Hopeful Monsters

by Nicholas Mosley

  'I never said it!'

  'But you're preparing to go underground - '

  'Do you know how many of our people have been killed in the streets?'

  I thought - But either this conversation is mad, or is it in fact a good dialectical trick that one side of the Party's brain should not admit to the other that the Nazis should get power?

  I said 'But surely it's important, on some level, to admit to yourself at least what you're doing; to give a hint perhaps to other people that you know - '

  My mother said 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  I said 'I see.'

  I thought - It may be that I am a child in all this: but what is this style that has no regard for a child -

  My mother said 'Perhaps it would be useful, after all, to have someone in the Rosa Luxemburg Block. You can let me know what the people with Bruno are doing.'

  I said 'Why, what are they doing?'

  She said again, as if it were a phrase in which she had been rehearsed 'We're having a certain amount of trouble with the people in that block.'

  I thought - You want me to be a spy?

  I said 'You mean, you think there may be spies or traitors in that block?'

  My mother said 'Have I said anything about spies and traitors?'

  When I was out in the street I thought - Perhaps, after all, this is normal in politics: you have to make out you do not know what you are, so that when things go wrong it can be believed that you have not known what you were doing -

  - Otherwise you could not bear it?

  - But things will come round, in the end, on the curve of the universe; and they either will or will not hit you on the back of the head.

  In the streets of Berlin there was something of the same atmosphere as there had been when I was a child: a sense of aftermath, of premonition, of things in suspension here and now. When I had

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  been a child there had been the impression of enormous events round some corner: these had manifested themselves only perhaps when the soldiers going out through the Brandenburg Gate had turned and fired on the crowd. But now there were these lines of Nazis coming marching from around their corners: it was as if they were the urgent heralds, harbingers, of enormous events to be unveiled; they had none of the tricks or innocence of people who did not know what they were doing; with their sweating faces and flaming torches they were simply people out to light funeral pyres.

  I thought - Or they are like long lines of shit, these Brownshirts, churning in someone's insides -

  - Will not the inevitability of natural history mean that they will have to dump themselves as muck on the world outside?

  That evening when I left my mother I made my way to the Rosa Luxemburg Block. This was a workers' tenement building now occupied mostly by left-wing students and intellectuals - 'intellectual' being a word to describe any Party member not of working-class origins. People gather together according to type at times of crisis, and it was true that in the summer there had been dozens, even hundreds of Party members killed in street fights with the Nazis. But people in the Rosa Luxemburg Block seemed to be far more conscious of their own danger than, for instance, the people in the building where my mother worked: they sheltered behind barricaded doors and shuttered windows. I wondered - Is this because as 'intellectuals' they are more frightened or more in the forefront of the street-fighting with the Nazis? Or is it just that it has traditionally been the role of intellectuals to be picked on by both sides as potential enemies or traitors; so indeed there might be reason for their apprehension of danger?

  When I first arrived at the Block I was taken into a guardroom at the side of the barricaded front door: there was a girl sitting on a mattress on the floor cleaning a rifle; a man and a woman were keeping watch through slits in the boarded-up window. I was made to stand in the middle of the room while I was questioned by a man in a Trotsky-style cap: the others pretended not to notice I was there. I thought - But these people are like actors; they are acting what they have learned from films about people keeping watch through slits in the window; they have had to learn to act, because they are not working class.

  The man with the cap said 'You are looking for Bruno?'

  'Yes.'

  'You have information that Bruno is here?'

  I said 'I have a letter from Bruno. He suggested I might join him.'

  I held out to the man in the cap a letter that I had had from Bruno when I had been with my father in Heidelberg. Before he took the letter the man looked as if for instructions at the girl who was sitting on a mattress on the floor cleaning the rifle. The girl did not look up. After a time the man took the letter.

  I thought - It might have been a better shot, in a film, if the girl had leaned forwards in a disinterested manner and put a drop more oil on the rag with which she was cleaning the rifle.

  I said 'And perhaps you know my mother: I have just come from her.'

  I told them my mother's name and the name of the building behind Alexanderplatz.

  The man in the cloth cap said 'You have just come from your mother in Alexanderplatz?'

  I waited while he read Bruno's letter. I thought - It might have been a mistake to mention my mother. Then - But these people are not professionals: they may simply be having difficulty with their scripts.

  I said 'Is there some trouble between you and the people at Alexanderplatz?'

  The man with the Trotsky cap said 'Your mother told you that?'

  I wanted to say - But there is no script! There is no stage! We are all at the edge of a cliff!

  After a time the man with the cap sent the woman by the window to find Bruno. The girl with the rifle took the woman's place by the window. The man with the cap sat down on the mattress. I leaned with my back against a wall. I thought - All right, in such situations we have to be actors, but should we not also be writers of our scripts?

  Then - But how can I truly work with these people!

  The woman who had been by the window came back into the room and was followed by Bruno. When Bruno saw me he at first pretended not to know who I was; he gazed around blankly. I wanted to say - But Bruno, you will have us shot! Then he seemed to recognise me suddenly: he put a hand up over his eyes; he backed away to the opposite wall with his other hand groping behind him.

  He said as if he were obviously quoting ' - Have I yet eyes to see? Now in my soul doth beauty's source reveal its rich outpouring - '

  I said 'Stop it, Bruno.'

  He said 'That's the password! Right!' Then he came and put his arms around me.

  I said 'When Faust says "Stop!" - it's the password?'

  Bruno looked at the man with the Trotsky cap. He said 'You see?'

  Bruno held me at arm's length. He had grown thinner and more pale. He had dark rings round his eyes, as if tiredness had got lodged there like dirt against a grating. I thought - And within his huge soft eyes there is something like fingers groping through with a message.

  He said 'We have to be careful! There are traitors everywhere: spies! That's the official Party line!'

  I thought - Bruno, you can't get away with this!

  The man in the Trotsky cap watched us. Then I thought - But this style - this is the message that Bruno is carrying?

  I went to live with Bruno in the Rosa Luxemburg Block. This was at the end of October 1932. Few people in the Block had any sort of work at this time: there were six million unemployed in Germany. Food and fuel had to be scrounged: it was difficult not to act as if one were some sort of outlaw. I thought - Indeed, perhaps it is reasonable for people to feel themselves on the edge of a cliff and not caring too much about who pushes them over.

  But then in new elections in November the Nazis actually lost seats in the Reichstag; the Communists gained: it seemed that at last the country had realised that it might not have to jump or be pushed. But still - what on earth were people to do if they did not now go over a cliff: wander for ever in lost multitudes in a desert?


  When I first moved in to the Rosa Luxemburg Block the inhabitants were organised into cells of about twenty people: this was for the purposes of administration and defence. Then after a time we were split further into cells of just five or six people: the point of this, it was explained, was that if we did have to go underground then only the leader of each cell would know the identities of the other four or five in his cell and only he would have contact with a Party member higher up in the heirarchy; this was in order that, if anyone was taken prisoner by the Nazis, it would be difficult for him or her to betray more than a few of their colleagues.

  I said to Bruno 'But why is all this happening just when the Nazis have lost seats in the Reichstag and the Communists have gained? I mean why are we preparing to go underground now?'

  Bruno said 'But think what a terrible betrayal of history it will be

  for Communists if the Nazis go on losing seats in the Reichstag! Of course we will want to hide our heads in shame underground!'

  I said 'But what is the point of our being split into cells of five or six people so that we can't betray each other? We all know each other in the Rosa Luxemburg Block!'

  He said That's why I pretended not to know you when I first saw you.'

  •Why?'

  4 1 was practising.'

  'Practising what?'

  He said 'Oh it takes a lot of practice to know you're an actor: to pretend not to know what you do know, to be able to be what you are.'

  Bruno and I began by being in the same larger cell: then we were split up, and had to move into an all-female and an all-male dormitory at opposite ends of the building.

  I said 'You mean, practising how to stay alive - '

  Bruno said 'Oh but you mustn't say that! Think of the Party line!'

  I said 'You're the one who seems to want to get us shot - '

  He said 'In the dialectic perhaps: not in the concrete situation.'

  Bruno and I did manage to sleep together from time to time. He would come along to my dormitory at night and would put his head in at the door and say 'I have the password' and one of the three or four other girls would say 'What?' and Bruno would say something like 'Workers of the world unite!' or 'Has anyone lost their chains?' One or two of the girls would laugh; one or two did not. I would think - But Bruno, Bruno, you think in the end jokes may keep us alive?

  I once said 'But I wanted something to commit myself to!'

  Bruno acted as if he were someone like my mother 'You wanted something to commit yourself to?'

  I said 'Everyone already seems to think we're traitors, you and I.'

  Bruno said 'With everyone lined up, as you say, at the edge of a cliff, who are traitors - '

  I said 'Then shouldn't we get out?'

  Bruno said 'Where would we go?' Then - 'Anywhere else, how could we even make jokes!'

  The group of cells of which I was a member met once a week to be given instruction by a cell leader on the current Party line, or to hear a lecture on Marxist-Leninist theory by someone higher in the

  hierarchy. We were told of the manoeuvrings that were going on in the Reichstag between the Nationalists and the Nazis and the Communists and the Social Democrats: in theory it might be supposed that there was common ground between the former two on the one hand and the latter two on the other: but in the concrete situation, of course, we knew according to the iron laws of history that it was in the interests of the first three often to combine against the Social Democrats. I thought - But of course, the point of this sort of language is that the brain becomes paralysed.

  - But you mean, if we know the danger of the brain becoming paralysed we might learn how to tip-toe along these high-wire Party lines of words?

  I said to Bruno 'You mean, if you know language has almost nothing to do with truth, this knowledge might be some form of truth?'

  Bruno said 'Sh!'

  I said 'But how could you ever communicate - '

  Bruno looked at me with reproachful eyes. He said 'Nellie!'

  I said'Yes, I see.'

  Part of the political activity we were engaged in in the Block was the distribution of the pamphlets and newspapers that were written and printed by the group working with my mother. We would pick up the bundles in a car from the building behind Alexanderplatz and dump them at various points through the city. Once or twice in the summer our cars had been ambushed and attacked; we now travelled with two or three men with truncheons or even guns on the front seat and the running-boards. I had some part in these activities because I had bought a small second-hand car with some of the money from my father, and this car was sometimes borrowed for these operations. I was not allowed to go on these expeditions myself. I protested about this. I thought - But of course, the most satisfactory position might be to protest and still not to be allowed to go on the expeditions.

  However - What if in fact the situation is that Bruno and I are not trusted?'

  Bruno said 'Wasn't it you who told me the legend that there are seven just Jews who, without knowing the existence of each other - probably without knowing their nature themselves - keep the sanity of the world intact?'

  I thought - Perhaps it is true that I don't really know Bruno.

  Bruno said 'I know what you're thinking!'

  I thought - It would be necessary for such people not to know each other, or else they would feel absurd.

  Then - But all this is an image; for what might keep one's own sanity intact.

  One day a grenade was thrown into the back of one of our cars that was distributing newspapers; three of our people were injured; one later died. The injured were carried into a room at the back of the guardroom of the Rosa Luxemburg Block and I, because of my medical training, was put to look after them. I had not trained as a surgeon: I had to dig out splinters of metal from the arms, the face. I thought - Now will they trust me? Then - But feelings here are not to do with trust. They are to do with what people need for their identity and location.

  Heidegger had suggested that life becomes authentic when lived in the presence of death: I thought - But this means living in the presence of one's own likely death: in the presence of other people's one just puts up defences.

  I said to Bruno 'But the idea of those seven just Jews is perhaps a metaphor for what it might be right for everyone to feel: otherwise they would feel absurd.'

  Bruno said 'I wonder what's happened to old Franz.'

  I said 'Franz is a Nazi.'

  Bruno said 'What, and not even a Jew?'

  I had not tried to get in touch with Franz since I had come to Berlin: it was from my father that I had heard he had become something of a Nazi. He had been working in the physics department of the University of Berlin. I used to wonder - Will he meet Einstein? Or has be become like one of those absurd people on the stage of that theatre who Einstein so mockingly applauded.

  I said to Bruno 'But do you think it would matter if one or two of such people appeared to be on different sides? I mean, would not one or two almost have to appear to be on different sides because one of the points would be that sides do not matter.'

  Bruno said 'Oh but sides do matter!'

  I said 'What people do on them matters.'

  Bruno said 'Isn't that the same?'

  I said 'Not necessarily.' Then 'I'd like to find out from Franz what's going on in physics.'

  Bruno said 'Oh that's good - yes - I'd like to find out from Franz what's going on in physics - !'

  In retaliation for the grenade that had been thrown into the back

  of our car one of our groups had fired shots at some Nazis who were sticking posters on a wall. In retaliation for this a car-load of Nazis with a machine-gun came past our Block one evening and fired through the windows; none of us was hurt; and in fact the Nazis' car broke down at the end of the street, but we were too frightened, behind our barricaded walls, to sally out in pursuit. Afterwards we were ashamed of this - so there was a meeting of cell leaders in the Block and it was decided that this time we
should make a large-scale effort at retaliation. It was difficult to get near the barrack-like buildings where the Nazi Brownshirts lived because these were well guarded: it was decided that an attack should be made on one of the clubs, or cafes, where the Nazis congregated in the evenings.

  I said to Bruno 'Do you ever get frightened?'

  Bruno said 'Do I ever get frightened!'

  I said 'Is that why we can't get out?'

  Bruno said 'Oh I see: the test is, to stay where we're frightened?'

  The plan for retaliation was that two or three of our group should climb up on to the roof of a certain cafe building and should drop a grenade or a home-made bomb through a skylight on to the company below. It was known that Nazis frequented this club or cafe; it was also known that it was some sort of brothel. A car was needed for the approach to the club and for the getaway. I was asked if I would lend my car: it was also suggested that Bruno should drive it.

  I said to Bruno 'But other people like playing these games: you're no good at them!'

  Bruno said 'Oh yes, we're on the side of reality.'

  I said 'I mean, why do you think they've chosen you?'

  He said, 'You mean, I might not be able to get up at the end of the third act?'

  I had imagined that I would not be involved in the raid on the cafe-brothel just as I had not been involved with the uses to which my car had been put before. But now the chairman of the Retaliatory Strike Committee came to me and said that there was a job for me to do. He looked away towards the door. I thought - He is waiting for a diversion like someone coming past with an armful of papers.

  Then - But why indeed are they taking so much trouble this time for both Bruno and me to be involved?

  It appeared that the job that had been worked out for me was to

  dress up as a streetwalker or prostitute and to hang about in the street outside the cafe-club so that I could be some kind of liaison between the people on the roof and the getaway car which would be round some corner. Because the club was also a brothel, this in theory might seem to make sense: but in fact it did not, for why should someone pretending to be a prostitute outside a brothel be any less likely to be picked up and questioned than anyone else? When I mentioned this the eyes of the chairman again drifted away. I thought - He would not mind if Bruno and I were picked up and questioned?