by James Hilton
'You are, I am sure, quite proud of that. It is like your English boast that your policemen do not carry guns, and that your speakers in Hyde Park are allowed to say what they like. It is all so very true--up to a point. But where IS that point?'
'Yes, indeed, since it's getting on for two o'clock and we resume our official discussions at eleven.'
'M'sieur Anderson, you have come to the point yourself with great accuracy. I do not think that I shall be resuming any official discussions.' Palan pulled out a case and chose a cigar, offering one to Charles.
'No, thanks. . . . What do you mean?'
Palan lit his cigar with deliberate slowness, but Charles was now tolerant, for he could detect emotion behind the movement and knew that everyone is entitled to some such technique of delay and self- control.
Palan said: 'You who have made so many small jokes about me at the Conference--and of course I know you have--must now learn that the biggest joke of all is not ABOUT me, but ON me. Simply this--that I have been recalled to my country.'
Charles was silent, asking the question merely by the way he placed an ashtray at Palan's elbow.
Palan continued: 'They are not satisfied with the way I have conducted its affairs at the Conference. They think I have not been strong enough.'
'WHAT?' In his utter surprise Charles was aware of a pleased puzzlement that anybody should think his own side had had even any degree of success, and an equally puzzled and sudden sympathy with Palan which, as he diagnosed it, he knew to be absurd. He exclaimed: 'But that hardly makes sense! It's MY country that should complain, not YOURS! Why, dammit, you've had your own way nine times out of ten in everything so far!'
'But you do not realize, M'sieur Anderson, that nine times is not enough for my country. It must be ALL the times. Anything less than that is failure. Of course you cannot understand that. You cannot understand the methods of the cold young men who are rising to the top. So I will tell you what will happen now that I have been recalled. They will send you one of them to take my place and he will not give way even that tenth time. He will be like my son.'
'Then the Conference will fail.'
'It has already failed. Though it may continue for some time after my successor arrives.'
'But how about your chief in all this? Surely he must back you up-- you're under his direction--he can hardly let a subordinate be blamed--'
'You think he cannot? Remember, M'sieur Anderson, that as a nation of innovators we are capables de tout.'
'But what's the evidence against you? If you'll accept a left- handed compliment, I think you've handled your side of things deplorably well.'
'It is charming of you to say so. Such a testimonial at my trial might be of great help.'
'You're not serious?'
'Or perhaps no, there may be no trial. I shall be liquidated without any.'
'Oh, come now--It can't be so--so--'
'So SERIOUS, eh? You are now seeing the joke?'
'I must admit I--I mean, it's hard for me to--'
'Because naturally you are not afraid of being liquidated yourself?'
'ME? Good God, no.'
'Your people do not do that sort of thing, as I am so well aware.'
'Even if we did, I don't think Sir Malcolm and I would be in much danger. Responsibility for the failure of the Conference is so obviously not ours.'
Palan considered this for a moment, then said half whimsically: 'M'sieur Anderson, will you forget you are a diplomat for a moment and answer truthfully a very simple question?'
'I can't promise, but you can ask.'
'All right. . . . Just this: If, by pressing a button, you could set off an earthquake to destroy my country, what would you do?'
Charles smiled grimly. 'I wouldn't want to destroy your country, but if by pressing a button I could destroy your government I'd not only press it, I'd lean on it for an hour to make quite sure.'
'So when you forget you are a diplomat you become a schoolboy?'
'It was a schoolboy's question.'
'Would you have answered it differently when you were one? Our Revolution took place when you were at school--how did you feel about it then?'
'So far as I can remember, everybody was most enthusiastic. We all hoped your country was going to become more like our own.'
'And of course you could not set for us a higher standard.'
'I daresay. We were very naďve. We still are. We're a naďve country.'
'It is your rightful boast. Nothing else could have saved you in 1940. . . . But I wonder if our personal positions had been reversed--yours and mine, at that early age--I wonder if I should have been more like you, or you more like me?'
'I doubt the latter. I can't imagine myself dynamiting trains.'
'Oh, but I can. Very easily. . . . Surely you will not admit that there is anything an Englishman cannot bring himself to do in an emergency? Why, you have even beheaded your king--a somewhat more barbarous regicide, would you not say, than the one you condemned us for recently? In our country yours has always had many admirers, including those who--returning the compliment, as it were-- hoped that yours was going to become more like ours. Or does the idea of that shock you?'
'If you mean going Communist it doesn't shock me at all. I personally would be against it, but if it had to happen we might do a better job than your people have. Of course it wouldn't be the same job and we shouldn't give it the same name. Your own melancholy example would guide us a lot in what to avoid, but besides that we have certain advantages--our Civil Service, for instance--reasonably efficient and free from corruption. Then too our traditions, which we should keep as intact as possible--and our constitution that so happily has no existence in any written document. After all, a thousand years' experience of making changes IS rather a help in disguising them--next to the Papacy I daresay we know more of the tricks of successful survival than any other institution in history.'
'And all THIS . . . from STUFFY ANDERSON!'
After the initial shock Charles was neither so startled nor so affronted as he would have expected. He merely replied: 'I suppose you overheard that somewhere.'
'A few of your younger colleagues--speaking of you entirely without malice.'
'I'm quite sure of that. Anyhow, it doesn't matter.'
'Of course not. It was just their way of liquidating you.'
'WHAT? . . . Oh, nonsense--why, I've had that nickname for God knows how many years.'
'Then God must also know how long ago you began to be liquidated, my friend. But as you say, it does not matter. Successful survival is what counts--more than victory.'
'Successful survival, in this world, IS victory.'
'You are doubtless right--and that is another reason why the real joke is on me. . . . May I?' He put his hand to the whisky bottle, adding: 'You said it is an acquired taste. I have already acquired it.'
Charles smiled, but watched with some dismay while Palan poured himself a very generous amount. Palan then raised his glass with ceremony. 'A toast . . . will you permit one?'
'If you like.'
'A toast, then, M'sieur Anderson, to your country--where they liquidate you alive and imperceptibly--so that you can remain so useful as well as ornamental for such a long time.'
'Palan, that's all very amusing, I'm sure, but I'm still in the dark about the real purpose of your visit at this time of night.' Charles then realized he had dropped the prefix to Palan's name-- with him a rather significant stage of intimacy. What he really wanted to convey, as a fellow professional, was that he was sorry for Palan's personal predicament; but as a diplomat he was much more skilled in expressing regrets he did not feel than those he sincerely did. He compromised, therefore, on a remark that could have any meaning Palan chose to give it. He said quietly: 'It's very late--but don't let that discourage you.'
Palan stirred restlessly, as if probed by one or other of the possible meanings, then put his hands to his temples in a sudden access of emotion. 'M'sieur Anders
on, have you ever--in your life-- been AFRAID--of anything?'
'Why, of course.'
'When? Of what?'
'During the war--in some of the air-raids. And other times too.'
'Did you ever--do you ever--have dreams in which you are afraid-- and when you wake up you are afraid even to remember them?'
'I don't know about that, but I sometimes dream I'm at some important function without the right clothes. Embarrassing enough.'
'Without the right clothes? And that is all?'
'Sometimes without ANY clothes. I think the psychiatrists would call it a recurrent anxiety dream. Most people have one kind or another--actors, I understand, dream of forgetting their lines--'
'And what kind do you suppose is mine?' Charles noticed that Palan's breathing had become heavy, as if he were under increasing stress--or else, perhaps, the half tumbler of whisky was beginning to take effect. 'I will tell you, my friend. I will tell you of the dream I have had lately, time and time again.' Palan leaned forward with hands clenching and unclenching. 'I have dreamed that I am back in my own country--in the city of Gorki where I was born-- Nizhni-Novgorod it was in those days--but I am there again and it is today in my dream--No, it is not a dream, it is already a nightmare--I am there, and yet I cannot remember how I made the journey or what possessed me to do it--and I keep saying to myself in my nightmare--Why did you do it? Are you MAD? Why are you here? There is no chance now that you will ever leave again--why did you come back? Why?--Why?--WHY?' Globes of perspiration swelled out on Palan's forehead as he repeated the word.
'But then you wake up and find yourself in Paris.'
'For the time. But there is not much more time.'
'When are you supposed to leave?'
'My replacement is due to arrive by air tomorrow. I am expected to return by a plane that leaves tomorrow also.'
'Expected to?'
'You said "supposed to". I said "expected to". What we both mean is "ordered to" . . . After tomorrow, if I am still in Paris, I shall have burned my boats. Perhaps I have already begun to do that. There were men in the street just now . . . and after all, it would not be surprising . . . I have been careless at times--I have the old kind of brain, the European kind, the brain that slips its leash and scampers off for adventure and the fun of things . . . I have perhaps laughed too much . . . and you may have noticed, M'sieur Anderson, that in your excellent company I am still able to laugh. So if they have followed me here there can be little doubt in their minds.'
'But there are still some doubts in mine.'
'I know. It has been rather sudden--I mean, my decision what to do. I did not reach it, finally, till I walked past Rocher's by chance last night. By chance. Utterly by chance. My body was wandering with my mind--not far, but suddenly too far ever to return. I was under a considerable strain, you understand, and to see you there so comfortable, so gemütlich, eating your ice cream like a good bourgeois--to see you there so--so en famille . . . for I took the lady to be attached to you and not to your son till you explained. But perhaps I was right after all. If so, I congratulate you. Only in America could anyone so charming be still unmarried. It is a great country and they are a great people. Just think--they call this city Paris, France, in order to avoid any possible confusion with Paris, Texas, and Paris, Illinois.'
Charles smiled. 'I think your mind's still wandering. Let's get back to the point. Where were we?'
'In the Paris streets. You cannot imagine what my emotions were. I had walked for hours--and miles.'
Charles said quietly, as to himself: '"It is not many miles to Mantua, no further than the end of this mad world".'
'Pardon?'
'A quotation . . . nothing . . . MY mind was doing it then. . . . Go on.'
'There is no more to say. I am just waiting . . . for courage . . . to destroy by a single act the work and faith of a lifetime.'
'Perhaps the faith, at least, is already destroyed.'
'Yes . . . dissolved in fear.'
'And disappointment. I don't think, Palan, fear alone would have brought you.'
'You are kind to say that. It is why I have come to you instead of Sir Malcolm--a whim, I admit--just as the condemned man in one of your English prisons is allowed to choose what he wants for his last breakfast--how truly civilized that is! . . . Forgive me--I am overwrought, near the breaking point, and at such a time I cannot help seeming to take these matters lightly.'
'I understand. I'm a little bit like that myself.'
'I have noticed it, and it makes you simpatico--whereas I do not find Sir Malcolm simpatico.'
Charles could not repress a sharp twinge of pleasure, for he too had never found Sir Malcolm simpatico. He said: 'Sir Malcolm's indisposed, anyway, so perhaps--'
'Perhaps it is even en rčgle then, as well as a whim, that I should put myself in your hands?'
'In MY hands?'
Palan bowed slightly. 'If you do not object, M'sieur.'
'Oh, not at all, not at all.' Charles muttered the formula with which an Englishman sloughs off anything that causes him too little concern--or too much. As he did so he returned Palan's glance levelly and with a good deal of shrewdness. The situation was clearly of a kind he had read about lately, in newspapers and books and also in official reports; it had not happened to him before, but it had to a few others, though perhaps never so disconcertingly as to that Scottish nobleman when Rudolf Hess suddenly dropped into his back garden. . . . Charles said, as casually as he could to cover the flurry of his thoughts: 'Very well, Palan . . . but of course you know I can't promise anything officially--I'll have to talk to Sir Malcolm tomorrow, and he'll no doubt refer the matter to London . . . Though naturally if there's anything on your mind I'm at your service for as long as you wish--all night if necessary.'
'So now at last you are willing to lose your sleep?'
'In a good cause--always. Do you mind if I jot down a few things as you talk?'
'You evidently take it for granted that I have much to say.'
'I would assume so, yes. You'd hardly expect us to accept your bona fides without some more--or perhaps I should say--some LESS tangible evidence than yourself in person.'
'Not only simpatico but a smart cookie.'
'WHAT?'
'American for clever chap. You should learn American--might be useful some day.' And then, as if a breaking point had actually been reached, Palan's mouth became shapeless and speechless for a moment, while his eyes could only stare strickenly. Charles said, with sudden compassion: 'I've no authority to say this, but if I were you I wouldn't worry about catching that plane tomorrow.'
'Or about NOT catching it?'
'Perhaps that's what I really meant. Because surely there comes a time when counting the cost and paying the price aren't things to think about any more. All that matters is value--the ultimate value of what one does.'
'That has been your philosophy?'
'I've tried to make it so.'
Palan mopped his forehead and Charles waited, feeling he had said all he could to convey those of his emotions that were both expressible and permissible. After a long pause Palan said: 'I beg your pardon. I am in control now.' He moved his hand again to the bottle. 'May I--once more?'
'Certainly.' But Charles took it and began to fix the drink this time--a much less potent one. While he was so engaged he said quietly: 'So you were born at Nizhni-Novgorod.'
'You know the city?'
'I've never been there. It used to have a big fair every year, didn't it?'
'Oh yes. The Nizhni-Novgorod fair was famous all over the world. In those days. But not any more. Nothing is the same any more.'
'No, I suppose not.' Charles handed him the glass. 'Don't gulp it now. It's whisky, you know--not ice cream.'
Perhaps because this was the feeblest of all the jokes that had passed between them, they both laughed immoderately, seeking to relieve the tension that had gripped them and was also drawing them together. Then Palan said: 'Before I
begin to talk seriously . . . one more toast--to OURSELVES--to the stuffy shirt and to the old hothead . . . The one not so hot, as they say in America, and the other--perhaps--not always so stuffy. . . .' He raised his glass. 'I take it that the nickname is from the phrase "stuffy shirt", is it not?'
'You mean STUFFED,' Charles corrected. 'No, nothing to do with it at all--at least, not in origin. But never mind . . . let's get to work.' He raised his own glass and muttered 'Cheers' or something that remotely sounded like it, then drew a notebook and pencil from a drawer of the desk.
* * * * *
Late one night a week later Charles wrote from his room at the Crillon:
My dear Anne,
I daresay you'll have seen from your Times and Herald-Tribune that l'affaire Palan has become public. It's pretty big news in the English and European papers, and my name has been given some prominence--more, in fact, than a minor diplomat could expect or desire. I must say it seems odd that after a lifetime of doing my job with fair success and no publicity at all I should suddenly achieve headline fame (or is it notoriety?) because an allegedly reformed character calls me simpatico and gives me the kind of eulogy generally reserved for obituaries. Of course the situation, as well as being politically gratifying, has caused some private amusement among our own people, but I shall hope to live it down if only Palan will stop giving interviews. However, the whole thing is probably no more than a nine days' wonder, though it will give me something extra to put in my book--which, by the way (and doubtless as a result), Macmillans have tentatively agreed to publish. So I really must begin work on the thing soon.
The new man they sent over to take Palan's place is just what he forecast--glum, grim, youngish, bald, and pink-cheeked, like a rather nightmarish baby. We have had our first clash already. Somehow, though, I don't think our people will waste much more time here--everything since the Palan defection has been really anticlimax. I shan't be sorry to get back to London again, especially now you are back in America. In a rather complicated way (which I shall perhaps have the chance of explaining to you some time) you yourself are at least partly responsible for the outcome of the Palan thing, though of course neither of us could have been even remotely aware of any such chain of cause and effect-- any more than (I will also explain this to you some time) the monkey that bit the King of Greece in 1920 could ever have supposed he was changing the history of the world. On consideration the parallel does not seem too flattering, but I will let it stand since (after so much that Palan has said about me) my reputation as a farceur is well established . . .
