‘Obviously you didn’t work all that out by yourself, you’d had evening classes which taught you that it’s good to corroborate, did you know they used the same line with me too in Moscow when I was being interrogated? Monclar tells you you’re a little shit, the comrade from the federation who just happens to be there that night says losing your temper does not constitute proof of innocence, good old Monclar, a perfectionist, he’s excluded, no, you’re right, he excludes himself, slams the door behind him, it makes him thoroughly miserable, and to make sure he doesn’t miss he gets hold of two revolvers, one for each temple, he fumbles, manages to burst both eyeballs, not a pretty sight, hang on, I must finish.
‘A week later he throws himself out of a window in the hospital, three floors, took four days to die, died like Brossolette but with Brossolette it was the Nazis and different kinds of torture, have you written to Monclar’s widow, I mean recently?
‘One of my closest friends was in Monclar’s network, a German antifascist with the FTP, today he’s one of our leading poets, lives in Potsdam not far from my house, a real poet, he was the one who told me the story of the bear and the hunter, though maybe it wasn’t him, no matter, sometimes we pass on secrets to each other, for the hell of it, not knowing if one of us will rat on the other, but we tell each other everything, that way the one who listens is just as guilty as the one who speaks, and if he does spill the beans he won’t last very long either — “comrade, if your contact wanted to say such stupid things, how come he trusted you so much?” — he’s for the drop too, which might even be a comfort for the friend he’s denounced, absolute transparency! Are you beginning to understand what sort of struggle I’ve got to engage in these days?
‘When I told my friend I might be meeting the Frenchman who had got Monclar thrown out of the Party, he said: “Ask him what he’s got against people who were in the Resistance.” There, I’ve done it. You think you’re a real swine, you want to leave the Party which landed you in the mire and now you’re going back to the nasty, sordid squalor you were trying to escape when you joined the Party, it would be so simple to have one squalid action to hate yourself for, such as what a young prosecuting counsel in a hurry once did, but we both know that there’s something else, and that’s why I’ve taken such a shine to you.’
Lilstein follows the direction of your eyes, turns round, stares at the dresser with you, a complete service of painted porcelain plates.
‘Yes, very fine, especially the large dishes, the spinners, the country dance, I had it brought here, it isn’t Swiss, don’t you recognise it? It comes from your part of the world, it’s French, Obernai-ware, from Alsace, the couple who run the factory are of Alsatian stock, they were already here in 1929, he was on the desk and she was housekeeper, a stroke of fortune for the pair of them, they both loved France but he didn’t like being taught French by having his knuckles rapped.
‘In 1927, ’28, they applied for a seasonal job, they liked it, they went down well, they were kept on, when they saw Hitler beginning to stir things up in Germany, they concluded that sooner or later he’d try to move back into Alsace, so they decided to stay in Switzerland, they escaped the return of the Germans in 1940, moved up the ladder, bought the hotel in ’43, bad times for tourism. She loves presiding over the kitchen range, she can make anything, especially Linzer, these decorated plates with country scenes, they’re very peaceful, I like them a lot.’
Lilstein turns round in his chair to show you the plates:
‘Can you see, there are eight different scenes for the plates, two per season, it’s rustic stuff, not very valuable, but I’m very fond of it, some of the details, let me show you, that cat in a clump of honeysuckle, it didn’t go there to take a nap, the cat creeps into the honeysuckle in the late afternoon, it lies down on its back on top of the clump just under the surface of the leaves, empty-headed blue tits beware!
‘Throughout the whole of your time in school, in 1943 you were fourteen, when half of the Monclar network were rounded up, there was no chance that you’d meet him or admire him, you lived the life of a cosseted schoolboy in a gorgeous apartment in Paris, large rooms, very high ceilings, cornices, gold paint, ornate chimneypieces, an apartment your papa had bought for a song after the armistice in 1940, from a man named Blumental, Blumental was a man in a hurry! In the apartment sounds were deadened by carpets and bulging cupboards, a china service with a silver thread motif off which you ate your dinner, bed linen with Blumental’s monogram, and even his children’s books, did you ever try to find out what happened to the Blumentals? Shall I take you through it and help you recapture lost time?
‘You suspected as much? Towards the end? There must be some details you don’t know, a valley in Savoie, white walls, lauze roof, a well, a few motorised vans one morning and your father feeling obliged to exclaim “just smell that air!”, it’s not easy to become aware of life at such moments, there too you must have hated yourself and held your tongue, because you were brought up according to solid family values, respect for your father, reserve, the authority of your elders, it’s not for you to judge them, and if the worst comes to the worst you take troubles to the priest who tells you to lift up your head to heaven, no, quite right, you’re a Protestant, but you must have loved those values before you learned to hate them, and you once believed you could put it all behind you by basking in the crimson promise of our dawn, by throwing yourself enthusiastically at the age of eighteen into the ranks of the seventy-five thousand who had been shot dead, let’s just say thousands, many thousands, and one day you discover that the Party you loved has put your best hopes to the worst possible use.
‘Be content, you can now feel truly sorry for yourself, it will make a change from just despising yourself, but all those others, the gentle-folk of the old caste with the best addresses who foregathered around the family table, their words still reverberate in your head, the dinners with Blumental finger-bowls, conversations about Judaeo-Bolshevism, saboteurs, the Greater Europe and the deafening silence of all these loud-mouthed people when your father had to flee the country after the Liberation, the silence of those who thought and said the same things as he did but never wrote it down or signed anything, the crimes of extreme civilisation are not crimes, these days all those people strut their stuff as good soldiers of the free world.
‘The Great Family awaits your return, young gentleman of France, a place has been prepared, in your name, you now have extensive experience of the world of the proletariat, so you can explain to them how it operates, how to sack a worker without repercussions, I could even saddle the said worker with five kids, that’s another so-called cliché, only society at large can manufacture clichés, but you know all this, you know what ends you will be made to serve.