Hopeful Monsters

by Nicholas Mosley

She said 'I just couldn't bear to see this cottage with its back broken.'

  I said 'I see.'

  She said 'Is that all you're doing?'

  I said 'The rest is difficult to explain.'

  She said 'Yes, the rest is difficult to explain.'

  Holding one of the saws, she slid down the sloping thatch of the roof and landed on the ground. She was like a child going down a slide at a fairground. Then she walked with the saw round the branches of the tree that were pressed against the ground.

  She said 'Did you say we should cut these branches?'

  I said'Yes.'

  'And then we can saw more easily the main bit on the roof?'

  'Yes/

  She said 'Isn't it lucky then that we have two saws.'

  I took the other saw and slid down to the ground. I went to the far side of the tree from where she stood. We both began sawing the minor branches.

  I wanted to describe this to you: to say - This scene is to do with those who might be our children.

  She said 'I wanted to build a home. But, of course, I know I'll never live here.'

  I said 'Why won't you live here?'

  She said 'Of course I can't!' Then - 'But you don't think it's odd, that I want to build such a home?'

  I said 'I once did an experiment with salamanders. I wanted to produce a perfect environment for them so that they would produce an offspring, a mutation, that would be different.'

  I could see her face peering at me through the branches. She had stopped sawing. We had cut through quite a lot of the branches that had been resting on the ground, so that the main branch of the tree was becoming cleared.

  She said 'How did you know?'

  I said 'How did I know what?'

  She came round to my side of the tree. Together we looked at what were left of the smaller branches.

  I said 'We can now try cutting it again at the top.'

  She said 'And was it?'

  I said 'What?'

  She said'Different.'

  I said 'Oh yes. But I couldn't really tell. I had to go back to school.'

  She said 'And didn't you have anyone to help you?'

  I said'No.'

  She said 'Then aren't I lucky.'

  At first I didn't know what she meant. Then I thought I might cry.

  She had begun to climb up again on to the roof of the cottage.

  I went and looked in through the doorway. The floor of the cottage seemed to have been swept and the walls and ceiling brushed down; the grate was clean with sticks in it ready for a fire. There was a table with one leg almost off and two rickety chairs; these had

  been scrubbed; there was a pile of bracken as if for a bed in one corner, and on a table a vase of exotic-looking lilies.

  It was quite like something I might have made for my salamanders; or like that room, perhaps, where you and I sat in front of the fire.

  There was the sound of sawing from the roof. Bits of dust and rubble drifted down.

  I went out of the cottage and round to the back where there was the heaviest part of the fallen branch. The girl on the roof was sawing just past the ridge, so that the top part of the tree would fall at the front of the cottage and the heaviest part at the back. I said Til catch this part at the back, then it won't damage the cottage.'

  She said 'Thank you.'

  When the branch where she was sawing cracked it was difficult to support the heavy end of the branch and swing it round; I got it somehow into my hands; I staggered about like someone tossing a caber.

  The girl watched me from the roof. She said 'Do you often do things like this?'

  I said Tm practising.'

  She said 'For what?' Then - 'Would you like a cup of tea?'

  I said 'Yes, please.'

  She slid off the roof. I got rid of the branch of the tree, and went into the cottage. She was lighting the fire. I took a chair and sat in it.

  She said 'I'm pregnant. Did you know?'

  I said'No.'

  She left the fire and went through to the back where there seemed to be a larder. From there came the sounds of utensils and crockery being moved about.

  I said 'Where are your parents?'

  She said 'They're abroad.'

  'And you're living with your grandmother.'

  'I'm staying with my grandmother.'

  'Are you still at school?'

  'Yes.'

  'How old are you.'

  'Nearly seventeen.'

  She came in from the larder carrying a kettle. She knelt down in front of the fire; she blew on it; she put the kettle on the flames.

  I said 'Does anyone else know?'

  'No.'

  'You haven't told the father?'

  'There isn't any father.'

  She left the grate and went back into the larder. I took a stick and poked at the fire to make it burn properly. She called out 'And I don't think I'm the Virgin Mary!'

  I thought I might say - Then who do you think you are?

  She came back into the room. She said 'I wanted to make something like a home, yes; what did you call it, an "environment" -'

  She had brought in a teapot and a mug. She stood by the fire, watching it.

  I said 'You want your child to be different.'

  She said 'I think the grown-up world is mad. People seem to want to die, to kill. They seem to get people strung up, to get themselves strung up, like Jesus. That's why I wouldn't want to be the Virgin Mary.'

  I said 'What can people do to you? I mean, about the child.'

  It took some time for the kettle to boil. We watched it.

  She said 'They can't make me get rid of it. They can make me something called a "ward of court". Then perhaps when it's born they can try to take it away from me.'

  I thought - So you are building some sort of nest; here, and in your mind.

  I said 'Why don't you tell the father?'

  She said 'Because it wasn't his fault.'

  I said 'Who said it was anyone's fault!'

  I thought I saw her smile. She went back into the larder.

  She said 'Anyway, I love him too much. I don't want to ruin his career.'

  I shouted 'God damn it, why should it ruin his career?*

  She said 'Milk? Sugar?'

  I said 'Yes, please.'

  When she came back into the room she was certainly smiling. She said 'I'm afraid I've got only one cup.'

  I said 'Thank you.'

  I thought - Will it do good if I manage to have tears?

  She stood with her back to the grate, facing me. Her yellow skirt was embroidered with flowers. It was torn in several places.

  She said 'All right, I don't want to blackmail him into marrying me. I want him to be free.'

  I said 'If you tell him, you will not be blackmailing him into marrying you.'

  She said 'How do you know?'

  I said 'I know.'

  She said 'How will I ever know he loves me?'

  I shouted 'Oh of course you know he loves you!'

  She said 'You're mad.'

  She made some tea in the teapot. She poured the tea into the mug. She offered me milk and sugar. I took them: I said 'Thank you.' I drank. Then I offered her the mug.

  I said 'It's the grown-up world that you think is mad. You're building this house. You want things to be different.'

  She said 'Are you married?'

  I said'Yes.'

  'Where is your wife?'

  'In Switzerland.'

  'Why?'

  'Because she has work to do there.'

  'Do you love her?'

  'Yes.'

  Then she said 'Well, why do you think I don't tell him?'

  I said 'What people like you and I are frightened of is to have not too little but too much. It's easier, as you said, to be strung up.'

  She said 'What's the alternative?'

  I said This.'

  I looked up to the ceiling where the ridge-beam had been cracked by the branch falling on the roof.

&nbs
p; She said 'Don't we need a prop for that roof?'

  She went out into the glade in front of the cottage. I tried to send a message to you - This is all right, my angel: you will be all right? The girl came in dragging a branch that we had cut off and I sawed it to the right size and trimmed it of its lesser branches and then we put the narrower end against the cracked ridge-beam of the ceiling and the other end at an angle on the floor.

  She said 'Can you tell me - what is a mutation?'

  I said 'It is a new sort of being that happens as a matter of luck. What you can do for it, which is not a matter of luck, is to make an environment that you would wish for whatever turns up. This is what you have been doing. You love your baby.'

  She said 'In my imagination.'

  I said 'In fact.'

  She said 'I told you I was lucky.'

  We got hold of the bottom end of the prop and heaved; I kicked it so that the top end pressed against the ridge-beam; then I got hold of another piece of wood and banged the bottom of the prop with it while the girl pulled and the prop gradually became upright and the ridge-beam was raised so that it became level and dust and rubble drifted down like bits of light.

  She said * You mean, this is some sort of practice?'

  I said'Yes.'

  She got a broom that seemed to have been made of twigs from the glade; she swept up the dust and rubble that had fallen to the floor; she tidied the tea-things that were round the grate; she made sure that the fire was safe; then she stood and looked round the room.

  I said 'You see, you have made this place; now you can carry it in your head.'

  She said 'Is that what you do?'

  I said'Yes.'

  She said 'All right, I'll tell him. I expect he'll marry me.'

  I thought - This place, this afternoon, exist as if they were a painting.

  She said 'Did you hear what I said?'

  I said 'Yes.' She took the jug of milk and poured a little of it into the vase of lilies.

  She said 'If my baby is a girl I am going to call her Lilia.'

  I said 'Why?'

  She said 'Because lilies are the flowers that grow at this time of year.'

  Gasthof Friedrich, Zurich See September 2nd 1939 My Angel,

  The fact that I am writing this means that I am alive -

  That I am alive means that this is what the universe is like -

  You are taking care of yourself?

  I got Walburga's car. I set off early in the morning. There was news on the wireless coming through about the German invasion of Poland. There was almost no one in the streets. People were huddled round their wirelesses. It seemed that I might have just one or two days before Britain and Germany declared war.

  Walburga had tried again to come with me. She had said 'Why not?' I had said 'Because then it wouldn't work.' I suppose it will always be impossible to explain this.

  At the Swiss frontier the man who looked at my passport said 'You are sure you want to go into Germany at this time?' I said 'I have to find my father.' He stamped my passport.

  On the German side of the frontier the man said 'You are sure you want to come into Germany at this time?' I said 'I will only be here for one or two days.' He stamped my passport.

  The men in the customs house were huddled round their wirelesses. It was a scene like that in Morocco on the day when there was the first news of the war in Spain.

  Here there had been rumours that if Germany attacked Poland, and if France and Great Britain declared war on Germany in accordance with treaty obligations, then Germany might attack France through Switzerland in order to avoid the defences of the Maginot Line. But there was hardly any traffic on the roads: no troops, no cheering. It was as if everyone was turned inwards in groups round wirelesses, waiting for news of war perhaps to go round the universe and hit them on the backs of their heads.

  It was fifty miles from the frontier to the village above which Franz's family had their house. I had been there once before when Franz and I had gone wandering like birds in the forest. Then some time later I had met you, and we had been like those two people in that play wandering but also looking for each other in a town in which there was already war.

  Bruno had said 'Germans split themselves into Mephistopheles and Faust: the one is deep enough to know that good can come out of evil, the other is too shallow to take responsibility for this knowledge.'

  You had said 'I do not want to be like Faust.'

  I had said 'Faust needed someone to save him.'

  Franz had said 'I am like Faust!'

  I drove up into the mountains. I stopped in the village to ask someone the way. There was a voice on the wireless coming through half-closed shutters; it told of the extent of the German advance into Poland. I found that I did not want to talk to anyone to ask them the way.

  It was not difficult to find Franz's house; there was only one road up from the back of the village. I recognised the driveway. The house was a long single-storey building with plate-glass windows

  and a view over the top of the forest. There was a car parked at the side of the building which might have belonged to Franz or to some other member of his family. I left my car and went to the front of the house and looked in through one of the huge windows. There were signs of someone having recently been in the sitting-room: the cushions of the sofa had the imprint of a body; there were an ashtray and a glass and an empty bottle on the floor. There is something alarming about looking through a window into a room where humans have been recently but are no longer; what is the need for them to have been there at all.

  I rang the bell by the front door. Behind me was the enormous expanse of the forest. A large black dog appeared from round a far corner of the house. Mephistopheles first appeared in the guise of a black dog, did he not? This dog was one of those that appear to be so embarrassed at the presence of humans that they can hardly move: it smiled and squirmed and dragged the back half of its body along the ground. But it was also behaving as dogs do when they want you to follow them. It seemed that there was no one in the house. I thought - Dogs behave like this when something terrible has happened to their masters in a forest.

  I followed the dog past the far end of the house and into the trees. The forest was like that on the upper plateau of San Juan de la Pena at the place where the horse but not its rider had gone over the cliff. Or there was that mountain path in Switzerland where you and I had stopped in our walk - do we not often come to this place? -where there had been a rock, a butterfly, a cobweb, a tree. Or, indeed, before this there was the cave in a wood to which I had followed Franz and he had indeed seemed to be practising some self-destruction. The black dog snorted and slithered like a snake in front of me. Ahead, through the trees, in a small clearing which did seem to be, yes, on the edge of a cliff, I saw Franz sitting to one side of the path with his back against a tree. He was holding a shotgun between his knees; the barrel went up past his face. The black dog went up to him; it seemed to be laughing or crying. Franz gave no signs of seeing me. I went to him and said 'Hullo, Franz.' He still did not look at me. I said Tve come to ask you if you know about my father.' When he looked round it was as if he had experienced some sort of dying.

  I said 'I understand that you've been in touch with my father.'

  He said 'Who told you that?'

  I said 'Walburga.'

  'And you forwarded to me a letter from my father.'

  'That was a long time ago.'

  'Can you tell me what he is doing now? And I also, yes, wanted to talk to you.'

  I had squatted in front of Franz. He was wearing one of those hats that have a feather from the tail of a bird sticking up on the crown. His once handsome face was like something plucked and hung in a larder.

  He said 'He's said to be working for the Nazis.'

  I said 'Do you believe that?'

  'Why, is it important?'

  'Of course it is.'

  'Is there anything I could say, that you would necessarily believe?' />
  Franz seemed to yawn. He made stretching movements with his neck as if he were trying to loosen something from around it. I thought - He was thinking of shooting himself.

  I said 'What work are you doing now?'

  'I am doing nothing.'

  'Are you working for the Nazis?'

  'No.'

  I said 'You were doing the same sort of work as Max, my husband, is doing in physics.'

  Franz tried to laugh: or he sneezed; there was a sound like that of dice being rattled in his throat. He said 'Ah, about that, what can you believe!' Then he sat up and looked around the clearing. It was as if he were acting waking up and noticing where he was for the first time. He said 'But you shouldn't be here! The war's started.'

  I said 'I know.'

  'Then why have you come?'

  'I wanted to talk to you, I told you, as well as find out about my father.*

  Franz pressed his knuckles into his eyes. His face was so thin that it was as if his eyes might be pushed out. Then he said as if he were acting again or quoting ' - You cannot know the message without the code: how can you know the code without the message - '

  I said 'Don't you know the message?'

  He said 'That was a quotation from your father's book: he's had it published, did you know?'

  I said 'Which one?'

  Franz said 'Yes, I've been doing the same sort of physics as, I

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  suppose, your husband has.' Then - 'Your father's book is on the relationship between language and scientific enquiry.'

  I said 'Oh that one.'

  Franz said as if quoting again ' - Truth is what occurs: the telling of it can make it something different - '

  I said 'And they let him publish that?'

  'Who?'

  'The Nazis.'

  Franz seemed to laugh again with dice rattling in his throat. He said 'Oh in your father's system there is some autonomy for the will.' Then - 'And, of course, they are very stupid.'

  Franz put his gun down with the barrel pointing away from him. The black dog, which had been at his feet, wriggled out of the line of fire.

  I said 'What else did he have to do? I mean, to get this job.'

  Franz seemed to quote again ' - Truth is protected by masks: it can be sensed in the recognition of this - '