Dark Palace

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘Why are you connected with the Jews?’ she asked, wearied by her ignorance.

  ‘There’s no real connection at all. Some of us are Jews and vice versa. Some of us also carry purses and wear wigs.’

  ‘Is it about unnaturalness?’

  She supposed that some of the things Ambrose and she did were in the realm of the unnatural.

  ‘Could be. If the Jews are unnatural.’

  ‘Undesirable behaviour?’

  ‘Something like that, I suppose. People Not Wanted by the Reich. The folk see it as unhealthy.’

  ‘A rage against those who are different is also defending everything that is unique about ourselves. Isn’t that also the case?’

  ‘Too philosophical for this time of night, Edith.’

  ‘There has to be a reason for them not being wanted by the Germans. Wouldn’t they just let them all go? Push them over the border?’

  ‘That’s what they’ll do—they’ll get fed up and just push us all over the border and be done with it,’ he said.

  ‘Which border?’

  ‘Which border would want us, you mean?’

  ‘Remember Avenol was against the League being the organisational centre for Jewish immigration? Said it would offend the Germans and close the door on Hitler rejoining the League.’

  ‘Tell me about this German boy.’

  ‘Dieter. Victoria and I think he’s one of those who could be put in this camp.’

  ‘Jewish?’

  ‘No, one of your lot.’

  ‘How’d you tell?’

  ‘We took an educated feminine guess.’

  ‘Victoria is educated in these things?!’

  ‘Well, I certainly am. And Victoria is something of a woman of the world.’

  ‘A woman of which world precisely?’

  She felt that peculiar tiredness which came from once again being confronted by something about which she could do nothing. She said silently, we showed the world how they might have lived and been happier, if they had so wished. They chose otherwise. It should no longer be my concern.

  She said, ‘It’s illegal in Germany, I suppose.’

  ‘It is. But widely practised even in the highest circles.’

  Something then occurred to her which had never occurred to her before. ‘Is what you and I do—do in bed—is that illegal then?’

  He looked at her. ‘What an interesting question. Under Swiss law? Under British law? German law? Not mentioned in the Bible as far as I know. I think you’d be safe, Edith. I suppose I might be in trouble. Engaging in lewd acts would be the charge, I suppose. On second thoughts, you might go to the clink for it, Edith.’

  ‘For lewd conduct?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘I rather like the sound of it. And conduct unbecoming to a lady?’

  ‘And unbecoming also for a man dressed as a lady.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that there’s nothing to be done?!’

  ‘Can hardly go to Churchill and Roosevelt about our lot. Wouldn’t quite make the business paper.’

  Then he said, ‘Hirschfeld used the word urning. Demi-women. I’ve told you all this.’

  ‘As you well know, there’s nothing that can be done at the League,’ she said. ‘Sumner Welles? Isn’t he one of you? He’s Roosevelt’s foreign policy adviser.’

  ‘I doubt that he would talk about it and I doubt that Roosevelt would listen. You could, of course, try the Pope.’ He laughed. ‘Pius XII seems to get along with Hitler.’

  ‘I don’t see myself talking to the Pope. This man Dieter said that the place could kill hundreds a day or something like that. They’ve evidently already tried it out. And there may be other places being constructed.’

  ‘Why’d you believe his story?’

  ‘I believe it because it has a ghastly preposterous ring to it.’

  She again looked away in a sort of pain. ‘I want you to meet this Dieter, tonight. He’s here on holiday and is supposed to return to Germany for this party Himmler has planned. He’s frightened that he may be more than waiting on table at this party.’

  ‘See him now?!’

  She felt her heart sink into a bog of tiredness. ‘I know it’s a rotten thing to ask after you went to this trouble for my birthday.’

  ‘You want us to trudge up to the Red Cross!?’

  ‘I arranged to meet him at the Molly Club—thought he’d feel at home there. I can’t eat tonight.’

  ‘Let’s at least eat something. Eat up the caviar—at least do something extravagant.’

  ‘Please? Let’s go now.’

  ‘Why now?!’ He sounded like a spoilt child.

  She looked across at him, suddenly worried. ‘Ambrose, you’re changing.’

  ‘I would hope so.’

  ‘You’re hardening yourself against it all.’

  ‘How else to be?’

  She looked at him as much as to say, if you don’t know I can’t tell you.

  ‘All right then.’

  He made no move to go.

  ‘I need your appraisal of this man,’ she said. ‘I have to be sure that he’s believable.’

  ‘And how will I know? Do you believe that there are ways to tell if someone is lying? Do you still believe that?’

  She felt sick.

  ‘Do you think you can tell a person’s lying because they can’t look you in the eye?’

  ‘Ambrose, stop.’

  By taking Ambrose to Dieter she was simply passing over the responsibility of believing or not believing.

  Around them the other tables laughed and were charming in candle-lit elegance. Out across the lake the war went on. With binoculars you could almost have seen the German sentries at the border at Veyrier, rifles slung on shoulders, pudding basin helmets, feldgrau uniforms, black kneeboots, pacing, pacing, raising and lowering the border boomgate.

  The white-coated waiters with blue epaulets leaned towards the tables serving with two spoons held in one white gloved hand from wide white dishes.

  Switzerland was a candle-lit world flooded with macabre news and rumours from the dark forests beyond the light. The abnormality of the rest of the world seeped across the borders making their life seem itself reversed, brightly unreal—attractively and brightly unreal.

  She increasingly wanted to escape into the make-believe life of Switzerland. She truly wanted to stay now in the candlelight and not go into the dark forest.

  She sensed that Ambrose was already beginning to escape, to go into hiding from reality.

  Without waiting to call for the bill, she went to Alphonse, explaining their abrupt leaving of the meal in the midst of a menu composé de ses plats préférés, telling him ‘c’est la guerre’, which he would resent perhaps, or to the contrary would love to believe—perhaps it would make him feel that the war mattered even in Switzerland.

  She realised that she had no idea what Alphonse thought about the war despite the numerous times they’d been to the restaurant and exchanged pleasantries and even chatted with him.

  ‘Madame Berry, is something the matter with the dinner as arranged?’

  ‘Oh no—it’s perfect. I am not feeling very well.’

  She may as well add that onto the excuse.

  ‘L’addition has been paid in advance,’ he said, nodding towards Ambrose still seated at the table. ‘There’s a special dinner prepared and waiting to be served.’

  ‘Sorry. What has come up is all so unexpected.’

  ‘There will be an adjustment,’ Alphonse said. ‘A refund.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that now—Mr Westwood will deal with that tomorrow.’

  ‘As Madame Berry requests.’

  Ambrose had remained seated.

  She went back to the table where he was savouring the caviar.

  ‘Should’ve had vodka,’ he said. ‘Vodka is the correct accompaniment for caviar.’

  ‘Shall we go?’

  He didn’t move.

  She looked out at the lights on the lake. Sa
w the ferry Italie moored at the quay.

  Her birthday.

  He then called the waiter with his hand. ‘Deux verres de vodka, s’il vous plait.’

  ‘Ambrose, don’t. This is something we have to face now tonight.’

  ‘Have a vodka and then I’ll go. We should’ve had vodka from the beginning. Sparkling shiraz was wrong.’

  She stood there, distracted.

  The vodka arrived almost immediately.

  She said, ‘You can’t drink vodka while drinking the sparkling shiraz. Won’t do.’ A hopeless attempt at humouring him.

  Perhaps they were all cracking up.

  He then said, ‘I’ll come later. You go.’

  ‘But it’s about your appraisal. We have to do it before this man gets hopelessly drunk or disappears.’

  He looked at her standing there and must have seen that she was close to tears.

  He began to gather himself together.

  This would be the last time she bothered with this ugly world. The very last time.

  She was finished with it.

  She, too wanted to sit down and give up.

  He rose from the table, drinking not only his vodka but hers also, in a few gulps as he stood up.

  She’d never before seen him uncouth.

  We are falling to pieces.

  She was done with panic, alarm, hysteria, fear, rumours.

  Done with it.

  Alphonse had wrapped her bouquet and now handed it to her, and helped her into her wrap. ‘Thank you, Alphonse. Again, I’m sorry to have caused this disruption of your very fine planning.’

  ‘Another night, perhaps, Monsieur? Madame?’

  ‘I’m sure, Alphonse, that there will be another night.’

  But she wasn’t sure at all.

  Hens Which Do Not Lay Eggs

  At the Molly, she looked around for Dieter, the unwilling Ambrose trailing behind her like an unhappy child. She could not see him in the dark club with its many corners and nooks.

  After all the years of coming to the Club, she was still loath to go looking and prying—one never knew what one might find happening in a dark corner.

  The hungry-looking bowtied Bulgarian pianist played on, ever observing his surroundings. Probably part of Bernard’s private guard.

  They were not alone long before Bernard arrived with Dieter. Bernard carried an ice bucket and another bottle of Bouzy and was as usual en femme.

  ‘My dear Edith,’ Bernard kissed her hand and gave it a squeeze of true affection which she returned. He wished her a happy birthday. He leaned over and smelled the flowers. ‘I’ll have those put in water.’

  ‘Thank you, Bernard. And, of course, you knew it was my birthday.’

  ‘But of course. And this is the gentleman you asked me to look out for you? I was taking special care of him.’ Bernard turned to Dieter and smiled maternally, a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Thank you, Bernard. Please, join us.’

  Introductions were made.

  Among all its diverse functions as a corner of jolliness in an ugly world the Club was, as Ambrose had said, a place where most people pretended that there was no war—just as, before the war, they’d pretended that there was no puritanical Switzerland outside the door. And that there was no day, only night.

  The Club of Forgetful Pretence.

  But it was also, conversely and increasingly, a place where life and death were being fought out. Intelligence information passed, fates decided. There was a core of regulars who were very aware of the war. The newcomers more so.

  The regulars were closer these days and kinder. Or were the bonds of affection among them caused not by the war but simply by the passing of time, of growing older? The fraternity of age?

  On her second viewing of Dieter, she saw that he was effeminate in a more exaggerated way than Ambrose. How did that fit with his Nazism? Was he one of those who liked their men in uniform?

  If so, he wouldn’t like Ambrose.

  His English went in and out of German, and he was a little drunk, although she’d asked Bernard to try to keep him sober until they arrived.

  ‘And again, we meet,’ he said, emulating Bernard by kissing her hand, something she could have done without.

  Dieter was voluble and most pleased by Ambrose’s presence and moved his chair to be closer, even putting his hand over Ambrose’s for a moment.

  She guessed that Dieter assumed Ambrose to be important and, in his well-cut English suits, Ambrose did look important.

  As they chattered, she noticed that Dieter also touched Bernard from time to time, for emphasis or connection, but he did not touch her.

  Bernard had a waiter open the bottle and pour four glasses and instructed him to put the flowers in water. He then proposed a birthday toast.

  Dieter joined in, which she also found disagreeable.

  Over at the Red Cross, Dieter had treated Victoria and her as mothers, but now Dieter seemed overconscious, even unsettled, by her presence at the table.

  Too bad.

  She asked Dieter to tell Ambrose and Bernard his story.

  He seemed nervous. ‘Instead, let’s talk of prettier things,’ he said.

  Ambrose, still disgruntled about being there, did however sense Dieter’s reserve about her presence and moved to explain that she was one of them, whatever that might have meant to Dieter.

  She sat quietly, pretending by her demeanour not to be the prime mover in the situation.

  Bernard also worked to relax the conversation with light talk, risqué and amusing. Ambrose joined in, having, it seemed, decided to make the best of a night gone wrong.

  Ambrose manoeuvred the conversation around to the matter at hand.

  ‘So you wish for this information from the Reich?’ Dieter said.

  Bernard said that he found it an intriguing subject—the plans of the Reich were astounding.

  ‘Indeed the plans of the Reich will astound,’ Dieter said.

  In the Club he was no longer the uneasy young man with something distressing to tell which he’d been at the Red Cross.

  Before going on, Dieter now looked at Ambrose and then looked about him. ‘We should speak in private,’ he whispered, but he was speaking more to himself as a director of his personal theatre. ‘Now that we have come to the matter at hand.’

  Bernard said in German that the club was the most private place in Geneva.

  Dieter shook his head conspiratorially, touching his chin in thought. ‘To speak in public is perhaps to be without suspicion? A good ploy?’

  He was enjoying the drama of his role. ‘Yes,’ he said to himself, ‘we will remain here.’

  Thankfully Bernard said, ‘In English please, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  He told again of what he had heard about the plans for regulated mass executions, but now he spoke as someone breathless with the wonder of the information. ‘I do not make a defence of the Jews. To hell with them. It could be said by some that it is hardly honourable warfare: others say it is but a different warfare. The Jews wage an economic war: we will wage our war in return.’ He laughed. ‘Herr Himmler says we are immigrating the Jews “into the air”.’

  Dieter pointed upwards and then, perhaps catching sight of their unlaughing faces, said, ‘But I don’t say this. Let’s see, however, who history rewards. That’s all. To hell with the Jews.’

  Ambrose asked about the plans for the other groups.

  ‘That’s more mysterious,’ Dieter said, leaning forward. ‘Why would they bother with the likes of us? Some of the leaders are as we are and love us?’

  He exchanged knowing looks with both Ambrose and Bernard, ignoring her. ‘Can you explain? But it is happening. The round-up is happening.’

  He looked around, pausing for emphasis. ‘Is it because we are hens which do not lay eggs, do you think?’

  He giggled, looking at Bernard and Ambrose, glancing to her to see if she understood the joke.

  She said quietly in an aside to Ambrose, ‘T
here’s a label for your lot—non-layers.’

  ‘Lacks a certain glamour.’

  Bernard, who’d overheard the aside, smiled.

  Dieter assumed that they had loved his joke and repeated it. ‘The Reich needs children and we are hens who do not lay eggs. So …’ Dieter made a throat-cutting gesture.

  She saw herself, too, as a hen which had not laid eggs.

  What was she doing sitting around a table with hens which did not lay eggs on her birthday?

  Oh God. Had she really crossed that border?

  Dieter rambled on, giving out more of the information he’d given to her and Victoria earlier in the day.

  By being excluded from the spotlight of the conversation, she was able to further observe this German.

  He was not what she would have called an impressive witness. As he talked, it was clear that he was assuming that a consensus existed there in the conversation, perhaps a consensus in Switzerland, that approved of what was happening in Germany, at least to the Jews.

  Dieter kept putting his hand on Ambrose’s hand in an effort to involve him more or to gain his confidence, which perhaps he could see was still being withheld.

  Dieter obviously felt that any official entrée into Switzerland would come from Ambrose.

  Ambrose said, ‘Could that part be wrong?’

  ‘How I heard it makes me inclined to prolong my holiday,’ he laughed. ‘That’s all,’ he repeated. ‘Prolong it indefinitely.’

  He turned to Bernard, ‘M. Bernard, a drink, please, if you would be so kind.’ He held out his glass towards Bernard, without looking at him.

  Bernard poured a glass from the birthday bottle.

  Bernard gave Edith a private glance which she took to be scepticism about Dieter.

  Dieter drank and said, ‘Now, is not this information worth something?’

  She stared at Dieter again. Victoria and she had missed the point of it all—money.

  But that Dieter felt the information was worth money also gave it credibility.

  Bernard said quickly, ‘Let us talk about that later. There’ll be a payment.’

  ‘May I say something?’ Edith said.

  ‘Of course,’ Dieter said, turning to her as if she had just arrived.

  She asked Dieter how the staff had decided that the party was to be for the opening of such a place? She repeated the question in her stumbling German and also asked about the sort of food which was to be served, to disguise the intention of the question.