Hopeful Monsters

by Nicholas Mosley

  I said 'What game?'

  He was still untying the rope from his feet. Then he said 'Why did you come here?'

  I said 'I was following you.'

  'Why?'

  'I wanted to ask you about the connections between philosophy and physics.'

  'You wanted to ask me about the connections between philosophy and physics.'

  'Yes.'

  He stretched his feet out in front of him. He leaned fowards and rubbed his ankle, which seemed to be hurting him.

  He said 'In philosophy you are stuck within your own brains. In physics you are stuck within your own brains. So why not give your brains an airing.'

  I said 'That's what Kleist thought.'

  He said 'Yes, that's what Kleist thought.'

  I said 'Why is it like that in physics?'

  He leaned back and rested his head against the wall of the cave.

  He said 'In physics what you observe is dependent on the fact that you observe: there is no way of observing anything apart from you as observer. You shine a light on an object and you alter it by the fact that you shine a light: you do not shine a light and then you cannot observe it. In some experiments light appears to be waves: in other experiments it appears to be particles. You can tell a particle's exact velocity, or location, but you can't tell both at the same time. There is no way of saying what anything is, apart from the way in which you are observing it.'

  I said 'And you don't like that.'

  'No.'

  'Why not?'

  He said 'There are such terrible things that go on in these heads in which we are trapped. They will destroy us. Why should we not destroy them.'

  I said 'Yes, but once you know that - '

  He said 'What?'

  I said 'Let me see your ankle.'

  I went across the floor of the cave to him: I looked down at his ankle, where the rope had chafed him. I said 'You let them out, you let them out, all those bats.'

  He said 'Where?'

  I said 'From the cave. From the mind.'

  He said 'Yes, but where do they go to?' He banged his head gently against the wall of the cave.

  I said 'That is not your business.'

  He said 'What is my business?'

  I said 'Where does it hurt you?'

  He said 'You want to save me, do you?'

  I said 'Yes.'

  He said 'Why?'

  I said 'That would be one of the things I'd like if I have to be going on doing it for ever.'

  One of the ways in which members of fraternities maintained their senses of belonging and identity was in the matter of duelling. Boys seemed always to be on the look-out for an insult and for the opportunity to avenge it: in what simpler way could solidarity be demonstrated? Serious duelling occurred when a challenge was made and accepted between individuals. But when there was not much of this sort of duelling, a number of members of two fraternities came together for a ritual fight called a Mensur. In both events there were safeguards by which a fighter could achieve his sense of belonging with only a ritual wounding.

  In a Mensur the boys from the two fraternities met in a gymnasium; they lined up opposite each other in pairs. (This was still happening, yes, in the late 1920s.) They carried swords with long thin blades. Their hands and arms and bodies were bandaged; only their heads were unprotected. (I would think - Dear God it is, indeed, as if they want to be hit just on their own heads!) At a signal, each boy put a hand behind his back and in the other raised his sword to a level slightly above his head. The fight consisted of queer flicking movements of the wrist with the forearm held straight: these were the rules: the idea was, in fact, that the boys should become cut about the face and head. And the aim was less that one should cut one's opponent's face than that oneself should

  be cut: once one's cuts were deep enough, clear enough, then the fight was over. One had received one's accolade - one's mark of loyalty to the tribe.

  I had once said to my father 'But if this sort of thing is a ritual, is it more sophisticated or more silly than just to be decorated by tribal witch-doctors with knives?'

  He had said 'What would be sophisticated, I suppose, would be to be able to look at why one wanted to be cut by knives.'

  Shortly after the time when I had come across Franz in the cave in the mountain, there was one of these fights in Freiburg in which Franz's fraternity, The Corps, was involved. Franz was one of those chosen to represent The Corps. I wondered if they had chosen him because he was good at duelling; or because, since he was so aloof, they wanted to involve him as an active member of The Corps.

  Franz had half tried to avoid me since our time on the mountain. I imagined - But perhaps he likes to know that I am here.

  Minna and I and some other girls watched this ritual Mensur through the windows of the gymnasium. Franz in fact fought quite well: he seemed both bored and yet purposeful; even sometimes alarmed. He flicked at the other boy's face; then when he had cut it - once, lightly - he lowered his sword and stood still. The other boy pointed his sword at him but Franz did not move. Then after a time he turned his back and went to the chairs at the side of the gymnasium and put down his sword and picked up his clothes and went out. This was against the conventions, because he himself had not yet been cut on the face.

  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.

  There was one member of The Maccabees called Albrecht who was a small angry boy of great energy: it was he who seemed to be stirring himself up to challenge a member of The Corps to a duel. He was singing his Zionist song more loudly than the others; he was banging his mug down on the table so violently that bits of beer seemed to hang in the air like spittle.

  I said 'But Minna, do you know how to fight a duel?'

  Minna said 'I have achieved my silver medal at fencing!'

  I said 'But they won't fight you.'

  Minna said 'Then I will hit them over the head with one of their sticks.'

  It was a convention amongst Jews that if a member of a Jewish fraternity challenged a member of a non-Jewish fraternity to a duel and the member of the non-Jewish fraternity refused the challenge, then the Jew should hit the non-Jew over the head with his stick; and then a general melee would be likely to ensue, in which Jews might feel that they had salvaged their honour, if not in the conventional manner.

  I said 'Minna, do you know what happened when Penthesilia, Queen of the Amazons, challenged Achilles to a duel?'

  Minna said 'I know very well, she tore him to pieces.'

  I said 'And she ate him.'

  Minna said 'Oh I would like to eat Franz!'

  The contortions of the innkeeper's daughter were becoming even more outlandish (I was thinking - Songs are such obvious substitutes for sexuality!); The Maccabees had embarked on the Zionist National Anthem, the Hatikvah. (I was thinking - And what should Minna and I sing? The Lorelei? The siren-song that lured poor sailors to their doom?) Then after one of the boys at The Corps' table had sung a particularly obscene verse, Albrecht, at the Maccabees' table, jumped up and went to The Corps' table and stood to attention and said in a loud voice 'I consider such obscenity in front of ladies to be proof, if any further proof were needed, that you are dishonourable men' and he clicked his heels, as if he were a small tree being axed. The noise in the beer-cellar subsided. People were watching the boy at The Corps' table who had sung the last obscene verse: this boy seemed to be too drunk to stand up. Franz was tilted back as if on his tightrope. The boy who had sung the obscene verse

  at last managed to murmur 'I don't give satisfaction to Jews' -which was the formula for refusing such a challenge. So Albrecht raised his stick as if to hit the boy over the head with it. Then Minna stood up and said in a loud voice 'And we don't need you to protect ladies, thank you.' Albrecht said 'What?' I thought - Oh Minna, Minna! For a moment we all seemed stuck like flies on a flypaper. Then Minna walked over to Albrecht and tapped him on the shoulder. He stared at Minna. The boy at The Corps' table belched. Everybody laughed. Minna said 'I feel myself insulted; can I please have your card?' This was the formula for the challenge to a duel. Albrecht said 'You?' Minna said 'Yes.' Albrecht said 'But I was trying to defend you.' Minna said 'That is why I am insulted.' Albrecht looked round at the members of The Corps, who were looking embarrassed. Albrecht said 'But, Minna, I can't fight you.' M
inna said 'Why not?' Then - 'He won't fight you because you're a Jew.' Albrecht said 'But you're a woman.' Minna said 'You see?' Then she took Albrecht's stick from his hand and made as if to hit him over the head with it.

  Then Franz stood up and said 'I will fight you.'

  Minna said 'Me?'

  Franz said 'No, Albrecht.' Then to Albrecht - 'It's me you really want to fight, isn't it?'

  Albrecht said 'Yes.'

  Minna said 'But what about me?'

  Franz said 'All right, Minna, I will fight you too.'

  Minna said 'Will you really?'

  Franz stood up and came round the table. The boy who had sung the last obscene verse was trying to stand up. Franz said to him 'Will you be my second?' The boy said 'Yes.' Franz said 'Make all the arrangements for tomorrow morning.' Then he bowed in front of Albrecht. Albrecht bowed. Then Franz held out a hand to Minna. Minna said 'But I was going to fight Albrecht.' Franz said 'Please will you fight me.' He put his arm round her shoulder. Then he turned to me and said 'Will you be our second?' I thought - Oh, Franz, you have done it! Then Franz and Minna and I went out into the night.

  There was a full moon: we went a short way up the path that led into the hills. There was a gate into a field: the field was on the slope between the forest and the town. We went into it. The moon made the air silvery; the grass and the trees were black. I thought -

  Perhaps we have gone into a world that has been turned the right way up, from what normally goes on upside down.

  Minna took off her clothes and lay on the grass. Franz sat beside her with his arms round his knees. I sat slightly apart. We looked down on the town.

  Franz said 'You see why I should like the human race to be wiped out.'

  I said 'You think men have to fight?'

  He said 'If they are to keep their honour.'

  I said 'Do they have to keep their honour?'

  He said 'They have little else.'

  Minna had stood and was stretching her arms above her head; then with straight legs she put her hands on the ground: it was as if she was doing obeisance to the moon.