Grand Days (22 page)

‘Yes, Sir Eric.'

 

That night Edith stayed up very late working on the telegram and the message for the messenger, and also on a plan of
ceremonials which she would present to Sir Eric — and, on and off, she worried about an answer to his diplomatic question.

Early the next day, Edith went to see Sir Eric, with three drafted telegrams.

‘Tiger' Howard checked with Sir Eric and then took her into the office. With a slightly sick feeling, she recalled the madness of Miss Dickinson's chair.

She handed across the messages. ‘I drafted three telegrams, Sir Eric.'

‘Three?'

One read congratulations on unanimous acceptance etc. One was the same without the word unanimous, and one told of a deferment. During the night, she'd also drafted a fourth telegram saying ‘Germany's entry denied', but this morning had felt that might bring bad luck. She had torn that one up. She'd drafted the deferment telegram only as an act of efficiency.

As he read them, she again imagined his office as the bedroom of the notorious Countess.

‘Know something I don't know, Berry?' he joked, looking up from the telegrams and waving them.

‘I felt that I had to cover all eventualities, Sir Eric. Nearly all.'

‘I see,' he said. ‘Red for deferred, green for go, and orange for halfway — is that it?'

‘Orange is for not unanimous.'

‘I see that you know about telegraphese.'

‘A little. I composed telegrams for John Latham back in Australia.'

‘I know Latham. Met him at the Peace Conference. Good man, If you're covering all eventualities, hadn't you better compose a telegram saying, “Earthquake Geneva STOP Meeting postponed”?' he continued, enjoying himself. ‘Maybe they should be written in the new language.'

She laughed with him, but did not understand his reference to a new language, then she flushed, thinking that somehow he'd heard of her crazy idea on scat singing which she'd babbled on about in Paris. Surely Ambrose hadn't been joking about it in the office? ‘New language, Sir Eric?'

‘Briand told the Chamber in Paris last week that he and Stresemann were talking a new language. The new language of Europe.'

‘I didn't see that, sir. There is certainly a new feeling about.'

‘Sit down and I will give you a lesson in statecraft.'

He tore up the ‘deferred' and ‘not unanimous' telegrams and put them in the wastepaper basket. ‘That's your lesson.'

She felt reprimanded. But then he smiled at her. ‘In diplomatic matters such as this, there is a rule: “No request is ever made unless it is already granted.”'

She pondered this. ‘Germany would not have requested admission unless she had ascertained that it was assured?'

‘Correct. It is a foregone conclusion by the time that it reaches this stage. Believe me, it has been planned since 1921. All agreed at Locarno. We are at the formalities now. You were conscientious, but unnecessarily so.'

‘Thank you for the lesson, Sir Eric.'

He initialled her drafts and gave them back to her. She was pleased enough to be given the job of drafting the telegram and the other message but was not so happy about having to send the telegram. Strictly, that was a messenger's job, but she could see that at a time when there could be excitement, a messenger couldn't perhaps be trusted and, anyhow, the telegraph office was set up at the Salle de la Réformation. It wasn't as if she had to dash up the street.

‘I've planned out a new member ceremonial, also,' she said, taking out a plan from her attaché case. ‘One for Council and
one for Assembly. I thought there also should be a ceremonial just for the opening of the Assembly each year. I haven't got around to that.'

It was quite a massive plan, quite detailed, with floor plans and positioning sketched out, and a sketch of a uniform for the huissiers, with arrows indicating the colours of the uniforms and armbands. She'd abandoned the idea of having different uniforms for different sections and for different levels of authority. She'd remembered Strongbow's uniforms and had taken out the file. Her uniforms were nothing like his.

He was surprised. ‘Little late in the day for that, Berry. But well done, maybe next time. Don't give it to me now. You might come to another Directors' meeting. Put it to us.'

‘Thank you, Sir Eric.'

‘When America joins, yes?' he smiled.

‘They seem to be joining in some of our activities,' she said, in a remarkably experienced voice.

‘By the way, Berry, you might like to know that the League exhibition in the Düsseldorf World Fair won a gold medal.'

‘That's wonderful.'

‘I was rather quietly proud.'

At the door she turned back to him, ‘Sir Eric?'

‘Yes?' He looked up from his work.

‘It might be wise not to accept the gold medal.'

He put down his pen, and his fingers touched his moustache. ‘Why so?'

‘It occurs to me that if we enter Fairs and so on we should not do it competitively. We should stand apart.'

‘Stand apart?'

‘Be
hors concours
.'

‘But in God's name why?'

‘It would be bad for the League of Nations ever to be in other than first place.'

‘Quite so.' He smiled. ‘Thank you, Berry.'

She was conscious that he didn't return to his work but continued to look at her as she left the room and until she had closed the door behind her.

Grinning to herself about her advice on the entering of Fairs, she went up the back stairs to her office. She felt disappointed that her plans hadn't been considered by Sir Eric. She could see that it was too late to do much about ceremonials now, but if the admission of Germany had been planned since 1921, why hadn't the ceremonials as well?

 

Crowds lined the streets to see the German delegation arrive in Geneva in their special train. They had a large diplomatic contingent accompanied by more than a hundred German journalists, and took nearly all the rooms at the Hôtel Metropole. A fleet of Mercedes motorcars was parked outside for the delegates and attracted the attention of automobile aficionados.

The world press had also arrived in Geneva to witness the admission of Germany along with VIPs from around the world including Wilson's widow, Edith Bolling Wilson.

The Sunday night before the Assembly she was working in her office when Cooper came to the door. ‘You too? Working on Sunday night?' he said. He came in and looked at her desk, saw the special folder boldly lettered ‘Telegram to Berlin', picked it up and read the telegram.

He looked at her, startled. ‘Communicating with President Hindenberg, Berry.' He was unsettled. ‘What's this about?'

‘Special mission. Directly requested by Sir Eric.'

‘You?'

‘Yes, Cooper, me.'

‘How so?'

She explained how it'd come about.

Cooper digested this. ‘Strictly speaking, it should be Legal,' he said, worried about it, but also intrigued. He also seemed to imply that if anyone was going to communicate with President Hindenberg, it should be him.

Still holding the telegram draft, he then noticed the design of the huissiers' uniform which she had pinned to the wall. ‘And this?'

‘I'm designing a uniform for the huissiers,' she explained.

‘You'd be better concentrating on our own work.'

‘I think it brings glory to us,' she said lightly, ‘redounds to the glory of your section.'

He looked at her, maybe thinking that she had a special connection with Sir Eric. He was cautious. ‘I suppose so.'

‘I didn't do it in office time.'

‘Very well.' He put the telegram down on her desk.

At the door, he turned. ‘Might get you to design me a uniform,' he said, smiling. ‘Give it plenty of panache, something like our Dictator friend further south might wear. Would please the Marquis Paulucci di Calboli Barone when he arrives, don't you think?' Cooper pronounced the name with an exaggerated comedian's Italian accent. ‘Good night, Berry. Get some sleep.'

‘Good night, Cooper.'

Cooper's jokes were like badly done icing on a cake but she saw also that he was including her in some mild ganging-up against the Marquis Paulucci di Calboli who was said to be taking over Internal and was a Mussolini appointee. She was, however, determined to be absolutely correct in her conduct about the Marquis regardless of what she privately thought.

She'd also arrived at an answer to Sir Eric's diplomatic problem. She'd decided that the two parties should come to the Palais Wilson but go to different rooms so that they didn't have to meet. Sir Eric would call first on one, and then on the other, and so on, until he had reached some formulation, or had broken the impasse. She decided that when the new Palais des Nations was built, the Secretary-General's office should be constructed with two connecting meeting rooms. She began a sketch plan for that also, and worked on into the night.

Before going home, she removed everything from her desk and laid the telegram out, to be picked up by her the next morning.

 

The next morning she found a message for her to go to see Sir Eric. She guessed it had to do with the telegram.

‘Tiger' wasn't in yet. She knocked on Sir Eric's door. He called out, ‘Enter.'

Sir Eric explained to her that the Locarno powers had met last night and were still haggling a little with Brazil. It would delay the admission of Germany for a day or so. She was to hold on to the draft of the telegram until he let her know when the Assembly was to make the decision. He said there was to be another secret meeting that evening in his office.

She stood there, feeling shocked at the idea of a secret meeting in the League. ‘I didn't think that we had secret meetings. Here at the League.'

He frowned. ‘Sometimes private conversations can, well, “mature” difficult questions before they are exposed. Sometimes needed. Like wine and cheese.'

It was something of an answer.

Each morning that week, she continued to come into work
early. The week dragged on; each day Edith expecting to go to the Assembly and to send the telegram which was now pinned to the inside of her door. But during the week nothing happened except that the Secretariat filled with rumours about difficulties and about more secret meetings of Council. Of meetings without minutes. Of comings and goings from meetings in hotel rooms.

The Assembly, after its sub-committee had formally reported to it that there was no technical objection to the admission of Germany to the League of Nations, also waited out the week with nothing for delegates to do except take trips on the lake and to sightsee.

During the second week she continued to go in at 7.30 each morning. On the Tuesday morning of the second week, she was called again to Sir Eric's office.

On the way to his office, she met Mary McGeachy. ‘We're early birds,' she said brightly to Mary. ‘I have a feeling that today is to be the big occasion.'

Mary did not smile but said bleakly, ‘Haven't you heard?'

‘What?'

‘It's not going to happen. Germany's been blocked.'

‘God, no!' She looked again at Mary and took her hand. Mary tried to sound professional and cool. ‘Sweetser and Bartlett are preparing statements. To cover all contingencies. They're frantic.'

‘Is it Brazil?'

Mary nodded.

‘But they can't,' she said, and then stopped herself from quoting Sir Eric's diplomatic maxim. Of course, Brazil could. Brazil had a veto on Council.

Clutching the telegram and message, she rushed down the stairs to Sir Eric's office, not waiting to hear the rest of what Mary had to say. Although it was so early, she passed quite a few
Information section people running around. ‘Tiger' wasn't there and she went straight through into Sir Eric's office.

Sir Eric was at his desk, rigid, tired and worried.

She had never seen him looking so immobilised. She had never seen any man like this. Each hand clutched the other desperately. He hadn't shaved.

He looked at her with some sort of relief. She stood waiting for him to speak.

‘Berry. Thank you.' His voice showed him close to tears. He made a cough as if coughing back the tears, trying to cough his voice back to normal.

There were chairs about the room, ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. The room had the appearance of having been used for a meeting and smelled stale.

She wondered whether he'd slept in the chair or in the duty officer's bedroom.

He said there'd been an informal meeting of Council last night and it was a stalemate. Germany's admission would have to be adjourned.

‘But the Germans — they're all over there at the Metropole! The Chancellor Herr Luther, and Herr Stresemann and all the others …' She died as she imagined their fury.

He sat in rigid silence. She was sure that he was in deep distress. ‘An embarrassment of gigantic proportion,' he said. He stared out at the lake. She looked out and could see from his window at least two German flags flying from buildings. The city was bedecked with German flags. She ventured to ask, ‘It's just an adjournment? Germany's not going to be rejected?'

He moved his shoulders. ‘We call it an adjournment. But Germany may never come back to Geneva. After this. They'll never come back.' Again he looked as if he might be breaking down. ‘Never come back.'

She thought of all those people who'd travelled across the world to be in Geneva to see Germany admitted. In their hotels this morning, probably already dressing up, waiting for the celebrations. Good God. It was supposed to be the true end of the War.

‘Is there anything I can do, Sir Eric?' She was aware then that she didn't know why she was in his office. If the telegram was not to be sent, she was not needed. ‘Do the Germans know?'