Hedi Kaddour - Waltenberg

But another comrade, the biggest ‘doubter’ on the editorial board, gleefully supplied him with him the rest, ‘that content being of necessity common to all countries which are marching towards socialism’, everyone breathed again, they didn’t agree with the comrade deputy, not really, but that was no reason for allowing a proletarian to flounder in a morass of hesitation, so you give him a helping hand, compete to be the most accurate, Thorez’s idea is developed, it circulates, unifies.

To get back to the story, someone said he’d found it well-written, no, well-written means primarily that it engages with the real lives of the proletariat, go reread André Stil’s latest novel and the letter which the factory girls in Nîmes wrote him, that’s what’s meant by well-written, no one had said nay to this, though whenever two or three of you linger over a meal there’s always one who makes the other laugh by parodying André Stil’s prose style, good-naturedly though, for he’s one of the prime movers of Humanité , showed tremendous courage over Indochina, but in the end there was general agreement: no one was prepared to back the short story written by the great writer.

A German writer to boot, one of the comrades finally reminded them of the fact, until then no one had wanted to bring this up, and a German who lived among revanchists, who sometimes had dealings with the deepest-dyed right, the right of Preuves, that ‘turncoats’ rag’ as another comrade dubbed it.

Then they’d moved on to other articles, philosophy, sociology, psychology, agreement reached pretty quickly on the line-up of the next issue, there was only the story to reject, they’d added an editorial condemning the fascist riots in Paris, when gangsters in the pay of the collaborator Tixier-Vignancourt had attacked Party headquarters, you were both happy and unhappy, unhappy with yourself and the others, and reasonably happy because you didn’t have to fear the consequences of feeling unhappy, a splendid example of chiasmus, some of your comrades tore their hair, but you are turning into a permanent chiasmus, all in all a good meeting of the editorial board, the deputy member of the Politburo had a few more fairly harsh words for the former Hungarian leadership and the corrections that were needed, and when the question arose of who would reply to the great writer to inform him that his story had been rejected, the comrade member of the Politburo said the story would be published, it is politically necessary that the story should be published, Hans Kappler, a bourgeois writer of great eminence who is coming over to us, a German social-democrat, at the very time when we want to show a united front with the socialists.

In consequence of the wide-ranging exchange of views which has just taken place, the story will occupy a prime position, heading the line-up of the next issue, the publication date of said issue must accordingly be brought forward by two weeks, we can count absolutely on the cooperation of the printworkers’ union, after these closing remarks from the representative of the Politburo the proposal was agreed nem con, the deputy member of the Politburo was a sound man, he’d succeeded in stimulating the critical faculties of everyone present and strengthened their discipline.

If you’d known this, you would have defended the story, on second thoughts, that would not have gone down well, what the members of a Politburo like is purity and discipline.

And the best test of discipline comes when you’ve expressed an opinion which is the very opposite of the decision that is finally reached, you liked the story, you damned it, they were publishing it anyway, all was for the best, you lied and the Party did not agree with your lie, both of you in roles which fitted like a glove.

In the train bowling along towards Switzerland you reread the story to the publication of which the comrade deputy attached such importance, and you still don’t have the smallest inkling of the reasons why it was chosen.

At Chaumont, a man gets into the compartment, carrying a case, he glances at the woman, sits down opposite her, tweeds, brogues, a swaggering manner, she smiles at him, the man smiles back then looks across at you, it is not a stare but he continues looking, he looks you in the eye, thick neck, large ears, hands like dinner plates, hairy too, you feel uncomfortable, no wedding ring, your eye again catches his as though he’s not stopped staring the whole time you’ve been observing his hands, his eyes are very pale, his eyes are on you, the woman reads her magazine, he is looking at you.

It’s oppressive, you look up, you catch his eye, his probing eye, he does not smile, he seems to be thinking about you, thinking about something, he never takes his eyes off you though he has no justification for doing so, he doesn’t bother with the woman, you are caught in his gaze, you bury your face in your magazine, there are women who give shirts as presents and in return get an electric coffee-grinder or a Hoover vacuum cleaner, there are no workers anywhere in the magazine, they only show workers when they are being fired on by Russian soldiers, the man makes you feel uncomfortable, you are nothing, but the woman had smiled at him, he does not look at her.

You try but fail to think of something other than the way the man’s looking at you, you’ve tried reading but that didn’t work, the man’s hand grips the back of your neck, you’re with him on a bridge, he slams your face against a wall, hurts you, the other hand reaches for your trousers, his hands are hard, he does not look at the woman, he sits facing her but does not look at her, the basilica of Chaumont recedes into the distance, a man selling refreshments pushes the compartment door open, in your pocket your grip tightens on the coin the woman gave you, suddenly the man speaks to her, very direct, anything but polite, the woman chooses a fruit juice, she has accepted the man’s offer, the man has a beer.

You tell the vendor you don’t want anything, the man holds up a note of large denomination to the vendor, the vendor can’t change it, why don’t you come back later, the woman laughs, takes out her purse, no, no, we’re living in a modern world now, the man gets cross, he looks very annoyed, the woman calms him with a smile, I’m enjoying this moment, allow me, all right, but only on condition that I pay you back later, the woman smiles at the man as she pays.

The vendor says thank you and is about to move on, you say just a moment, please, you hadn’t wanted anything but now you ask for a bottle of Vichy, and you pay with the warm, perfumed coin the woman gave you, you say keep the change, the vendor takes the metal cap off the bottle, gives the top a wipe, passes it to you, the man and the woman get out together at Mulhouse.

It was late at night when you reached Klosters, the hotel owner couldn’t find your name on the register, he hurried off and woke his wife, she never told me we were expecting a young French gentleman, must have slipped her mind, but it’s all sorted out now, one night in the hotel, already at altitude, you can’t get off to sleep, the sheets are scratchy, you didn’t abandon the magazine after all, you know it by heart, in Budapest a Russian officer reaches for his holster as he strides towards the photographer’s lens, as if he was about to draw his pistol, ‘Camels, no other cigarette is so easy on the throat’, you’ve no more cigarettes, the soldiers in blue helmets have entered Alexandria, Eisenhower is a man with a Quaker background, he has allowed himself to be manipulated by the under-developed countries, the magazine dislikes Americans, not all of them, but it sure doesn’t like Eisenhower.

He’s an ally who forces the French and the English to get out of Egypt, the magazine doesn’t care much for Cabot Lodge either, ‘On colonial matters, Monsieur Cabot Lodge has ideas, ideas which he didn’t get from the history of his native Massachusetts, where the price of Indian scalps ranged from a hundred dollars for the scalp of a warrior to five for the scalps of girls under ten, Monsieur Cabot Lodge believes that the new nationalist pressures are legitimate,’ there are also pictures of Guy Mollet and Anthony Eden, Eisenhower has refused to meet the French and English ministers who’d come for the UNO session, the President’s diary is too full to receive all the ministers of every delegation, ‘the Americans are treating us as if we were the Sudan,’ says the magazine.