by Hedi Kaddour
She said I don’t know how you can, I’d never dare go on a long hike like that, half an hour in this cold and my throat’s on fire, for me to go out skiing counts as a professional blunder, but you put on a red anorak, you take your planks, you’re away up a mountain for ten hours with a squad of infantrymen and you emerge unscathed, skiing across country for ten hours or more, Hellström, you’re a public menace!
Everyone was looking, Tellheim wondered if Max knew something when he said come and see to Hans, then he thought I want her, perhaps he didn’t actually think that, maybe his body simply moved and found itself in the path of this tall woman with red hair, go down from the terrace, go to where the soldiers are removing their boots, being there, being gripped by an unexplained rage against Lilstein who somehow is there ahead of him, and Max is also ahead of him, even Hans, because Frédérique de Valréas always behaves perfectly, you must never let a man feel any regret for being with you, not even one teeny-weeny regret, you take him by the arm, like an old friend, an uncle, come, fifteen athletes, you shall be my alibi, she whisks him off to meet the woman who has just arrived, there is no sharpness in her voice, come along, Hans.
‘No,’ said Lena Hellström to her friend Stirnweiss, ‘not a ten-hour hike but thirty, thirty hours, we set out yesterday morning, a detour by way of the Hirschkuh Pass, we built an igloo outside the refuge, we spent the night in a large igloo, Swiss cold doesn’t bite, it’s all right for tourists, it’s nothing compared to Montana, I slept with fifteen men.’
‘The army agreed to take you along with them?’
‘I had a job to do.’
‘Now you’re pulling my leg,’ said Stirnweiss.
‘No, a real job, I was studying the effect of Mozart’s berceuses on the sleep of mountain infantrymen on patrol, I sang them some Mozart round the fire in the igloo, a single oil-lamp, all those men, they taught me mountain songs, rather coarse, it was most satisfactory, be an angel, Elisabeth, I couldn’t walk another step, would you order me a hot bath, tell the housekeeper that I want a very large hot bath, hello Hans!’
Hans doesn’t tremble, he is very calm, he is surprised by how calm he is, he says pleasantly:
‘I’m so pleased to see you again! Madame Hellström?’
‘Yes, Hans, it’s my real name, my maiden name, the other one, Hotspur, was a made-up name.’
And Tellheim has already butted into the conversation, you ski admirably, and Lilstein says nothing but he’s the one Lena is looking at, and Max says:
‘I’m sure we’ve met before.’
‘Me too,’ says Lena, ‘you have the sort of face people don’t forget.’
‘Say ears, you recognise my ears?’
‘Your friends called you Max, 1926, Paris, that enormous brasserie, the Brasserie de la Paix, you were watching me in the reflection of the mirrors and I heard you telling some appalling story about steelmakers, don’t look so surprised, it was my dark hair blue eyes period, you were fiddling with a wineglass and sugar lumps, you made your friends laugh but there were tears in your voice, I almost came over to your table but apparently that isn’t done, it was for you to come over and speak to me!’
Lena turns to Hans:
‘Men rarely dare make the first move.’
And Lilstein, Tellheim, the others there present form a small circle around Lena, she takes off her hat, shakes a fine shock of thick hair free, Lilstein thinks that she’s the only woman for him, Hans introduces Frédérique to Lena, eyes peering in a semi-circle, furtively watching, eyes vying and prying, then the moment when Lena Hellström cried out John! and planted a loud kiss on Maynes’s cheek, Paris, it can’t be ten years already!
Tellheim notices that when Stirnweiss looks at men they feel handsome and suave but to talk to the beautiful red-haired skier they straighten their backs, Mrs Maynes smiles at Lena Hellström and strokes her husband’s cheek.
Merken has remained up on the terrace with Moncel, they carry on talking about space, Merken in lyrical mode, free-wheeling, leaving the sparkle on what is free, the complicit slope, space: the dispenser of being, Merken glances down at the skiers, comes out with a remark which surprises Moncel, about animals.
*
The antithesis of Merken in the Seminar is the master of classical philosophy, Regel, the man who has the most self-control, Merken is a boar, Regel looks more like a heron, long, delicate, quick neck, one morning people remain in the lounge for a few moments before going to their various seminars, Regel comes in singing:
‘Let’s take a walk in the woods while the wolf’s not about, let’s take a walk in the woods…’
They thought Regel incapable of the smallest jest, and he begins talking to everyone and no one, raising his voice, shouting:
‘Aaah, villainy! villainy and its cohort of ravening beasts who disguise themselves the better to tear out the throats of the unsuspecting.’ Regel arms aloft, head down:
‘Villainy, and worse than villainy, the moment when villainy takes its hat off instead of allowing us a little longer to bask in our hopes after letting us build them up for so long, we all know what’s going to happen, and yet we prefer to go on hoping!’
He sings another snatch:
‘Are you there, Mister Wolf? Do you dare, Mister Wolf?’
Those present do not understand what is happening, young Frédérique is the first to react, Regel is oblivious to the furniture, watch out! he’ll hurt himself, no one dares restrain Regel, dares put a hand on him, so everyone starts moving things to one side, the seats, low tables, easy chairs which might get in his way, Regel advances sightlessly, in a straight line, like a curling stone whose passage is brushed smooth to facilitate its progress. He repeats:
‘Are you there, Mister Wolf? Do you dare, Mister Wolf? Don’t give me that, Mister Wolf has been here among us for a long, long time.’ He points to the far wall of the library, a section without shelves, just wallpaper:
‘The Wolf, long before the most stupidest kid in the class would have spotted his ears in those leaves which form the background to our playtimes, ah, dances without villainy! dancing round and round, flowers, ideas, when the friendly breeze fills the space with fine abstractions, villainy and the warm embrace of friends!’
Regel has begun to waltz:
‘Ich hatt’einen Kameraden, einen bess’ren find’st du nicht, the swine even use death, die Trommel schlug zum Streite…’
He turns and comes back to the middle of the room, his arms less agitated, his voice likewise, he now has a dreamy look:
‘Villainy, you are their god, why would they accept principles and allow the captious law of men to deprive them of what is offered them by the slimy copulation of power and cunning?’
Everyone is looking at Regel, tall, gaunt, thin blade of a nose, very elegant in his light-coloured suit, handkerchief in his breast pocket, pine-green tie, holds himself very straight, strict self-control, as always, except for his staring eyes, everyone hesitates, maybe this is his idea of a joke, but Hans senses that Regel has lost his mind, Max tells him: ‘Wait, he’s still saying things that make sense.’
Regel starts to make his case:
‘But why brand them with the name of villain and wild beast? Why? After all, they derive more strength and glamour from the sensual pleasures of lying and raping than we find in the dismal bed of precept and convention from which we produce only spineless cretins whom the herd are already quietly driving to the very edge of the abyss, our way of extricating ourselves from the old herd was very fine, two consciousnesses face to face, living people who acknowledge each other, each demonstrating to the other that they are there, without one killing the other, and the other one has no need to run away, not like animals, each one needing the other, a struggle which leaves a place for the weak, the loser, attached to life he stays and becomes a servant, and he wins, he is told that he has won, but the master can see in his servant only an object, which means he has no one facing him to acknowledge his consciousness, whereas the
servant sees in his master the perfect form of the self, an authentic being, this being deigns to look at him, it is enough for him, he sets to work, and he can contemplate his own self in the fruits of his labour, his labour and a master, a false master, it was a fine thing, except that no one foresaw that the masters would begin killing in earnest, return of the herd! Spineless cretins whom the herd are already quietly driving to the edge of the abyss while all the time telling them that some blessing or other mingles with the mountain dew.’
Regel has moved closer to the window.
‘See how the dew makes the leaves of the tall poplars sparkle and cools our presence in the world! No more need to think, it is enough just to be, to celebrate being, to contemplate the forest, the poplars will march in step with the warrior populace, the tall poplars, let’s take a walk in the woods, yes, and in our absence we are robbed of the space in which we might have struck a discordant note against the night-black diapason even now in rehearsal! Ich hatt’einen Kameraden, einen bess’ren, while, albeit making space for us, they enlarge the cemeteries.’
Regel looks at Hans:
‘Be quiet, Hans! I don’t need any help, I’m not raving, this is a moment of lucidity, Berlin, headship of the Department of Philosophy, forty years of toil, the votes of thirty professors, a life’s work, twelve hours a day! A life played by the rules, a life of rebuffs suffered in silence and with the most respectful politeness even when I felt like ramming a dustbin over the head of the most arrogant of the two-faced hypocrites, the one who broke open the champagne when his little friends killed Rathenau, Rathenau whom I loved like a brother, one of the great men of the Empire and the Republic! The man who opened the champagne is with us now, which is no trifling matter, he had the nerve to say on the day those swine sent by the extreme right and the Casque d’acier killed Rathenau, he said the major ministries should be reserved for men of more “intrinsic” origins, that way there’d be less resentment and violence, bastards! I had right on my side! And the law! And the fact of a democratic majority! But I’d forgotten one thing and some snivelling boot-licker, a member of a government of snivelling boot-lickers incapable of standing up to the scum in brown shirts, some gutless wimp at a desk decided I wouldn’t get the Berlin job, that the job should go to someone more intrinsic! More intrinstic! To the friend and colleague who only moments ago greeted me with open arms, though that friend and colleague knew everything, long before the telegram, more intrinsic, more radiant! It’s all so obvious, when the supporters of people like him turn a spotlight on the power which makes cowards keep silent! Do you enjoy seeing me behaving like some demented puppet on a string? And the philosophers? They say their farewells, they form a circle to applaud my old friend Professor Merken whose origins are much more intrinsic! Make a circle, not a circle, a ring, these days there are no reserved seats for philosophers, they have to put on gloves and fight, like everyone else!’
The only person who dared register a protest with Regel was Frédérique, she tried to treat him as if he wasn’t raving, she thought that by arguing with him they could bring him back to reality.
‘That’s unfair, Professor, the man you refer to has never compromised himself either with the people you say point spotlights or the brown shirts.’
Regel:
‘Him? Never! He is pure thought, never an obscene word, a direct gaze, so straight it never pauses to settle on the person he’s speaking to, his look is lost in thought, in the purity of thought, the wonderful flow of ideas, such new ideas, so necessary, so strong, so true, leave it to others to tamper with votes, get their hands dirty grubbing around in the mud.’
Regel’s body suddenly crumples, sags to one side, his elbows pressed against his stomach, hands clenched, knees bent, Erna, his secretary, has tried to talk sense to him.
‘Erna, is that you? Erna, they’ve given your dear old mentor his marching orders and you haven’t downed tools yet? Serves him right? Red Erna, watching while the old social democrat is used as an arse-wipe by the riff-raff, Erna’s little ultra-Red comrades warned her: old Regel is enemy number one, got nothing to say, Erna? You like wolves?’
Erna also talked back at Regel, it was the right way to keep him here with people, talk to him just as if he was fully compos mentis, she told him he was a bit late in the day finding out they were wolves, after believing they’d make very obedient dogs, she started talking as though addressing a public meeting, the place to strike is the fertile womb that spawns the wolves!
It hasn’t calmed Regel down.
‘Ah! the revolutionary exhilaration of knowing you were right all along! Erna is overjoyed when the centrists are flat on their backs!’
Erna going on:
‘The matrix, that’s where we must strike the beast!’
Hans realises that she’s going too far:
‘Professor, won’t you sit down? we can think about this together!’
Regel:
‘Think, sleep, hope, we shall all disappear, Hans, anyone who’s extrinsic is going to have to disappear to make way for certifiable madmen!’
He backs into the lounge. The madness contorts him, doubles him up, propels him, swoops down on him again, releases him then puts out its claws almost playfully, he becomes calm, in a slow voice:
‘Nothing to worry about, friends, a passing upset, you know, there are times when I admire what Merken says, it’s very fine, it’s poetry, except that no one should be allowed to poeticise philosophy, meanwhile the poplars, the warriors, I don’t want him to shake my the hand, let’s take a walk in the woods while the wolf s not about, are you there, Mister Wolf? can you hear?’
Then Regel disappears.
*
A week of ideas, of battles over ideas, of monocles, splendour, courtly manners, the men make the rules and the women set the tone, there are Pan-Europeans, nationalists, internationalists, conservatives, defenders of the giant dirigible, socialists, liberals, economic liberals who are conservative in politics and vice versa, progressives, advocates of the four-turret battleship who are there to plan the forthcoming naval conference, anticolonialists, economists, philosophers of rule and balance, jurists, imperialists and proud of it, criss-crossing battle lines, for example supporters of the League of Nations internally split between those who remain faithful to the cellulo-linen choker-collar and those who have gone over to the close-woven, lightly starched, semi-stiff collar, it doesn’t catch the folds under the chin as much, but the soft collar is out, you can leave that to the moneymen.
Mustn’t leave out the ones who only want the League to act as a gendarme to police frontiers, and the ones who dream of a universal republic much larger than just Europe, the ones who talk to other people and the ones who talk to themselves, like Madame Merken, she is extremely proud of carrying off her little intrigue so successfully, her husband will go to Bedin, in the end he accepted the job despite the scandal, he told her he was accepting it on one condition, he was going to need a new secretary, he would have to employ young Erna.
Madame Merken gave in, but pondered the matter, why is she always the one to give in? still, he’d agreed to leave Heidelberg, the thousand-year-old university where the professors swell with self-satisfaction when invited to dine at the home of some sausage manufacturer. Berlin, invited to the feast! But keep quiet about all that, keep even quieter about Germany, unite, close ranks, advance, I’m just a philosopher’s wife, but I know two things that philosophers forget, you achieve nothing without politics and in politics prudence gets you nowhere, the future belongs to those who push at doors which open into the unknown, kick down doors, unleash fanaticism, make things happen, create the moment for things to happen, the only philosophy which will survive is the philosophy which keeps abreast of the times, bold men stand ready and waiting, they are rough, they laugh at philosophy but they hold the secret which sets History moving once more, I want to join them, in silence, my husband’s job is to philosophise the silence, but he mustn’t be too aware of what he’
s doing, just do his job, no more.
A week of battles over ideas, to begin with it meant genuine exchanges of views but that didn’t last, Max laughing, saying I’m not sorry I came, I feel as if I’m taking part in a football match wearing crampons, no, that’s too simple, let’s say a game of soule, an old sport played back home, one third football, one third rugby, one third wrestling or boxing with a cycle race thrown in, all taking place in the same stadium-cum-velodrome, the Europa team of Pan-Europeans are first out of the north bend, Wolkenhove in the lead sets the pace supported by his team-mate Kappler, fifteen metres up now on the Nationals team, they pick up the pace, Kappler’s magic pedals, the Pan-Europeans flash past along the yellow track in full view of a public of dark suits and white shirt-fronts, cheers, hooters and pretty women, now thirty metres up on the pursuing riders, but at the tail of this group there are signs of flagging, three men, the team’s weakest links, one is Berthelot, Briand’s deputy, they are finding it hard to keep up the pace set by Wolkenhove and Kappler, signs that they’re tiring.
And behind this group, Bainville puts on a spurt, Bainville is leader of the team in pursuit, the Nationals, Bainville and the Prussian Kuhn, an alliance of opposites, the rebirth of Germany is a condition of the rebirth of the West, absolutely not so, Europe must gather under the intellectual aegis of France, meantime they swap the lead with each other until such time as they are able to catch and overtake the stateless Pan-Europeans, Bainville and Kuhn are now only a dozen wheel-widths from Berthelot who is still having difficulty with the pace, the Nationals are being supported by the Conservatives, the Pan-Europeans respond and Wolkenhove dribbles, charges off ball at his feet down the space to his the right, comes up against centre-back Kuhn, good ball control by Wolkenhove, a dribble leftward then a flick of the foot, the ball goes to the right of Kuhn, Wolkenhove goes round Kuhn on the left, a terrific sidestep, Wolkenhove reconnects with the ball behind the wrong-footed Kuhn but is then brought down by Tardieu, defender of the gold standard, free-kick taken by Maynes, the only currency worth having is thought, a left hook, the spectators are on their feet, Regel takes the punch, Merken follows up with an uppercut to the liver for today the gregarianisation of man nowadays must go under the name of Europe.