Dark Palace

by Frank Moorhouse

  In her bedroom, blushing scarlet, she had devoured the book. Even though she was at university and considered herself widely read she found the Kama Sutra breathtaking. Her mother and she had never discussed the book, and a few weeks later she reluctantly put it back in her mother’s bedroom, unremarked.

  Ambrose had shown her copies of erotic German and French magazines which had revealed to her other astounding things about the nature of human coupling. At her request, he had bought a copy of the Kama Sutra through an agent who handled such books. The Kama Sutra and his magazines still aroused her.

  There were times when she asked that they look at them together, which led to love play.

  And sometimes when alone in the apartment she delved into them, although there was no reason why she should be secretive about it, given the candour and character of their relationship. This secretiveness was perhaps some leftover, ineradicable modesty or maybe it was the thrill of furtive pleasure. And, she had to admit, the thrill of solitary self-pleasuring.

  It was also erotic for them both when they shopped for clothes together although he had to play the bored husband to prevent the shop attendants becoming suspicious, a role which he sometimes forgot or rather overflowed.

  They were fortunate that their sizes were the same. And their taste. Their favourite lingerie shop must have considered Edith extravagant in her needs, especially now during war when silk was expensive. But they continued to spend rather a lot on lingerie. They shared that indulgence.

  These sorts of shopping expeditions and trying on the clothes at home inevitably led to love making of a special kind, too.

  ‘Is Joyce to live in Zurich?’ he asked.

  She smiled at him. ‘Could look up Dieter,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, Dieter—I had quite forgotten him.’

  ‘You forget your … friends … rather quickly.’

  He kissed her cheek, ‘Now, now—and remember he did desert the Germans—and he was right about everything he told us, sadly. He’s out of the war now. A neutral. At least I presume so.’

  She’d kept going back over that episode in her mind and hoping that she’d done as much as she could at the time.

  Dieter had passed out of their lives. Through the Club they had secured papers for his residency in Switzerland and he’d moved to German-speaking Zurich. And yes, he was no longer an enemy.

  ‘War is between states and not individuals,’ she pronounced. ‘When an enemy lays down his arms he is no longer an enemy? Is that what we say?’ She remembered the pain of it all back then.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I seem to remember that was part of your argument back then. Or your excuse.’

  ‘Was it? How clever of me.’

  ‘How sly, darling.’

  James Joyce died in Zurich. His daughter stayed in the clinic in La Baule. Switzerland was not invaded. And there in the Palace of Nations they watched the Germans gradually face defeat.

  War’s End

  1945

  They continued to hear news of the war’s end although Churchill hadn’t been on the wireless to make it official, so there was some part of Edith—and probably some part of most of the small band at the League—which held back their belief. Paris had been liberated and the end had been coming for months but still some fighting went on.

  Frustratingly, the end didn’t seem to be coming in a single definite pronouncement.

  The world conference to plan the peace was about to begin in San Francisco and Edith thought that might officially mark the end of it all.

  She was already packed for it; they were simply awaiting confirmation of their sailing times.

  Edith found something strange about her reaction to the end of the war.

  Perhaps it was because they’d all become expert at living in a time of war. Now that expertise meant nothing. Their special status of being the Geneva staff holding the fort at the League would also now mean less.

  They were now required to remember how to be expert at living in a world after war. And that seemed an exhausting idea after all the dreaming of it and planning for it.

  Life after the war seemed to have fallen on her and those around her as some perplexing burden.

  In war, so much had been put on hold in one’s life and in the life of the world and, of course, the future of the League and their futures.

  All those decisions, for so long on hold, were now lit up, and from them new uncertainties were glaring.

  There’d been something strangely carefree, if not irresponsible, about living in a time of war. Anything could happen in a time of war—parachute invasion, enemy administration, death from the sky or from poison-gas bomb—which made one feel that personal decision-making on a serious scale was not possible, and this limbo granted a careless freedom.

  But now one had to begin to be serious about one’s personal life.

  They’d all been called to the Library to hear an announcement from Sean Lester but she doubted that he’d heard anything new about the end of the war since she’d chatted to him earlier that morning and he’d said nothing about it.

  Though one never knew.

  He clambered up on a chair.

  Grave-faced, M. Vallery-Radot, the librarian, banged a teaspoon on a cup, ‘People! Your attention, please. Silence.’

  Lester had some notes in his hand.

  Maybe the war had ended.

  Maybe at last, the Library would cease to be the League’s central office and M. Vallery-Radot would be back in charge.

  At last, he would have proper silence in the Library.

  Ambrose came around from his desk in one of the back book bays and stood with her.

  What would happen to him? He’d been working in with the League staff recently but that arrangement would have to be either formalised or terminated.

  They all moved in around Lester.

  When everyone had quietened, they could hear a woman talking on the telephone. She became conscious that she was not in private and they heard her say clearly to the person on the other end of the line, ‘Must go now, the Secretary-General is about to speak to us.’

  The telephone, now free, began ringing and stopped only to begin ringing again.

  Lester waved at them, indicating that they should let the telephone ring.

  Lester said that everyone knew the war was coming to an end any day now and that he would be leaving to lead the League delegation to the world conference in San Francisco.

  In fact, he said, this would be the last time he would have a chance to speak to them.

  ‘When I return it will be with the arrangements for the New League. And everyone will soon get some well-deserved home leave—including, I hope, myself, and, in my case, some fishing—before we take up the task of rebuilding the world.’

  He consulted his speech notes.

  ‘Before I—and one or two of you—’ he looked at Edith ‘leave for San Francisco, I would like to say some words to you all.’

  He looked down at his notes. ‘Here in this fine Palace of Nations we were an important part of the political frontline against the Nazis and the world will not forget that. Your names will be engraved in stone. School children will know your names as well as they know those of great generals. Our vigil was made tolerable by two facts: that we kept busy at the world’s work; and that we were doing something of great consequence symbolically. Alone in a warring world, we held high a banner through these terrible times which said “There is a possibility of reason and sanity in the world.” I am proud—and you should be proud—that we held up that banner.’

  His sincere Irish voice and strong words already had some of them tearful.

  The ringing of the telephone sounded now like a type of modern musical accompaniment.

  ‘I have already been privy to the plans for a New League, of which I promise you all will be a part. This time, this time, we will make it work.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ M. Vallery-Radot said, standing beside the
chair on which Lester stood, as if it were expected of him, and perhaps as part of his reclaiming of the Library.

  All there in the room clapped vigorously.

  ‘You should be proud that we kept the flag flying by publishing, without missing a single issue, The Monthly Bulletin of Statistics and Wartime Rationing and Consumption. The weekly Epidemiological Record—going now for nearly twenty years—the Health Bulletin—forgive me for not listing all our work, but we did keep working and we showed the world that we were still here by publishing and circulating our publications as best we could.’

  More clapping.

  ‘Yes, it may seem to some to be simply a bureaucratic thing that we did. But what could be more important than to have fair and reliable servants to the world giving fair and reliable information upon which fair and reliable decisions may be made? Never before in the history of the world were people willing to dedicate themselves to this trust above national allegiance. Isn’t that a momentous offering?

  ‘Now I want to make one thing very clear—and I have said this privately to some of you and now I wish to say it publicly and unequivocally: all the talk you’ve heard about the Supervisory Commission preparing to liquidate the League is nonsense. There is to be no liquidation of the League.’

  Vigorous and prolonged clapping. Ambrose and Edith smiled at each other.

  ‘There’ll be all sorts of discussions—legal and administrative—about the shape of a New League. But there will be a New League. There is no talk of us “selling up” the League. I need simply quote to you the words of the American Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, who spoke recently of a “bigger and better League”. Our own President of Assembly, that valiant Norwegian, Carl Hambro, in a magazine article published in the United States says quite unequivocally that “talk of reviving the League is false …” ’

  Lester paused dramatically, as people looked up again, uncertain of what they’d just heard. ‘President Hambro says, such talk of revival is false …’ Lester continued with wonderful Irish emphasis, ‘ “because the League is very much alive”. There can be no reviving of the League because the League is very much alive,’ he repeated.

  There was general clapping.

  ‘And you here today are the living embodiment of the League and have been for these long grim years …’ Edith fancied Lester looked straight at her. ‘You are the proof that it is very much alive.’

  She felt tearful. She looked at Ambrose who had also touched the corner of an eye with a finger.

  ‘During the war there was no meeting of Council—no meeting of Assembly. There was no meeting even of the Supervisory Commission. What did continue was the Secretariat—you—you continued.’

  He paused and looked around at them all, moving from one pair of eyes to another and then back to his notes.

  ‘At the world conference in San Francisco your interests will be looked after. And the US will be joining us now, for certain. Of that there can be no doubt this time. As we know, the Americans have been a part of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals; America is going to remain part of the world community now the war is won. The days of the Americans withdrawing into isolation are over.’

  Hearty clapping. The telephone ringing and stopping and ringing again.

  ‘And the Soviets will be there.’

  More clapping.

  ‘The Germans and the Japs may be missing …’

  Cheers.

  ‘But only for a time. They will ultimately be brought back into the world community.’

  Only light clapping for this.

  ‘I have other news—and it is perhaps just as important.’

  His voice changed to a lighter tone, and he pushed his speech notes into his coat pocket. ‘The news is this—the Bavaria is about to reopen.’

  Cheers.

  ‘I was actually invited to see the renovated Bavaria only this week by its new owners. It may not be quite the way we remember it from before the war—well, the Bavaria has a swanky new ceiling which I think we all would agree, if our memory serves us well, was overdue. There are now rather grand chandeliers, which allows me to show off some Latin: post tenebris lux—you Latin scholars will know that means After Darkness, Light. Very appropriate for the new Bavaria of our new world.’

  The word ‘lux’ passed sadly across Edith’s memory. Brave Lux. Maybe he’d be heard now in the emerging new world.

  ‘So it won’t be long before we’ll see statesmen, newspaper reporters, League staff, shoulder to shoulder again in the good-natured atmosphere of that much-loved historic tavern.’

  Cheers.

  ‘I remember—and many of you here will remember—when the German Chancellor Stresemann and the French Prime Minister Briand rubbed shoulders with us in good comradeship over ales at the Bavaria after the first war. International comradeship will return. In due course, with the passing of time …’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said M. Vallery-Radot and a couple of others, but this sentiment of universal comradeship was left in abeyance by most of them. Too early for that.

  ‘Our colleagues will be returning shortly to Geneva from their far-flung outposts—from the Labor Office in Montreal, from the Economic and Finance section in Princeton, the Drug Organisation from Washington. And the Treasury from London—I hope they bring our money back as well!’

  Laughter.

  ‘In our League staff the world has the best interpreters, précis-writers and internationally trained stenographers that the world has ever known. And the best organisers of international conferences—something we invented—and the best international administrators.’

  Cheers. Some of the staff patted each other on the back.

  Seeing this, Lester said, ‘Go on—you deserve it—pat your backs!’

  Cheers and hearty patting of backs.

  ‘Enough speech-making.’ He was roundly clapped but then held up his hands for one last silence. ‘To celebrate the imminent departure of our delegation to the San Francisco conference, I declare today a half-day holiday and invite you to join me for lunch at the Bavaria where I can say farewell to each of you individually.’

  There was sustained clapping as Lester stood down from the chair, helped by M. Vallery-Radot.

  No one picked up the ringing telephone.

  ‘Good speech,’ she said to Ambrose, wiping a tear with her handkerchief.

  ‘Yes, good speech. Though he’s forgotten that Cordell Hull’s no longer Secretary of State.’ His voice was husky.

  ‘Oh well, we’ve been a little cut off over here,’ she laughed.

  They both went over to Lester and they all shook hands for want of any other way to express the drama of the hour.

  ‘Has the Bavaria really installed chandeliers, Sean?’ Ambrose asked, clearing the huskiness from his voice.

  ‘Indeed it has,’ said Lester, also trying to clear his voice of emotion and to find his everyday voice. ‘In a strange way, I see the renovations as a vote of confidence in the future of the League. A good omen.’

  She, too, found her businesslike voice. ‘The old-timers will be taken aback when they return and see the chandeliers.’

  ‘The caricatures of League dignitaries still there?’ Ambrose asked.

  ‘Still there. We may, of course, see Derso and Kelen back.’

  ‘You, of course, will go as soon as you can to Ireland and see your family … How long has it been?’ she said.

  Lester became a little husky again. ‘You know my youngest has grown from being a girl of thirteen to a woman of eighteen and I wasn’t there …’

  He pulled himself together. ‘Anyhow, I can get my secret diary out from under the stone in the gardens.’

  ‘It’ll be a bestseller,’ she said.

  He looked at her with interest. ‘You think it might be publishable?’

  But before she could answer, he shook his head, ‘Too many strong opinions. I let off a lot of steam in that journal.’

  ‘It might be a time for strong opinions,’ Ambrose sai
d.

  ‘Could well be,’ Lester agreed.

  Lester shook their hands again, emotionally, ‘Thank you both. Thank you for being here during the bad years—or were they the good years?’

  He turned to Ambrose and said, ‘As I’ve said before, I’m very glad that you’ll be with us in San Francisco—we shall need you.’

  Lester thought for a moment. ‘Hope you can find your way clear to coming back on staff eventually?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Ambrose said.

  ‘There’ll be a place for you.’

  ‘Thank you, Sean.’

  Lester then moved off to talk to others.

  ‘You’ll have a position after San Francisco,’ said Edith. ‘Otherwise Lester wouldn’t have authorised your coming along with us.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You’ve been rehabilitated. Forgiven. Darling, you’re back.’

  ‘Sounds like it.’

  ‘That speech made it feel like the end of the war, didn’t it? Where were you when the other one ended—on Armistice Day? Everyone remembers where they were on that day.’

  ‘I was at the Front in France. It was a very strange day indeed.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I was travelling up to a field hospital with an ambulance unit of the 56th—the London Division—and in that last hour before the Armistice was signed and the cease-fire occurred we had a Lance Corporal stretcher-bearer shot dead. We all thought at the time that it was the last shot fired in the war and that he’d been the last person to die in the war—the worst possible luck. We found out later that all along the line there were cases like that, of men killed in the last minutes.’

  Ambrose drifted away into his memories momentarily and then pulled himself back with a smile. ‘Oh, another thing—I cried with anger on Armistice Day.’

  ‘Why anger?’

  ‘Along with Marshal Pétain and others, I thought it shockingly premature.’

  ‘The Germans should’ve been thoroughly beaten?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think it’s the only time that a war has stopped too soon.’