To this extent you might think that it was Lilstein who made Max talk but Max needed no urging, he’d never said a word about her to anyone, he talked to Lilstein because first, Lilstein agreed to hear part of the death of Stalin, second because Lilstein asked him to talk about Lena and also to allow what happened a chance of surviving the all-consuming dust.
Max filled Lilstein in on what he did not know about the final evenings of the ’29 Waltenberg Seminar, they completed their memories, for Lilstein also told the story of his outing on skis with Lena.
‘When we got back, I threw a snowball at her, I ran off, she ran after me, I fell over.’
Max listened, they recalled Lena’s tangos, the dancing parties. With such a large gathering of older people you might have expected the evening entertainment to be fairly sedate, but there were also a lot of young people, at least in the audience at discussions, La Valréas insisted on it, she wanted the best students in Europe, she paid all their expenses, including evening dress, there were also hotel guests who were there for the skiing, at least a good hundred of these, sporty types, quite a few Americans, amusing to see the evening abruptly overrun by all these people looking as if they had just stepped straight out of a cinema screen, the dresses of some of the European women suddenly became unwearable.
The American women laughed loudly, smoked, drank, skittered, kissed, skipped, bare arms, bare backs, throats, breasts, napes of necks, knees exposed to the universal gaze, beautiful faces, fresh and pink, blackheadless nostrils, and every hairstyle had its finery, its headband of cloth, velvet, satin, the fabric acting as a setting for small clusters of precious stones or gold or silver medallions, and used also to anchor a feather, they had long cigarette-holders and strings of pearls hanging down to their waists, short hair showing the back of the neck, bare shoulder-blades, straight barrel-line dresses, tubular frocks, very simple, soft material, flare-effect panels low down, the material tight across the hips but fitting more loosely thereafter to allow full play to the flare, the whole lower section of the dress whirling in the gyrations of the dance, whipping the air, rising as they whirled, allowing a glimpse of a flesh-coloured petticoat and the tops of stockings held up by flesh-coloured garters.
Dresses without gathers or pleats, green, golden-yellow or saffron, champagne, Veronese, the occasional gilt hat, no brim, darker-coloured stockings, maroon or grey, or misty blue, couples suddenly grown more serious, left arm of the man and right arm of his partner pointing horizontally towards a distant horizon on which eyes are fastened, affected stiffness, caricatured gravity displayed by some, tango for trumpets, clarinets, double-bass, drums, young women rushing on to the dance floor with a gusto which consigned to the dustbin all theories concerning neurasthenia in the modern world, in a rout of dance steps, fox-trot, charleston, scornful glances from spectators, sometimes hate, people who’d come along only to feel the desire to destroy the whole lot of them, to see they got their comeuppance some day, then they went away, leaving the others to enjoy a medley of dances, women humming, crooning ‘Don’t Cry Baby’ or ‘Mí Noche Triste’ to some spring-heeled sure-footed dancer, head thrown back or a sudden look straight into the eyes of another man, drinking and laughing and glass held out on the side of the dance floor, the evening turning into folly after the twelve strokes, one single thought, dresses clinging to body, flared for the legs, garish petticoats, shoes with straps, high heels, dazzling gems, very long necklaces, coiled several times, worn round the neck, and those young women know how to shake a leg, they are as hard as champions and when they laugh they throw back their heads and show all their teeth, Aristide Briand watching, he was born during the Second Empire, makes an observation about ‘breasts for lean times’ but goes on watching the women with very long false eyelashes, plucked eyebrows, redrawn in pencil, bright red lipsticked lips, dark foundation, violet nails, glossy pearl-fringed cloche hat, blue-grey, eyes upturned under it, occasional outburst, out of the question that I should let him, woman butting in on the conversation of two people, I’m going to whisk him away but I shall let you have him back in just a jiffy, you won’t have time to grow one minute older, imitation feather fan, orange and beige cameo, gold lamé here and there, and a boa for the women staying in the annexe, the annexe apparently less prestigious, but much more comfortable, ultramodern bathrooms, telephones less temperamental, V-shaped necklines, edged with small sparkling stones, hair flaunting a kiss-curl, fox-trot, quick tempo, steps you dance in sequence, strict tempo, steps you improvise, feet thrashing, whirling, crossing, fox-trot and its less hurried variant, the slow foxtrot, glissé, cake-walk, movements weird and bodies contorted, give a cake to the black slave who walks the most complicated dance, body extravagantly arched backwards, arms out, advance raising the knees as high as they will go, dress which shucks down on uneven tasselled fringes and which a twitch of the hips sends shooting back up again, beyond the bounds of possibility, in the carefree unconcern of the music.
‘You were watching the skirts, Misha, there were two of you ogling the skirts, you and Briand, a revolutionary and a social-traitor, same struggle, on the look-out for skirt!’
Lilstein has grown misty-eyed, he has even recounted the episode of the shower cubicle in the swimming pool at the Waldhaus.
‘I pushed a door, she’d forgotten to bolt it, then it was gone, Max!’
Max has realised he shouldn’t have listened, Lilstein in this state had dropped his guard low enough to tell him about the business with the shower cubicle and was now on the verge of tears, Lilstein has outmanoeuvred you, you listened, he’s got you now, it’s a trade, you’re going to have to tell him something.
There was a silence, Lilstein is never as dangerous as when the line of his mouth softens, when he looks as if he has a great deal to blame life for.
‘Max, what was it like, with her?’
Max looked into Lilstein’s look:
‘You’ve been mulling over that question for forty years, young Lilstein, I won’t tell you anything.’
Surely Max isn’t going to chat about the only wedding night of his entire life to this blundering German, a hand placed on Max’s hand, in the Waldhaus, it’s getting late, all those taking part in the European Seminar have dispersed to their rooms, Hans is nowhere to be seen, there is no sign of Erna, nor of Merken, Frédérique has vanished, Stirnweiss has vanished, Lena has vanished, doors have been locked, Lilstein too has vanished, Moncel isn’t around any more, Max is in the bar, doing some serious drinking, he’s there with a group of young English girls, the barman has got out a map of Scotland and tulip glasses, the north coast, Speyside, the home of whisky.
Map laid out on the bar, they follow the route and stop for a dram at each distillery, turning names and tastes into song, glass after glass. The English girls are sporty, clean-scrubbed, brazen, built like boxers. They want Max to pronounce Craigellachie and Mannochmore, Inverboyndie, Ballindalloch. He makes them laugh, he tries to teach them to sing ‘Amélie, cache tes genous’.
The barman has just poured the umpteenth whisky, Max grabs it, a hand is placed on his, a voice asks:
‘Do you really have to?’
She’s the only woman who doesn’t interest Max, she’s beautiful, she’s the one Hans dreams of, but she is no longer just Hans’s dream, though she might as well be, the wives of my friends are sexless. Forty years ago Lena pushed his glass to one side saying: