Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

I ran after Franz when he appeared in the road. He seemed to be heading for the path into the mountains.

I said 'Hey, can I borrow your pistol?'

He said 'Why?'

I said 'I want to shoot some bats.'

He said 'Do you want to save just me, or half the human race?'

I said 'I think about a third would be enough, don't you?'

He said 'Yes, I think a third would be about the right number.'

We walked up the path into the mountains. He walked slightly ahead of me. I thought — I am acting the part of someone trotting along behind him.

He said 'But have you heard the news, the human iace doesn't want to be saved.'

I said 'How can they know they don't want to be, until they have been?'

He stopped somewhere short of the turning to the cave. He sat on an outcrop of rock. He held his hands underneath him.

He said 'Human beings are not viable. They make sense on their own, yet they can't be on their own, they have to be in relationship to others. I am grateful to you for having been good to me. Yet it's this need to be in relationship that is destroying them.'

I said 'How have I been good to you?'

He said 'By not talking about what you have seen.'

I said 'But if you know all this — '

He said 'There you go again!'

I thought — I suppose I feel stupid with Franz because I am a bit in love with him.

I said 'If I'm good to you it's because I want to be. But there's no special virtue in loyalty. Most of the crimes of the world seem to be committed in the name of loyalty — '

He said 'Oh very true.'

I said 'So why do you do it?'

'Do what?'

'Go along with these ridiculous fraternities.'

'Where else would I go?'

I wanted to say — Here.

He said 'Unfortunately one carries whatever one is in one's head.'

I was going to say yet again — But once you know this -

He laughed and said 'Get it out, get it out.' Then — 'I know what you were going to say!'

I said 'What?'

He said 'Nellie, it will do for your epitaph.'

I thought — Well that's all right, isn't it?

That evening in the beer-cellar there was talk about how Franz had walked out of the Mensur before he had received his own wound: this was of course strongly criticised. But there were one or two of The Corps who argued that Franz might have been justified in that he had been wrongly paired in the first place; and this was why he had walked out.

I have mentioned the caste system that affected the relationship between members of fraternities: this was especially relevant to the matter of fighting duels. Challenges could only be made or received by members of fraternities one above or one below each other in caste. And at the lower end of this caste system were the Jewish fraternities. There were two main sorts of Jewish fraternities — the pro-Zionist and the pan-German. Both of these sang and strutted

about and drank themselves unconscious at night in the style of the others; but it was the custom amongst members of most non-Jewish fraternities that they should not fight duels with members of Jewish fraternities. If a challenge by one of the latter was made, it was turned down. It seemed to me that this was due not only to ingrained anti-Semitism but to the fact that Jews, by their nature and their situation, would be likely to have trained so well that they would be better as fighters than most non-Jews — Jews being apt to introduce a touch of reality into such ridiculous games.

Now, however, it was being suggested that the reason why Franz had not waited to let himself be cut about the face by the boy he had been paired with was because he had suspected that this boy might be a Jew. He wasn't. But it was being suggested that Franz might have suspected that he was, and so might have been justified in walking out.

I said to Minna 'But all this is typical of the pathetic games of Christians. It is the explanation that Franz would hate more than any other!'

Minna said 'I would like to fight a duel with the people who say this, on behalf of Franz.'

I said 'Ah Minna, you would be good at fighting duels!'

Minna said 'I could take on most of those boys with one hand behind my back!'

I thought I might say — But Minna, you would anyway have one hand behind your back!

Minna said 'Hoop! Hoopla!' She made slashing movements as if at a boy's loins.

In the matter of duelling there was one caste of persons of course far lower in the pecking order than Jews, and this was women. It was inconceivable that a boy could think of fighting a duel with a woman. I thought — Indeed, they might be frightened of confronting some reality.

I said 'But Minna, you would want to win!'

She said 'Of course I would want to win!'

I said 'But the point of duelling, amongst boys, seems to be to get exquisitely beaten.'

Minna said 'Then I would exquisitely beat them!'

That evening in the beer-cellar when members of The Corps came in they did not, as usual, pay much attention to Franz; but it was now as if they were almost consciously leaving a small space around him. I thought — He has broken, yes, a taboo, by refusing

to become a ludicrous sacrificial victim. It had been rumoured that members of a Jewish fraternity were going to come to the beer-cellar that night: that they had been told that Franz, by walking out of the Mensur, might have insulted someone he had supposed to be a Jew; so they felt themselves insulted even though this person was not a Jew. So it seemed that there might even be a serious fight that night: for if it was felt by The Corps that in some way Franz had disgraced it — which he would not have done if his opponent had in fact been a Jew — then members of The Corps, to redeem themselves, might feel that in this situation they had to accept a challenge even by a Jew.

I said to Minna 'But they are all mad! It would be better if they were all put in a sack, and thrown into the river.'

Minna said 'But if one of the Jewish fraternity challenges one of The Corps to a duel tonight, and if the member of The Corps who would have turned it down on account of the challenger being a Jew, cannot now because of Franz's having walked out of the Mensur, cannot we then perhaps challenge one of the Jewish fraternity to a duel, and they will not be able to turn us down on account of our being women.'

I said 'What?' Then — 'Minna you are mad too! You should have been a boy.'

Minna said 'I know I should have been a boy.' She hugged me.

When the Jewish fraternity came into the beer-cellar that night (they were called The Maccabees) they sat at one table and The Corps sat at theirs and they all sang sad songs; Franz leaned back with his cap on the back of his head and his pipe in front of him as if he were on a tightrope. Then The Corps sang patriotic German songs and The Maccabees sang patriotic Zionist songs, and everyone was drinking more and more beer. So The Corps, as if in response to the Zionist songs, started on one of the obscene songs that they usually did not sing until later in the evening when women were no longer present: this song was called 'The Innkeeper's Daughter' and had innumerable verses in which the sexual exploits of the daughter became ever more bizarre: each member of The Corps round the table was supposed to sing a verse which would outdo the last one in obscenity. This would usually go on until the participants passed out — as indeed would have been likely to happen to anyone trying to keep up with the innkeeper's daughter.

I said 'But Minna, we want to be different from these boys.'

Minna said 'We are different from these boys.'

I said Then we don't want to take all this seriously.'

Minna said 'It is the boys who do not take this seriously!' She made slashing movements with her arm.