Waltenberg

  The Waldhaus quickly turned into a hotel catering for the winter sports and conference trade, Lilstein knows the owners quite well, has known them for ages, a couple who came from Alsace in the twenties, no money, a great deal of experience, became managers in 1939, were able to buy it in 1943, the darkest of the crisis years for tourism.

  Lilstein strolls but he’ll have to work fast, it’s risky, two meetings in the same place, but the idea had caught his fancy and wouldn’t let him be. The purpose of the first meeting is to make Kappler change his mind, Kappler, the great writer, the man who before the war had given him advice about life but that’s all in the past.

  The other meeting, with the man who needs to be convinced, a young Frenchman, from Paris, not yet thirty, if he accepts my proposal it could mean a very bright future for him.

  That lands me with a very neat antithesis, it’s dialectical, no, not dialectical, there’s no synthesis, these two meetings form a symmetry, a thing and its obverse not its opposite, but what happens if it’s the opposite that comes up?

  I try to dissuade Kappler from returning to the GDR but instead he goes back and settles down at Rosmar; I try to persuade the young Frenchman to work with me, but he tells me to go to hell and denounces me to whoever will listen. You’ve still got your perfect symmetry but with both operations going wrong on the same day.

  If Kappler does go back despite all I tell him it will be a failure only to me, in Berlin on the contrary I shall be congratulated for securing his return. But I won’t be forgiven if the second operation goes wrong, long-term recruitment is the aim of all heads of external security whichever side they’re on, a young man with a brilliant future, guide him over a period of years, tens of years, you’re taking a big risk here, oh yes, but the problem is that you’ve not told anybody in Berlin about this plan to recruit the young Frenchman.

  Or then again I fail with Kappler and succeed with the Frenchman, or else I succeed with Kappler and fail with the Frenchman, but I can also fail with both of them, which makes four possible outcomes in all.

  To convince the young Frenchman I’ll have to sound as if I’m convinced myself, with Kappler I’ll have to sound bitter, writers like bitterness but if bitterness is all Kappler sees in me and if the Frenchman senses that I am too convinced, I’ll be whistling in the wind, I’m the one who wants something, what have I got to offer?

  Lilstein has known Kappler for ages, he first met him when he was already world-famous, it happened here, in 1929, Lilstein had come with his older brother, Thomas, a philosopher with a promising future, the ‘Waldhaus Seminar’, intellectuals, philosophers, economists, politicians, scientists, wealthy backers, beautiful women. People who wanted, as the expression already had it, to ‘build Europe’, all good bourgeois citizens and some of them even enlightened. Thomas is dead, he wanted to change philosophy, to find new relationships between being, reason and History.

  What Lilstein wanted was to install telephone and radio in every corner of the globe and bring about the Revolution, sometimes people paid attention, affectionately, called him ‘Young Lilstein’, he was in love and he was rebuilding the world. These days he wonders exactly what it is he really wants to rebuild.

  A few weeks ago in Berlin, he had been summoned by the Minister: ‘Kappler wants to come back! Come back! Imagine, he’s been gone ten years and now he wants to come back, at this point in time! It shows we were right all along!’

  The Minister’s huge paw strikes the top of his desk, hairs sprout on every joint of each finger, his voice rises:

  ‘This proves it beyond the shadow of a doubt! Everything we’ve done this past year was harsh but it was fair, they call us “East Germany”, even the “Soviet Zone”, but Kappler said: “I’m going home”, it proves we’re a true homeland and not a part of somewhere else, you know him, don’t you? known him personally for almost thirty years, you will go to him, you will give him anything he asks for, he must come back, it would be a stupendous coup. Kappler! he’s abandoning them! I can already hear their hounds baying! He’s coming back to the camp of progress, peace and socialism in spite of all the howls of their typewriter-pounding hyenas.’

  The Minister pauses, looks Lilstein in the eye and adds:

  ‘And in spite of our own mistakes! At last, some good news!’

  And then the Minister did something very unpleasant. He stood up and scratched himself between the buttocks, a gesture which is appropriate only in private, as though Lilstein wasn’t there. The Minister has short arms and this means he has to twist his spine backwards and to one side so that his hand can reach its objective, his head also has to bend back and to one side. To compensate, the Minister thrusts his chin forward and half-opens his mouth, a pose redolent of authority and deep thought, while his hand explores, locates and deals at length with the main item on the agenda.

  Lilstein glanced out of the window, how can the Minister be told that the whole scheme is likely to come badly unstuck? Kappler back in Rosmar? He’s done it once before, in 1946, he’d come from England, couldn’t stand being at Rosmar for more than six months, and now he wants to come back again, Lilstein knows Kappler, and he knows the area he comes from, hammer and compass in a ring of rye, it won’t work out, you won’t feel right there, Herr Kappler, everything they say about us is true. Even in his head he still calls him Herr.

  Lilstein has tried to reason with the Minister again, he has asked for a delay, he said maybe the subject’s in poor physical shape, he’s coming back because he’s depressed, what’ll we do if it turns out he’d come to us as a way of going to his death? The Minister said he’ll be coming to the land of compass and rye, the scum flee, the best return, the compass, the rye and the hammer, not their filthy lucre, depression my arse, I thought you had a better analytical brain. The Minister’s forefinger in Lilstein’s direction:

  ‘Think more politically!’

  Lilstein ignored the short-armed Minister’s arse: comrade Minister, we must tread carefully, this man won’t be coming back because he thinks we’re going to tear everything down, and the Minister said, but that’s the point, we are going to tear everything down, urged on by the proletarian masses whose mouthpiece is the Party, and Kappler will be the positive living contradiction within this process which has been decided, directed and led by the Politburo under the authority of the general secretary, Comrade…

  ‘Comrade Minister’ – Lilstein has dared to interrupt the Minister – ‘Hans Kappler does not give the same words the same meanings, let me remind you that in our country, when a writer publicly contradicts a minister, even the Minister of Culture, it’s called antidemocratic propaganda, and he can be sent to prison for it. Now Kappler will not hesitate to contradict, he will exude negative contradiction, so at what point do we lock him up? The day after he gets here? Three weeks after? We will probably have to do it very quickly, otherwise we’ll have to deport him or let all those who think as he does say their piece freely. Let’s take our time, I say “our” time although this is not my area, I am not authorised for internal subversion, only exterior intelligence.’

  As he speaks, Lilstein can see the Minister’s tactic – success and it’s marked down to the Minister, failure and it’s Lilstein who fouled up – no, Minister, you fat pig, don’t rely on me to carry the can, you think you’re so strong, Minister, you have the support of a number of Soviet comrades, but they aren’t necessarily the right ones any more, the funny thing is that you can’t see it yet, one of these days I shall walk into your office and you’ll be looking pretty sick because in the photo in Pravda the faces are different, not all of them, but you’ll have this peculiar expression on yours, you’ll scratch your arse because you think that you’ve got every right to scratch your arse in my presence, that I don’t count, and you’ll try to make sense of the new photo.

  You might ask me what the photo in Pravda, all these changes, mean. What cannot be asked of a Department Head can be put to someone in whose presence you can scratch your
arse, even if he’s a Department Head, a brief passing conversation, one pig to another, you might assume I’ll make it easy for you, and if my reply is that I have no idea, you can always bawl me out saying I never know anything, no, I know what I’ll do, Minister, I’ll pick up the photo and I’ll look even more scared than you, and that’ll make you stop scratching yourself, you’ll try to reassure me, the Soviet comrades have their own way of seeing things, they’ll let us know when it suits them, sometimes they move very fast, you’ll put on a brave smile when you say ‘very fast’, Minister, and there we’ll be standing in front of the great slide, making polite noises.

  You assure me that it’ll be a straightforward descent, no more complicated than many other things in life, then all will return to normal at the bottom of the slope, say a quick hello to the new comrades, a kiss on the lips and then it all starts up again, so you’ll want to go first, you’ll try to push off gracefully, a straightforward descent, and there’ll be only me who’ll know, and I’ll certainly not let on, that during the night the great slide iced up completely.

  Lilstein looks the Minister straight in the eye:

  ‘Comrade Minister, let us take steps to ensure we do not have an incident, at least let me sound out Kappler’s intentions.’

  And the Minister says:

  ‘We must act quickly, you have your orders.’

  He added nothing further. Correction: as he escorted Lilstein to the door he put one final question to him, keeping his tone formal:

  ‘Are you for or against?’

  ‘Against,’ said Lilstein.

  The Minister opened the door:

  ‘All the same, those are your orders, and those orders express the will of the Politburo and Comrade Walter Ulbricht!’

  The Minister had not needed to make him say ‘Against’, he did it for the benefit of his microphones and he took the opportunity to mention Ulbricht’s name at least once.

  Hans Kappler appeared to be in as much of a hurry as the Minister. To Lilstein’s first message he replied that he didn’t need time to think: in ten days he’d be in Berlin at the checkpoint on Friedrichstrasse.

  At which Lilstein quickly arranged a meeting, in the greatest secrecy, at Waltenberg, to finalise the details.

  ‘Do you like the Konditorei, Herr Kappler? Next Thursday, late morning? Shall we say eleven?’

  Lilstein likes the Konditorei too, a kind of general emporium, groceries, hardware, ironmongery, confectionery, tobacco, bread and a few tables and chairs in the back to serve as a Weinstube. Low ceiling, narrow windows, gentle shadow, the smell of leather, specifically of harness and straps, the fragrance of bread and the tang of metal, nails are sold by the dozen, and all transactions are entered by hand in a great grey ledger, everyone who walks in says Grüss Gott!

  What approach is he going to adopt with Kappler? The man’s gone mad. Less than a year ago, he signed a piece in Preuves, for the people of the Congress for the Freedom of Culture who are anticommunists, which makes him a self-confessed anticommunist, and now he wants to go over to the socialist bloc, it’s crazy. Or else, Kappler has turned into a lost soul floating on ideals as the current wafts him, frankly you’d be a lot more use to the cause of progress if you stayed in the West, Herr Kappler, representing us to the West, rather than coming back here spouting ideas which will be identified as Western.

  It’s all airy talk, and Kappler is very sensitive to how things are put, if it can’t be said in ten words, then it’s not true, not in fiction of course, the Kappler of old would point out, but true of life, of the way things are decided and action is initiated. You must learn, young Lilstein, speak last, use no more than ten words per sentence and utter only a few sentences.

  Kappler, the master of the meandering sentence, my sentences are like centipedes he would say laughing; in 1929 Kappler gave Lilstein advice on the use of the incisive sentence in his undertakings, as if he were trying to relive his youth through Lilstein, but today he acts like anybody because he has begun to write like no one in particular.

  Don’t tell Kappler what he should do, destabilise him instead, why do you want to go back so badly? Lilstein also has another question to ask but he keeps it up his sleeve, because he doesn’t know where it might lead them, he doesn’t know how far this question he holds in reserve might take him, still it’s what this is really all about, Rosmar is the idea of a man for whom everything’s finished. Kappler is not a politician, his craziness is of a different order, so ask him the question: ‘Did you ever see her again, Herr Kappler?’

  No, not that question, if I ask him that more than likely I’ll start shaking as I ask it, best water it down:

  ‘Have you seen any of the people you knew in the good old days?’ Fool, it’s the same question and it’s not so upsetting to say.

  ‘Have you seen her again?’

  Make it just ‘her’, but my voice is bound to crack and he is quite capable of answering:

  ‘How about you? Have you seen her? When was that?’

  It would be a laugh to tell him, Lilstein thought, I’m sure that sooner or later, somehow over the next few years, Max will tell him, at least the parts he knows, a tale of cloak and dagger, I bumped into her, I almost bumped into her, our paths crossed but I never saw her again, it wasn’t long ago, last August. Don’t tell this to Kappler.

  It might make him give up the idea of going back to Rosmar, but don’t tell him, she comes out of the Budapest Academy of Music, the mood of the city is restless, end of August, they all reckon that 1956 will mark a new beginning, she has just done five hours’ straight teaching, a master-class, I wonder what Max will make of her masterclass, he’ll not pick up on it and pass directly to what comes next, or else he’ll use it as an excuse to try and talk about the music he loves.

  It’s after nine in the evening, she’s happy, her Hungarian students are bright, a whole afternoon of Schubert, she has come up with new expressions to use on them, new ideas for exercises, a good singing teacher doesn’t say:

  ‘Put your whole soul into it!’

  No, the good teacher finds graduated exercises which mobilise the multifarious moods of the soul, as a cover it was impeccable, very complete, it would have made the subject of a most interesting report, Lena’s singing class in the Academy of Music, from an analysis of the Lied to her work on the perineum and ‘when you sing keep thinking of your role, which is to inspire’, the verb most frequently on her lips is denken, her classes in German, like in the good old days of the Hapsburgs, and in French, she speaks very good French, she is a genuine European, had a father who was mad about Henry James, in front of her class of young Hungarians she can try exercises, angles, snatches of interpretation.

  She’s just found one new phrase, she tells them not to try to express everything, your interpretation must leave the public wanting more, the audience must not receive passively, it must be drawn towards what you are singing, it’s not hesitation, there’s no mystery about it, it’s a tension, you are offering an interpretation and the audience is thinking that something more is about to materialise, so don’t obscure the message.

  It is good to come up with new solutions and not simply be a rememberer of old inventions.

  Night is falling slowly, there’s a taxi free, she does not want it, she’s walking to stretch her legs, one of her pupils has said, Madame, I’ll walk with you, crossing from one bank to the next, towards Buda, the residential quarter, and her hotel in the middle of a park.

  A lovely walk, a fit young pupil, sensitive too, they walk beside the Danube then cross Elisabeth Bridge. I love wandering through towns as it gets dark, crossing bridges, the mist, which blurs the outline of the monuments, when I was singing I had to take care, I was always pretty healthy but night mist is a little menace, you can easily wake up next day croaking. Lena puts her hand through the young man’s arm, turns, forces him to do the same, look, that fantastic pile, it’s the Parliament building, quite magnificent, they resume walking, her hand is stil
l through her pupil’s arm.

  The suspension bridge vibrates with the steps of the pedestrians, at the end of the bridge her pupil stumbles, she clutches at his arm, a car is there, a door is open, the door slams shut, a pistol fitted with a silencer, one finger held against a mouth, the car speeds off, it swerves throwing Lena from one man against another, the one on her right says something, the car slows, other things are said, in fractured English, ‘you’, ‘calm’, they tie her hands, a hood is placed over her head, her head is forced down, fewer bends now, they are on an open road, much time goes by, her back aches.

  Now the car is being driven fast, they let Lena sit up again, I must try to sleep, there’s nothing else I can do, I should never have walked, it wouldn’t have made any difference, they’d have laid on a bogus taxi, that pupil of mine was a good-looking boy, did they lean on him? Lithe, he walked lithely.

  A long road, the car brakes, a sharp turn, ruts, then an unmade road, come to a stop, they bundle her out, a damp forest smell, they sit her down, back must be against the trunk of a tree, they remove the hood, a bad sign.

  The air is dark and cool, night, moon, a soughing of leaves, a clearing, three men and one woman stand over her, two machine-pistols. The men smoke. Everything has a pallid sheen.

  She looks up at the sky, hears the beat of wings, repeats to herself ‘The stars and our lives are bound by hoops of steel’, she is sixty-one years old, it’s the end of the road, she is not unhappy, this afternoon’s renditions of Schubert were very good. None of the three men look at Lena, the woman has the face of a mournful slave, rough movements and a revolver. She takes Lena by the arm and leads her to one side.