Hedi Kaddour - Waltenberg

Max again offers to pass his turn to Hans who declines, to Stirnweiss, but she has suddenly disappeared, he puts his eye once more to the telescope, Hans! Come and see, it’s a tall, handsome, blood-coloured officer, Hans is very busy at the other end of the terrace, Max calls Tellheim, Come here! resistance of the snow, angle of the slope, resistance of the air, elasticity coefficient of the human body, you can express all this wonderful zigzagging as a mathematical formula, you can tell us if time passes relatively faster for them than for us, Tellheim has the telescope, people are enjoying themselves, everything is relative, handsome officer, Tellheim wanders off.

And then the punch-up started, not exactly what you’d expect to find behind the word, a brawl in a gutter, not as vulgar, but more a tasteful brand of competing, a form of rivalry that was nonetheless unremitting, a struggle to occupy the high ground, score points, have the last word, capture attention.

It started below them, outside the entrance to the hotel, the arrival of the squad of mountain light infantry, when Mademoiselle Stirnweiss helped Lena Hellström take off her bright red anorak.

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… ’