GR translation: their own pitiable contingency here, in its midst

[Mike Jing]

V96.5-16, P97.40-98.10   How seriously is she playing? In a conquered
country, one’s own occupied country, it’s better, she believes, to
enter into some formal, rationalized version of what, outside,
proceeds without form or decent limit day and night, the summary
executions, the roustings, beatings, subterfuge, paranoia, shame . . .
though it is never discussed among them openly, it would seem Katje,
Gottfried, and Captain Blicero have agreed that this Northern and
ancient form, one they all know and are comfortable with—the strayed
children, the wood-wife in the edible house, the captivity, the
fattening, the Oven—shall be their preserving routine, their shelter,
against what outside none of them can bear—the War, the absolute rule
of chance, their own pitiable contingency here, in its midst. . . .

What does "contingency" mean here?
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l