“But still,” said Eli, though he was smiling, “the sacred brotherhood of the Negro and the Jew. Go down, Moses. Two peoples bonded in suffering. Do you think that explains our friendship?”
It was the reference to “friendship” that landed first. It distracted Harrison for a joyful moment, but then he had to address the question.
“I wouldn’t think so. Besides, my family’s had a pretty sweet couple of centuries. I did have this ancestor, though…” he heard himself say.
The landing gear was down. Below them, the legendary soil of the Commonwealth rose to meet them.
“What’s that?” said Eli. He was handing his plastic cup back to the flight attendant.
“My ancestor. Joseph Oppenheimer. Court Jew to a nobleman in Stuttgart in the 1730s. Arrested and executed for almost certainly nonexistent crimes.”
Beside him, his friend was frowning at some spot on the airplane floor. Harrison recognized this expression; it meant that Eli was searching his own cerebral accordion file. “You don’t mean Jud Süss,” he suddenly said. “Goebbel’s punching bag?”
“The very same,” said Harrison.
“You never said.”
“Why would I? There’s no sense in churning over these old events, however horrible. Despicable things have happened to lots of people, ever since human beings figured out how to harm one another. We’re alive now. Until someone invents a time machine, that should be the focus. Or do you disagree?”
“I don’t disagree. I’m just surprised. It would be like … well, myself descending from Nat Turner.”
The plane dropped onto the runway, bounced, and dropped again.
“Both targeted for what they were trying to do, to help their own people.”
Harrison shrugged. “Well, how much more fortunate are we, to be living today?”
After a moment Eli said: “Indeed.”
The plane shuddered to a stop at their gate.
“Will we get to see Charlottesville itself?” he asked Eli. “And Monticello?”
“You will. A couple of Monticello board members are involved with Hayek. Some are on the faculty at the university.”
Harrison turned to look at him. Unlike the other passengers, who were furiously unpacking the overhead bins, he remained in his seat with his eyes closed, and the light through the window lent his skin a distinct note of rose. He had gone for a haircut in town a couple of days earlier, and now it was very short, almost buzz-cut. “How did you meet these guys, again?” asked Harrison.
“Dr. Gregories and I corresponded when I was just starting to think about my book. He teaches at UVA, so I came down to Charlottesville to meet him, and a couple of the others. He suggested I defer Harvard and apply to Roarke. I’d never heard of Roarke. Then again, where I grew up, no one had heard of Harvard.” He smiled, but still didn’t open his eyes. “I was here last summer. These are people with a sincere interest in ideas. Especially ideas we don’t see often enough in the mainstream.”
From the airport they were driven south through farmland and past manor houses, some old, some built to look as if they were, but given away by their overblown dimensions and attached garages. A sign informed Harrison that they were on the Thomas Jefferson Parkway, and he turned to look up the drive toward Monticello. Just before Simeon they pulled off onto a gated property. The massive building came into view as they drove a slow, rising curve: a great estate unfolding along the base of a wooded hillside. At its heart was a white frame plantation house with porches on all three of its floors; on either side, modern extensions.
“I hope you won’t object to a few creature comforts,” Eli said. “I could use a break from Roarke privations.”