Waltenberg

by Hedi Kaddour

  ‘Max blamed Walker, he said the trip killed Lena, her last mission. In Paris they’d had to open the files for her so she could see the extent of the damage done by the mole, she knew a lot of things and she died in that city, without seeing Kappler again, Kappler died six months later.

  ‘In Paris she didn’t come up with anything on the mole, or if she did she didn’t say, Misha. At the time you didn’t warn me, never even put me on my guard, why? Was there really no danger? Would she find nothing? Did she die in Paris without unmasking anyone? With a smile on her face?

  ‘Heart failure, Misha, she didn’t like Nixon any more than you liked Brezhnev. Did you manage some readjustment with her? Will you tell me about it? Arlington, that wreath from the ‘Friends of the Winter Journey, who sent it? Was it Max? What happened to Max? You don’t know? Disappeared? De Vèze told me that the last time he saw Max was in a garden, a cat jumped into Max’s arms and Max said ‘‘Orpheus, the time’s come!” He vanished along with the cat, no one ever saw him again.

  ‘We’ll listen to what Walker tells the youngsters we send him, and you can tell Walker all about Waltenberg, we need him, he’s not a happy man, we must also find a few sound brains in Russia, Spain, a likely bunch of young friends, and a girl who’s studying singing, I absolutely insist we have a girl who’s studying singing.

  ‘We’re going to disappear, Misha, nowadays our eyes water more when we wake up of a morning, no, I’m not mad, let’s not be late, the big game, the third shore!

  ‘And even if I was mad, let’s not forget the most urgent task, saving your skin, today Kohl’s star is highest in the firmament, an enlarged Germany in the centre of Europe, with lots of money to buy territory with, Maisie doesn’t like it at all, you wouldn’t have something on Herr Kohl, would you?’

  Hédi Kaddour has been teaching French literature at the Ecole Normale Supérieure since 1984. He is the author of three collections of poetry and of several translations (from German, English and Arabic). Waltenberg is his first novel.

  David Coward has translated a dozen French classic texts from Molière to the Marquis de Sade and Maupassant and for Albert Cohen’s Belle du Seigneur was awarded the Scott-Moncrieff Prize for translation in 1996. He has written widely on French history and culture, his most recent book being A History of French Literature (2002). He is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement, the London Review of Books and the literary pages of newspapers and periodicals.