Nor does Malraux seem to have had dealings with the same Consul, did he talk to Clappique next day at the Raffles and get this other conversation mixed up with the one of the previous evening? Did he make it up? After all, he was perfectly free to do so, certainly he makes Clappique quote the Hugo poem but he never said anything about the kangaroo on Valerie’s bed, but he did talk about another kangaroo, the one belonging to Nina de Callias, a rich patroness of the arts, friend of Verlaine, who posed for Manet’s Lady with the Fans, the magnificent Nina.
When he read Malraux, de Vèze realised that the young woman’s neckline that evening had been the same as Nina de Callias’s in the painting, but without the gauze, without the necklace at her throat, otherwise the beauty spot on her cleavage would have been less visible, nor feathers in her hair, nor fans on the wall behind her, there hadn’t been a wall behind her, she’d been sitting with her back to the night, the white of her shoulders, the soft line of her chin, in his account Malraux recalled that the kangaroo had eaten all the green parts of Nina’s large carpet during the siege of Paris in 1870.
Just as people were saying goodnight at the gates of the villa in Singapore, Max had shown de Vèze the sky:
‘Look, see the moon that makes hearts ache, shush! we must see each other again soon, lots to tell you, we’ve met before, obviously you can’t remember, you’d just turned five, we can meet in Rangoon or Paris, or in the Alps.’
Chapter 9. 1928, Flaubert’s Bust
In which Hans Kappler dreams of Lena Hotspur and has a conversation with his friend Max Goffard.
In which Max Goffard tries his hand at erotic writing and suggests that Hans Kappler might care to become a landscape painter.
In which Max Goffard finally gets on a train for Waltenberg and the European Seminar.
In which we learn how Max Goffard became a great reporter and is now a sports enthusiast.
He was a member of a croquet club and played assiduously on the paths of the Jardin du Luxembourg
Paris, September 1928
This happens in the Jardin du Luxembourg, Hans and Max are strolling, like old friends. One day they emerged from their fox-holes, came face to face, a ringing of bells, the Armistice, it’s all over. Max sees a Hun officer who comes towards him and says, in French:
‘Shall we exchange tobaccos? Tobacco is the recreation of a gentleman.’
They talk for hours; the Hun tells him he intends to go looking for a woman, while Max says he has no idea what he is going to do.
Since then, they have arranged to meet at least once a year. Today is a September morning, the first phase of autumn, before the cold sets in: autumn of fruits, a palette of brown, dark green, orange, rust, with hints of ash and lavender blue. Max and Hans saunter, make their way back to the gardens’ north exit, passing sequestered nooks as they go, the bronze statue of Bacchus on his donkey with the nymphs writhing around him, the bust of Verlaine, there’s rain at intervals, then a wind to chase the rain away, the trees drip and an emerald light bursts from the verges of the walkways.
They go as far as the edge of the orchard, head back to the centre of the gardens via the little Punch and Judy show. Through the foliage, the light forms patches of fluctuating brightness which warm the fragrance, to which the damp earth adds its quotient of sweet chestnut, plane and sometimes the tang and sweetness of spruce resin when the sun revives their scents and holds them suspended in the space where light turns to shadow for the delight also of the eye — trees, aromas and light join together to perform a fleeting role, for they are at the mercy of the cloud which will descend and wrap the gardens in unyielding grey.
By the ornamental pond, children with sticks launch their hired sailing boats which set off in pursuit of fierce pirates.
‘Listen to this,’ says Max, opening his newspaper, ‘I’m quite fond of Monsieur Sarraut at present, you Germans can have no real idea of what a colonial empire is and the effect it has on the beauty of verbal expression: “Since the native population claim the right to express their wishes directly, Monsieur Albert Sarraut said he believes that this rightful claim must be examined before it has an opportunity to turn into a shrill demand.” Shrill demand! Rightful claim! The colonials will flay Sarraut alive for saying such a thing.’
Max aims a kick at a pile of dead leaves.
‘Hans, this is going to turn nasty, look!’
Another kick.
‘The past is rotting before our very eyes.’
They continue strolling.
‘What are you writing at the moment?’
Max it is who asked the question, anxious to know what the other man is up to, a concern which will make him speak about the thing which he finds hurtful.
It is both considerate and cruel, like all good questions; the two men get on famously together, Hans is the anxious type, Max feels increasingly that he is a failure, especially when he is with Hans, they are friends, Hans looks away into the shrubbery and answers, saying he’s keeping a diary, that’s all, he has already published four novels, three of them since the end of the war; he also translates a great deal of French literature for a Stuttgart publisher; he is what is called an established writer.
Max again:
‘Have you really done with fiction?’
Hans doesn’t know. All he wants for the moment is to keep a diary, like Jules Renard, write in short bursts, a vertical style, with no images, images put whiskers on a style, every day try to create an effect like the one of the shy friend who wipes his feet when he leaves a house, or the woman who remains silent at the top of her voice, do I really like Renard? Renard tries a fiction cure to get fiction out of his system, I need to do the same with his Journal, read it until I’ve had more than my fill, oh yes, Hans knows what Renard said, about a diary killing off the novel you might have written, Max’s questions sting Hans who never knows if he can do better than what people have thus far admired in the tales he has spun. For Hans, Renard’s Journal is a collection of hundreds of brief stories, life on the hoof, superb, I’d like to translate it, even if the style is a touch brittle for my taste.
‘A very written life,’ says Max, Renard always has a phrase in his head ready to lasso whatever is going on around him, ‘he goes out hunting through the streets of Paris, all he lives for is his journal, and he calls that being free.’
‘And what do you do?’
Hans has taken Max by the elbow, French style, he tries to put his question as delicately as possible, Max wanted to be a writer before the war, now he’s trying to tell a story, a story which slips through his fingers.
‘I’m a novelist who’s started keeping a journal,’ says Hans, ‘and you are…’
‘… a journalist who’s begun writing a novel, you’re extremely kind, but it’s not exactly a novel; it’s a true story, some people I met last year, in the Haute-Savoie.’
Hans didn’t much care for that ‘you’re extremely kind’, a hint of sourness, but he says with forced cheerfulness ‘Haute-Savoie! Regionalism!’ at any moment Max will start burbling on about a three-cheese Swiss fondue, the little chimney sweep and the kind-hearted maids, and unFrench Swissisms.
‘It’ll do me good, it’ll be a change from journalism and spewing out words like a machine gun, a year ago I was still reporting from the Riff.’