As I went out of the door my mother shouted after me 'He was never any good for you!'
I thought — Don't give me that stuff now: the caring mother!
Then — This is not ridiculous, it is evil -
— You think it might even have been my mother who was responsible for the tip-off?
As I walked through the streets it seemed, yes, that my lifeblood was draining away. I thought — But in so far as it is her blood that has run through me, let it run back to her destruction!
The streets were hung with wires like entrails.
I thought — Will I always be that child lying on the edge of a bed while people tend to the dying earth, its mother?
— Oh cut the cord: tie the liberating knot! Can the child do this itself? It can re-create its own blood, from that of its mother.
I found myself walking in the direction of the Adlon Hotel. I suppose I was going there on the chance of seeing Franz. Of course I knew that there was almost no chance of seeing Franz — he had taken that room in the hotel only for one day — but then, what is this operation of chance? You put yourself in the way of it. I wanted to see Franz because I wanted to ask him about Bruno: also I needed a friend. Then coming along Unter den Linden there was a squad of motorcycle outriders and behind them a car and in the car, Hitler. It was an open car, although this was in the middle of winter; it was as if Hitler had to be on show, as if he were some sort of dummy. I mean a perfect dummy, all-of-a-piece, to be admired. Well, humans
are not all-of-a-piece, are they? Hitler was like something made of cloth, waxed and polished; you can walk all round a dummy and examine it. Human beings react: but a dummy is an object. I thought — But what is this waxed dummy for? It is some huge candle to light an ultimate bonfire? It is something into which pins are stuck, to make humanity suffer?
Hitler whisked past in his car. I thought — Or perhaps he will go round and round like a Catherine wheel until he goes out and is dumped on someone else's bonfire.
Franz, of course, was not in the Adlon Hotel. I walked straight through and out of the side door into Wilhelmstrasse. I thought — You have to go on putting yourself in the way of chances if you want to survive.
Then — But why didn't you come to Berlin instead of going skiing -
— It is you I am so often talking to, isn't it, my English boy? There had been more Nazis than before in the hallway of the
hotel. They were on their toes, almost taking off; they were balloons about to be lifted by hot air.
— But might not sparks from bonfires burst them on their way round the universe?
I was summoned to appear before the Central Committee of the Rosa Luxemburg Block. There were eight men and women behind a table in the basement. They were coughing and smoking and trying to see that their cigarettes did not roll off the small metal trays on the table. I thought — There are children's games like this: you hold a small box in front of you and you have to steer a silver ball along grooves and see that it does not fall through holes.
They said 'We wish you to tell us what you know about Bruno.'
'I know nothing about Bruno. He's disappeared.'
'He left you no message?'
'No.'
'That is unusual?'
'Yes. I have been trying to make my own enquiries.'
The chief interrogator was a woman who wore small steel spectacles like Trotsky. I thought — Has she not heard that Trotsky has fallen through a small hole in the board of this game in Russia?
She said 'What enquiries?'
'I have been to talk with my mother.'
'We have information that you had a contact at the Adlon Hotel.'
'Contact?'
'You do not deny it?'
'I do not deny what?'
That you met a Nazi official at the Adlon Hotel.'
I thought — I was followed?
Or — Only my mother knew I met Franz at the Adlon Hotel!
I said 'I met an old friend of mine called Franz at the Adlon Hotel'
'You do not deny that he is a Nazi?'
'He is nothing official. And anyway that was before Bruno disappeared — '
'Yes?'
'Franz and I have been friends since childhood. This has nothing to do with Bruno.'
'You say Bruno and you and this man called Franz have all been friends since childhood?'
I thought — I am doing this all wrong.
Then — But certainly it is only my mother who could have known that Franz and Bruno and I have been friends since childhood.
— Help me, Josephus, to get out!
The woman in the Trotsky spectacles said 'Begin again. You went to see this man in the Adlon Hotel.'
I said 'Don't you think that it is in the interests of the Party to gain information? Did my mother not tell you, or did she not know, the terms on which I went to see my friend in the Adlon Hotel? Don't you think it would be to your advantage to make further analysis before you question my objectivity?'
The woman with the Trotsky spectacles picked up her cigarette and drew on it heavily and seemed to be balancing smoke like small silver balls in her head.
I thought — This is dangerous: but if words have ceased to mean what people think they mean, might one not still use them to survive?
The woman with the spectacles said 'We will question you further. You will not leave the Block.'
I thought — But now, should I not catch any chance to get out?
It seemed that I should make my own bonfire of the documents and bits and pieces of my life — the few possessions I carried around with me. I took my suitcase down to the basement where there was a furnace and I emptied the contents on to the ground; my bits and pieces lay there like those old bones, or entrails, yes, by which people used to think that from the past or present they could tell the
future. There were letters from my father: I came across a sentence which said 'You must not be surprised at your mother's antipathy to Bruno: you are her daughter. Though it is odd, I agree, her admiration for Franz.' The date on the letter was three years ago. I thought — So patterns are there, yes, if you see them, like cracks in bones; but how can one tell from these about the future?
There was a letter from my old girlfriend Trixie which began 'No, I don't think it is interesting that you and Bruno are Jews and I am not: I think this sort of thing is boring.'
There was a letter from you from the previous winter -
Humans are containers to be put on a bonfire? Right! But why should not the message they carry be: What infinite care has been taken to make them such beautiful containers!
It is persons, containers, after all, that either live or die.
The care now might be to develop a sense to do with the appreciation of chance.
I put in a satchel the letters I had had from Franz, Bruno, Trixie, my father and yourself; the rest I put on the bonfire.
I thought — But these seeds that I will carry round with me will be in some pouch, some pod; and one day they may burst over an indifferent multitude?
I did not want to stay indoors behind barricaded doors and windows as did other members of the Block but I had nowhere to go except on the circuit I had fixed in my mind — to the building where my mother lived, then on round the north side of Unter den Linden to the area of the Adlon Hotel, then back to the Block. I wondered — In some way I imagine I am looking for Bruno? Or Franz? I might bump into something if I keep moving round and round.
I paid no attention to the orders of the Committee that I should not leave the Block. I thought — It is when you let yourself be lined up, when people know where you are, that you are self-destructive.
Then — Oh but why should one bump into anything except oneself as one goes round and round!
One evening I set off on my usual round: it was after dark, at the end of February. I did not really want to see my mother: I had told myself I wanted nothing to do with my mother ever again. I thought — So what am I trying to do: seeing what flowers might have been put on a grave? There had continued to be the hush, the