Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

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!