Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  'See? By turning the key in this middle drawer, I can also lock the left-hand and right-hand drawers too, twelve all told. It's really terrific, don't you think? And this key is a Yale too, which means the best.'

  Basking happily in the esteem he had generated, he sat down in his chair, pointing out that it was the very latest swivel type which gave excellent support to the back, then propped his feet on the edge of the desk, like van Vries, and began see-sawing to and fro gently in his chair, also like van Vries. And rocking himself in his might and power, his hands clasped behind his head the way van Vries did, this future corpse found a suitable opening to say that during a recent discussion with his boss he had been pretty outspoken, fiercely independent and a master of the devastating comment. Suddenly struck by the thought that this same hierarchical superior might come in unexpectedly, he put his feet down and stopped see-sawing. His pipe on the desk offered a reassuringly manly substitute. He reached for it, knocked it out loudly on the ashtray, and opened his tobacco pouch.

  'Damn and blast! I've run out of tobacco! Listen, I'll pop out and get some from the kiosk. I'll only be two minutes. Be back soon, all right?'

  'Sorry, got held up, couldn't help it,' he said, bursting through the door, simply dying to tell her about the amazing thing that had happened. (He took several deep breaths to master his excitement and strike a suitably measured tone of voice.) 'Fact is, I just bumped into the USG.'

  'The what?'

  'The Under-Secretary-General,' he spelled it out, slightly ruffled. 'Monsieur Solal,' he added after taking in a new supply of air. 'USG is the normal abbreviation, I've told you several times. (A pause.) I've just had a talk with him.'

  'So . . . ?'

  He stared at her in amazement. A simple 'So ... ?' was all she could say about a talk with Sir John's right hand! Clearly no sense of social values! Still, couldn't be helped, that was the way she was, always with her head in the clouds. Tell her about it now but, mind, be offhand, don't give the impression you attach any special importance to it. He cleared his throat so that his fantastic news wouldn't be spoiled by any huskiness in the telling. 'I've just had a conversation with the Under-Secretary-General of the League of Nations, a talk, quite unexpected. (A faint twitch of the lip, a weird urge to burst into tears.) We had a little chat, just the two of us. (A sharp intake of breath to stifle a budding sob.) He even sat down, which goes to show he was in no hurry to get rid of me. I mean, he really wanted to talk to me. He wasn't just being polite. He truly is amazingly intelligent. (A difficulty with his breathing, caused by the excitement, prevented his speaking in long sentences.) This is how it happened. I went down to the ground floor, right? When I'd bought my packet of Amsterdamer from the kiosk, it occurred to me, can't think why, to come back via the corridor which goes past the USG's office, or rather offices, an odd thing to do since it meant going the long way round. Anyway, just at that moment he comes out through his door dressed, you'll never guess, in riding clothes, as he does from time to time. He looks marvellous in them, incidentally. But it's the first time I've ever seen him wearing a monocle. Mind you, it was black, as if he was covering up some trouble with his eye. Apparently he had some sort of accident this afternoon, fell off his horse and knocked an eye. Kanakis told me, I met him as I was coming back up, he'd just been to see Miss Wilson, she's the USG's secretary, he's on very good terms with her, and she told him all about it in confidence. It only happened a couple of hours ago, he arrived on a horse with a valet in tow, it's a habit of his, he often comes on a horse and then the valet takes the horse back, he's terribly comme il faut, and the first thing she saw was his eye, which was bleeding, well the eyelid actually, a cut, he must have fallen on something sharp, but he wouldn't have it seen to, he just asked Miss Wilson to send out to an optician's for some black monocles, apparently you can buy them over the counter. The man's got style! (He gave a little charmed, appreciative smile.) Straightaway he thinks of a monocle! So amusing! Anyway, I hope it's not serious, the cut I mean. You know, he's in charge of everything here, he's the best. (Another admiring smile.) The black monocle suits him awfully well, makes him look arrogant, aristocratic, know what I mean? Kanakis is no fool, is he? He butters Miss Wilson up something chronic. It helps no end, you realize, to be on good terms with the secretary of one of the top brass, helps no end if you want him to see you quickly, or want to hear what's going on before other people do or get a confidential tip-off and so on and so forth. Anyway, getting back to the point, the USG was striding along pretty smartly when the tapers he had in his hand, sorry, papers, slipped and fell on the floor. I picked them up. Of course I'd have done the same for anybody, only being polite. But he paused and thanked me ever so nicely. "Thank you, Deume," he said. It wasn't what he said but the way he said it, see? He remembered my name, that's the main thing. I can tell you, I was thrilled to think he knows who I am, to feel he knows I exist. It's important, don't you see? That was when he sat down and pointed to a chair facing him, all very chummy. Because just outside his offices there's this small waiting-area, with chairs, very comfy chairs of course. And then, ever so nicely, you'd never believe how nicely, he asked which section I worked in, what particular line of thing I did, if I liked the work, in short took an interest in me. So you see that if I was a long time coming back it was well worth it. A conversation lasting very nearly ten minutes! Have you any idea of what the consequences, administratively speaking, could be? He was terribly unaffected, very friendly, went out of his way not to pull rank, the two of us just sitting there, face to face. He was absolutely charming to me. And I was quite at ease and chatted away. Just think, VV walked past and saw the USG and me chatting away like old friends! What a picture. VV will be hopping mad!'

  'Why hopping mad?'

  'Jealousy, of course,' he smiled and shrugged his shoulders in delight. 'Also it'll have put the wind up him. It's always dangerous for a head of section if a member of his staff is on good terms with one of the top brass. It can mean trouble for him! It's like this, the chap might say to the bigwig, quite casually, without seeming to mean anything by it, he might say what he thinks of his boss, drop a few hints, suggest how the section might be reorganized, blow his own trumpet, you know, show up his boss in a poor light, or he might even come out with direct criticisms, depending of course on how the bigwig is reacting, and not pull his punches if he has the feeling the big man is none too well disposed towards his boss, I mean the chap's boss, you know, VV for instance, I mean if he feels he needn't hold back. Know what I mean?'

  'Of course.'

  'But I know VV. He won't show how cross he is, and tomorrow he'll be all sweetness and light. It'll be my dear Deume this, my dear Deume that, if it's not too much trouble, I realize how terribly busy you are, and so forth, and all done with a smile! He's got the mentality of a slave. I'm a threat, so it's out with the kid gloves. Anyhow, we sat there chatting for quite a while, ten minutes or so! I did wonder whether I should ask him about the black monocle, enquire if he had something wrong with his eye. But I wasn't sure and didn't in the end. Do you think I was right?'

  'Yes.'

  'Yes, I think so too, it would have been a touch familiar. When it was over, he got up, shook my hand, a really nice chap, you know. Very decent of him to stop and talk to me, don't you think? Especially since he was on his way to see the SG, who had asked to see him, see? So on my account he kept Sir John waiting! What do you say to that?'

  'That's good.'

  'Good! I'll say it's good! Just think, a conversation with a bigwig who's on hail-fellow-well-met terms with Sir John! And, mark you, not a conversation in the USG's office, not an official conversation, but a chat in the corridor, with both of us sitting down in the same class of chair, a private chat, I mean, man to man! If that's not the start of a personal contact I don't know what is! Oh, but I'm forgetting the most important bit. You'll never guess, but when he got up to go he patted me on the shoulder, or rather on the back, well anyway near the shoulder but def
initely on the back, quite a firm pat, very friendly. Now to me that pat was the nicest part of the whole thing, it was I don't know intimate, spontaneous, ever so chummy. And that coming from someone who has held ministerial office in France, and is a Commander of the Legion of Honour, I mean after all he's only the most important man in the Secretariat after Sir John! And don't go saying less important than the Deputy Secretary-General because it's not true, he's more important than the Deputy Secretary-General, who may outrank him but between ourselves ... (After a wary glance around him, in a whisper:) between ourselves, he's got no influence, there are all sorts of papers which don't ever go to him, and he never complains, can you credit it? (He looked at her. Yes, she was definitely impressed by the pat.) But that's just between the two of us, all right? And of course, much more important than the other two Under-Secretaries-General, who are small fry in comparison. It's true: whenever anybody says the USG you know it's him they mean. And the consideration he gets shown! He's the only Under-Secretary-General with a principal private secretary! Do you realize what that means? (In an even lower whisper:) Just between the two of us, I'd even go so far as to say he's more important than the Secretary-General. Oh yes! Because with Sir John it's golf and then more golf and, that apart, just a figurehead, always says amen to whatever the USG decides! So you see how tremendously important that pat on the back was. (He smiled a dreamy, feminine smile:) And anyway the man oozes charm somehow. That smile of his, awfully disarming! And his eyes, so warm, so understanding. I can see why women fall for him. Even that black monocle suits him terribly well, makes him look, I don't know, romantic. And got up like that in riding clothes! Every inch the gentleman. Obviously not everybody in the Secretariat would dare turn up on a horse. Of course if a ... (He almost said "a spear-carrier" but changed his mind, so as not to do himself down.) ... a lower-grade civil servant tried it on, it would raise an eyebrow or two. Just imagine the fuss there'd be if VV turned up one morning in riding boots! But if the USG does it, no one gives it a second thought. Seventy thousand a year in gold equivalent, plus entertainment allowance! They say he's got a luxury suite at the Ritz, with two drawing-rooms. By the way, I might forget. To be on the safe side, I didn't say anything to Kanakis about my little chat with the USG. I mention this, you never know, just in case you ever come across him. Just think: two drawing-rooms! I bet he runs up a hotel bill and a half! Anyhow, he's definitely top-drawer, bags of style, very smart, terribly aristocratic. Still, that's not the point. He's got a brilliant mind. And then there's that charm of his, it's hard to define really, a sort of gentleness but mixed in with it a hint of cruelty, it's a well-known fact that Sir John thinks the sun shines out of him, you often see them chatting together on the friendliest terms, he always looks completely relaxed, they say he calls him John, really, can you imagine? By all accounts Lady Cheyne thinks even more highly of him! And it's no secret that he's a Don Juan, all the girls in the Secretariat are mad about him. And Countess Kanyo, that's the wife of the Hungarian minister to Berne who died two years ago, she's his mistress, she's crazy about him, it's an open secret. Kanakis saw her here once kissing the USG's hand! Can you imagine that? She's tremendously cultured, it seems. Very beautiful, still young, about thirty-two or thirty-three, very stylish and immensely rich with it, they say,' he concluded proudly. (She brushed his cheek with one finger.) 'What are you doing that for?'

  'Because you're so sweet.'

  'Oh I see,' he said with a vague feeling of annoyance.

  He was not entirely pleased to be sweet. He would have preferred to be an out-and-out man, with a pipe between his teeth and cold eyes, hard as nails. To show he was not as sweet as all that, he stuck out his jaw. For his wife's benefit, he did his impression of a man bent on living dangerously whenever he thought of it. He did not think of it often.

  (If the tough guy, the he-man, the daredevil, was Adrien Deume's staple ideal, he also subscribed to other, quite different, archetypes as contradictory as they were interchangeable. On a day, for example, when he was dazzled by Huxley, he would try to cut a dash as the faintly effeminate diplomat, courteous but slightly cool, very man-of-the-world, the acme of sophistication, and the next day have no compunction about shedding that particular skin after reading the biography of some great writer. He would then become, as the case might be, exuberant and larger than life, or sardonic and disillusioned, or tormented and vulnerable, but never for very long, just for an hour or two. Then he would forget and revert to what he was: an insignificant little Deume.)

  The dictatorial, over-jutted jaw made the back of his neck ache, so he allowed it to revert to a more pacific angle. He glanced at his wife and waited for her reaction, thirsting to talk so staggering an occurrence through with her, to discuss it at length and work out together what avenues it opened up.

  'Well now, darling, what do you make of it all?'

  'I think,' she said after a silence, 'that it's encouraging.'

  'Exactly!' he said with a grateful smile, ready to run with the word. 'You've hit the nail on the head. You're right, it was an encouraging chat. I don't say we've got a close relationship exactly, not yet, but at least it's the start of something which might lead to a close relationship. A human contact, that's what it was. Especially since our encounter ended with that pat. (He blinked his eyes in an effort to reach a subtle definition, to get to the bottom, of that pat.) That pat was, how shall I put it, a signal which conveyed intimacy, liking. Especially since it was a solid sort of pat, you know, almost knocked me over. Anyhow, it all could be vitally important for my career, see?'

  'Yes, I see.'

  'Listen, darling, I've got to have a serious talk with you. (He lit his pipe so that he could introduce the topic properly, generate dramatic tension and above all drum up a sense of his own importance and say what he had to say with maximum persuasiveness.) Darling, I've got something rather important to say. (The "rather" was intended to convey the impression of a hard-boiled type not much given to extravagant turns of phrase.) It's this. Last night I didn't sleep terribly well and I began turning an idea over in my mind. I had intended to keep it until this evening, but I'd sooner tell you now because it's been preying on my mind. Anyhow, my idea is that we should make the most of the fact that Dada and Mummy are going away on Friday for a month, I mean make the most of it to start having a proper social life, not the occasional, random entertaining we've done up to now, but a full, properly managed social life, based on a maturely thought-out plan, a written schedule of dinners and cocktail parties. I've lots of ideas on the subject, especially since I have it in mind to distance myself from Dada and Mummy so I can be freer to operate. I'll tell you all about it later, and also about one or two large dinner parties I'm thinking of giving. But first let's talk about the cocktail parties, for that's the most urgent aspect of the problem. I think that we should put our heads together this evening and draw up a list of people to invite to our first formal party.'

  'Whatever for?'

  'O darling,' he began, making a great effort to be patient, 'because a man in my position ought to have a modicum of a social life. All my colleagues manage somehow to have twenty or thirty guests round for drinks. Kanakis has had up to seventy at his place, interesting people, the sort who draw a lot of water. We have been married for five years now and we've never yet organized anything together, not according to a plan worked out in advance. Top of the list are the parties we ought to return. If we don't return hospitality, people will notice and won't invite us again. The number of invitations to drinks we've been getting is already well down. It's a danger signal, and I'm becoming rather concerned about it. In this life, darling, you never get anywhere unless you have contacts, and cocktail parties are ideal places for making contacts. In one fell swoop you can ask a lot of pleasant people round who will return the invitation, which gives you an opportunity to get to know a whole lot of other people at a stroke, because the thing starts to snowball, and then you're in the position of being able to pick an
d choose which of your new contacts you want to invite next time, because you have to be choosy of course, you have to stick to the people you feel an affinity for, people you get along with. And bear in mind that, from the host's point of view, drinks cost less than a dinner party and the result is virtually the same. I say virtually because from a personal-contact point of view you can't really beat a dinner party, so we'll have to start asking people to dinner too, the type of people we get on with best. Dada and Mummy will have to be kept firmly out of all this, even before the parting of the ways which I have in mind for the very near future. But let's stick to the cocktails for now. On this issue I shall tell you exactly what I think. Well, my plan, which I have slightly revised and modified since I had that conversation just now, my plan is to kick off by asking the USG to our very first cocktail party. He's bound to come after that pat on the back. And if I can let it be known that he's coming, I can count on getting the cream not only of the Secretariat but of the permanent delegations as well! Don't worry, I shan't be bothering to invite any rabble. So. Operation USG: cocktails as opening gambit followed at a later date by a formal dinner party. Now isn't that a tasty dish to set before a king?' (One of Mummy's little turns of phrase which just slipped out, so full was his mind with what he was saying.)

  'I don't like him very much. Why are you so keen on inviting him?'

  'This, darling,' he said, with honeyed sententiousness which hid the first stirrings of annoyance, 'is how I answer that. One, top brass don't have to be nice to be invited. Two, I myself have always found the USG extremely pleasant. Three, if I am so keen to invite him, as you put it, it is for the very good reason that I take my orders from van Vries and van Vries takes his orders from the USG. Look, I've been stuck at the top of grade B for seven months and van Vries won't do a thing, you know, won't lift a finger to get me put up to an A! He refuses to do anything because he's gutless! He's gutless because he thinks to himself that putting me up for promotion might not go down very well upstairs and might therefore reflect back unfavourably on him. But, on the other hand, he'll do something when he finds out I'm in the USG's good books, and you can rest assured that if I am indeed so favoured I shall make a point of letting him know about it on the q.t.! But there shouldn't be any need for me to tell him, because when I throw my grand cocktail party he'll see the USG there and will draw the appropriate conclusions, and that means he will find the guts to put me up for an A because he'll feel his recommendation would get a sympathetic hearing and would not involve any danger to himself. Anyway guts isn't the word, he'll be pleased to do it, he'll fall over himself to recommend me without reservation, in terms of the warmest sincerity, in a shower of praise, because doing so will get him in with the USG. Do you see now how the thing works?'