Dark Palace

by Frank Moorhouse

  Lester looked up just as Ambrose and she glanced at each other and suppressed giggles.

  Lester ignored them like a tired schoolteacher. ‘Sweetser now says something here which we, the League, should take steps to look after. He points out that twelve thousand Spanish Republicans who fled Spain after the civil war and were housed in France under our auspices …’ Lester looked up. ‘Edith, you had something to do with that—you went down to Spain with the Commission in ’38?’

  ‘I did.’

  And she had had a strange, short fling down there with an anarchist.

  My, my. What had she been doing!?

  ‘Sweetser says that we have the personal records of these Republicans with us here in Geneva. Is that correct?’

  ‘It is. They’re in the Registry basement.’

  ‘Sweetser points out that the Germans might want to get their hands on those—if the Germans ever overran Switzerland. We may have to ship them out or even destroy them. Could you look into that, Edith?’

  She nodded. ‘You think we should burn them?’

  ‘Might be best.’

  ‘Or we could bury them.’

  ‘Whatever’s best. You look after it. I’ll read on. He says that the ship from Genoa was nightmarish, overcrowded, and those on board gathered around the radio to listen to the BBC every night. He says that the journalist Dorothy Thompson was on board and was receiving radio telephone calls from New York. Her assessment of the situation was that it was hopeless and that Germany would soon be in total command of Europe. Sweetser said that those on board thought it wouldn’t be long before England went under. He goes on. Rather depressing …’

  ‘He seems to have been infected with defeatism,’ Bartou said.

  Bartou was losing heart.

  ‘Not Sweetser,’ said Lester. ‘Just gloom.’

  ‘If not defeatism, perhaps American isolationism,’ Bartou said, with some animosity.

  ‘You probably don’t know this, but Sweetser offered to accept a forty percent reduction in his salary if Avenol would allow him to stay on—did you know that?’ Lester said, looking around.

  ‘Remarkable,’ said Aghnides.

  ‘He didn’t even get a reply. Avenol just wanted him out.’

  ‘It’s true that he brought in more money to the League than any single individual in its history—millions,’ Bartou said. ‘He even got the money to buy La Pelouse where Avenol sits brooding and plotting every night with his mistress.’

  ‘I’ve some other news,’ Lester said. ‘The Registrar, the President and ten officials of the International Court have arrived in Geneva from The Hague.’

  ‘At least they got here,’ Aghnides said.

  ‘They used the diplomatic immunity of their League papers, which seems to have been honoured by the Germans. Which is interesting.’

  Lester reported that Avenol had offered him unlimited leave back home in Ireland in an effort to get rid of him from the office. ‘The idea of fishing my way through the war was tempting. It shows you what sort of man he is: first he tries to freeze me out by ignoring me; then he tries to get me to resign; then he tries to bribe me to leave with his indefinite vacation offer.’

  Despite his bravado, she could tell that Lester was rattled.

  Everyone was a bit rattled.

  Aghnides said that Avenol thought it possible that the Germans might parachute into the Palais and make it a fortress. He said that Avenol had asked him to make contact with Wolfgang Krauel, the German Consul-General in Geneva. ‘I think that further confirms all we have feared.’

  ‘He must think you’re still on his side,’ Lester said.

  ‘He calls me in. We never talk politics. And of course I haven’t acted on his instruction.’

  ‘Dear God,’ Lester said with disgust. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t hoisted the swastika as a flag of welcome.’

  Lester pulled himself together and addressed himself to Ambrose, perhaps showing some deference to Ambrose’s Foreign Office background and the informal connections he still had with it. ‘Let’s hear your summation, Westwood—would you object to us using first names?’

  ‘By all means—first names are fine with me. You would like me to start?’

  ‘If you don’t mind—will give us all a fresh point of view.’

  ‘I hope I don’t add to the gloom of Sweetser’s letter. We have to accept that France is well and truly out of the war. It’s just the British and the Empire now that are still fighting. As for the League, there are the Scandinavians, the South Americans and the Empire left as countries still on the membership list—still in the club, as it were. The Scandinavians are neutral, so they’re shy of the war. The South Americans—well, as Sweetser used to say, in his colourful American way, “They don’t have a dog in this fight.” ’

  There were chuckles.

  ‘Quite so,’ Lester said. ‘And the Irish remain neutral. I suppose we don’t have a dog in the fight either.’

  ‘And Greece,’ said Aghnides.

  ‘Sorry, Ambrose—please continue. Afraid our discussions here are often a bit disorderly,’ Lester said.

  Ambrose went on, ‘The League, I’m afraid, doesn’t quite enter anyone’s picture. It could, of course, at a later time, enter the picture. Could be that the League will make the peace and so forth.’

  Lester turned to the others. ‘Any disagreement with that?’

  Bartou had grown red and seemed angry. ‘I see the neutrals including Switzerland playing a part in bringing a cessation to hostilities. You discount the neutrals too quickly.’

  ‘If Germany lets you remain neutral,’ Ambrose said. ‘They didn’t let Belgium and Holland remain neutral.’

  ‘Switzerland can defend itself against any invader.’

  Edith was surprised to hear Bartou letting his patriotism express itself. It was the first time he’d ever shown it. Nerves. And age.

  ‘I’m not saying that it couldn’t, Auguste,’ Ambrose said. ‘I am saying that Switzerland and the other neutrals may not have much time to think about the League. Or be able to do anything with it.’

  ‘Disagree,’ said Bartou irritatedly, trying to find his composure.

  Lester tried to calm the jittery atmosphere, saying, ‘Let’s stay calm. Let’s put national allegiances aside as best we can.’

  ‘You don’t see your posturing as a mask for being on the British side?’ Bartou shot back. ‘National allegiance is a bit like bad breath—everyone can smell other people’s bad breath but not their own.’

  They laughed.

  It dispelled the jitters a little.

  Lester said, ‘How are we to get rid of Avenol before he makes some sort of contact with the Germans? He’s sacking Jews. Two poor devils have gone from Opium Section. I tried to countermand it but I’m afraid Avenol still holds the office.’

  Edith spoke up, impatient with Lester’s rambling from the point. ‘It’s time for us to put our efforts into holding the fort at the League—above the conflict, as it were.’

  ‘The peace effort or the war effort?’ said Bartou, calmer now. ‘Isn’t that the choice most are making?’

  ‘I think we are all agreed about who we wish to have win,’ Lester said, glancing around. ‘Even if we should as international civil servants try to stand aside, as it were, from the war.’

  All nodded.

  ‘I can’t see how that’s possible—to stand above the conflict,’ Bartou said.

  Edith spoke up, ‘I think there can be a happy overlap of positions.’

  They all looked to her.

  ‘How so?’ said Lester.

  ‘As I see it, the British—all those who want to defeat Germany and its allies—need something to fight for.’

  ‘You mean war aims?’ Lester asked.

  ‘That’s what I mean, precisely. The League might be one of the things people would consider fighting for … well, a bright, new and better League. We might see ourselves as a war aim. Ostensibly, this should be the preferred outcome w
hatever side wins, but we know that only one side would consider it truly admirable.’

  There was an odd silence.

  ‘As I understand it from the dribbles I get from home,’ Ambrose said, ‘there is precious little time at present to think about After the War. It’s all that Churchill can do to keep fighting on.’

  ‘That gives us a job to do. We should communicate to Churchill our thinking on life after the war,’ she said. ‘And After the War is something we could think about. We have the time if Churchill doesn’t.’

  ‘To do that we need sane leadership,’ said Lester, ‘Which brings us back to getting rid of Avenol.’

  ‘As members of the Secretariat we have no authority: the member states will have to force him out.’ Bartou said. ‘But there’s no way that the members of the Supervisory Commission can meet: Norway, Canada, India, UK, Mexico and Bolivia—impossible.’

  Lester said he would get back to the British and to Hambro in Norway. ‘Hambro’s still Chairman of the Supervisory Commission and President of Assembly.’

  ‘May I again interpose?’ Ambrose asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Lester said. ‘You’re one of us.’ He laughed, ‘That is, if you want to be one of us.’

  ‘Thank you. As a non-League person I cannot really be one of you—but I realise now, listening to you all, that I know something which I had assumed you all knew. And which may take the worry out of much of what you say.’

  ‘Which is?’ Lester said, sounding disconcerted by the bumpy way the meeting was going.

  ‘The French government in Vichy is going to leave the League and it’s asked Avenol to resign from the League.’

  ‘The French have asked Avenol to resign?!’ Bartou was astounded.

  Edith was stunned for a double reason. It was a surprising move—and why hadn’t Ambrose told her!?

  ‘That’s what my informants tell me,’ Ambrose said. ‘I was talking to someone very close to the French government in Vichy.’

  The group was seriously surprised.

  Her stomach was churning with the emotional reaction to Ambrose’s silence about this with her.

  ‘I gather that the French feel it’s inappropriate for a Frenchman to be Secretary-General given the circumstances,’ he added.

  ‘That makes sense and it means it’s over—the crisis,’ Aghnides said. ‘Avenol is out.’

  ‘If he takes his instructions from Vichy,’ Ambrose said. ‘That we don’t know.’

  ‘Yes, he will take his instructions. Vichy has no foreign policy other than that which pleases the Germans. He may well wish to be part of the Vichy government,’ Aghnides said.

  ‘From what I’ve heard, that may well be,’ said Ambrose.

  Ambrose had been withholding things from her. He was leading a secret life again. He had been sitting on this information which implied that he was, well, seeing people and hearing things and not passing what he heard on to her.

  And she employed him.

  True, they’d lived apart for a month or so. But still, they’d seen each other frequently.

  She struggled to dismiss her sense of betrayal.

  She’d hoped never again to feel as sickened as she had years back, when she found out that Ambrose had been passing information to the British while working at the League and while being her friend. And had not told her.

  What he’d done back then had been wrong and clandestine, and she’d felt betrayed. She’d thought that was now all behind them. She now felt betrayed again.

  ‘What happens,’ she managed to get out, ‘when Avenol resigns? Who appoints his replacement?’

  ‘The resignation would go to the Chairman of the Supervisory Commission—Hambro. We assume he has power to appoint a replacement,’ Bartou said.

  ‘And that would be you, Sean,’ said Aghnides.

  ‘Or you, Thanassis.’

  Oh God, were they going to fight over the bone now?

  ‘We are both from neutral nations—but you are Deputy Secretary-General,’ Aghnides said. ‘Furthermore, it would upset Avenol more if you become S-G. That is reason enough.’

  Chuckles.

  While paying attention to the discussion, Edith’s mind kept returning to the sense of injury she felt from Ambrose’s withholding.

  She was scarcely able to think.

  The meeting seemed to have had the wind taken from its sails by the news of Avenol’s imminent demise and fell silent.

  Events had decided the day: not them. Just as it had been with the League.

  We can’t even make a successful conspiracy, she thought. We weren’t even able to manage a coup.

  She had envisaged calling in the League huissiers—or perhaps people from Securitas—to have Avenol forcibly removed from the office. Instead, he’d fallen like rotten fruit.

  She would have preferred the dramatic removal.

  And now, for all their plotting, it seemed she alone had been betrayed.

  Lester tried for humour. ‘I suppose all that remains now for us is to arrange his farewell party. Perhaps that will push him along. Maybe we should just go ahead and organise it. Surprise him with it.’

  There was much relieved laughter, except from her. She wasn’t going to organise a farewell.

  Lester said that it looked as if this would be their last meeting.

  ‘And congratulations to you—Mr Secretary-General elect,’ said Aghnides.

  The meeting broke up.

  She and Ambrose remained on at her suggestion. She said to Lester that she would close up. The others went off in a happy mood.

  Lester gave Edith money to pay for the room. She waved it away. ‘They have given us this room, compliments of the management.’

  ‘Well done, Edith.’

  The whisky had not been opened. Lester looked at it, smiled at her and left it where it was.

  Ambrose and she remained.

  She got up and went over and opened it and poured herself a drink. She didn’t pour Ambrose a drink.

  To hell with him, too.

  He got up and poured himself a drink.

  She waited to see if he would comment on the situation—whether he was even aware of it.

  He was. He said, ‘You’re hurt?’

  Sounding like a young girl, she denied it.

  ‘You are—about the information I had on Avenol’s resignation.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?!’

  He reached over to her, ‘Don’t be hurt. It’s a messy situation.’

  She avoided his hand. ‘Tell me, then. Explain why you wouldn’t let me in on it?’

  ‘It was information which came through Bernard.’

  ‘Oh, the Molly telegraph—the Molly Gossip Circle,’ she said with derision. ‘The Buggery Club.’

  ‘Edith, Bernard, as you well know, is a very good source of information and I can’t always break the confidences he asks of me.’

  ‘Am I, then, out of his confidence? Because I am a woman and not a bugger? Why?’

  She stood up, drink in hand, and went to the window. ‘Is it because I can’t bugger?’

  ‘Now, now. I know that you’re sensitive because of the bloody silly things I did before—in the old days. This is not like that. I’ve apologised for that. And I’ve paid for it, God knows. I lost you for a time. I lost my position. You know that I would never put our friendship at risk, Edith, ever.’

  ‘It’s not just a friendship.’

  ‘Quite right. It’s not just a friendship. Edith—we’re living in dangerous times and all information has to be handled carefully now. Gossip is deadly and dangerous. People’s lives now depend on this information and we must make sure that it goes only to those who must have it. Today at the group meeting here, for example, are people who should have the information which I had. You alone—maybe not.’

  ‘Why not me alone?!’

  ‘We can all make slips of the tongue. And remember that you yourself were, until recently, in a strange game of double deception with Avenol. With tho
se around you.’

  ‘I feel betrayed. You promised no more secrets.’

  ‘There are no personal secrets: there may have to be secrets of war.’

  ‘Bernard usually tells me everything,’ she said, still sounding like a sulky girl. ‘My little heroine,’ she mimicked.

  ‘He admires you enormously.’

  ‘But can’t trust me?’

  ‘He does. The situation is changing daily and information becomes more dangerous and more fraught. And there is something else you should know about Bernard, which I will tell you even though it’s confidential. Highly confidential. Seriously confidential.’

  ‘What? More secrets of the Buggery Club?’

  What was the full extent of Ambrose’s private relations with Bernard anyhow? She had never questioned them until now. They seemed to be simply close friends. Maybe they were more than that? God knows.

  ‘Bernard is a delegate for the International Red Cross. He goes on missions for the Red Cross to gather facts about, say, treatment of political prisoners and others—to the prison camps in Germany—and reports back here to the Red Cross. This is not a public fact. If it were he would be jeopardised. He is not supposed to share his information with anyone.’

  She was surprised and impressed. ‘I didn’t know he was a delegate.’

  ‘Delegates are not supposed to be publicly known. We have to be careful not to compromise him. What he gathers as a delegate is not available to the public. But he sometimes chooses to pass that on to people who might be able to help in some private way.’

  She had not calmed down.

  ‘Think of it like this,’ he said. ‘The public—the voters, if you like—have the right to the truth from every minister except the Foreign Secretary. Maybe the Secretary for Defence, as well, is exempt from always telling the truth.’

  ‘Why the Foreign Secretary?’

  ‘All citizens realise that in a military or international crisis you have to take what is being said as an interim statement of affairs. That more will come later. That all cannot be told now.’

  ‘I do not accept that.’

  ‘Because in foreign relations the telling of the truth is not always in the national interest at a given time. The truth must ultimately be told but cannot always be told there and then. Sometimes the Foreign Secretary has to leave it to history to tell the truth, because telling the truth in the heat of a situation could, for example, endanger lives, or make negotiations impossible to complete successfully. It is the unspoken understanding between the public and the Foreign Secretary. Of course, when he lies he must have damned good justification for that lying. And almost always, he will be held accountable for that suppression of the truth. But withholding is part of the responsibility of his office, at times.’