At that time, I was beginning to form a friendship with Thomas, we were already calling each other by the familiar du, and I asked him to find out about the fiancé, Karl Berndt Egon Wilhelm, Freiherr von Üxküll. He was much older than she; and this aristocrat, a German Balt, was a paralytic. I didn’t understand. Thomas gave me some details: he had distinguished himself during the Great War, which he had finished as an Oberst with the Pour le Mérite; then he had led a Landeswehr regiment into Courland against the Red Latvians. There, on his own property, he had been hit with a bullet in the spinal column, and from his stretcher, before being forced to retreat, he had set fire to his ancestral home, so the Bolsheviks wouldn’t soil it with their debauchery and their shit. His SD file was quite thick: without being regarded exactly as an opponent, he was seen in an unfavorable light, apparently, by certain authorities. During the Weimar years, he had acquired European renown as a composer of modern music; he was known to be a friend and supporter of Schönberg, and he had corresponded with musicians and writers in the Soviet Union. After the Seizure of Power, moreover, he had rejected Strauss’s invitation to enroll in the Reichsmusikkammer, which had in fact put an end to his public career, and he had also refused to become a member of the Party. He lived in seclusion on the estate of his mother’s family, a manor house in Pomerania where he had moved after the defeat of Bermondt’s army and the evacuation from Courland. He left it only for treatment in Switzerland; the Party and local SD reports said that he received few guests and went out even less, avoiding mingling with the society of the Kreis. “An odd sort,” Thomas summed up. “A bitter, uptight aristo, a dinosaur. And why is your sister marrying a cripple? Does she have a nursing complex?” Why, indeed? When I received an invitation for the wedding, which was going to be held in Pomerania, I replied that my studies prevented me from coming. We were twenty-five then, and it seemed to me that everything that had been truly ours was dying.
The restaurant was filling up: a waiter pushed von Üxküll’s wheelchair, and Una was holding my cap under her arm. “Here!” she said cheerfully as she kissed me on the cheek. “You forgot this.”—“Yes, thanks,” I said, blushing. I shook von Üxküll’s hand while the waiter removed a chair, and I declared somewhat solemnly: “Freiherr, delighted to meet you.”—“Likewise, Sturmbannführer. Likewise.” Una pushed him into place and I sat down opposite him; Una came and sat down between us. Von Üxküll had a severe face, very thin lips, gray hair in a crew cut: but his brown eyes seemed sometimes curiously laughing, with crow’s feet. He was simply dressed, in a gray woollen suit with a knit tie, no medals, and his only piece of jewelry was a gold signet ring, which I noticed when he placed his hand on Una’s: “What will you have to drink, darling?”—“Some wine.” Una seemed very cheerful, happy; I wondered if she was forcing it. Von Üxküll’s stiffness was obviously entirely natural. They brought the wine, and von Üxküll asked me some questions about my wound and my convalescence. He drank as he listened to my answer, but very slowly, in little sips. Then, since I didn’t really know what to say, I asked him if he had been to a concert since he arrived in Berlin. “There’s nothing that interests me,” he answered. “I don’t like that young Karajan much. He’s much too full of himself, too arrogant.”—“So you prefer Furtwängler, then?”—“There are rarely any surprises with Furtwängler. But he is very solid. Unfortunately, they don’t let him conduct Mozart’s operas anymore, and that’s what he does best. Apparently Lorenzo da Ponte was half Jewish, and The Magic Flute is a Masonic opera.”—“You don’t think it is?”—“It may be, but I challenge you to show me a German spectator who would realize it on his own. My wife told me you like old French music?”—“Yes, especially the instrumental works.”—“You have good taste. Rameau and the great Couperin are still far too neglected. There is also a whole treasure trove of music for viola da gamba from the seventeenth century, still unexplored—but I’ve been able to consult some manuscripts. It’s superb. But the early French eighteenth century is truly a high point. No one can write like that anymore. The Romantics spoiled everything, we’re still struggling to emerge from it.”—“You know that Furtwängler did conduct, this week,” Una interrupted. “At the Admiralpalast. That Tiana Lemnitz sang there, she isn’t half bad. But we didn’t go. It was Wagner, and Berndt doesn’t like Wagner.”—“That’s an understatement,” he went on. “I detest him. Technically, there are some extraordinary discoveries, some truly new, objective things, but that’s all lost in bombast, gigantism, and also the coarse manipulation of emotions, like the vast majority of German music since 1815. It’s written for people whose main musical reference is still basically the military fanfare. Reading Wagner’s scores fascinates me, but I could never listen to them.”—“Is there any German composer who finds favor with you?”—“After Mozart and Beethoven? A few pieces by Schubert, some passages from Mahler. And even there, I’m being indulgent. At bottom, there’s almost no one but Bach…and now, of course, Schönberg.”—“Excuse me, Freiherr, but it would seem to me that it would be difficult to describe Schönberg’s music as German music.”—“Young man,” von Üxküll retorted dryly, “don’t you try to give me lessons in anti-Semitism. I was an anti-Semite before you were born, even if I remain old-school enough to believe that the sacrament of baptism is powerful enough to wash away the strain of Judaism. Schönberg is a genius, the greatest since Bach. If the Germans don’t want him, that’s their problem.” Una let out a ringing burst of laughter: “Even the VB still talks about Berndt as one of the great representatives of German culture. But if he were a writer, he would be either in the United States with Schönberg and the Manns, or in Sachsenhausen.”—“Is that why you haven’t produced anything in ten years?” I asked. Von Üxküll shook his fork as he answered: “First of all, since I’m not a member of the Musikkammer, I can’t. And I refuse to have my music played abroad if I can’t present it in my own country.”—“So why don’t you enroll, then?”—“Out of principle. Because of Schönberg. When they threw him out of the Academy and he had to leave Germany, they offered me his place: I told them to go screw themselves. Strauss came to see me in person. He had just taken the place of Bruno Walter, a great conductor. I told him he should be ashamed, that it was a government of gangsters and bitter proletarians and that it wouldn’t last. Anyway, they kicked Strauss out two years later, because of his Jewish daughter-in-law.” I forced myself to smile: “I’m not going to get into a political discussion. But it’s hard for me, listening to your opinions, to understand how you can think of yourself as an anti-Semite.”—“But it’s simple,” replied von Üxküll haughtily. “I fought against the Jews and the Reds in Courland and in Memel. I advocated the exclusion of the Jews from German universities, from German political and economic life. I drank to the health of the men who killed Rathenau. But music is different. You just have to close your eyes and listen to know right away if it’s good or not. It has nothing to do with blood, and all great music is equal, whether it’s German, French, English, Italian, Russian, or Jewish. Meyerbeer isn’t worth anything, not because he was Jewish, but because he’s not worth anything. And Wagner, who hated Meyerbeer because he was Jewish and because he had helped him, is scarcely any better, in my opinion.”—“If Max repeats what you’re saying to his colleagues,” Una said, laughing, “you’re going to have problems.”—“You told me he was an intelligent man,” he replied, looking at her. “I’m doing you the honor of taking you at your word.”—“I’m not a musician,” I said, “so it’s hard for me to answer you. What I’ve heard of Schönberg I’ve found inaudible. But one thing is certain: you are definitely not in tune with the mood of your country.”—“Young man,” he retorted, shaking his head, “I’m not trying to be. I stopped meddling in politics a long time ago, and I’m counting on politics not to meddle with me.” We don’t always have a choice, I wanted to reply; but I held my tongue.
At the end of the meal, urged by Una, I had spoken with von Üxküll about my wish to land a position i
n France. Una had added: “Can’t you help him?” Von Üxküll reflected: “I’ll see. But my friends in the Wehrmacht don’t hold the SS close to their hearts.” That I was beginning to understand; and sometimes I told myself that at bottom it was Blobel, losing his mind in Kharkov, who had been right. All my paths seemed to be leading to dead ends: Best had sent me his Festgabe, but without mentioning France; Thomas was trying to be reassuring, but couldn’t seem to do anything for me. And I, completely absorbed by the presence and thought of my sister, I wasn’t attempting anything anymore, I was sinking into my despondency, stiff, petrified, a sad salt statue on the shores of the Dead Sea. That night, my sister and her husband were invited to a reception, and Una suggested I come with them; I refused: I didn’t want to see her like that, in the midst of thoughtless, arrogant, drunk aristocrats drinking Champagne and joking about everything I held sacred. In the midst of those people, it was certain, I would feel powerless, ashamed, an idiotic kid; their sarcasm would wound me, and my anguish would prevent me from responding; their world remained closed to people like me, and they knew just how to get that across. I shut myself up in my room; I tried to leaf through the Festgabe, but the words made no sense to me. So I abandoned myself to the gentle sway of mad fantasies: Una, overcome with remorse, left her party, came to my hotel, the door opened, she smiled at me, and the entire past, at that instant, was redeemed. All that was perfectly idiotic, and I knew it, but the more time passed, the more I managed to convince myself it would happen, here, now. I remained in the dark, sitting on the sofa, my heart leaping at every noise in the hallway, every clank of the elevator, waiting. But it was always another door that opened and closed, and the despair rose like black water, like that cold, pitiless water that engulfs the drowned and steals their breath away, the precious air of life. The next day, Una and von Üxküll were leaving for Switzerland.
She called me in the morning, just before taking the train. Her voice was soft, tender, warm. The conversation was short, I wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying, I was listening to that voice, clinging to the receiver, lost in my distress. “We can see each other again,” she said. “You can come visit us.”—“We’ll see,” replied the other person who was speaking through my mouth. I was overcome with nausea again, I thought I would throw up, I convulsively swallowed my saliva by breathing through my nose and managed to control myself. Then she hung up and I was alone again.
Thomas, in the end, had managed to arrange an interview for me with Schulz. “Since things aren’t really getting anywhere, I think it’s worth the trouble. Try to handle him tactfully.” I didn’t have to make much of an effort: Schulz, a scrawny little man who mumbled into his moustache, his mouth streaked with a bad dueling scar, spoke in long circumlocutions that were sometimes hard to follow and, while he stubbornly leafed through my file, didn’t leave me many openings to speak. I managed to get two words in about my interest in the Reich’s foreign policy, but he seemed not to notice. The upshot of this interview was that people were taking an interest in me in high places and that we’d see at the end of my convalescence. It wasn’t very encouraging, and Thomas confirmed my interpretation: “They have to ask for you over there, for a specific job. Otherwise, if they send you anywhere, it will be Bulgaria. True, it’s quiet there, but the wine isn’t so great.” Best had suggested I contact Knochen, but Thomas’s words gave me a better idea: after all, I was on leave, nothing was forcing me to stay in Berlin.
I took the night express and arrived in Paris a little after dawn. The controls didn’t pose any problems. In front of the station I happily contemplated the pale gray stone of the buildings, the bustle in the streets; because of the restrictions, there weren’t many vehicles, but the streets were congested with bicycles and carts, through which the German cars made their way with difficulty. Suddenly joyous, I went into the first café and drank a Cognac, standing at the bar. I was in civilian clothes, and no one had any reason to take me for anything but a Frenchman; I found a curious pleasure in this. I walked calmly up to Montmartre and checked into a discreet little hotel, on the side of the hill, above Pigalle; I knew this place: the rooms were simple and clean, and the owner devoid of curiosity, which suited me. For this first day, I didn’t want to see anyone. I went out for a walk. It was April, spring was starting to show through everywhere, in the pale blue of the sky, the buds and flowers coming out on the branches, a certain liveliness or at least a lightness in people’s steps. Life, I knew, was hard here, the sallow tint of many faces betrayed the difficulties of finding food. But nothing seemed to have changed since my last visit, aside from the traffic and the graffiti: on the walls now you could see STALINGRAD or “1918,” usually erased and sometimes replaced by “1763,” no doubt a brilliant initiative of our services. I headed downhill toward the Seine, then went slowly rummaging through the booksellers along the quays: to my surprise, next to Céline, Drieu, Mauriac, Bernanos and Montherlant, they were openly selling Kafka, Proust, and even Thomas Mann; permissiveness seemed to be the rule. Almost all the sellers had a copy of Rebatet’s book, Les Décombres, which had been published the previous year: I leafed through it with curiosity, but put off buying it till later. I finally decided on a collection of essays by Maurice Blanchot, a critic from the Journal des débats, some of whose articles I had read with interest before the war; it was an advance copy, probably resold by a reviewer, bearing the title Faux Pas; the bookseller explained to me that the publication of the book had been delayed because of the paper shortage, while assuring me that it was still the best thing written recently, unless I liked Sartre, but he didn’t like Sartre (I hadn’t even heard of Sartre then). At the Place Saint-Michel, near the fountain, I sat down at a table on a terrace and ordered a sandwich and a glass of wine. The previous owner of the book had cut open only the first pages; I asked for a knife and, while I waited for the sandwich, cut the remaining pages, a slow, placid ritual that I always savored. The paper was of very poor quality; I had to be careful not to tear the pages by going too fast. After eating, I walked up to the Luxembourg. I had always loved this cold, geometric, luminous park, traversed with a calm agitation. Around the great circle of the central fountain, along the lanes curving out among trees and flowerbeds still bare, people walked, hummed, conversed, read, or, their eyes closed, sunbathed in the pale sun, a long and peaceful murmuring. I sat down on a metal chair with chipped green paint and read a few essays at random, the one on Orestes first, which actually had more to do with Sartre; this latter had apparently written a play where he used the figure of the unfortunate matricide to develop his ideas on man’s freedom in crime; Blanchot judged it harshly, and I could only approve. But I was especially charmed by an article on Melville’s Moby-Dick, where Blanchot speaks of this impossible book, which had marked a moment of my own youth, of this written equivalent of the universe, mysteriously, as a work that presents the ironic quality of an enigma and reveals itself only by the questions it raises. To tell the truth, I didn’t understand much of what he was writing there. But it awoke in me a nostalgia for a life that I could have had: the pleasure of the free play of thought and language, rather than the ponderous rigor of the Law; I let myself be carried along happily by the meanderings of this heavy, patient thinking, which dug a way for itself through ideas the way an underground river slowly carves itself a path through the rock. Finally I closed the book and continued my walk, first toward the Odéon, where more writing covered the walls, then up the Boulevard Saint-Germain, almost empty, toward the Assemblée Nationale. Every place awoke precise memories in me, of my preparatory years and afterward, when I had entered the ELSP; I must have been rather tormented in those days, and I remembered the quick surge of my hatred for France, but these memories, given the distance, reached me as if appeased, almost happy, wreathed in a serene, probably distorted light. I continued toward the Invalides esplanade, where passersby were congregating to watch some workers who, with draught horses, were plowing up the lawns so as to plant veget
ables; farther on, near a light tank of Czech manufacture stamped with the swastika, indifferent children were playing with a ball. Then I crossed the Alexandre III Bridge. At the Grand Palais, the posters announced two exhibitions: one entitled Why Did the Jew Want War?, the other a collection of Greek and Roman art. I felt no need to broaden my anti-Semitic education, but antiquity attracted me; I paid for my ticket and went in. There were some superb pieces there, most of them probably borrowed from the Louvre. For a long time I admired the cold, calm, inhuman beauty of a large Apollo with Cithara from Pompeii, a life-size bronze now turned greenish. He had a slender, not entirely formed body, with a child’s sex and narrow, well-rounded buttocks. I walked from one end of the exhibition to the other, but I kept coming back to him: his beauty fascinated me. He might have been nothing but an exquisite, ordinary adolescent, but the verdigris that was eating away at his skin in large patches conferred a stupefying profundity upon him. One detail struck me: regardless of the angle from which I looked at his eyes, painted realistically directly on the bronze, he never looked me in the eye; it was impossible to capture his gaze, drowned, lost in the void of his eternity. The metallic leprosy was blistering his face, his chest, his buttocks, almost devouring his left hand, which must have held the vanished cithara. His face seemed vain, almost smug. Looking at him, I felt overcome with desire, with a wish to lick him; and he was decomposing in front of me with a calm, infinite slowness. After that, avoiding the Champs-Élysées, I walked through the silent little streets of the eighth arrondissement, then slowly climbed back up to Montmartre. Night was falling, the air smelled good. At the hotel, the owner showed me a little black-market restaurant where I could eat without ration cards: “It’s full of lowlife, but the food is good.” The clientele in fact seemed made up of collaborators and black-market dealers; I was served a top cut of sirloin with shallots and green beans, and some decent Bordeaux in a carafe; for dessert, a tarte Tatin with crème fraîche, and, supreme luxury, real coffee. But the Apollo from the Grand Palais had awakened other desires. I went down to Pigalle and found a little bar that I knew well: sitting at the counter, I ordered a Cognac and waited. It didn’t take long, and I brought the boy back to my hotel. Under his cap, he had curly, unruly hair; a light down covered his stomach and darkened in curls on his chest; his olive skin awoke in me a furious desire of mouth and of ass. He was as I liked them, taciturn and available. For him, my ass opened like a flower, and when he finally slipped it in, a ball of white light began to grow at the base of my spine, slowly rose up my back, and annihilated my head. And that night, more than ever, it seemed to me that in this way I was responding directly to my sister, incorporating her into me, whether she accepted it or not. What happened in my body, under the hands and sex of this unknown boy, overwhelmed me. When it was over, I sent him away but didn’t fall asleep; I lay there on the creased sheets, naked and spread out like a child crushed with happiness.
The Kindly Ones Page 58
