Hedi Kaddour - Waltenberg

‘Ten times or so, that was enough, "erst wenn sie steht, die Uhr … it’s only when the clock stops, im Pendelschlag des hin und her… between the swings of its pendulum, hörst Du, that you hear", the clock’s a lovely touch! “sie geht, und ging und geht nicht mehr … that it’s going, was going, has stopped going , never heard that before? It was said by Merken, the great philosopher of Being, the victor of Waltenberg, a poem he dedicated after the war to his friend René Char, one of the very few genuine writers in the Resistance, Malraux of course was another, weapons at the ready, yes, Malraux was a bit later but he knew what strong links were, knew the best moment to forge strong links, you know, I always had a liking for Malraux, from time to time I discuss him with Hatzfeld, with old friends. Anyway, Merken dedicated these lines to his friend Char, a swing of the pendulum.

‘Merken and Char, there’s a magnificent photo, the two men walking along a forest path, taken from the back, they’re walking side by side, Merken is short, Char is big and beefy, it’s very moving, you really don’t want to hear the rest? No philosophy? No poetry? My surprise when I saw the photo of these two men together, knowing what had happened to Merken after the Nazis took over? Later perhaps?

‘Well shall we talk about the woman who brought all that splendid company together here at the Waldhaus? Madame de Valréas, French, an aristocrat, early forties, with a quite splendid derrière, you know, “the royal rear-guard when amorous battle is joined”, no? You’re so good at saying no, fair enough, I’m not here to put any sort of temptation in your way, not even Madame de Valréas’s derrière which has changed significantly since those days, with or without the help of Verlaine, stick to serious matters, won’t you try a glass of white wine with it? sure? Not even the story of my mother? Later?

‘And you really wish to part company with your idealism? You don’t care for my two-soul scheme? Turns your stomach? I can understand that, all those dead workers, that’s right, workers, we’re not going to start telling each other in full view of the Rikshorn that the Americans parachuted a hundred thousand imperialists into Budapest in one night, let’s leave all that to the virgins, the eunuchs and our popular democratic press.’

A provocateur, Lilstein is just a provocateur, but where does he come from? an East German who can pass for Swiss when he wants to, but talks like this, does he believe what he says? He pretends to when he’s talking but surely he can’t believe it, and yet it sounds so right when he says it, is a German capable of telling a lie without believing it? But what else does he believe if he believes what he’s been saying since we’ve been sitting here? In the omelette, in the broken eggs it is made of? Is Lilstein just a plain cop? But why should anyone be sending you to see a cop? Because in Paris you told two or three close friends that some Hungarian demonstrators were true socialists? And that not everything was false in Khrushchev’s report? Or alternatively, is Lilstein a traitor? In which case Roland Hatzfeld has sent you to see a traitor, a traitor who is using his cover as a cop to say what he really thinks of the regime?

Or a cop who has stayed a cop but who is at least for once getting whatever is bothering him off his chest by playing the role of traitor they’ve told him to play? You can’t get your head around any of this, you don’t know if you should nod agreement at what Lilstein is saying, you rest your chin on your thumb with index and middle fingers aslant your mouth, you mutter sounds which might pass for assent or be taken as indications that you are paying attention, but from time to time you take your hand away from your cheek.

When you do this you uncover your mouth which is half open, a sign of denial, then you revert to your pose as Lilstein’s docile audience, you’re on your best behaviour, nor do you allow yourself to bite off bits of skin around your fingernails, sometimes you press your index finger into your cheek and hold it from the inside between your teeth, picking gently at the skin, taking care not to draw blood, Lilstein could also be a real traitor to the Party, a traitor in the pay of the English, so were you sent to see him by mistake or was it to cook a Frenchman’s goose? A British Intelligence Service ploy? And why does the idea of being with an enemy of the Party you are intent on quitting make you feel sick to the stomach? No, Lilstein is a politician, a peevish communist but a real communist for all that, so why did you agree to come here to meet him if you are so keen to leave the Party?

‘And so, young gentleman of France, the Red Army has just killed workers, including women workers, who were members of the Hungarian Communist Party, fact, it also killed fascists who were killing communists, not many fascists, they got out fast to Austria and Germany before the tanks came back into the city, it was the working-class suburbs which held out longest, all of which raises some very awkward questions for you, and because you have also read extracts from a “report attributed to comrade Khrushchev” in the bourgeois press, you are now thinking of resigning from the Party, of turning your card in, as they say.

‘Why? to restore your innocence? to make yourself believe again? Your father would be overjoyed, don’t get angry, don’t get up, spare me the dramatic gestures, I never found it very helpful being the son of a heroine of the resistance and I suspect it can’t be easy to have a father who was a Pétainist and a collaborator, that may put me ahead morally but at least your father is still alive, stripped of his French nationality but alive, he plays boules in Barcelona, he’s good at it, he lives in the Barrio Chino, am I correct? odd sort of exile for an ex-Vichy stalwart, in Franco’s Spain yes, but in a red-light area of town, Work, Family, Pimmel.

‘ Pimmel ?. In German it means willy, all right, I didn’t want to be coarse, I apologise, but don’t be so combustible, sit down, my mother fought against Trotsky, she fought against him but she’d known him, the Party gave her a splendid funeral, in the photos there was not a single person of her generation left, I thanked the Party, our fragile organisations need grateful, gullible followers, who live longer, does it make you wince to be told all this? Learn to take life easier, I’ve been around, been around too much, seen too much History, you want some of mine? Leave the Party? The Party doesn’t give a shit! There are hundreds, thousands of people ready to worship at the feet of the idol believing that they are thinking dialectically, but if you still have any ideas and ideals left, and if you want to fight for them, you’re going to have to learn to stop being the kid who answers back.’

Lilstein looks at you, you hold his gaze and tell yourself that the Waldhaus is a trap, they can denounce you now whenever they want to, in Paris Hatzfeld said this trip would be like the journey to Zimmerwald, in 1917, in the middle of the war, when French pacifists travelled to meet their German and Russian comrades, but Lilstein is no pacifist, he’s a stirrer, you look towards the dining room, empty, you look out at the Rikshorn, at Waltenberg down the mountainside, a small drowsy village, the boules, they know everything, what is your role in the drama, what audience are you performing to? the son of a French collaborator who is plotting in Switzerland with someone big in the Stasi? or the member of the editorial board of La Nouvelle Pensée who is having talks with a double agent of the Intelligence Service, less than a month after having discussions with a deputy member of the Politburo of the French Communist Party? Which newspaper, and on which side, will run the story first?