Waltenberg

by Hedi Kaddour

  Some dragoons ride into the crossfire from the machine guns and are shot in the back, the tide of dragoons is already on the enemy, a fusion of fear and furious voices lacerated by gunshots, lance thrusts, sabre blows, many riders have kept the curving sabre of 1882, despite the official ruling requiring the use of the straight sabre, the curved sabre is two-edged, cut and thrust, magnificent strokes, the point for the first shock, then slash with sharp blade to follow-up.

  In the mêlée, the sabres rain down on a nest of machine-gunners, on heads not wearing helmets, on rifles held up to parry the blows, kill in order to live, screams from the Germans or perhaps the horsemen, no one can say, the advance continues, the breakthrough continues with bare steel, shock, speed, men leap forward or take avoiding action, we must achieve the breakthrough, strike at their very heart or else go down in the attempt.

  Lena, Hans is no longer keen on the idea of horse rides at twilight, he is with her in autumn in a house with a garden, together they peruse catalogues of flowers and vegetables to plant in beds in the spring, they examine the packets of seeds, they open them, Hans laughs and jumbles up sweet peas and cress, broad beans, gladioli, pansies and spinach, she smacks his hand, they fool around trying to sort them all out again, they go outside, into the garden, it is morning, they walk a little way, the sun is still a pleasant red disc, a hazy round plate.

  Lena is not dead, he is not going to die, why did they ever separate? That’s not the way life should go. One night she simply stopped snuggling up with her back against his belly.

  It was all so cosy, before. They’d hold each other’s hand to turn the pages of a magazine, the advertisements, fashions even, was there a case for wearing divided skirts? Please, ladies, let us remain feminine, let us permit the elegance of the foot to intimate the slenderness of the leg which is discreetly encased in the bottom of a long skirt. Hans raised the hem of her skirt and kissed her leg in the Hotel Waldhaus in Waltenberg in 1913.

  There is a vehicle in the middle of the German bivouac at Monfaubert now under attack by the dragoons. A voice rises above the battle, an Offizier who shouts orders, regroups his men. He stands on the running-board of a car. He directs his men to fire in groups, by bearings, in volleys: restore order, order is the better half of life.

  The Offizier knows all about warfare, he is an old colonial hand, he was at Waterberg in Namibia, seven years ago already, Prussian troops against the Hereros, all the rebellious native tribes were driven back into the steppes of Omaheke, pursued from waterhole to waterhole.

  And when there were no more wells, the savages dug holes fifteen metres deep looking for water. German patrols found large numbers of skeletons around holes which were dry, the Herero people were estimated to number eighty thousand, and of them fifteen per cent survived, that was in 1907, the beginning of the century, all forgotten. The starkness of the final tally is to be explained, in diplomatic circles, by the relative inexperience of the Reich in colonial affairs. ‘The cries of the dying,’ wrote Oberleutnant Graf Schweinitz, ‘and the ravings of the crazed rang out in the sublime silence of the infinite.’ With mounting success, the Offizier on his running-board is heard and obeyed.

  The subaltern leading the 2nd troop of French dragoons breaks off from the target and redirects his men against the car from which the orders are being issued, a horse is hit and its rider is pitched over its neck and put out of action, the rest thunder by. Some dragoons are now surrounded by Prussians, the Prussians fire at them, shoot each other, shoot dragoons, the dragoons surround the car, ‘the mounted attack with drawn swords, which alone gives decisive results, is the principal modus operandi of the cavalry’, later there are voices, wouldn’t it have been better to attack on foot, with carbines? smaller losses, and the enemy well and truly put on the rack. Perhaps, but less panache that way. Before the attack, one of the French officers even shouted out ‘You can’t stop me dying in the saddle!’

  The first priority now is to cut down the burly Prussian who is shouting the orders. In front of the car, a Feldwebel in a flat-topped steel helmet has picked up a lance, covers his officer, a dragoon runs his mount to the left of the lance, the Feldwebel turns the lance against the dragoon who lies flat on his horse’s neck to pass under the point but receives a terrible thrust, at the same instant his sword connects with the Prussian’s chest, another dragoon rides by, a thump in the ribs, falls on his back, brought down at point-blank range by a Prussian.

  The rest of the dragoons have retreated to gather themselves for another charge, they close on the car and the Offizier, one dragoon goes down, another rides past, sabre held straight out stiff-armed, as if he is at drill and tilting at spinning quintains mounted on tripods, point of the blade angled up towards the chest, the point misses the chest, the strike is too high, the blade passes within centimetres of the man’s neck, a trained reflex, the dragoon slashes as he draws back the sabre, the Prussian officer ducks, the blade saws off his ear, his cheek, the whole of his mouth.

  Blood spurts, more shouting, the advantage of the curved sabre tells, more shots, the horse goes down, the dragoon is unscathed, three German soldiers leap on him, they scream, the dragoon on his feet, he has lost his sabre, get away, don’t die in this abomination, war is an abomination, the dragoon hates war, he’s a lawyer, and a good horseman.

  A German soldier grabs him from behind, holds him in a headlock, this is no dress parade, parades were before, the rider does not want to die, bloody war, go back to what life was before, quick, start over again, the rider is a lawyer, spring of 1914, they were heading for the abomination of war, it was then that it should have all been stopped, Poincaré elected President of the Republic, the rider didn’t want Poincaré, Fallières standing on the steps of the Elysée Palace sick at heart watching his successor climb the steps, says: ‘Poincaré, so it’s war.’

  Another German soldier has picked up a bayonet and is trying to ram it into the dragoon pinioned by his comrade, Poincaré, man of the left, but a warmonger, still a republican all the same, the republicans had got together and nominated another candidate for the presidency, against the right, ‘Stout Pams’, these French bastards caught them napping, the Prussian is holding the bayonet awkwardly, he’s a mechanic not really a killer, Pams would have made a perfectly good President, Poincaré only second in the ballot held by the republican camp, he should have withdrawn his name, that was the convention, but it seems Poincaré had been offended, on the grass of Monfaubert other cavalrymen fall, scream, no one to help them, when things have calmed down a handful of medical orderlies will come, the Red Cross, surgical saws, disinfectant, in Paris since 1912, a sensible precaution, nuns are allowed to work in hospitals, they learned to assist surgeons who were being trained to operate using disinfectant only, without anaesthetic, on the poor.

  Her flesh is much lighter, Hans looks at Lena’s bare back, the white fabric pulled down to her hips, her shock of red hair pulled up over the nape of her neck, the texture of her skin so smooth to his tongue. She is not dead. One night at Waltenberg her buttocks were all goose-pimples, how they had laughed, her laugh more raw, deeper than usual, Hans with his cheek against her hip had felt the strong flexing of her muscles as she laughed, her contralto voice. He can see the woman seated in the window with her back to the light, her back is three-quarters bare, her left breast just a little heavy in outline, it swells generously at a right angle from her ribs before curving roundly back to rejoin her body, he starts to get to his feet, makes it on to one knee alongside the armchair, is about to say don’t move and cover the breast with little kisses, it is not the final image he had carried away of her, but it is the one which will protect him against the inferno.

  The German soldier lunges at the Monfaubert dragoon, all he has is the bayonet in his hand, he tries to stick the blade into the chest of the dragoon who is being held from behind in a headlock by his comrade, the dragoon struggles, calls for help, kicks his legs out in front of him like a girl who’s had too much to drin
k dancing the can-can or a tango, the bayonet catches him in the thigh, in the hands, he is bleeding, the German soldier aims for his heart, the bayonet just slides over his ribs, there is more and more blood, put a stop to the whole thing, Poincaré the warmonger, the 1913 election, the republicans had chosen another candidate for the presidency, yes, but there’s the insult to Poincaré, what insult? the insult had left him free to canvass the votes of his opponents on the right, the warmongering hawks and those who still thought Dreyfus was a traitor, Poincaré, the war, and ready to do anything to become President of the Republic, not a traitor, freed of his obligations by the insults directed at his wife by the republican tittle-tattle emanating from his own camp.

  In the guts! shrieks the Prussian who is holding the dragoon from behind, the blood trickles from a gash in his face, the Prussian is finding it increasingly difficult to keep the headlock on from behind, but the dragoon is a lawyer and isn’t trained for hand-to-hand combat, doesn’t know how to bend his knees suddenly, shift his weight forwards, and throw the soldier who has him in the headlock over his shoulder so that he lands on the bayonet of the soldier facing him, all the dragoon can do is lash out with his feet, ‘In the guts!’ screams the Prussian, the insult, Poincaré’s wife wasn’t really widowed in the United States and her civil marriage to Poincaré made her a bigamist, there was a bigamist in the Élysée Palace, but the Church stepped in, Cardinal Andrieu giving Poincaré his backing for the sake of morality, the cross, for Lorraine and a promise.

  The bayonet slips, cuts deep into the hands of the German who is holding it, the dragoon yells for help, kicks his legs out in front of him, let us dance, said Le Figaro, since everyone else is dancing, the very dead will do a tango, the promise that the Poincarés would be married in church, the blessing to be given during the next parliamentary session, the session immediately following the presidential election, two unseated French cavalrymen come up scattering Prussians, whirling their sabres like windmills, the Cardinal goes to work on Catholic members of parliament and senators, Poincaré, vote for him, he’s changed sides, his soul is in our camp.

  The Prussian soldier finally gets a good grip on the bayonet, Jesus! don’t leave me by myself, the dragoon’s voice cracks, his two comrades wheel around the Prussians who will not let him go, and around them other Prussians come running, one of them gets his skull split from the top of his head to his teeth, a wounded horse rushes past at a triple gallop, its rider clinging on to his pommel, a church wedding is a small price to pay for entry to the Élysée, the people’s mood is calm, he will go to war, you know, even the members of Bonnot’s gang who were sentenced to death were executed without any fuss or unrest, it was enough to show them who was in charge, Poincaré the warmonger elected President, a republican to be sure, but one who had managed to get himself elected by reactionaries, it was treason!

  No, there was no treason, the left, Poincaré said, had insulted his wife, a good argument, a U-turn and lurch to the right, the Prussian holding the dragoon from behind releases his grip, Poincaré became President, there were now two hopes for peace, the first was called Caillaux, he was to become Prime Minister, he had already staved off one war with Germany.

  The dragoon is almost free, another dragoon comes up on the Prussian who is holding the bayonet, at the last moment the bayonet pierces the stomach of the dragoon who thought he was safe, the full length of a bayonet slides into soft tissue, the dragoon screams, the Prussian receives a cut from a sabre, the other dragoons grab their comrade under the arms, must get away, sabre-thrusts right and left as they make a run for it, the Prussians give up, the two dragoons see their comrade’s wound, don’t leave me behind, with Caillaux as Prime Minister there would be peace despite Poincaré as President, and Henriette Caillaux, large dark hat with a feather and black muff, fires six shots with a gun.

  ‘I smother you all over with tender kisses,’ Caillaux had written to Henriette in letters dating from the time when she was merely his mistress.

  Calmette, editor of Le Figaro, five or six shots, wanted to publish them, he is no longer a threat, three bullets, two fatal, in Calmette’s carcass.

  At Monfaubert, a bayonet in the belly, slower than a bullet in the head, really much slower, the two French dragoons lay their comrade on the ground, put a stop to it all in the spring, he does not yet know that it will take him four hours to die, Poincaré the warmonger has replaced Fallières, and Caillaux will not now be Prime Minister.

  A woman sits half-dressed at dawn, a leather armchair, her back to the light, a cold crimson light, think about the things you love, his mother had said, Hans knows you don’t have either the time or the right to remember the women you’ve loved when you’ve been thrown into a ditch and your comrades are being killed around you, it’s so very vivid, images come in flashes, evening walks down the path outside the hotel, the names of a few stars above the snow, the gurgle of a stream, best give me your arm that way I shan’t slip, holding his arm while they walk, that’s all she’ll ever do, they make their way back to the Waldhaus Hotel, a looming mass in the moonlight, a Belle Époque folly, a cross between a Bavarian Schloss and a fantastic overgrown chalet, two huge chalets eight storeys high standing on a common base itself three storeys tall, the third floor of this common base being occupied by guest lounges and the dining room, the north wing of the hotel terminating beyond the edge of a precipice, the architect having decided to make a bold gesture by extending the base of his building over empty space.

  A twenty-metre overhang resting on girders anchored in the granite, propped up four-square, more solid than the Eiffel Tower or the piles of Brooklyn Bridge, the balconies of the rooms on the end of the north side hang over the void.

  When he checked in, Hans had refused one of those rooms on the end of the north wing, I am a marine engineer, I built shapes that float on water not in air, the manager defends his hotel, there is no architecture without a gesture, Monsieur Kappler, and the overhang is the hotel’s gesture, because if this were not so it would be just a very large kitsch gateau.

  In the evening, the large bay windows lit the valley. They had returned arm in arm.

  Later, a ‘good night’ in front of a door, the hand of Lena Hotspur reaches round the back of Hans’s neck, Hans opens his lips.

  There are two schools of thought in the matter of kissing, that promoted by the French postcard ‘Ah, supreme embrace which melts all it touches, a kiss on the lips is the gift of the self’, and that of modern medicine which recommends that when the kiss cannot be avoided it should be preceded by a thorough rinsing of the mouth with an antiseptic preparation.

  Lena took Hans by the back of the neck and more or less bundled him into her room. The next morning, Hans opened the balcony window and realised that Lena had been given a room on the north side.

  In all, twenty-one bodies lie in the common grave at Saint-Rémy, on their backs, heads to feet, two rows each of ten bodies, the twenty-first in the centre covering five other skeletons.

  In it are also assorted religious medallions, a gold wedding ring, a rosary, several wallets, a cigarette lighter, a pipe, cartridge cases and cartridges, bullets, 1881 issue reservists’ boots, sundry types of buttons, a pair of false teeth, a few ink pens, numerous gold coins wrapped in paper.

  In most cases, the bullets were fired at these bodies from different angles and left wounds typical of traditional warfare: field combat, assault, retreat, what they call a princes’ war. Some had been hit in ways that suggested they had been put out of their misery.

  ‘Over here, quick!’ Michel Algrain had been told one day in May 1991, ‘it’s beeping it’s head off!’

  A soldier’s grave. In the places where soldiers die, enough iron and steel always remains for metal detectors to pick it up: eighteen privates and three officers, a captain, a lieutenant and a sub-lieutenant. The officers wear bespoke boots and are on average ten centimetres taller than their men. Dog tags, the number 228, which is the number of the regimental corp
s, clipped in brass to collar flaps, stripes sewn on the forearms and shoulders of the first three skeletons, there is absolutely no doubt: here lie Gramont, Fournier, Imbert and their men.

  ‘The top joint of the right forefinger,’ said an archaeologist, ‘gives us the hand of a writer.’

  Remnants of hand-knitted undergarments. A terrific find for an amateur archaeologist.

  ‘But Michel Algrain,’ commented the Association of the Friends of Jacques Rivière and Alain-Fournier in 1992, ‘went too far. What do these German documents prove? What is the point of stories about some German field dressing-station which he went grubbing around for across the Rhine? Monsieur Algrain should remind himself that no one who goes looking in enemy territory for evidence with which to charge our own side with crimes they did not commit can ever claim to be innocent.’

  On 10 November 1992, Algrain will be excluded from the ceremony when the remains are re-interred.

  During the winter which preceded the war, Henri had written to Pauline:

  ‘Somewhere there’s a frozen pond where we would at this moment be skating, a white garden where I’d lead you by the hand, a road where we would go for a long, long walk before it got dark and a room where we would at this moment be sitting together by the fireside.’

  A lovers’ dream. The frozen pond, Henri and Pauline executing serene arabesques on the ice, in proper families they would be termed an unlawful couple. They dream of firesides.

  Or then again they only speak in their letters of firesides and walks because it is not done in letters to speak of the predatory advances which are made in a bedroom in Paris as the evening gathers, the man talks like this to please the woman, or else he’s the one who dreams he is in the white garden and offers her his dreams, and maybe both of them truly yearn for a happiness constituted by a white garden and a fireside, because nothing else is within their reach, no, what they really like is the dusk and the dark, persistent smells laden with oil fumes which fill the room whenever they have to heat it, but that is the one treat they can neither have nor write about, so they treat each other instead to a white garden, a log fire, chestnuts crackling, she seated in the armchair by the window, momentarily in repose, turned towards the landscape, the window blameless, the breast observed in profile, the snow has consumed everything, the only thing that stirs, faintly on the fence, is the black, white and blue stain of a magpie which had just landed.