Perhaps I have not always been fair about my mother: I have so many fewer memories of her than of my father. Or I feel guilty about my mother. There were many times when she was good to me, after alclass="underline" she had sat up with me when I was ill; she had taught me to play the piano; she made for me the dresses in which I went out to the tea-parties of friends. And now here we were hand in hand as a family at the top of Wilhelmstrasse. Most of the crowd had stayed to jeer at the soldiers as they marched out. But I suppose the revolution or counter-revolution could never be a laughing matter for my mother.
The soldiers were like strange animals caught in a desert without water. They moved off round the corner of Wilhelmstrasse and into Under den Linden. There were glimpses of machine-guns in the wagons. From the crowd there were whistles and catcalls and booing. The columns turned left towards Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate. When the last of the columns had gone round the corner the crowds broke and drifted after them. My mother and father and I at first stayed with our backs against our wall; then my father moved off in the wake of the crowd. He held me by the hand; my mother pulled me back by my other hand; she would not let me go. I was thinking — She wants to protect me; but I have been on so many journeys with my father! Then my father let me go; he went off in the wake of the crowd. I was angry both with my father and my mother — how could I be left behind! I broke away and went after my father. I thought I would just go round the corner into Pariser Platz and then I could say that I had been with my father and then perhaps I could go back to the safety of my mother: or I could be on my own. Then suddenly there were shots. I had got round the corner, I could see the Brandenburg Gate, I did
not at first recognise the sound of shots; it was like fireworks going off. These were the only shots fired during those three or four days. But then there were people running back from the direction of the Brandenburg Gate. Some were screaming. I stayed where I was because I wanted to find my father. There was a girl just next to me who was not much older than myself; she had been knocked backwards as if something like a tram had hit her; she had sat on the ground. Then she rolled over, holding her middle. The crowd trampled over her. Then my father came up and grabbed me. What had happened I learned later (there were photographs of this in the illustrated magazines) was that as the end of the last column of soldiers was going through the Brandenburg Gate the crowd, coming up behind, had given it a valedictory jeer; and the soldiers sitting on the backs of baggage-wagons had opened fire for a moment with machine-guns. And now there was the crowd running back to the safety of Wilhelmstrasse. I think both my father and my mother grabbed me at the same time — the one running back and the other running forwards — and then we were all going back round the corner to our wall. But my mother was once more shouting and yelling at my father. Then my father and I stood in an alcove while my mother went back into Pariser Platz; this was now almost emptied of the crowd; there were just bodies here and there and my mother picking her way amongst them like a bird. She knelt down by the young girl who was lying on her side holding her middle. My father and I watched her. I thought — She is like an angel, or a vulture. Then — But what my mother shouted at my father was: 'You murderer!'
The other incident that has stayed in my memory of this time (a bump from a corner of the maze; a nugget left behind in the sieve) was to do with the rocketing to fame of Professor Einstein.
The publicity given to the corroboration of the General Theory of Relativity, combined with the apparent need of the public for at least the illusion of a liberating vision, had resulted in adulation for Einstein but also a growing hostility. In particular there was animosity towards him on the part of some scientists in the Berlin Academy, who either did not understand what he was proposing, or did not like it if they did. They complained not only that his physics was incorrect, but that his theories were undermining objective principles about right and wrong. In particular there was a physicist called Lenard, a Nobel prizewinner, who led the attack
against Einstein. After a time this took the form of a crusade against what came to be called 'Jewish' physics. It had been a characteristic of German anti-Semitism, I suppose, that Jews were held to be subversive to objective standards of right and wrong.
These so-called 'true German' scientists embarked on a series of public lectures to try to warn what they saw as the gullible public about the machinations of the wicked Professor Einstein. My father got tickets for one of these lectures; he wanted to attend it so that, of course, he might be better armed to defend Professor Einstein. He got two tickets, intending to go with my mother, but my mother was becoming more and more distant from both my father and me at this time; she would spend two or three nights at a time away at her soup-kitchen; she was becoming increasingly involved again in Communist politics. When she came back to the apartment now she would sleep in the dining-room which had been rearranged to take a bed; my father and I ate and sat in the drawing-room. At the time of the shooting in Pariser Platz I had felt some kinship with my mother; it was as if some light had entered my mind about the prevalence of death. But my mother did not seem to want to take any notice of this; it was as if she wanted quite openly now to hand me over to my father.
So when my father asked her to go with him to the anti-Einstein lecture, saying that there might be a chance here of their joining hands in their work, she just said 'Take Eleanor.'
My father said 'Eleanor's too young.'
'She's not too young for most of the things you get up to.'
So my father said to me 'Would you like to come to this lecture?'
I said 'Can I?'
He said 'There's no reason why not.'
I thought — I still do not know if she wants to damage me, or encourage me, my mother.
I remember that I tried to dress up to appear as old as I could for this lecture: I put on one of my mother's hats; it looked ridiculous; I took it off. In the end I wore just one of my mother's shawls. The lecture was in the old Philharmonic Hall; there were boxes in tiers; there did not seem to be any empty seats in the hall. I suppose it was brave of my father to take me; many of his colleagues were there; they looked at me curiously. I think my father had told them that I was some sort of mathematical prodigy — which I was not. We sat in the stalls. The audience did not seem to be so different from that at a concert of Wagner's music that my father had taken
me to not long before in the same hall; the music had made my mind go blank; I had thought — If I were a snake, yes, I would be being drawn up out of a basket. Now I thought — Will this lecture be about Jewishness and non-Jewishness? I must pay attention: I have to study, after all, what is it to be half Jewish and half not.
The first speaker was a large man in evening dress who had a purple sash across his chest. He spoke about the Theory of Relativity being contrary to the German Spirit; this Spirit was to do with the Fatherland and blood and God, while Relativity was to do with atheism and decadence and chaos. According to him Relativity was also, in some contradictory way, to do with a highly organised conspiracy for world domination. The Absolute German Spirit, he said, if it did not take heed, would be overwhelmed by an alliance of rampant subjectivity and alien invasion. The man made strange gestures with his arms as if he were throwing stones. I thought — How long will it take the stones to go right round the universe and hit him on the back of the head?