Authors: Albert Cohen
In the lavatory, which was busy as usual, he found himself standing next to Johnson, Head of the Economics Section, who offered him a cordial greeting. An atmosphere of relaxed equality reigned in this place of easement, where the top men, stationed before the perpetual waters, gave friendly smiles to their subordinates who were suddenly become their peers and companions. From this semicircle of like-minded celebrants who stood gravely in their stalls, communing in quietude and occasionally giving an involuntary shudder of ultimate evacuation, there rose a mood of collusion, confederacy and concord, a union of souls, a cloud of male clubbability and veiled fraternity. Adrien emerged with new heart, resolved to put in a good stint.
'And now for the Cameroon Acknowledgement!' he said once he was back in his office. Sitting at his table, he proclaimed that universal toil was a holy law, then opened the Cameroon file with a flourish. Clapping his hands over his ears, he concentrated. How should he start? With 'I am pleased to acknowledge' and so on or 'I am most grateful' and so forth? To enable him to strike the right note, he -closed his eyes. But there was a double knock on the door and Le Gandec came in, with his watering eyes and his lavallière. Eager to please and trying to be funny, he gave a military salute.
'Eleven hundred hours, General, the time is nigh,' he announced, and as he said the last word he screwed up his mouth so that he might be thought amusing and roguish. 'Fancy a coffee?'
'Spiffing notion,' said Adrien, who immediately shut the file and stood up. 'Let us sally forth and revitalize the inner man through the uplifting ministrations of the percolator.'
As they did every morning at the same time, they set out with martial tread towards their coffee-break. They were both happy, Le Gandec because he was being seen in the classy company of a future A, and Adrien because he always felt deliriously superior when he was with Le Gandec, who was a lowly assistant member of section. He found being with the poor sod stimulating, it made him feel sophisticated, a charmer, witty and outspoken, and he often liked to pretend that his mind was elsewhere to take the wind out of his humble companion's sails and force him to repeat his questions. In so doing, he merely inflicted on Le Gandec, who was a decent sort, the same mortifications as he was subjected to by Huxley, who was a great exponent of the insulting art of convenient deafness.
In the cafeteria, they chose the table where the section's two pretty secretaries were sitting. Excited by their presence, Adrien, with a gleam in his eye, ordered 'black coffee, please, very strong, to expand my brain power', made a couple of puns, and then quoted Horace to compensate. Basking in their admiration, he teased the two giggling juniors who felt highly flattered, acted up like a rogue male, impersonated Don Juan, took a sip out of one girl's cup so that he would know what she was thinking, and a flirtatious bite out of the other's cake. In a word, he shone, feeding on the deference shown by the other three, revelling in the sheer bliss of being a person of some importance. And I so it was that at eleven twenty, feeling thoroughly perked up and after insisting on paying the girls' bill, he stood up suddenly, leader of the quartet, and gave the signal for the off.
'O holy law which levies universal toil, in this wise are thy ways set,' he said with a smile to the two secretaries.
Sitting at his desk, he puffed out his cheeks and amused himself blowing childish noises through his compressed lips. Then he lowered his head on to his blotter and waggled it from side to side, crooning a mournful dirge. Next he put one folded arm on the desk-top, laid his left cheek on it, closed his eyes, and began day-dreaming in a half-whisper, stopping from time to time to ingurgitate a fondant, with his head still hunched to one side on his arm.
'She behaved beautifully at our Heller Petresco dinner, VV had another engagement like oil he did! he's got it in for me on account of my promotion, I don't give a damn, not with that pat on the back behind me, Kanakis genuinely wasn't free, bloody annoying the Rassets didn't turn up because some aunt had kicked the bucket, that was genuine too I saw in the paper that she'd snuffed it, she certainly chose her moment, I admire her timing, learn bridge quick, that way you can invite higher-ups, "Oh Director, we're having a bridge party on Sunday afternoon, would you care to join us?" and then we're in, Meredith, next it's their turn to invite us back, bridge is the thing, no need to make conversation all the time, yet it puts your personal contacts on a friendlier footing and bridge-players are a much more refined, cultured sort, she's not always very easy to get on with these days, what was all that about when I said I wanted to phone Dietsch, what on earth's happened to stop him coming, pity, he knows ever so many people and anyway it impresses people if you can get the conductor of an orchestra she must have upset him, make two alphabetical card-indexes of the things you need when you go away on trips, index A things still to be packed in the cases, index B things already in, on each card write down the item that is to travel with symbols to indicate where the item is to be put, a red marker for items that are a must to take on even a short trip, black marker for items needed only for long journeys, then on the day of departure each time I put an item in the relevant case I take the card relating to the said item out of index A and I transfer it to index B, that way I've got a check, I'll make a start this afternoon, I'll indent for two metal card-boxes, anyway old man a figure like a goddess I can see her with no clothes on whenever I want and believe me it's a sight worth seeing, an adviser is a cut above an A, advisers' offices have two windows, and with two windows you really feel you're somebody, yes don't stew among the As, set your cap at adviser and make it snappy.'
He raised his head, looked around him vaguely, munched a biscuit to drive away a sudden intimation of his own mortality, and looked at his watch. Eleven fifty. Forty minutes to kill. Call in on the duty quack and have his blood pressure taken? No, best go for a turn in the lobby downstairs. The Sixth Committee was meeting today, a tremendously political body with heaps of terribly important people on it.
'Look lively, ducks, we're going to meet some big nobs.'
CHAPTER 11
In the lobby, the ministers and diplomats circulated, gravely discussing, knowing-eyed, doubting not the high importance of their ephemeral concerns with ant-heaps soon to pass away, and no less convinced of their own importance, soberly exchanging futile points of view, ludicrously solemn and dignified, stalked by haemorrhoids, faces suddenly wreathed in beaming pleasantries. Affability as an obligation of rank, bogus smiles, courtesies delivered with a cruel curl of the lip, ambitions sugar-coated with the noblest of airs, calculated machinations and crafty manoeuvrings, honeyed words and suspicious looks — the connivance and stratagems of tomorrow's dead men.
Like a beetling dockside crane, the leader of the Swedish delegation leaned wearily over Lady Cheyne, who, blithe spirit, sipped the tea in her cup then unwound her long, supple, nut-brown arms with unlovely ease. Lord Robert Cecil, garnished with large, elegantly degenerate ears, smiling and feeling the cold, round-shouldered, a tall, hunched vulture and romantic actor in a high wing-collar, was explaining an extraordinary golf shot to a diminutive French prime minister of radical persuasion and imposing girth, who understood nothing but listened with electoral attention. The young Marquess of Chester smiled smiles of sterling shyness and in a timid stammer offered well-bred suggestions, 'if I may say so\ to Benes who, to be civil and to avoid compromising the loan, smiled back through teeth which were much too regular to be true. A towering, high-handed horse, Fridtjof Nansen, nodded approvingly at the man from
The Times,
vigorously wagging his head and the drooping moustache that went with it to compensate for his straying attention. Lady Cheyne doled out the bounty of her graded civilities, matching them to the status of the persons with whom she conversed and beaming between the two lines which, running from her nostrils to the sides of her mouth, enshrined the contempt of the truly rich. Underlings listened to their betters with rapt attention. Peevish behind a goatee, a foreign minister repeated that it was quite out of ze queshiun and that his gumment would never continence. Beneath a turban of gold, his hands ashen and his eyes bloodshot, a lone rajah reflected. The accredited fly on the international wall, an American lady journalist, was interviewing another foreign minister who was saying that this year would be make or break and constitute a turning-point in international politics. The Bulgarian delegate, a nautch-girl run to fat in thick horn-rimmed glasses, aj angle with bracelets and brooches, a poetess with whom a shy young king had lost his innocence thirty years before, exuded sickly perfumes, quoted Bergson's 'spiritual supplement', and then drove home her point, mammaries pitching and rolling, to the Greek delegate whom she was holding by one button of his jacket in her eagerness to convince. Wherever she went, her nose peeling from too much sun, the Secretary-General's beautiful secretary left a trail of the fragrance of pear blossom. Young bulls, silkily multilingual, laughed dauntlessly. Hygienic and thoroughly scrubbed, her pince-nez attached by a ribbon to her bosom, the Danish delegate stood listening, virginal and pure, to a prime minister who, as he belatedly acknowledged the eager greetings of those around him, explained that this year would be make or break and constitute a turning-point in international politics, a view surreptitiously noted by an eavesdropping journalist. The Deputy Secretary-General closed one eye and puffed up his cheeks the better to decipher the hidden meaning of the formal civilities uttered by Titulesco, the beardless guardian of inner sanctums. Injecting a chummy note into his voice, Benedetti, Head of the Information Section, repeated his instructions to his one-armed aide, who was being watched from afar by his jealous secretary to whom he had been promising marriage for years. The almost white-skinned delegate from Haiti prowled, speaking to no one, gloomily carding the wool of his hair. Albert Thomas,
irretrievably suburban, wagged a bright-red tongue through the lush growth of his Greek-patriarch beard, over which the lenses of his spectacles glinted mischievously. The Bulgarian delegate circulated, jangling with passionate intensity and spreading waves of cypress in the wake of her tremendous rump, then sprang at Anna de Noailles, who had just appeared looking deathly ill, and fell on her neck with loud cries. One of Luxemburg's ministers, dumbfounded at being taken seriously, cupped a hand to one ear and relished the remarks directed at him by the German delegate who had a twitch which exposed a set of terrifying canines. Two enemies walked arm in arm and as they went squeezed each other's biceps to bruising point. With rage in his heart, Poland's Foreign Minister, a consumptive condor, accepted the congratulations of the Liberian delegate. Spaak, pure in heart, believed implicitly in the good faith of a smiling Belgian ambassador whose head never stopped nodding approvingly. Humpbacked on a chair, with the butt of a dead cigarette glued to his pendulous lower lip, Aristide Briand informed a newspaper editor overcome by gratitude that this year would be make or break and constitute a turning-point in international politics, then looked around with lifeless eyes and with one drooping finger summoned an embassy secretary who, hardly believing his luck, hurried light-footedly forward, with the grace of a ballerina taking a curtain-call, bent down, lent a doting ear and relished the whispered order. Sunk in an overstuffed armchair and enjoying a long cigarette, Volpi, the new Chairman of the Permanent Mandates Commission, sat dreamily thinking up strategies guaranteed to raise him to the rank of Grand Officer.
Adrien Deume stepped modestly into the lobby, keeping a sharp eye open for any important personages he knew. Spotting the Marquis Volpi, he paused and pursed his lips as an aid to thought. Why not, what the hell, during the last session he had personally handed documents to him, even explained a point of procedure, and had been thanked effusively for his pains. Seize the moment by the tail, especially since the Chairman was sitting by himself, smoking a cigarette. So walk up to him casually, nod and present your respects, which would provide an excuse for starting a conversation, which might in turn be the
beginning of a personal contact. Try to bring the talk round to Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo. He buttoned his jacket and bore down on his quarry giving no indication that he had seen him yet so that their meeting would seem to be an effect of chance rather than design. When at last he faced the prey he hoped to bag, he manufactured a sophisticated look of delighted surprise, smiled and bowed low, his right hand at the ready. The Marquis Volpi stared at him without responding and the young civil servant looked away, giving the impression that he was smiling at a delicious thought which had struck him, then took to his heels.
Having retreated to the safety of the far end of the room, leaning against the wall with his hands clasped behind his back, meek and despondent, watching for an opportunity to pounce and carry off a prize, Adrien Deume observed the political comings and goings, fascinated by the proximity of such desirably influential figures absorbed in substantive discussions who, with just one word in Sir John's ear, could magically transmute an A into an adviser. From a respectful distance he watched them with deference, nay, with a reverence that hurt, dewy-eyed and pleading, insignificant and scorned, stationed at the rich man's gate, where he caught whiffs of the life of power of which he was no part - of five-star hotels, entertainment allowances, exchanges of views and overall assessments. With his back against his wall, alone, a person of no importance, he smarted at not knowing any of the dignitaries who were there, within arm's reach, on display but not to be touched. He would have liked so much to go among them and shake hands, say hello how are you, nice to see you, chat to life's royalty, to be brilliant and come out with bright comments as witty as they were profound, and above all to be clapped on the back by an important person. Alas, he knew no one, not a single delegate who might have introduced him, not even a technical adviser to tack himself on to. Should he opt for the brazen, frontal approach and simply introduce himself to Spaak, who was a fellow countryman after all? He turned the possibility over and over in his mind, but did not dare.