They sit in a triangle around the table, sipping the wine. They are skirting the inevitable European conversation when there are Americans around: The War. Somehow, M. Tristan gets on tangential rant:
“The Jew, you see, is the equal sign in the equasion of Empire, you see? He is enslaved by physics… snatched by the great empire of physics: Egypt. There he helps to build the pyramids. He is the mason for the Egyptions and so learns the mathematics and the physics and when the jew escapes back to Zion, he builds his temple with this knowledge, but then the next empire of engineers, Rome, snatches Zion from him. The first great victory arch in Rome commemorates the taking of Israel from the jews. The arch, the very symbol of Roman technology and physics, you see and the the Jew? He is sent wandering the empire… not a slave, but a free agent… with his own mathematics and morality… able to lend money and invent the merchant class in Europe… untill in a final chess move here in Switzerland, the jew snatches the fire from the gods… Einstein.. the superior physics and he gives it like a gift to the Americans and so the Americans in turn give him back Israel and thus the Americans become the next great Empire. That is the equation and it balances on the fate of the jew…. or the fate of physics, but this seems the same thing almost… knowledge built from laying stones of pyramids and reaching towards the stars.”
She says, “It’s vaguely disturbing to hear anyone with a German accent refer to The Jew, but I can’t quite tell if what you’re saying is actually Zionist, or anit-semetic, or both…”
“None, really,” M. Tristan said. “Just an observation on the fate of man as it connects to physics… I am interested in history and books, you see and the first and greatest book is nothing, but a history of the Jews. So it always seems a good place to start a discussion of history… though in reality, like all humanity, the story starts in Africa, but the people who wrote books forgot how to read hieroglyphics for so long… untill the Rosetta stone.”
“The wine is delicious,” Pat says. “Such good wine. I guess I CAN taste the difference now with the new bottle.”
“Now if we want to talk about wine we have to talk about Persia and….”
“The Jew,” she said finishing the sentence.
“Certainly they were involved in the trade and after all it is Jesus’ first miracle…”
“LeChaim,” Pat said raising his glass.
