Foreplay: Hannah Arendt, the Two Adornos, and Walter Benjamin

Scene 2

gretel: Wrong! Love for old men . . . in other words gerontophilia . What about agalmatophilia? teddie: Never heard of it. gretel (laughing): Something I never heard you admit before. teddie: Spell it. gretel: Spelling won’t help. teddie: Instead, you will now tell me what that means? gretel: Why not? You wanted to know about foreplay. Agalmatophilia refers to sexual attraction to statues— teddie: What did you say? gretel: Statues! Especially those with detachable penises that could be used as dildos. teddie: And that’s what you found behind the row of books? gretel: Precisely. (Long pause.) teddie: Well? gretel (disingenuously): Well what? teddie: That was it? The entire foreplay? gretel: On the contrary. It was only the beginning . . . the row of books behind the first row on just one shelf. The foreplay to the foreplay. (Beat.) Of course, I didn’t know that then. (teddie suddenly rises from the sofa, walks away for a few steps and then turns around. Lights fade as he displays mixed emotions of shock and outrage on his face.) (End of scene 1.) Scene 2 (theodor adorno entering hannah arendt’s apartment. She greets him with cigarette in hand.) arendt: Come in. Frankly, I wasn’t sure until I actually heard the bell whether you’d come. 14 Foreplay adorno: Gretel certainly advised against it. arendt: I’m not surprised. But how is your wife? adorno: Aging slowly and exceptionally gracefully. arendt: That’s something to be envied. And what about you? adorno: Aging less slowly and not at all gracefully. (Beat.) Why do you look at me like this? arendt: Like what? adorno: One eye almost closed. Like a hunter, taking aim. arendt: Has no one ever squinted at you? adorno: That was no ordinary squint. arendt: Just blame it on my cigarette smoke. But perhaps you’re right. Nothing between us was ever ordinary. So why not also a squint. adorno: Would you have pulled the trigger? arendt: With a gun aimed at you? Yes . . . I could’ve killed you more than once. But not today. adorno: Would you care to elaborate? arendt: Gladly. Because right now, I need you. adorno: I’m referring to the past. Why would you’ve pulled the trigger then? arendt: Because you killed Günther’s chances. adorno: That was over thirty years ago. arendt: Some events are remembered more clearly the nearer one gets to the end. adorno: Besides, I did not kill your husband’s chances . . . I wanted to improve them. arendt: Ha! By sabotaging his habilitation? adorno: By postponing it. arendt: All because his musicological thesis wasn’t Marxist enough? And because he admired Brecht? adorno: Because he wasn’t Marxist enough up here! (Points to his head.) Brecht’s Marxism started and ended there (Points to his stomach.) . . . or perhaps even lower down. And, of course, your husband’s enchantment with Heidegger’s Scene 2 15 philosophy. Rather astonishing, given your extracurricular intimacy with your professor . . . or didn’t he know about your romantic entanglement? But Hannah . . . all that was decades ago. arendt: Don’t patronize me! We weren’t on a first name basis then . . . and it’s certainly too late now. adorno: In that case, Frau Dr. Arendt, allow me to enlighten you that thirty years later—specifically in 1963—your husband in Vienna and I had a very frank exchange about what had happened earlier. And when I reiterated my earlier criticism of his musicological musings— arendt: You call his philosophical research “musings”? adorno: I was trying to be kind. And do you know what your husband replied? “I’m 100 percent d’accord with your paragraph about my habilitation thesis.” In my vocabulary, 100 percent d’accord means just that! He now accepts that I was 100 percent correct while you are still gnashing your teeth. arendt: Ha! adorno: What do you mean Ha? Do you know what else he wrote? “I hardly need to emphasize that I totally grant your absolute superiority with regard to your philosophy of music.” In other words, we made up and then continued a civilized relationship, whereas you keep harping— arendt (jumps up): Just one moment. (Rushes out and reappears , waving some pages in her hand.) Günther may be my former husband, but we remain on good terms until this very day. I know all about that correspondence between the two of you . . . something he called “dig up the hot...