Dark Palace (54 page)

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. Saw 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.

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, ‘There'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.

In answering, Dieter addressed himself to Ambrose. ‘Himmler's personal orderly told me. But we clean the place and we see secret papers left lying around. We hear telephone talk. We hear table talk.'

There was perhaps hearsay in all this.

She tried once more the womanly line of questioning, again asking about the sort of food to be served.

This time, Dieter looked at her and answered with surprising animation, tickled by the sharing of domestic tattle with a woman.

‘We have a First Class menu and other menus. This was our First Class menu—for very special occasions.' He said, ‘I have a joke in English!'

They gave him their attention.

‘It is not the
menu
which is important: it is the
men you
have beside you.'

They all gave out obligatory laughter.

‘It is a good joke, is it not?'

He laughed again.

He then went on about the catering plans. It did sound like a very special party was being planned.

They talked more, going over the same ground. Dieter again alluded to payment and his coming to live in Switzerland.

‘I would be happy to live here with my new friends,' he said looking at the two men, putting a hand on the hand of each of them.

She had another insight into him. While he sometimes identified with his Nazi bosses in his boasting, he was, at the same time, frightened.

Dieter excused himself to go to the toilet and while he was away from the table, Ambrose suggested she might go home.

If she left, he might say more.

Bernard seemed to agree.

She saw their point. ‘He's frightened, you know, frightened of his Nazis employers.'

They then spoke quickly, analysing his information while Dieter was away from the table.

Bernard said, ‘What if this Dieter is sent here to spread such information?'

‘To what end?' she asked.

‘To have it reach official circles, for the alarm to be falsely sounded—and then for the Germans to blame the Zionists for spreading alarmist propaganda. Cry wolf a few times and the world will stop listening. And then they can do what they will.'

Ambrose added, ‘The Allies would be accused of atrocity propaganda.'

‘If this were true, wouldn't they have sent a more convincing rumour-monger?' she asked.

‘So you think he's unconvincing now?' Ambrose said.

She laughed. ‘ “Grubby” is the word I had in mind. Grubby—but not unconvincing. That he thinks the information worth money is important.'

‘You would think that the Germans would be more likely to expel the Jews—to give the British a headache in Palestine and divert British troops there,' Ambrose said.

‘What of this about extermination of sexual vagrants?' Bernard asked. ‘What do you make of that?'

‘I think he has that wrong,' Ambrose said.

‘I think he believes it,' she said. ‘The man is scared.'

‘I think he feels we are part of something bigger—a network—or that we represent the British government,' Bernard said.

‘Are we going to pay him?' she asked as she began to get her things together to leave.

‘As much as I find him rather distasteful, yes,' Bernard said. ‘If he's correct, “we” have gone from being a colourful part of city life to being petty criminals and finally, now—to being … well,
dispensable
.'

Dieter returned to the table.

Bernard asked one of his waiters to go out and find a cab for her and when it arrived, she said her goodnights.

As she went up the stairs she was, in a way, relieved to be free of Dieter's grubby presence although slightly miffed at Bernard's and Ambrose's suggestion that she leave.

Some birthday party.

In her bedroom, she awoke to hear Ambrose preparing for bed in his room, although she'd not heard him come in. She looked over at the clock—it was almost dawn. She must have been only lightly asleep or already awakening.

She called to him to let him know she was awake.

He came to her room in a silk nightgown and she opened the bedclothes to invite him in.

As he slid in beside her, she smelled the smoky odour of the Club, the liquor on his breath.

She asked him to tell her what had happened after she'd left.