Waltenberg

by Hedi Kaddour

  ‘They’ll never have toothache again!’

  Not enough sand, not enough sawdust, men slip in the blood like in a Chaplin film, the officers put their side of the argument:

  ‘No, no coups de grâce, we have to save money, my dear fellow, it’s war, let’s hope it’s all over soon, no, you can’t leave now, the streets around the square have not been made secure, yes, all afternoon, still, you’re not too badly off here, I’d gladly change places with you, neither victim nor executioner, and this evening you’ll have hard words for us in your despatch.’

  *

  In Max’s story set in Savoie, there won’t be any little chimney sweeps, and not too much fondue, and nor of tartiflette, tartiflette is less well known but if you use the best potatoes it’s a dish fit for kings. Max searches for a simple turn of phrase, as simple as the air up there, simple as a Jules Renard anecdote, to forget Shanghai, to forget the Riff, sunset of an evening over dun-coloured hills that ripple like a horse’s chest, in the Riff too prisoners had their throats cut, thousands of Spanish soldiers in the hands of Abd el-Krim, no, not officers, and the Spaniards gassed Riffian villages, three waves of bombers at dawn, green-fingered dawn, the chemicals work more efficiently in the morning dew, put all that behind you and tell a story set in the Alps, a couple, they walk through fields on the edge of a village, they have a dog on a lead.

  ‘And in the background,’ says Hans, ‘we’ll hear the soughing of the wind, the rich earth, smells of the underwood, and a few clouds over the mountain tops to catch the last flames of the sun, French-style Alpenglühen?’

  That’s about the size of it, it would be good if Hans would agree to write the descriptive bits, Max would include beneath the title ‘Sets and props by Hans Kappler’, very smart, but don’t give me any of those meandering sentences with endless ramifications, subordinate clauses, interpolated clauses, antepositions, breast-beating, details, twenty lines of self-torment before we reach a full stop or the end of the paragraph, exactly the sort of thing that goes down so well in Germany, here readers are on the lazy side.

  Hans smiles, Max does not realise that Hans is currently struggling with a fit of melancholia, he shouldn’t have mentioned meandering sentences, he searches for a word that will correct his lapse, but Hans goes on as if nothing had happened:

  ‘You know, talking of descriptions, Colette went on writing descriptions for Willy’s books long after they went their separate ways, one day he ordered a few pages of Mediterranean landscape for a novel, she started and then stalled, though she knew the Côte d’Azur well, she asked if she could change it for Franche-Comté, it didn’t bother Willy, and when the book was going to press someone asked if it was true that if you looked out of a window in Franche-Comté you could really see the sea.’

  Actually, Hans would do it much more seriously, look, we’re being watched, Max and Hans are in a dark, unused corner of the Jardin du Luxembourg, a few badly parked wheelbarrows, a great heap of dead leaves and, in the middle, staring out at them, on a small plinth, a rather unprepossessing bust, an awkward-looking customer, a bronze done by some second-rater, modelled in haste, Flaubert.

  Max and Hans immediately drop everything and start talking about Flaubert, there were moments when he loathed descriptions, the ridiculous accuracy, the lumbering effort, art lies in the imprecise, true but what about Madame Arnoux and her ribbons right at the beginning, pressing against her temples, and her grey hair at the end, and also in his correspondence, old Gustave, when he speaks of the detail which draws attention away from the larger picture but must be retained because ultimately everything falls into perspective, wonderful details, Hans has raised one finger, a scholarly gesture, then he blushes.

  And for Max it is unheard of to see Hans do such a thing, Hans, eyes shining, cheeks red, finger raised in the direction of the front of the Senate building, a letter by Flaubert, he recites:

  ‘“The woman…”’

  Hans tries to capture the manner of a teacher dictating Thales’s theorem in the middle of the Jardin du Luxembourg, but his face goes red the moment he starts, he cannot control his face, he recites in French:

  ‘“The woman you fuck…”’

  He hesitates, or pretends to hesitate, he specifies, it’s a letter to Bouilhet. And for Max, it’s unprecedented, if it had been in German Hans would never have dared. He recites in his virtually accentless French, one finger towards the Senate:

  ‘“…who you fuck doggy-style, naked, in front of an old veneered mahogany pier-glass,” Max, I think it was particularly the pier-glass and the mahogany that interested him, veneered mahogany.’

  ‘You’re right,’ says Max, ‘and in your novels you too have put some very fine furniture.’

  ‘True, but not everything a man can do when he’s enjoying the company of a lady.’

  ‘Not even in a first draft?’

  Hans does not reply, a short silence, Max restarts the conversation, how will Hans manage to make his descriptions stick? trade secret, says Hans, but why don’t you tell me your story that has no chimney sweeps from Savoie in it but contains tartiflette, a true story, which I take to mean ninety-five per cent made up; no, Hans has got it wrong, it really is a true story, Max spent two weeks up there and was told it by the whole village and the valley; Hans continues to have his doubts, a couple, a stroll, a hunting-dog, that rings true enough, but it would be enough to hold the reader? it needs something which is out of the ordinary, and fast.

  ‘What struck me,’ says Max, ‘is that the man had a wooden leg.’

  ‘And these days is a wooden leg particularly striking? Did he come back with it from the war?’

  ‘Douaumont. The woman had this strange look in her eye, intense and absent, a faint smile, she was physically stronger, but it seemed that he was supporting and guiding her. She looked as if she was miles away.’

  ‘Yes…’

  Hans almost said ja or even yo, that ever-so-slightly below-the-salt yo used by his friend Johann, all those years ago, at the start of the war, just before the sabre-thrust, that’s what’s left of Johann in Hans’s mind, a hesitation between ja and yo, has been happening several times a day for fifteen years, but Hans says oui, in Paris he takes more trouble, he forces himself to say every last word in French, to get oui to come as naturally as it does to any true-born Parisian is the most difficult thing of all, he says:

  ‘Yes, the enigmatic female, that can give you up to twenty thousand readers; in Maupassant, she’d be the woman who has been spurned and has not forgiven, her burning jealousy will henceforth be unspoken, she has the smile of a woman who has every day the rest of her life to wreak her revenge, you could do worse, but watch out for clichés, and what about the dog?’

  Max smiles, his face brightens, a splendid Irish setter, nothing delicate about him, Max’s hands draw a rounded shape in space, a dog muscled from its runs in the open air, racing through the long grass, only two spurts of flame visible, its ears, at intervals. It’s a story which is out of the ordinary, Hans, the man is a native of the place, the woman has come from Switzerland, before the war, they met in 1913, in Geneva, on the Pont du Mont Blanc, it was early one afternoon, she was leaving the Valais to go to France, he was going to the shops, he could never remember which one, maybe he was going to Payot’s for some books.

  Hans visualises the scene, you’d need to check if Payot’s bookshop existed at the time, your hero sees the woman from a distance, that gives us time to sketch the background, he’s reached the middle of the bridge, the water and the mountains sway gently, their looming bulk tinged with blue, a few well-fed birds watch the hands of the passers-by, on the roofs of the great hotels flags flap, bright sun, Hôtel des Bergues, we’ll need to say a word about the Hôtel des Bergues at this point, you need occasionally to be able to do the postcard stuff, now for the woman!

  ‘It’s the fluid way she walks that first strikes Thomas,’ says Max, ‘the man’s name is Thomas, Thomas de Vèze, old aristocracy badly ma
uled by history, I think I’ll only use his Christian name, an attractive walk, somewhat unusual for a woman at that time, neither uneven nor constricted, as flowing as her skirt, steady rhythm, he told me that women often have one foot more forthright than the other, but not her, she comes towards him, brisk, resolute, dark hair, no hat, in Geneva, can you imagine? She’s not wearing gloves, doesn’t lower her eyes, her clear blue eyes.’

  ‘It’s as vivid as if I was there,’ says Hans, ‘when she passes Thomas he turns, like any self-respecting Frenchman he is inspecting her backside, that “royal rear-guard when amorous battle is joined”, and he starts to follow her.’

  ‘No, you’re not even close, even today Thomas still has no idea what got into him: just as she is about to walk past him, he calls out, “You are so beautiful!”’

  ‘This Thomas de Vèze is a novice, Max, even in Germany no one would do a thing like that.’

  ‘She answered: “And who might you be?” They stayed together, they walked along the north side of the lake.’

  ‘Max, I can see her, she’s just eaten, she felt sated, drowsy, now she has forgotten how full she felt, for the setting I suggest initially a furtive note, a light breeze, from time to time it turns the leaves on the trees and shows their silver backs.’

  Max has told Hans don’t mock, Thomas wants to know everything, the woman says her name is Hélène, she has just left her whole life behind, for reasons which do not concern him, her voice is low. ‘Right,’ says Hans, ‘a contralto, I’ve always liked contralto voices.’ And Hans’s mouth stays open, his chin begins to tremble, like the chin of a person who is about to cry, Hans is completely lost for words, you think you’re strong, you’ve managed to get everything in perspective, memories all in order, sorted, 1913, Arosa, Waltenberg, the giggles, the frozen lake, the large eagle, the bicycle rides, the raised bed, the hole in the chair, the recriminations when he looked at his watch, tea-time, the first time, her hand around the back of his neck, pink on the mountain tops, her breast outlined against the light in the window recess, and even that silly business one day at the Waldhaus, America too is tidied away, relegated to the distant future, transformed into the abstract idea of a destination, and Hans has met other women, some of them ‘hurt’ him as they say, an excellent feeling, to be able at last to say ‘contralto voices’ without shaking, without blushing, we used to go to see Madame Nietnagel, each week we’d go down to Lucerne, I loved it, we looked like an old married couple on an outing, when Lena looked at me as she sang, Nietnagel would say don’t turn your head like that, it strains the vocal cords, puts a strain on everything, Nietnagel’s crocodile eyes on me, she would say ‘Kappler, too many consonants in this name’, her crocodile gaze went over my head, became vague, I knew she was looking out of the window, she was watching for the sun, its rays on the pale yellow walls of the room, she really made Lena work, on the way back, in the train, Lena would lean her head on my shoulder, once she said ‘Kappler, Kappler, I like your name.’

  You think you’ve succeeded in settling everything down, you say ‘contralto voices’ and then your stupid chin starts to tremble, an itty-bitty muscle, a stupid spasm, you close your mouth, but then your lower lip starts doing it too, and the lower jaw joins in, actually during the war I’d stopped crying altogether, Lena could be there, in the middle of the track, she could walk down the middle of the track, a wool dress in autumn colours, or hold my arm instead of Max’s, Max says nothing, he has taken Max by the elbow, he falls in step with him, he doesn’t ask a question but Hans answers it all the same:

  ‘I never saw her again. I’ve no idea where she is.’

  A silence.

  ‘If you want, I could try to find her for you.’

  ‘No, Max, this is my business, if I’d wanted to I’d have already found her, I think about her every morning and that’s enough, I’m waiting, I really wish I had changed.’

  ‘So you’d find the same woman again? If you aren’t the same man, she won’t love you any more.’

  ‘She didn’t love me anyway, in Switzerland we parted company over something very painful, such stupidity, she behaved extremely well, I’m utterly useless, I’m going to change.’

  Hans’s chin has started behaving itself. Hans laughs softly, he will become irresistible, he will go to America, Max will come with him, but Hans will not go, all I’m good for is letting my mind wander, it’s what I like best, I have a reputation for being a hard worker but in reality I spend hours and hours daydreaming, Hans’s dreams are the dreams of a shop girl, of a megalomaniac, of revenge, this morning I dreamed that as I was on my way to the Jardin du Luxembourg, I was stopped by ticket-collectors on the underground, they called the police although I hadn’t done anything wrong, I reminded them of my rights, the police were there, my German accent, I dreamed I got beaten up by the police, I was taken to the police station, an inspector who reads books sized up the situation, I’d been roughed up by the police, I got even, I demonstrated that what they’d done was totally and utterly wrong, the inspector talked to me about my books, in the end I got my own back, and quite right too, I dream daily, a vivid dream life, I see Lena again in my dreams and while I’m doing that I get older sitting at my desk, I am soluble in the air of my office, and also I dream because feeling guilty about dreaming gives me the strength to work. But for the moment, Max, I have to avoid saying ‘contralto voices’, so this girl of yours from the Valais will have to have a higher voice, but one just as good, which will easily rise above the noise of the traffic and the waves from the lake which sometimes beat against the embankment, wavelets.

  In fact, according to Max, it was Thomas who did most of the talking. ‘Max, I can hear him from here! This Thomas de Vèze talks like he’s never talked before, either to other people or to himself, he has just had the encounter of his life, his own words sound strange to him, more indulgent about things in general, hesitant, he doesn’t know anything any more, and at the same time he has the feeling that he is about to discover everything, he gets confused, keeps glancing at her breasts, she doesn’t seem to mind, sometimes the gap in the material widens, he gets a glimpse of her collarbones, there is ten times less to see than there is of the women walking here in these gardens today, but for him it’s a continent, such things could give a man a thrill back then in 1913, a glimpse of a collarbone. Look Max, since I am responsible for the props in your story, am I allowed to place a very fine chain around her neck, a brief mention, not one of those meandering sentences?’

  ‘Very well, but no crosses or medallions, she doesn’t believe in God and she’s guessed that he’s a Protestant from the way he sees things, by his clothes, a Protestant who does not hate himself and finds it difficult to pretend to be innocent, just like me. And towards the end of the afternoon

  ‘One moment, Max! Leave them to me for five minutes, after all this is Lake Geneva! What is it about Thomas that caught the woman’s eye?’

  ‘Maybe my ears,’ says Max, ‘I think I’d like to lend him my ears.’

  ‘Some people might think you’re too sensitive about your ears, I know what they’re like, I can see them!’

  ‘You can see my ears?’

  ‘Don’t go on, I can see Thomas, and Hélène, they’re walking along the side of Lake Geneva, they’re pretending to identify the trees on the embankment or in the gardens of the houses, they’re sauntering, the branches of some trees hang so low that the leaves kiss their own shadows on the ground, others still have just a soft dusting of buds, she knows that they are thuyas, she knows far more about all this than yon Thomas, some gardens are virtually well-tended parks, with whole expanses of violets or dahlias, or form large-scale arrangements in which the yellow of the hydrangea rubs shoulders with the pale blue of the asters, and the eye skips away only to alight for a moment on the musky orange, old-gold, ochre and burned-toast of a clump of helenium, the hardest ones to grow are the ochre, the trick is how to preserve that warmth without letting it turn shrill.’

&nbs
p; With his hands, Hans traces a circle in the air, the warmth of the ochre, what Lena said about singing, smuggle ochre into the voice, a round voice, full, ochre is a colour which has retained a degree of chiaroscuro in its warmth. He resumes:

  ‘Ochre is more difficult than the red you get in those poker-shaped flowers that stand on tall stems, Knophofia.’

  Hans is getting heated, he always gets heated when he’s speaking French, the names of flowers, the pleasure of manipulating rare words, lush flora, of course he has been cheating, Max points to beds full of flowers spread out before them, all labelled, the meticulous labours of the squad of gardeners responsible for the Luxembourg. Hans adds: ‘I’m sure they have the same flowers in Geneva.’

  Now and then Thomas and Hélène hear, in the bushes, a flutter of wings, or the raucous, caressing cry of the crows as they fly up into the oaks.

  ‘No, Hans, in France the caressing cry of crows doesn’t work, it sounds pretty but the word crow has been tainted by our anti-clerical battles and has never been the same since, so not easy to use it as a sound effect for a lover’s tryst.’