Hedi Kaddour - Waltenberg

‘Maisie can speak or shut up, at last Walker gets the message: he’s been left for dead.

‘And when they ask Walker for his opinion with respect to the job in the White House so that he’ll talk about himself he’ll say that Maisie’s the one to cross the river, to become an adviser in the Oval Office.

‘He’s too old, Maisie will be able to come up with the new scenarios needed to take us into the twenty-first century, you get the picture, Walker makes a good case, “Maisie’s the one you want, she weighs as much as millions of votes”, and it works, people are actually relieved to see him backing Maisie, Maisie becomes a White House adviser and sometimes she it is who invites Walker, who has stayed with the CIA, to meetings in the holy of holies, imagine the holy of holies, Misha, you never made it inside, imagine it!

‘So one day it will dawn on Walker that he’s not going to go any higher, he’s indebted to this woman who knows the full story of Lena, he’ll watch Maisie operate, he’s already the originator of an expression which is bandied about a great deal between Langley and Washington, “the lower slopes are littered with guys who were wrong about Maisie.”

‘And the sooner our little princess learns things about Walker’s mistakes and the truth about Lena, the better she’ll feel, I’ve no idea how high she’ll go, but Walker’s not going anywhere, Deputy Director of Operations, and Maisie is going to love us for this, thanks to us she’s going to discover the full richness of Lena’s character, all the coincidences, great singer and great teacher, great lover of men, a great American lady, she was that and much more and Maisie will be very pleased when she finds out.

‘No, I don’t think they’ll be digging up Lena at Arlington, we won’t allow it, you’re going to help me and together we’ll keep her in their hearts, it’ll emerge that the hand she played was at times a little personal but all things considered she always played on the side of freedom, it’s what they want to believe, because Maisie doesn’t want to kill Walker.

‘Walker will become her main backer, he’ll get her into the White House, into the job he should have got himself, Maisie’s security adviser, and Lena’s memory will be piously guarded, splendid way to bear witness, Maisie won’t kill FT, I’m beginning to know her, she’ll protect him, they’ll work together, he never understood women, not Lena not Maisie, Maisie gets into the White House and now and then arranges for him to be invited, he’ll reach retirement age, he won’t like the idea and Maisie will help him, she’ll work it so he gets an exceptional extension of three years, “Richard, I’m so sorry, it was the best I could do.”

‘And Richard will thank her, a decent stay of execution, three years of doing work he loves, a dish of gladness served up by his loyal friend, Maisie is his best investment, he’d made a mistake, he’d put it right, the dividends are now flowing his way, a Walker thirsting to be in the know, he’s not old, he signs up for his three-year extension with the CIA, reads the clauses, a kind of cut-price stint, he takes it back to Maisie, she is scandalised by the way her friend FT is being treated, she’ll speak to the director of the CIA, two months later the director in person tells Walker in Maisie’s presence that there’s no way of fixing things differently, and only the first six months are guaranteed, queer street, Walker ages badly in a matter of weeks, pays a high price for his dish of gladness, no more permanent pass, has to be renewed every month, and the fear that the sojourn on queer street might be extended.

‘It won’t be extended, in the fifth month the orderly on duty in the parking lot informs him his pass is no longer valid, this won’t prevent Maisie having Walker come in now and again, for a chat, “FT, you all right?” Walker answers yes, he looks well, face getting increasingly crumpled but there’s a spring in his step, Maisie is glad to see that Walker has kept the spring in his step despite what’s been happening to him, a sign of pain vanquished, the pain of a man who won’t give up.

‘Maisie just wants the truth about Lena, all facets, Misha, you’re going to tell her, from the beginning, everything Hans told you, everything Max knew from Hans and from his own experience, all you yourself know, we’ll offer Maisie a secret which opens many doors, she’ll love that, she’ll keep it to herself, everyone will come out of it smelling of roses, and we’ll go back to Waltenberg.’

Lilstein turns white, in a hiss:

‘Never, Morel! Waltenberg? Never again!’

Lilstein on his feet, he walks away from the terrasse of The Lock Gate, Morel hurries to pay, Lilstein has crossed over, has set off along the river bank towards the Pont Neuf, Lilstein has got to calm down, but Lilstein’s voice rises, shrill:

‘Their Forum, pointless claptrap! Never! People droning on and on, peddling meaningless drivel, they’ve even got the conductor of a Boston orchestra to give pre-concert talks to the wives of industrialists, cocktail parties for parvenus, everyone stands all the time, all you needed in ’29 was ideas and you could just walk into any group, nowadays even Neuville seems to me to have his good points, I even thought Merken was magnificent, when he spoke there was the same silence as Lena got when she sang, half the audience was thinking “what a bastard” and at the same time they admired him, Merken poeticised philosophy, a perverse undertaking, but it was truly something to behold, and then the evening concert, today conductors don’t conduct orchestras any more, they give pre-concert talks to silly, fat old women!’

‘Calm down, Misha.’

‘Merchants selling garbage! And the philosophers they invite: selfpublicists who lick the boots of the garbage-merchants!’

‘Misha, I never said a thing, look, the equestrian statue of Henri IV, halfway across the bridge, I’m now going to cheer you up, it dates from the Restoration, calm down, it was Louis XVIII who ordered it, the sculptor was an ex-Bonapartist, equestrian statue of Good King Henri. Know what the sculptor does? When no one’s looking he stuffs the horse’s belly full of Napoleonic proclamations, bulletins from Napoleon’s Grande Armée, Ulm, Austerlitz, Iéna, he must have been weeping with laughter.

‘Imagine it, Misha, the unveiling, the voices of all those ministers, and hidden deep in the horse’s belly the voice of Napoleon: “they’ll say, what a splendid fellow … I saved the Revolution which was dying…”, the voice of the Emperor, in the horse’s belly, “you are shit in a silk stocking”, the sculptor torn between hate and delight, I love that story with its multiple voices, a legacy left for future generations, you see, Misha? it’s calmed you down, I promise you, no more Waltenberg, let’s walk on, Misha, no car, no one’s going to be lifted, we’ll pick up the game where we left off.

‘And for the time being the most urgent business is Germany which isn’t an ashen-faced mother any more nor a winter’s tale, it’s still the German question, has been for centuries.

‘My friends in America didn’t like the way the new Germany refused to help them when they went to take a look-see in Iraq, Misha, no one’s asking you to switch direction, you can keep the same targets, you can keep your old moles and you’ll be one of us, don’t look like that, don’t tell me your faith isn’t strong enough, you can stay in the Devil’s kitchen, we’ll go on doing the cooking, it’ll be our pleasure, with new technologies, these new technologies are fascinating, I must show you my model train layout.

‘I’ve upgraded it all, electronic controls, we’re going to have some splendid afternoons, we’re not even obliged to tell them everything, no one can get to you, Misha, it may all be creaking like an imminent shipwreck but that’s no reason for losing heart.