Matters of Honor (33 page)

It was difficult for me to gauge the sentiment for Henry among the guests who filled the salon where drinks were served before dinner. I knew none of them except Blondet, who seemed to avoid me. At table, however, I found myself seated next to Gilberte, and she spoke to me about Henry with the same warmth as she had at her own house. The meal dragged on—Hubert had ordered one of those ménus de dégustation—and for me so did the conversation because Gilberte was very attentive to the man at her right, whose name I never caught, and the woman to my left was a titled Englishwoman who spoke as though with a hot potato in her mouth. I understood one word in three and couldn’t be sure whether she understood me at all. At last we reached the baked Alaska. As soon as it had been served, Hubert stood up, stepped back from the table, rang a little bell that he had extracted from the pocket of his jacket, and announced that as a matter of chairman’s privilege he was going to offer the first toast, to our friend Henry White. The usual sort of approving and expectant noise followed. He stilled it, saying that he was far from having finished, and began a speech that was at first an orotund and pedantic ramble about his ancestors, their ancient seigneurial rights in Burgundy and sometime possessions there, not unrelated to the choice he had made of the magnificent wines we had all had the good fortune to drink. From there he moved on to a discussion of relations of force and mutual dependence between the Lowlands and Britain, as demonstrated by their having so often stood shoulder to shoulder in opposition to the French. In this connection he noted the presence at his table of his great friend and partner, Lord Cholmondeley. It occurred to me that he might be drunk. His face was certainly flushed. The resemblance to Goldfinger was disconcerting.

I began to pay close attention when I heard myself named: Hubert was saying that he and his guests were honored to have among them a celebrated American novelist, a spinner of fanciful tales who showed in his fiction no less than in life a fine appreciation of both courage and loyalty. The friendship between this great writer and our friend Henry, whose roots, despite his Anglo-Saxon name and his mastery of Anglo-Saxon as well as continental law, were in Eastern Europe—indeed, it pleased him to think they could be traced to the land from which his own ancient family derived its name—this friendship proved, he insisted, that as a young man Henry must have possessed the gifts of impetuousness and verve without which profound friendships are impossible. Now Henry had given proof of a very different quality—prudence—his
cri de guerre,
his battle cry, but no, that was the wrong term, his murmured password has become “the better part of valor is discretion.” An admirable and apt one for a lawyer, he said; his own, however, also borrowed from the great bard, was and had always been “out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.” Hubert continued to drive his point home. At the end, he said, I raise my glass to Henry.

The days were long past when I would have thrown Hubert’s excellent champagne in his face or hit him, and I was of two minds about what I might do in Henry’s place, but, after I had seen my friend half rise from his seat and bow silently in his host’s direction, I realized that he had made the right decision. He wasn’t a brawler. He kept his mouth shut.

The next day the French government opened fire, the account of its actions dominating that Wednesday’s evening news and page 1 of the next day’s
Figaro
and
Le Monde.
The
Herald Tribune
and
The New York Times,
the two English-language papers I read, caught up on Friday. The Ministry of Finance had launched an investigation into possible long-standing violations of currency controls by l’Occident and its top management. This was a threat of criminal prosecution aimed directly at Jacques Blondet. Another investigation concerned alleged collusion in such violations by other French banks with known commercial ties to Banque de Sainte-Terre. Although no announcement was made,
Le Monde
reported that Blondet would be made the subject of a tax audit covering all years not barred by the statute of limitations; the ministry, according to that reporter, suspected serious infractions. If there was fraud, the statute of limitations wouldn’t apply. Another article discussed likely measures to curtail the operations of Banque Sainte-Terre in France. Unfortunately they were insignificant.

I tried to get hold of Henry, but his secretary told me he was away and couldn’t be reached. She offered, however, to make a date for lunch on Monday, the first day he would be back at the office. We agreed on a restaurant near the Madeleine. I called Margot to ask whether she had spoken with him or knew where he was. The butler told me she was out of town.

Monday came, and I was at the point of leaving my apartment for the restaurant when Henry called. He said he was glad to catch me. The police were attempting to search Wiggins & O’Reilly’s office for documents relating to the legal advice that he had given to the Banque de Sainte-Terre. That was a scandalous move, and he wasn’t planning to tell them anything or surrender a single scrap of paper. Let’s have dinner tomorrow, he said, assuming that I’m not in jail for disobeying a lawful order of the forces of the law. I asked whether he was joking. Not entirely, he said, but I’m not worried either.

There was some roast chicken in my refrigerator. I had lunch, worked until late afternoon, and then watched the news. The lead national story concerned the arrest of Jacques Blondet on charges of numerous currency control violations including illegal export of gold coins. His lawyer appeared on the screen, very vehement about the outrageous nature of the proceedings, including the refusal to release his client immediately on bail.

XXXII

T
HE NEXT DAY’S PAPERS
were once more full of
l’affaire
l’Occident. Henry called in midafternoon and said that Blondet had been released on bail that morning and that with the assistance of the president of the Paris bar association he had succeeded in getting the police out of the Wiggins & O’Reilly office empty-handed. The prosecutor made some noises afterward about seeking testimony from him as the stage manager of the transaction, but, in Henry’s opinion, that was pure bluster. A lawyer couldn’t be obliged to reveal the advice he had given to a client unless he had been advising him on how to violate the law, something that he had never done and certainly hadn’t done in the Occident case. Still, he wanted to postpone our meal again, until the following evening. Hubert was coming to Paris late that evening and had asked him to a meeting at his office first thing next morning; Blondet would be present as well. Henry thought he had better prepare and go over policy issues with New York.

The following morning in
Le Figaro
I read an editorial on the tawdriness of the government’s attempt to take revenge on Blondet only to obscure its own mistakes in drafting the nationalization law. There was a mention as well of the obloquy to which the prosecutor would be exposed after the ill-considered and futile raid on the Paris office of a famous international law firm.
Le Monde
had relegated l’Occident to a short paragraph in the business section. All this boded well for Henry, I decided, and called his secretary to say that we would have dinner at Lucas Carton and that he was my guest. It was, in my opinion, the one great restaurant in Paris where tables were sufficiently far apart for truly private conversation. Arriving at the restaurant five minutes late, I found him at table, staring grimly at his martini. How did it go? I asked him.

He told me I would be able to judge for myself after he had had another drink and we had ordered dinner. As it turned out, he had two more martinis before he began his story.

I’m sick of these people, he said. It was the usual setting: Hubert’s private office, he on the sofa next to the telephone—I’m not sure whether I ever told you that he can’t keep his hands off it—Jacques Blondet in the armchair at a right angle to the sofa also within reach of a telephone, and I in an armchair directly across the coffee table from Hubert. Hubert asked the Cambodian fellow who serves coffee at the office and also occasionally runs errands to tell Madame Ginette—that’s the head secretary—that he won’t take any calls. Of course we all know that if his private line rings he’ll answer anyway. But we’re used to it. Hubert leads off with a speech about how I have always had a special place in his business life as well as in his heart and how he has relied on me implicitly. I nod modestly. But, he says, I have disappointed him bitterly. He remembers—and so does Jacques—having asked me repeatedly whether the Occident transaction was legal, and my assurances that it was. And yet Jacques has been arrested and actually spent the night at the Santé. Could I explain that? I answer that indeed I can, quite simply. Jacques hasn’t been arrested because of any illegality in the Occident transaction; he was arrested—take your choice—on his own merits or for his own misdeeds. That’s not how I put it, but you get the idea.

But didn’t it happen because of the Occident? Hubert asks. Most probably, I answer. The government is furious at you both, and it might not have had any interest in currency control violations if you hadn’t pulled a fast one. That’s what I tried to warn you about: the government would be out for blood.

At this point Jacques jumps in and says, That’s all very well, but you didn’t tell Hubert and you didn’t tell me that anyone would go to jail.

I guess I’m still not getting the message across, Henry continued, so I say, beginning to feel annoyed at this point, Look Hubert, the government isn’t even trying to set the Occident transaction aside or to prosecute you for engaging in it. They know they can’t. But they’ll get you on anything they can make stick. You can bet that the tax inspector auditing Jacques’s tax returns has been ordered to crucify him. And you, Hubert: Who doesn’t know that you drive your Lamborghini too fast? I wouldn’t be surprised if a police car were staked out somewhere near your house with strict orders to nail you.

There’s a moment of silence after that, during which I ask for another cup of coffee. Hubert presses a button, and the Cambodian reappears, brings the coffee, and leaves. Finally, Jacques repeats, You should have warned us that someone could be arrested. I would have never taken that risk. I was beside myself so I didn’t answer; I just sat there. Hubert too says nothing. We remained in silence for a few more minutes, and then I say, addressing myself to Hubert: Surely you agree that you and Jacques have done business in France long enough to know that the government can apply many legal and extralegal pressures to get its way or to punish. I tried to warn you, even to the point of telling you I wouldn’t implement the deal. You basically told me to shut up. I don’t see what more I could have done.

Thereupon Hubert says he and Jacques need to talk, and they withdraw into his small conference room. I stay in my armchair and pick up an issue of
The New Yorker
on his coffee table. After about twenty minutes Hubert returns alone and tells me that he’s disappointed. All things considered he doesn’t think that our relationship can continue on the same basis as before. I ask him to explain in simple French what that means. He said he isn’t completely sure, but he no longer has complete confidence in my advice, so certainly I can’t be his personal adviser. At the same time, he doesn’t think I could work well with Jacques Blondet, who’s moving to Brussels anyway to run the former foreign business of l’Occident for Sainte-Terre from there. That leaves him at a loss, and, in any case, he wants to tell me once again that he’s deeply hurt. How could I have abandoned him in the Occident transaction? My place was at his side. I asked whether he truly believed the logic of his statements. I don’t know, he tells me. I am a very emotional man. That’s when I finally take the hint and say, I have just figured out what you’ve been telling me. Our relationship, professional and personal, is over. He doesn’t say anything so I stand up, say goodbye, and ask him to say goodbye to Jacques for me. As I’m going out the door, he calls out, Henry, there’s one more thing. Shut the door. I didn’t want to tell you this in front of Jacques, he says, but there has been one other unpleasant development. The French ambassador in Brussels called me this morning and said that, unfortunately, in view of what has happened, I won’t be promoted to the grade of commander in the Legion of Honor. When I heard that, Henry said, I couldn’t restrain myself anymore and I burst out laughing. You can’t imagine Hubert’s face. It was as though I had thrown a pie at him.

That was the end of any serious talk that evening at Lucas Carton. Henry was dead tired. Besides, the wine may have gone to his head. He did say he’d have more to tell me in the next couple of days and promised to call me. Before that happened, however, George telephoned.

It’s a mess, said George, and Henry’s taking it very hard. People here are worried. It’s understood that his relationship with Sainte-Terre is over, which is pretty ironic given that Henry has just pulled off the coup of the century for him. Unfortunately there is no one either in Paris or in New York who can step in and hold on to Hubert as a client until he comes to his senses. Anyway, Henry is making rather theatrical statements about the future. I don’t want to get into just what he is saying because it may all blow over. But I wanted to alert you to the fact that Henry is in trouble.

I asked whether Henry had any work other than that for Sainte-Terre. From the outside, I said, it seemed as though he had been spending all his time on that one client.

That’s the problem, replied George, people are asking whether he can be effective in Paris without that work, and it’s not clear how he would manage a transition to New York. The management thinks it will work out, if he is patient and doesn’t fly off the handle. It’s some of the younger guys who are worked up. Call me if you find out anything you think I should know.

There was an article I was doing for a U.S. weekly on the debut year of French socialism. But what I hoped would be a distraction only reminded me of Henry and his troubles. I once again called Margot. There was no answer, and no answering machine, although I tried a number of times. I asked my editor whether he knew where Margot and Jean might be. He expressed surprise at my ignorance and said that he didn’t think he would betray any confidence by telling me what was quite generally talked about in literary circles: Margot had gone off with an American moviemaker—he mentioned a name with which I was unfamiliar—the boy was in Switzerland, and Jean was traveling. Some sort of program of readings and lectures in Quebec. He had no more specific notion of Margot’s whereabouts.

Four days later, I did hear from Henry.

Look, he said. You’re my oldest friend. I can’t be evasive with you. The truth is that I have decided to make a drastic change in my life—to be more precise, I am inches away from it—I need to think, and a lot of day-to-day stuff, most of it office stuff, is interfering with my coming to a conclusion. Don’t take it amiss if I go off the air for a bit; I may need as much as three weeks. As soon as “the intellect grows sure that all’s arranged in one clear view,” you and I will meet.

I didn’t know whether this was good news or bad; in any case it was important. And yet so imprecise that I didn’t think I would violate Henry’s confidence if I reported it at once to George.

He said, That’s pretty much what he told our new presiding partner, Jake Weir. It’s a good thing that Henry has a real fan in Jake.

My agent telephoned me the same day to inform me that a well-known director wanted to do a film based on a trilogy I had written in the late sixties and early seventies. He wanted to meet me before committing, and the feeling was mutual. I left a message with Henry’s secretary telling him that I was going to the West Coast, that he could reach me by telephone, and that, in any event, I would be back in a week’s time. I left a note to the same effect at his apartment. As an additional precaution, I called my French publisher and asked him to tell Margot how I could be reached, if she reappeared.

Meetings dragged on, and I extended my stay on the West Coast by another week. However, my anxiety about Henry was growing, and I called his apartment every evening Paris time and his office during the day. Either he was still away thinking or he had asked his admirably collected and polite secretary to lie. Obviously it would have been sensible to break up my trip by spending a couple of days in New York, but I decided against it and arrived in Paris on the Day of the Dead. The city was empty and slick with rain.