Neuville also tells them about his expedition in the Canadian Great North, fifty-three cowboys paid four dollars a day, one hundred and thirty-three horses, of which one carried sixty-five kilos of ladies’ shoes, everything required for a full expedition into an area which still has no reliable maps, aluminium tables, the latest thing, crystal glasses, French saucepans, a hundred and eighty kilos of books including War and Peace, a few kilos of foie gras and, the last word in up-to-date equipment, five ultra-modern half-tracks, two broke down, beyond repair, I organised a photo session for the cameras, a trail down the side of a cliff, two of the half-tracks were pushed over the edge into the ravine, we sold the pictures for more money than the two vehicles had cost, it’s communication that matters nowadays, it’s through communication that capital and labour will be brought together, and it will be done using the Neuville index.
*
On the Tuesday, the third day of the Seminar, coffee time on the terrace, sunshine, flags flapping, good fun is had with a telescope chained to the safety rail, five centimes for three minutes, people gather nearby, around the panoramic table, they throw bits of bread or crumbs of fruit cake for a few jackdaws, huge Swiss hotel jackdaws, far off to the north-east rises the Gehenna Pass.
‘I can see a red dot,’ says Max.
The eye that is drawn by the red dot also detects the movement of a white streamer, the trace of sinuous movement on the slope, something not quite as white as the snow.
‘It’s the army,’ explains Merken who has taken out his own binoculars and is also looking towards the Gehenna, ‘the Swiss army, white anoraks, mountain light infantry, white trousers, white skis, probably come from Davos.’
Through the telescope Max eventually picks out an orderly, regular line, broken white against the dazzling white of the snow, with a serrefile officer in bright red, they are still a long way away, a waving streamer and a red dot, Max says gaily:
‘The young ladies will be delighted to learn that e’en now a pack of hearty young men is bearing down on us on skis, all in white, with a fine figure of an officer in red.’
An entire squad, the squad’s careful winding progress, it’s easier for the officer, his twists and turns are more expansive, the euphoria of a long descent, nothing to impede, pure Telemark turns, Merken speaks to Moncel, he has put his binoculars away, no one dares ask to borrow them, at intervals Moncel nods a yes, a good relationship, the exhilaration of the descent, moving bodies which enfold space in sinuous motion, the virgin snow, space which excites, that’s why I like skiing, says Merken, clear a space for oneself, these words aren’t very accurate, you can’t clear a space for yourself, it’s more hair-raising, euphoric and hair-raising, you discover that space persists whatever we do, the moment there are no more goals, it opens up.
Max remains glued to his telescope, the Swiss army which dresses its officers in red, you know, they’ll have to have it explained to them, our first months of the Great War, three hundred thousand-odd dead, our rich experience was to serve some useful purpose, another one of these types who want to die with their boots on from proper wounds, I can already hear the order to fire, aim for the red dot, one good skier less, I’ll never ski as well as that, he puts me in mind of my dragoon officers, Max goes on looking a while longer, also Bournazel, no one knows if he died dressed in red or grey, I’m certain he’d kept his red cloak on, to feed the myth; Max gives up his turn to Elisabeth Stirnweiss, Stirnweiss leaning forward with her eye to the telescope is also a sight to behold, one that doesn’t last.
Stirnweiss offers to surrender her turn to Hans who declines politely, you’re very kind but it hurts my eyes, he turns away and goes back to talk to young Frédérique, Madame de Valréas’s daughter, he’s not thinking now of Schumann or the rest, he’s watching the darkhaired girl talk philosophy in the excitable voice of a sports reporter.
Two days ago, Hans had a long conversation with Max, told him about his attempted trip on the Queen Mary between Le Havre and Southampton, a disaster, Max, I was sea-sick, I couldn’t think of anything else, especially not Lena, but it set me to rights again, I decided it was time I grew up, no more distractions, an end to fond imaginings, no more Renard-style diaries, yes, a great novel, on the decline of values, Max had reservations, it’ll be seven hundred pages of pure ideas, too bad said Hans, and anyway you can always put me right, at this point a girl with dark hair approached and laughed as she planted two kisses on Max’s cheeks, Max introduced Frédérique de Valréas to Hans, when I first saw her she was running up and down the stairs with no clothes on, Frédérique didn’t take offence, I was three, and the day it happens to you, Max, I’ll tell everyone about it too.
Ever since that meeting Hans and Frédérique have had a half-dozen private conversations, I’m thirty-eight, she’s nineteen, Lena has disappeared, he will take the girl by the hand, they’ll walk in the forest together, and then she will take his hand.
On the terrace, Frédérique says to Hans:
‘Are you listening, Monsieur Kappler? I’m talking to you but your mind is elsewhere, my mother warned me, authors are unbearable, you think you’re talking to someone and their mind is elsewhere, with which of your characters are you walking in this forest at this moment? A pretty woman?’
Frédérique behaves like a woman who is cross, but she is delighted to have caught him out, Hans looks like a clumsy teddy bear.
It’s Max’s turn again with the telescope, Hans and Frédérique move away from the group, Max searches for five centimes, then five more, the movements on the snow remind him of Bournazel, he was another one who slalomed down slopes, on a horse.
Max again offers to pass his turn to Hans who declines, to Stirnweiss, but she has suddenly disappeared, he puts his eye once more to the telescope, Hans! Come and see, it’s a tall, handsome, blood-coloured officer, Hans is very busy at the other end of the terrace, Max calls Tellheim, Come here! resistance of the snow, angle of the slope, resistance of the air, elasticity coefficient of the human body, you can express all this wonderful zigzagging as a mathematical formula, you can tell us if time passes relatively faster for them than for us, Tellheim has the telescope, people are enjoying themselves, everything is relative, handsome officer, Tellheim wanders off.