Fear of Mirrors

by Tariq Ali

  Lisa introduced herself and offered her condolences to Erich’s mother. The watchmaker’s wife was distraught, her face distorted by grief. In a state of total shock, she received condolences with a tiny nod, unable to do more than reiterate her refusal to accept that she would never see her husband again. Lisa asked if Erich could come and spend the weekend with them. His mother was touched, but shook her head.

  ‘I need him by my side now. Things will get worse. I don’t want my Erich to live here any more. My sister and her husband are in London. They appear to be happy. For a whole year she wrote and pleaded with us to join her, but my husband was obstinate. “I was born here and I will die here.”’ She began to weep. Tears sprang to Lisa’s eyes. She hugged the bereaved woman and gently stroked her head.

  ‘For Erich’s sake I will go to London. This country has no future. The rumours are that once the Prussians have captured Vienna, it will be difficult for Jews and Socialists to get passports.’

  Lisa nodded. There was nothing more she could do today. She disentangled her son from his friend and observed another silent tearful farewell. As they left Erich’s apartment, more people were arriving. Felix took her hand and held it tightly all the way home, even while they were on the tram.

  ‘Where is my father today?’

  Lisa’s two-handed gesture indicated that she did not know.

  ‘What work does he do?’

  ‘You know very well what he does. He travels. He sells fountain-pens all over Europe. He gets new orders, which enable us to keep this stationery shop here and in Amsterdam.’

  ‘Then how come he couldn’t tell me the price of a pen the other day? I’m not a fool, you know. What’s the point of not telling me the truth?’

  She looked at his flashing eyes and smiled. ‘You must ask him yourself. Tonight if you like, if he’s not too late.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s at the Zentrale, talking to his friends. Should we go and find him?’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘It’s too cold to go out again. Please go and wash, and then do some homework. I’ll prepare some food. Your father promised to be home for supper tonight.’

  Felix’s instincts had been accurate. Ludwik was at the Zentrale, where an animated conversation was in progress. News of the watchmaker’s death had spread and this latest tragedy had become intertwined with the permanently polarized political situation in Austria. Ludwik was listening quietly, while the two Englishmen questioned Ernst, the columnist from Arbeiterzeitung, the Socialist Party newspaper. Philby spoke quietly. His tone was ultra-polite. He was interested in the details, and had been interrogating Ernst for nearly an hour, demanding information about the concrete relationship of forces inside the police and the army.

  ‘I suppose what I am asking boils down to this: does the Socialist Party have cells in the police force and the army, or is its military work confined to its own defence force, the Schutzbund?’

  Ernst smiled, an irritating, self-important smile, the aim of which was to indicate that he knew, but would not tell. Philby felt instinctively that he did not know, for the simple reason that there was nothing to know. The Socialists had deliberately kept aloof from the police and the army for fear of provoking repression. Ernst was trying to conceal this fact. Philby exchanged the briefest of glances with Ludwik.

  He is asking the questions I would ask, thought Ludwik. He has an analytical mind. Philby’s compatriot, a young Oxford-educated socialist in his early thirties, was more aggressive, but less incisive. He had arrived at the café with the man from Arbeiterzeitung. The Austrian had been trying to convince his English friend that the tactics being followed by the Austrian Socialist Party represented the only possible alternative to the Nazis and the clerico-fascists.

  ‘These are your views, my friend; others have expressed contrary opinions.’ Hugh Gaitskell, a visiting English social democrat, spoke in a loud and excited voice. ‘You speak as if there was only one possibility, but I think you’re on the wrong track.’

  Gertrude, who had arrived in Vienna that morning with vital new information from Berlin, smiled with her eyes at Ludwik. She was impressed by young Gaitskell’s lack of tact.

  ‘Come, come, Ernst. Enough of this hogwash.’ Gaitskell had no intention of stopping the argument. ‘Let’s have some straight answers to a few simple questions. One: if the fascists are armed and brutalize the workers, is not the only way to resist them by force of arms? Or do you and Otto Bauer really believe that the threat will disappear by a mere show of strength?’

  ‘We are engaged in a delicate game of chess, my dear English friends,’ replied Ernst with a weary smile. ‘And you want us to trample all over the board. We can never do that because the workers would not accept it.’

  Everyone sitting around the table understood the reference to chess. You will, too, Karl, although your employers would find Bauer too radical. His ‘Chess Editorial’ in the Arbeiterzeitung had become notorious and led to excited debates all over Europe. Moscow, of course, had denounced it as an abject capitulation to the bourgeoisie, but elsewhere it was taken seriously. The Austrian fascists, in polar opposition to Moscow, had seen it as a threat and accused Bauer of fomenting revolution. In the editorial, the Austrian leader saw democracy as a game of chess with its rules, the most important of which was that the beaten opponent must be given a chance to defeat the victors. The problem was playing with the Nazis, because their player said: ‘I don’t believe in the game or its rules, but I am going to take part in it till I win. Then I shall kick over the chess board, burn the pieces, guillotine or imprison my enemy and declare it high treason ever to play chess again.’ To permit such a player to play the game was tantamount to suicide. The preservation of democracy required the exclusion of the Nazis. This was what Bauer had written.

  What do you think Karl? Too ultra-left? Or a realist who understood the German events only too well, unlike Stalin and his sycophants in the Kremlin?

  ‘The real problem,’ insisted Gaitskell, ‘is that it’s not just the pro-German Nazis who threaten you. It’s that little rascal Dolfuss. He and his clerico-fascists, as you so quaintly refer to them, won’t play according to your rules. Dolfuss loathes the Germans. He knows they see him as a tool, to be used and discarded. But he is frightened of our side even more. He wants to show everyone that he’s a tough leader, just like Mussolini. He will remove your queen, knights and castles, leaving you only the pawns. What price chess after that? Eh?’

  Ernst was irritated by this exchange. He had assumed that his British friend would support him. He frowned, looked at his watch, informed Gaitskell that they had a dinner appointment, and rose. The others followed suit. Ludwik arranged to meet Philby the following day and shook hands solemnly. Gertrude followed him out of the door, leaving Philby absorbed in a week-old copy of The Times.

  Outside the night sky was streaked with clouds. The snow which had begun to thaw earlier had now turned to ice. The night was cold and the pavement treacherous. Gertrude took his arm. She knew instinctively that he was walking towards Bakerstrasse and to his wife and son. For a few minutes she walked alongside him in silence. Then she made a weak attempt to distract him.

  ‘Should we go and eat somewhere?’

  ‘Not tonight. I promised Lisa and Felix I wouldn’t be late. The watchmaker died today. His son was Felix’s best friend. The boy will be very upset.’

  Gertrude hid her disappointment. It was always like this, she thought to herself. Every time I try and drag him away, he has an excuse. Aloud she said, ‘Of course, of course. I understand. My love to them both. And, here. I almost forgot. I know he likes them.’ She dug into her bag and produced a box of neatly wrapped chocolates.

  He smiled as he accepted the gift and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Half of these usually end up in my stomach,’ he said.

  Felix, crying, was waiting for him as he entered their apartment. Ludwik lifted the boy off the ground and hugged him.

  ‘Why, Papa? Why? Why do they hate the Jews so
much? Erich’s grandmother told him it was all the fault of democracy. She said that if the Emperor had still been on the throne, things like this could never have happened.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ replied Ludwik. ‘Perhaps, but under the Tsar in Russia it was much, much worse. Should I tell you a story tonight? Not a story my grandmother told me, but something I saw with my own eyes in Galicia?’

  ‘What was it Papa? What? Are we Jewish?’

  ‘Both my parents were orthodox Jews, but your mother is not Jewish. This means that for the real Jews, the believers, you are not a real Jew. But for the Nazis and anti-Semites it makes no difference at all. For them you are a Jew.’

  Felix trembled slightly.

  ‘Don’t frighten him, Ignaty.’ Ludwik’s real name had slipped from her mouth before she could control herself. Ludwik glared at her, but Felix, who had noticed, did not say anything. Tonight all he wanted to know was why his friend Erich was without a father. And now he also wanted to know whether the men in brown shirts would one day kill his father. Lisa had done her best to shield her son from the horrors of the real world, but now he had encountered history at first hand. He needed to be given some answers.

  ‘What did you see in Galicia, Papa? Papa?’

  Ludwik’s eyes filled with sadness. He hugged his son and began to talk about the pogrom he had witnessed and how Jews were killed for no other reason but that they were Jews.

  ‘What did you do, Papa?’ asked the boy.

  ‘Nothing at the time. A few years later, when I was sixteen, I became a Socialist. I would peer into the future with excitement and passion. We wanted a change so desperately. You see, my son, for the poor, the choices of how they wanted to die were restricted – through indifference and neglect in peacetime, or through violence in wars. The First World War cost everyone millions of dead. The life of a human being was worth nothing to these generals who paraded around in their fancy caps, being saluted and fed with truffles and the best cognac.

  ‘Seneca, in ancient Rome, first raised the question: “What if the slaves were to count themselves?” We began to do just that. Hundreds of thousands, including people like me, non-Jewish Jews, sought refuge in the Revolution. We thought this was the only way to bring the filth to an end.’

  ‘But why, Papa? Why do they hate so much?’

  ‘There is no single answer. From the beginnings of our world human beings have possessed an infinite capacity to do mischief to each other. It still goes on. Deep down we are still imprisoned by biology. It is the animal in us. You know the way a herd will sometimes expel or kill one of its number which looks different or poses a threat, usually imagined. Why does that happen? For animals it is an instinctive fear; in many ways it’s the same when human beings become frenzied and maniacal and start killing each other.’

  ‘Except for one simple fact, Ludwik,’ interrupted Lisa. ‘Humans have brains capable of understanding. The power of reason distinguishes us from the animal kingdom.’

  ‘Does it? Tell that to the Germans fleeing from Hitler.’

  ‘Will we ever go to London, like Erich?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ replied his father, ‘but first you must go to bed.’

  For a long time that night Ludwik did not speak. He was sitting hunched in an old armchair, staring at the mantelpiece. Lisa knew these moods of old and made no attempt to breach the silence. She knew he would talk before the night was out, but she was tired and hoped it would not be a long wait. When he stood up to pour himself a large brandy she sighed with relief.

  ‘I hate this apartment. Look at it. Filthy curtains. The chair has no springs…’

  ‘Ludwik,’ she interrupted, ‘is it time to leave Vienna?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied in a tired voice.

  ‘Was the Englishman depressing?’

  ‘No. He was quite sharp. I was depressing. Moscow is depressing. The Comintern is depressing. He questioned me in detail about the debacle in Germany, the Comintern’s role in paving the way for Hitler’s victory. I agreed with him, but had to defend the line. Always the line. “Have you been reading Trotsky’s pamphlets on Germany?” I asked him, just to put him on the defensive. He denied it strongly. I was aching to tell him. “You should. He got it right. Moscow got it wrong”, but the shock might have been too great.’

  ‘Did you see Gertie?’

  ‘That was depressing. She wants to leave the party and renounce Moscow. She’s in a suicidal mood.’

  ‘That may have nothing to do with Moscow or the insane policies of the Comintern!’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning she wants you. It’s your refusal to sleep with her that is driving her to suicide.’

  ‘Cruel! That may be mixed up in it, but she’s in a mess. And it is political. Never forget that she’s a German communist and her party’s on the edge of extinction. I don’t like any of my agents to be in such a state. It’s dangerous for everyone.’

  ‘You calmed her down?’

  ‘Politically! I told her I agreed with her, but…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But that we could not spit in the well from which we might have to drink water.’

  ‘So you think Trotsky’s wrong to denounce the Comintern and call for a new International?’

  ‘The timing is wrong. There will be a new European war, of this I’m sure. The Soviet Union will be involved. Stalin will not survive. The party itself will find it essential to remove him.’

  ‘Is that what the Fourth Department thinks?’

  Ludwik nodded and attempted to rise from the chair, but sank down again, a very tired man. Lisa laughed and pulled him up.

  ‘And Vienna?’

  ‘The clerical thugs are preparing to wipe out the Socialists. After Dolfuss and the Heimwehr have destroyed the Left, the Nazis will get rid of Dolfuss and take over Austria.’

  ‘But the Socialists are armed, unlike the Comintern in Germany. The Schutzbund will resist.’

  ‘The Schutzbund’s tactics are totally defensive. They are waiting for the government to choose the timing of the battle. For victory you have to be capable of going on the offensive. But you know that well, don’t you, my commissar? These people lack the instinct to win. I would give them six months at the most. Then the Right will teach Otto Bauer how it plays chess!’

  Are you still there, Karl? Or is your stomach turning slightly acid at the conversation you have just read? This is what it was like when political people on the same side were on their own. Ludwik and Lisa lived under a terrible strain. They lived a double lie. They were working for Soviet military intelligence and pretending to run a small business. They received orders from Moscow which was under the control of a despot whom they loathed. There were very few people with whom they could be frank. This was the cement that held them together.

  Gertrude stressed this factor, but looking through her notebooks I also know what she didn’t tell me. Ludwik and Lisa loved each other as well. They had a very close relationship. Even as I write I feel it in my bones that Gertrude was not Ludwik’s mistress and that he was not my father. Why did she lie? I’m not sure. I’m awaiting information from the archives in Moscow, which Sao has promised to get for me.

  Ludwik gave them six months at most. He had got the timing slightly wrong.

  As he was walking to his shop near the university the next morning, he noticed a queue of idle tramcars on the Ringstrasse. At first he thought there might be a power breakdown, but then another empty tram pulled up. The driver got out and joined his circle of comrades. Ludwik walked up to them.

  ‘Are you on strike, comrades?’

  They replied with a collective shrug of the shoulders.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No,’ replied the youngest of them. ‘We’ve heard the fascists have shot workers in Linz. There’s a general strike. We’re waiting for instructions from the party.’

  Ludwik shook hands with them and began to walk briskly. On street corners he saw lines of battle-ready soldiers
flanked by steel-helmeted policemen carrying rifles. Heimwehr units were on their way to the Rathaus to arrest the mayor.

  Ludwik walked up to an officer. ‘Excuse me,’ he said in his best imitation of a bourgeois Viennese accent. ‘What is going on?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘A businessman.’

  ‘The Socialists have launched a revolution. The government has declared martial law. You had better go home.’

  Ludwik accepted the advice and began to walk back. He saw the tram-drivers. All of them were on the ground cowering. Above them stood a unit of Heimwehr men. The workers were being kicked and whipped with rifle butts. Ludwik felt sick. As he hurried away, he saw barbed wire barricades being constructed by soldiers all round the Ringstrasse. Machine-gun units were being placed at regular intervals.

  Otto Bauer had waited too long, and the counter-revolution had taken the offensive, thought Ludwik, as he walked back to his apartment. He was sure that it would be bloody, and he was equally sure that Hitler would swallow Austria. The Prussians would soon be in Vienna.

  Later that evening, just as they were sitting down to eat, they heard noise of dulled explosions from the direction of the working-class suburbs. Socialist Vienna was being shelled by howitzers and trench mortars. The chess game was over. Felix was staring out of the window, hoping that Erich was safe. In the background he could hear the voices of his parents discussing the fate of Austria.

  Dolfuss was strutting around trying to mimic Mussolini, but it would not last. By destroying the Socialists, the only party that could have resisted Hitler, he had effectively ordered his own execution. Ludwik was convinced that Hitler would strike soon and incorporate his native Austria into the Third Reich.

  ‘At least,’ muttered Lisa with a sigh, ‘this is one defeat for which Moscow can’t be held responsible.’