Hedi Kaddour - Waltenberg

The rest of the dragoons have retreated to gather themselves for another charge, they close on the car and the Offizier, one dragoon goes down, another rides past, sabre held straight out stiff-armed, as if he is at drill and tilting at spinning quintains mounted on tripods, point of the blade angled up towards the chest, the point misses the chest, the strike is too high, the blade passes within centimetres of the man’s neck, a trained reflex, the dragoon slashes as he draws back the sabre, the Prussian officer ducks, the blade saws off his ear, his cheek, the whole of his mouth.

Blood spurts, more shouting, the advantage of the curved sabre tells, more shots, the horse goes down, the dragoon is unscathed, three German soldiers leap on him, they scream, the dragoon on his feet, he has lost his sabre, get away, don’t die in this abomination, war is an abomination, the dragoon hates war, he’s a lawyer, and a good horseman.

A German soldier grabs him from behind, holds him in a headlock, this is no dress parade, parades were before, the rider does not want to die, bloody war, go back to what life was before, quick, start over again, the rider is a lawyer, spring of 1914, they were heading for the abomination of war, it was then that it should have all been stopped, Poincaré elected President of the Republic, the rider didn’t want Poincaré, Fallières standing on the steps of the Elysée Palace sick at heart watching his successor climb the steps, says: ‘Poincaré, so it’s war.’

Another German soldier has picked up a bayonet and is trying to ram it into the dragoon pinioned by his comrade, Poincaré, man of the left, but a warmonger, still a republican all the same, the republicans had got together and nominated another candidate for the presidency, against the right, ‘Stout Pams’, these French bastards caught them napping, the Prussian is holding the bayonet awkwardly, he’s a mechanic not really a killer, Pams would have made a perfectly good President, Poincaré only second in the ballot held by the republican camp, he should have withdrawn his name, that was the convention, but it seems Poincaré had been offended, on the grass of Monfaubert other cavalrymen fall, scream, no one to help them, when things have calmed down a handful of medical orderlies will come, the Red Cross, surgical saws, disinfectant, in Paris since 1912, a sensible precaution, nuns are allowed to work in hospitals, they learned to assist surgeons who were being trained to operate using disinfectant only, without anaesthetic, on the poor.

Her flesh is much lighter, Hans looks at Lena’s bare back, the white fabric pulled down to her hips, her shock of red hair pulled up over the nape of her neck, the texture of her skin so smooth to his tongue. She is not dead. One night at Waltenberg her buttocks were all goose-pimples, how they had laughed, her laugh more raw, deeper than usual, Hans with his cheek against her hip had felt the strong flexing of her muscles as she laughed, her contralto voice. He can see the woman seated in the window with her back to the light, her back is three-quarters bare, her left breast just a little heavy in outline, it swells generously at a right angle from her ribs before curving roundly back to rejoin her body, he starts to get to his feet, makes it on to one knee alongside the armchair, is about to say don’t move and cover the breast with little kisses, it is not the final image he had carried away of her, but it is the one which will protect him against the inferno.

The German soldier lunges at the Monfaubert dragoon, all he has is the bayonet in his hand, he tries to stick the blade into the chest of the dragoon who is being held from behind in a headlock by his comrade, the dragoon struggles, calls for help, kicks his legs out in front of him like a girl who’s had too much to drink dancing the can-can or a tango, the bayonet catches him in the thigh, in the hands, he is bleeding, the German soldier aims for his heart, the bayonet just slides over his ribs, there is more and more blood, put a stop to the whole thing, Poincaré the warmonger, the 1913 election, the republicans had chosen another candidate for the presidency, yes, but there’s the insult to Poincaré, what insult? the insult had left him free to canvass the votes of his opponents on the right, the warmongering hawks and those who still thought Dreyfus was a traitor, Poincaré, the war, and ready to do anything to become President of the Republic, not a traitor, freed of his obligations by the insults directed at his wife by the republican tittle-tattle emanating from his own camp.

In the guts! shrieks the Prussian who is holding the dragoon from behind, the blood trickles from a gash in his face, the Prussian is finding it increasingly difficult to keep the headlock on from behind, but the dragoon is a lawyer and isn’t trained for hand-to-hand combat, doesn’t know how to bend his knees suddenly, shift his weight forwards, and throw the soldier who has him in the headlock over his shoulder so that he lands on the bayonet of the soldier facing him, all the dragoon can do is lash out with his feet, ‘In the guts!’ screams the Prussian, the insult, Poincaré’s wife wasn’t really widowed in the United States and her civil marriage to Poincaré made her a bigamist, there was a bigamist in the Élysée Palace, but the Church stepped in, Cardinal Andrieu giving Poincaré his backing for the sake of morality, the cross, for Lorraine and a promise.

The bayonet slips, cuts deep into the hands of the German who is holding it, the dragoon yells for help, kicks his legs out in front of him, let us dance, said Le Figaro, since everyone else is dancing, the very dead will do a tango, the promise that the Poincarés would be married in church, the blessing to be given during the next parliamentary session, the session immediately following the presidential election, two unseated French cavalrymen come up scattering Prussians, whirling their sabres like windmills, the Cardinal goes to work on Catholic members of parliament and senators, Poincaré, vote for him, he’s changed sides, his soul is in our camp.

The Prussian soldier finally gets a good grip on the bayonet, Jesus! don’t leave me by myself, the dragoon’s voice cracks, his two comrades wheel around the Prussians who will not let him go, and around them other Prussians come running, one of them gets his skull split from the top of his head to his teeth, a wounded horse rushes past at a triple gallop, its rider clinging on to his pommel, a church wedding is a small price to pay for entry to the Élysée, the people’s mood is calm, he will go to war, you know, even the members of Bonnot’s gang who were sentenced to death were executed without any fuss or unrest, it was enough to show them who was in charge, Poincaré the warmonger elected President, a republican to be sure, but one who had managed to get himself elected by reactionaries, it was treason!

No, there was no treason, the left, Poincaré said, had insulted his wife, a good argument, a U-turn and lurch to the right, the Prussian holding the dragoon from behind releases his grip, Poincaré became President, there were now two hopes for peace, the first was called Caillaux, he was to become Prime Minister, he had already staved off one war with Germany.

The dragoon is almost free, another dragoon comes up on the Prussian who is holding the bayonet, at the last moment the bayonet pierces the stomach of the dragoon who thought he was safe, the full length of a bayonet slides into soft tissue, the dragoon screams, the Prussian receives a cut from a sabre, the other dragoons grab their comrade under the arms, must get away, sabre-thrusts right and left as they make a run for it, the Prussians give up, the two dragoons see their comrade’s wound, don’t leave me behind, with Caillaux as Prime Minister there would be peace despite Poincaré as President, and Henriette Caillaux, large dark hat with a feather and black muff, fires six shots with a gun.