Hopeful Monsters (5 page)

There was a sentence in his notebooks - 'Reality is not a metaphor we construct from mathematics: mathematics is one of our metaphors for reality.' Also - 'If we try to put knowledge on this level into words, are we not back in the trap of language?'

During this winter (I was now perhaps ten) my father and I continued with our reading from story books and science magazines; these often seemed curiously relevant to what we tried to talk about. There was one story that I remember in particular which was to do with some people who were on a trip to outer space; they were, yes, in an airship. They were led by a man called Captain Steadfast; their second-in-command was a boy called Max. There was even a supposedly mad scientist whose head seemed to be set loosely on his shoulders. Captain Steadfast was on a mission to an outer galaxy where there was an evil demon about to dominate the universe; this was to be done by means of noise; the earth was being bombarded with inaudible but unbearable frequencies of noise; this was sending people mad; they were jumping about, bashing one another, starting wars; they could not tell what was plaguing them. Captain Steadfast and his crew had to find and destroy the evil demon before people on earth destroyed themselves. Also on the demon's star there was a beautiful girl imprisoned who might, if freed, lead Captain Steadfast to the source of the terrible noise. My father would look up every now and then and say 'This really is a very good story!' I identified, of course, with the boy called Max. The climax came (I remember it well!) when Captain Steadfast's airship was approaching the demon's star; the airship came up

against a solid barrier of noise; the evil demon had put out sound waves so that they were like a wall; the airship banged against this wall but could not get through; the airship was breaking up! Captain Steadfast was being defeated. Then someone aboard had the idea (was it the mad Professor? was it Max?) that what had to be done was to create a vacuum in front of the airship - sound cannot travel through a vacuum - so that if the vacuum could be made the airship could get through. So the propellers at the front of the airship were put into reverse; they went faster and faster; the propellers at the back drove the airship forwards; somehow or other the propellers at the front created a vacuum! And so Captain Steadfast and his crew got through. And they destroyed the evil demon and rescued the girl; and people on earth stopped hopping up and down as if they were demented.

My father and I were quite carried away by this. We sat side by side staring at the ceiling.

I said 'But could that sort of thing be true?'

He said 'Well, it is true that sound cannot exist in a vacuum.'

I said 'What about light?'

He said 'Ah yes, light.' Then - 'What we want to do, perhaps, is to make a vacuum in our heads, and then light might break in; and then it might not even have to be us who break through!'

We sat with our arms round each other staring at the universe. Sometimes there did seem to be outlines of dark light around the objects in the room in front; as if we were through to a strange planet.

At night I would lay in bed and would try both to think and to stop thinking of all this: there were all these lumps of light coming down - had it not been proved that light had weight? a hundred and sixty tons of it fell on the earth each day! - so what would become of us? Would we be crushed? Would we be made full of holes like a sieve? Was it true that if one made one's mind a blank then such images might fall through? There would be bits of gold and diamonds at the bottom of the sieve.

Sometimes at night there would be the sounds of my mother's and father's voices across the passage: my mother was nagging at my father; my father was being so reasonable; but it seemed to be his very reasonableness, like the demon's unheard voice, that was sending my mother mad. My mother would shout 'You think I don't know about the beautiful things you talk about with Eleanor!' My father would say indeed I would like you to be interested in

the beautiful things I talk about with Eleanor.' Then occasionally (as almost happened with Captain Steadfast's airship) my father's patience would break; he would roar and rage at my mother. I would want to shout - But the vacuum! The vacuum! Then I would think - Do we each of us have our evil demons and our Captain Steadfasts in our universes? I would try to go to sleep. But how do you make your mind a vacuum in order to go to sleep? I thought -There must be some trick: how does it happen, just when you are not looking, that you get tipped over on to another universe.

Of course, there were a myriad other things going on in my life at this time: there was my work with Miss Henne; the tea-parties at the houses of friends. But it was my relationship with my father that was like a thread through the maze; it was because of this, of course, that I remember it; one does not remember what is random in a maze.

There are two more instances that pick themselves out from the oddities of this time - the thread of memory bumping me into this or that corner of the maze.

The first was to do with the occasion that became known in history as the Kapp Putsch: this occurred in Berlin in March 1920. There had for some time been rumours - coincidental with the excitement over the confirmation of Einstein's General Theory - of a possible coup by right-wing militarists: these were objecting to what they saw as a too easy acceptance of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. In particular there was said to be danger from General von Liittwitz whose troops did in fact move in from where they had been encamped in the suburbs; members of the socialist government under President Ebert fled to Stuttgart; a new government was proclaimed with at its head a conservative politician called Kapp. But then there was the question - as indeed had occurred before to other revolutionaries - what are troops to do after they have marched into the centre of their own city? There they are with their baggage-wagons and bedrolls and field kitchens; where have they to go, what have they to do, except in the end to march out again?

I remember that for two or three days I was again not allowed out of the apartment; I stood at the window and looked down; there did not seemed to be anything much happening in the streets. I understood from my father and mother that the moderate socialists had successfully called for a General Strike; this of course was just what had been advocated by Rosa Luxemburg, but the workers had

never heeded Rosa Luxemburg, so why were they now obeying the moderate socialists? They seemed now at last to be acting spontaneously according to whatever were the mysterious laws of history. Water and gas and electricity were cut off; shops and factories were closed; public transport was not working. But still none of this was happening in the style that had been envisaged by Rosa Luxemburg. She had envisaged the iron necessity of history as something forceful and passionate and heroic; that in a General Strike (I remember the speeches of my mother's friends) there should be crowds charging with banners; men with pince-nez urging them on from makeshift platforms on street corners. But now, in this actual General Strike, it was just nothing that seemed to be happening. Soldiers lounged here and there with their bedrolls and mobile kitchens. There was not even the impression of an enormous event round some corner.

I listened to my father and my mother trying to analyse (as my mother's friends would have said) the concrete situation.

- But what on earth can troops do in the centre of a city? -

- They can kill -

- Who can they kill? -

- Are you saying that there is no violence nor oppression in a counter-revolutionary situation? -

- I am saying that in this particular situation, if there is no particular enemy, and if the situation is left alone, then in the end there is nothing for the counter-revolution to do but to withdraw -

- That is ridiculous -

- Yes, it is ridiculous -

- You think it is so easy! -

- No, I think it is very difficult -

- And in the meantime there are people being killed -

- Who in fact is being killed? -

And so on. I thought - I suppose my father, at least, is trying to create a vacuum.

Then on the third day there were indeed crowds coming out on to the streets; but they were still not the sort of crowds that had been imagined in a revolutionary situation; they were holiday crowds - girls on the arms of young men, families with children, individuals wandering and looking for people to make friends with. It was as if, after all, the event round some corner might be a

carnival: what indeed should a General Strike be except an occasion for a holiday?

We could see something of this from our windows. My father announced that he was going to take me on one of our walks. My mother said 'You are not taking that child out of this apartment!' My father said 'But there is nothing happening in the streets.' My mother said 'You cannot tell what will happen in such a situation!' She stood with her arms out and her back against the door of the apartment. I thought - Why are there these sorts of religious images in a revolutionary situation?

My father watched my mother with his air of amazement. He said 'But you always wanted a General Strike!'

She said 'Not this General Strike!'

He said 'But it seems to be working.'

She said 'Some sort of joke, you call this working!'

I do not remember how we got past the outstretched arms of my mother. Perhaps in the end she let us go: she wanted herself to see what was happening. I remember my father and I going out into the street, my mother emerging and following some distance behind us.

There were, yes, all these people in the streets; they were moving towards the centre of the town as if on their way to a fairground. When water and electricity have been cut off, and public transport is not working, what better can people do than wander out into the streets? And had not the presence of soldiers always been characteristic of a carnival?

My father and I moved along with my mother not quite catching up with us. I suppose my mother was beginning to be slightly mad at this time; I do not know what my father could have done about her. He was now pretending to ignore her. I wonder now sometimes if it suited him for her to be going slightly mad; then he could wander in his own way dreamily forwards. I imagine I wanted to say to him - Stop! (You think I really wanted to say to him - Stop?) I might have felt suddenly - What is the worth of our breaking through barriers if we drag along in our wake this piece broken off from us, my mother?

At the bottom of Wilhelmstrasse there were, yes, soldiers, sitting on the edges of pavements with their arms round their knees; recliriing on their bedrolls against the walls of buildings. Their rifles were stacked in tripods; their kitchens were like small steam-engines on wheels. It was as if everyone was at the end of a picnic. The

soldiers watched the crowds go past; the crowds both were and were not quite watching the soldiers; it was as if it were not exactly clear who were the carnival performers and who were the audience. An aeroplane went overhead dropping leaflets like confetti. Within the covered wagons of the soldiers there were glimpses of machine-guns. From the lines of girls that paraded arm-in-arm one girl broke off to offer to the soldiers a bunch of snowdrops: the soldiers looked away. They were unhealthy-looking, rather dried-up men: their uniforms were like bits of old skin peeling off them.

There was a group of civilians round a movie camera set up on a tripod. They were trying to get the girl with snowdrops to go through the motions of offering them to the soldiers again. This time one of the soldiers accepted the snowdrops.

My father and I pushed our way up Wilhelmstrasse towards the Adlon Hotel: my mother followed twenty or so paces behind. When we stopped she stopped; when we went on she came after us. I could not make out if I was angry with or sorry for my mother: I thought - What is the difference. Or - Perhaps my mother will always haunt me thus like a ghost. The crowds were thicker at the end of the street by the Adlon Hotel: there was a semi-circle of bystanders round the hotel's side entrance; it did seem, yes, as if there was taking place some performance. Some waiters were in a cleared space by this side door: one of them had got hold of two rifles and a soldier's helmet; he was holding the rifles so that they stuck up past the sides of his helmet like the horns of a bull. He lowered his head and charged at another waiter - this was the one with fair, glittering hair - who stood and languidly twirled a tablecloth round his hips. I did not know the connotations of these bullfighting images at the time; what was evident was that the soldiers were being mocked. The waiter with the helmet and horns went lumbering past the other who twirled his tablecloth prettily: the crowd jeered and laughed. After a time the good-looking waiter snatched one of the rifles from the other and, with the latter still bent over, pretended to stick the rifle up his behind. Then he turned to the crowd and made his mouth into an 'O' and waggled his tongue up and down. The crowd cheered and whistled. My father and I had made our way to the front of the crowd. Somewhere at the back was my mother; and, of course, the soldiers.

This must have been the day when the so-called Kapp government resigned (or have I run two days together? in my memory my mother has by now come up with us and we are all three standing

hand in hand). Anyway, on the third or fourth day of the occupation of the city the rebel politicians and soldiers gave in; they had run out of water and food; the banks would not give Kapp any money. (Oh the effectiveness indeed of a truly general strike!) So on this afternoon the soldiers lined up ready to move out of the city; they would go back to their camps on the outskirts where they would be able to feel at home. While they were preparing, my mother had joined us; we were standing with our backs against a wall at the top of Wilhelmstrasse; we were waiting to watch the troops move out. I remember my mother's bright-eyed face beside me like that of a bird; or like something on the prow of a ship - there was often an impression about my mother of someone moving through spray.