Hopeful Monsters (46 page)

and a view over the top of the forest. There was a car parked at the side of the building which might have belonged to Franz or to some other member of his family. I left my car and went to the front of the house and looked in through one of the huge windows. There were signs of someone having recently been in the sitting-room: the cushions of the sofa had the imprint of a body; there were an ashtray and a glass and an empty bottle on the floor. There is something alarming about looking through a window into a room where humans have been recently but are no longer; what is the need for them to have been there at all.

I rang the bell by the front door. Behind me was the enormous expanse of the forest. A large black dog appeared from round a far corner of the house. Mephistopheles first appeared in the guise of a black dog, did he not? This dog was one of those that appear to be so embarrassed at the presence of humans that they can hardly move: it smiled and squirmed and dragged the back half of its body along the ground. But it was also behaving as dogs do when they want you to follow them. It seemed that there was no one in the house. I thought - Dogs behave like this when something terrible has happened to their masters in a forest.

I followed the dog past the far end of the house and into the trees. The forest was like that on the upper plateau of San Juan de la Pena at the place where the horse but not its rider had gone over the cliff. Or there was that mountain path in Switzerland where you and I had stopped in our walk - do we not often come to this place? -where there had been a rock, a butterfly, a cobweb, a tree. Or, indeed, before this there was the cave in a wood to which I had followed Franz and he had indeed seemed to be practising some self-destruction. The black dog snorted and slithered like a snake in front of me. Ahead, through the trees, in a small clearing which did seem to be, yes, on the edge of a cliff, I saw Franz sitting to one side of the path with his back against a tree. He was holding a shotgun between his knees; the barrel went up past his face. The black dog went up to him; it seemed to be laughing or crying. Franz gave no signs of seeing me. I went to him and said 'Hullo, Franz.' He still did not look at me. I said Tve come to ask you if you know about my father.' When he looked round it was as if he had experienced some sort of dying.

I said 'I understand that you've been in touch with my father.'

He said 'Who told you that?'

I said 'Walburga.'

'And you forwarded to me a letter from my father.'

'That was a long time ago.'

'Can you tell me what he is doing now? And I also, yes, wanted to talk to you.'

I had squatted in front of Franz. He was wearing one of those hats that have a feather from the tail of a bird sticking up on the crown. His once handsome face was like something plucked and hung in a larder.

He said 'He's said to be working for the Nazis.'

I said 'Do you believe that?'

'Why, is it important?'

'Of course it is.'

'Is there anything I could say, that you would necessarily believe?'

Franz seemed to yawn. He made stretching movements with his neck as if he were trying to loosen something from around it. I thought - He was thinking of shooting himself.

I said 'What work are you doing now?'

'I am doing nothing.'

'Are you working for the Nazis?'

'No.'

I said 'You were doing the same sort of work as Max, my husband, is doing in physics.'

Franz tried to laugh: or he sneezed; there was a sound like that of dice being rattled in his throat. He said 'Ah, about that, what can you believe!' Then he sat up and looked around the clearing. It was as if he were acting waking up and noticing where he was for the first time. He said 'But you shouldn't be here! The war's started.'

I said 'I know.'

'Then why have you come?'

'I wanted to talk to you, I told you, as well as find out about my father.*

Franz pressed his knuckles into his eyes. His face was so thin that it was as if his eyes might be pushed out. Then he said as if he were acting again or quoting ' - You cannot know the message without the code: how can you know the code without the message - '

I said 'Don't you know the message?'

He said 'That was a quotation from your father's book: he's had it published, did you know?'

I said 'Which one?'

Franz said 'Yes, I've been doing the same sort of physics as, I

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suppose, your husband has.' Then - 'Your father's book is on the relationship between language and scientific enquiry.'

I said 'Oh that one.'

Franz said as if quoting again ' - Truth is what occurs: the telling of it can make it something different - '

I said 'And they let him publish that?'

'Who?'

'The Nazis.'

Franz seemed to laugh again with dice rattling in his throat. He said 'Oh in your father's system there is some autonomy for the will.' Then - 'And, of course, they are very stupid.'

Franz put his gun down with the barrel pointing away from him. The black dog, which had been at his feet, wriggled out of the line of fire.

I said 'What else did he have to do? I mean, to get this job.'

Franz seemed to quote again ' - Truth is protected by masks: it can be sensed in the recognition of this - '

I said 'That's my father?'

Franz said 'No, that's me.'

I said 'Then why should I not know what to believe, in talking to you?'

Franz leaned forwards and tickled the ribs of the black dog. He said 'Your father has been put in charge of a department at the Institute which correlates the activities of other scientific departments. He has no direct powers. He is useful because he can get people to work for him who otherwise might be reluctant.'

I said 'Did he have to repudiate my mother?'

'Your mother's dead.'

'I know.'

'And you were in another country.'

I said 'So now what will he be able to do? I mean, you and he, what will you be able to do?'

Franz picked up the gun and held it with the ends of the barrels under his chin. The dog stood facing him with its back arched, its teeth bared.

Franz said 'I do not want to be a traitor to my country.'

I said 'In what way would you be a traitor to your country?'

Franz said 'There are certain circumstances, it is true, in which a patriot might not want his country to be a hundred percent successful in an area of scientifc enquiry over which its wartime leaders would wish to take control.'

I said again 'So what will you do?'

He said 'Ask your father.'

I said 'I'm asking you.'

Franz made a sound like an air-gun going off; like air being let out of a balloon. He took the gun away from under his chin and held it upright in front of him pointing into the air: he bowed his head down in front of it.

He said 'Of course one can always do nothing: I mean, try to see that nothing occurs.'

I said 'Yes, nothing: that was what I was going to ask you.'

He said 'You have not been in touch with your father? He has not been in touch with you?'

I said 'No.'

He said 'Then how did you know?' Then he said quickly, as if to stop my answering this question - 'Oh how did you know, how does one ever know, that is the question.'

I thought I might say - But Franz, we have known each other so long, of course you and I both do and don't know!

Then - We have known this ever since that time of the Reichstag fire in Berlin.

Franz stood up. He brushed at his clothes. He was wearing knee-breeches and a short corduroy jacket. The dog heaved about in front of him. He said 'Come to the house.' He set off along the path through the forest. I followed him. It seemed that it might be easier to talk now that he had his back to me. He said 'What exactly is the work that your Max is doing in England?'

I said 'You know more about it than I do.'

He said 'I've been working in the laboratory in Berlin.'

I said 'And you can go back there?'

He stopped and turned and wagged a finger at me. I looked at the ground and poked a toe amongst the pine-needles, acting as if I were contrite. Then we went on through the forest.

I said 'Were you thinking of shooting yourself?'

He said 'Oh I've always been thinking of shooting myself, as you know!' Then he laughed and said 'That's something that one can talk about!'

When we got to the house we went in and there was heavy wooden furniture and photographs in frames: thick green-and-yello w curtains framing the darker green of the forest. Franz picked up the glass and bottle and ashtray from the floor. He went to a desk and rummaged through its drawers. He said 'We used to talk

about its being aesthetic, what can't be talked about, you remember?'

I said'Yes.'

He said as if quoting ' - How do I trust you: how do you trust me-'

I said'Yes.'

Franz seemed to find what he was looking for in the desk. He held a bit of paper in front of him, reading.

He said 'Not something moral?'

I said 'Oh of course something moral.'

Franz said 'This is the statement that your father made after he had been released from detention; before it was announced that he was to return to the department at the Institute.'

I said'I see.'

He said 'How do you tell what is moral?'

I said 'Can't you tell by the style?'

Franz handed me the piece of paper on which there was pasted a press-cutting. At the bottom of the cutting there was a photograph of my father. I skipped a few paragraphs which did not seem to be interesting; then I read -

I myself am of Aryan descent. My late wife was Jewish. While my wife was still alive I made no statement on this Jewish question. Now, however, I feel free to say that in my opinion all adult human beings - except those suffering from mental incapacity - have to believe that they are responsible for themselves. To suggest otherwise is to suggest that certain persons are not human. This statement about responsibility, of course, I believe applies to the Jewish people.

I laughed and said 'Well dear God, how awful, but this is all right!'

I handed the piece of paper back to Franz. He said 'You recognise the style?'

I said 'My father used to say, as a matter of fact, that Jews were somewhat like gods.'

Franz said 'And gods, to be operative, have to be somewhat hidden: that is what you have come to say?'

He put the piece of paper back in the desk. He closed the drawer.

I said 'Yes.' Then - 'And you will be all right?'

He said 'Ah, what you want of a poor mortal!'

He walked round the room. It was as if we, and indeed the whole room, were balanced precariously on a tightrope.

I said 4 I don't think they're getting anywhere very quickly in England.'

He said 'Oh well, indeed, why should we be getting anywhere quickly in Berlin.'

I said 'It's very good of you.'

He said 'Have you noticed how embarrassing scientific words are - "heavy water"; "isotope" - they are not aesthetic!'

I said 'It's the context.'

Franz came and put his hands on my shoulders. He said 'But you must escape! My Little Red Riding Hood: come to visit her grandmother wolf in the forest!'

I said 'That is aesthetic!'

Franz left me and walked round the room again. It was as if there were a crowd somewhere watching us. He said, as if he were an actor rehearsing a speech -

'- Of course, from our point of view, even if there were the knowledge how eventually to build such a weapon, what a waste of time! There are more pressing tasks! What would be the need for such an effort if the war is going to be over in months if not weeks -'

I said 'That sort of thing.' Then - 'And, as you say, the Nazis are unimaginative.'

He acted - 'Oh I did not say that!' Then he stood still and looked at me. He said 'You believe this?'

I said 'What?'

He said 'That good may come out of what might be called betrayal -'

I said 'But we've always known that one can't say much about this.'

He walked round the room again. He murmured as if quoting ' - Huts, watchtowers: ladies and gentlemen on the grass - ' Then he stood by the window looking out.

After a time I said 'So you will go back to Berlin?'

He said 'And you'll go back to your husband.'

I said 'I'll tell him I saw you.'

Franz said 'As a matter of fact I do see something of your father. We sometimes have tea together at the Adlon Hotel.'

I said 'Tell him you've seen me.'

Franz said 'What on earth shall I say?'

I said 'He'll know.' Then - Tell him that to humans gods have always seemed morally ambiguous.'

Franz said 'Ah, it would be a help, like gods, to have no country!'

He went to the wireless and turned it on. There was a voice buzzing like a trapped fly: it gave the latest news of the advance into Poland. Franz twiddled a knob and then there was a sad voice in French talking like a stone falling through space; it was saying that unless Germany set about withdrawing its troops from Poland forthwith then the French and British governments would fulfil their treaty obligations to Poland and so France and Great Britain would be at war with Germany. Undertakings had been given about this: there was a deadline the following day. Franz switched off the wireless. He said 'So what undertakings have we given. You have got what you came for?

I said'Yes.'

Franz said as if quoting ' - We are to be actors in this drama - '

I said 'We are actors anyway - '

Franz said ' - In what Nietzsche called "The great hundred-act play reserved for the next two centuries in Europe" - '

I finished the quotation ' - "the most terrible, the most questionable, the most hopeful of all plays" - '

Franz said 'We may just die of the absurdity.'

I said 'Oh we die anyway. What use might we make of the absurdity.'

Franz came and put his hands on my shoulders again. He said 'You make me believe this!' Then - 'Goodbye, my little one.'

I said 'Goodbye.' I put up a hand and touched his face.

Then Franz put his head back as if he were listening. I could hear no noise. But then he said, as if he were acting now specifically for the benefit of some audience ' - Oh we disgusting little band of brothers, who think we can manipulate - '