Dark Palace (50 page)

This was why she was there in her conspiratorial role—she was there to hear this.

She was there to bear witness.

If Aghnides had come to them with this story she might not have believed it. And perhaps not one of them would have believed each other's version. They would've suspected Lester's version. She was the key witness to what was happening there in the office.

Aghnides stared at him for a few seconds, looked at her to perhaps confirm to himself that there had been a witness, and then left the office without saying a word.

It was not wholly a gesture of disgust, it was also a gesture of frustration.

Aghnides was a man who desperately needed to have answers, to always be armed with arguments, but in this moment of crisis he had failed to convince even himself—had found himself with no arguments against the enemy.

She sat there staring at Avenol who was now making notes to himself.

She too then left.

He appeared not to notice.

At the door, she heard him go back on to the telephone, this time to the head of the League couriers ordering him to retrieve his personal trunks from his secret safe residence in France. ‘
Immédiatement!
'

He had become another sort of man, a man taking firm command of a detailed vagueness, a man ordering the details for want of a larger strategy.

In the outer office she made a quick shorthand note of what Avenol had said and then collected her personal things from her desk drawer. There was no work to be done today.

Or ever again in that office.

The conspiracy was over. They would now all declare themselves as Avenol had declared himself.

She nodded at the bored bodyguard from Securitas sitting on a chair outside the office. He had an automatic pistol in a hip holster.

On her way out of the building, she looked into Lester's office. ‘You were all correct about Avenol.'

‘I've just heard from Aghnides.'

‘Something has to be done fairly quickly.'

He said, ‘A meeting tonight, usual time, usual place.'

‘I think I'll go now.'

‘Go home.'

‘I'll go first to Ambrose's office and then home.'

‘Fine.'

As she went down the corridor people stopped her and asked what she knew. She told Giraud and one or two others whom she could trust and hurried on.

She looked in on Jeanne who was weeping.

‘The Americans will come into the war,' she said to Jeanne, for want of anything to say. ‘And the British Empire is still fighting.'

‘Are you going to leave Geneva?' Jeanne asked.

‘No. Are you?'

She said she didn't know what to do.

‘Many are leaving. Perhaps you should go to your family?'

‘I hear everyone is fleeing Paris.'

‘Go to the South.'

‘I think I'll just stay here.'

‘Good, stay.'

They hugged. She wanted to give more comfort to Jeanne than she knew how to give. She held to the hug but even that had to finish.

They let go and wiped their tears. ‘I'm going to see Ambrose. We'll all have dinner tomorrow?'

‘Yes. Please.'

She left Jeanne.

She couldn't find a car with a driver—probably the drivers were in the Library listening to the wireless—so she decided to walk to Ambrose's office at the old Palais Woodrow Wilson.

Some people were gathering around the gates of the Palais des Nations, as if expecting an announcement to be made from the League.

The streets seemed full of people—as if everyone needed to be with other people—and, for Geneva, there seemed to be much more clustering together. It seemed that people were lingering in the streets and around the shop doors, not wishing to go home.

Strangers appeared to be talking with strangers.

She reached the old Palais Woodrow Wilson, the building she most loved in the whole world. True, the new Palais was her temple, but this shabby building was her spiritual birthplace where she had arrived as a fresh young woman to a fresh young organisation, formed to save the world.

It was the old homestead.

Ambrose was in the corridor speaking to Dot Arnold from the Women's Peace and Disarmament Committee, which had an office down the hall from his.

They were talking about the latest BBC broadcast on short-wave and piecing together what they had gleaned despite the interference of German jamming.

She and Dot kissed and hugged.

Ambrose went to get his coat. She wanted to go with
Ambrose but felt she had to stay to comfort Dot, whom she hadn't seen for a while.

‘How's it all been, Dot?'

‘Correspondence has just stopped dead,' Dot said. ‘I'm afraid we will have to close up shop. Not one letter in over two weeks. I thought it was the international mail but it's just that everyone's simply given up writing or answering letters.'

‘Have you had any interesting information at all?'

‘The last private thing I heard was that peace talks would begin in September.'

‘Peace talks?'

‘To bring calm and order to the Continent.'

‘Who said? And isn't that a trifle defeatist?'

Dot became wet-eyed and shrugged. ‘We don't want more bloodshed. The Committee is trying to call peace talks.'

‘Churchill won't be talking peace with Hitler,' Edith said strongly, speaking for Churchill.

‘The last I heard is that there are some in the Commons and in the Lords who want to make peace.'

Edith didn't want to hear this sort of talk and changed the subject by asking after some of their mutual acquaintances.

‘The last I heard was that Mary is still a pacifist. But I'm not. Not any more. All that we have which is of any value would be swept away under the Nazis. All I am saying is, I think there should be peace made with the Germans for now. That's all.'

‘Never.'

‘You are so strong, Edith.'

‘Not really. Just desperate.'

‘Miss Nobs wants to wire Madame Ciano and ask her to approach Mussolini and ask him to withdraw from the war. Do you think it's of any use?'

‘None.'

‘Nor do I. When I took this job I promised myself two
things: that I wouldn't quarrel with anyone and that I wouldn't compromise the Committee by foolish action.'

‘You haven't, Dot.'

‘But Miss Bauer wants me to send a telegram to America urging them to participate in the war but I am not clear whether to send it directly to President Roosevelt or to our affiliated organisations, asking them to bring pressure on the President. What do you think?'

‘Do nothing.'

‘That's Mrs Morgan's position and she is working to have both ideas quashed by the executive.'

That wasn't right. Anything could help. ‘No—send it. Who knows what will tip the balance?'

‘You think so?'

‘I should think it best to go home, Dot—to England.'

‘I can't really because we have an emergency meeting in June—Miss Bauer's doing again. I suppose as long as Mrs Morgan's still here everything is under control. She's a pillar of commonsense.'

‘Go home, Dot.'

‘I still believe in an evolutionary future.'

‘Good. Don't lose your nerve, Dot.'

‘What's happening at the League?'

Edith felt she couldn't show her feeling of hopelessness. ‘We will rally around.'

She couldn't say that the League too was disintegrating. The Assembly and the Council had failed, and now the Secretariat was disintegrating.

She joked. ‘We have
des masques gaz
and we have
l'abris
, Dot. What else do we need?'

Dot began picking wool balls from her cardigan, a lost English idealist in a crumbling Geneva. Her office gone silent. Her work petered out. Her pacifism renounced.

She touched Dot's arm. ‘I must go, Dot. Ambrose will be waiting.'

‘Go?' Dot was apprehensive.

She feared that Dot would want to stay with Ambrose and her. That wouldn't work. She had to stop herself inviting Dot to join them.

She hugged Dot again. ‘We'll keep in touch.'

‘Please do.'

‘You know the gathering point for the English?'

‘Yes. I've pinned it on the office wall.'

‘It might be best to go there now. See what the next move is.'

‘Yes.'

Dot looked at her watch as if unsure whether to close the office early or not.

Dot, usually so capable, was now a beached dolphin.

She couldn't look after Dot. ‘Go, Dot. Go now to the gathering point. Take your haversack and gas mask.'

‘I think I shall.'

Edith walked to Ambrose's office. Looking back, she saw that Dot was still standing in the corridor.

Oh dear.

Nothing to be done.

She entered Ambrose's wretched little office.

Ambrose had the two emergency haversacks and the gas masks ready on his desk.

‘Planning a walking tour?' she asked, going to him and kissing him.

‘I thought Australia via India. I got some tablets today to keep us awake. Everyone says we should also have our Pervitin tablets. And I have a bottle of cognac.'

‘Morphine?'

‘I have morphine.'

‘Who will work the needle?'

‘We will have to ask someone to assist when the need arises.'

‘I have never given a needle. I daresay I could learn. Junior Red Cross should've taught us that.'

‘Heard on the BBC that about three million people have fled Paris. The Germans found Paris closed up and deserted. The Parisians have gone—on bikes, pushing baby carriages, horse-drawn carts. Anything that moves. Three million of them. Germans found there were no fresh baguettes.'

As they locked up and walked out of the Palais Wilson, carrying their haversacks and gas masks, she described Avenol's collapse and his talk of surrendering the League.

‘He could very well give the League to the Nazis,' Ambrose said. ‘How remarkable. How unexpected it always is. Always.'

‘Giraud said that Avenol is discovering Hitler's virtues even before a surrender is signed.'

‘The war's not over. My contacts at Buckingham Palace tell me that the Queen does not intend to evacuate and is learning to fire a pistol.'

‘
Your contacts at the Palace?
'

‘Well, my
one
contact. I thought that I might be able to get one call out before it all went dead and decided that it might be useful to know exactly what the King was doing. You know, as a way of knowing what to do next. So I called my one friend at the Palace and was told the Queen is learning to shoot.'

‘We must pack my pistol—if I can find it. You should have offered to be the Queen's instructor.'

‘We must clean that pistol of yours. And find some more ammunition. Do you recall how much ammunition you have?'

She was surprised by the seriousness with which he took the pistol matter.

‘No, I don't.'

‘I wonder where we could get another pistol?'

‘Didn't you say that pistols were being sold at the Molly?'

‘Not the only thing sold at the Molly—and yes, I did. I might follow that up.'

‘Do we really need an arsenal?'

‘Who knows? In a life-threatening situation, the rule is use all the violence you can as quickly as you can.'

‘There is a meeting tonight of the conspirators.'

‘You plan a
coup d'état?
'

‘We will have to remove Avenol from office, surely?'

‘And how, pray, will you do that?'

She realised that she didn't know how they would remove him. ‘Haul him out into the
Cour d'Honneur
and shoot him.' She frowned. ‘I don't really know.'

‘Must be something in the standing orders about fitness for office.'

‘Must be. Will have to study it. He has to go.'

‘Drinks?'

‘Quite right. When in doubt—drinks.'

They went to the Hôtel Richemond for drinks. They found that they were alone in the lounge. No staff were about. A wireless set could be heard coming from an office.

From the public telephone cabin, she rang Lester and told him where she was, while Ambrose went in search of a drink.

When she came back, Ambrose was opening a bottle of champagne on the terrace.

He said, ‘The Swiss franc had fallen so far that there was no reason not to buy the best champagne. And every bottle we drink is one less left for the Boche.'

Perhaps this was a time to drink champagne. Maybe the disaster of the day would give champagne back its zing for her.

Ambrose toasted, ‘To dear fallen France and to dear fallen Paris.' His eyes were moist. He pulled himself together, ‘And to the fallen franc. And to a fallen League.'

‘No,' she said, ‘not to a fallen League. Not yet. To a fallen Secretary-General—without a doubt. It is time for us to say “In the name of God, Avenol, go”.'

Their glasses touched and they drank, saying ‘In the name of God, Avenol, go.'

To her, the sound of the glasses touching reminded her of a pistol breech closing on a bullet.

‘When we drink champagne, we must always remember that we drink the tears of the world,' Ambrose said.

‘On this day, we surely do.'

They drank their first mouthful silently, looking into each other's eyes, and she felt unspecified frightened meanings in their glance. She felt their binding dependence which was now beginning to grip them like iron.

They were alone together in a disintegrating world.

She had never felt so bound to another person.

He spoke first. ‘London cabled me to pack it in,' he said. ‘My salary expires at the end of the month. Of course, I wish to stay. But no funds in the old bank. Suppose I could work at the Molly.'

‘As a cigarette girl?'