My father and I would arrive on the threshold and survey the scene. Between and around the various groups there whizzed waiters who were neat and dapper young men who balanced trays
on the tips of their fingers: they wore short jackets and tight trousers: they were like acrobats, or balls in a game of bagatelle. And there were my father and I, having landed on this strange world from our airship.
We would settle at a table and order tea. The women on the arms of chairs tried to blow smoke rings; the men with their heads together were like bubbles on the surface of a cauldron. Occasionally one of the French or English or American or Prussian officers would look without expression at the men and women gathered round a table; then he would call to one of the waiters going past with a tray, and he and the waiter would laugh and chatter.
One day I said to my father 'But how can you fight a war and then be friendly with the people you have been fighting?'
My father said 'People quite like fighting wars; then after a time they've had enough.'
I said 'And they aren't able to look at what they've been doing?'
My father said 'You're right!'
There was one particular waiter with smooth blond hair who whirled to and fro and who seemed to have special attention paid to him by the officers. I wondered — There is a glitter about him, as if of the same sort as there was around Rosa Luxemburg.
I said to my father 'What happened about that theory of Professor Einstein's — the one that said however far you tried to look outwards, you would come up against the back of your own head?'
My father said 'How interesting you should say that! They think they have found a way, as a matter of fact, of either proving or disproving the theory. The English are sending expeditions to South America and to Africa — '
One of the women who was perched on the arm of a chair at a table near us had fallen backwards on to the lap of one of the men who was like a drop of oil. She kicked her legs up into the air. Ash from the man's cigar fell on to her dress; she brushed at it, and seemed to be making out that it had burned her.
My father was saying 'At these particular places there is going to be a total eclipse of the sun. The expeditions are taking with them telescopes and instruments which will discover what happens when light from a distant star passes close to the sun. Normally light from such a star would not be visible because of the brightness of the sun, but if there is a total eclipse — '
The woman who was on the lap of the man with the cigar was holding a piece of her dress and was looking at him reproachfully.
Then she put her hand into his jacket and took out his wallet and looked inside. The man seemed to pay no attention to her; he was puffing at his cigar.
My father was saying 'By an extraordinary coincidence, just at the time when there is a total eclipse at these places there is also just such a bright star almost directly behind the sun — '
Some of the Allied and Prussian officers were looking down at the man and the woman in the chair. The woman was taking money from the wallet of the man; she leaned and kissed him on the forehead. Then she looked up at the Allied and Prussian officers. One of them looked away and seemed slightly to spit, as if he were taking tobacco off his tongue. The woman who had taken the money put her tongue out at him. I wondered — But why is the man who is like a drop of oil or ointment paying no attention?
My father was saying ' — So they will be able to tell, from the observations recorded by their instruments, whether or not, when the light from the star passes close to the sun, it is bent or curved or whatever; and so whether or not the nature of space is bent or curved. I mean they will know from calculations where the star behind the sun will actually be and they will see from their observations where it will appear to be — ' My father broke off. He too was now watching what was happening between the woman and man in the chair and the Allied and Prussian officers.
I said Tm listening.'
My father said 'But how will they have made their calculations except through observations?'
I said 'What?'
My father said 'Where was I?'
The woman was climbing off the lap of the man in the chair. The Allied and Prussian officers were moving away. I wondered if I should talk about the scene with my father: then I found that I did not want to.
I said 'So you mean, they won't be able to prove it.'
My father said 'Oh well, they may think they've proved it.'
I thought — But is it about this, or the scene in the hotel, that I want to talk with my father?
Sometimes during these days I went with my mother to her soup-kitchen in one of the poorest parts of Berlin. There was the impression of going down into ever greater depths under water; it was as if I now had to imagine myself in some diving-bell or bubble. The soup-kitchen was in a cellar; there were grey women
and children like shadows against walls. I thought — If they or I touched, there would be no oil or ointment to spread! I helped with the handing-out and washing-up of plates. My mother seemed at home among these shadows. She told them what to do; she arranged them in formations against the walls. I thought — Perhaps it is easier to feel what should be done with shadows.
My mother said 'This is not like the grand tea-parties you go to with your father!'
I thought — But why do you say that my father does not love you? Is it because you see him as a shadow?
Sometime during that summer I became ill; I had a fever; I lay in bed and stared at the wall. I thought — There, and there, are shadows! But the sun is too dangerous; you are bent, this way and that, by gravity.
There was one other particular occasion that I remember from the times when my father and I used to have tea in the Adlon Hotel. This must have been later in the summer when the terms of the Treaty of Versailles had become known, because the Prussian and Allied officers were no longer easily speaking to one another. A scene occurred between one of the French officers and one of the Prussians (must not memory depend on events having some connection with symbols?). A group of French officers had been drinking. One of the Prussian officers stopped and spoke to one of the waiters — this was the one with blond and glittering hair — and the waiter smiled and put an arm round the Prussian officer's waist. One of the French officers made a remark that seemed to be about the Prussian officer; the waiter looked at the French officer and rolled his eyes and bit his lip. Then the Prussian officer went up to the French officer and clicked his heels and bowed (how can there be this sort of behaviour unless there are archetypal images?); he said something to the French officer while the French officer languidly fitted a cigarette into a holder. Then the French officer was turning and bowing and clicking his heels; I suppose in a moment there would have been the business with leather gloves and face-slapping; but then an older Prussian officer — one with a monocle, yes, and a shaved head and wrinkles at the back of his neck — was going up to the French officer and laying his hand on the arm of the young Prussian officer and was speaking to the Frenchman in loud and bad French. I understood what he was saying just because he articulated so carefully. He said 'Gentlemen, we do not have to quarrel amongst ourselves, surely, when we have
amongst us a more natural enemy.' And then he turned to a table at which there was one of the groups of men who were now like drops of oil or ointment perhaps having touched a surface and spread. This group did not have any women with them: they were just, with their heads bent over a table, like one of the diagrams that my father used to draw to illustrate how people's visions might rebound on themselves.