Dark Palace

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘I long ago jettisoned all that. It did not serve me. I thought you might play the tart for me, Edith?’

  ‘I am not a tart in any way, shape or form, Warren. Please remain courteous.’

  He then took her kid-gloved hand and placed in on his lap.

  She felt him rigid under her open palm. He held her hand there as she tried to move it.

  ‘Please Edith. We’re both people of the world, you and me. You’ve been in Europe long enough to know the ways of the world. We are miles away from Alva. And I’m forever placed beyond the boundaries of conventional nonsense. You know that people shun me. Have you ever been shunned?’

  ‘Don’t appeal to me, please, Warren.’ She again tried to move her gloved hand, but he held it, and she felt his penis rise further and thicken into her hand.

  ‘You were the sophisticate even back at university, Edith. As a married woman, you must understand the needs of a man—as something of a married woman.’

  She had no time to deal with his observations about herself as she tried to find equilibrium in what had turned into a bizarre human skirmish.

  She stared unseeingly at the Laurencin print. He was undoing his flies.

  She closed her eyes.

  She said, ‘Turn off the light.’

  He rose and went to turn off the light.

  This was her chance to stand up and leave.

  She didn’t.

  He returned to the couch and released himself from his trousers and replaced her gloved hand on his privates.

  She opened her eyes but did not look at him or at her hand.

  Looking at the Laurencin print and without taking off her glove, she worked his privates with her fingers—it felt so stiff, so hard. Sometimes she yearned for that sort of stiffness and hardness inside her, sometimes Ambrose could be like that and Robert had always been very hard, sometimes too hard—and in a very short time she felt Warren spasm and finish.

  She glanced at him. He had his eyes closed.

  She felt none of the secret pride she sometimes felt when one of the men who’d been in her life had become erect for her and had then given out his semen to her.

  She looked down at her hand and was relieved to see that nothing of his fluids had touched her or her glove. In the dimness of the room, she wasn’t sure where the fluids had gone.

  She stood up, took her handbag and went to the door of the flat. He stayed seated there in the half-darkness.

  At the door she said, ‘I hope your life eventually finds some proper peace.’

  How unnecessarily polite she was.

  ‘Please leave me your gloves.’

  Was there to be no end to the bedlam of this day?

  She took them off and laid the beautiful gauntlet gloves of kid-leather on the arm of the couch. Wishing them well in their new life.

  ‘My life has pleasures,’ he said. ‘But, usually, as you see, I have to steal them.’

  She closed the door behind her. In the lobby of the apartment block, she again searched her clothing for any sign of the fluids.

  Oh God. There was a stain. It had come on to her sleeve. She felt her stomach clutch.

  She walked out into the street, glad of the night air, the smell of the botanical gardens. But the purity of the air scarcely kept her distaste under control.

  She was rushing up the stairs of the Club when the receptionist called to her and she had to go back.

  There was a cable waiting for her from Ambrose and, surprisingly, a letter from her psychiatrist, Dr Vittoz.

  She opened the cable and read it as she mounted the stairs. Ambrose told her that her contract had been renewed. And there were some loving words in cablese, words which she found she needed dreadfully. She kissed the cable.

  No promotion but there was a raise in pay.

  But was she going to renew her contract with the world? Out there so far away?

  She took off the suit—one of her favourites bought on her Italian visit—and her underwear and put it all in the brown paper laundry bag and wrote on the bag, ‘Please dispose.’

  She kept her cape and hat.

  With resignation, she realised the maid would probably take the clothing and wear it.

  Oh. Such was the world. She wanted to think no more of the matter.

  She saved Dr Vittoz’s letter for the bath.

  Sighing, immersed in the hot water and lavender oil, she opened the letter.

  It was simply a clipping and his professional card with the word ‘compliments’ written on it in his handwriting and with his signature. The clipping was from the English magazine the New Statesman. It was a letter signed by three hundred psychiatrists from around the world—including Vittoz—who had declared war to be a form of disease which infected communities, much as an epidemic would. The declaration proposed various treatments which should occur if such epidemics broke out. That teams of psychiatrists should go to such places and work with those who had war fever.

  No personal message.

  She put a finger on his signature. She found his communication rather cold.

  And what would Dr Vittoz have to say about today?

  As she bathed she wondered whether she had lost the joy of the Laurencin lithograph. Would there be an intrusive third face there now? A disfigurement?

  After a while, as she soaked and felt clean again, Edith was able to laugh—albeit, bleakly.

  There in the tiled bathroom she said aloud, ‘It’s a far, far better thing I have done than all the knitting.’

  It had been a kind of war work.

  Eighteen years after the war.

  But still, war work.

  La Séance Continue

  Awakening in the spartan room of the Victoria Club to the view of a water stain in the right-hand corner of the ceiling, Edith’s first thoughts were of her gloved hand on Warren’s privates in his dim apartment.

  Today, she felt no revulsion.

  It had happened.

  That was that.

  Then her mind wandered over the hectic day—her revisiting the university, Alva, the lunch, the talk, the postscript to her talk, the fractious afternoon tea, and then the outlandish finale: her gloved hand on Warren’s privates.

  She allowed it all to play through her mind, almost with disbelief, and then, hoisting herself from the bed, went to the door and picked up the Sydney Morning Herald left by the porter.

  The Stop Press item caught her eye: Jewish film director, Stephan Lux, kills himself at League of Nations.

  There were no further details.

  Stephan Lux. Their Stephan Lux?

  She’d met a Stephan Lux at the Molly Club with Ambrose and others. She didn’t really know him but he’d been one of the refugees who had drifted to the Club for whatever reason, perhaps finding the decadence or bizarreness of the Club congenial, a grotesque burlesque of their own exile and relegation from normal society.

  As she recalled, Stephan had been more part of the artistic set around the Club, not a dolly boy but perhaps a friend of the dolly boys. The artistic set and refugees now outnumbered the dolly boys.

  She remembered an argument with him where she’d taken the side of the talkies against silent movies. He thought that the silent movie was the true art form.

  Edith felt then an overwhelming need to speak with Ambrose and be connected back to the world of Geneva, and decided to go to the expense of a radio telephone call to Ambrose in Geneva. She booked it and then went out and bought all the papers, but there were no further details of the suicide.

  Eventually, after breakfast and hours of lying around, the call came through. Half-dozing, she jumped when the call came. It was rather thrilling to be talking across such distances.

  ‘Ambrose?!’

  ‘Edith!—so good to hear your dulcet voice. I can hear the waves. The fish.’

  ‘It’s radio telephone, not cable, so it’s not waves—maybe air waves?—the wind?—don’t really know how it all works—but it costs a fortune. Routed through
London.’

  Oh, how good it was to hear his voice and to be connected, as it were, with the outside world again.

  ‘My cable reached you? About your contract renewal?’

  ‘Thank you, yes, a relief to know they still want me.’

  ‘Oh, but they do—very much. Everyone asks after you.’

  ‘What’s this dreadful news about Stephan Lux? It’s mentioned briefly in the stop press of the papers? It is the Stephan I met at the Molly?’

  ‘The same. Very sad, very grim. Kelen was there in the Assembly when it happened. Stephan went to the front of the Assembly which was in session. There was a crack like a whip and when people looked around Stephan was lying there bleeding, gun in his hand.’

  ‘Oh no. Why? The papers here have no details.’

  ‘It’s very moving. He left letters for Avenol, Edward VIII, Eden, and one for Paul du Bochet—you’ve met him at the Bavaria, a Swiss journalist. The note said—hold on, I have it in front of me in Journal de Geneve—it said, ‘I do not find any other way to reach the hearts of men … to pierce the inhuman indifference of the world.” ’

  ‘Indifference to what?’

  ‘The treatment of the Jewish people. He said the world had to face that Hitler was preparing for war.’

  ‘He was Jewish?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘How is it that I am the only one who never knows if someone is Jewish?’

  ‘It’s not a failing, dear.’

  ‘I thought things were improving for the Jews? I told some people here that evidence shows that the worst of the anti-Semitism is over. That the regime is reining in its extreme elements and that the Jews arrested in 1933 who were in concentration centres have been released.’

  ‘Well yes, that’s true. We have to wait and see if it’s all over. The Olympic Games of course have played a part. Trying to present a happy face to the world … He died in hospital. Can’t hear you …’

  ‘I’ll speak up …’

  ‘He put a pistol to his head in full view of everyone. He fell down next to Eden. Eden didn’t know what had happened, evidently, until he saw blood and the police came over.’

  ‘Kelen told you this?’

  ‘Kelen was there. Saw the whole business.’

  ‘What did Eden do?’

  ‘He was very cool. He was reported as saying, “He sealed his message to the world with his death.” ’

  ‘Who was in the chair?’

  ‘Van Zeeland was in the chair and was heard to say, “What’s happened?” over the microphone, which was still on. Someone said there’d been a suicide. Van Zeeland then said—everyone could hear because of the microphone—“Are people now coming to the League to suicide?” And added, “This chamber is becoming a showplace of fatal events. It was only a matter of time before we were bound to witness death.” ’

  ‘He said that aloud?’

  ‘He said it without thinking that the microphone was on, I think.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Evidently he followed the French tradition in these circumstances. He and others stood while the body was removed, and then he said simply, “La séance continue…” And the meeting went on.’

  ‘La séance continue!? And they went on with the discussion as if nothing had happened?!’

  ‘Probably not as if nothing had happened, exactly—but it is, I am told, a form of honour, to go on with important things regardless of what has just happened. The French way. I went to the funeral.’

  ‘He’s been buried so quickly?’

  ‘Before sunset of the day of death—the Jewish custom.’

  ‘Oh. How sad it is. I remember him from the Molly. We had an argument about cinema.’

  ‘Only a handful of us were there at the funeral. Bernard, Kelen, Beer, the German journalist, Dell from the Guardian, someone from the Jewish community. That was it.’

  ‘How odd. Why were all the cynics the only ones to go to his funeral?’

  ‘They all have hearts of gold. On that point, a beautiful thing was said by Kelen …’

  ‘Speak up.’

  ‘A most beautiful thing was said by Kelen later—at the Bavaria, we had a bit of a wake—Kelen said something along these lines, “There were only a few of us there today because there are only a few left who think it remarkable or sad that a man should stand in the palace dedicated to making peace and take his life.” Let down the cynics’ side, a bit, I thought. Shed a tear or two myself.’

  ‘Oh dear, darling, it’s all so sad. I want to be there. I belong back there. I don’t belong here anymore. I really don’t. Strange disruptions occur all around me.’

  ‘Come back, then.’

  She realised that her remarks about not belonging had been simply throwaway lines, unthought-out.

  She found herself now at the point where she had to face the question of staying or returning—truly—and to answer truly.

  ‘I am going to Canberra—the meeting is all arranged. But I think I should book an early passage. I miss you. I didn’t want to miss you but I do.’

  ‘Why didn’t you want to miss me?’

  ‘I wanted to get over you a bit. You know …’

  ‘See where your life was going?’

  ‘See where I fit in the world. Where things fit in my life. You are a difficult thing to fit into a life.’

  ‘I don’t fit into my own life very well.’

  ‘Oh, you have worked it all out. You do fine.’

  ‘Doesn’t always feel that way.’

  ‘I suppose after all this time we have worked well enough. Fitted together somehow.’

  ‘I think so. What if you’re offered a tremendous job in Canberra?’

  She had to face this.

  Big questions to answer on the radio telephone with its odd background noises. But now was the time.

  ‘It’s so unlikely—but a possibility.’

  ‘You know I would come to Australia to join you—if you wanted me so to do.’

  He had not said that before. ‘Would you really?’ How would he fit into Australia? Where was the life of the Molly Club here? She supposed there was such a crowd hidden away somewhere in Sydney. ‘Thank you, darling. That’s a big thing to offer.’

  But they would be living in Canberra. She had no real picture of Canberra. ‘What about the life of the Molly Club?’

  The pause was at his end this time.

  ‘I am sure I can find friends with my tastes.’

  ‘I suspect so. But you have to be sure that you can survive here.’

  ‘We can but try.’

  He was being brave.

  She then made her decision. ‘I want to say this—that you are in my life, like it or not, Ambrose. We have found each other. We stay together.’

  ‘I think that might be the truth of the matter, Edith.’

  It was the most serious thing they had said to each other about their life.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked him.

  ‘We’re not bolters. And we might have to go far to find a better … arrangement.’

  Or was that exactly what she was—a bolter? And was Ambrose labelling her as not a bolter as a manoeuvre to stop her bolting?

  If she had come to Australia as a way of bolting, she now felt convinced that she would not bolt. At least from Ambrose.

  She said they should see what Canberra had to offer but that she thought her work with the League was not finished, ‘Even if they didn’t promote me.’

  ‘They raised your pay. You are paid as much as a chef de bureau. As much as I earned when I was at the League.’

  ‘But still no title.’

  ‘There is no title which describes you, Edith. You are unique.’

  ‘Pooh to that.’

  ‘Edith, do the things you have to do over there. Test the waters. Events are moving fast here. Europe is gathering storm. Needs you. Everyone asks after you.’

  ‘Do they mention my Bad Habits?’

  ‘No one has mentioned anything
to do with that. Or your marriage. They mention only you. We all love you.’ There was a pause and then he said, ‘I love you, Edith.’

  They had never said that to each other.

  ‘And I you,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe it doesn’t count on a radio telephone?’ he said, his voice finding its way back from the seriousness of it.

  ‘It still counts.’

  ‘I think it counts,’ he said. He again tried to move away from the suddenness of their declarations. ‘This call must be costing you a fortune, Edith?’

  ‘We have valuable things to say to each other.’

  ‘I will be as Ruth in the Bible.

  ‘You know I don’t know the Bible.’

  ‘Whither thou goest, I will go.’

  ‘Thank you, Ambrose. Thank you. Even if it is a quote from the Bible.’ She was trembling. ‘I’m still wearing the identity medallion.’

  ‘Oh, you must do that. Couldn’t bear it if you became lost.’

  ‘I look at it now and then to see who I am.’ She touched the medallion inside her gown. ‘Keep the faith,’ she heard herself say to him—and to herself. Which faith? Did the declarations require now for them to be faithful as in marriage? Or was that against the spirit of their kind of love? ‘Have you been out playing much?’

  ‘Oh—no time for hanky-panky.’

  ‘Maybe you should. To keep yourself happy.’ She found it hard to say but was proud of herself for saying it. The declarations must not change things. They must not lose their, shamelessness.

  ‘Thank you. I am more interested in dogs at present, than in strangers in the night.’

  ‘Dogs!?’

  ‘Thought we might get one when you come back—or wherever.’

  ‘How strange, I had the same idea. We must study the breeds. I will buy a book of breeds.’

  ‘Do that. And I will keep the faith.’

  ‘But we mustn’t change anything,’ she said, strongly.

  ‘I hope not.’

  ‘Bye, I love you.’

  ‘Bye, I love you.’

  It was the first time they’d ended a conversation with those words.

  The telephone clicked. Out of reach again.

  He had not asked if she’d been up to any hanky-panky. Anyhow, what had happened in that line was only … by default. And it seemed that they were not asking for that sort of faithfulness from each other.