Hedi Kaddour - Waltenberg

‘Have I got you wrong, my dear fellow? I don’t care much for “my dear fellow”, I much prefer young man, my young friend, my young French friend, we’d be friends, I once was a young friend to a man I gready admire, he still calls me young Lilstein, no, I feel that if I call you my young friend you won’t care for it, you say you have no information to give me, that you are not important? I know that but I’m talking about the future, we have plenty of time, I’ll start, I’ll give you some hard information.

‘And in a year or two Paris will be at your feet, doesn’t the prospect tempt you? It’s because you’re young, let me be ambitious for you, at this juncture you don’t like yourself very much, it’s not healthy, a high percentage of the troubles I’ve had were caused by people who didn’t like themselves, who liked other people because they did not like themselves, who were forever ready to sacrifice themselves, and to sacrifice others to save them, through self-loathing, through fear of themselves, but we shall know only constructive fear, welcome to the realm of constructive fears and feverish times, young gentleman of France.

‘We shall combat the religion of war. Take us separately and we are sorry specimens, you, the man who is sick of action, and I, the apparatchik with no dreams, we’re pathetic, but together we could make one very interesting person, a conciliator, a reconciler, a regulator, and there will even be moments when we can laugh, yes, laugh.

‘In our line of business people laugh a lot, six months ago one of my colleagues in Africa, in a brand-new country, one Sunday morning, the whole day is devoted to voluntary farm service, he was a Special Envoy for Cultural Relations. The Africans put him in a field, with an American, also a very important person, a Special Envoy for Economic Affairs, crewcut, with a cap of some sort on the back of his head, their job is to get rid of all the weeds in their field, so he and the American set to work, the two specialists , you know the song, it was a hit for a popular singer, left-wing, one of yours, “You only gotter bend a bit but that’s the ’ardest part of it”.

‘By the end of the day, they’re exhausted but happy, and friends almost, reconciled by manual work, the Minister for Internal and External Security of the host country comes and stands between the American and my friend for the photo, smiles all round, “A fine example of collaboration,” he tells journalists, “and that, for our country together with our brothers in the East and the West, is our third way!” And then, in a whisper but still sporting his smile, he says to both of them out of the corner of his mouth: “You pulled up all the manioc.”

‘The story I promised you? No, that’s not it, be patient, I really want to tell it to you.’

A woman walks quietly into the lounge, tall, red hair, ample movements, a midnight-blue linen dress, step springy and rhythmic, like a dancer’s, very calm expression, she rootles for something in one of the cabinets then leaves.

‘It’s a story I’ve never told anyone, so I need a warm-up. So you’re from Paris, sent by Roland Hatzfeld? That’s right, he told me himself, is he still living in that little place near the Porte des Lilas? Not interested? You don’t know? Good old Roland, still a man of sound habits, did you know that Malraux almost got him to join the Party? You didn’t? You don’t believe me? You do? See, you are interested after all, there was this public meeting in 1934, ’35, yes indeed, those were very intense times.

‘Hatzfeld turns up to hear Malraux, Salle Playel it was or maybe some other venue, the writer is just back from the USSR, a fast-flowing impassioned speech, it really was, that lock of hair falling across his forehead, the struggle against fascism, voice breaking dramatically and much gesturing with his hands, Malraux is being effective, “in the USSR,” he declaims, “democracy is guaranteed by the fact the workers march with rifles on their shoulders”, Roland Hatzfeld stands up, applauds wildly, the whole audience applauds wildly, and he decides that the very next day he will apply for a Communist Party card, he’d just finished his law degree, he’d pleaded well, people were already predicting he’d make a great advocate one day. At Party HQ, some sensible people told him he didn’t need to have a card, that he’d be more useful remaining on the outside, but if he really wanted a card they would give him one as discreetly as he could wish, they probably didn’t say “discreetly”, most likely they said “privately”, on a personal basis, it all went off very well.

‘Why am I telling you this? To get you used to trusting me, though maybe that’s not true, that said, Hatzfeld phoned me, it’s not something he does often, it seems you’re not going down well, Budapest, that report on Stalin’s crimes, the rest of it, Hatzfeld advised me to offer you something you would embrace with passion.’

Paris/Waltenberg, early December 1956

In Paris, a few days before your departure for Waltenberg, the Waldhaus and this conversation with Lilstein, Roland Hatzfeld had told you:

‘You’ve been in the Party for more than ten years now, young man, it’s time you thought of tackling more complex matters.’

He’d talked to you about Lilstein in a very odd sort of way, ‘a victim of the Nazis and Stalin, but he never gave them anything, not Stalin, not the Nazis, and he’s stayed up to his elbows in the slime of praxis, it would be useful for you to meet him.’

Up to his elbows, slime, a weighty image, and Hatzfeld had made it weightier by attaching ‘praxis’, but he’d opened his eyes wide as he said it, lifting his forefinger to a point halfway up his plump pink cheeks, articulating each word separately, smiling faintly, as if making a point of marking his distance from the obligatory language of the Party.

But he had taken care not to make this distance too obvious, the smile which was not a jibe, more a sign that no one was taken in by the minutiae of a ritual to which a man could remain attached even so, because it was a ritual which allowed people to acknowledge each other, people whom society refused to acknowledge. This conversation had taken place over a platter of sea-food in a brasserie near the Madeleine, wood panels, red leather, large lampshades, a great deal of brass, the men who came in had fat bellies, the women wore fox tippets or similar around their necks, both waiters and head waiters were got up like penguins, the maître d’hôtel was in evening dress: the slime of praxis.

‘Don’t sulk,’ Hatzfeld had said. ‘Makes you look like a puritan, puritans never do good work. Eat up, you’re not thirty yet, you have your whole life in front of you, so don’t behave like someone who doesn’t know what to do with the claw of a lobster.’

At the end of the meal, Roland Hatzfeld had given you a return train ticket for Waltenberg, first class.

‘It’s partly to teach you to combat puritanism, but also because customs aren’t as much of a nuisance with first-class passengers, but no sleeper, you travel by day, that means you won’t meet the Madonna of the Sleeping-Cars, but it’ll save us money. If the trip turns out to be a waste of time, you’ll have had a short holiday, and you can pay me back if you like, but you’re not obliged to.’