But I am not a journalist and I am not superior to this encounter. It is evening. We are alone in his tiny flat on the eastern outskirts of Bern. He is cooking cheese fondue for the two of us. On a shelf in the kitchen stand the steel eating bowls he used in prison.
Why does he keep them? The drawing room is decorated with a reproduction medieval halberd and his diploma of architecture dated He has decided it is time for a drink. He drinks frugally these days, but still with the relish for which he is remembered.
Prussian style, he stiffens his back, raises his elbow, whips the cap off the whisky bottle I have brought him and pours two precise shots. He adds his water; we raise our glasses, drink eye to eye, raise them again, then perch ourselves awkwardly at the table while he rolls the whisky round his mouth and declares it drinkable.
Then he is off again, this time to the oven to stir the cheese and β as a trained and tried military instructor as well as judge β lecture me on how to do it on my own next time. On the desk, and on the floor, and piled high against the wall, papers, files, press cuttings, mounds of them, mustered and flagged for his last campaign.
It is a journalistic conceit to pretend you are unmoved by people. Jean-Louis Jeanmaire moves me deeply and humorously and horribly.
