Dark Palace (44 page)

She thought that fact alone might be sufficient basis for her to enter into a conspiracy. Or at least convince her to try to protect the League.

It seemed to be a growing opinion in the Secretariat that Avenol was unstable. Because she'd been absent in New York most of the previous year, she was a little out of touch and hadn't been able to assess Avenol's behaviour.

The word was that Avenol was set on disbanding the League Secretariat.

Mental instability was perhaps sufficient ground on which to depose an elected official. The only other justification she could think of for turning on a democratic regime was if the regime itself was turning on democracy and its rules.

Maybe by not consulting with Lester, Avenol had breached his democratic responsibilities.

Was it a breach of office to be taking steps to disband the organisation—or was that an administrative necessity?

On whose authority was he acting?

The plot was feasible. As the size of the League staff shrunk, officers found their functions were doubled. This made the moving of her to Avenol's office more understandable.

The boundaries of work duties were fracturing and collapsing.

‘I did think he was going crazy with that invitation business some time back,' she said, remembering an old incident.

‘What was that?' Aghnides asked.

Bartou laughed. He knew about it. ‘Avenol's famous
standing instruction that he, and he alone, would decide who should speak for the League and on what.'

Bartou asked Edith to tell the story.

She began, realising as she did, that this was her act of treachery against the Secretary-General, her stab wound, and would join her to the conspiracy. ‘I was invited by the British Commonwealth League to speak on something—our work on public nutrition, I think, and the letter named me as the person they wanted to address them—probably because Cornet Ashby remembered me and liked me. Or maybe it was Mrs Rischbieth, who's the Australian representative on the BCL. Anyway, in came the invitation specifying that they wanted me. Before I see this invitation, it gets shunted across from Avenol's office to Loveday—of all people—for advice. As if Loveday and Avenol didn't have better things to do. And then, ye gods, it also goes to Pelt for his remarks.'

Everyone laughed.

They were laughing themselves into their conspiracy.

‘Then it goes to Wilson who writes to Cummings in London asking that he explain Avenol's policy to the BCL—that is, he alone decided who spoke for the League. In the end, I think the file had ten letters. The BCL had to write again cancelling their two earlier letters which had specified me as the speaker. It was nothing against me, I was told. It was that Avenol ruled that no organisation could dictate to
him
who spoke, and on what, for the League. So to get the invitation approved it had to go through six League officials, most of them at senior level. That is a sign of neurosis in an organisation. It's not as if the BCL is bolshie. Its real interest is in equal status for women. Perhaps Avenol thinks that's bolshie.'

‘You eventually spoke at the conference?'

‘Avenol himself finally approved it. There was a problem with the cost of accommodation in London in the spring season, I seem to recall.' She laughed. ‘I think I ended up out-of-pocket.'

There were chuckles.

She saw the matter afresh and was shocked by it. She felt she had to say, ‘Looking back, it was an indictment of all of us as much as of Avenol—a sign of an organisation going mad.'

At the time she'd simply laughed at it. ‘This was happening during the Ethiopian crisis, remember—and it shows that the whole procedure was seriously diseased. Avoiding the frustrations of those far greater things that we couldn't change. It's a sickness which can infect everyone in the organisation. I was part of the disease too.'

‘Yes,' said Lester, stopping his chuckling. ‘You're correct, Edith. It is a sign of an organisation going mad.'

Oh God, yes, the organisation was sick, maybe mortally ill. She saw it now, both in this procedure and in other things which were happening.

Something
did
have to be done.

As they sat there talking seriously but still laughing too readily, she saw the entwining coils of conspiracy curling around her.

Edith realised how much she was now one of them. She saw that she was considered to be part of the Good Gang.

But she had qualms. ‘I still worry about the legality of this. What does the fidelity oath say?'

No one could remember the exact wording of the oath. As senior officers, those in the room had sworn it before a meeting of the whole Secretariat. She had sworn it before the Appointments Committee.

Avenol himself would've sworn the oath before the Assembly of the League.

‘Ultimately, we are formulating an action not so much against the Secretary-General but in protection of the Covenant,' Bartou said. ‘You are not a conspirator—you are more in the role of an internal League police officer.'

She had the impression that Bartou was worried about the
legality of it too and was turning it over in his mind as they sat there talking.

‘And who appointed us the guardians of the Covenant and the executioners of its enemies?' She laughed.

Had she heard the laugh coming from another woman, she would have described it as overloud. It demanded that those listening should join in the laughter.

And they did.

‘Who's mentioned an execution?' Lester said wryly.

They laughed again. The nature of this laughter did not please her. Too self-assured, too pitiless.

‘It's not against the office of Secretary-General—it's against a man who might be misusing his post and the Covenant,' Aghnides said, clouding into seriousness.

Drawing on his pipe, Bartou applied another argument, ‘Meng-tzu preached in his Politics of Royal Ways that the heavens bestow on a king the mandate to provide good government. If he does not govern well the people have the right to rise up and overthrow the government in the name of heaven.'

‘As a Rationalist who has no understanding of heaven, I have a little difficulty with that,' she said, smiling.

‘The will of the people could be seen as the will of heaven, perhaps,' Lester said.

‘My larger reservation is, then, whether members at our level of the League of Nations Secretariat represent the people.'

They all looked at her and seemed to ponder this.

‘Thanassis and Auguste are of course in there,' Lester said. ‘This is not an Anglo-Saxon clique.'

She looked across at Aghnides. She did not know what to think of him. Apart from the fact that he was with them.

As for cliques, at times some of her own discarded and suspect patriotic sentiments came scampering out, like dogs pleased to see their former owner.

‘And you say I am to do filing?' she laughed. ‘I'd hoped I
was beyond that at my age.' And by saying that, she saw that she had agreed to play her part in the conspiracy.

‘It is a guise, Edith, nothing more,' Bartou said.

‘None of you men would ever lower your rank to do dirty work,' she said, easing it with a generous smile, relieving them of the need to take her complaint too seriously.

Bartou smiled. Her protectiveness of her status was familiar ground with them. It was he who replied, ‘Not so, Edith. When an operative is parachuted into hostile territory so as to do espionage—male or female—the operative often adopts a guise, say, as a farm labourer.'

She nodded, ‘Point taken,' and stubbed out her cigarette.

She'd got through the cigarette without coughing and she thought that her putting out of the cigarette was perfectly executed. ‘Somehow this scheme of ours doesn't have the glamour of being parachuted into hostile territory dressed, say, as a whore.'

They laughed at her earthiness.

‘At least we aren't sending you to Avenol as a mistress, Edith,' Bartou said laughing. And then, perhaps sensing that his remark was in bad taste, added, ‘No offence meant.'

‘No offence taken, and I thank you for not asking that, gentlemen,' she said.

‘You never know, Edith, you may be invited to La Pelouse,' Lester said.

‘As Mistress Number Two?' she asked. ‘He may be anti-British but he seems to like his mistresses to be British.'

They all laughed. Each time they laughed, the coils of conspiracy became tighter.

‘What if he unmasks me? What if I'm dismissed?'

‘We will reinstate you.'

‘What if he dismisses you lot too?'

They laughed.

‘Nice point. He might very well try,' said Lester. ‘He may very well try.'

‘And,' she said, trying to blow smoke from her second cigarette at the right time for effect, ‘he has the authority to dismiss you all.'

‘And then we would all be out of a job—with no diplomatic privilege and surrounded by the German army,' Aghnides said.

The discussion dwindled to an end.

Everything had been agreed, she supposed, without formality.

Bartou suggested a whisky and called a waiter.

‘You've taken up smoking?' Lester said to her.

‘It's supposed to sterilise the mouth.' She laughed. ‘I liked the look of others smoking. I hope I look as
chic
.'

‘You seem very accomplished at it,' Lester said.

‘Hitler has banned smoking—so there must be good in it,' she laughed. ‘But I'll show you some numbers. They're the case against smoking.'

She took out her notepad and wrote down ‘3000'.

She handed the number around.

‘That is the number of forest fires in California caused by cigarette butts in the last ten years.'

She took back the pad and wrote the figure ‘1500' and again passed it around. ‘That's the number of fires in homes caused by cigarettes.'

Finally she wrote, ‘$2.5 million'.

‘That's the value of the automobiles destroyed at the motor show fire in Chicago after a cigarette was dropped near a petrol tank.'

They all laughed.

‘An American on the ship coming back from New York showed me the figures. What I liked was his method—the writing down of the numbers and so forth.'

‘Most people don't put out their cigarettes properly,' Aghnides said.

‘To do it elegantly is a real skill,' she told them, even
though nearly all of them were experienced smokers. ‘The same American on the ship showed me how to do it. Like so …' She showed them her way of stubbing and twisting the cigarette butt.

‘Talking of America—I have only recently heard the story of the flag, Edith. You must tell us the whole story.' Lester had an amused look.

‘Some other time,' she said, blushing. ‘Some other time.'

The conversation returned to war strategy and the discussion of military tactics.

When she returned to the apartment that night, she looked up the fidelity oath.

‘I solemnly undertake in all loyalty, discretion and conscience the functions that have been entrusted to me as (rank of official) of the League of Nations to discharge my functions and to regulate my conduct with the interests of the League alone in view and not to seek or receive instructions from any Government or other authority external to the Secretariat of the League of Nations.'

‘I solemnly undertake …'

She did that.

‘… in all loyalty …'

She did that.

‘… and discretion …'

Was she exercising discretion now? To what extent and with what meaning was she exercising discretion?

‘… and conscience …'

Perhaps she was now exercising discretion and conscience by entering into a conspiracy against Avenol. But there was no way that was the intended meaning of the oath.

Leave that.

‘… the functions that have been entrusted to me as an official of the League of Nations …'

Her functions were so self-defining and self-inventing that she wondered whether being another set of ears and eyes in the office of the Secretary-General could very well be one of her functions as a League official. Or as Bartou had said, was she some sort of internal police officer for the League?

Leave that.

‘… to regulate my conduct with the interests of the League alone in view …'

Of that she was sure. She had always done that.

‘… not to seek or receive instructions from any Government or other authority external to the Secretariat of the League of Nations …'

She was not seeking or receiving instructions from any authority external to the League.

She recalled how that clause had caused a kerfuffle in the United States and Italy. In the US it was said by the opponents of the League that the fidelity oath required a renunciation of loyalty to one's own country—the Hearst newspapers had called it the Traitor's Oath, the work of a super-government which sought to rule the US and all other nations and which made a mockery of patriotism.