Hopeful Monsters

by Nicholas Mosley

  Then I began to cry. Oh God, this terrible world! With me on

  the edge of a bed and arms so harsh and tender. My father said 'Don't cry.' I thought - But I may not see you again. My father said 4 My brother has everything ready for you in Switzerland.'

  We were standing on the pavement of Wilhelmstrasse. My father and I had taken our arms from around each other. There were not so many people in the street: from here one could not see the fire. There were a few police and Brownshirts looking up to the sky. Franz said 'Where's your car?' You said 'Round the corner.'

  I said to my father 'Thank you for my satchel.'

  He said 'Oh that's all right.'

  You and Franz had moved off a little way down the street. You were saying 'I will let you know of any developments in England.' Franz was saying 'And I will let you know of any developments here.' I thought - You mean, much of this time you have been talking about physics? I put my head up and kissed my father. I said 'Goodbye.' He said 'Goodbye.'

  I went and joined you and Franz; I did not look back. I thought -My father and I may be able, in the future, to transmit some sort of messages.

  Then - I will get used to things on this strange planet.

  Franz was talking to one of the Brownshirts. He gestured to you and to me as if for us to go across the road. I thought - But to Franz I have not even said goodbye! I waved at him. I thought - But I will see Franz again.

  You and I went arm in arm across the road. There were police and Brownshirts in front of the Chancellery. You said 'If anyone stops us we had better speak English.' I said in English 'Where is your car?' You said 'It's extraordinary how well you speak English!' I thought I might say - Oh yes, as you know, that is because I had a governess called Miss Henne. We were going along Wilhelmstrasse away from the fire. After a time we turned down a side-street. There was a small car with British number-plates on it. I said 'I once had a car.' You said 'Oh what happened to it?' I thought -You mean, we are talking as if we are on a stage? We do this when we are in occupied territory: when there has been too much going on? You opened the door of the car for me; you went round to the other side and got into the driving seat. You said 'Perhaps we can say that you are pregnant.' I thought - Why on earth should we say that I am pregnant? Then - Oh I see, you mean when we get to the frontier. I said 'That'll take days.' Then - 'I mean, to get to the frontier.' You said 'It'll take all night.' I thought I might say - Oh

  yes, we can be laughing! You said 'Can I stay with you for a few days in Switzerland?' I said 'Yes, you can stay with me for a few days in Switzerland.' You said 'Thank you very much.' I opened my mouth as if I might cry. You said 'After that, I'm afraid I've got to get back to Cambridge.' I thought - Oh but we can't do better than this, with so much going on! You said 'Don't cry.' I thought I might say - I'm not crying, I'm laughing. Then I found myself saying 'I wanted to ask you, what did happen to that child?' You said 'What child?' I thought - What indeed! The one on the edge of the bed? The one at the back of that ruined castle? The one with whom I might in some way be pregnant? I said 'The one who was deaf and dumb.' You said 'Ah, her.' You drove for a time in silence. Then you said 'But you said she did seem to hear you; and she spoke.' I said 'Yes.' You said 'That's important, because no one else heard her speak.' I was going to say as I had said to you before -She told me where to find you! But then I was crying too much -for myself, for my parents, for you and me. I thought - But there is the voice of that girl, isn't there, that can he heard though people said she couldn't speak, going round the universe.

  I said 'What is that?'

  You said 'The Magic Mountain.'

  I thought - I will read it when you are gone.

  I said ' - On this mountain path there is a stone, a gateway, a spider; everything has happened eternally before and will happen eternally again - '

  You said 'Oh I know that!'

  I thought - For these messages, there has to be some code.

  There were the moments at night when we were one: this is the experience; then afterwards one is on one's own. You looked back, I suppose, at your past life; your lost family, your friends. Then again you might need me to hold you. I wanted to say - We will always be one: we will be like two of those particles -

  You said 'Would you really choose to live every moment of your life again?'

  I said 'If one were ready to say that, then perhaps one would not have to.'

  You said 'I want to say it.'

  I said 'Then our lives may be good enough.'

  When the time came for me to take you to your uncle, or cousins, or whoever they were, in Zurich, they were calm, grave men in knickerbockers like gardeners. In becoming separated from you there was a terrible violation like a seed-pod being torn apart: my head and heart were being split, crushed: I thought - It is necessary, I know, to put oneself into the hands of gardeners: knowing this does not alter the pain of having to grow.

  Your uncle sat behind his desk with catalogues to do with his business of chemical fertilisers. He said to you 'You now want to study psychology? We no longer know if it is psychology or alchemy that we have here at the university in Zurich!'

  You said 'Psychology or anthropology, it will be the same.'

  Your uncle said to me 'And what will you do?' He had found it difficult sometimes to acknowledge that I was there.

  I said 'At Cambridge I will take my degree in physics, then I want to change to biology.'

  He said 'Why?'

  'In physics we don't seem to be finding out about the nature of the world, we seem to be finding out about the nature of the equipment we're using.'

  'And in biology?'

  I said 'Well, in biology I suppose things either do or do not stay alive.'

  You and I went for a last walk through the town. I remember the lake on the edge of which the turrets of the town appeared like sandcastles. I said 'You're sure I have to go back? You have to stay here?'

  You said 'Aren't you sure?'

  I said 'It's pride to think that one can alter the world!'

  You said 'Isn't it pride to think that one shouldn't?'

  Your uncle and cousins came on to the steps to see me off. I thought - At the last moment, there might be something like a war; a bomb going off.

  I said 'Even if something is unique, it can be repeated.'

  You said 'Repeat it then.'

  I said'Goodbye.'

  You said 'I'll see you.'

  When I got back to Cambridge there were the people like shadows moving against the walls of ancient buildings. I had to go to see the head of my college because I had missed a part of the winter term. I said 'I'll take my degree: but then I'd like to change from physics.'

  The head of my college was a small bald man with eyebrows that were like the wings of a bee. His room was lined with books; he walked up and down and glanced at the backs of them from time to time as if they were flowers.

  He said 'What do you want to change to?'

  I said 'I wondered if I could combine physics with biology.'

  'Why would you want to do that?'

  I thought I might say - Why does not everyone want to do that?

  I said 'It seems that in the connections between the two there might be some sort of objectivity.'

  He walked up and down. I thought - He has, yes, made of his life a sort of honeycomb from flowers.

  I said 'In physics you manipulate what you see or you can't see it. In biology you at least know you are part of the nature you are studying.'

  The head of my college said 'You don't think that what you see is conditioned by the physical properties of the brain?' I could not tell whether or not he was being hostile. Then he said 'Are you interested in religion?'

  I said'No.'

  'Can you read German?'

  'Yes.'

  'Have a look at this.' He took down from his shelves a German translation of a book by Kierkegaard, of whom I had not at that time heard.

  I said Thanks.'

  He said 'Let
me have it back sometime.'

  I said'I will.'

  I went to see my father, who was behind his desk on which were piles of catalogues and periodicals to do with plants. I said 'The trouble is, people keep the subjects they study in separate compartments. So how are you ever in contact with the whole?'

  My father said 'Your mother tells me that you've got a girl in Germany.'

  I said 'She's had to get out of Germany.'

  My father said 'Is she a Jew?'

  I said'Yes.'

  My father said 'They cause a lot of trouble.'

  I wondered - Do people know why they are embarrassed when they use the word 'Jew'?

  I said 'I suppose they feel they have some destiny.'

  My father said 'You see in that some contact with the whole?'

  I said 'I wondered if I might go and study in Russia for a time. They seem to be doing there some experiment with reality.'

  My father said 'I suppose if you get shot in the back of the head, you can call that reality.'

  There were two Russian scientists I came across during my years at Cambridge: one was a physicist called Kapitsa; the other was a biologist called Vavilov.

  Kapitsa was an impressive, sparkling man with a large oval head like one of the sculptures in polished metal that were fashionable at the time. He came from an aristocratic Russian family and had survived the revolution because of his talent as a student for physics; he had come to Cambridge in 1921 as part of a Russian scientific delegation. Then he had been allowed to stay on as a pupil of Rutherford's - allowed by both the Cambridge and the Russian authorities. I had thought - He is someone who is able to move from one compartment to another; who has had to learn a trick or two in order to stay alive.

  In Cambridge he had started a club called the Kapitsa Club in which scientists and others could meet and indulge in speculation and fantasy no matter how apparently absurd: I had been told about this by Donald, who had been taken to one of the meetings. I had

  said 'You mean, old ideas have to be broken up before new ones can come alive?' Donald had said 'Oh everyone likes a bit of nonsense every now and then.'

  In the summer of 1933 I met Kapitsa at one of Melvyn's parties. I thought suddenly - He is not, is he, the man whom I saw Mullen with at that pub outside Cambridge, when they pretended not to see me?

  At the party Kapitsa laughed and joked and was a centre of attention. Once, when he was talking with Melvyn, he looked across the room towards me and pulled the corners of his mouth down like a clown. I thought - No, he is not that man who was with Mullen; but still, it is as if he might know me.

  Melvyn came across the room to me. He said 'I've been telling Kapitsa that you want to do post-graduate work in Russia.'

  I said 'Oh I didn't really want you to ask him!'

  Melvyn said 'It's all right, ducky, he won't make a pass. He'll just want to get you to sell some secrets to Russia.'

  I waited till Melvyn had left me and then I went over to Kapitsa. He was, as it happened, now standing with Mullen. I thought - The impression that I have known Kapitsa before is some trick of the mind?

  I said to him 'Melvyn says you might help me to get some postgraduate work in Russia.'

  He said 'You are a physicist?'

  I said 'Yes, but after my degree I want to do biology.'

  'Why?'

  'I want to see how the two are connected.'

  Kapitsa laughed. He said 'You want to see how power and love are connected?'

  I said'Yes.'

  He said 'Ah, you may learn that in Holy Mother Russia!'

  I did not know what to say to this. Kapitsa seemed to be laughing at a joke within himself. I thought - It is as if he is seeing something in the future?

  I said 'I was in Germany last winter: everyone there seemed so confident, all-of-a-piece; striding forwards like mad archaic statues.'

  Kapitsa said 'In Russia they are not confident.'

  Mullen said 'Is that necessarily a bad thing?'

  Mullen was like a ghost waiting for its cue to come out of a cupboard.

  I said 'But are the stories about Russia true?'

  This was the time when stories about conditions in Russia were filtering through to England: there had been famine caused by the enforced collectivisation of agriculture; during the enforcement thousands of peasants had been shot.

  Kapitsa said 'You're a physicist, not yet a biologist: who can say what stories are or are not true?'

  I said 'Old ground has to be broken up, before something new can grow?'

  Kapitsa said 'The pelican tears with her beak at her breast so that there shall be enough sustenance for her children - that is an image of Holy Mother Russia!'

  I thought - He is a trickster: a survivor -

  - He will be too careful of himself to get me work in Russia.

  The other eminent Russian scientist I had met during these years was the biologist Vavilov who was a friend of my father's. Vavilov was of an opposite type to that of Kapitsa; he was a serious-looking man with thick wavy hair parted in the middle so that he was like a ship making heavy weather in rough sea. He travelled round the world collecting specimens of plants for the Biological Institute in Leningrad and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Odessa. He sometimes used to stay with us when he visited Cambridge. One weekend at this time when I went home I found my father and Vavilov on the lawn under the mulberry tree. I thought - It is because they do not look like tricksters that they look like conspirators.

  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 wor
ked 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?