Waltenberg

by Hedi Kaddour

  ‘So not doubts exactly? Scruples, then? What you can’t stand is being permanently surrounded by right-wing people? And you’d like to stay left of centre, protect your scruples, the gap between your two souls is too great? Oh please, no left-wing Gaullists, there’s no future in it, let’s be serious, in the end the General will go, so stay on the right with your friend the Minister, he’ll go onwards and upwards and you’ll go with him, he’ll have to stop from time to time but he’ll go very high; if you want to reduce the gap between your two souls, the dreaming one and the doing one, go easy on the dreams, though actually you’re doing pretty well on the right wing, I know you’ve been invited to the Prime Minister’s place, in the country, a ride on a mule, eh? wonderful, go ahead, you have doubts, you sulk, your left-wing soul aches, and yet you get an invitation from the Prime Minister! See? you only have to have doubts and things happen all by themselves.

  ‘That said, would you mind if I give you a piece of advice? Go and ride your mule, but don’t stay on it too long, pointless tagging along with the Prime Minister, you’re not the same generation, you’d look like a callow arriviste, especially if you’re riding a mule.

  ‘You’re not sure they’re mules? More like big ponies? It’s all the same, riding addles the brain, I’m not being fair, but a large percentage of the people who have taken much too close an interest in me wore riding boots, so it’s time to dismount, we’ve plenty of time, see? I’m not treating you like one of my agents, I’m not telling you to do anything, I’m trying to put you on your guard, on the basis of my experience, if you really want to try something with the Prime Minister, go ahead, but believe me it’s a closely watched circle; with your friend it’s different, you’re already a part of a group which is currently being formed, it looks natural, I can tell you this because I’m fifteen years older than you, I’m into my third life, we’ve got time, if I’d used you as an agent you’d already have been blown, the active life of a top-class agent is rarely longer than ten years, because you need a network, orders, go-betweens, archives.

  ‘It’s different for you, there’s just me and you, and talk, like in Plato, and I try to shield you from accidents, it’s like driving, it’s not enough to observe the highway code, you must always give yourself a way of ending up in the ditch without breaking your neck, the right speed is the speed that allows you to get off the road if some road-hog comes at you head-on.

  ‘I know you won’t make any mistakes, young gentleman of France, but I try to protect you against the road-hogs, would you seriously prefer to have left-wing Gaullists? They won’t get very far, it would be best to stay on the right, it suits you there, make the most of its surrogate pleasures, but if you really want some left-wing fun you only have to say that basically Lenin was right when he said that the State must wither away, say it with a laugh, if you still want to, and you’ll be dancing to two tunes at the same time.

  ‘Don’t get close to the Prime Minister, when he’s got a cigarette in his mouth the eye above it closes almost completely, but that’s the eye he watches everything with, he knows people too well, he doesn’t like your friend, he won’t ever like you, it would be fun to get together with your friend and organise balls for him, he likes dancing, the moment there are women around the men start talking more loudly and say all sorts of things to drown out other men’s voices, I’m not opposed in principle to the role women can play in our line of work.

  ‘I’ll say it again: this is not about spying! We are doing an important job, together we take the pulse of what goes on, we regulate the blood pressure, it’s a noble calling, we do it with words in ears, the art of not unleashing catastrophes, that’s odd, I can’t smell our Linzer today.’

  *

  In Singapore, after the croquet, they went in to dinner, a round table, everyone can see everybody else without having to lean to the right or to the left, though it should be added that there is no right or left or centre any more.

  ‘A table after de Gaulle’s own heart,’ said Max with a laugh.

  ‘Over here, de Vèze,’ said Malraux, seating him on his left.

  The Consul’s wife did not try to stop him. De Vèze thought his luck was in, especially when he saw that the young woman was sitting opposite him, Max, now well launched, continued:

  ‘Left, right, port, starboard, tacking is tactics, isn’t that a fact, you young people? Shush! don’t interrupt, art of governing, art of sailing, to move the rudder there’s a tiller that moves a half-turn, true of boats from the smallest craft to the largest caravel, so to tack right or left you reverse the directions of the tiller, you give the helmsman the command hard a-port!’ Max’s hand catches a wineglass which keels over, empty, and the boat veers to starboard. ‘It works perfectly if you’re a sailor.’

  ‘And equally well if you’re a Gaullist,’ says the grey diplomat.

  The Consul gives him a withering look, glances up at Malraux, Malraux smiles, the Ambassador relaxes his expression, the pink diplomat looks daggers at the grey diplomat, I don’t know how often I’ve told Xavier not to overdo the right-wing cynic, it hasn’t gone down at all well, Max continues:

  ‘Very true, old man, the end of the Algerian War is a case in point, the General goes to Algiers, puts the tiller hard over to port, the crowd cheers, but every self-respecting sailor knew at the time that this meant tacking to the right, shush! not a word, I pick up where I left off, technical advances, pulleys, cables, reversing levers, tiller replaced by a wheel which eventually turns in the same direction as the course that has been set, all the navies of the world adopt it, steer to port now comes to mean that the wheel is turned to port to steer to port, or left if you prefer, shush! haven’t finished, the English navy, so traditional, clings to the old system, obstinately: to steer a course to starboard, the captain of Her Majesty’s ship gives the order hard a-port!, and on hearing ‘port’ the helmsman turns the wheel to starboard, God save Tradition, and the ship tacks to starboard; if you’re English, it’s plain sailing, all right, there has been the odd accident involving pilots in foreign ports, it didn’t happen often, but the press got hold of it, hence the root-and-branch reform of the Royal Navy in 1933.’

  As he sat down de Vèze’s foot encountered another, he couldn’t tell if it belonged to Malraux on his right, or to Max or even to the young woman sitting opposite him, he said sorry, very quickly, without looking at anyone in particular, no one reacted, they were served lobster mayonnaise, the pink diplomat looked startled, de Vèze has forgotten his name again, he remembers that the grey diplomat with the monkey-arse beard around his mouth is called Poirgade, Xavier Poirgade, Xavier suits him, suits his inflexible outlook, already one of our major strategy experts so the Consul told him, he is very well-connected in Paris, sometimes too close to certain American positions, an Atlanticist, but he has the ear of many people, the Consul raises his right hand to the right side of his face, palm slightly upturned, the pink diplomat’s Christian name, it would be amusing, a less rigid sort of name, to complement ‘Xavier’ – Jean-Philippe, Jean-Jacques – de Vèze doesn’t remember.

  The pink diplomat stares at his mayonnaise, he should have known, here we are in the middle of Asia and the Consul decides to serve dinner à la française, and you give us lobster mayonnaise, why not give us pan bagnia while you’re about it? afraid of Asian cuisine, there must be a halfway house between lobster mayonnaise and roast puppy with honey, but who around this table except me knows anything about good eating? Not the Consul, he’s not eating anything, mostly he just puffs on his pipe and dyes his eyebrows and plays out time while waiting to be promoted to ambassador, nor his wife who is anorexic; Malraux? he’d be happy running on Pernod right through to the dessert; the young couple? not yet; the Ambassador at Rangoon, this de Vèze, probably scoffs tinned monkey when he’s by himself to help him remember Bir Hakeim; and as for the esteemed Xavier he can’t stand mayonnaise, yellow dribbles on grey silk, horrid thought, I wish he’d drop some down himself, this mayonnaise i
s tasteless, they must have made the olive oil go further by adding ground-nut oil, and no one here to notice, and the lobster has no flavour, overcooked, you don’t get that aroma of iodine, it was a medical orderly who cooked it for sure, these people are only interested in words, instead of appreciating a meal they listen to a story and ask the limelight-hogging Max to explain that reform of the Royal Navy.

  ‘Very simple, children!’ says Max, ‘in 1933 the Admiralty ruled as follows: henceforth, the command “starboard” will mean that the helmsman shall turn his wheel to starboard so that the ship steers directly to starboard, like everybody else.’

  ‘Which put an end to the accidents,’ says the pink diplomat, to shorten Max’s peroration.

  ‘Except those caused by old habits,’ Max went on, ‘1942, the Argus, English aircraft carrier, the Med, convoy heading for Malta, three Italian torpedoes, off the port bow, if the ship holds its present course it will be hit, the answer’s simple, change course immediately in the direction of the torpedoes – to port – close the angle, the torpedoes will pass under the bows, the Captain has grasped the situation, not for nothing is he Captain of the Argus, pure instinct, he orders “hard to starboard”, that’s right, a slip-up, obtuse angle, the entire ship’s side, 230 metres long, it will be exposed to the torpedoes, shush! don’t speak, an English captain screaming orders, never been seen before, the helmsman panics, a pre-1933 reflex, puts the wheel over to port, and there you have it, the Argus veers to port, acute angle, torpedoes avoided, I love stories involving changes of direction.’

  The conversation has reverted to the Americans, massive bombing of North Vietnam will never work, it works sometimes, says Max, it depends on the bombings but sometimes it does work, but only if you target civilians, they’ll never agree to that intervenes Malraux, Johnson ruled it out precisely because he knows it won’t work, he needs a failure, in his head de Vèze mulls over what he would like to say to Malraux, the day is ending, the sea-breeze, the yellow flowers, the young woman, behind her the trees slowly turn dark blue, no one dares ask Malraux why Johnson needs a failure, de Vèze hasn’t been as close as this to Malraux since the Liberation.

  What he finds surprising is that Malraux seems to be taking an interest in him, out of the blue he has asked de Vèze, in front of the assembled company, in front of the young woman:

  ‘Tell me, de Vèze, Bir Hakeim…’

  And the young woman has looked at de Vèze and smiled, how does she do it? only a modest neckline but so inviting, you feel you could slip your hand inside, any time, with every confidence, it would be the right move, neither aggressive nor shy, she’s expecting it, she’d be a teeny bit miffed that you should behave like this, but she’s expecting it, all you need is a manoeuvre to get you halfway there, hand suddenly very close, a few words away, but no pressure applied, just a stage, not like in the days of the first films you saw with a girl in the dark, when your hand settled on her shoulders in that relaxed, good pals sort of way, your hand was instantly shrugged off and that was it for that day, or else the girl let you do whatever and was ready for the rest without going through the good pals rigmarole, de Vèze had known one girl who had taken the hand he’d put on her shoulder and pressed it unambiguously to her breast saying now can we watch the film? Snatches of adolescence in the cinema, Morgan, Gabin, a few kisses, another time he and the girl canoodled and smooched their way through the entire picture.

  He’d spent the rest of his youth in a Free French training camp and the films he saw then had been taken by movie cameras mounted on aeroplanes, he wanted to be a fighter pilot, but that took time, they sent him to Africa, but here, with this woman, she knows exactly what a hand on a breast feels like, the gradual approach is out, make a natural move, don’t come at her from below, still maybe start by stroking the material, no, go straight for skin, the grain of the skin, start high from the shoulder, but where should he be positioned? Behind her? No, facing her, both standing, after dinner, behind the trees, look at her, extend right hand, crook wrist, fingers out, go in down the cleavage, palm over the nipple, change angle of wrist, fingers pointing down, the whole breast in your hand, its weight, one single move, de Vèze thinks of the inevitable pear, pretty pears, but pears are too hard, they don’t say anything true about breasts, breasts shaped like pears, the whole breast in his hand, but you hardly squeeze at all and the breast swells in your hand, Moine’s wife in the restaurant, she wore a low neckline, bigger breasts, with your finger-tips you feel something beating, you are aware of being clumsy, it’s exactly what they expect, they expect you to be clumsy at such moments, for you are now entering a region in which all true knowledge is theirs, that of their pleasure, and they will run a mile from men who are too sure of themselves.

  Or else do nothing with your hands, actually this business of dropping a right hand down inside a cleavage is pretty complicated, no, keep it simple, hands held behind her back, defenceless, drop head, kiss top of cleavage, the beauty spot, just a simple kiss, a stolen kiss.

  *

  ‘I’m sure you’ll go on playing your part to perfection,’ Lilstein tells you, ‘because now you really want to be the character you’re playing, you always half wanted it, to send me packing, become like them, a man of the right, of the Parisian right, very chic, it’s like me, every time my secretary forgets something I act like a ruthless capitalist, but you, you would like to be a genuine reactionary with your feet under the table but at the same time you don’t want to end up resembling your own family, not all the time, so sometimes, as they say in English, you chop and change, or as we say, you dance at two weddings at the same time.

  ‘Did you know, young Frenchman, there was a lot of dancing here, before the war? I even cut my first dance-floor dash here, ballroom of the Waldhaus, sixteen, less than, I looked older than my age, there were balls, dancing parties, they opened all the doors wide, it made a very large room, during the day seminars and ideas, in the evening mixing with the ladies, I believed I was capable of doing all kinds of things, I was changing the world, but when I found myself in the arms of a woman it turned out to be no fun at all, tall she was, very straight shoulders, voice rather serious and husky, she asked me to dance, me!

  ‘She wanted to avoid making some of the others jealous, but I didn’t admit that to myself straight away, a waltz, fine, I had some vague idea about twirling round and round, but next up was a tango, I managed the first few steps rather grandly, going on how I’d seen it done and read about it in books, but as for what came next I hadn’t the faintest, she led me, grip of steel, she did it as though she was being swept off her feet but in truth she was leading me, there was only one thing I could do, go limp like a rag-doll and follow her movements, one moment she was the woman who has been dominated, the next the woman who fights back, and it was she who directed the whole thing, it was great art, she was very lady-like but when she danced the tango she behaved like a bitch, she made it clear that it wasn’t her but the dance which required her to grind her thigh against my hip and send her backside to hell.

  ‘And later that evening, a friend of mine, a French journalist, came up to me, we watched her dancing with other men who were sleeker and more expert than I, my journalist chum said we’ve made a very famous friend there, but you get the feeling she’d give it all up and go some place where she could slit the throat of goat or fawn and tear it to pieces and chuck the pieces up in the air, look at her feet, Lilstein, she always keeps one in shadow.

  ‘At one point during the ball, an Austrian girl told me I looked as if I’d been taught to dance the tango by Frederick II’s soldiers, it wasn’t true, I felt weak at the knees, the tall woman smiled, but she held me firmly with one hand, I came on strong, arch look in my eye, I was ludicrous, never come on strong, young man, just be someone who’s indispensable, so indispensable that you won’t need to have to impose your personality, it will simply be unthinkable that you’re not there, the unthinkable empty chair, they won’t be able to start without yo
u, they call you to come, they wait for you and while they wait they sneer at the cheap shoes you wear, dark brown, to go with everything, this makes them warm to you, they’ll poke affectionate fun at you, you won’t need to scratch around for invitations, you’ll have become indispensable, the man they’re waiting for.

  ‘Did I ever see that woman who danced the tango again? I don’t know whether or not I’ll tell you some day, what I do know is that I can see her now, here, all I have to do is shut my eyes, or even if I keep them open, just now as I was coming up, I walked past the swimming pool, which hasn’t changed at all, it was very nice.’

  Lilstein will go on telling you about the girl who danced the tango, a part of what he sees as he speaks will be for you, the rest stays with him, he is sixteen, an unlocked cubicle, no one screams, a silhouette in the shower, with the passage of the years he sees the face less and less clearly and what remains is what you sometimes find in museums, breasts, abdomen, thighs, perfection is the word for it, he closed the door, he did, he stayed outside, and for years he dreamed of what might have happened if he’d stepped inside and closed it after him, and even his dreams grew less torrid, he has a book at home which he never opens, wouldn’t part with it, he’d lost it every time the police arrested him, the first time he’d bought it back, the next time one of his colleagues returned it to him together with a large part of his library, I took them home and kept them safe, I knew you’d talk your way out of trouble.

  Lilstein said thanks but nothing else, he never opens the book, he’s just happy to check that it’s still there, in the binding of the copy which the Nazis burned he had hidden a letter, in the replacement he’d bought all he knows is that on a certain page he will find a picture of exactly what he’d seen that time in the shower, haunches, thighs, he is certain by comparing both memories, the shower and the page of the Dictionary of Greek Sculpture, that the two images are identical, haunches firm and long, breasts held high, thighs, how shall we put it, not fish, under me her thighs slipped away like trout, I had her on a river bank, not a river, not a poet, besides I never had her, sharp-buttocked, she cries out when you open the door, turns, three-quarter back view, sharp-buttocked, already you’re not absolutely certain any more, what must have changed is your criterion of beauty, nowadays you’d find the Aphrodite pictured in the Dictionary too slim, her breasts not quite ripe, best not look in the book.