Waltenberg

by Hedi Kaddour

  ‘Misha, don’t they ever censor literature where you come from?’

  After a few minutes, a waiter comes round, he has nodded discreetly to Max and Lilstein, he stares at the board, the sugar which the head waiter had poured has been absorbed by the bilberries, the waiter now sprinkles the tart generously, six waiters in the room, each as scrupulous as the next and all enthusiastic sugar-sprinklers, six turns with the sugar-shaker in a few minutes, when the head waiter recommended his bilberry tart after giving it one last sprinkle Lilstein declined, the head waiter suggested the Linzer but I don’t see why I should order a portion of Linzer from oiks who sabotage their bilberries.

  Max and Lilstein have not spoken any more about Hans, Max was not keen, Lilstein did not push it, they changed the subject, Max hasn’t asked questions about the expulsion of dissidents and the interest-free loans, no doubt because he already knew all he wanted to, really they talked only of Lena, plus a little about the death of Stalin, because of Beria, Max insisted on telling Lilstein the tale of Stalin’s death and Lilstein felt like letting him talk, not because Max was about to tell him anything new but because he thought it might be interesting to see if Max believed he was telling him something he didn’t know, and also because if Max was willing to hold forth best let him get on with it so that maybe later on he’d be as forthcoming about Lena.

  To this extent you might think that it was Lilstein who made Max talk but Max needed no urging, he’d never said a word about her to anyone, he talked to Lilstein because first, Lilstein agreed to hear part of the death of Stalin, second because Lilstein asked him to talk about Lena and also to allow what happened a chance of surviving the all-consuming dust.

  Max filled Lilstein in on what he did not know about the final evenings of the ’29 Waltenberg Seminar, they completed their memories, for Lilstein also told the story of his outing on skis with Lena.

  ‘When we got back, I threw a snowball at her, I ran off, she ran after me, I fell over.’

  Max listened, they recalled Lena’s tangos, the dancing parties. With such a large gathering of older people you might have expected the evening entertainment to be fairly sedate, but there were also a lot of young people, at least in the audience at discussions, La Valréas insisted on it, she wanted the best students in Europe, she paid all their expenses, including evening dress, there were also hotel guests who were there for the skiing, at least a good hundred of these, sporty types, quite a few Americans, amusing to see the evening abruptly overrun by all these people looking as if they had just stepped straight out of a cinema screen, the dresses of some of the European women suddenly became unwearable.

  The American women laughed loudly, smoked, drank, skittered, kissed, skipped, bare arms, bare backs, throats, breasts, napes of necks, knees exposed to the universal gaze, beautiful faces, fresh and pink, blackheadless nostrils, and every hairstyle had its finery, its headband of cloth, velvet, satin, the fabric acting as a setting for small clusters of precious stones or gold or silver medallions, and used also to anchor a feather, they had long cigarette-holders and strings of pearls hanging down to their waists, short hair showing the back of the neck, bare shoulder-blades, straight barrel-line dresses, tubular frocks, very simple, soft material, flare-effect panels low down, the material tight across the hips but fitting more loosely thereafter to allow full play to the flare, the whole lower section of the dress whirling in the gyrations of the dance, whipping the air, rising as they whirled, allowing a glimpse of a flesh-coloured petticoat and the tops of stockings held up by flesh-coloured garters.

  Dresses without gathers or pleats, green, golden-yellow or saffron, champagne, Veronese, the occasional gilt hat, no brim, darker-coloured stockings, maroon or grey, or misty blue, couples suddenly grown more serious, left arm of the man and right arm of his partner pointing horizontally towards a distant horizon on which eyes are fastened, affected stiffness, caricatured gravity displayed by some, tango for trumpets, clarinets, double-bass, drums, young women rushing on to the dance floor with a gusto which consigned to the dustbin all theories concerning neurasthenia in the modern world, in a rout of dance steps, fox-trot, charleston, scornful glances from spectators, sometimes hate, people who’d come along only to feel the desire to destroy the whole lot of them, to see they got their comeuppance some day, then they went away, leaving the others to enjoy a medley of dances, women humming, crooning ‘Don’t Cry Baby’ or ‘Mí Noche Triste’ to some spring-heeled sure-footed dancer, head thrown back or a sudden look straight into the eyes of another man, drinking and laughing and glass held out on the side of the dance floor, the evening turning into folly after the twelve strokes, one single thought, dresses clinging to body, flared for the legs, garish petticoats, shoes with straps, high heels, dazzling gems, very long necklaces, coiled several times, worn round the neck, and those young women know how to shake a leg, they are as hard as champions and when they laugh they throw back their heads and show all their teeth, Aristide Briand watching, he was born during the Second Empire, makes an observation about ‘breasts for lean times’ but goes on watching the women with very long false eyelashes, plucked eyebrows, redrawn in pencil, bright red lipsticked lips, dark foundation, violet nails, glossy pearl-fringed cloche hat, blue-grey, eyes upturned under it, occasional outburst, out of the question that I should let him, woman butting in on the conversation of two people, I’m going to whisk him away but I shall let you have him back in just a jiffy, you won’t have time to grow one minute older, imitation feather fan, orange and beige cameo, gold lamé here and there, and a boa for the women staying in the annexe, the annexe apparently less prestigious, but much more comfortable, ultramodern bathrooms, telephones less temperamental, V-shaped necklines, edged with small sparkling stones, hair flaunting a kiss-curl, fox-trot, quick tempo, steps you dance in sequence, strict tempo, steps you improvise, feet thrashing, whirling, crossing, fox-trot and its less hurried variant, the slow foxtrot, glissé, cake-walk, movements weird and bodies contorted, give a cake to the black slave who walks the most complicated dance, body extravagantly arched backwards, arms out, advance raising the knees as high as they will go, dress which shucks down on uneven tasselled fringes and which a twitch of the hips sends shooting back up again, beyond the bounds of possibility, in the carefree unconcern of the music.

  ‘You were watching the skirts, Misha, there were two of you ogling the skirts, you and Briand, a revolutionary and a social-traitor, same struggle, on the look-out for skirt!’

  Lilstein has grown misty-eyed, he has even recounted the episode of the shower cubicle in the swimming pool at the Waldhaus.

  ‘I pushed a door, she’d forgotten to bolt it, then it was gone, Max!’

  Max has realised he shouldn’t have listened, Lilstein in this state had dropped his guard low enough to tell him about the business with the shower cubicle and was now on the verge of tears, Lilstein has outmanoeuvred you, you listened, he’s got you now, it’s a trade, you’re going to have to tell him something.

  There was a silence, Lilstein is never as dangerous as when the line of his mouth softens, when he looks as if he has a great deal to blame life for.

  ‘Max, what was it like, with her?’

  Max looked into Lilstein’s look:

  ‘You’ve been mulling over that question for forty years, young Lilstein, I won’t tell you anything.’

  Surely Max isn’t going to chat about the only wedding night of his entire life to this blundering German, a hand placed on Max’s hand, in the Waldhaus, it’s getting late, all those taking part in the European Seminar have dispersed to their rooms, Hans is nowhere to be seen, there is no sign of Erna, nor of Merken, Frédérique has vanished, Stirnweiss has vanished, Lena has vanished, doors have been locked, Lilstein too has vanished, Moncel isn’t around any more, Max is in the bar, doing some serious drinking, he’s there with a group of young English girls, the barman has got out a map of Scotland and tulip glasses, the north coast, Speyside, the home of whisky.

&
nbsp; Map laid out on the bar, they follow the route and stop for a dram at each distillery, turning names and tastes into song, glass after glass. The English girls are sporty, clean-scrubbed, brazen, built like boxers. They want Max to pronounce Craigellachie and Mannochmore, Inverboyndie, Ballindalloch. He makes them laugh, he tries to teach them to sing ‘Amélie, cache tes genous’.

  The barman has just poured the umpteenth whisky, Max grabs it, a hand is placed on his, a voice asks:

  ‘Do you really have to?’

  She’s the only woman who doesn’t interest Max, she’s beautiful, she’s the one Hans dreams of, but she is no longer just Hans’s dream, though she might as well be, the wives of my friends are sexless. Forty years ago Lena pushed his glass to one side saying:

  ‘Do you really have to?’

  And she drank the whisky, straight.

  ‘Come along, Max, I don’t love you.’

  Young Lilstein would very much like to know what happened forty years ago, to make love to the memory of Lena through the memories of his friend Max Goffard, if I told him he was lucky that night, the poor muddlehead would never believe me.

  That night Max behaved like an idiot, he even told Lena:

  ‘The wives of my friends are sexless.’

  To which she replied:

  ‘You have much too conventional an idea of sex.’

  Lena was twice as strong as Max, let that be part of the detail which our blundering German friend certainly does not need to know, twice as strong as a Max Goffard who is no longer sure of anything, it was wonderful and at the same time I was like the goat who sees a very determined lady coming towards him, several ladies in that lady, or the same one in various guises, several rather determined ladies, and the goat wonders why they have started dancing, I’d drunk a lot of whisky that evening but I’ve never known what it’s like to be drunk, Lena wasn’t drunk, the pretty ladies dance and suddenly they toss the goat up in air, and the goat thinks this is strange, they catch him neatly and throw him up again even higher, and he doesn’t know what’s happening, he’s falling and at the very last moment they catch him, they throw up him again, a game, no way of stopping it, he’s airborne, he doesn’t dislike it, down he falls, up he goes again, getting into the swing of it, he falls, they catch him with their teeth, women dancing, throwing wine in each other’s faces, they toss the goat up in the air again, compare what happened with Monsieur Seguin and the wolf and it’s small beer.

  Women who dance, who perspire, who glow, they shout, the goat panics, doesn’t know which way to turn, understands that it’s also a very bad time, they’re mad, they’re doing themselves harm, don’t even realise, a moonless carnival, the next person who talks to me about gentleness, intuition, affection, caring natures, I will knock his block off, frenzy, the goat has got it at last, one of the women has a scrap of goat flesh in her mouth, she’s laughing.

  She holds a torch of burning pine, shakes her hair, shakes the brand like a madwoman, when you say goat it’s to get people used to the idea from the word go, but these crazy women have now begun attacking lots of other beasties, even bears, one swipe of a bear’s paw can do a crazy woman serious damage but they don’t care, these women didn’t come here to bandage anybody’s wounds, they scream, they sing, they run, stop, die, come back to life, a place where forces collide, they throw the goat up in the air once more, life at its most intense, the screams quicken the race which quickens the screams.

  They do not feel the limb twist nor the claw strike, to feel that would require a bearing, they have lost their bearings, they are far away, they come back, they shake their hair, scream, throw their loins to the flames, tearing themselves open with their hands, subside, eyes wild open, splash their faces with water, vine and wine, death looms up in their midst, by way of a greeting they grab their ration of raw flesh as they pass by, wound themselves, feed themselves, plead, run away, they hurt, madness in their eyes, hands, mouth, they call, death watches them, joy of living, joy of dying, they curl up, seethe, tear themselves to pieces, fingers white from being clenched, the madness which tears itself apart, which engulfs.

  They depart in a whirling cloud, roll, crash to the ground, throw down the torch, pick it up, take revenge like wounded creatures with nothing to lose, death claims his wages, the goat in a coffin of sensations, a force which persists as long as their sharp piercing cries and then tears to tatters, then it begins again, scraps of goat, a flower muscle, murmurs of chaos.

  Escaped by the skin of his teeth, lucky sod.

  Next morning Lena was so sweet, she sat down in front of her pier-glass, slow expansive movements, she was combing her hair, she looked in the mirror, her life she says is giving recitals or appearing in opera, the day before you mustn’t, on the day it makes the voice dull, the day after she doesn’t feel like it, she sings often.

  ‘Tot up what’s left, Max, and to make my condition worse I forbid you to go elsewhere, I can be an utterly demonic Carmen, jealousy is physically so demanding, I don’t allow anyone to walk over me, I stay ahead of the game, sometimes I get it wrong but at least no one laughs at me, I’m a very jealous person, didn’t used to be, but the older I get the more jealous I become.

  ‘Sometimes I never say anything to the man I’m with, I stay nice, and loving, and I go straight for the other woman, no altercations, I leave that to shop girls, what I do is jump in my car, then I ram her car, I yank her out by the hair, I once did that in the middle of a crossroads, in Duluth, and I swotted her with the starting handle, you don’t know Duluth, you need to if you want an idea of what sort of scandal it made, a large De Soto starting handle, a huge scandal, they didn’t dare charge me, it’s possible the judge had slept with the woman, she slept with everybody, he didn’t dare do a thing, and my lover at the time didn’t say anything either, a free action that looks free, not very subtle but effective, men are cowards.

  ‘I could do even better than that, Max, know what a woman can do to keep her lover? To get him to marry her? You’re jealous of the wife, you want marriage, you corner your lover in the kitchen, a good talk, you feel he wants to break it off, go home, you’re not going to let him get away with it, it starts in the kitchen and it stays in the kitchen, the man has qualified as a pharmacist, he tries to speak calmly, he’s about to set himself up, buy a dispensary, in Linz, the town’s leading pharmacy, he starts building his case, a turning point in his life, he has children, twins, just starting school, they’re going to need him home every evening, so you don’t mess with the children’s education, but you can mess with a mistress? The man is making the most tactless case imaginable.

  ‘In any case, a man who is ending a relationship and insists on talking is always tactless, there’s an explosion, one word is all it takes, he actually dared to say I don’t deserve you, that’s the point when you explode, a bastard, a man who wants to end an affair is essentially a bastard, the storm breaks very quickly, in a kitchen it’s very bad, table suddenly cleared with a backhand swipe from the woman, tears in her voice, in her eyes, on her cheeks, the woman’s hands held out in front of her, ready for battle, out of control, though not really, not really out of control those hands, one hand which opens the top of the stove, the ceramic stove, one hot plate open, the biggest.

  ‘The crazy woman is about to do something stupid, hurt herself, put her right hand in, she’s yelling, the man keeps a close eye on her right hand, the roar of the fire in the stove, how hot can it get inside a ceramic stove? the intake of air, how do you treat burns? the flames burn higher, a thousand degrees? If the wood’s really dry, eight hundred, eleven hundred degrees? The fire roars, burning hotter and hotter, her hand, not the right hand, the left, she holds her left hand over the hole in the top of the stove.

  ‘What is the man’s academic and professional file doing in that left hand? The originals of the documents in his file, the woman screams, on your knees! It’s an order, the kind of order that can be given by a woman in a rage who knows that without the origin
als of his diplomas the man might just about be able to open a grocery but not a pharmacy, especially not in Linz, and it’s not only his file, there are bearer bonds, half the capital he needs is being dangled over the flames, in the hand of this mad woman, the woman is not threatening to throw his papers into a fire in a fireplace, they should have stayed in the living room, papers thrown into a fire in a fireplace can be rescued, here, the central hole of the stove, a thousand degrees, final, vocal cords ready to snap, the woman screeches, you’ll swear on the heads of your children, you swear on the Bible!

  ‘On the Bible, Max, absurd! But in the end he stays with her. He divorced. He married her. Men love being loved like this, a woman who would not hesitate to reduce you to a state of administrative nonexistence in Austria fully deserves to earn her marriage, an utterly harmonious marriage, a blast of jealous rage, the originals of diplomas and bearer bonds, that’s not a matter of small importance, they married.

  ‘Later the woman divorced the man, she discovered he had a weak character. She said I’d married my bad self. I refer to dear Elisabeth, Max, sweet, fair-haired Elisabeth Stirnweiss.

  ‘Let’s stay friends, Max, with the life I lead I need to talk without what I say turning into love or loathing.’

  At Grindisheim, in the hotel, people have started taking their leave of each other, they came to say goodbye to Max, still sitting with Lilstein, at one point he loses his temper:

  ‘Look here, I’m not Kappler’s widow!’

  People said farewell looking somewhat abashed and he laughed. One man came up and Max stopped laughing, the man had only one arm, a German, he said to Max: