Hopeful Monsters

by Nicholas Mosley

  I said 'And what happened then?'

  Bruno said 'The townspeople were killed; Josephus went to live in Rome, and wrote the history of the Jewish war, including this story.'

  I said 'And how did he manage to fix the lots?'

  Bruno said 'Josephus has always been regarded as a grotesque traitor by the Jews: he is what Judas Iscariot is to the Christians.'

  I said 'How did he manage to fix the lots?'

  Bruno said 'No one knows. Perhaps he was one of the seven just men.'

  I said 'I suppose he what might be called cheated.'

  Then he said 'Nellie, I love you, but I can't make love to you any more!'

  I said 'Oh I think that is all right.'

  I thought - There are other ways in which we might be immortal.

  In Berlin I found a letter from you, from England, which had been sent to a poste-restante address because I had not wanted to give you the address of the Rosa Luxemburg Block. I had written to you to say that Franz wanted to get in touch with you: I thought he wanted to talk to you about physics. I had said that I hoped that one day we all might meet. I had told you that in February I hoped to be going skiing; I had added 'Why don't you come too?'

  In your letter you said -

  Dearest Eleanor,

  As it happens (can you believe this!) I am tomorrow going skiing with my friend called Hans (do you remember? he was the one who thought that Mephistopheles should be played by a twelve-year-old boy). Hans's family have a chalet somewhere in the mountains of southern Germany. I will find out the address and put it at the end of this letter. And where will you be?

  Perhaps we will bump into each other like two of those particles which, if they have bumped into each other once, may never be quite not as if bumping into each other again.

  Yes, indeed I would like to talk to Franz about physics. Shall I come to Berlin after skiing?

  Do you know about these particles? People have become interested in them here. You remember the problem: how do you measure objectively what a particle is up to when what you measure is just the effect of your measuring? Well someone here has got an idea. Why not take two particles that have bumped into one another once (by a castle in the Black Forest, for instance) and if you know all about this meeting, and you measure what one of the particles is doing now, then although your measurements of this one will be affected by your measuring, you will be able to work out from these and from your knowledge of the effects of the original meeting, what the second particle will be doing - and this won't be affected by your measuring because it won't be it that's being measured - and so can this be called 'objective'? No, of course this doesn't make sense. Having measured the one, then if by doing this you are finding out anything about the other at all, you are affecting it.

  So where are you now? Why should anyone want anything to be called 'objective'?

  I am thinking of taking up biology.

  Or that pseudo-science, whatever it is, by which the future is foretold by studying the cracks in heated bones.

  I am dispirited. I do not know how to find you. You did not tell me where you were going skiing in your letter.

  Love from Max

  You had put no address at the end of this letter. I thought - You are angry with me? Well why should you not be, if I did not give you my address: but how could I, when I was suggesting that you meet Franz?

  The envelope that the letter arrived in did look as if it might have been tampered with. I thought - But at least not by the people in the Rosa Luxemburg Block.

  Then - But if you are angry with me, cannot I, even from hundreds of miles away, make you better?

  I went skiing. I was on my own. I was in southern Germany. In the mountains there were these shapes, bumps, curves, that I sped down. I thought - All right, yes, these slopes are like that image of the pitted inner surface of a sphere: the four-dimensional space-time continuum of the universe. Such an image might not be a metaphor for scientific reality; science may be a metaphor for the reality of such an image. So - Who said that? My father? You? I am confusing you with my father, my mad angry English boy?

  Then - Or perhaps your letter is telling me that you have a new English girlfriend.

  I loved the mountains: I seemed to be in touch, indeed, with what was called 'gravity'. I was pulled: there was a force pulling: because of this I myself could steer - this way or that. But the bumps, shapes, curves, told me which way to choose. It seemed that one day, of course, I might go over the rim of the universe.

  And so, at last, find what might be called 'objectivity'?

  Of course your experiment made no sense! If the particles had anything to do with one another, then affecting the one would of course be affecting the other.

  I thought - But if with enough style, elegance, on these mountains, one remains upright -

  - With another there would be the same force by which the one might survive?

  By the time I got back to Berlin Hitler had become Chancellor. There seemed to be some sort of hiatus, gap, in the streets. People had been holding their noses and had now toppled over: they were falling, falling.

  I found that Bruno was not at the Rosa Luxemburg Block. People said that he had left. He had left no note for me. I thought - It is impossible for him to have gone and left no note for me! People in the Block said that he had just gone out one evening and had not returned. They seemed to suggest - Perhaps because Hitler has become Chancellor. I said 'What - ?' Their eyes slid away. He has got out? Gone over? This was not worth saying. I thought I might say to them - 'Bruno might have wanted to survive; it is you who have wanted to betray him.'

  I thought I should ask my mother if she knew what might have happened to Bruno. Then - When I am in trouble, I still go to my mother?

  In the streets the Nazis were setting up loudspeakers on street corners. Lamp-posts were hung with wires: they were like the umbilical cords of whales. I thought - These people are arranging so that they will be forever tied to their mad shouting Nazi mother; with luck, their lifeblood will run back to their destruction.

  My mother was in her office with the machinery whirring next door and her cough and cigarette smoke rising up like spirits to torment her. There were people burning what seemed to be documents in the basement; the smoke from this too came up to plague my mother. It was as if she were some witch at a stake above a fire: I thought - Perhaps witches want to be pissed on to help them with the fire.

  I said 'I wondered if you might have heard anything about what has happened to Bruno.'

  'You think I might have heard something about Bruno?'

  'He's disappeared.'

  'So I hear.'

  'Then you have!'

  'What?'

  'Heard.'

  'I haven't said anything about knowing what's happened.'

  I thought - But I can feel my own lifeblood running back! I will die if I don't get out, O my mother!

  I said 'I saw Franz the other day. He said we should get out, you and I.'

  'You have been in touch with Franz?'

  'I went to have tea with him at the Adlon Hotel. I thought I might learn something from him, and I did.'

  'You go to see Franz and you ask me if I know why Bruno has disappeared!'

  She looked so pleased, my mother. I thought - But I do not need to be tied to a stake and pissed on by you, my mother!

  I said 'Bruno wouldn't have gone of his own accord without telling me. You were all suspicious of him. Why?'

  She said 'Didn't we have reason to be suspicious of him?'

  I thought - Do you have reason to be suspicious of me?

  Then - There are myths, in fact, about daughters wanting to kill their mothers: Electra, Clytemnestra. But Electra had to get her

  brother to do it for her: perhaps women know that they only tighten the cord by wanting to kill their mothers.

  I said 'You were always suspicious of people in the Rosa Luxemburg Block! They were suspicious of Bruno. They were suspicious of you
. You all live on suspicion. Without it, you might have time to fight the Nazis!'

  My mother rocked backwards and forwards in her chair.

  I said 'You don't really think Bruno and I had contact with the Nazis?'

  My mother said 'You've just admitted that you had tea with Franz.'

  I said 'That is unforgivable.'

  I thought - But of course I should never had told her about my seeing Franz!

  Then - Dear God, perhaps I should never had told her about the raid on the cafe-brothel.

  As I went out of the door my mother shouted after me 'He was never any good for you!'

  I thought - Don't give me that stuff now: the caring mother!

  Then - This is not ridiculous, it is evil -

  - You think it might even have been my mother who was responsible for the tip-off?

  As I walked through the streets it seemed, yes, that my lifeblood was draining away. I thought - But in so far as it is her blood that has run through me, let it run back to her destruction!

  The streets were hung with wires like entrails.

  I thought - Will I always be that child lying on the edge of a bed while people tend to the dying earth, its mother?

  - Oh cut the cord: tie the liberating knot! Can the child do this itself? It can re-create its own blood, from that of its mother.

  I found myself walking in the direction of the Adlon Hotel. I suppose I was going there on the chance of seeing Franz. Of course I knew that there was almost no chance of seeing Franz - he had taken that room in the hotel only for one day - but then, what is this operation of chance? You put yourself in the way of it. I wanted to see Franz because I wanted to ask him about Bruno: also I needed a friend. Then coming along Unter den Linden there was a squad of motorcycle outriders and behind them a car and in the car, Hitler. It was an open car, although this was in the middle of winter; it was as if Hitler had to be on show, as if he were some sort of dummy. I mean a perfect dummy, all-of-a-piece, to be admired. Well, humans

  are not all-of-a-piece, are they? Hitler was like something made of cloth, waxed and polished; you can walk all round a dummy and examine it. Human beings react: but a dummy is an object. I thought - But what is this waxed dummy for? It is some huge candle to light an ultimate bonfire? It is something into which pins are stuck, to make humanity suffer?

  Hitler whisked past in his car. I thought - Or perhaps he will go round and round like a Catherine wheel until he goes out and is dumped on someone else's bonfire.

  Franz, of course, was not in the Adlon Hotel. I walked straight through and out of the side door into Wilhelmstrasse. I thought -You have to go on putting yourself in the way of chances if you want to survive.

  Then - But why didn't you come to Berlin instead of going skiing -

  - It is you I am so often talking to, isn't it, my English boy? There had been more Nazis than before in the hallway of the

  hotel. They were on their toes, almost taking off; they were balloons about to be lifted by hot air.

  - But might not sparks from bonfires burst them on their way round the universe?

  I was summoned to appear before the Central Committee of the Rosa Luxemburg Block. There were eight men and women behind a table in the basement. They were coughing and smoking and trying to see that their cigarettes did not roll off the small metal trays on the table. I thought - There are children's games like this: you hold a small box in front of you and you have to steer a silver ball along grooves and see that it does not fall through holes.

  They said 'We wish you to tell us what you know about Bruno.'

  'I know nothing about Bruno. He's disappeared.'

  'He left you no message?'

  'No.'

  'That is unusual?'

  'Yes. I have been trying to make my own enquiries.'

  The chief interrogator was a woman who wore small steel spectacles like Trotsky. I thought - Has she not heard that Trotsky has fallen through a small hole in the board of this game in Russia?

  She said 'What enquiries?'

  'I have been to talk with my mother.'

  'We have information that you had a contact at the Adlon Hotel.'

  'Contact?'

  'You do not deny it?'

  'I do not deny what?'

  That you met a Nazi official at the Adlon Hotel.'

  I thought - I was followed?

  Or - Only my mother knew I met Franz at the Adlon Hotel!

  I said 'I met an old friend of mine called Franz at the Adlon Hotel'

  'You do not deny that he is a Nazi?'

  'He is nothing official. And anyway that was before Bruno disappeared -'

  'Yes?'

  'Franz and I have been friends since childhood. This has nothing to do with Bruno.'

  'You say Bruno and you and this man called Franz have all been friends since childhood?'

  I thought - I am doing this all wrong.

  Then - But certainly it is only my mother who could have known that Franz and Bruno and I have been friends since childhood.

  - Help me, Josephus, to get out!

  The woman in the Trotsky spectacles said 'Begin again. You went to see this man in the Adlon Hotel.'

  I said 'Don't you think that it is in the interests of the Party to gain information? Did my mother not tell you, or did she not know, the terms on which I went to see my friend in the Adlon Hotel? Don't you think it would be to your advantage to make further analysis before you question my objectivity?'

  The woman with the Trotsky spectacles picked up her cigarette and drew on it heavily and seemed to be balancing smoke like small silver balls in her head.

  I thought - This is dangerous: but if words have ceased to mean what people think they mean, might one not still use them to survive?

  The woman with the spectacles said 'We will question you further. You will not leave the Block.'

  I thought - But now, should I not catch any chance to get out?

  It seemed that I should make my own bonfire of the documents and bits and pieces of my life - the few possessions I carried around with me. I took my suitcase down to the basement where there was a furnace and I emptied the contents on to the ground; my bits and pieces lay there like those old bones, or entrails, yes, by which people used to think that from the past or present they could tell the

  future. There were letters from my father: I came across a sentence which said 'You must not be surprised at your mother's antipathy to Bruno: you are her daughter. Though it is odd, I agree, her admiration for Franz.' The date on the letter was three years ago. I thought - So patterns are there, yes, if you see them, like cracks in bones; but how can one tell from these about the future?

  There was a letter from my old girlfriend Trixie which began 'No, I don't think it is interesting that you and Bruno are Jews and I am not: I think this sort of thing is boring.'

  There was a letter from you from the previous winter -

  Humans are containers to be put on a bonfire? Right! But why should not the message they carry be: What infinite care has been taken to make them such beautiful containers!

  It is persons, containers, after all, that either live or die.

  The care now might be to develop a sense to do with the appreciation of chance.

  I put in a satchel the letters I had had from Franz, Bruno, Trixie, my father and yourself; the rest I put on the bonfire.

  I thought - But these seeds that I will carry round with me will be in some pouch, some pod; and one day they may burst over an indifferent multitude?

  I did not want to stay indoors behind barricaded doors and windows as did other members of the Block but I had nowhere to go except on the circuit I had fixed in my mind - to the building where my mother lived, then on round the north side of Unter den Linden to the area of the Adlon Hotel, then back to the Block. I wondered - In some way I imagine I am looking for Bruno? Or Franz? I might bump into something if I keep moving round and round.

  I paid no attention to the orders of the Co
mmittee that I should not leave the Block. I thought - It is when you let yourself be lined up, when people know where you are, that you are self-destructive.

  Then - Oh but why should one bump into anything except oneself as one goes round and round!

  One evening I set off on my usual round: it was after dark, at the end of February. I did not really want to see my mother: I had told myself I wanted nothing to do with my mother ever again. I thought - So what am I trying to do: seeing what flowers might have been put on a grave? There had continued to be the hush, the

  expectancy, in the streets - as if people even now were waiting for the enormous events round some corner. There are paintings like this: that show menace in half-deserted streets. I had gone some way towards Alexanderplatz when lorries came whirring towards me from around some corner; they carried Brownshirts; the Brown-shirts were not leaning over the sides of the lorries laughing and jeering as they had used to do when they were on a raid, they were sitting in rows facing inwards like dummies with spikes up their arses. I thought - So the time has come when they want to be perfect, all-of-a-piece. I stood in a doorway while they went past. They were going in the direction of the Rosa Luxemburg Block. I thought - They are going there to arrest people? Then - I have already got rid of my bits and pieces. Then - This is all that I feel about people in the Block? I went on through the dark streets. I thought - But I have got out, and perhaps Bruno has got out; now indeed people in the Block will think that Bruno or I have betrayed them: though why should they need anyone to betray them, when they seem to have the need to betray themselves? I was making my way towards Alexanderplatz. I was sorry that I had not got my few letters, or satchel of seeds, with me: I thought - They will be scattered; but who can tell on what ground? Somewhere to the west there was a red glow above the rooftops: the hour was too late for it to be sunset. I thought - What, the great big bonfire? Then - This is ridiculous. There were some more lorries going along a street across the top of the one in which I was walking: they, too, seemed to be carrying Brownshirts. I thought - So they might be going to arrest the people with my mother. Then - But if I am alone, should I expect to survive? I went on towards Alexanderplatz. I think perhaps I was too cold, with a feeling of too much urgency, to be frightened. I thought - But I see why people might not want to survive. I was trying to keep to the shadows. I imagined - If my mother has been arrested what must I do: rush towards her crying Mother! Mother!; flop about as if on a stage until I am arrested too? Then there will be no one to get up at the end of the third act - and indeed, are we not at home in blood and death and destruction. So how will there be preserved anything that is immortal? I thought I could go down a side-street and round a block or two and so get to a vantage point opposite the building where my mother lived: from there I might see without being seen - indeed was I not now like an agent in occupied territory? But in that case what would I be being a traitor to: is it not as an agent for oneself that one has