The Man in the High Castle: Chapter 2  Summary & Analysis

From his office near the top of the Nippon Times Building, Nobusuke Tagomi looks out on the Golden Gate Bridge and frets about his upcoming meeting with a mysterious man named Mr. Baynes. Baynes is arriving by rocket, a new German mode of high-speed travel. Tagomi has never been on a rocket, so he must avoid looking impressed around Baynes. Moreover, though Baynes is Swedish—and Sweden is politically neutral—Tagomi vows to avoid talking about politics with him, even though the Nazi leader (Herr Bormann) is rumored to be quite ill.

Tagomi calls in his secretary, Miss Ephreikian. He tells her that he has consulted the I Ching about his upcoming meeting with Childan. At two o’clock, Childan is going to present Tagomi with some options for a gift for Baynes, and Tagomi feels none of the choices will suffice. The I Ching has confirmed this suspicion.

Tagomi asks Miss Ephreikian to call in his assistant, a young American named Mr. Ramsey. Tagomi explains that, given most Europeans’ racist view of “so-called Oriental culture,” it makes sense to present Mr. Baynes with an American-made gift, not a Japanese-made one. However, Tagomi does not trust his own judgment of American memorabilia, so he wants Mr. Ramsey to come meet Childan with him. Tagomi notices that Mr. Ramsey, who is white, has been self-tanning in an attempt to darken his skin.

Tagomi informs Miss Ephreikian and Mr. Ramsey that Mr. Baynes is here to sell the Japanese some new plastics technology—which is important, because the Germans are far ahead of the Japanese when it comes to plastics. Privately, Tagomi wonders why the information about his meeting with Mr. Baynes was sent to him in a kind of poetic code. The Japanese government uses this lyrical code specifically to evade the Germans, because the Nazis can crack any kind of literal code. Tagomi concludes that Baynes is a spy.

Childan hails a pedicab from a Chinese man (whom he describes in racist language, as a “chink”). After a stressful day of sorting through objects for Tagomi, Childan is on his way to present the options. Childan feels that he has done a good job, but he worries that he will not know the correct code of conduct with all the different people he meets in Tagomi’s office building.

Childan wonders if he will see a slave—all Black people are enslaved in this society. Childan then worries that it will be bad form to carry his own bags; he decides that he will wait for a slave to help him with his bags, because he fears that if he does not, he will “never have any sort of place again.” In his mind, Childan blames Black and Chinese people for his unease, thinking “they scorn me and humiliate me every day.”

After the Nazis won World War II, they killed all of the Gypsies and Jews, and pushed the Slavs much further east. Childan admires the Nazis for filling the Mediterranean Sea with soil and turning it into farmland—and though Childan feels the Nazis have gone too far in Africa, he seems to approve of the general idea of ethnic cleansing. Childan muses that when the Germans do “a task, they [do] it right.” Childan thinks that the Germans are better conquerors than the Japanese, and he sees this as proof of white racial superiority.

As he tries to imagine Mr. Tagomi’s client, Childan recalls how he got his start in such a lucrative antiques business. Years ago, when Childan had owned only a small, dingy shop, a wealthy Japanese major had wandered in asking about “Horrors of War” cards. Though the cards had been popular and cheap—and so were not formal antiques—the major had appreciated Childan’s ability to give context to such memorabilia; Childan had played with the cards as a boy and could thus speak about them with personal experience. Sensing that there was a market for Americana among the Japanese elite, Childan began to build his shop.

Childan worries that Mr. Tagomi’s client might not be Japanese—which would be an issue, because Childan has selected objects specifically for Japanese tastes. Privately, Childan goes over the stereotypical categories he uses to distinguish between Japanese people, because he has “difficulty telling them apart.” Seeing a Black man, Childan hands him his bags and then goes up the elevator to meet with Mr. Tagomi. Childan notices that he is one of the only white people in the elevator.