Hedi Kaddour - Waltenberg

That doll on a manure heap in the Riff, at Chefchaouen, not the same smell as is now blowing in from the far end of the grounds, it was stronger, doll is hardly the word, a grain shovel, made of wood, a piece of wood nailed crosswise to the handle, the blade of the shovel is the hips, encapsulated a whole concept of Woman, then a small piece of cotton veil, red wool for a coat, a silk belt, a few Spanish coins around the head, the agent for Native Affairs said it’s intended to invoke rain, they’re dying of drought at present, and they’re not allowed down on the plain unless they agree to surrender, woe to any who rise up in revolt only when their necks are already placed between block and sabre, so they make a doll, the children make a doll, they call it a rain maiden, they pour water over it and process with it from the mosque to the marabout, praying for rain, at the end of their march they prop it upright in a dungheap and go back home to wait for the rain to come, come on, de Vèze, wake up, dear boy, it’s your turn.

De Vèze has almost begun to feel happy, playing croquet, drinking his whisky, watching the birds cross the sky, talking to the writer he so admires, and watching the young woman, Malraux and Max are paired, a team, they’ve been playing at a fantastic rate, with Malraux tending to invent new rules at every turn, they’ve even argued, Max has been behaving like a crotchety old man to ensure he remains in charge of operations, he has provoked Malraux, once he called him young man, he didn’t do it again, he quite deliberately talked to himself or said As sure as my name is Clappique! and Malraux pretended not to hear so as not to have to follow it up, the Consul watched them anxiously, he had invited Clappique on his own initiative, he could feel an incident involving Malraux looming.

Something suddenly came over de Vèze at the thought that he would probably never see the young woman again, I must have her, she’s got no business being with that man, the prissy bookworm, women belong to the men who love them most.

The young woman has seen a large bird in the clouds.

‘An albatross,’ said de Vèze, edging nearer her.

‘No it’s not,’ said Max.

And the Consul’s wife:

‘It’s a frigate-bird.’

‘Four metres wingtip to wingtip,’ adds Max, ‘a bird that’s all wing, it flies at ten thousand feet and sleeps on the bosom of the storm.’

He looks straight at de Vèze:

‘There are frigate-birds and there are gannets, the gannet is the most ridiculous bird, the fat girl on the beach, you can kick her and she won’t even try to run away, spends all the time stuffing herself, and she’s drawn to frigate-birds, they’ve developed a technique for not overtiring themselves, they wait for a gannet to fly close to them, then they wallop it over the head until it coughs up the fish it’s got in its craw, it’s true, they keep swatting it, the fish falls from the gannet’s beak and they catch it in mid-flight, frigate-birds don’t have very nice manners.’

‘It’s not true,’ says Malraux, ‘in the wild frigate-birds and gannets get on very well.’

‘It’s just a story,’ says Max, ‘it’s…’

‘It’s pure Goffard,’ Malraux interrupts.

The young woman:

‘As soon as you get these stories about male and female, people start making everything complicated.’

*

‘Is it only because you have doubts that you’re sulking?’ Lilstein asks you in a patient voice. ‘But doubts are vital in our line of work! And at your age it is a highly valuable commodity, can you imagine me working with a zealot? If you were a keen Frenchman brimming with the highest ideals, I wouldn’t give myself six months, too dangerous! Look, if you want to stop for a while, get some perspective, do it, doubts about what? Still think you’re a spy? Up to now I’ve been spying for you, Khrushchev and his missiles, a few years back, Khrushchev ready to give way, a hell of a tip-off, was I asked to feed it to you? Don’t be sarcastic, it’s politics, there are no free lunches, what matters is results, maybe my information did come from comrades who at the same time were urging Khrushchev to dig his heels in, knowing that he’d back down, so it would be easier to kick him out afterwards, yes, you’re right, it wasn’t a very nice game to play, you’re a clever judge of these things, maybe too clever, not a nice game at all, maybe it did happen like that, maybe not.

‘So not doubts exactly? Scruples, then? What you can’t stand is being permanently surrounded by right-wing people? And you’d like to stay left of centre, protect your scruples, the gap between your two souls is too great? Oh please, no left-wing Gaullists, there’s no future in it, let’s be serious, in the end the General will go, so stay on the right with your friend the Minister, he’ll go onwards and upwards and you’ll go with him, he’ll have to stop from time to time but he’ll go very high; if you want to reduce the gap between your two souls, the dreaming one and the doing one, go easy on the dreams, though actually you’re doing pretty well on the right wing, I know you’ve been invited to the Prime Minister’s place, in the country, a ride on a mule, eh? wonderful, go ahead, you have doubts, you sulk, your left-wing soul aches, and yet you get an invitation from the Prime Minister! See? you only have to have doubts and things happen all by themselves.

‘That said, would you mind if I give you a piece of advice? Go and ride your mule, but don’t stay on it too long, pointless tagging along with the Prime Minister, you’re not the same generation, you’d look like a callow arriviste, especially if you’re riding a mule.

‘You’re not sure they’re mules? More like big ponies? It’s all the same, riding addles the brain, I’m not being fair, but a large percentage of the people who have taken much too close an interest in me wore riding boots, so it’s time to dismount, we’ve plenty of time, see? I’m not treating you like one of my agents, I’m not telling you to do anything, I’m trying to put you on your guard, on the basis of my experience, if you really want to try something with the Prime Minister, go ahead, but believe me it’s a closely watched circle; with your friend it’s different, you’re already a part of a group which is currently being formed, it looks natural, I can tell you this because I’m fifteen years older than you, I’m into my third life, we’ve got time, if I’d used you as an agent you’d already have been blown, the active life of a top-class agent is rarely longer than ten years, because you need a network, orders, go-betweens, archives.

‘It’s different for you, there’s just me and you, and talk, like in Plato, and I try to shield you from accidents, it’s like driving, it’s not enough to observe the highway code, you must always give yourself a way of ending up in the ditch without breaking your neck, the right speed is the speed that allows you to get off the road if some road-hog comes at you head-on.

‘I know you won’t make any mistakes, young gentleman of France, but I try to protect you against the road-hogs, would you seriously prefer to have left-wing Gaullists? They won’t get very far, it would be best to stay on the right, it suits you there, make the most of its surrogate pleasures, but if you really want some left-wing fun you only have to say that basically Lenin was right when he said that the State must wither away, say it with a laugh, if you still want to, and you’ll be dancing to two tunes at the same time.

‘Don’t get close to the Prime Minister, when he’s got a cigarette in his mouth the eye above it closes almost completely, but that’s the eye he watches everything with, he knows people too well, he doesn’t like your friend, he won’t ever like you, it would be fun to get together with your friend and organise balls for him, he likes dancing, the moment there are women around the men start talking more loudly and say all sorts of things to drown out other men’s voices, I’m not opposed in principle to the role women can play in our line of work.