« HÔTEL WALDHEIM » FRANÇOIS VALLEJO

«Hôtel Waldheim» is a moral novel with political elements, written in the first-person narrative and embedded in the realities of today, as well as in the 70's of the twentieth century. The action is mainly in France and Switzerland.
One day, Jeff Valdera receives an anonymous postcard about enigmatic content, from Switzerland, where the hotel is located, in which he once stayed as a teenager with his aunt during the holiday season. He soon receives new postcards that allow him to locate and contact their sender. Intrigued by a person who seems to know a lot about him, he decides to make an appointment with her. It turns out that she is a woman, Frieda Steigl, daughter of Friedrich Steigl, a professor of German-speaking history who stayed at the Waldheim Hotel during the same period as Jeff. Frieda wants him to tell her about his father, but the man does not suspect that his memories are really an excuse to solve the mystery of disappearance, in which the unconscious 16-year-old was entangled. "Une ouverture d'esprit", to which Frieda urges him, reveals a bit of the political scene of the game, led by the hotel guests and the truth about the past. «S'il n'y a pas encore pire que l'ignorance. La connaissance peut-être? »

The main motive of this novel is memory. Memory in the context of memories of the past, memory of people, still alive and provocative search, inquiring truths; historical memory, which is an important background, refers to the period of the Cold War, the division of Germany into West Germany and the GDR; about the fugitives from this period who found help and shelter at the Waldheim Hotel and about Stasi agents whose task was to uncover them.
The inconspicuous Hotel Waldheim became the center of political games in which the owner was entangled, Johann Meili, his brother Dr. Christian Meili, Frau Finkel, a regular and passionate literature lover, Friedrich Steigl, father Frieda, Linka's marriage, and our main character.

Jeff is oblivious to the role he plays in the hotel. He becomes an intermediary, informer and even suspected of cooperation in hiding fugitives. He is a witness to conversations and events that in retrospect (and under the influence of Friedy) take on a whole new dimension. Suddenly, the innocent and seemingly insignificant memories of a teenager become a source of valuable information for Friedy, for whom the real world is history and events from the past.
Frieda is a very interesting figure indeed. Extremely intelligent and well-read, penetrating and uncompromising in her search, even obsessively seeking the truth about her father's fate - based on archives and documents, convinced of her reason and her imagination of what happened. Jeff's memoirs are juxtaposed with the confessed statements of the Stasi agents, the memory is reconstructed anew. «Memoire parallele, comme si une moitié de mon cerveau était remplacée par cette machine à souvenir totalitaire». We get to know the story through the eyes of Jeff, but already aware of those nuances that have escaped him before. This may cause some scoff when reading, how likely is it to remember with such precision the details from several decades ago? Is it possible to talk about the preparation of memories, about imagining something that could have been because someone told us that? Falsification of memories and facts is a topic that keeps coming back and is being analyzed on various occasions.

You can not fail to mention the theme of the game: about the political game, the game of appearances, metaphorical and literal game (in chess and it, practiced by hotel guests). The heroes analyze the movements of their opponents, adjust the strategy; Jeff becomes a pawn, whose double game is a mystery to everyone.

The Vallejo workshop is solid, both in terms of language and creation of the characters. Although the reading was quite pleasant, I do not consider it a worthy favorite. I did not find anything revealing in it, nothing that would be innovative and what would make me more emotional.