When, some months after her return from New York and the World’s Fair, Bartou took Edith to the Hôtel de la Paix for summer evening drinks and an échange des vues and she found Deputy Secretary-General Sean Lester and the Greek Under Secretary-General Thanassis Aghnides there, she deduced that something consequential was happening.
She had met socially with each of them, indeed with combinations of all three, but not all three at once. And, in fact, rarely with Under Secretary Aghnides.
And not at a hotel lounge.
From the window of the hotel where they were seated they could see the lakeside machine-gun nests at the bridge Mont Blanc, surrounded by sandbags and manned by highly trained, earnest Swiss soldiers, who seemed to her to be somehow unsoldierly, still looking like clerks and schoolteachers in uniform, their binoculars scanning the lake for German hydroplanes and scanning the sky for parachutists.
There was something unconvincing about ‘neutral soldiers’, although she tried to take reassurance from their weapons, which were real enough.
Aghnides offered around cigarettes in a silver cigarette case, ‘Turkish on the left, Virginian on the right—blonde et brune.’
She had only recently taken up smoking. She took a Virginian, although tempted by the Turkish.
‘No,’ she said, putting back the Virginian. ‘I’ll be bold and try a Turkish.’
‘Bravo,’ said Aghnides.
There in the Hôtel de la Paix with this wartime backdrop the first talk was, as always, about the war—about whether Norway would hold out, whether the British forces there were strong enough. And there, among the men and the talk of war, she drew carefully on the Turkish cigarette, and found that it did not cause her to cough.
With her second draw on the cigarette, she was in control of it.
Lester thought that the Anglo-French force belatedly assembled to fight against the Russians in Finland could be sent to Norway, given that the Finns had capitulated to the Russians.
Everyone had some scrap of information to throw into the stew of gossip and anxiety.
‘Mrs Leland Harrison told me that she wouldn’t care too much if the British got it in the neck,’ Edith said. ‘Which is fine when you’re packing to go back to America and can put it all behind you.’
The Americans on the staff, especially, were getting out and going home. Sweetser was going.
She’d miss Arthur.
Bartou said that he had good reason to believe that the British blockade of Germany was now beginning to bite and it would not be long before Germany was out of iron.
And of course Italy. If Italy joined Germany in the war then France’s back was threatened by the Italian dagger.
‘I wonder what meaning we can put on the arrival at the Palais of the armillary sphere as a gift from Rome?’ Lester asked.
‘I suspect that Mussolini was barely aware that it was being manufactured.’
‘It was promised by Mussolini years ago when the Italians were in favour,’ she said. ‘Now it might contain a bomb with a timer.’
‘Where’s it going to be placed?’ Aghnides asked.
‘In the Court of Honour, or near the Library—somewhere there. In the garden.’
‘Court of Honour for an Italian sculpture. That would be a nice irony,’ Aghnides said.
They laughed.
‘The English children are being evacuated from the International School,’ Lester said.
‘I was told by one of the teachers,’ Edith said, ‘that those leaving promised the other students that they would be back soon. I found it rather touching.’
Some of her mother’s inheritance was invested in the school.
This was the most serious gossip of Edith’s life and it gave electricity to being there in Europe. Underlying it was the not-so-distant thought which surfaced from time to time that one’s very own life could quickly be in danger.
Despite the declarations of war by France and England last September, during which not much fighting had occurred at all, the League Commissions had disregarded the war and had held their annual meetings and had set meeting dates for this year.
The Assembly had held a special meeting in December, and had taken its strongest action ever by expelling the Soviets for their invasion of Finland, although most countries abstained from the vote.
Life at the League had been so eerily normal until now.
They were sleepwalking through their business. They clung to agendas and budgets and details of administration to avoid seeing the beast coming out of its lair.
Lester introduced a lighter note.
He said he’d been invited to join the Shoe Club of the USA, which collected pairs of shoes worn by notables from all walks of life. ‘Is this American recognition of the League?’ Lester joked. ‘Or only recognition of my shoes?’
‘Did you send them a pair?’
‘Elsie wanted me to get rid of a few pair. But no. Didn’t think it added to the dignity of the League.’
It was Bartou who opened the discussion about why they were there at the Hôtel de la Paix.
Without looking directly at her, he said, ‘Edith, we have a mission for you. We want to move you to Avenol’s office. As you know there’s a convenient vacancy. And he can’t hire anyone from outside with such a tight budget.’
She knew what the gathering was all about then.
‘You want me to keep my eye on Avenol.’
Lester said, ‘Precisely.’
‘You’ll work in with Vigier,’ said Bartou.
She stared down into her drink and felt the irony of it. How righteous she’d been those years ago when she’d discovered that Ambrose was passing information to the British Foreign Office. How he would enjoy the account of this meeting.
‘I don’t really see myself as a fifth columnist. And Vigier—what do we think of his loyalties?’
‘He’s decent. A good international civil servant,’ Lester said.
‘He won’t be in on it?’ She may as well say it. ‘In on the plot?’
‘No.’
‘Who is? Who are the Baddies and who the Goodies in our plot?’
‘We are not writing a novel, Edith,’ Bartou said.
She realised that Bartou, for the first time in her long experience with him, had slightly misunderstood the English word ‘plot’.
No one was going to correct him. ‘What precisely are we doing?’ she said. ‘I detect a whiff of insurrection.’
Bartou coloured, and mumbled to the others, ‘Tell Edith.’
Lester named people who were concerned about Avenol’s loyalty to the League and his judgement in the crisis.
‘And I am one of them, of course,’ said Aghnides.
‘We think he’s losing control of the situation,’ Lester said.
Sweetser and some of the other Americans were named as being worried about Avenol. There were, it seemed, two groups: those who were in on the plot and those who, while not in on it, were considered to be on side.
‘Would he have me around the place? Wouldn’t he want a French person?’
‘There’re no French available.’
‘He got along well with Bruce, your fellow countryman,’ Lester put in. ‘He thinks Australians are all anti-British—that you’re all Irish. By the way, I won five francs from your former Prime Minister at bridge once. I seem to remember that Bruce and his wife regard themselves as no small beans.’
‘Back home he was ridiculed for wearing spats,’ Edith said. ‘He was the first Australian Prime Minister to have a valet.’
Aghnides asked, ‘What’s happening to the Bruce Report?’
‘What can happen?’ Lester said, ‘It’s hardly time to begin reforming the League. Sweetser is making the report known in the right places in the US. That’s about all we can do.’
‘What is your attitude to the British?’ Aghnides asked. ‘Simply as a matter of interest.’
‘Being of British stock made me a better Australian,’ she said. ‘My family read
the Round Table. I often thought the Empire was a forerunner of the League. We could’ve had a community of equal nations within the Empire. Still could, I suppose. We’re a long way from any friends, down there.’
Turning back to the matter at hand, Bartou said, ‘That you’re close to Jeanne will help ease you in to Avenol’s favour. We want you to try it, Edith—and yes, he may reject you.’ Bartou fidgeted. ‘There’s a hard part, Edith.’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m going to “drop” you from my office.’
She made histrionic noises of protest.
He held up his hand, ‘Of course, not for incompetence.’
She laughed sourly. ‘For overstepping?’
As the three men laughed, she crossed her fingers and hoped that he was not going to resurrect the drinking question.
‘I think we could mount a case for that, Edith,’ Lester said.
‘For reasons of political unreliability,’ Bartou said, watching her reactions as he went about the business of lighting his pipe. ‘You can see the strategy?’
‘I can’t say I’m happy about it all,’ she said. ‘It may come as a surprise to everyone but conspiracy does go very much against my nature.’
She was worried about involving Jeanne in the situation. She assumed that Jeanne could not be told of the scheme. She was then being asked to use Jeanne.
And she didn’t know whether to trust Jeanne with word of this plot. Whether to place the burden of it onto her.
She really had to talk with Jeanne. ‘What about Jeanne? In or out?’
The men looked at each other and shrugged. Lester then looked to her. ‘What is your assessment of her position vis à vis Avenol?’
‘I really don’t know, now that France is under threat. The beast of nationality has sprung to life,’ she said.
She could not believe that Jeanne would be other than loyal to the League. Just as she was. But then, her country was not under threat.
Being part of the inner gang was nice, but what was not so nice was that the League was breaking into gangs and groups as the crisis around them became more frightening.
At first, she’d expected that the crisis would draw them all closer together. Instead, they were dividing into three groups, those who were pro-German, those who were anti-German and the Neutrals—usually dishonest neutrals who secretly supported one side or the other.
The pro-Germans divided into those who hoped for a benign outcome from the German victories and those who had no concern one way or another for any evil which might come with a German victory.
In fact, they saw no evil.
‘You can probably find out easily enough—without giving the game away,’ Lester said.
Again, the finding out would be an abuse of her friendship. She bridled at the suggestion.
‘I don’t think the situation is exactly a plot,’ said Bartou. ‘A plot is an activity of a politically criminal nature, surely.’ The little bell in his head must have rung about the confusions over the word plot.
‘Quite so,’ said Aghnides.
The men gave some nervous laughs.
She didn’t feel that it was a joking matter. She was the one who would be jumping into the fire.
Lester came in, ‘By putting you out of the British camp you can be seen by Avenol as a potential ally. Thanassis is seen as acceptable by Avenol by reason of being Greek.’
‘We have a social life together,’ Aghnides said, apologetically. ‘And he thinks the British have too much influence even in Greece.’
‘Won’t it mean that I won’t be able to be seen with my friends? And what about Ambrose?’
Lester said, ‘For a month or so, that’s all we ask—by then the situation will have cleared; Hitler may feel enough is enough. Until then, we need a set of eyes and ears in Avenol’s office.’
‘But I will not be able to mix socially with those who are seen as being in the British camp?’
‘ “I do desire we may be better strangers”,’ said Bartou.
‘I don’t recognise the quotation,’ Aghnides said.
Nor did she. Nor, she could tell, did Lester.
‘As You Like It. Rosalind says to Orlando—a girl dressed as a boy, remember—that it would be better for the time that they meet as seldom as they can. Orlando replies rather nicely, “I do desire we may be better strangers”.’
As if this had been somehow discussed at another time, Bartou then said, ‘I think you may safely share what we say today with Ambrose.’
The other two nodded.
Was it because they knew he was no longer trying to be a spy for the British? Or because that was no longer an offence in their eyes?
‘We want you at the keyhole,’ Bartou added.
‘That would be a criminal act,’ she said. ‘And worse, it would be unladylike.’
They smiled.
‘I can’t see it working,’ she said.
And she couldn’t see herself going back to taking shorthand.
‘Which part of it?’ Lester asked.
‘My French shorthand part,’ she said. ‘I’m very glad to say that my shorthand is rusty.’
She pondered the legality of it out aloud. ‘His appointment was confirmed by fifty member states. His authority is not in question.’
‘Only his sanity,’ said Lester. ‘His competence. And, of course, his loyalty.’
The strength of Lester’s attack made her look to Bartou and he looked across at her with unspoken connection.
Everyone in the higher levels of the Secretariat was aware that Lester had become a vehement opponent of Avenol. And he had most to gain—if you were to think that way. The Secretary-General’s job would fall into his lap.
But Lester’s loyalty to the League or his sound-mindedness was not in question.
Only, perhaps, on the matter of Avenol.
‘He won’t even speak with me,’ Lester said. ‘Consultation has broken down.’
That Lester, as Avenol’s deputy, was finding it impossible to consult with Avenol was itself, prima facie, a crisis.
She thought that fact alone might be sufficient basis for her to enter into a conspiracy. Or at least convince her to try to protect the League.
It seemed to be a growing opinion in the Secretariat that Avenol was unstable. Because she’d been absent in New York most of the previous year, she was a little out of touch and hadn’t been able to assess Avenol’s behaviour.
The word was that Avenol was set on disbanding the League Secretariat.
Mental instability was perhaps sufficient ground on which to depose an elected official. The only other justification she could think of for turning on a democratic regime was if the regime itself was turning on democracy and its rules.
Maybe by not consulting with Lester, Avenol had breached his democratic responsibilities.
Was it a breach of office to be taking steps to disband the organisation—or was that an administrative necessity?
On whose authority was he acting?
The plot was feasible. As the size of the League staff shrunk, officers found their functions were doubled. This made the moving of her to Avenol’s office more understandable.
The boundaries of work duties were fracturing and collapsing.
‘I did think he was going crazy with that invitation business some time back,’ she said, remembering an old incident.
‘What was that?’ Aghnides asked.
Bartou laughed. He knew about it. ‘Avenol’s famous standing instruction that he, and he alone, would decide who should speak for the League and on what.’
Bartou asked Edith to tell the story.
She began, realising as she did, that this was her act of treachery against the Secretary-General, her stab wound, and would join her to the conspiracy. ‘I was invited by the British Commonwealth League to speak on something—our work on public nutrition, I think, and the letter named me as the person they wanted to address them—probably because Cornet Ashby remembered me and like
d me. Or maybe it was Mrs Rischbieth, who’s the Australian representative on the BCL. Anyway, in came the invitation specifying that they wanted me. Before I see this invitation, it gets shunted across from Avenol’s office to Loveday—of all people—for advice. As if Loveday and Avenol didn’t have better things to do. And then, ye gods, it also goes to Pelt for his remarks.’
Everyone laughed.
They were laughing themselves into their conspiracy.
‘Then it goes to Wilson who writes to Cummings in London asking that he explain Avenol’s policy to the BCL—that is, he alone decided who spoke for the League. In the end, I think the file had ten letters. The BCL had to write again cancelling their two earlier letters which had specified me as the speaker. It was nothing against me, I was told. It was that Avenol ruled that no organisation could dictate to him who spoke, and on what, for the League. So to get the invitation approved it had to go through six League officials, most of them at senior level. That is a sign of neurosis in an organisation. It’s not as if the BCL is bolshie. Its real interest is in equal status for women. Perhaps Avenol thinks that’s bolshie.’
‘You eventually spoke at the conference?’
‘Avenol himself finally approved it. There was a problem with the cost of accommodation in London in the spring season, I seem to recall.’ She laughed. ‘I think I ended up out-of-pocket.’
There were chuckles.
She saw the matter afresh and was shocked by it. She felt she had to say, ‘Looking back, it was an indictment of all of us as much as of Avenol—a sign of an organisation going mad.’
At the time she’d simply laughed at it. ‘This was happening during the Ethiopian crisis, remember—and it shows that the whole procedure was seriously diseased. Avoiding the frustrations of those far greater things that we couldn’t change. It’s a sickness which can infect everyone in the organisation. I was part of the disease too.’
‘Yes,’ said Lester, stopping his chuckling. ‘You’re correct, Edith. It is a sign of an organisation going mad.’
Oh God, yes, the organisation was sick, maybe mortally ill. She saw it now, both in this procedure and in other things which were happening.
Something did have to be done.
As they sat there talking seriously but still laughing too readily, she saw the entwining coils of conspiracy curling around her.
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