Hopeful Monsters (19 page)

run to and be enfolded - Faust scuttling across the floor - Lieber-mann was wearing underneath his cloak a bulging tunic and a short skirt and stockings, so that he seemed almost to be a parody of a prostitute on the streets of Berlin. I thought - Well, yes, this is clever: one does not have to say what it means! But then when Faust and Mephistopheles were off on their journey to the seduction of the innocent Gretchen - which Faust had stipulated as a first step to his heart's desire - it did not seem that there was much that the actors could do in the way of suggesting complex patterns. I thought - Oh well, this is the same old stuff - the stuff that audiences love and that poets love to give them - the ordinary boring stuff about murder and self-mutilation and degradation and then death.

Gretchen is seduced; abandoned: oh what an occasion for beautiful performances! She finds herself pregnant; she goes mad and kills her child. In the condemned cell she is visited by her old lover, Faust. How purging, how satisfying it is, to watch her sweet madness: to weep with his, Faust's, so noble, so searing remorse! The audience was being caressed, pelted; it was being seduced or assaulted. I thought - So what does it matter who is the Nazi and who is the Jew? What we are witnessing is a demonstration of a universal curse; an indiscriminate love of miserableness.

When Gretchen had been redeemed by the voice of God on high and the audience stood and clapped, I put my head in my hands. I thought - Oh do not let us imagine that we are gods, if gods get pleasure from watching this sort of thing from on high! Then -Franz is right: it is better if we are involved in some universal catastrophe.

But Franz was standing up and clapping with the rest.

I thought - This stuff is imprisoned in our heads: we are ourselves the cage; we cannot get out.

On the way back to our camp, Franz and Bruno discussed the significance of Faust being played as a Nazi and Mephistopheles as a Jew: yes, indeed, good could come out of evil: had not Jews always known this? In the evening performance, it had been announced, the roles would be reversed: so that in the scenes from Part II, I wondered, might it be seen that on a higher and more mystical level it was the wicked but ultimately self-defeated Nazis who were goading the holy Jews on to ever more purified visions of their proper relationship to God - after all, this had always been God's purpose for them, no? Bruno and Franz were discussing

something like this as we walked up the hill. Minna and I did not talk much. I was trying to remember - In Part II it is the mystical vision of Helen of Troy that is conjured up for Faust in place of the mundane Gretchen: but even with Helen he does not call 'Stop!' What is it that in the end makes him (or is it only almost makes him?) call 'Stop!' to the whole damn rubbish that he loves to keep imprisoned in his head?

I thought - Helena, Eleanor: I would want to get it out; I would want you to call 'Stop!'

Back in our camp, Franz collected firewood and Bruno made the fire and Minna and I prepared food we had got earlier in the village. In the camp next door the two boys who spoke English seemed to have had a quarrel. The younger one, who was like a faun, had walked away and had come and sat with his back against a tree between his camp and ours. I thought - There is a painting like this: a girl is lying on the ground; there is a faun at her head: I have the impression that I should be part of this painting.

The other boy, who was like a large white dog, came and knelt by the boy who was like a faun. He said in English but with a German accent 'You are angry with me because of what I told you about your mother.'

The boy who had his back against the tree said 'I don't care a damn about you and my mother. What I am bored with is Faust. In fact I think you and my mother are quite like Faust.' Then he turned and looked at me.

I thought - Hullo, it is as if you remember me?

The boy said 'Oedipus is boring, Faust is boring, Mephistopheles is boring. And Nazis and Jews are boring. If we think them evil, we only encourage them. Nothing is going to change unless we think such things are boring.'

The boy who was like a dog said 'Come and have supper.'

The boy who was looking in my direction said 'Seen any good child-murders lately?'

The other boy said 'Be quiet, people will hear you.'

The boy who was looking at me said 'That is why I am speaking in English, lest people might understand and be saved.'

I thought I might say - I understand you.

The boy who was kneeling said 'You asked me to talk about your mother.'

The boy who was like a faun said 'What would be interesting would be a play about the people who are sitting and watching and

loving that sort of stuff. Then at the end they could go off, yes, happy, and blow themselves up.'

I thought I might say - But it would still be boring to have to watch them blowing themselves up.

Then you said to me 'Do you understand English?'

I said'Yes.'

After a time the boy who was like a dog stood up and went back to his /ire.

You were sitting with your back against that tree. There were millions of pine-needles on the ground like forks in pathways. I thought - We can pick them up; move them this way or that. After a time you looked away.

I said 'But it would still be boring to have to watch them blowing themselves up.'

You said'Yes.'

I said 'So what would you do?'

You said 'Something quite different, I suppose.'

You were staring in front of you as if you were expecting to be shot with your back against the tree.

I said 'What?'

You said 'I've thought it would be something to do with just what turns up.'

I said 'I've thought it would be to do with what you're talking about and what is happening, happening at the same time.'

You said 'But there would have to be some sort of code.'

I said 'Why?'

You said 'Because otherwise it would go away.'

I said 'But if you knew the code, you would know the message.'

You said 'We should know the message. We don't have a code.'

People from our two camps were calling us to come to supper. They were saying that there were only a few minutes before we would have to leave for the performance of the second part of the play.

I said 'Do you want to see the second part of FaustV

You said 'No.' Then - 'I think that what is happening now and what we are talking about is the same.'

I thought - Also there is indeed this that has turned up: we are sitting beneath these trees.

I said 'What is your name?'

You said 'Max.' Then - 'What is yours?'

I said 'Eleanor.'

You said 'Helena?'

I said 'Eleanor.'

You said 'This is absurd.'

The others were saying that they were setting off to see the play: we could join them later if we liked.

We seemed to sit for a long time in silence beneath our trees.

I said 'You mean, there is some pattern in what turns up?'

You said 'I have thought sometimes that it would be like being in the inside of a painting.'

I said 'Yes, this is absurd.'

You said 'Why?'

I said 'Because I have thought that it would be like - ' Then -'But I suppose if I say it, it will go away.'

You said 'I see.'

It was as if we were on some plane that might at any moment tip over: if I moved towards you, you might go away; if you moved towards me, I might fall.

I said 'How old are you?'

You said 'Nearly eighteen.'

'I'm nineteen.'

'You are at a university?'

'Freiburg.'

'I am going to Cambridge next year.'

'What are you studying?'

'Biology or physics.'

'I am studying medicine.'

You said 'You see, this is almost unbearable, unless there is a code.'

I said 'Unbearable for ourselves?'

You said 'Oh, and for others!'

I thought - But, I mean, we have got some sort of code.

Then - We are like two people stuck on a rock-face connected by rope: cut the rope and one of us dies; don't cut the rope and both of us may die, or live.

I said 'Are you staying here long?'

You said 'We go tomorrow.'

I said 'Will you give me your address, so that I can write to you?'

You said 'Yes, and will you give me yours?'

I said 'I will put it on a piece of paper; then you can swallow it.'

You said 'Or you can put it down the lavatory. Or in a bottle to float on the sea.'

There was the faint sound of people acting, orating, further down the valley. I thought - You mean, other people might hurt us: we might hurt ourselves?

I said 'You know that image of Plato's about the two halves of something, that look for each other?'

You said 'Yes.'

I said 'That is too obvious - '

You said 'I can't think of anything better to say.'

There was the sound of clapping from further down in the valley. I thought - Perhaps it would be easier if one of us took a short walk. Perhaps it would be easier if we were in circumstances of danger.

I said 'What happens to Faust and Helena in Part II, do you know?'

You said 'They have a child.'

I said 'What happens to the child?'

You said 'It flies too close to the sun. It falls into the fire.'

I said 'I don't think I should have a child.'

You said 'You don't think you should have a child?'

I said 'Do you?'

After a time you said 'There are enough in the world.'

You seemed to have been listening to the sounds that were coming up from the valley.

I said 'But what is it that makes Faust finally say "Stop!"?'

You said 'I thought he never did. I thought he only said "If I were to say 'Stop!'-"'

I said 'I thought it was when he was reclaiming a new bit of land from the sea.'

You said 'Well perhaps we are reclaiming a new bit of land from the sea.'

I said 'I suppose what is interesting is what Faust said to those terrible beings when he got to heaven.'

You said 'Well what shall we tell them.' Then - 'I suppose we are in heaven.'

I said 'Sh!'

We began laughing.

You left your tree and crawled towards me. It was as if you were pulling yourself along by a rope. To preserve balance, it seemed, I had to stretch out towards you. When we met, it was as if we had to become enfolded.

You said 'It's like a line in a play - "I've got to go in the morning!"'

I said 'But we might just stick it out till then.*

It was as if we were on - not exactly a tightrope: rather a pole that was balancing the earth which itself was on a tightrope: we had moved to the centre of the pole and had to stay very still; to hold on tight, or the earth would tip over.

I said 'Are you comfortable?'

You said 'Yes, very.'

I said 'Do you think this is by chance?'

You said 'Oh, I think chance might be to do with heaven.'

We got into a position like that of a circle divided into two shapes like tadpoles: these fit into each other to make the circle whole. I thought - Or the world is on the back of an elephant, the elephant is on a tortoise, the tortoise is on the sea.

I said 'I am older than you.'

You said 'I know you are older than me.'

I said 'Hold on tight.'

You said 'Or shall we go over.'

When the others came back up the hill from the valley they were having their arguments about the meaning of the scenes from Faust, Part II: why was Faust saved? was it just because of his ceaseless striving? And what of Helena, who had appeared and disappeared; what was the point? People were talking about these things as if there might be answers in words.

We had been lying very still. Oh yes, of course, we had from time to time used more words.

When the others were back I said 'You've got my address?'

You said'Yes.'

I said 'And I've got yours.'

I thought - I suppose we have to go down, like angels, do we, to the cities of the plain.

Franz and Bruno and Minna had been joined by the boys who had been with you; also by a few of the Nazi boys. They all came and sat round our fire. They bobbed to and fro; they drank wine and beer.

You said 'We have to leave very early.'

I said 'That does not matter?'

You said'No.'

The people round the fire were not paying much attention to us. I thought - We are too embarrassing: we have been into and out of the fire.

130

- Do not look at us and we are there: look at us and I suppose we go away.

Bruno was encouraging Minna to take off her clothes. The Nazi boys were clapping. I thought - She is like that child of Faust and Helena: she may be destroyed by the fire.

One of the Nazi boys put an arm round Franz's shoulders. Franz looked at me. Then, when I looked at him, he looked away.

You had gone back to your camp and were sitting on your own by your fire.

I thought - Oh strange and terrible world, you should not be destroyed! There are people whom you can love: who love you -

-Just let us know, every now and then, what might be an ark.

One of the Nazi boys picked a flaming stick out of the fire and held it out towards Minna. The stick seemed slightly to burn her. Minna was half naked, dancing round and round the flames.

Bruno called out 'Nellie, come and join us!'

I thought - Oh but I am happy sitting here with my head in my hands, my cage -

- Or am I a child in a pram looking up towards the leaves, the sunlight?

The next morning you and your group had gone. I did not know whether or not I had heard you leaving. I had been having a dream. We were in the courtyard of a castle. There were ladies and gentlemen on the grass. Then the ground flipped over, and there were huts and watchtowers.

I thought - The dream leaves the dreamer: what is left to the dreamer of the dream?

I had the piece of paper with your name and address on it.

That next evening there was going to be a performance of a play by Brecht. I did not know at the time much about Brecht. I had been told that he was a left-wing anarchist, that he mocked left-wing anarchists, that he was a scourge of the bourgeoisie, that the bourgeoisie were still flocking to his Die Dreigroschenoper which had opened in Berlin the previous year. The play of his that was going to be put on had at one time been called Spartakus because it had been about the Spartacist rising in 1919 in Berlin: I thus had a special interest in the play because, of course, some of my earliest memories were of this rising in Berlin. Also I wanted to see a play by Brecht because people talked about him in a way that I had come to associate with what might be life-giving: they suggested that his plays were original and disturbing without being able to say why. I

thought - But you, could you not have stayed for this play by Brecht?

I tried to imagine what you might be doing. We had not yet got the image, had we, of those particles that if you do this to this one here then that happens to that one there -

I thought - I am mad to have let you go!

I went down to the castle that evening with Franz and Bruno and Minna and the Nazi boys - I was, I suppose, feeling somewhat demented: why indeed had you gone away? I thought - Should I after all commit myself to someone or something practical: to Franz or to Bruno; or to a battle with the Nazis in Berlin? But still I seemed to be part of something leading a quite separate life around me - lungs, veins, heartbeat - and from this there seemed to be some thread pulling me through the maze. I was watching myself being pulled; was my watching the thread pulling me? (Well, where were you?) I was a child left lying on the edge of a bed. I was going to a play by Brecht.

Now I must say something about this play because it was representative of something happening and being demonstrated at the same time.

Franz and Bruno and Minna and I were sitting on the grass. We were with the two Nazi boys with whom we seemed to have made friends. We were looking up at the restored fagade of the castle. I was wondering about you.

At first it was difficult to know what was going on in the play: people seemed to be saying what was occurring just in the backs of their own heads; one had become accustomed, I suppose, to people in plays pretending to make sense. There was also the impression of vast and imponderable events elsewhere - but these were nevertheless of almost no importance. I had not seen a play like this before: it was like life! There was a middle-aged couple in an apartment in Berlin; they had a daughter who had been engaged to a soldier who had gone missing in the war; she was carrying on with a war profiteer. Her parents wanted her to forget her old love and marry the war profiteer. I thought - Well, I am too young to have carried on with a war profiteer, but do you not see that this is like life? (Who was I talking to? Franz? Bruno? you? Anyone who will listen?) After a time the daughter yields to the pressures of her parents and becomes engaged to the war profiteer: but just at this moment her old lover turns up (you would say - Of course!). He has been a prisoner of war (well, what were you doing in that

forest?); they meet; he learns that she has become engaged to a war profiteer; he wanders off again; he acts somewhat demented; I mean you did act somewhat sad, didn't you? All this is taking place against the background of the Sparticist revolution; the rifles and machine-guns in the streets, the storming of a newspaper building. But of course the two main characters in the play are not paying much attention to this: it is boring. But then, what is not? It is for the sake of what this might be that the girl and her ex-lover have gone wandering off again: did you not say that what matters is what turns up? And in the meantime the other people in the play are carrying on seeing, saying, just what is trapped within their own heads. And Franz and Bruno and Minna and I and the Nazi boys were watching, sitting on the grass. Of course, I had not seen a play like this before! Plays were usually about people acting as if they did not know they were acting. Here everyone seemed to know this: and so it was as if they were not.

Sometimes when the girl and her ex-lover were on the stage they seemed to be searching amongst the audience and to be saying - Is it you? Is it you? Then they bumped into each other again; he learned that she was pregnant by the war profiteer; they wandered apart again. And all the time there were the machine-guns, the storming of the newspaper building, the characters like politicians appearing and disappearing in the streets. Most of these were drunk. But then why, in the end, should not the business of the girl being pregnant by the war profiteer also be boring? Oh, I had never before seen a play like this!

The Nazi boys were getting restless; perhaps this was because the whole business of politics, let alone conventional feeling, was being treated with contempt: who cares about the storming of newspaper buildings! who cares about one's girl being made pregnant by a war profiteer! The girl and her ex-lover bumped into each other again. One of the Nazi boys put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Then the girl and her ex-lover turned and looked at him: it was as if now they might be seeing what was happening not on a stage. The girl and her ex-lover had seemed at last to be about to go off together hand in hand: what they were looking for, they said, was a bed. Almost the last line in the play was 'Now comes bed! The great, white, wide, bed!' I thought - You mean, you and I, we should simply have gone to bed? Then - This is the code: what is the message?

This was the end of the play: people in the audience were standing

and shaking their fists; they were booing and whistling; several had advanced to the edge of the platform of the stage. They saw indeed that they had been treated with contempt. The cast - except for the girl and her old lover who had by now gone offhand-in-hand - had come on to the stage as if to take their bow: now they acted as if they had noticed the audience for the first time - it was just the girl and her lover who had previously looked amongst the audience. The cast reacted as if, yes, the audience might indeed be a crowd storming the castle or a newspaper building - well were they acting or were they not? Or was what was now going on on a different level off-stage. The light in one of the windows high up in the fagade at the back of the stage suddenly came on: framed in the window there could be seen the girl and her lover who were facing each other with their hands on each other's shoulders; they were looking at each other tenderly: well might they be on their way to bed! People in the audience, looking up, were quiet for a moment; then this vision seemed to enrage them further. The other members of the cast were backing towards a drawbridge that was across a gap between the back of the stage and the facade; they were acting (or not) as if they were fighting a rearguard action; the mob, the audience, were beginning to climb on to the stage. I thought - Well, might it not be part of an actor's expertise to produce what is real? But to what end? A large number of the audience were now on the stage; the actors had withdrawn behind the drawbridge and were pulling it up: they were shaking their fists at the audience: I thought - Well perhaps to show things as ridiculous is real.

The audience who had arrived at the gap at the back of the stage were again looking up; the girl and her lover had moved away from one window and had appeared at another: they had half undressed: they seemed to have got even nearer to bed. The other members of the cast now appeared at windows and on balconies in the faqade and began to throw down on the audience, or act as if they were throwing down - what? - arrows? boiling oil? It seemed just pieces of screwed-up paper. But no one was laughing. Franz and Minna and the Nazi boys had moved up towards the stage. I had stayed behind on the grass in the courtyard.

You know those memory theatres of the seventeenth century in which people used to act dramas to help them to try to remember what they might be about - it was difficult to remember at a time when there were so few written stories. Well, it is always difficult, perhaps, to know what one is about even when everything seems

to be happening all at once; but there seemed to be something here showing this; even if it was to do just with what turns up. You said 'Hullo.' I said 'Hullo.' I mean there you were, yes, in the courtyard, having come up beside me. I said 'I thought you had gone.' You said 'But I came back.' I thought I might say - Why? But it was as if we were the man and the girl who had come across each other again outside a newspaper building. I said 'Wasn't the play wonderful?' You said 'Yes.' You had taken me by the arm. We were standing watching the facade of the castle which was like the backdrop to a theatre. You said 'This is what you meant by what you are talking about also happening?' I said 'Yes.' I thought - And you have turned up. Then - But this is what we can't talk about: so what happens now? You said 'Shall we go?' I said 'Yes, let's.' We turned to go out of the courtyard. There was all the violence behind us on the stage. You said 'I wonder if we should just go to bed.' I said 'Oh we will sometime.' You said 'Yes.' We were going out of the castle: there was the path up into the hills; there was a path down to the village. You said 'As a matter of fact, I still do have to catch a train, but I thought it vital to see you just one more time.' I said 'Yes, I do think it is vital to know that I could see you one more time.' You said 'But it is all right now?' I said 'Yes, it is.all right now.' You said 'I have missed one or two trains.' I said 'You can catch one now.'

We had begun to walk round the outside wall of the castle towards the village. We stopped underneath a wall at the side of the castle: we were somewhere beside, or at the back of, the restored fagade where there were the actors besieged by the crowd; where there was the noise of banging and shouting. I thought - Oh it is the noise of people besieged in their own heads! I leaned with my back against a wall and you began kissing me. I thought - We will not stay with each other; we will not be apart; we will balance the world on its tightrope. There was an opening slightly above us in the wall of the castle; it was some sort of window; figures had appeared at it; they were leaning out. I thought - They are going to throw down confetti? rose-leaves? bags of flour? A voice said 'I wonder if you two could possibly be of some assistance?' We looked up. There was a man and woman leaning out of the window: they were wearing dressing-gowns. I thought - They are actors? Not-actors? They are gods looking down? You or I said 'What?' The man said 'There is someone in here who has been injured by a brick; also there is a child who has to catch a train.' I thought - There is

someone who has been injured and - . Then - This is ridiculous. The woman said 'I wonder if you could possibly take the child, and call for a doctor in the village.' I said 'I am a medical student, perhaps I can help.' The woman said 'Perhaps you can.' You said 'And as a matter of fact I am going to the station so I can take the child.' Then - 'I know this sounds ridiculous.' The man said 'That would be very kind.' I thought - Oh well, if the world is on a tightrope, things might be likely to have to turn up. I said 'How can I get in?' The man said 'We can pull you up.' The woman said 'And we can lower the child.' You said 'Abracadabra.' I thought -Oh but one day we will be used to it. Then - But didn't we think we wouldn't have a child? The man and woman had turned from the window: they reappeared with a girl of about eight or nine. The woman said 'Can you catch her?' You said 'Yes.' The girl wore a tartan skirt and long white socks. I said 'And where is the person who has been wounded?' The man said 'He is inside.' I thought -But hurry, we must hurry: it is everything making sense that is not bearable! The child was being lowered into your arms. The woman said 'She's got her fare and she knows which train to go on.' I thought - Oh of course. I raised my arms for the man and the woman to lift me up to the window. You said 'Goodbye.' I said 'Goodbye then.' You said 'Goodbye.' Then - 'This is quite like an opera.' I said 'It is not like an opera.' You said 'Oh no, it is not like an opera.' The man and the woman were pulling me so that I could get in at the window. I said 'I'll see you then.' You said 'I'll see you.' When I looked in at the window there was a dark vaulted room with a body lying on a bed: when I looked down at you, you were standing on the pathway holding the hand of the good-looking child. I thought - We have known each other a day, we have not even been to bed, and we seem to have a child.

You are right that at Cambridge we had not previously paid much attention to politics, though I remember the General Strike of 1926, which occurred during my last year at day-school. We boys were lined up and marched off in military fashion to a train which took us to help unload ships in the docks at Harwich. We took this incursion into politics as a holiday away from school: I think most middle- and upper-class people took the General Strike as the chance for a holiday away from school - what fun to be a docker or an engine-driver for a few days away from the ghastly restraints imposed on the middle and upper classes! At Harwich there were cranes and trolleys like huge toys; we larked about; we thought -So this is the grown-up world! At the far end of the quay a group of dockers came to watch us.

I did wonder - But this is politics?

In Germany, I suppose, there were people learning to sing sad songs and carry torches to bonfires.

In the autumn of 1930 I went to my father's college in Cambridge. There were the old men like bees or wasps moving in front of the fagades of ancient buildings: somewhere inside were the distillations of honey or of poison from flowers. In going to the university at Cambridge I was, of course, hardly getting away from my family: I was in some sense even coming back to it, since I had been away for four years at boarding-school. I do not remember much about this time at school: it was to do with the distillations, I suppose, by which upper-middle-class Englishmen enable large parts of themselves to remain as schoolboys.