I thought — There are other ways in which we might be immortal.
In Berlin I found a letter from you, from England, which had been sent to a poste-restante address because I had not wanted to give you the address of the Rosa Luxemburg Block. I had written to you to say that Franz wanted to get in touch with you: I thought he wanted to talk to you about physics. I had said that I hoped that one day we all might meet. I had told you that in February I hoped to be going skiing; I had added 'Why don't you come too?'
In your letter you said -
Dearest Eleanor,
As it happens (can you believe this!) I am tomorrow going skiing with my friend called Hans (do you remember? he was the one who thought that Mephistopheles should be played by a twelve-year-old boy). Hans's family have a chalet somewhere in the mountains of southern Germany. I will find out the address and put it at the end of this letter. And where will you be?
Perhaps we will bump into each other like two of those particles which, if they have bumped into each other once, may never be quite not as if bumping into each other again.
Yes, indeed I would like to talk to Franz about physics. Shall I come to Berlin after skiing?
Do you know about these particles? People have become interested in them here. You remember the problem: how do you measure objectively what a particle is up to when what you measure is just the effect of your measuring? Well someone here has got an idea. Why not take two particles that have bumped into one another once (by a castle in the Black Forest, for instance) and if you know all about this meeting, and you measure what one of the particles is doing now, then although your measurements of this one will be affected by your measuring, you will be able to work out from these and from your knowledge of the effects of the original meeting, what the second particle will be doing — and this won't be affected by your measuring because it won't be it that's being measured — and so can this be called 'objective'? No, of course this doesn't make sense. Having measured the one, then if by doing this you are finding out anything about the other at all, you are affecting it.
So where are you now? Why should anyone want anything to be called 'objective'?
I am thinking of taking up biology.
Or that pseudo-science, whatever it is, by which the future is foretold by studying the cracks in heated bones.
I am dispirited. I do not know how to find you. You did not tell me where you were going skiing in your letter.
Love from Max
You had put no address at the end of this letter. I thought — You are angry with me? Well why should you not be, if I did not give you my address: but how could I, when I was suggesting that you meet Franz?
The envelope that the letter arrived in did look as if it might have been tampered with. I thought — But at least not by the people in the Rosa Luxemburg Block.
Then — But if you are angry with me, cannot I, even from hundreds of miles away, make you better?
I went skiing. I was on my own. I was in southern Germany. In the mountains there were these shapes, bumps, curves, that I sped down. I thought — All right, yes, these slopes are like that image of the pitted inner surface of a sphere: the four-dimensional space-time continuum of the universe. Such an image might not be a metaphor for scientific reality; science may be a metaphor for the reality of such an image. So — Who said that? My father? You? I am confusing you with my father, my mad angry English boy?
Then — Or perhaps your letter is telling me that you have a new English girlfriend.
I loved the mountains: I seemed to be in touch, indeed, with what was called 'gravity'. I was pulled: there was a force pulling: because of this I myself could steer — this way or that. But the bumps, shapes, curves, told me which way to choose. It seemed that one day, of course, I might go over the rim of the universe.
And so, at last, find what might be called 'objectivity'?
Of course your experiment made no sense! If the particles had anything to do with one another, then affecting the one would of course be affecting the other.
I thought — But if with enough style, elegance, on these mountains, one remains upright -
— With another there would be the same force by which the one might survive?
By the time I got back to Berlin Hitler had become Chancellor. There seemed to be some sort of hiatus, gap, in the streets. People had been holding their noses and had now toppled over: they were falling, falling.
I found that Bruno was not at the Rosa Luxemburg Block. People said that he had left. He had left no note for me. I thought — It is impossible for him to have gone and left no note for me! People in the Block said that he had just gone out one evening and had not returned. They seemed to suggest — Perhaps because Hitler has become Chancellor. I said 'What — ?' Their eyes slid away. He has got out? Gone over? This was not worth saying. I thought I might say to them — 'Bruno might have wanted to survive; it is you who have wanted to betray him.'
I thought I should ask my mother if she knew what might have happened to Bruno. Then — When I am in trouble, I still go to my mother?
In the streets the Nazis were setting up loudspeakers on street corners. Lamp-posts were hung with wires: they were like the umbilical cords of whales. I thought — These people are arranging so that they will be forever tied to their mad shouting Nazi mother; with luck, their lifeblood will run back to their destruction.
My mother was in her office with the machinery whirring next door and her cough and cigarette smoke rising up like spirits to torment her. There were people burning what seemed to be documents in the basement; the smoke from this too came up to plague my mother. It was as if she were some witch at a stake above a fire: I thought — Perhaps witches want to be pissed on to help them with the fire.
I said 'I wondered if you might have heard anything about what has happened to Bruno.'
'You think I might have heard something about Bruno?'
'He's disappeared.'
'So I hear.'
'Then you have!'
'What?'
'Heard.'
'I haven't said anything about knowing what's happened.'
I thought — But I can feel my own lifeblood running back! I will die if I don't get out, O my mother!
I said 'I saw Franz the other day. He said we should get out, you and I.'
'You have been in touch with Franz?'
'I went to have tea with him at the Adlon Hotel. I thought I might learn something from him, and I did.'
'You go to see Franz and you ask me if I know why Bruno has disappeared!'
She looked so pleased, my mother. I thought — But I do not need to be tied to a stake and pissed on by you, my mother!
I said 'Bruno wouldn't have gone of his own accord without telling me. You were all suspicious of him. Why?'
She said 'Didn't we have reason to be suspicious of him?'
I thought — Do you have reason to be suspicious of me?
Then — There are myths, in fact, about daughters wanting to kill their mothers: Electra, Clytemnestra. But Electra had to get her
brother to do it for her: perhaps women know that they only tighten the cord by wanting to kill their mothers.
I said 'You were always suspicious of people in the Rosa Luxemburg Block! They were suspicious of Bruno. They were suspicious of you. You all live on suspicion. Without it, you might have time to fight the Nazis!'
My mother rocked backwards and forwards in her chair.
I said 'You don't really think Bruno and I had contact with the Nazis?'
My mother said 'You've just admitted that you had tea with Franz.'
I said 'That is unforgivable.'
I thought — But of course I should never had told her about my seeing Franz!
Then — Dear God, perhaps I should never had told her about the raid on the cafe-brothel.