by John Lawton
The last word, if not all the others put together, had clearly thrown Billy, yet surprisingly he managed to hit the nail on the head.
‘I get it. God is dead. Long live God?’
‘Exactly,’ said Hummel. And with this in mind Herr Kornfeld, while not quite subscribing himself, is telling us that some of his fellow physicists seek God in unity. In the idea that everything at some submolecular level is one – that energy is matter, matter is energy and so on . . . I do not have the science to put it better. In their very different fields both Gregor Mendel and Albert Einstein sought to show us the God of First Things – a Catholic monk and a German Jew . . . the order of inheritance in a garden pea on the one hand, the singularity, the oneness of time and space on the other . . . the great unified theory of everything. One big jam pot to hold us all.’
The pause was natural. Perfect timing on Hummel’s part. Rod could hear Billy breathing, Billy bursting.
Hummel resumed, concluded, ‘Whilst I, on the other hand, am arguing the opposite.’
‘Which is what?’
Rod answered for Hummel, ‘That there is no God, Billy. That there is no unity and hence no meaning. I think you’ll find Josef says this, or parts of this, on a fairly regular basis.’
‘Thank you, Herr Troy. A simple message. But mine own.’
‘Alright . . . so everybody’s lookin’ for God?’
‘Ja,’ said Hummel, ‘because everyone wants meaning.’
‘OK. What about Old Drax, then?’
‘Ach, Billy. You should have no difficulty understanding Herr Drax. Herr Drax is talking to you about a necessity so close to your own heart.’
‘Eh?’
Rod spoke for both of them, ‘He means “looking after number one”, Billy.’
§ 131
It was with some reluctance that Rod attended Drax’s next lecture. Herr Rosen had talked both him and Billy Jacks into going.
‘He might yet surprise you, Herr Troy. And you, Herr Jacks, does it matter where you take your siesta?’
‘I wasn’t asleep!’
‘Oh – do you snore when you’re awake?’
‘No. But I might grunt a bit.’
Jenkins sat next to Rod again, passed out pencils and scraps of paper, saying, ‘I managed to get hold of a few things. You wouldn’t believe the shortage of pencils or the number of chits a chap has to fill out to get one.’
Drax coughed. He coughed a lot. He seemed to feel the cold too, and from somewhere had produced a fur coat which he had taken to wearing even indoors. Rod could not help but think it made him look like a Jewish Bud Flanagan about to sing ‘Underneath the Arches’ with Chesney Allen, until he remembered that Bud Flanagan was Jewish in the first place. Drax coughed, and opened the session.
‘The theme I wish to pursue today is one of information and response, of access and concealment, of clear vision and self-deceit. The role of the British Press is central in this. Not only as they responded to the events of 1933, but in the way they shaped public response to those and subsequent events – to the SA’s reign of violence, to the setting up of the concentration camps, the dissolution of the trade unions and political parties, the persecution of the communists – the persecution of the Jews to the descent into night and fog –’
Rod’s head, all but noddding off in the cupped palm of one hand, jerked up at the sound of these words. It was like a poke with a sharp stick. He kept hearing that phrase, as though it were something in the ether, half-formed, intellectually embryonic, struggling to break into common parlance. Night and Fog. Nacht und Nebel. It struck him now as sharply as it had the night Wolfgang Stahl had first used it to him last May.
‘– the descent into night and fog of one of the most civilised cultures in the world.
‘Certain British newspapers saw fit to make a national crusade of Mosley’s Blackshirts. The Daily Mail’s ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts’, the Dispatch’s competition ‘Why I Like the Blackshirts’. And I do not hold up these headlines as peripheral – I hold them to be central to British thinking in the last decade. It bespeaks a failure to read Nazism alright. A misperception of the enemy on a tragic scale.
Why does the British ruling class fail to see Nazism for what it is? Could it be that they have common values? That the same anti-Semitism that infects Germany infects Britain, that the people in power are not repulsed by the moral implosion that is Germany, that they themselves would support fascism as a bulwark against communism if only Hitler’s nationalist demands were more “reasonable”? That the same deep-rooted anti-Semitism which flourished in the Chamberlain government now blossoms in Churchill’s?
‘Gentlemen – think about it. Most of you were locked up long before Sir Oswald Mosley. The man was not considered a threat. He was part of the British establishment. The threat is you – the little Jewish professor from Berlin, the little Jewish tailor from Vienna – you who have never donned a black shirt, a brown shirt or a jackboot. You whom Churchill has rounded up. And meanwhile the British fascists remain at large.
‘Why is Lord Carsington allowed his freedom? Why is Professor Charles Lockett allowed to teach his racist theories in universities . . . why is Geoffrey Trench, brother of our commandant, allowed to retain his seat in parliament?’
‘Oh bugger,’Jenkins whispered to Rod. ‘I do wish the old boy hadn’t said that.’
Before Rod could say anything there was an interruption from the floor. Herr Rosen was on his feet, asking that Drax permit him a moment. He alone, it seemed, had used Jenkins’ pencil and paper to take notes. He stood for a second looking down at them, then he looked straight at Drax.
‘It is undoubtedly true that the English could and should have been less naïve about the true nature of the Nazis. You and I, Professor, have both lived in Berlin, have both been in a concentration camp. Let us call it the privilege of living the nightmare. We know. We do not doubt. We know. But . . . let us give the English perhaps the benefit of the doubt.
‘When I arrived here I spoke some English, but I was by no means fluent. Of the culture I was entirely ignorant. I knew so little of their history, their art or their literature. Worse still, I had no clue as to the strange taboos and customs which make the English such a strange and exasperating people. I had no suspicion that such class divisions as the English still maintain existed anywhere in Europe. I had never heard of “understatement”, and could not for the life of me see why when asked “How did your concert go?” it was wrong to answer “Splendid, the house was packed” instead of saying “Not too badly.” I could not understand why I should not ask a man about his profession, income, how much he paid for his suit, and whether he voted Liberal, Tory or Labour. All of them, one might have thought, perfectly justifiable questions in the eyes of any sane human being; and why it seemed to be “not done” to get excited or indeed passionate about a subject, and why it would be wrong to try and shine in conversation . . . these were mysterious questions to me. I could not, indeed still cannot, understand their preference for ball games over reading a good book.
‘I came from a country torn by civil strife, wrecked by inflation, where your liberty and indeed your life was often in danger, where you could be arrested and sent to prison or a concentration camp without trial, and where your race, creed, political opinions could put not only you but your entire family in jeopardy. England – or so it seemed to me – was a paradise, a country without suffering, changeless, excluded from the common lot of mankind, a happy isle of lotus eaters.
‘Most amazing of all, there were policemen who carried no guns, called you “Sir” and asked you to sit down when you went to report a change of address.
‘Certainly my first impressions were superficial, but I cannot see how they could have been very different. It seemed to me a stranger country than any I had known before, and her people still seemed to be living in the Edwardian era. It is, as Herr Schwitters reminds us every day, a surreal country – in which a Minister of Defence can proudly ann
ounce that there have been 436 and a half volunteers for the army while Hitler has millions of men ready for war; a country where people, who seem to be sane in every other way, were until recently willing to believe the word of a madman but refused to believe in concentration camps, and suspected that my motive for imploring my new-found friends to re-arm was due to nothing more than a refugee’s craving for revenge.
‘At first I was very little impressed by London, which I compared – to its disadvantage – with Paris. Trafalgar Square was nothing beside the Place de la Concorde, Whitehall a poor substitute for the Champs-Elysees, and the Thames was not a match for the Seine. But I fell in love immediately with rural England. Everything was new – everything unexpected. I discovered the Cotswolds: Burford, Chipping Campden, Winchcombe; I discovered Cambridge and Bath. But above all I fell in love with the English people. What a change from the open rudeness of the Germans and the thin varnish of politeness of the French. These people are tolerant, kind, helpful, good-mannered, disciplined, friendly, and less selfish than people anywhere else. Rudeness is exceptional, violence rare.
‘This seems strange, because I cannot imagine any other country where one could live with so little interference from others. Yet all the time the influence is there. It is in the quiet voices of people in buses and the Underground, making the excitedly talking foreigner drop his voice, unconsciously trying to adapt his ways to his surroundings. It is in the polite way in which you are treated when you have dealings with the authorities at the police station, or the food office. Abroad, officials make you feel that you are a nuisance, a necessary evil. At first I was staggered by British officials. I am sure they themselves do not realise how much the newly arrived foreigner is impressed by their quietness and courtesy.
England is an amazing country. To anyone coming from the Continent it is a haven and a heaven. Gentlemen, it deserves our thanks. And its people our understanding.’
With that Rosen sat down again, stuffed the sheet of paper into his pocket. Rod could scarcely believe his ears. Rosen had glanced occasionally at his notes, but he’d spoken unaided for more than five minutes. And as he sat he’d brought the room to its feet. Jenkins stood and led, hands clapping furiously, like the winning captain at cricket leading a round of applause for the gallant losers. And man for man they rose with him. Hummel, Spinetti, Schwitters . . . all clapping. Rod was almost the last to join. It was a stunning statement of ‘Englishness’ with which he was not wholly certain he could agree. But Billy Jacks abstained. As the ripple died away, he turned to Rod and said, ‘No copper ever called me “sir”. Chipping Campden? Chipping bloody Campden? Rosen may know Chipping bloody Campden. Bet he’s never been to Stepney Green. Two cheers for England, eh, ’Ampstead?’
It had been a muddled speech, a disjointed speech – insightful, objective – a resounding, an optimistic, generous response to the bitterness of Drax – but also shot through with sentimentality. Whilst he would never agree with Drax, it pained Rod to feel he agreed more with Jacks than with Rosen. But it was a hymn to Englishness, and he felt no impulse to make one himself – just yet.
Drax took it all in his stride. He knew that he had lost his audience for the day. They’d be back.
‘Until next week,’ he said, stacked his notes and left.
§ 132
One day in the first week of August at nine o’clock in the morning Troy was putting off the paperwork, wishing Scotland Yard made a decent cup of coffee, leaning in the window of his office, glancing out at the Thames, and reading a censored letter from his brother on the Isle of Man.
I’m in a camp called — —. It’s a nice old building just outside Port —. Not bad. Might even say comfortable, and actually nowhere near as rough as you might think. There were ‘incidents’ on the way here, but if I try to tell you what happened it’ll just get —, but the bunch of squaddies we have guarding us are decent blokes. Let’s test the — —, they’re all from the — Regiment. Did that get through? Thought not. Some interesting company too. The Cambridge physicist Arthur Kornfeld – the more I talk to him the more I’m sure I’d come across his name in the newspapers before the war, but also the German pianist Viktor Rosen. Knew Mahler when he was a boy! I find that amazing. And we have a complete nutcase called Kurt Schwitters who calls himself a Dadaist. I have the vaguest memories of them. Anarchic bunch. Nikolai seemed to admire them for turning everything into utter nonsense, but then he would, wouldn’t he? A grumpy, but really rather dear old socialist, Max Drax, goes around in a fur coat looking like Bud Flanagan . . . and an equally grumpy Tory from the East End called Billy Jacks. I’d be amazed if you hadn’t come across him. From Stepney. That was your old beat, wasn’t it? I’ve learnt a new word - zwangsgemeinschaft. Sounds like a mouthful of marbles but it means a compulsory community. Blokes bunged together who didn’t choose one another but nevertheless form a community. All puts me in mind of that Conrad line – forget which novel – to be free you must first belong.
I’m keeping busy. We have a university going – not kidding – and we have a concert party in the offing. Believe it or not I’m on second violin. Resin on me fingers for the first time in God-knows-how-long. Come to think of it, Schwitters has volunteered to do a turn. I dread to think what he’s got up his sleeve. Do tell Nikolai I’ve met him, he’ll be so impressed. And . . .’
The telephone rang.
‘You busy, young Fred?’
‘Save me from it.’
‘Eh?’
‘Paperwork, George.’
‘Oh . . . if it’s a trip out you want, I’m your man. You’d best get back to Whitechapel as quick as you can.’
‘No problem . . . where do you want me?’
‘Market Street Synagogue.’
‘Not another dead rabbi?’
‘Yep.’
‘George, I was joking!’
‘I wasn’t. Old Rabbi Adelson. Found dead in his own synagogue this morning. Get yer skates on.’
§ 133
Elohim Synagogue, the formal name of Market Street Synagogue, E. 1., faced Market Street with a vast frontage. It was surprising Troy had never looked closely before. He could hardly miss it. A huge circular window, a stained glass star of David twenty feet wide, and dozens of little columns, all contributing to a rather Moorish effect, a hint of southern Spain and Granada. In short, it was grandiose. Brick testament to the first generation of Jewish immigrants to make money in Brick Lane – ‘we’re here, we’re staying, we’re Jews’. They’d spent their money on this – a dignified statement about God or a fist in the face, depending on your viewpoint. The next generation had spent their money on detached houses and pretentious porches in Golders Green.
All public buildings seemed to Troy like fakes, like pretentious porches. Promises and preambles that could not deliver. The synagogue reminded him of the casino at Monte Carlo – reminded him of the Palace of Westminster and St Pancras railway station. What they all had in common was that they could never be what they pretended to be. This was as true of Elohim Synagogue as it was of St Pancras. Public space lacked intimacy. Without intimacy space was hollow space. Gild it every which way, it was still the gilt of gold-leaf on gypsum. As fake as a film set, as real as a casino. That God and Mammon should have tastes quite so similar was neither here nor there.
Bonham was waiting inside the door.
‘You wasn’t quick enough.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘His doctor’s here already. Mrs Adelson sent for him. Dr Guildenstern. A real stickler for the doins – wants the body carted off and cleansed. The works. You’ll have to be sharpish or they’ll have the old boy under ground before you can say truncheon.’
‘Sounds like a pain in the arse.’
‘He is.’
The electricity to the synagogue was down. Oil lamps had been lit. Troy picked his way through the pews to find Dr Guildenstern kneeling over the body of Rabbi Adelson, medical bag open at his side. A second man stood holding a torc
h, aiming it at the body.
‘Rosencrantz,’ he said. ‘I mind the place.’
‘Troy,’ said Troy. ‘Scotland Yard.’
At this the doctor stood up, dropped his stethoscope into his bag, turned to Troy. A small man of sixty or so, short white beard, wire-rimmed glases, a homburg pushed to the back of his head. An I’ve-seen-it-all look about him that Troy so hated in the middle-aged. A voice that all but rippled with practised sarcasm.
‘So, someone sent for the big boys, did they? Well, there’s nothing here for you or Scotland Yard, Mr Troy. Aaron died of natural causes. Quite simply his heart stopped. Can’t say I’m surprised. He was seventy-two and he’d been complaining of angina to me for six or seven years. And last night? Well, I reckon there’s a fair few dropped dead of fright last night.’
