Waltenberg

by Hedi Kaddour

  But perhaps they go out of their way to avoid wartime reminiscences, each of them knows exactly what the other one did, so they speak of the books and paintings they like or go for walks; and what they did in those old wartime days simply adds a background resonance to what they say, they also talk about nature, the fields of rape, oh yes, come the spring, all of a sudden, a great slap of bright yellow administered to thousands of miles of terrain, from the Atlantic to the Urals.

  Marshal Soloviev raises his glass to the fields of rape, that’s one plant at least, tovarich de Vèze, that continues to thrive, according to the directives issued by your Great Charles, from the Atlantic to the Urals, your Great Charles now sadly no longer with us, I drink to the rape plant, to the Atlantic, to the Urals, and especially to Great Charles! you shall take me to see the Atlantic, shall we say from Brest, comrade Ambassador? in exercises for the general staff in Moscow, I was given the role of officer commanding the military region of Brittany, not the French commander, the Soviet officer who leads the occupying force, I always managed to get all the way to Brest with my men, very serious Kriegspiel, it went fine, you can show me Brittany, fields of rape that sweep right down to the sea, and on my side I’ll take you to see the Urals after I retire.’

  And the Marshall toasts friendship:

  ‘Za drouzhbou, tovarich!’

  *

  There is no tall dresser behind Lilstein now, you are both ensconced in your enormous room at the Waldhaus, but the hôtelière has, specially for you, hung a few painted plates and two of the large dishes from her complete Alsace service on the walls, so you can see, just as it was twenty-two years ago, as it ever was, the large dish showing the homely company leaving the party, the spinning-girls with lanterns in winter, and for the first time you look seriously at the other large dish hanging next to it, it shows country-dancing in the open air, you never paid much attention to it, you always preferred the spinning-girls, but now there’s something that doesn’t feel quite right about it and makes you stare at it. Lilstein picks up on your puzzlement:

  ‘Yes, it’s been changed, they never managed to find an identical replacement.’

  And then you realise what it was that made you look at the dish. ‘Someone broke it a few years back,’ said Lilstein, ‘and the hôtelière never managed to find another with the original design, she found a different one with dancing, same size, but it’s nothing like really.’ This new scene is more static than the other. Insofar as you remember the other one at all, having never looked at it very closely, it was richer, more boldly drawn; in the one hanging up now the people are as stiff as their high collars, the first row of dancers is observed from the back, they’re easier to paint like that, the girls especially, only one of the girl dancers is seen from the front, in the background is a man with a trombone who does duty as the orchestra, and you’re trying to remember something you never looked at properly.

  The orchestra on the dish that was broken was a genuine orchestra, with trombone, trumpets, violins, and there were real girls dancing everywhere, even a couple on the right pretending to dance who were actually making off in the direction of the wood, a couple seizing their opportunity.

  In the plate hanging in front of you, the people are stiff, unbending, there is a wood in the background here too but nobody heading towards it, there’s just a curtain of trees, a rather amateurishly rendered curtain of trees, no one here ready to seize their opportunity, a rather sad scene of jollity.

  You’ve remembered, in the other dish time passed in laughter, but that’s because you can remember it, now that’s water under the bridge, forget it. The first country dance scene has disappeared, someone must have looked at the broken pieces one last time before putting them in the bin, Lilstein turns round to look at the dish:

  ‘This one, young gentleman of France, lacks the colourful rhythm of life.’

  *

  The way de Vèze and Vassilissa first met was like something out of a novel, a ball no less, in the presence of her uncle, Marshal Soloviev, a ball in Moscow, the Soviets love balls, in the mid-1970s, nostalgia for Tolstoy, full evening dress, not in the Kremlin, nor in the Ministries either, in the British Embassy, some Soviets begin to be fashion conscious, but style for the majority still means bulging paunches, pillowy bosoms and cheap perfume, and when a man is unmarried, like de Vèze, he is required to dance with the wives of Soviet officials or ambassadors’ ladies, a thankless task if you like dancing, mangle a waltz with mature matrons, one or two exceptions but rarely more, it was the number two in the French Embassy, the resident minister, who drew up the pecking order, he doesn’t like women, here’s your dance card, Ambassador, he was really rather pleased to land de Vèze right in it like this.

  De Vèze waltzed assiduously for a time then retired to a corner of the room to relax with his old comrade Soloviev, he tries to spot pretty women, meanwhile on the other side of the dance floor, near the refreshment buffet, in the middle of a group of starchy, sagely nodding diplomats, a young woman wonders if the French Ambassador is really that tall man over there wearing tails and a single decoration, which is barely visible, a small green ribbon with black edging, he looks quite young, why did my uncle give him an army salute when he’s not wearing medals? There must be a rule, to be greeted with respect and affection by a marshal of the Soviet Union you must wear a single medal, one is enough; my uncle can’t have made a mistake, maybe it was the light, he himself is wearing a kilo and a half of medals, that’s what my aunt told me, nearly a kilo and a half by the kitchen scales, and even then he’s not wearing them all, he doesn’t want to offend certain comrades.

  He’s not talking to this Frenchman as he would to an ambassador, the way he talks to the English Ambassador for example, he puts one hand on the Frenchman’s shoulder just as he would with an old wartime comrade, though I’ve heard that our officials should not have such close contact with foreigners, each time a hand is placed on a foreign shoulder there has to be a report, yet they’re really doing the old pals act, but my uncle looks a great deal older, how old’s the Frenchman?

  It’s complicated, my aunt explained it all, I’m only a girl, I’m not allowed to talk to high-ranking foreigners, I may answer if they speak to me, but I mustn’t bother them, I can’t walk over to this Frenchman and ask him why my uncle is putting one hand on his shoulder in that familiar way, I’m here with young people of my own age, artists, young diplomats with big careers ahead of them, to create a happy, carefree atmosphere, but without pestering the grown-ups, and since this Frenchman has better things to do than talk to me, we’ll never talk at all, but he does have style, I’ve got to talk to him, I’m young, it’s a court ball, I’m sixteen years old, my eyes are all a-flutter, I’ve pinned a rose in my hair, my heart is racing, I’m wearing satin slippers, I’ve walked across a red carpet, down a flower-lined staircase, at this moment only the Tsar is on the dance floor and no other couple dares join him, my arms are thin, my breasts are small.

  I’m a good dancer, I know that at a ball you have to be asked quickly, I’m not going to be asked, you have to be among the first couples when everyone can still see you, someone is walking diagonally across the room, he’s more than twenty metres away, I blink my eyes to check the tears that are starting, I won’t be asked, he’s a prince, he’s coming this way, he’s coming straight towards us, the room is very big, they say that he’s one of the best dancers of the age, and he’s a hero, he’s going to ask my sister, or my cousin, he’s so handsome, he almost got killed at Austerlitz, he was waving the flag, he’s chosen me, what did he feel when he took me in his arms? we’re dancing, everyone’s looking at us.

  No, I’m not sixteen, our present Tsar doesn’t dance any more, he hasn’t for at least thirty years, and I’m thirty, my arms aren’t thin, my hair is fair, I’m a good swimmer, my breasts are large, I could wear a much lower neckline but my aunt looked unhappy when I tried on the other dress, she didn’t say anything, she looked unhappy, that was enough for
me, she knows, the only thing she ever dares say is that I could be married, I asked her to find me a hero. For her, it was easy, she saw a hero in 1943, she married him, he worships her, he’s never laid a hand on her, when he gets drunk he sleeps at the Ministry, he’s drinking less and less, I’ve tried to find a husband, nowadays all the men are wimps, they talk about cars, drink hard, get jealous and squash the life out of you on rough sheets, my aunt drove lorries during the battle of Stalingrad, my uncle told me she was a goddess, they had no children, they’d like grand-nephews and -nieces, the Frenchman looked at me, I’m sure he did, are there any other good-looking women here tonight?

  There are all these Western women, not all, but some are really beautiful, on the skinny side, and there are our women artists whom the Westerners always manage to invite, I’m not a dancer and I’m not a violinist, but I’m positive that I must look very pretty when I’m loved, I am a very good mathematician, more often than not I don’t need to work out my calculations, I just see them, apparently this ability doesn’t last beyond thirty-five, but for the moment it’s working well, and I can play the cello, I should play more often, where did they get these pyramids of cherries? Nobody dares touch them.

  That dancer from the Bolshoi has obviously spotted the Frenchman, she hasn’t taken her eyes off him, dancers are shameless, they know that people make all sorts of allowances for them, this one is old, she’s a star but she’s old, that’s why she often puts a hand up to one cheek, because of her white glove, not far off forty, and skinny, her back is very arched, and she’s smiling at him, I always wanted to be able to walk like a ballerina, she turns her back to him, she’s skinny but you can see how her body is already beginning to sag.

  The Frenchman is looking at her, he must be thinking that she walks well, men only see what interests them, ballerinas can do anything with their pelvis, it’s true that I don’t walk well, I’ve been told I shuffle, but my shoulders go all stiff when I try not to shuffle, what I need is a firmer, more springy step, then my buttocks won’t flop this way and that, the ballerina from the Bolshoi has vanished and now the Frenchman is chatting to my uncle.

  ‘In my capacity as a marshal of the Soviet Union, I’m going to give you a confidential mission, tovarich de Vèze, and you will obey, so drink up and ask my niece to dance, she’s the pretty blonde, the tall one, over there, who is smiling across the room, dance with her and tell her how wicked you Westerners are. She believes foreign men are more gentle than Russian men, she’s attractive, she’s unmarried, she’s a great worry to me and my wife, she won’t listen, she does maths, in this country we treat mathematicians like sacred cows.

  ‘They do whatever they want until they get packed off to Yakutsk, I’m afraid she wants to marry a foreigner, it will only end in tears, she went out with an Englishman for a while, don’t laugh, they’re not all queer, or else they change, it will cause a lot of trouble, be nice, go and tell her that in the West men behave as badly to women as we do.

  ‘Tell her that with an Englishman she’d still have two jobs, her maths plus the shopping, the kids, housework, cooking, just like here, but we won’t be there to look after the children, and anyway she won’t be allowed to go to England, she’ll be sent to Yakutsk, she’ll be forced to have an abortion, personally I don’t give a damn about what happens to me, everyone knows I’m not ambitious, never was, Tukhachevsky taught me all I know, I admired him, they shot him, and it was on that account that I rose through the ranks so quickly, no ambition, because after the war I undertook certain little … undertakings for the good of the state.

  ‘They can put me out to pasture whenever they want, I’ve always voted with the majority and I’m a hero of the Soviet Republic, I was made a hero of the Soviet Republic twice because when a lot of people get killed the survivors are decorated to honour those who did not, you know, seven and a half million soldiers died in four years, sixty per cent losses, that’s a lot of dead heroes, so they turn the survivors into twice-, thrice-decorated heroes, I am a twice-decorated hero who votes prudently, that is, with the majority, here that sort of attitude is highly respected, I’m not afraid for me but I am afraid for my niece, especially when I won’t be around any more.

  ‘Go and say rude things about Westerners, tovarich, so she falls into line, as you people say, and blesses us with grand-nephews who are one hundred per cent Russian, I’ll take them skating.

  ‘You needn’t even bother to go for her, look, she’s coming over here, she knows she’s not allowed to bother officials, but not being allowed to is a challenge for her, ask her to dance, tell her that your lot are just as heartless as our lot and that you don’t know as many poems, no, she’s stopping, it’s the turn of those men to dance now, men in skirts, they’ll dance with each other.

  ‘See? she’d rather watch men in skirts dancing to that awful caterwauling.’

  De Vèze and the Marshal stop talking, they are standing at the front of the spectators a few metres from the group of Scottish soldiers, you can’t have a British ball without the crossed sabres laid on the ground, swords or straight sabres, points touching, and under the chandeliers, four men in pleated skirts and red jackets, hands on hips, they leap rhythmically over the swords, kilts flying to the skirl of bagpipes.

  A few spectators exchange smiles, four other groups of four men in each corner are also dancing, but without swords, there must be some pecking order, twenty dancers in all, they are bare-headed, another dozen men are making the music, pipers and drummers, the men playing the drums are wearing black bearskins and golden yellow jackets, it’s a small band with a tall drum-major, the sword dance is more than jumping up and down to music, it’s light, heel, toe, halfturn in mid-air, or entrechats, not proper entrechats, that would be too feminine.

  What they’re doing is what soldiers can do when they’re relieved of the burden of combat, their packs have been removed, they could almost be said to dance well; but with drums providing the rhythm, the spectacle keeps its military character, reaching out for the hands of their comrades, forming a harmonious group, even so it’s not exactly Swan Lake, in the end they gather up their swords, amusing to see the face of one soldier who picks up his sword and salutes with it, lips together, jaw clamped shut, veins standing out on his hand and forearm, blade held vertical in front of his eyes, eyes fixed on some distant horizon, they don’t see anyone, they call it ‘a martial air’, it means not looking happy, a woman looks up at the chandelier above the head of the drum-major, de Vèze likes the blaring pipes because in the desert these men had made up the main body of the infantry, and the reinforcements, the bagpipes had played ‘Scotland the Brave’.

  ‘I’m quite aware, Marshal, that you don’t care for men in skirts, but at El-Alamein they were at the head of the infantry when we broke through Rommel’s lines, the Germans had left an inviting underbelly exposed in the centre which was intended to suck in the Allied armour, but Montgomery steered well clear of it, the armour stayed at home, he dispatched infantry en masse to the German left flank, this plus the wailing of the pipes created an awesome effect. And that night in camp, those lads in kilts performed the same dance, with swords on the ground, I like it a lot, even if they also did the same to us at Waterloo.

  ‘Anyway, look, they’re going, here comes the waltz! You may well prefer the waltz, Marshal, which featured at the Congress of Vienna, you have reactionary tastes, your niece is coming this way, she walks a little stiffly, a military step, is she really your niece?’

  *

  And then out of the blue came the second alert, when the boffins in the lab in Paris disclosed the results of their analysis after the long summer holiday. True, all the devices discovered by Berthier in the Embassy in Moscow, all the recorders, dated from the sixties, but some of the soldered joints were much more recent, they’d been done more or less at about the time they were discovered, that is in about the spring of 1978.

  They wasted no time.

  Six vehicles outside Berthier’s hous
e.

  ‘He’s in hospital,’ said his wife.

  In the intensive care ward, Berthier had become a vegetable, with red, green blue pipes sticking out of him everywhere; a stroke, cause unknown, recovery ruled out.

  Berthier’s eyes were blank and staring, this did not prevent some investigators detecting in them the dejection of a man who, after he’d taken everyone else in, had himself been suckered. Others saw something quite different: the elation of a man who had made the ultimate sacrifice.

  A traitor. But Berthier had a cast-iron CV, had only his salary coming in and not a penny more, never played politics, parents Catholic, not rich, graduated from military college, just one blot on his school record, he once got a nought in maths, it was when he was studying for the Saint-Cyr entrance exam, he handed in a blank script because he knew the whole class was cheating, wife a Catholic, no mistress, not even a mild flirtation, his sons were Boy Scouts.

  They went back and looked some more. Nothing.

  Served in a commando unit in Algeria, never had to take prisoners into the woods, never did any of those things that sicken a man and make him want to atone by doing something, anything.

  A Gaullist, he’d opposed the putsch in Algeria but hadn’t shopped anyone. After Algeria, he’d gone into counter-espionage, got interested in techniques of transmitting information, he had sailed through every stage of the very thorough vetting process each year, the man was a paragon.