Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

At weekends Bruno and Trixie and I would go out to the woods and lakes on the outskirts of Berlin; we would hire a boat and row out on the lakes; we would watch the courting couples who lay under the trees. One of the conventions of our relationship seemed to be that neither Trixie nor I became sexually involved with Bruno: we did not question this: I thought — It just seems to be necessary if our three-sided relationship is to continue.

Trixie said 'I don't believe you know where to take us.'

Bruno said 'It costs money.'

Trixie said 'Then how do we make money?'

Bruno said 'Trixie, Trixie, you want me to tell you how to make money!'

I thought — But none of us are really meaning what we are saying.

Near one of the lakes we visited on the western outskirts of Berlin, the Wannsee, was the grave of the writer Heinrich von Kleist who had shot himself at this spot together with his girlfriend

in 1811. A fence had been put up round a tombstone which was inscribed with Kleist's name and the dates of his birth and death and then the words 4 He lived, sang and suffered in hard and sorrowful times: he sought death on this spot and found immortality/

We were all three passionate admirers of Kleist. We would stand and stare at his grave; we did not know what more to do about it.

I said 'Why did he shoot himself!'

Bruno said 'Because he thought he could see only what was in his own head, and no one understood what he was saying.'

Trixie said 'Why did he shoot his girlfriend?'

Bruno said 'Because she had cancer.'

I thought — You mean, what are the connections between one thing and another?

Trixie and I went on pressing Bruno to take us to see the nightlife of Berlin. He was a year older than us; he was used to going to bars and cafes on his own. Trixie said 'But what exactly do you have to do there?'

Bruno said 'Not much.'

I said 'I mean, what do you let men do to you?'

He said 'Nellie, you are not supposed to know about such things!'

This was a time when people called me Nellie. I have been known at different times as Eleanor, Helena, Elena, Nell, Nellie.

Then Bruno said 'But it is probably true, yes, that you could make money and still be virgins.'

Trixie said 'How?'

Bruno said 'Oh for God's sake, all right, do I have to show you?'

It was arranged that Trixie would tell her parents that she was staying with me for a night and I would tell my father that I was staying with Trixie for a night; Bruno apparently did not have to say anything to his parents. I tried to say what I had to say to my father in such a way that he would both believe and not believe me. He said 'But you will be all right?'

I said'Yes, I'll be all right.'

I thought — This saying of things without saying them — this is the sort of thing we have often talked about, isn't it?

Trixie and Bruno and I met in a cafe. Trixie was wearing high-heeled shoes and stockings and a short skirt. I was wearing flat shoes and socks and a skirt like a kilt. Bruno was wearing a pale grey suit with a waistcoat. He said 'Oh my God, you two, may you suffer for the guilt of your innocent friend!'

Trixie said 'But you keep on telling us nothing will happen.'

Bruno said 'Promise me, nothing will happen!'

I said 'Bruno, stop acting.'

Bruno 'You want me to stop acting? You want nothing to happen even before it has begun?'

Bruno began to explain what it was we had to do. Every now and then he broke off and rolled his eyes and put his head in his hands. I thought — You mean you have to act in order to make things both happen and not happen?

He said 'It's not really very difficult. People are lonely. One of the ways they think they can stop being lonely is by talking to people and giving them money.'

Trixie said 'They just give us money?'

Bruno said 'You won't believe this.'

I said 'But what do we have to do?'

Bruno said 'I keep telling you, there's nothing you have to do. You just sit and be nice for a time and talk, and then people give you their money.'

Trixie said 'Who?'

Bruno said 'English or Americans. Don't sit with German boys, or Frenchmen; they won't give you money.'

Trixie said 'And what do they do when you've got the money?'

Bruno said 'I've told you you won't believe this. You tell them you have to go home. They're quite relieved at this.'

I said 'Is this true?'

Bruno said 'Nellie, you're not allowed a direct question!'

Bruno and Trixie and I got a bus to a part of the town where I had not been before; it was somewhere off the road on the way to my mother's soup-kitchen. There was a traffic jam with bright lights beyond it. I thought — People are queuing up here for some sort of food from a kitchen.

Trixie went on 'We say we want money for — what? — a hotel room or something?'

Bruno said 'Look, let's call this off, shall we?'

I said 'We say we have to go and book a hotel room and then we bugger off somewhere quite different with the money.'

Bruno shouted 'Let me out of here!' He began to stagger along the central aisle of the bus.

I thought — But, of course, this is just the place where we should be getting off the bus anyway.

In the streets there were women of the kind I had seen here and

there in other parts of the town — tall, top-heavy women like square-rigged sailing-ships in a high wind. Some were being pulled along by small dogs; some carried canes or even whips. One called out to Bruno as we went past 'Don't sit down, ducky, or you'll cut your arse on eggshells!' Bruno called back 'It would take more than eggshells to make a dent on yours!'

Trixie said 'How did you learn that?'

Bruno said 'Now just one look and then we'll go home.'

I said 'But we can't go home.'

Bruno said 'Why not?'

I said 'Because we have told our parents we are staying out for the night.'

Bruno said 'All right, we'll get a hotel room. If I tell you the name of a hotel, will you remember it if we get separated?'

Trixie said 'We're getting the money for a hotel room anyway.'

I said 'But it'll be a different hotel.'

Trixie said 'I don't see why if we're going to be on our own anyway.'

Bruno said 'Will you two be quiet?'

The place we were heading for was a cafe-theatre called the Resi. Here the audience or clientele sat in a semi-circle in tiers in small wooden compartments like stalls: in each compartment there was a bench and a table and a telephone, and the receiving and delivering end of a network of pipes through which, by means of a vacuum pump, messages could be passed in small cylinders from one compartment to another. On the stage there were displays of spurting and cascading water; on these were shone coloured lights to an accompaniment of music. The whole set-up I suppose was controlled by one of those mechanisms like that of a steam organ — the unwinding of a giant roll like lavatory paper. The effect was indeed like being in the presence of some giant's insides: on the stage water sprayed and splashed and squirted; at one's table one waited for little cylinders to pop in and out of holes; all this was supposed to be to do with the satisfying of desire; even love.

Trixie and Bruno and I sat at our table and hoped for a message to pop out from our particular hole. I said 'Or shall we shove a message in?' Trixie said 'Which hole is which?' Bruno said 'At your age, darling, and you still don't know.' After a time Trixie said 'All this splashing, it makes me want to pee.' Bruno said 'Trixie, you'll make a fortune at this game.'

I said 'I think it's like some sort of practice about how to stay alive.'

Bruno said 'Nellie, if you were Jael, wife of Heber the Kenite, and you were about to bang a tent-peg through the temples of Sisera the Captain of the Canaanites, you would say that it was all some practice about how to stay alive.'