Hopeful Monsters (18 page)

Franz said 'What do we know?'

I said 'Oh, nothing.'

Franz said 'In art. In poetry.'

I said 'We could live as if we were this - '

Bruno said 'Help! Minna!'

So that night Minna slept with Bruno and I lay with Franz: Franz remained stretched on his back with his hands folded across his

chest; he was like the effigy of a dead crusader. Sometime in the night I awoke and there was a new moon with its single star beside it; Minna and Bruno were making love; they were like something with too short arms and legs trying to crawl across the floor of the forest.

Franz did not seem to be sleeping. I wondered if he still sometimes thought of killing himself. I thought - Things do go round and round: it is by your knowing this that you sometimes get out of the forest.

In the morning we went on in our small procession with Franz in front and myself following and Bruno and Minna behind. Bruno prodded and tickled Minna: Minna pretended not to like it and liked it. I wondered - Perhaps after all it is sad that I am not jealous?

There were clouds in the sky and sometimes gaps in the clouds where the sun shone through. I thought - Perhaps there are gods reclining on those clouds and they catch a glimpse of us every now and then and wonder if we are the sort of things that they would like to put into a painting.

Occasionally we came across other groups of Wandervogel\ we greeted each other with cries and waves; we could hear them singing their songs before and after we could see them jn the forest.

Once or twice at night round the fire we did have discussions in which words did seem to struggle to express directly what they might be meaning.

Franz told us of a conference of physicists there had been in Brussels a year ago in which questions had been raised concerning recent changes in our understanding of what could be known, or described, about the smallest particles of so-called 'matter* - about what went on inside an atom. Such questions were: Did matter in fact consist of particles or waves; were there laws to explain all occurrences or did certain phenomena happen by chance; if so, what was meant by 'chance'; did an observer inevitably influence that which he observed; was it really impossible, because of this effect of observation, to tell at the same time a particle's exact velocity and location? Each day, Franz said, Einstein would appear with the plan for an experiment which would prove the 'objective' view -which would demonstrate an occurrence which could be described apart from the observer's unavoidable manipulation. Then each evening Bohr and Heisenberg - the two other most notable physicists of the day - would retire with the outline of Einstein's experiment and by morning they would have shown that, on the

contrary, the outcome of the experiment would indeed be affected by the fact of observation: it was one's choice of observation that determined, for instance, whether what one was observing was a particle or a wave. Reality remained - this was their phrase - 'a function of the experimental condition'. And all this could be demonstrated by means of the theories that Einstein himself had proposed years ago and which had since been so often vindicated. It was as a result of all this that Einstein, defeated in words but not in his present conviction, had made his famous remark - 'God does not play dice.' Franz told this story of Einstein and Bohr as if it were of some epic encounter like that between Hector and Achilles: even between good and evil. But it was not clear (of course!) just what was good and what was evil.

Minna said 'Why on earth should not God play dice?'

Bruno said Then why call him God, darling.'

Franz said 'You think you can tell God what he can and cannot do?'

Bruno said 'For me, I can tell God what he cannot logically do.'

Franz said Then for me he is not God.'

After a time Minna would turn away from these conversations and embark on her strange observances to the sun or moon. I would think - She imagines by her observances that she is influencing the sun and moon?

Then - If God plays dice, perhaps I can tonight sleep with Bruno.

Franz said to Bruno 'But you, you are someone who thinks that you can manipulate things as if you were a god.'

Bruno said 'Do you think I could manipulate things if I did not believe that there was a God?'

I said to Bruno 'Do you believe in God?'

Bruno said 'Oh Nellie, Nellie, there are very good reasons why one cannot answer direct questions about God!'

Minna said 'Pray then.'

Franz said To me, if God is not dead, there is no reason why he should not kill himself.'

I thought - But what might they be up to, the sun and moon, round some corner?

On about the third day of our walk we came across a group of Nazi boys: we could tell they were Nazis before we saw them because they were singing their sad song - the one about blood and doom and sacrifice and death. When we did see them they were walking in a line with their thumbs behind the buckles of their belts;

they turned to us all at the same time. I thought - They are not like birds, they are like fishes: they have managed to get back from dry land into the sea. They did their salute and called 'Heil Hitler!' I thought - There is the immediate impression that one is about to be attacked. When they saw Minna they became silent: Minna was walking without her blouse. I thought - They will not know whether to worship her or to destroy her: with luck, in their indecision, she might as a siren lure them to their doom.

I had not come across Nazis much at this time. Hitler's first attempt to get power in 1923 in Munich had failed: he had gone to jail. Afterwards not much was heard of him till the first Nazi Party rally at Nuremberg in 1927. Then I had said to my father 'But what is it that makes them different from other right-wing groups?'

My father had said 'They are the only political party who are honest about what they want.'

I had said 'What do they want?'

He had said 'To kill everyone who is not like them.'

I had said 'But what are they like?'

He had said 'They are like people who want to kill everyone who is not like them.'

I had said 'But then surely other people will kill them first.'

My father had said 'No, because they are politicians and no one believes them.'

That evening on the mountains we could hear the group of Nazis at their camp some distance away. They were playing some recording of a speech on a gramophone. There was a tiny cracked voice of someone shouting as if he were that man trapped in a cage.

Bruno said to Franz 'But if there is no God, then why should you not just bow to the will of the strongest man?'

Franz said 'That is no reason for believing in a god.'

Bruno said 'I mean, why are you not a Nazi?'

Franz said 'Because on the whole I would rather be dead.'

Bruno said 'There is nothing in wanting to be dead that would stop you being a Nazi.'

I thought - But Franz, why do you go on saying you want to be dead? It is not true! What is the point of this journey?

I watched Minna as she stirred a cooking-pot over the fire. She was like a priestess getting in touch with spirits. I thought - Perhaps those days were the best when I was in love with Trixie: then we were innocents in some Garden of Eden.

I said to Minna 'Can I sleep with Bruno tonight?'

She said 'If you like.'

I said 'I think Franz is sad.'

She said 'I don't think Franz is missing me.'

I said 'What is it then?'

Minna said 'Oh I think that Franz perhaps sees further than any of us really.'

I said 'But we were so happy! I mean, that time of the duel.'

Minna said 'I suppose he sees that we can't go on being happy.'

I wondered - You mean, he might become a Nazi?

When I told Franz that I wanted to sleep with Bruno that night he smiled and said 'You are a witch!'

Bruno raised his arm in the Nazi salute and said 'Gracious lady!'

I thought - Oh we are all going round and round in the riddle, the sieve.

When Bruno made love there was the impression of something quite impersonal happening; an operation being performed on some animal. The animal suffered with quiet eyes. I remember turning my head to the fire: I thought - I am looking for someone to hold my head; some mistress, or master.

Minna and Franz seemed to be lying together side by side like effigies of the dead crusader and his wife.

I thought - Oh I am waiting, yes, for some chance of something new to come in from outside.

The castle we were heading for where there was to be the Festival of Students and of Youth was called the Schloss Rabe: it was a medieval building mostly in ruins on a crag above a lake. There were said to be students coming here from all over Europe. There were to be performances of music and drama. Political speeches were to be taboo - speeches were to do with the noises people made in their cooking-pots on the plains. A highlight of the festival was to be a performance of Goethe's Faust - not only the often-performed Part I, but scenes from the almost-impossible-to-perform Part II, in which the story of Faust's pact with the Devil moves from a personal to a universal and even mystical level. The parts of Faust and Mephistopheles were to be played by two of the leading actors of the day - Kreuz and Liebermann - the former a non-Jew and the latter a Jew. It was rumoured that some particular point was going to be made about this; they were going to do some exchange of roles; the question would be put - Who was the manipulator and who was the victim? At previous performances of this production there had been angry demonstrations and even small

riots outside the theatre. Politics had broken in; was it possible that there should be such taboos?

I thought - But is not the question old-fashioned, who are the manipulators and who are the victims?

The forest became more crowded as groups converged on the castle; we called out to each other like flocks of birds - for greeting or for warning. I thought - We are trying to ensure our own space, our identity: but still this does not seem to be quite what is happening. Perhaps we are more like those little bits of fungus called slime-mould that crawl together in the forest: they form a worm; this erects itself into a sort of penis; then it explodes, and little bits and pieces are scattered again in the forest.

There was one group we came across - our routes intertwining as if through a maze - which was a group of five or six boys, two of whom spoke together sometimes in English. I thought - Would it be easier to talk about the way we see and talk about things if we had another language with which to do this?

Schloss Rabe was on its crag over the lake; the village was below; there were thousands of students camping on the hills above. They were, yes, like an assembly come together for some millenium. I thought - But surely there would never be room for everybody in an ark.

We climbed amongst the groups that were like refugees or besiegers; we found a place for our camp on a piece of ground on the level but with thick undergrowth; we set about clearing it. We found that the group with the two English-speaking boys was clearing a space to one side of us. And slightly below us were the group of Nazi boys. I thought - So this is the way in which God's dice have come to rest in the forest.

Minna said to me 'For God's sake, let's you and I sleep together tonight!'

I thought - But I don't want to go back; I want to go forward.

It was in the morning when we set up our camp: the performance of Faust Part I was to be in the afternoon. Then there was to be an interval in which there would be time for supper: the scenes from Part II were to be done in the evening.

You remember the story of Faust? (Who am I talking to: you? or you?) Faust, usually taken to be representative of aspiring Western man, makes a pact with Mephistopheles, the Devil, whereby Mephistopheles will provide him with ever more extravagant experiences until such a time as he, Faust, may feel he has his heart's

desire and so will call 'Stop!' And then Mephistopheles can claim Faust's soul for his own. Faust does not worry much about the chances of his calling 'Stop!' Surely there will always be more to desire, more to experience, more to learn. And anyway - if he does reach some point which he feels is perfect, then what will it matter if the Devil does claim his soul! At the back of all this is the idea that God himself encourages the pact; it is by means of the dreams that the Devil dangles in front of humans, and in response to the disasters that come upon humans as they follow these dreams, that humans are roused out of torpor and carry out God's plans for evolution. And if in the process Faust loses his soul - well, it is always up to God, is it not, to organise some deathbed salvation and so cheat the Devil.

Bruno said 'I have told you, Faust is profoundly immoral.'

Minna said 'Why should God be moral?'

Franz said 'Do you know what you are saying?'

I thought - Yes, I want to know what I am saying.

In the enormous courtyard of the castle a stage had been set up: it backed on to a part of the building that was still in repair: there were doorways and windows with balconies in the facade above the stage. The courtyard was crowded: the audience was to sit on the grass of a central lawn. There were one or two fraternities identifiable by the ribbons in their caps or by armbands; but for the most part people in the audience seemed to have gathered in the hope of discovering a larger identity.

In the afternoon Kreuz was to play Faust and Liebermann Mephistopheles. I suppose there have been other performances in which Faust has been portrayed as a naive and even neurotic upward-striving Aryan and Mephistopheles as a crafty and manipulative Jew, the latter being the agent of Faust's perdition but also in the end - abracadabra! - of his salvation. In this production Kreuz presented himself obviously as some prototype of a Nazi: he wore leather boots and a brown tunic belted at the waist; he had a black-and-red-and-white armband. He seemed an unpleasantly childlike man; a disaffected fraternity member. He strutted up and down; he boasted and complained. Then when he seemed to see ghosts he crouched in a corner like a rat: he looked around as if for someone's arms to run to. When Liebermann as Mephistopheles appeared, he was a huge man in a long black cloak and a wide-brimmed hat: he had his hair in ringlets. Then when he opened his cloak for Faust to