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a speeding Greyhound bus, he particularly recalled one passage. Von Salomon, a fascist activist since the twenties, discussed the dismay with which he and several close friends regarded the Hitler regime during its first years. These were young men, Von Salomon and his friends. Idealists. Patriots. Visionaries. They despised the Austrian corporal and his Brownshirts. How then to explain their subsequent acts?
    “Together we swore an oath. There were two things we would not do. We would not commit suicide, and we would not leave the country.”
    Dorn had never made the mistake of crediting Der Fragebogen with any particular relationship to truth. One did not, after all, cultivate a reverence for truth in the ministry of propaganda, nor did one learn credulity in Dorn’s life schools. But that three-sentence explanation, awful in its simplicity, had an irresistible ring to it. From a simple negative decision against death and emigration all the rest of it flowed like water.
    Dorn could scarcely remember being a young man. He had never been an idealist, a patriot, a visionary. Thoughts of both death and departure were oddly comforting.
    But survival was a habit he had acquired, and flight a habit he had given up. He was not given to oaths, but he, like Von Salomon, recognized two things he would not do. He would not commit suicide, and he would not leave the country.
    A ten-minute rest stop somewhere in Georgia. Dorn used the lavatory, shut himself in a stall. The toilet bowl was stained, the seat’s plastic cover cracked, the floor filthy. The toilet paper dispenser provided little squares of airmail stationery one at a time. The American bathroom, indeed!
    (Before he left Heidigger, during a conversational lapse, Dorn had suddenly said, “But they have no bidets.” And to Heidigger’s blank look he had explained, “The American bathrooms that you praised. They have no bidets. Perhaps that could be embodied in our leader’s program.”
    Heidigger had bounced up. “But there is a bidet! In my very bathroom. In this Holiday Inn.” Dorn said he hadn’t noticed it.
    “Go in now. See for yourself.”
    “I’ll take your word for it.”
    “But there is no need to take my word for it. Take ten steps and see for yourself. If you were a young lady, I would invite you to have a complimentary douche, but at least you may see for yourself.”
    He had laughed sharply, laughter that Heidigger had not understood. “Eric,” he had said at length, “Eric, I am not going to examine your bidet. I am going to trust you that there is a bidet in your bathroom. Eric, if I cannot trust you on the matter of a bidet in a bathroom, then we are in serious trouble.”)
    He sat on the toilet and read capsule biographies, written on plain typing paper in a feminine hand. Written with a fountain pen—Leopold Vanders also used a fountain pen, albeit a different one. Was that to be a trademark of the movement? He hadn’t seen a fountain pen in years, wasn’t aware that they still manufactured them.
    John Lowell Drury.
    Senior senator from New Hampshire. Kennedy loyalties and political philosophy. Democratic presidential aspirant. Late but strong antiwar stand. Early antipollution stand. Economic left-centrist. Strongest support from non-radical students. Insignificant black support. Good image with white middle class. Record acceptable to organized labor. Effective speaker, frequent university appearances. Speedy termination advised, preferably via identifiable leftist. This cover may be transparent. Age: 49. Married. One child. Residence: (Washington): 2115 Albemarle; (Berlin, New Hampshire): 114 Carrollton Place …
    Emil Karnofsky.
    Director, National Brotherhood of Clothing Workers. Member, national board, AFL-CIO. Jew. First major labor leader to take antiwar position. Union membership chiefly black, Puerto Rican. Respected by colleagues but regarded as New York Jew leftist. Termination advised to foster solidarity in labor circles.