Dark Palace

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘Give me an example.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know—say if one’s nationals were to be secretly evacuated—from some country and that to say so would endanger the evacuation—the Foreign Secretary in this situation might deny that an evacuation was taking place.’

  ‘And you see yourself in the position of Foreign Secretary of the Buggery Club?’

  ‘Please stop using that expression. Maybe yes. I’m your Personal Secretary but I also play a role in the secrecy of the Molly Club.’

  ‘The other palace. The Buggery Palace.’

  ‘Perhaps you and I are both Foreign Secretaries—on the same side, but from different countries.’

  ‘I thought I was a member of the Molly circle?’

  He pondered this.

  ‘You are as close as anyone to Bernard, but you cannot escape your other position, your position as member of the League inner circle. I suppose the interests of both overlap but are not identical. Damned tricky at times. You do this with Bernard too, you may not be aware of it. Sometimes you duck or mislead in your answers to him.’

  He had made his point. Things were messy.

  ‘Couldn’t we form an overriding alliance—an alliance of two?’ she said, calmer now.

  He smiled but looked perplexed.

  She went to him and kissed his hair, then stood near him, her arm on his shoulder. ‘There’s some sort of other thing isn’t there, with Bernard and the Molly? It’s not only the Red Cross—it’s a …’ she tried to find the words for it. ‘You’re bound together because of your way of life, shall we say? A brotherhood of sorts?’

  He looked at her. He seemed to have considered things and come to a decision, ‘I think you should consider yourself part of that brotherhood, as you put it.’

  ‘As a woman?’

  ‘As a woman.’

  ‘What caused you to change your mind?’

  ‘As I said, the situation is changing daily.’

  ‘We haven’t seen those women who used to come some nights to the Molly. I suppose they have gone. They worked at the ILO. All sent home.’

  ‘You are another kind of woman.’

  ‘And what kind of woman am I, pray tell?’

  ‘I don’t know what kind.’

  She smiled at him. ‘What a mess it all is.’

  ‘It is a mess and it’s going to be a bigger mess.’

  ‘Can you trust all at the Molly?’

  ‘Not all.’

  ‘There are many new shapes for friendships, alliances and bonds,’ she said.

  They were all in webs of strange allegiances.

  Sticky webs.

  He poured them another drink.

  She suddenly laughed.

  Ambrose looked at her.

  ‘When you were asked to give a summary of the situation they all thought you would tell them insider Foreign Office thinking,’ she said, laughing. ‘If only they knew. If they knew where you got the information. Which Foreign Office you really represent now.’

  He smiled. ‘I don’t get all my information that way, Edith.’

  She went on laughing. ‘Oh hell, we could give up on the world—go to South America,’ she said. ‘The Peruvian Permanent Delegate offered me a posting there this week.’

  ‘It’s tempting.’

  ‘However, I made up the A List. So I have to stay.’

  ‘The A List?’

  ‘We now have four lists in the League. A List is the sixty-nine people, including me, who are to stay on as a nucleus whatever happens. The B List is a smaller group who will now go home but remain on call, the C List is most of the League personnel who have now been given choice of suspension or resignation, and List D is some Swiss staff who would become caretakers of the building if all of us had to go or were arrested by the Germans or whatever.’

  ‘The A List are those you would invite to your party, I presume.’

  ‘And the circular reminds those staff being sacked to leave the keys of their apartments or houses with their régisseurs. Avenol is on no list.’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘So the League dwindles,’ he said.

  ‘The lights are going out in the offices. It’s becoming darker. Victoria is going across to the Red Cross. At least she’ll still be around.’

  She sat down beside him, her arm around him. ‘I don’t think my parents raised me to be a member of the Buggery Club.’

  ‘I hate that expression. Would they mind?’

  She thought back to her father and mother. ‘Perhaps. We always think our parents have a childlike innocence. I guess they don’t.’

  She stood up and faced him, and taking his hands pulled him to his feet and led him over to the bed in the room.

  ‘Edith Berry, you amaze me.’

  She folded down the bedclothes.

  She took off his jacket and began to undress him. He in turn began to undress her.

  And they made love as a very conventional couple would make love, very simply, and Ambrose, she found, was rather manly.

  Afterwards they lay together in silence.

  Ambrose spoke first. ‘What about the rumpled bed?’ he asked. ‘Given that the room was rented for a private meeting?’

  ‘Ah yes, the bed.’

  She looked at him and laughed. ‘Let the management speculate about it. C’est la guerre.’

  ‘You entertain four men in a hotel room? Edith, you will certainly be remembered in Geneva.’

  She blushed. ‘I will have to take the risk of that rumour. May enjoy that rumour.’

  As they dressed, she wondered if perhaps Ambrose needed to have secrets in a childlike way as part of his sense of his own specialness and for his own sense of importance in the world.

  If so, perhaps she should let him keep some of those secrets.

  Only Night

  On her birthday, October 10, 1941, Edith met Ambrose for dinner at the Perle du Lac, at his invitation. ‘I’ve decided it’s to be my last birthday,’ she said, as she sat down.

  ‘Oh, nonsense to that,’ he said. ‘Let’s stare age in the face.’

  ‘You can stare. I’m looking away. And I don’t thank you for going to all this trouble to remind me of my age.’

  The table had been especially arranged, the best table overlooking the lake, with acacia decoration. ‘And thank you for not putting a stuffed kangaroo on the table.’

  He laughed, ‘An oversight—I’ve almost forgotten what nationality you are.’

  ‘Australia has never looked more attractive …’

  Her favourite wine, a sparkling shiraz, arrived and Alphonse, the maitre d’, obviously alerted by Ambrose, expressed the management’s best wishes and brought a bouquet of flowers. And then M. Doebelli himself came over and wished her joyeux anniversaire. There was a hand-written menu which she glanced at and saw was a selection of her favourite dishes.

  When Doebelli left, she looked across at Ambrose and said, ‘This is not going to be a happy birthday celebration, I’m afraid. I really should’ve called it off.’

  ‘Can’t call off your birthday. Only thing you can’t call off. Oh, there is another important event you can’t avoid but we won’t dwell on that. Did you have an office function?’

  ‘The usual cake in the Library which Lester turned on at morning tea. It was all rather touching. So few of us there now. Let’s stop the birthday talk.’

  ‘I will not be deflected from my duty as birthday host. We will stare age down. We will defy it.’

  ‘It may be a birthday we never forget—when you hear what I have to tell.’

  He chuckled, ‘My dear, what incredibly wicked thing could you possibly have in mind!’

  When she refused to join with him in his jolliness, he looked across at her face. ‘Unforgettable? How so?’ he said, reverting to seriousness.

  ‘I’ve heard some strange news.’

  ‘We hear nothing else but strange news. Family?’

  ‘Not family. This news is more than strange—more d
readful. Or more dreadful than any we’ve heard so far. I’m sorry to bring it to the birthday party but I heard it only today. It has to be talked about.’

  ‘What is it!? Let me guess …’ he pretended it was a guessing game. ‘New Zealand has fallen?’ Part of him was still resisting all serious talk. ‘Am I warm …?’

  ‘It’s serious, Ambrose, and it concerns you. Concerns us.’

  ‘Tell me then.’ He seemed frustrated in his role as host.

  ‘I was called over to Red Cross headquarters by Victoria. She introduced me to a young man who is seeking help to stay in Switzerland. Or that was what we assumed he wanted. It wasn’t altogether clear. A German.’

  ‘So? They come in every day—we are all approached by these people.’

  ‘This was different. At first we thought he was simply another refugee with a sad story. It seemed that he wanted to tell us something. It was as if he didn’t know quite how to say it.’

  ‘Edith, get to the point.’

  ‘He wanted to tell us that the Germans have begun murdering people … en masse.’

  ‘It’s wartime. That’s what war is about.’

  ‘This is hard to describe and I haven’t quite understood it.’

  Caviar arrived, preordered by Ambrose. Beluga. More than she’d seen for some time. In the earlier days at the Leaguethere’d been much caviar but the killjoys had put an end to that.

  ‘Thank you, Ambrose! You know I’ve been yearning for caviar.’

  She had to force herself to be appreciative, although it was, in the circumstances, probably the only food she could digest.

  ‘You’ve talked of nothing else for months. I took the hint, as they say. It’s becoming impossible to get—thanks to Germany invading Russia.’

  She exaggerated her savouring of the first spoonful, eyes closed. ‘Bliss.’ It did taste wonderful, but it was not accompanied by true gastronomic abandon. ‘Thank you, darling.’ She dabbed her mouth with the serviette. ‘I’m sorry, but I have to go on with my bad news.’

  ‘If you must.’

  ‘It’s more than just individuals—they’re rounding up specially designated parts of the civilian population.’

  ‘To be killed en masse?’

  ‘Yes. It seems that way.’

  ‘C’est la guerre,’ he said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘This isn’t just warfare. There is a weird and frightening sound to it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Civilians such as those who frequent the Molly Club are part of it.’

  ‘Who go to the Molly Club?!’ He laughed.

  ‘Even the word murdering is too imprecise. Annihilating. The Germans are it seems planning to annihilate the likes of you. And others. Jews. And others.’

  He looked at her. ‘Surely you mean that they’re ill-treating them. We know that. You mean they’re forcing them out? We know that.’

  ‘I’m not talking about those sorts of things. I’m talking about mass shootings and working people till they drop. Worse, he told of plans to electrocute them en masse. All.’

  ‘All—all at once?’

  ‘As fast as they can manage—with these newly devised methods.’

  ‘How can we be sure?’

  ‘I don’t know. I heard it from this man only today.’

  ‘It sounds highly improbable.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘And you hear this through this one German?’

  ‘Victoria believes it.’

  ‘She’s not always the best judge of character.’

  ‘She’s hard-headed and practical.’

  ‘True. And can that be done—electrocution en masse?’

  He sounded determined to doubt her.

  She shrugged. ‘The Germans are rather good at technical matters. So we are led to believe.’

  ‘Edith,’ he said, ‘leave this till tomorrow. Eat your caviar—forget it for tonight.’

  ‘I can’t forget it. Even for a night. It was in this man’s face—he seems connected with the Nazis. These are your friends who are being killed. Our friends. People we met in Berlin in the old days.’

  ‘Why would they bother?’ he said.

  ‘It’s crazy.’

  ‘Why would the Germans do that? And why the likes of us? And why don’t we have a name for ourselves?!’

  ‘The Germans say—sexual vagrants.’

  ‘How in God’s name did this German get onto the subject?’

  ‘He mentioned other civilian groups that the Germans are killing—Jews and so on. And he mentioned urnings. Which Victoria and I interpreted as “half-women”.’

  ‘He actually said the word urnings!?’

  ‘Is that what it means?’

  ‘He actually used that word!?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked away across Lake Léman. She looked back to him with deep perplexity. ‘Until I came to Geneva I’d never met a Jew. Or, for that matter—your lot.’ She rolled the word ‘urnings’ in her mind.

  ‘You’d never met a Jew?’ he asked, carefully spooning a morsel of caviar into his mouth.

  ‘Did you always know Jews?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve known Jews all my life.’

  ‘I think Liverright was the first Jew I ever met. And Rabbi Freedman who came to the 14th Assembly from Australia. He was the first Rabbi that I’d met.’

  Ambrose looked away from her and out of the room as if he were caught on a hook, twisting, not wanting this sort of conversation.

  ‘What are Jews like?’ she asked.

  It was, she saw, a rather silly question.

  He answered flippantly showing his impatience with her question, ‘The men carry their money in a purse. The married women wear wigs so that gentiles cannot see their hair. What else do you want to know?’ He laughed to himself and muttered, ‘Some similarities to the Molly crowd.’

  ‘It was a stupid question.’

  He drank his wine and said with a low voice, ‘There are those at the Club who pretend there’s no day—only night. I have to say that I’m more and more inclined to be like that.’

  ‘Also to pretend that there’s no war?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘And no women—only men dressed as women.’

  ‘Yes—only a make-believe world.’

  ‘Feel free to go. Go now, if you like.’

  She was becoming annoyed.

  ‘Edith.’ He reached over to her. ‘I might pretend there’s no war and no day. But the sad thing is I have to pretend to pretend.’

  ‘I know you do.’ She persevered. ‘Let me tell you the rest of the story.’

  He drank deeply from his wine glass. A waiter came over and refilled his glass.

  ‘This German says he’s a steward in the service of Heinrich Himmler. He tells us that Himmler and his staff have been instructed to plan and prepare something of a party, some time in the next month.

  ‘This planned party caused gossip among the staff because Himmler rarely leaves Berlin. The party is to celebrate the opening of a new sort of plant or factory or whatever they call it, for the beginning of these killings.’

  ‘I really still can’t see why the Germans would bother.’

  ‘I can’t explain it, nor can our young German friend.’

  ‘How young?’

  ‘Say twenty—it’s below-stairs gossip. And what’s more reliable than below-stairs gossip? The villa is owned by Schulte’s company—we’ve met Schulte, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes, we both met him here in Geneva at the Molly.

  ‘I remember.’ What in God’s name was this important German doing at the Molly? How mysterious that place had become.

  ‘His lodge is in the forest of Katowice. I’ve actually been there.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Oh, before I came back to Geneva. It’s near Krakow. It’s not what you, Edith, would call a fashionable “spot”.’

  ‘Do I call everything a spot? What a lazy little word.’ Ambrose’s connections also weighed her d
own. Why had he been to this man’s lodge before the war? She couldn’t be bothered pursuing it.

  ‘You do use the word rather a lot.’

  ‘I may use it but I don’t believe I use it a lot!’

  She hated most his correcting of her English.

  ‘Oh, doubtless it’s etymologically sound. I suppose Milton and so on used it that way. I happen to think that it’s time the word was confined to meaning a pimple or a stain. I can’t help but think of a pimple or a stain whenever you use it.’

  ‘I do wish you would consider before you decide to correct me, Ambrose. Correction shows poor breeding.’

  ‘Or true friendship. Apologies.’

  ‘Don’t stop correcting me, just find a more tolerable way of doing it. Write to me. Or become more the discreet friend who whispers nicely that your stocking seam is crooked.’

  ‘Consider it done. If you’ll always tell me when my seam is crooked.’

  ‘I still have Jeanne correcting my French. Although I’m now beginning to think that she’s sometimes wrong.’

  They sat silently while she allowed the annoyance of the spat to pass—she didn’t like the word ‘spat’ either, and she was sure Ambrose would grimace if she used it.

  She returned to the news. ‘It doesn’t add up,’ she said.

  ‘They’ve been killing pockets of Jews here and there. That’s been in the press,’ he said, at least making an effort to discuss it.

  ‘It seems that they now wish to kill them all—systematically. That this, this factory or camp or barrack has been constructed to do just that. What’ve you and the Jews done? What sort of trouble have you all been up to?’

  Ambrose dipped at the caviar and drank resolutely as if trying to avoid the matter.