Hopeful Monsters (31 page)

But who had given the tip-off: Bruno might be suspected?

But it was Bruno who had nearly been caught! Or was he in fact just getting away -

And it was myself who had been seen talking to a Brownshirt in a doorway.

I thought - You mean, we all might like being beaten; being shat on-

- What else are we up to?

When I got back to the Rosa Luxemburg Block I found all the others had got back too. The raid had been a success - I mean the bomb had been dropped through the skylight of the brothel; it was likely that Nazis had been injured, even killed. I thought - So what would be the point if I told the story of a tip-off? Would it not just seem that I was out to cause trouble -

- It would be just to myself or Bruno that I would be causing pain?

The people in the Rosa Luxemburg Block were excited, yes: they were on the look-out through cracks in barricaded doors and windows: the enemy might come at any moment! I thought - I do not need to complicate their game.

Bruno's story was that the gang of Nazi boys had come running up where he was in the car; he had had to get away to avoid them.

My story was that I had managed to distract the attention of the Nazi boys while the raiding party was on the roof. I thought -Well, if I make myself into something of a heroine, is not this a point of the game?

Bruno stayed in the dormitory at the other end of the building: for a night or two he did not come to see me. So I went to him and found him lying on his back on his bed. I said 'We came through.' He said 'Yes.' I said 'One of the Nazi boys told me that they had had some sort of tip-off.'

Bruno said 'What Nazi boy?'

I said 'The one I told you about: who spoke to me in the doorway.'

Bruno said 'For God's sake, what were you two doing talking about a tip-off?'

I thought - You don't mean, for God's sake, that you think I might be a traitor?

Bruno lay on his back with his hands folded. I thought - But perhaps he knows (or is he acting?) that it was him, after all, that someone was out to get.

I left Bruno. I thought - That Nazi boy had such sad blue eyes! He had been quite like Franz. I wondered - Well why should I not see Franz; if he can give me information; and if everyone is thinking anyway that everyone else is a traitor?

One of the results of the raid was that it was decided that it was no longer safe for me to go about in my car. So the Block Central Committee took it over.

At Christmastime I telephoned Franz at his home. He was not there. I left a message saying that I would telephone again. I could not ask him to telephone me, because I was at the Rosa Luxemburg Block.

I thought - Traitors may be those who wish to break up old dead forms of alignment: people on the side of life want to break up old alignments: but there is a difference.

I felt cold and sad. Bruno continued to seem not to want to talk to me. I thought - Perhaps he is in touch with something with which he does not want to involve me.

When I telephoned Franz's home again I found that he had left a message to say that if I telephoned when he was out would I meet him at such a time on such a day for coffee at the Adlon Hotel. I thought - The Adlon Hotel! Shall I dress up as one of those so much higher-class tarts, O my father.

I thought - But it was Bruno who said 'I wonder what's happened to old Franz', as if there might be some virtue to be found in this.

For my meeting with Franz I wore a white shirt and the tartan kilt that I had got in England: I thought - This makes me look like the sort of girl who might be the friend of a Nazi.

On my way through the streets I felt again - But if I am a spy I want to understand how things work: I am an agent for understanding in hostile territory.

In the hallway of the Adlon Hotel there were a lot of foreigners; they seemed alert, watchful. I thought - They have come on the chance of seeing terrible events round some corner. There were a few Nazis standing about bright-eyed, glowing: I thought - It is as if they are about to be flogged.

There were none of the financiers with cigars and women with acorn hats that I remembered from the times when I had come here with my father. I wondered - Where are they now? Looking through cracks in the shutters of guardrooms; wielding burning cigarette-ends in brothels?

There seemed to be something sexual, yes, in the excitement of the foreigners and Nazis in the hotel, at the prospect perhaps of seeing something unnameable happening round a corner.

I could not at first see Franz. There was a boy with fair hair in a Brownshirt uniform whom I imagined for a moment might be Franz: or he might be the boy with whom there had been that air of excitement in that doorway -

Franz was half hidden behind a pillar by the staircase. He had been watching me. When I saw him, for a time he did not move. Then he came over and said i thought you might not recognise me.'

I said 'Why not?'

He said 'You might have thought I had changed.'

I thought - But I do think you have changed!

We went to a table and ordered coffee -and cakes and ices. Franz was paler and more thin. He wore a grey double-breasted suit in the lapel of which was a small swastika badge. When I looked at it he said 'I could have taken it off.'

I said 'I might have put my badge on.'

He said 'What is yours?'

I said 'Oh, the hammer and sickle. The Star of David.'

He said 'That one's different.'

I said 'Why?'

He looked away across the room. Then he said in a quiet voice as if quoting ' - But on a dark night can you tell the difference - '

Then he turned and looked into my eyes as if he was searching for something there. I thought - For whatever might be behind the closed door of a courtyard -

He said 'You remember what we used to say about power?'

I said 'What?'

He said That all ganging together, alignment, is self-destructive.'

I said 'I see.'

I was wondering how there might be described the atmosphere in the hallway of the hotel: it was as if people were on their toes, were on their way to becoming slightly elevated with tension. This was the sexuality of fakirs who lie on hot coals; who cut themselves with knives and there are no marks of wounds in the morning.

I thought - There have been rumours that Hitler might even now be being made Chancellor?

Franz had looked away around the room. When he talked he seemed to be talking to no one in particular; as if he did not mind whether or not, or by whom, his words might be picked up; as if it were likely that they would fall on stony ground.

He said 'You remember I used to say "I do not think it is worth living if the world goes on like this: there is either blindness or such disgust!" Well, why should the world go on? At least things will have very nearly to die, before they change.'

I thought - There are dark rings around Franz's eyes as there are around Bruno's; bits of exhaustion that have got stuck in a grating in a stream.

Then - But are there such rings round mine? Is this a badge that we share?

I said 'That is why you're a Nazi?'

Franz said 'Ever since the Enlightenment, men have thought that they could dominate the world: they've wanted to dominate it by reason. But no one has had the courage, yet, really to try. The Nazis want to try. Well, we'll see what will happen.'

I said 'But Nazis are nothing to do with reason!'

Franz said 'What do you think reason in action is? If things get in your way, remove them.'

I said 'But the way the Nazis are on is nothing to do with reason!'

Franz said 'But that is on a different level from technique. Of course, the way they are on might be to do with destruction.'

There was a group of Jewish businessmen coming down the

stairs. At least, I thought they were Jewish businessmen because they were like those men who, years ago, had been in the Adlon Hotel when I had come with my father. They wore black jackets and striped trousers: they carried document-cases under their arms. I thought - Or this is the way the mind works; we just call them Jewish businessmen; these images get stuck like flotsam against a grating.

Then - But these businessmen must know that this is the way the mind works: why do they choose to be seen like this? Where are the rings of knowing around their eyes!

Then Franz said 'Are you still in touch with that English friend of yours?'

I said 'Yes, I sometimes hear from him.'

Franz said 'Could you put me in touch with him? He is a physicist, isn't he? I'd very much like to ask him some questions.'

I said 'Yes, I'll give you his address.' I thought - But is that why you wanted to see me?

After a time Franz said 'You remember how Heidegger used to say that human life is only lived authentically when one is aware of the presence of death; that without this, there is only the impoverished rubbish of materialism. Well, what happens when you know that power is self-destructive? What, after all, might it be that is killed?'

The group of businessmen had gone to a table in the lounge. They were sorting out papers and replacing them in their document cases: they were not talking. They seemed both aware and unaware that in the lounge and hallway of the Adlon Hotel there had fallen a slight hush: that people were watching them. It was as if the lights in the auditorium of a theatre were going down: a curtain going up. I thought - They can hardly fail to know that they are on some sort of stage!

Franz said 'If the human race does not learn to look at the business of death it will not be a viable species: there will have been too much self-deception. And how else do we learn except through catastrophe? What is evolution?'

I said 'You mean, you think the Nazis might look at the business of what has to die? But they will be more than self-destructive!'

Franz said 'Do you know what work in physics your friend has been doing in England?'

Franz and I were sitting in the lounge of the Adlon Hotel. We

were eating our cakes and ices. I thought - But we ourselves are just off the stage: is it as if we are prompters?

Then - It was I myself who wanted to ask Franz about physics!

The group of businessmen who might be Jewish were standing round a formation of chairs and a table in the lounge: they were facing inwards; they seemed to be posing for an illustration. I thought - Oh they are still like that image I used to have years ago of the General Theory of Relativity: a group of people stand facing inwards and what each one sees comes round and hits him on the back of the head.

Franz said The head of my department was granted an interview with Hitler the other day. He wanted to make some protest about what seems to be the attitude of the Nazis towards the Jewish academics and especially scientists. Nazis have been saying that if they get power they will turn Jewish academics out of the universities and even out of the country. The head of my department wanted to tell Hitler what a disaster it would be if this policy was carried out; much of the research work in chemistry and physics is being done by Jews; the industrial and indeed even military strength of the country might depend on this work. And Hitler seemed to hear him. I mean he seemed to hear the words - this was the head of my department's description of him - but it was as if he heard something quite different in the way of meaning. It was as if Hitler was getting - the head of my department did not quite know how to describe this - some almost sensuous pleasure from the words; he went up and down on his toes; he seemed to be glowing. And then, when the head of my department had finished, Hitler came over to him and put a hand on his arm and said in a voice that was almost caressing - this is exactly what he said, it makes one's mind go numb - "There are greater things than victory: more terrible things than death."'

There was a group of Brownshirts by the porter's desk in the hallway of the hotel. They were watching the businessmen who might be Jewish in the lounge. The Brownshirts had their feet apart and their stomachs pressed forwards and their thumbs in their belts as if they were peeing. I thought - Oh God, all right, they are showing that they like being peed on.

Franz said 'What do you make of that?'

I said 'I see.'

Franz said The head of my department said that Hitler seemed to have no smell.'

I said 'Do you mean that the Nazis might bring about a change in the world, like devils are supposed to do?'

He said 'A change for the better?'

I said 'Is that what you can't ever say?' Then - 'I have sometimes thought that people like us, you and I, by being observers, might be carriers of what might come after.'

The businessmen were moving towards the door into the street. They had to move past the group of Brownshirts. The hush in the hall had slackened; now it intensified again. As the businessmen went past the Brownshirts one of the latter broke off from his group and followed; he crouched at the knees and let his arms hang down like an ape; he made a grunting noise; then he returned to his group and laughed. One of the businessmen who seemed to be Jewish stopped and turned. I thought - Oh but will not someone kindly go and piss on that Brownshirt if it comforts him!

Franz was looking at me. He said 'Carriers of what?'

I said 'You're not watching.'

Franz said 'I am.'

I said 'Of what we know but can't of course say or even quite see.'

The crowd in the hallway of the hotel had been both watching and trying to seem not to watch the scene going on between the Brownshirts and the businessmen. I thought - But what is the use, for God's sake, in such a situation, of what you can't say or even quite see?

Franz had been looking at the scene in the hallway of the hotel. He said 'You mean, all this is boring.'

I thought - Boring!

The businessman who had turned was still watching the group of Brownshirts. The Brownshirt who had mocked him had now turned and faced him - his thumbs in his belt and his stomach pushed forwards. I thought - But do you not want it to die, this that is boring!

Franz stood up and went over to the Brownshirt and clicked his heels and bowed; then he took out of his pocket a card which he held out to the Brownshirt. After a time, the Brownshirt took it. He smiled somewhat sheepishly. Then Franz went to the door of the hotel into the street and held it open for the group of Jewish businessmen. He bowed to them slightly. The Brownshirts watched him.