Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

My father said 'I've been telling Vavilov that you want to give up the study of things that cannot be said to exist by using methods that are admitted not to refer to what they talk about, and return to the land of the living.'

I said 'Kapitsa says that biology is to do with love and physics is to do with power.'

Vavilov said 'Kapitsa said that?'

My father said 'You've met Kapitsa?'

I thought — But of course real conspirators would not look like conspirators.

I said to Vavilov 'I wondered if you might be able to help me get post-graduate work in Russia.'

Vavilov said 'I have told your father that I might be able to get you a place in the Academy of Agricultural Sciences at Odessa.'

I thought — Vavilov, if he is kind to me, might not be a survivor?

My father said 'Vavilov has been telling me of the weird and

wonderful work that is being done in Odessa. There is a man there who claims to make two ears of wheat grow where only one grew before: who thinks he can pass on by inheritance this acquired characteristic.'

Vavilov said The results are still under investigation.' He looked anxious.

My father said 'How long will it be before he is exposed?'

I thought — But my father does not realise that it is Vavilov who might be exposed.

I said 'My father and I have never quite agreed about what might be called the passing-on of acquired characteristics: perhaps that is because we are father and son.'

My father looked put out. I thought — But what is the point of being a biologist if one does not see that it may be jokes that help one to survive.

My father said 'Max once tried to repeat one of Kammerer's experiments with salamanders.'

Vavilov said 'Ah, and what did you find?'

I said 'I wondered in how large an area one might look for what one might find: perhaps the experiment was to do with love.'

Neither Vavilov nor my father seemed to see the point of this. I thought — Ah, but perhaps I am learning to be a trickster.

I got my degree in the summer of 1933: there was a delay before I could get a place at Odessa. During the year I lingered on in Cambridge I tried to find out what I could about what was going on in Russia. There had been Stalin's five-year plan for industrialisation which had begun in 1929; this was said to have been completed in 1932. Steel output was up by 300 %; electrification by 400 % — but what did these figures mean? Why should they refer to anything? Why should they not just be figures worked out by men in white coats sitting in front of lots of paper — not even screens and dials. There were, yes, the enormous dams visited by tourists; the rivers diverted; the festoons of wires stretching across the countryside. But where did the wires go: perhaps they ran out into a desert.

There were the stories of starvation and mass murder, but also the attempts at justification: the demand for food had increased greatly as a result of the growth of the population of the towns; it was this that had led necessarily to the enforced collectivisation of agriculture; it was when peasants had hoarded their produce that there had been some shootings; of course there had had to be some break-up of traditional ways of life. But then also there were the

official stories of triumphant peasants riding across vast plains on tractors and waving their caps in the air; workers with a new strain of hope where none had been before. I thought — But why should not all these sets of stories be true? Just as, if one looks at light in one way it can be said to be waves; in another, particles -

— And it is not true, anyway, that old ground has to be broken up — and so on.

My mother was away through much of that summer and autumn; she was taking a further step in her psychoanalytical training in America. She did not spend much time with my father now. I thought — With everything you learn, you also learn to be alone -

— What work are you doing in Zurich now, my brave dark German girl?

When my mother came back from America she seemed older and more calm. She moved about the house with her hands folded in front of her. I thought — She has stopped drinking? She has come to terms with some young lover? Then — She has come to terms with me?

She had a way of appearing to think before she spoke and then saying something that seemed designed to keep one slightly under her spell. She said 'How odd that you don't want to be with your girlfriend in Zurich! Are you sure you're not running away by staying at home?'

I said 'I'm trying to get to Russia!'

She said 'But not succeeding!'

I thought — But that is grotesque! Then — Anyway, you don't seem to be getting very far in setting yourself up as an analyst.

I said 'Aren't you supposed to be jealous of my girlfriend in Zurich?'

My mother said 'How can I be if you are not with her?'

I thought — Well, that's quite clever.

I did nothing much of importance in Cambridge during this year. I learned some Russian: I spent time working in the laboratory under Kapitsa; we were examining the properties of liquid helium. But I had lost much of my interest in physics temporarily. I thought — What indeed if they are connected to nothing, these switches and dials?

I once said to Kapitsa 'But why does no one seem to be interested in finding out more about this power at the centre of the atom — what might be a practical use?'

Kapitsa said 'People only find, you know, what they want to find.'

'People don't want power?'

'Oh, they want power they can handle!'

I thought — But is it not a power which they cannot handle that would be to do with change?

I said 'H. G. Wells wrote a story years ago about the making of an atomic bomb. This had results that were so hideous that it eventually brought peace to the world.'

Kapitsa said 'Can you give me the reference of this story?'

Often I had thought about going to Zurich. But I had to work, and you had to work; and I remembered what you had said about our three days. You had said 'I cannot do more than this now: I am still the German child of my father and my mother: I have to stay here and wait and see.' And I had thought — I must not press things: they will come round again. If I press, nothing either new or old may grow.

Also, I suppose, I was still frightened — not of having too little but (as you would say) of taking on too much.

Also from time to time I was carrying on with the girl called Suzy. (There are not many things I have not wanted to tell you concerning these years!)

During that winter I did write to you to say that I was thinking of coming out to Zurich. Then before I posted it I had a letter from you-

I cannot stay in this place. It is only just over the border from Freiburg, Heidelberg. I did cross the border secretly one night; my father sent me back. He said I would be arrested: I am known as one of a gang responsible for killing Nazis. And I suppose I would endanger my father if I went back. He says my mother is in some prison-camp near Munich. But if I cannot go home I do not want to stay here. I do not like these people. They are quite right, perhaps, to say we have brought the Nazis on ourselves.

I have been offered work with a group of anthropologists who are going to the interior of West Africa: I have agreed to go with them; I have to sign on for two years. They are leaving next week.

Oh Max, I am so sorry, but what can I do? I have such hatred. I cannot settle here. I cannot come to England as I have not the proper papers.

I will probably be gone by the time you get this letter. You will not save me this time: I have so longed for you to come here! But you have been right not to come. I have felt so destructive, I would have destroyed what we have had together. My only pleasure about Europe has become the prospect of people killing each other. I sometimes feel this about my mother. I cannot stay here thinking things like this.