed as an average citizen. In the book, J.R. travels around the world trying to figure out who's responsible for this blindness. He visits the Soviet Union and Hollywood, where he discovers Hollywood was the capital not only of America, but of the entire world. For it is the capital city of shadows, and it is shadows that rule the world. Finally, after being dismissed by his newspaper boss, who reveals that he too works for the Antichrist, the J.R. of the book returns to Europe and takes up residence in one of the houses that they call hotels. And then, J.R. continues, then came all kinds of people to see me. There came a rich man, a poor man, a pious man, an unbeliever, a Jew, a Jew-hater, a heathen, a Christian,

one who hoped for a world revolution and another who wished to maintain the world just as it is, one who wanted peace and another who desired war. They had all read the truths that I had written as a journalist, and through all of them spoke the Antichrist. Thus I sat each day, and thus I still sit today in the hotel. Joseph Roth had high hopes for the Antichrist, but to his dismay, most of the reviews were negative. Even his friends were bewildered. He did get one review of note.

In March 1935, his publisher forwarded him a fan letter from a fellow exile living in Princeton, New Jersey. I am truly grateful to you for sending me this comforting book by a true man and poet. While reading, one shares the pain about the hardships and hurt caused by our presence blindness of the soul. With friendly greetings, Albert Einstein. P.S. I'm asking you to deliver this letter to the much-respected author, and I allow you gladly to use it in the book's distribution in a manner that is conducive to it. But not even Einstein's enthusiasm could save the Antichrist. The book was a total flop. Few bought it, fewer read it, and even fewer understood it.

Joseph Roth turned to the bottle. As the writer Michael Hoffman wrote, so prophetic, so trenchant, so ultimately haunting were his perceptions of a world about to become a cemetery that he resorted increasingly to drink to douse his vision. In 1939, Joseph Roth. In my final fevered COVID dream, I met Joseph Roth. Just after disembarking from the cruise ship that brought me to Lisbon.

He's sitting at a table in front of one of the hotels on the docks. He's drinking a weak Americano and picking at a tin of canned sardines. I recognize him immediately, and I proudly introduce myself as a fellow exile. I know who you are, he says. You're just another apparition sent by the Antichrist to harass me. The most ridiculous one yet.

A fool who romanticizes poverty and seclusion. I sit down, suddenly unsure if this meeting is taking place in my dream or his. It is a grave mistake to conflate the position of an outsider with that of the exile, he tells me. The exile has no superior position. The exile has no special vantage point or insight. In fact, the exile occupies a position that is by definition marginal,ure. Inconsequential. I order us a bottle of wine and change the subject. I tell him how Lisbon is trying to rebrand itself as Silicone Valley and how a number of Web3 companies have recently set up shop.

Surely there has to be work for people like me, I venture. When I try to explain cryptocurrency to him, he starts laughing. He's laughing so hard he slides out of his chair and onto the ground under the table. He's laughing so hard he's having trouble breathing. As I help him up, he whispers in my ear, the darker it gets, the more you can see. That's the simple trick to it all. Never forget, the darker it gets, the more you can see. You have been listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called Night Vision. This episode was written and produced by me, Benjamin Walker. The Theory of Everything is a proud founding member of Radiotopia,

home to some of the world's best podcasts. Find them all at radiotopia.fm.