Aged bell boys helped Ambrose with the luggage. ‘You’ll be heartily tired of American hospitality by the end of it all, believe me.’
They went into the hotel lobby which smelled of the human comings and goings of many years.
‘Get washed up, refresh yourself, get rested,’ Sweetser said. ‘I’ll see you all tomorrow some time. Anything you need—ask for Tremain. Mention my name.’
Edith lay in the bath, glad of the oodles of American hot water, a gin and tonic water on the bath ledge.
They had not taken Sweetser’s advice about martinis.
‘Would you have expected someone to be either at the railway station or in the lobby?’ she called to Ambrose in the other room.
‘As Arthur said, General Chaos was there to meet us. There’ll be the usual banquets and balls. As Jane Austen said, “All those balls.” ’
‘I don’t believe she said that. At least there are flowers in the room.’
She heard him repeat ‘All those balls.’
She smiled. ‘I heard it the first time, darling, and not for the first time. I hope you are keeping in mind that Americans are never risqué. Was there anything at reception when you registered us at the reception desk?’
‘Nothing official. Just a sewing kit from the management. One for each of us. Lester and Loveday took theirs. I left ours. Didn’t see us doing much sewing.’
Over breakfast on the first day of the conference, their spirits were high. The four of them ate their American breakfast heartily.
‘Have come to enjoy an American breakfast,’ Ambrose said, ‘At least, that is, once a day.’
‘There is more national difference expressed in breakfast than any other meal,’ Lester said. ‘Must say something about how different nations view the demands of a coming day.’
‘I cannot understand the strange idea that it’s the most important meal,’ said Ambrose. ‘Surely dinner is the most important meal of the day? Or one could argue that all meals are equally important. I would’ve thought that it could be argued that the results of a good dinner carried over to the next day, so to speak.’
‘We should have had Health Section do a study of breakfasts,’ Loveday said.
‘They did,’ Edith said. ‘The Nutrition Report, 1937.’
‘The more I think about it,’ said Ambrose, ‘I have never done anything important at breakfast. Lunch, yes. Dinner, yes. Breakfast never.’
‘Is Arthur picking us up?’ Loveday asked.
Edith said she understood entry passes for the seating at the opening session of the UN Assembly would be hand-delivered.
‘Are they not calling for us?’ asked Loveday peevishly.
‘I have a feeling that we are to make our own way,’ Edith said.
‘Surely they’ll send cars?’ Loveday said again.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, making a note to herself to call Sweetser about transport.
‘I’ll go check with reception to see if the passes are here yet,’ Ambrose said, sharing with Edith a glance of amusement at Loveday’s fussing.
He returned, shaking his head. ‘I’m inclined to think we should perhaps make our own way. Couldn’t raise Sweetser on the telephone.’
Edith said, ‘It’ll be like one of the pre-war Geneva assemblies. Or the 1932 Disarmament Conference. Remember the problems with seating? Those different categories—the Diplomatic Tribune, the Delegates’ entrance, the Press Gallery, the International Organisations Tribune, the Public galleries—all those different sets of seating, different tickets and different entrances. State Senators from America expecting diplomatic seats.’
‘The Women’s Organisations demanding their own seats and special passes,’ Lester said. ‘There was a very demanding Miss Dingman, I recall.’
‘Assemblies were always hectic times,’ Edith said.
‘I remember a story about Arthur from the those days,’ Ambrose said. ‘He and Cummings were looking for a cab after some Assembly party. They found one with a driver asleep in the backseat. The story is that Sweetser got in and drove them both home without waking the driver—left the cab and the driver still asleep parked outside his house.’
‘You know that Arthur was regularly censored at the League?’ Lester said.
‘How do you mean?’ she asked.
‘When Comert ran Information he couldn’t trust Arthur’s communications with the world—his letters, press statements and so on. Couldn’t trust Sweetser’s runaway diplomatic enthusiasm, shall we say. So all Arthur’s official communications with the outside world were secretly routed and discreetly checked and edited. This led, of course, to the outsiders having a rather different view of Sweetser to that which we had, we who had to live with his rather exhausting enthusiasm.’
Lester then turned to her and said, ‘What position do you want in the new organisation, Edith?’
‘I might retire,’ she joked. ‘Might grow roses.’
‘Can’t see it,’ Lester said. ‘You must tell me what you would like to do. And you Ambrose, you’ve got a few good years left. Put something in writing which I can slip to Cardogan. Or maybe it’s Hiss who handles the higher level appointments?’
‘I wouldn’t mind doing some welfare work in Europe, some reconstruction work,’ Edith said.
‘Put what you want in writing,’ Lester repeated. ‘And mention the salaries you would expect. Don’t be modest.’
While waiting for the passes to arrive, they sat around the breakfast table after the other guests had gone, telling stories of the old times.
Then they moved to the lounge which reeked of a thousand cigarettes smoked by a thousand guests of times past.
‘Ambrose, go to see if the passes have arrived,’ Edith said. ‘Time’s passing.’
‘The official opening isn’t until 4.30,’ Lester said. ‘There’s no need to become jittery. Though there’ll be things to discuss with Hiss and the others.’
‘I’d like us to have the damned passes and have all protocol correctly in place,’ Edith said.
‘Typically Edith,’ Lester said, smiling.
She called after Ambrose, ‘Call Arthur again, or maybe Gerig—he’s part of the conference.’
Ambrose saluted.
‘I don’t quite know what to prepare for,’ Lester said, suddenly troubled. ‘I don’t know what they will want to know about. I’ve made a selection of files but I keep thinking of things they might want answers on.’
‘It would be unlikely that we’ll be needed to go into depth on anything on the first day. It will be mere formalities,’ Loveday said.
‘I’ve prepared a general speech—the history of it all,’ Lester said.
‘Obviously you’ll be called early,’ Edith said.
‘And there’s the damned Russian problem. Am I to say something about welcoming them back into the fold? After all, we did throw them out. Now they’re half-running the show.’
They separated then to go back to their rooms or to take a walk, leaving Ambrose as duty officer ‘minding the shop’.
Edith strolled around the neighbourhood, finding it rather grim.
They met again at the hotel for a late lunch.
Over lunch, they speculated about the post-war world.
‘Would you accept a joint Secretary-Generalship with a Russian?’ Ambrose asked Lester.
‘I want only to go back to Ireland and fish.’
‘I think you should stay for the initial year. Help get things established,’ said Loveday.
‘Maybe for a year.’
‘One thing is certain,’ said Ambrose, ‘there’s no shortage of plans for the post-war world. It will be the best planned world we’ve ever known. Hope I fit in to someone’s plan.’
They laughed.
‘I think we should dust off the Bruce Report and table it at the conference,’ Loveday said. ‘That report said it all. The basis for restructuring the organisation is all there.’
Edith had almost forgotten the Bruce Report on reform of the Leagu
e—it had been lost in the tumult of war.
‘In my opinion, Bruce was the best Council President we ever had,’ said Lester.
‘He was good,’ said Loveday.
‘Better than Briand?’ Ambrose asked.
‘I think so,’ said Lester.
They chatted but the good mood dwindled as they waited.
At 3 p.m., despite a number of telephone calls, the passes had still not arrived.
Loveday was grey-faced. Lester had ceased to be patient.
Edith considered calling the Australian delegation but she’d never met Evatt or Forde. Despite her visit home, she realised that she was now just too out of touch with Australian politics to ask favours.
All their calls and messages to the organisers were taken by efficient army voices, but no one returned the calls. It was obviously a chaotic situation over at the conference hall.
‘Should we perhaps just land there?’ Ambrose suggested. ‘And take our seats?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Lester said, after a minute.
‘I refuse to be put in a position which might embarrass us,’ Loveday said.
Lester said, ‘I agree, Alex. I don’t want to have to be pushing through crowds to get to our places.’
‘I could dash over, collect the passes, and then return,’ Ambrose said looking again at his watch. ‘Might be time enough.’
Edith looked at her watch. According to the front desk they were fifteen minutes by cab from the conference.
She went out and stood alone in the lobby, unable to take the tension now smouldering among them. They should have gone to the Opera House much earlier, as Ambrose had suggested.
Now they were stuck.
She knew that it was an immense organisational task to run the first conference of a new world organisation. She knew all that. But still, the organisers should have had time for the usual diplomatic courtesies.
As she stood there fretting in the lobby, a military motorcycle messenger arrived.
At last. Impatiently, she watched him park his cycle, remove his gloves and goggles, and take a dispatch from his saddlebag.
She followed him over to the front desk and heard the corporal asking for Lester.
She intervened. ‘If it’s for the League delegation, I’ll take it.’
The corporal looked at her and then handed the packet to Edith.
She signed for it.
She told the clerk to call a taxi—urgently.
The clerk called the bell captain over who then walked out to the street and began blowing his whistle.
She almost ran to the lounge.
It was nearly 4 p.m. The official opening was in thirty minutes.
At the door of the lounge she cried out, ‘The passes!’ and held them high in the air. ‘Arrived this minute by motorcycle.’
‘Thank God for that,’ Lester said.
They all stood, the tension falling away. Smiles breaking out.
Lester and Loveday picked up their briefcases.
‘I’ll arrange a taxi,’ Ambrose said.
‘I already have,’ she said. ‘It’s on its way.’
She handed the envelope to Lester. ‘It’s addressed to you, Secretary-General.’
He opened it as they reached the door to the lobby.
He stopped and looked up at them. ‘There’s only one ticket.’
They all stopped.
‘Perhaps it’s a general pass for the whole delegation,’ Ambrose said.
Lester read it again. ‘It says clearly, “admit one” and there’s a seat number.’
Lester looked at Loveday.
Edith asked Lester if she could see the pass, as if it were he who were making an error, an error which she alone would clearly see.
He was obviously dazed as he handed her the pass.
She read it. There was no error. It was a ticket for one. She handed it back, speechless.
She couldn’t fathom it. ‘It’s a bungle,’ she said.
‘You must go, Sean,’ said Loveday. ‘Most obviously you must go.’
His voice was a brave attempt at control, at being businesslike.
Lester handed the ticket to Loveday, ‘Alex, you go—I want you to be there. You’ve technical things to say. I’m more, well, symbolic.’
‘Isn’t it more appropriate that you go—as the Secretary-General?’
‘If they’d wanted me there as Secretary-General the pass should have said so. Why should I need a pass at all …?’
Edith was trying to get her head together. After all, the steering committee knew they were in San Francisco. They’d provided the accommodation. For the first time, she sensed a serious problem.
‘It is my prerogative to nominate you to go,’ Lester said. ‘You can be my designate.’
Empathically, Edith felt all the dismay that Lester was showing.
‘I would rather none of us went,’ Loveday said. ‘Let’s make further contact with the steering committee. Let’s sort it out. Let’s find out what’s gone wrong.’
‘We can’t boycott,’ said Lester. ‘That would be as rude as they have seemingly been.’
His movements and his voice were stiff with tension.
‘It’s surely an organisational blunder,’ Ambrose said in his best calming, controlled voice. ‘We all know these things can happen.’
To bungle on such a day, to bungle such people as Lester and Loveday was unforgivable. She felt sick to her soul.
‘You go, Alex. I have no stomach for it now,’ Lester said.
She and Ambrose stood watching the two legendary survivors of the League squabbling over the ticket.
She felt a protective duty but she was paralysed by panic. It was between these two men.
‘You go, Alex. I would rather it that way.’ Lester was already moving towards the elevator.
‘I’ll sort it out with the steering committee as soon as I arrive,’ Loveday said, ‘I’ll see Hiss.’
They stood and watched Lester moving as if injured by a blow to his body, great spiritual pain showing in his effort at maintaining the dignity of his stride.
The elevator doors opened, he entered, then they closed and he was gone from sight.
Edith placed a hand on Loveday’s arm. ‘I’ll come with you to the Opera House and sort this out.’
A bell boy came to tell them their taxi was waiting.
She turned to Ambrose. ‘You’d better stay with Sean.’
Ambrose nodded. His face also showed severe shock. ‘An abominable error. Must be an explanation.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ll go up now. Take some tea perhaps.’
‘Or Irish whisky,’ she suggested.
‘Maybe it’s a time for Irish whisky.’
Of all of them, it was always Ambrose who one expected to somehow know the worst that life could deliver and always to be ready for it. That was his strength.
But she could see that he, too, was finding this moment testing.
She got into the cab with Alex.
They hardly spoke on the journey except for odd comments to ease the silence.
At the Opera House there was the usual milling of hundreds of delegates and others, searching for the correct entrance, searching for assistance, searching for papers, searching for associates.
It was clear that the opening was running late.
Press cameras flashed relentlessly.
Edith and Loveday pushed through and found the lobby of the conference.
A Marine sergeant on the door examined Loveday’s pass, glanced at Edith, and pointed out that it was for one person only.
‘We know that,’ Loveday said with annoyance. ‘But a seat must be found also for Miss Berry—at the delegation table. She is my associate. We’ll be joined later by Mr Sean Lester, Secretary-General of the League of Nations. You must find his pass and hold it for him.’
‘This is not a ticket for the delegation floor,’ the sergeant said. ‘It’s a ticket for one person only in the auditorium.’
‘
We are the League of Nations delegation, sergeant. I am Alexander Loveday, director of the Economic and Financial Section.’
‘I am sorry, sir, this ticket is not for a delegate. It is a pass for the top visitors’ gallery.’ The sergeant pointed upwards. ‘This is an observer’s ticket, sir.’
She and Loveday followed his pointing hand. He was pointing to the second gallery high up and away from the great hall and the delegates and missions on the ground floor.
Tightly and coldly, in a voice scarcely concealing a raging indignation, Loveday asked the sergeant to take him to the Acting Secretary-General of the United Nations, Alger Hiss.
‘At this time, sir, that is not possible. You are holding back the line—please stand aside.’
Edith and Loveday looked back and saw impatient faces of mission staff behind them. She recognised none of them.
They backed off out of the queue and the sergeant became occupied by the next person on the line, and Loveday and she went from his attention.
Edith broke back into the line and took the sergeant’s arm and asked where the entrance to the top gallery was.
‘You have to go out of the building and around to the side.’
He too was trying to keep his patience.
‘Are you sure there’s no mistake?’ Edith said. ‘Will you check with the Secretariat? Could you find Arthur Sweetser for me?’
‘Ma’am, I have no time to check anything—the whole business is about to start. I simply read tickets and direct traffic.’
She went to Loveday, who was like some floundering insect in a stream, being edged towards the side. ‘I’ll try to find someone who can rectify it,’ she said. ‘It’s some sort of stupid error.’
‘I’ll take my seat until I hear from you,’ Loveday said.
She wrote down the number of his place in her notebook and he went off towards the visitors’ gallery, struggling against the flow of arriving delegates.
Edith pushed through the queues waiting to talk with the besieged Marine clerks at the reception tables. Ignoring the other people queued for attention, she confronted a different Marine sergeant.
Standing before him, she took out her lettre de mission from the League, her League carte d’identité, and anything that in any way officially identified her. She laid the papers on the desk in front of this sergeant, explaining the significance of each document.
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