Standing by the long white table stacked with bottles was the Greek scholar and politician, Michail Stasinopoulos, looking puzzled that the photographers had not yet recognized him. In a later picture I was seen as if raising a fist at him, though actually passing him a plate. André Malraux was encircled by women in smart Italian trouser-suits, though more concerned with a lofty, glowing, untidy English poet, Mr Spender, beside whom he looked much smaller than his publicity pictures. He was lively, dark hair loose over features tallowy, lined, sharp at the chin and frequently twitching as if at a fly. He appeared troubled by his breathing, almost in pain, constantly flicking his nose. His eyes, large, shadowy, yet, seen closer, streaked with red, looked past his companion and the women as if inspecting several others simultaneously. When the Englishman hesitantly began some response, Malraux, whose thoughts filled three continents, from a small green bag selected a sugar lump with some care, though surely all were identical. I thought he might be about to place it into the other’s wide mouth but, shaking his head, he replaced it.
Knowing of Wilfrid’s interest in Malraux and friendship with Spender, I moved closer through the noisy, absorbed crowd, at an angle shielding me from their notice, though in another photograph, in the morrow’s Matin, they appeared to be awaiting my verdict on a momentous dilemma. A black gentleman in unfamiliar uniform joined them, hands in continuous motion as if tying a parcel. Nervy, Malraux smoked constantly, speaking so fast that I heard only fragments. ‘A failure … Palmyra … Aurelian … AD 70 … Quattrocento.’ Wilfrid had respected his work on Goya and his Spanish Civil War movie, though distrusting his Arabian escapades and intimacy with Lawrence, Prince of Mecca. His Resistance exploits were still being belittled for alleged thefts of Cambodian art treasures and his desertion of the Left for his hero, de Gaulle.
Near me, I saw, bearded, fair-headed, thickly glassed and, at first sight, nondescript, Primo Levi, Italian partisan, poet, linguist, industrial chemist, friendly yet seeming to reserve space to repel the unwanted. He actually spoke to me, asking if I possessed ‘what was wanted’. And that? ‘A good memory.’ Curiously eager, he asked about my parents, hopes and about Estonia. My replies won approval and, eyes brightening, reaching to me beneath the high forehead, he touched my elbow. ‘Don’t forget. Always remember.’ He himself seemed tightly suppressing emotions or recollections, and I remembered that a German lady once, very grandly, enquired where he had acquired such excellent German. ‘At Auschwitz,’ touching his arm, marked 174517.
He had gone but had braced my self-confidence, convincing me that I was on the outskirts of history, as I had been as a boy watching a Rathaus ball, listening to the Herr General talk of Count Bernadotte, the Reichsmarschall, the Gutter King or standing to attention beneath Pahlen’s portraits. Scarcely Talleyrand at Vienna, I might pass as delegate of a vanished republic. Malraux’s rosette gleamed like a medal, his dark suit became battle dress, momentarily I was with him low-flying over Franco’s armies or escaping a Nazi prison camp. Such a man could be boxing champion, river-boat card-sharper, Freikorps captain, confidante, then righteous betrayer, of a Napoleon.
I was within a giant glass paperweight, which, reversed, transforms summer to snow storm. In this great mansion, Fouché, hiding from Robespierre, had conferred for an instant with Barras, the latter terrified for his mistress’s life, and from such brief moments came Thermidor, Hagen’s curse upon power. Vast tasselled curtains, giant chandelier, grandiose paintings, ornate mouldings of bacchantes and centaurs, unperturbed by the scowls and hatreds without, would outlast us all, save, perhaps, an immemorial Dr Miracle, who, barely seen, like Primo Levi, forgets nothing.
Followed by television cameras we were shuffling into the ballroom, hung with old gold-and-crimson tapestries. On the orchestra dais, richly caparisoned, the committee was already seated, Wilfrid inconspicuous at one end. The rest of us found chairs in the long, curved rows beneath, and, perhaps in kindness, Trilling seated himself beside me, for which I was almost tearfully grateful. ‘They say,’ his voice was soft but with each word distinct, pointed, ‘that we can expect, by my standards, an unusually fine dinner. Before that …’ His shrug was rueful, in civilized good-humoured forbearance. Then, as if reminding me, he indicated people of whom I had never heard – Nathalie Sarrault, Roland Barthes, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot … I was reassured when he confessed his unfamiliarity with Paris. ‘I hope you can tell me …’
His preliminary shrug was justified. The morning’s chairman, a Brazilian novelist, bright yellow, with few hairs, plenty of stomach, read telegrams, wholesome but repetitive. Truman, de Gaspari, Nehru, Monnet; from Attlee, Hannah Arendt and Churchill, who aroused the loudest acclaim. Then from the UN Secretary General and a recorded sermon from Thomas Mann, during which Malraux, a row ahead, sat with arms sternly folded. Now an American citizen, Mann reminded us of the traditional values and value of Old Germany. This elicited much approval, save from Malraux. Not so the congratulations from Jung, received in unpleasant silence. Even I remembered his pre-war salute to the SS, as a knightly caste, spiritual élite, outriders of the New Order and who had mocked Stauffenberg and the July Plotters as lions quarrelling over a hunk of raw meat. The vision of them gasping and twitching on the rope was a frozen glance from the unspeakable.
The chairman was at last urging us to guarantee the rehabilitation of Europe, the simple hand clasp, he ventured to believe against any opposition, was the only authentic passport. On this, a resolution was accepted, not quite unanimously, to dispatch a message of friendship to the Kremlin.
The high, scarlet-pelmeted windows could have been permanently glued, against Jacobins, Communards, Paris in bad temper, the warmth thickened by smokers. Already resisting drowsiness, I saw Wilfrid far away, his studied sympathetic assent to a rigmarole of platitudes.
From the floor – no one ascended the dais – a German gentleman in beige, all correct lines and smart half-seen handkerchief, had risen, Trilling leaning back in slightly incredulous distaste.
Despite his opulent suit, the speaker was nervous, apprehensive, plaintive, his face like frayed rubber, drooping sideways, his hands as if confused by gloves slipped on to the wrong fingers, while he began in low, somewhat clammy French, the accent correct but as though he did not wholly understand the meaning of the words.
‘Yes. In war, we Germans submitted to pressure but were determined, adamant, that, if we must bend, we would not break. In the spirit of the martyred Gandhi, we submitted but refused inner allegiance.’
He hesitated at a flutter of unease, during which Trilling, not lowering his voice, informed me that Herr Doktor Otto Flake was a Bavarian novelist, blatant supporter of the Hitler–Stalin Pact as the triumph of generosity, who had published substantially, profitably, throughout the regime and who had, in murky circumstances, been acquitted by a de-Nazification court.
‘Yes, we maintained our dignity and what our people call honour, by refusing to beg for the prizes offered in safe centres, in neutral lands. We were forced to join the barbarous Party House of Culture, but …’ he held the word like a dangerous grenade, ‘we held our souls tight, the true culture represented in this hall today. The inner freedom instanced by Kepler, by Hölderlin. We owed it to Germany to survive at any cost, independent of politics. The only true politics is in the spirit. Our true Führer was Goethe. Some of us called our beliefs Internal Emigration.’
The silence, that of subdued tensions, enabled us to hear, more clearly, the seething menace on the streets, ominous as swords clashing on shields, dreaded by emperors. Unmistakable was the clatter of mounted police, then another silence, the Bavarian voice now louder, more satisfied, ignoring Trilling’s interjection, quiet but startling, ‘Cultural scoundrel!’ Heads turned, Malraux nodded approval, and coughs and mutters forced Dr Flake to sit down. Relief was provided by a recording from an African poet, his ‘Ode to the Unnoticed’.
Then another German, unrhetorical but with controlled passion. ‘We knew wha
t was happening and we did nothing. That was our Internal Emigration. Our eyes were open, our skins shuddered and we waited for brutes to tell us our next move. Internal Emigration! Choice words for those seeking to swim on dry land, get drunk from empty tankards, fortify themselves with words. All words published under the Third Reich stink. One should never touch them.’
Hands twittered and thrust, like Bourse dealers; some were clapping. Mr Spender, beside Malraux, head glistening like Parsifal, was pink with approval. Above us, Wilfrid was impassive, others worried or undecided, until Martha Gellhorn, in a few staccato, invigorating sentences, pleaded not for tolerance, mysticism, eloquence but alertness and analysis. A French existentialist academic, at a nod from the bulky commanding Brazilian, demanded that Europe should seek Freedom: from idolatory, weak notions of self, history, the myth of the unconscious. ‘I ask for the Essence,’ he concluded, though none of us could stand up and supply it.
These mouthings could not be for what Wilfrid had laboured, but that he himself, with his aversion to oratory, would address us I doubted. The Algerian deputy was protesting against colonialism, with a flair for nineteenth-century abusive phrases, but afterwards the verbal criss-cross was as tepid as Herr Flake’s soul-movements or Rising Tide. Another resolution was acclaimed, another postponed. An Iranian quoted Voltaire emphatically but, Trilling murmured, inaccurately. Expectations of Wilfrid’s protégé, François Bedarika, Catholic historian and Maquis fighter, were disappointed. Some saint must soon assure us that American racialism was journalistic propaganda, that Show Trials, Purges, the Pact, had never occurred, the Baltic states had never existed. Even the Revolution choked itself on ideals.
At the buffet interval, on the lawns secluded from the uproar of the barricades, now, apparently, in retreat, Trilling left me, to join a more fervid debate amongst French and Poles, about the moral validity of Americans executing Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for atomic espionage and treachery. I could not hear Trilling’s opinion but guessed him liberal almost to excess, while a grey-haired, grey-suited man smiled shyly, before speaking to me in English. ‘I am so glad to meet you at last. I hope the Atlantic crossing did not upset. But you probably flew with His Grace.’ His plump face was vague at the edges, the smile as if pinned to settle the slack mouth. He added, ‘When you are back home, be so kind as to tell Miss Bette Davis that she is still what, in once-popular parlance, they called the tops.’ I refrained from telling him Davis’s alleged assessment of a rival, that she was the original Good Time Had by All.
Despite the general clamour, there was unmistakable listlessness and discontent. Nehru was in Delhi, Churchill in Morocco, Russell had been blown off course by a tantrum and was now sitting down in Trafalgar Square to delay the Bomb. Signor Levi was departing, though pausing to shake hands with me, excusing himself by his horror of public speaking. The eyes, behind spectacles, though confiding, were also shrewd. ‘Don’t forget,’ he repeated, almost whispering.
Trilling rejoined me for the afternoon session which began with a torrent of accusations from an exiled Polish painter, scorched face, hair like a black biretta, French like a grating file. Soviet generals had invited sixteen Polish leaders to confer with Marshal Zhukov; they complied and were shot. British generals had done likewise in Carinthia, betraying Russian and Serb anti-Bolsheviks to Stalin and Tito. Appeasement, he told us, was muck and sewage, sewage and muck. We should use scythes, we should use bullets, in extremity we should use … But loudening discomfort blocked out the last horror. We were, despite his outcry, appeased by an Italian actress in a dark velvet pyramid-shaped hat topped with blue aigrette. ‘Such sentiments’ – she spread hands – ‘such intolerance …’ her thick brows rose almost into the hat. She spoke of the onus of new circumstance, the dilemmas of crisis, the need to forget history, true or false. Listeners wavered between politely applauding sincerity and shrugging at operatics.
A diminutive Dutch lady had replaced the Brazilian chairman, and, the proceedings on the verge of lapsing into fuggy void, she signalled to a stocky Belgian ex-general, ‘The Hero of Gravelines’, ex-minister, whose savage temper was reputed to have helped lose King Leopold his throne. Unprepossessing as Southern Spite, he lectured us, reinforcing his reputation, rasping, threatening. Before he finished, it was as though the ‘Radetsky March’ had blown through us.
‘Retribution is sanctioned by religion but again and yet again is rejected as disgraceful, uncivilized. But, on behalf of millions, I maintain that, as Nuremburg proved, it can be necessary as bread, medicine, wine. It is tribute to the dead, the shattered and bruised. It restores moral balance, totality …’
He was grimacing as if about to chuckle, his thick moustache a caricaturist’s prize, his hands like a schoolmaster’s, raised against a class incorrigibly stupid. ‘The Crucifixion, bloody and torturing, was revenge, upon Evil, Tradition, Human Nature itself. My message, then? This. That whoever declares himself detached, unprejudiced, impartial, I fear as I fear smallpox.’
I would have liked to have heard Levi’s response. Though the Belgian was forced to his seat by unanimous dissent, Wilfrid shaking his head, Spender protesting, Trilling disapproving, I did not myself feel impartial towards those Russians or Germans, who had eliminated my family.
Though another had been granted the right, Odd Nansen was already speaking, compelled by feelings stoked by the Hero of Gravelines. Very tall, so stiff that, bending, he might crack, very noisily, he was using a clumsy but powerful French, surprising from his mournful, perspiring, spaniel-like face, and as if stubbornly breasting intractable waves. In mounting agitation, he constantly changed stance, anxious to reach all parts of the ballroom, even the tapestries, insignia of the deposed and lost.
‘I, too, am concerned with Retribution. In the camps I saw it. Day after day.’ This received a cheer, for Day After Day was the title of his recently published narrative of captivity. ‘M. Antelme will understand.’ Another cheer, Antelme half-rising. ‘Nor, in my hopes for European changes, do I crave the unreal. M. Cocteau has said, here in Paris, city of Voltaire, of Jaurès, that the purity of revolution lasts a fortnight. But a daytime’s purity is hard to discover anywhere. In the camps, good people volunteered as spies, as executioners, for a few extra months of life.’ His massive hands tightened, relaxed, as if of themselves. ‘Mesdames, Messieurs, all occupied countries supplied recruits for the SS. My Norwegians formed the SS Nordland Division. In the camps, we were privileged, Honorary Teutons. I myself, in respect for my father, was brought special food from the Commandant’s house.’ He quietened, as if confiding to old friends. ‘That Commandant had been a Christian missionary. We called him the Storm Prince. He had a greenish-yellow colour and brown, venomous, stinging eyes under that cap with its death’s head and crossed bones. He hanged seven thousand, anyone under his gaze, gypsies, Jews … anyone. Yet that man, with his tiny eyes, foul laugh, his sharp teeth, sharp as ferrets’, had charm. And we Norwegians, the privileged, thrust others aside to jostle for his favours. We all beat, kicked, betrayed. We stole food from the most wretched of all, the “Mussulmen”, hollowed-out remnants of life, who had totally surrendered. We lifted the arms of the dying, to snatch their bread. All Europeans are kin to the SS captain who told his American captors that he ignored terrible conditions because they only concerned others.’
While he wiped his face with a handkerchief like a tablecloth, a different silence enveloped us, not admiring, not purposeful but timid, actually afraid, though I was uncertain of what. The big, fair man, in the loose, ill-fitting blue suit, with the badly knotted tie and clumsy manner, swallowed, shook himself like a bear, resumed, unnaturally straight, as if barely recovered from surgery.
‘I must finish … finish I must, with this. Lenin instructed us that hatred is the gist of Communism. That, in a sentence, is the case against it and its imitators. So, I repeat … that in the camps, we, who should have been Europeans, refused to unite, we remained nationalists, sectarians, party members, haters. We pre
ferred politics to civilization. None were immune, not even Jews. Now, in a new Europe, we have to share the boat with the young. If it sinks, the Storm Prince will rescue us, one armband red, the other black. So let us not, I appeal, be like the Wise Man of Gothland who sawed off the branch on which he sat.’
He received the loudest acclaim since Churchill, though Malraux’s arms still did not stir. Mr Spender was hot and scarlet with appreciation, agog for the New Europe, and Trilling and I exchanged comradely smiles. Wilfrid might be correct: that conferences, committees, certain schools, libraries, households, a particular walled garden, his Gascon bistro, were dikes against the barbarism that had poisoned assemblies, unions, regiments, erased a European civility like the Revolution before it. Yet, I hesitated, both Stalin and Eisenhower must have thought themselves as dike-kings, preservers.
Succeeding speeches were too professional, too righteous. The microphone was faulty, so that two women, internationally admired, were alternately shrill and inaudible. All seemed in rehearsal, not yet word-perfect, unlikely to start a children’s crusade, ridicule the virtues of suffering – the Pétainist curse – and the boldness of Internal Emigration. A Lyons historian eloquently demonstrated that the war had been won by the superiority of French values. A British woman minister, short, red-haired, argued that the war had been justified by providing opportunities for decolonization and social reform. An Austrian youth, who should surely have worn lederhosen, well nourished, pale hair smeared on honey skin, delphinium-eyed, spoke of his father, killed by Russians in Kiev, his mother, killed by the British in Dresden. However – his pretty, indeed angelic smile assured us – he forgave everyone. ‘Industrial West Germany will lead Europe.’ He awaited applause that did not come. A Czech philosopher apologized for his country’s attitude to minorities and declared that the problem of existential freedom was no problem at all. Trilling showed no relief.
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