Grand Days (5 page)

She took out a framed
Punch
cartoon, showing a hotel named ‘League of Nations' whose advertisement read, ‘The League of Nations Hotel. Healing Air. A Peaceful Outlook from every Window. No Hot Water.' It had been given to her by John Latham and the others in the office when she had left. She briefly considered whether to put this up or whether it was, perhaps, a joke against the spirit of the League. She tried it on the wall in a couple of places and made a note to get someone to fix it in position. She had her framed bachelor's degree in science which she would also hang. She put her four reference books — Karl Pearson's
The Grammar of Science
and Butler's
Handbook to the League
, and an Oxford English Dictionary and her dictionary of French and English — in the small bookcase against one of the walls. She had one desk ornament, an antique brass microscope from the late eighteenth century which her mother had bought for her as a graduation present, and she had a silver envelope knife which her father had given her when she first went to work with John Latham and a fruit knife he'd given her when she had left for Europe. She smiled. Had both gifts been his way of arming her for life?

After trying it in different places on the desk, she decided that the microscope looked outlandish and she put it in the cupboard to be taken back to the pension.

The telephone rang again. It was Claude Cooper. He told her that he was plunging her straight in. That afternoon she was to take minutes at a committee meeting. Had she taken minutes? She said she had sat on committees and taken minutes since she was eleven years old. He said, ‘Fine,' and told her she was to minute a committee meeting on future League accommodation.

‘You can fight for your office,' he said, chuckling.

Indeed she would, if that were required.

She spent the rest of the morning prowling about the build
ing, from the restaurant in the cellar to the maintenance platform on the roof. She stood atop the building and gazed around Geneva.

She then sat for a time in the library, reading minutes, reading the background of the sub-committee for which she was to take the minutes, and reading League publications. At lunch she met people from Internal Services and then at two o'clock Cooper took her to committee room B. She was pleased to see Ambrose there.

‘Major Westwood from the Secretary-General's office, whom I believe you know,' said Cooper.

Ambrose rose and winked at her. ‘Yes, Berry and I know each other well.'

Well?

‘Berry will take minutes,' Cooper said to Ambrose.

Cooper introduced her to the representatives on the accommodation sub-committee, one from each section and service — too many, she thought, for a sub-committee. She went around the table shaking hands with people as she was introduced. There were two women, one from Social Questions and one from Information.

It was as if the directory in the lobby had sprung to life as a playlet. Or at least a junior version of it, because those at the meeting were obviously not senior staff.

Edith drew a map of the table and the seating. She put the date and name of the committee at the top of the page, then drew a margin and wrote in it ‘Present', listing the names of those at the meeting, and putting herself first. Her first official League of Nations duty. ‘Present: Edith Campbell Berry (minutes secretary).'

She asked each person to spell their name for her.

The man from Legal thought it a great joke. ‘S-m-i-t-h.'

She said to him, lightly enough, that there were three ways of spelling Smith.

He said, ‘Oh — I suppose there are.'

Back in Australia, she'd liked astonishing people by saying that she revelled in a good committee meeting. She thought of committees as parlour games where each person's contribution was their throw of the dice from which followed certain moves around the board. For her, committees were the Great Basic Unit. When you understood the workings of a committee, John Latham said, you understood the workings of an empire. Of course, there should be a place in administration for dashing individualism and for grand leadership, but in her experience it was never a bad thing for lofty plans to be brushed down and combed by the committee. And she had known the committee itself, at times, to be an initiatory engine.

Bad committees, she admitted, were the intellectual drudgery of democracy. It was said that some national temperaments were not suited to it. Tolstoy had said the Russians, for instance, couldn't endure the drudgery of democracy.

‘I'll be in the chair,' Ambrose said.

‘Mr Chair,' she said, ‘do you want full minutes?'

‘Put down everything of importance. Sir E. would like to see what people feel about the issue.'

Ambrose outlined the business. He said that the Secretary-General had authorised the renting of sixty more rooms in a building which would be known, imaginatively, as ‘the Annex', so as to ease the pressure on accommodation in the Palais.

The problem was, which section or sections should move from the Palais? He grimaced at them. ‘Sir Eric suggested Health or Economic might like to move.' He raised his eyebrows and looked at Health and Economic.

There were shuffles of resistance from Health and Economic.

‘Sir Eric wants to make it clear that any move shouldn't be taken as derogatory. That is, whoever goes is not being kicked out into the cold.'

‘Only into the damp,' someone said. There were chuckles.

At this point a latecomer entered the room. Ambrose introduced him. ‘Liverright, I would like you to meet Berry. A new arrival from Australia. Our first Australian.'

The young, but worn man shook her hand. He spoke English with only the slightest accent. ‘Nice to meet you. Fine cricketers, the Australians. Don't play cricket, do you?'

She smiled. ‘I played vigaro.'

‘Too bad.'

‘What's your section?' she asked.

‘My section?'

‘For the minutes.'

‘I'm from the Commission Inquiring into the Admission of Zembla.'

She wrote this down. ‘Zembla? Z-e-m-b-l-a?'

‘Up there north of Bulgaria, up that way. A principality, Monaco style of thing, about the size of Parma.'

She felt herself facing her first embarrassment. She could not place Zembla. She knew there were a few of these principalities and kingdoms dotted about, untidily left over from history. She could bluff.

‘Oh yes,' she was about to say, but realised immediately that was not the right move. Her mind hovered, trying to alight on a safe perch, to defend itself against pitfall. She could not find a Way. She would take the route of embarrassed ignorance. ‘No. As a matter of fact, I don't remember it at all,' she confessed,
colouring, knowing that in their eyes she would for ever be a dummy.

‘Then you haven't been to Zembla, by any chance?'

‘No.'

‘Could help us in our report if you have.'

‘I think I would know if I'd been to Zembla,' she said grittily, glad of his silly question as a way of clambering some distance back from her embarrassment.

‘Lovely postage stamps. Triangles with pictures of their national casino. You must have seen their stamps?'

She did remember triangular stamps but thought they were from Mozambique. ‘I know triangular stamps from Mozambique.'

A long way off in the haze of her first day, a foghorn of warning sounded about this Liverright and she became uneasy.

Liverright chattered on, ‘Historically, Zembla is a natural ally of Rumania. Has a sizeable industrial region. I spent every summer there during Cambridge vac. Learned the language, all that. Charming. Has no word for “war”. Twenty-five different words for “drunk on wine”.'

‘All right,' said Ambrose, ‘enough is enough.' He turned to her. ‘Liverright's from Translating and he's pulling your leg, Berry.'

She blushed. There was some gentle laughter.

But she didn't know about what he was pulling her leg — the language of Zembla or the existence of any such place?

Liverright from Translating smiled at her and said, ‘I was beginning to believe it myself. Sorry, Berry, welcome. Just wanted to show you we aren't all earnest-minded officials here, like this bunch around the table. If you want fun, come along to Translating. Once again — sorry.'

‘A new girl is fair game,' she said. ‘Although at my school,
while new girls were not to be encouraged, nor were they to be teased or baited.' She wondered how many times she would have to use that. Ambrose gave a small smile to her.

‘Well said,' called Figgis from Social Questions.

‘Let's get on with it,' Ambrose said, after glancing to her to see that she was all right. She was still burning from the leg-pulling.

The meeting moved on without elucidation of the question of Zembla, and, if she could in any way avoid it, she was not going to ask.

The woman from Information started the discussion. ‘It's obviously out of the question to move Information away from the Palais. We have to be where people can find us and we can find them.'

‘What happened to the plan to build an extension on the tennis court?' Political asked.

‘Not the tennis court!' said Dr Joshi, jovially. He was Indian, and from Health. ‘Save the courts. I would rather doss three to a room than lose the courts.'

‘This is not a sporting club, Doctor,' said Liverright. ‘Although sometimes I am confused.'

Edith began to feel at home. She knew about committee wits and their butts.

‘Building on the tennis court was looked at and found to be too expensive,' said Lloyd from the Building Committee.

‘Economic would have to stay here,' said Economic. ‘We consult the library far more frequently than, say, Refugees.'

Joshi from Health pointed out that their section had moved twice already. ‘And may I be sentimental?'

‘You may be sentimental,' said Ambrose. ‘Continue in a sentimental vein, Doctor.'

‘Our chaps are spending a good deal of time away on
missions in foreign countries, out in the deserts and jungles, so to speak, and when they return, well, they feel like being back in the thick of things and catching up. Corridor chats and so on. Cups of tea. So we would like to stay here in the Palais and feel that it was our home.'

‘Very moving,' said Liverright.

Political said, ‘I take it that the rule will prevail that a member of section is entitled to an office of his own?'

Ambrose said the Secretary-General was committed to that rule, hence the new accommodation.

Figgis from Social Questions said the rule also seemed to apply more to the men than to the women members of section. In Social Questions sometimes three members of section worked in one office.

‘Women are more accustomed to working in coteries,' Liverright said. ‘Sewing circles, that sort of thing. And covens.'

Everyone laughed and Edith was pulled along by the laughter and the camaraderie, glad to be seen laughing along with them although as a general rule she believed minutes secretaries should not serve as audience to committee members.

Figgis said, ‘I would have thought men were more used to working together — in secret cabals and smoke-filled rooms.'

‘What is the collective noun for a flock of women in Social Questions?' said Political.

‘A Concern of Social Questions. They are known as a “concern”. As in a “going concern”,' said Liverright from Translating. ‘As in “going to the Annex”.'

More laughter.

‘Come on, chaps, down to business,' Ambrose said.

‘There are the loners — people working on projects who are not really part of a section team,' said Political. ‘They could perhaps be moved away from the Palais.'

‘Wouldn't think there could be sixty of such,' said Ambrose, ‘but we could follow up on that.' He half-turned to Edith to make sure she'd noted it.

Mandates asked if he could have the floor. Ambrose nodded.

Mandates said that he had been authorised by his Director to say that the moving of the Mandate section to the Annex would be firmly opposed.

Edith felt a tension enter the sub-committee. Back in Australia, she and John Latham had taken an interest in the Mandates section because Australia held New Guinea as a League Mandate. Members of this Section had been a little too enthusiastic in collecting evidence on the performance of the governing country from sources other than officials of the country, causing some unease among the mandate powers.

‘On what grounds, then, does Mandates so strenuously oppose going to the Annex?' Ambrose asked, nodding in her direction, as if to say, get this down in full.

Mandates ran through a list of objections. ‘For instance, the question of the mandate of Iraq will be coming up at the next Assembly and we need to be situated close to the Council during that debate.'

‘The chaps who ride camels,' said Political, ‘and who eat dust and flies.'

‘And in the case of Syria,' said Liverright, ‘we have the chaps who eat snails and frogs watching over the chaps who eat dust and flies.'

Edith enjoyed the irreverence while not smiling herself.

Mandates went on, ‘May I continue, Major?'

‘Settle down, everyone,' said Ambrose.

‘Finally, there is something I wish to say that doesn't have to go in the minutes.' Mandates glanced at Edith.

Edith bridled. She did not like people instructing her on
what should or should not go in minutes. Minutes were a legal record.

She glanced at Ambrose who gave no indication that he saw the contention, so she spoke. ‘I feel that anything of substance said at this meeting should be in the legal record.'

Mandates pulled a face of surprise. ‘For God's sake, Madam Minutes Secretary, this is simply a sub-committee talking about the allocation of rooms.'

Edith swallowed, gripped her pencil, and said, looking straight at him, ‘My name is Edith Campbell Berry.' She then turned making a silent appeal to Ambrose.