Dark Palace

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘Did you do it to confirm his story? Is that why you did it?’

  As she said it, it sounded like a pretty thin reason, anyhow.

  ‘To be honest, no.’

  They were both held there in painful silence.

  She thought something had gone wrong with the line. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello.’

  He was still there.

  ‘Thought we’d been cut off,’ she said coldly.

  ‘I am still here, Edith.’

  She filled with pain and jealousy. She could no longer contain it or control it. It overran her.

  She suggested icily that he should pick up a few things from the apartment and go back to staying at a hotel for a while.

  She said she did not feel like his company.

  It was not jealousy, she told him. It was the whole nature and context of the act.

  She said goodbye and rang off.

  Alone in her office, she wept.

  What had happened was a brutal reminder that Ambrose perhaps had no scruples and that this could cause him to endanger her, endanger everything, endanger himself.

  It was Ambrose’s sheer indifference to morals or to character or, more, to personal aesthetics which she found incomprehensible.

  Beyond the pale.

  He seemed to be able so easily to put aside all that was decent and sensitive so as to indulge his proclivities. He disregarded all that was fine about his class. His mind. His taste.

  She simply did not understand it.

  Above all this, infuriatingly and paradoxically, she was already feeling demeaned by her jealousy.

  Her telephone call to Ambrose had demeaned her.

  She was demeaned in a myriad of ways which now collapsed in on top of her—by Ambrose having gone with Dieter, by her having an outburst of jealousy, by allowing her personal feeling to interfere with such a potentially ghastly and momentous matter.

  All these things. All.

  Head on her desk, she cried—sobbing, smothering tears.

  She saw her tears absorbed by the desk blotter.

  All these things.

  Crying, she went to the door of her office and locked the door and even closed the inner door.

  Falling into the armchair, she gave herself over to crying and sobbing.

  After a time, her crying subsided.

  She dried her tears, but remained slumped there in the armchair.

  Did it mean that Ambrose just didn’t care? Where did they all stand? Was he becoming ill again?

  She did not know how to save Ambrose or how to save their hopeless love—yes, their hopeless, hopeless love.

  Tennis Court Oath

  Heavy-hearted, she put on her pleated cream tennis skirt and white stockings, examined the skirt and stockings for dirty marks, sponged out a tennis-ball smudge on the skirt from last week, dried it in front of the gas fire, and then forced herself to go to tennis, wondering if Ambrose would turn up.

  He hadn’t called at the apartment to pick up his tennis things, so she assumed not.

  When he didn’t show up for tennis the others asked her where he was.

  ‘Off colour,’ she said.

  ‘Aren’t we all,’ said Jeanne.

  The others booed Jeanne, crying out, ‘Bad for morale!’

  The tennis club struggled to keep up morale and to give the sense that life was going on with some normality, or more exactly they kept it going so that when and if the war ended, they would still remember how to behave.

  They were practising normality.

  The club was down from sixty-three members to seven. She had continued to turn up during the Avenol charade despite some odd looks from some of the others. But they all placed tennis above office politics.

  ‘I might be just a spectator today,’ Edith said, slumped on the bench.

  ‘Off colour too?’ asked Irene from the ILO.

  ‘I feel spectator-ish,’ she said. ‘I’m just not up to it today.’

  She knew they wouldn’t let her get away with it. The rule was you had to play, whether you felt like it or not.

  ‘You know the iron rule,’ Victoria said. ‘You made the rule!’

  ‘I did,’ she said, getting out her racquet.

  It would take her mind off things.

  She played a rather lackadaisical game, her play so poor that she did not need to conceal her tennis skills at all. Since rising to the top of the club competition—and that was before the numbers had dropped—she’d learned to play clubbable tennis, concealing her natural ability and the coaching which had turned her into something of a champion. To win too often was not good diplomacy. Or good club practice.

  She did sometimes go all out, and would win hands-down to show herself that she could do it and, well, to wipe the floor with the others out of a sheer desire to win and to check that the talent hadn’t gone away as surprisingly as it had appeared.

  After her game she went to the clubrooms to have some barley water.

  Victoria came over and said confidentially, ‘How did it go with the German?’

  ‘Ambrose and Bernard think he’s sound. I don’t want to talk about it now.’

  Divining that Edith wasn’t happy, Victoria looked at her quizzically, put a hand on her shoulder and then left her alone. The hand on the shoulder was something she could not recall Victoria ever having done before.

  From time to time she’d be swept with a sense of ghastliness about the whole business, horror-stricken by what Ambrose had done and sick at the idea that again their relationship had come undone.

  It must have showed on her face because Jeanne also came over, ‘Seriously, are you not well?’

  She made a face at Jeanne which conveyed to her that it was to do with affairs of the heart rather than the body and Jeanne patted her back but did not pry.

  Again, as in the old days, Ambrose had proved devious.

  Perhaps not devious.

  What then, if not devious?

  He had again proved to be hurtful to her.

  That was not precise enough either.

  The others who weren’t playing slumped around the clubroom engaged in endless desultory chat about the war, rising prices, and what to pack in the escape haversack. And then the last game was over.

  A special cake came out accompanied by a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday!’

  Inwardly she groaned. She’d thought she was going to get through the day without any of that.

  Irene produced a bottle of cognac. They all cheered and a small party began.

  At least no one asked her age.

  Before the war they would never have drunk cognac at tennis but there was a for-tomorrow-we-might-die feeling at many occasions now, regardless of the nature of the occasion.

  They even sang a couple of songs there in the tennis house, which she noticed badly needed paint. The International Tennis Club was all that had ever been achieved of Sweetser’s grand plans for The International Club with his vision of games rooms with billiard tables, small lunches and dinners, the League Swimming Club, lakeside facilities, boats.

  He’d dreamed of an American-style country club there in Geneva. To improve the way we live and play, he’d argued.

  Ah, dear old Arthur.

  They had begun to pack up when Jeanne said, ‘Ambrose must be feeling better,’ and gestured over to the gate of the club.

  She saw that Ambrose had come to the gate of the court and was standing waiting for her, obviously not wishing to come in. A taxi was parked at the kerb.

  ‘Why doesn’t he come in?’ Irene said, and then called to him and beckoned, demanding by her gestures that he come in.

  Jeanne looked at her for an explanation. She simply shrugged.

  Ambrose waved and then strolled up to the clubhouse, saying hello, fielding joshing about his having missed playing, responding with a careful vagueness to the questions about his health.

  How could he be so collected?

  ‘You’ve missed the cognac. All packed u
p,’ said Irene. ‘And the birthday cake. All eaten.’

  Edith wished he’d not turned up like this.

  She was caught. They held back, separating from the others as they left.

  ‘The clubhouse needs painting,’ he said.

  ‘It does.’

  He said that he had a taxi waiting.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to talk with you,’ she said. ‘Or if I wish to.’

  ‘I have a lot to say.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what.’

  ‘You could go home and change and we could go to a café. Have drinks and then an early dinner?’

  She had learned a lesson about love and restaurants. When she’d broken off their affair the first time, before she’d married Robert, she’d learned that breaking off should not be done in a restaurant. It acted out a sad occasion in the ambiance of happier days; it prolonged the agony over the length of the meal; and it spoiled the dinner.

  And there was nowhere to cry.

  ‘Let’s talk here,’ she said.

  ‘Here?’

  He went to pay off the taxi.

  They sat outside on the benches, looking at the pine trees in the cool of the fading afternoon, looking at the empty courts which also needed maintenance.

  ‘This is rather austere.’

  ‘Speak,’ she said. ‘Let’s get it over with.’

  She leaned forward, resting on her racquet, the silver chain of her identity necklet cold on her neck, her body seeking the warmth of the weak afternoon sun.

  He tried to take her hand. She withdrew it from him.

  He put his hands in his pockets and stretched out his elegant legs with their elegant unribbed long black silk socks, elegant black handmade shoes.

  He spoke first.

  ‘I would never betray you. I might disappoint you—but never betray you, never,’ he said.

  ‘If the disappointment is grave enough, it comes close to betrayal. Betrayal of expectation. A betrayal of your good taste.’

  ‘I agree with the last—abysmal lapse of taste. Part of the appeal of it, I suppose.’ There was something a little unserious about his tone.

  ‘I’m seriously hurt,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t accept your level of gravity.’

  ‘You will have to. Ambrose! How could you have done it!?’

  ‘I will try to explain. It was nothing more than an impulse. And I refuse absolutely and categorically to be downcast about it.’

  ‘I am downcast.’

  He made a restless movement of his body. ‘It’s to do with abnegation. Abnegation of all that we live by. The urge to fall into the black abyss. I just had the impulse. The impulse to throw off all the boring things of decorum—the things we really value. When I fall down into the abyss I believe momentarily that I’ll never have to return to these things—that somehow I’ll be free of the mundane demands of life. And the agonies around us.’

  ‘I don’t see that what we have together could be described as mundane?’

  ‘Oh, there’s a deadly regularity—even in our lives. And anyhow, I felt that we had an understanding about these strayings of mine.’

  ‘It was more than a straying—it was my birthday. You went creeping off with a despicable person.’

  At first, she saw that the compounding of all these relatively small things—the lapse of taste, her birthday—changed the nature of the thing into something gigantically grotesque. Of course there’d been nights when he’d gone missing—but she’d considered that these had not been her business, given that they each had their own bedroom, and often slept alone, and were not married.

  And the missing nights had been quite rare.

  And after them, he would tell her the details of his escapade and usually it would be rather sensually stirring for her to hear the dirty details.

  The telling in all its detail had been a gift to her and had raised their relationship above anything else that had happened, above any casual encounter.

  The birthday night seemed an altogether different matter. And there had been his unsettling behaviour at the Perle du Lac. His irresponsible turning away from the world. His refusal at first to meet this wretched Dieter.

  There’d been a certain collapse of character which had disconcerted her.

  True, he had tried to explain—that he’d been overtaken by a premonition of doom and so on.

  But still.

  Then, as she ran through this review of her feelings, it all seemed suddenly to be just a pile of inconsequential things.

  But they weren’t. They weren’t inconsequential.

  Beside her, Ambrose continued in his quiet, placating voice. ‘The birthday had been postponed on the night—I thought we’d abandoned that, at your request.’

  She had silently to concede that to him. ‘But it was—underneath it all—still my birthday.’

  He laughed at her. ‘Indicting me for a crime against birthdays?’

  She nearly smiled. She stood up to maintain her indignation. ‘I’m leaving if you continue treating this as a joke.’

  ‘Sit down, Edith.’

  He reached out and held her in place. She struggled, relented, and sat down again.

  ‘He was disappointing in bed, as well,’ he said. ‘Lacking.’

  He was trying to recapture her with his brazen remarks.

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  She shouldn’t have said that. Saying that was to join up with him a little in his devil-may-care attitude. It was not in keeping with her indignation.

  He seized on it. ‘He wasn’t despicable in the good sense. He wasn’t really able to do his duty.’

  ‘Could’ve been your fault.’

  Again she shouldn’t have said that. She was being caught up in his brazen current.

  ‘True—I wasn’t wearing lacy lingerie.’

  She pulled back from this kind of talk. ‘This is not what we’re here to talk about. We aren’t here to talk about your lingerie or lack of it.’

  She put on an angry voice.

  ‘But it’s the interesting part, is it not?’

  Again she had to suppress an unwanted smile.

  Oh, this was hopeless. She was succumbing to him.

  She lapsed into a dissatisfied silence. Her indignation wasn’t getting its due.

  She had a burst of pain inside her. ‘Dear God! Did you really need to bed him!?’

  ‘It’s a branch of espionage—bedding.’

  ‘That explains your expertise in the field of espionage.’

  Ambrose kept on, disregarding her fury, ‘Given that we now trust Dieter, the question still remains about what we’re to do with his information—and with him.’

  ‘I’m no longer interested.’

  ‘Dieter wants to stay in Switzerland and wants our help. Or to be precise, he wants our money and our help.’

  ‘Send him back.’

  ‘We have an obligation. He’ll be a deserter from the army.’

  ‘An obligation? Or do we simply need him around to satisfy your appetites?’

  ‘I’ve lost interest in him—the unwholesome shine had gone by morning.’

  ‘You are a very decadent person.’

  His face became contemplative. ‘Do you really think so? God knows, I try.’

  ‘And you have muddied the mat.’

  ‘What a horridly apt turn of phrase. Who then the mat, I wonder?’

  ‘Ambrose …’ she said, with exasperation which wasn’t quite positive enough.

  It was hopeless. She was succumbing both to his amoral charm and to her crying need—the almost desperate need to return to a happy bonding with him—at the expense of her grievances. At the expense of her outrage. At the expense of pure decency.

  She needed him—he alone in all her world.

  Hell.

  ‘What do we do with him?’ she said abjectly, exhausted by it.

  ‘We can find a visa for him—through Bernard. Send him up to Zurich where he will fit in with the Swiss Germans.’<
br />
  ‘And what do we do for all the others?’

  ‘I have given it thought.’

  He’d changed his position on it. Maybe he was making a concession to her.

  She looked at him, still trying to hide the love which must have been there in her eyes despite all. ‘And what conclusion did you reach?’ she said, trying for a businesslike voice.

  ‘We can get some visas. Or forged visas. They’ll have to get out as best they can. Bernard and I went to the Jewish Agency this morning. There’ve been other reports.’

  He had listened to what she’d said. And he’d done something.

  ‘Can’t see that what we can do will make any difference,’ he said.

  ‘You do not know if it’s your shot which wins the war,’ she said.

  She began to weep.

  She was nearly at the end of her tether. ‘You did wrong with Dieter, didn’t you? Tell me. I can no longer see wrong or right. Tell me?’

  ‘I did wrong by hurting you, but what I did, I did not do to wrong you. Never in my mind did I feel I was wronging you.’

  She looked into his eyes, trying to find her way back to their strange logic, the strange logic which underlay their life together.

  He held her chin in his hand. ‘You are forever secure. But you know that for me not to follow the beast within would be disloyal—to us. And for you not to follow some of your impulses would betray yourself and betray us. Remember how we sometimes say that the highest way of life is to be above respect ability.’

  ‘You sophist.’

  ‘With Dieter it was the bad taste of it that appealed. You alone in all the world understand that—that is what makes you my one and only soul mate.’

  ‘I do understand, most of the time—most of the time I’ve relished it. Most of the time. This time it was hard.’

  ‘I see that. This time was hard. But I will try to make you relish it.’

  ‘Please—please make me relish it.’

  She took both his hands, bringing them to her cheeks.

  They kissed then, in reconciliation. When the kiss had finished she was without any resilience or sense of grievance or so-called rights of self. She simply ached to kiss more. To go on kissing.

  ‘There’s one other thing,’ he said. ‘When we were talking to Dieter I realised that Dieter was right—we are hens which do not lay eggs. That in the eyes of the world—how to put this? This dreadful masquerade with life that I play—this pretence against nature, this argument with nature. What I do is against nature. I realised this and it devastated me.’