Grand Days

by Frank Moorhouse

  She nearly said that all the problems of the world were related. But it echoed Ambrose’s pathetic presentation on famine. That way lies madness. There be monsters.

  ‘Bartou suggested that I be sent along and you vetoed that.’

  ‘Only to keep this out of the League.’

  ‘Because of the Catholic members?’

  ‘I think that we should let this matter mature outside the League first. I don’t believe that the debate is at a point where it could be successfully considered by the League.’ He didn’t respond to her mention of his religion.

  She could no longer find her indignation. She realised that in confronting Sir Eric, she was carrying through some sort of personal formality. She could no longer see what she wanted as an outcome. She was no longer sure that she wanted to be put in a position of resigning. She thought that she might simply want to be able to say to herself that she had registered her position. She went on with her case but her voice became that of a junior officer seeking guidance, not that of a birth control reformer. ‘Don’t you think, Sir Eric, that controlling the quality of the human stock is important? If you had a magic wand, wouldn’t you remove the suffering of deformity and insanity from the world?’

  He thought for a second or so. ‘I believe that we can feed all the children of the world if we become less wasteful. Surplus population could be allotted to the new countries and to Japan. I would rather we rely on compassion for those who enter life regardless of their “quality”.’ He then added, uncomfortably, ‘In extreme cases, I would rather rely on the humanity and compassion of doctors and nurses exercised with wisdom. Not on broad laws.’

  She said, ‘I really wanted to say that we should be listening to what scientific people are saying on this.’

  ‘I was about to give you advice,’ he said, a wry smile coming to his face, ‘but I then recalled an embarrassing piece of advice I once gave you which proved not to be wisdom at all. I think about that day very often.’

  She smiled. ‘I too. But I would still like to hear your maxim.’

  ‘I was going to say to you that even the supreme values of mankind are not necessarily always compatible. Rain may be good for the farmer and bad for the cricketer. Serious discussion may be good in one arena and dangerous in another. Listening to scientists on eugenics or racial purity may be intriguing for individuals such as yourself and Dame Rachel but bad for the League at this point in history. The Secretariat should not introduce onto an agenda those things which will disrupt our other work. But what do you advise?’ he asked.

  ‘That officers go in a private capacity.’

  ‘You know that while the League invites “observers” to our activities, it is impossible for the League to ever be simply an “observer”. Our presence is always a form of recognition.’

  She nodded. ‘We could send technical people. Or junior officers. That would temper the League’s presence?’

  ‘Do you wish to go?’

  Suddenly she did not. ‘No.’

  He seemed pleased. ‘May I ask if you have a position on the matters at the conference?’

  ‘I suppose I’m swayed by scientific thinking on racial hygiene but I still have trouble seeing how governments could do it.’

  ‘Forced sterilisation has begun in South Dakota in the United States. Sterilisation clinics for people who are considered not capable of parenthood,’ he said with obvious disapproval. ‘I don’t like the idea.’

  Edith said, ‘Perhaps colonies could be set up for the unfit. With segregation of men and women. Only to prevent genetic contamination and racial pollution. Or maybe financial incentives should be offered.’

  ‘Or penalties? Regardless of my Catholicism, I believe that some questions should be for ever put out of the reach of scientific experiment and government officials. And of the League.’

  They sat in silence for a moment or so. Her mind was blank. The issue had for her closed. Tiger knocked and put her head around the door. ‘Sorry, Sir Eric, sorry, Berry, but Monsieur Avenol is here.’

  She stood up. Sir Eric stood up. ‘Thank you for giving me your views, Berry. You’re always welcome in this office.’

  She looked about the office. She had first entered this office as a thief in the night, illicitly signing letters in the name of the Secretary-General. She had then been here on that remarkable morning when she had become a daughter. Or was it that she had become almost a wife? She was here now as an officer making her point with a confused heart.

  They shook hands and he held her hand that second longer which said that he and she had a compact and were above being separated by disagreement on policy. And that her personal practices would not change anything between them.

  As she went up to her office to call Robert, she realised that there had been an even deeper purpose behind her confrontation with Sir Eric. It had been to reconnect with him, to discover if her special tie with Sir Eric still existed and to silently reconcile her own controlling of birth with what she knew to be Sir Eric’s view. She had gone to his office to seek his blessing. How petty and personal her behaviour seemed. And would she have behaved differently if that blessing had not been offered and if the compact had not been reaffirmed?

  She reminded herself that she had not betrayed Dame Rachel or Rationalism.

  She stood on the landing and rested her forehead on the glass of the window looking out on Geneva. She loved both Sir Eric and Dame Rachel. And Bartou. It was essentially subaltern love, the gratification of giving loyalty. Yet over the years it had become more that distinctive love which grew among ‘a band of brothers’. Perhaps it was both of these forms of love. She saw that she was reluctant to let go of her subaltern status. But soon age would not allow her to serve and shelter there.

  She went to her office and called Robert on the telephone. ‘I’m not resigning.’

  ‘Good. I think that’s the right thing to do. Did you have a row?’

  ‘No.’

  In bed that night she felt close to screaming. It was all so contrived and extraneous. ‘I will get up and try again,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all right. It isn’t worrying me.’

  It plainly was worrying him. She stopped herself talking about it but thought, I must get it right. From the very start.

  She eased him away and he withdrew from her gently and rolled on to his back, sweating, a hand on her stomach, still aroused. He leaned over and kissed her, perhaps to keep the mood of concupiscence alive. She pulled down her satin nightdress and left the bed and went to the bathroom. The nightdress had been meant for their wedding night but she had decided that this night would need something of powerful feminity and voluptuousness to see them through. She had been right. For a moment she thought about removing the cap and leaving it, forgetting about the whole business, but knew that would be spineless. She crouched and went through the procedure again. She applied a little of the oil which had been supplied, washed her hands, and returned to the bed, still on the edge of tears.

  They coupled again, she wanting to have done with it, and to put behind them the first time with the device. She didn’t expect to be able to surrender to it but he whispered that he felt nothing, and then went on to whisper strange lascivious things, caressing her with provocative words about the hot suck of her opening and its tightening, and soon, contrary to all her expectations, she was deep in waves of sensation which rolled through her and without straining, she used the lessons given to her by Dr Monet. Soon nothing much was in her mind and she relaxed away, knowing that it would be all right, and their physical love was complete.

  They sat there at breakfast, Robert reading the day-old London Times, she reading the Journal de Genève. He was dressed in his dressing gown and regimental pyjamas. The pyjamas were the only thing he and Ambrose had in common, although of different regiments — that is, on the occasions when Ambrose had worn pyjamas.

  ‘About last night,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘One thing,’ he
said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I liked what you did, while we were together in bed. Was I enjoying the proceeds of your worldly experience?’

  She smiled and said, ‘No. Womanly arcana.’ She pulled a tantalising screen across it all. She was, perhaps, learning when not to speak.

  A feeling warmed and encompassed her like a cloak, the feeling that her personal life and bodily person, were in order and were safe. There over coffee, in the chilly sunlight, with the newly baked rolls, the blackberry jam and the good white salty butter from the market, she could see now that things were in order.

  She told him that Caroline Bailey had written from London congratulating them and saying she and Liverright would be coming to the wedding although she ‘didn’t believe in marriage’. John had sent congratulations on the letterhead of Leader of the Opposition. Her father had written, saying that if the good Rationalist Bernard Shaw could be a pallbearer at Thomas Hardy’s funeral in Westminster Abbey, he could attend to give his daughter away in the English church of Geneva. Her father was thrilled and envious that she’d met Bernard Shaw at the last Assembly. The invitation to her brother, not unexpectedly, was returned ‘not known at this address’.

  She said that Ambrose had not replied to their invitation.

  He made a consoling face. She experienced the bewildered sadness which came to her now and then about Ambrose. Some nights she awoke and lay in bed in alarm, fearing that her conduct about the spying and about Ambrose’s illness had been misjudged. What if his spying had been harmless and of no consequence? Done for foolish but well-meaning motives? What if she had been ignoring his love for her over the years for her own purposes? What if she had broken his heart? Before she could return to sleep she would have to go over every detail of it again to assure herself that she had behaved honourably and compassionately, to convince herself yet again that it was not in her power to heal him.

  On the Monday morning they always had a hurried breakfast.

  ‘I must catch the tram and go to work,’ she said, looking at her watch.

  ‘And you’re not resigning,’ he confirmed.

  ‘I am not resigning. I promised Bartou I would stay until the disarmament conference.’

  ‘If you stay until the world is disarmed, we will be here in Geneva for quite a while,’ he said without looking up from his newspaper.

  ‘We shall see. I intend to disarm the world only “to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations”.’

  He laughed. ‘Good.’

  She stood behind his chair, her arms around him. He kissed her hands. She said, ‘Can you think of a better way for us to spend this time of our life?’

  She knew that part of her still wanted him to say, yes, that he could think of another way for them to spend their time and their life. He looked up and back at her from his newspaper, and seemed to be seriously considering this question and to be preparing an unexpected answer. After a few seconds, he said, ‘We could just go off. We could let the world look after itself.’ But his voice said that he was not seriously offering this, yet he was saying it.

  Her heart beat hard. She nearly said, yes, let’s go. Let’s go now. ‘Off to where?’ she said, using the same unserious tone that he had used, yet also saying it.

  ‘We could go to Australia. Buy a sheep station. You talked once about going back and helping to “make the ethos”. We could have a large family. And lots of sheep. Write books.’

  She forced down the impulse to say yes. She said instead, ‘That’ll have to wait. The sheep will have to wait.’

  She kissed his hair and let go of him. She gathered up her files and papers. ‘And I am not from sheep country. I come from milk, butter and cheese country.’

  Maybe if he now said, let us have a dairy with many cows and goats and make cheese, she would say yes.

  He didn’t say anything.

  She let the fantasy of a farm and children tarry in her mind before sending it away. As she was leaving, he called to her at the door.

  ‘Edith?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Were you a cowgirl?’

  She laughed. ‘Yes, I was a cowgirl once.’

  ‘See you at the Bavaria this evening?’

  ‘Indubitably,’ she said.

  As she walked to the tram stop, she heard the fluttering of the unruly and unseen things going on in mysterious dangerous ways about her. Robert knew how to calm the beating of her heart and the discord and clatter of her mind. One of the ethics of her upbringing had been the stewardship and care of her domain but she had tried to make the whole world into her domain. In this domain she was doomed to choose one direction and to turn away from other directions with full awareness that every choice could entail an irreparable loss. She felt the terror of having again turned away from the more primordial womanly course. But it was just for now. Just for now.

  The tramcar, ‘Terminus Palais des Nations’, came along, stopped, and Edith, with her files and papers, got on board.

  THE YEARS WHICH FOLLOWED

  The 1932–4 World Disarmament Conferences which the League had been planning for six years were a total failure.

  Dame Rachel resigned in 1930, after not having been granted full status as Director of her section. Sir Eric retired in 1933.

  In 1936, the new Palais des Nations was finished and the League moved in.

  Three years later, at the outbreak of the Second World War, some of the League Secretariat went to safe havens in other parts of the world but most of the staff were placed on indefinite suspension.

  The Deputy Secretary-General, Sean Lester, an Irishman, and about forty staff wrested control of the League from the defeatist French Secretary-General Avenol, and stayed on in the newly built Palais des Nations, waiting and ready to negotiate the end of the war.

  They were never asked.

  The League of Nations ceased to exist on 18 April 1946, when the Assembly meeting in Geneva formally dissolved the League of Nations and the Permanent Court of International Justice. Its property was handed over to the United Nations which had been established in San Francisco the year before.

  POSTSCRIPT

  Recently I talked to Vernon Bartlett, a British MP, and veteran of the League. He told me he had visited Geneva and lunched in the Brasserie Bavaria, whose walls are decorated with some hundred and fifty of our caricatures. Directly above his head was a drawing of Briand.

  Some young American tourists were there, a boy and a girl of that generation for which we can afford every gift except the gift of the tranquillity Briand wished them to have. The boy came to study the drawing.

  ‘Bryand,’ he called to his companion, ‘Bryand? Who is Bryand?’

  And Bartlett said, ‘I could have cried.’

  FROM THE MEMOIRS OF EMERY KELEN,

  Peace in Their Time (1964)

  Emery Kelen is dead. Kelen, with his collaborator, Derso, was an internationally renowned caricaturist in the days of the League of Nations.

  Aristide Briand as Foreign Minister of France received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1926, together with the then German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gustav Stresemann. Briand died in 1932 and Stresemann in 1930.

  Vernon Bartlett is dead. He worked with the League of Nations before becoming a British MP.

  The Brasserie Bavaria no longer exists. There is a restaurant on its site called Le Relais de l’Entrecôte.

  The caricatures are gone.

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  Rationalism

  The Rationalists were established in 1889 in the United Kingdom and spread to the United States and throughout the English-speaking world. They stated their position as the adoption of ‘those mental attitudes which unreservedly accept the supremacy of reason and aim at establishing a system of philosophy and ethics verifiable by experience and independent of all arbitrary assumptions or authority’. It had no doctrinal tests for membership and included as members Jul
ian Huxley, Somerset Maugham, George Bernard Shaw, Bertrand Russell, Arnold Bennett, Georges Clemenceau, Clarence Darrow, Sigmund Freud, J. B. S. Haldane, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, Albert Einstein, Professor L. Susan Stebbing, Havelock Ellis, and Professor V. Gordon Childe. They saw religion as their main opponent. The movement declined after the Second World War.

  Eugenics

  The study and advocacy of eugenics, or population engineering, was internationally active from the late nineteenth century, originating in the genetic research and ideas of Sir Francis Galton and, to some degree, from the thinking of Florence Nightingale.

  It combined an interest in genetics and demographics to formulate social policy aimed at eliminating hereditary suffering. Firstly, it set out to measure and describe the population, looking especially at crime, poverty and hereditary disease. It was interested in whether criminal behaviour and poverty were ‘genetic.’

  The Eugenics Society of Britain in the 1920s described itself this way: ‘Eugenics is the study of those agencies which are under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally.’ Many prominent members of the scientific community and progressive intellectuals of the times belonged to the international movement until the ’thirties, when it fell into disarray and became intellectually disreputable mostly because of the German Nazi party’s misuse of the science of genetics to justify its policies.

  Union for Democratic Control

  A British society which campaigned to have foreign policy treated as a matter of public debate. It was opposed to all ‘secret diplomacy’.

  The World Population Conference