Gossip from the Forest (17 page)

Erzberger:
Do you think so, Alfred?

It is the unhappy tumor of my apathy, Matthias thought, that lump the count carries in his armpit. And now, it seems, I shan't be seated by him to restrain his arm.

For the seating arrangement was: Vanselow nearest the door, Erzberger, the general, and, at the table's end, Count Maiberling.

While they stood by their places, Matthias watched and was unreasonably annoyed by Vanselow's jaw locked down over his collar.

Erzberger:
A battle injury, Captain?

Vanselow:
A fall, Herr Erzberger. Down a companionway.

Erzberger:
And nothing can be done for it?

Vanselow:
The spinal column was damaged.

Erzberger:
Ah!

On his white blotter, the captain made emphatic movements with his hand, careful lest Erzberger should imagine screaming gales off Heligoland and ice on all the rungs.

Vanselow:
It happened in dock. In Wilhelmshaven.

Erzberger:
Unlucky for you.

Vanselow:
At first they thought little damage had been done.

Erzberger:
Oh?

He was tiring of the captain's neck.

Vanselow:
They had to be persuaded how serious it was. They don't know everything. Doctors.

The count, an eye on the telephonist's back, risked a calm glance down the row of chairs on the far side of the table. He was half back to his place when a small French general came in, said “Weygand” and that he would let the Marshal know they had come, and walked out again.

Maiberling reported his observations.

Maiberling:
The seats aren't labeled.

Erzberger:
Four places.

Maiberling:
The names of the asses. That's the question.

Von Winterfeldt had no doubts and reeled names off.

Von Winterfeldt:
Haig, Pershing, Foch, the King of the Belgians.

Forlorn Vanselow would not agree.

Vanselow:
There must be admirals. British admirals.

Maiberling:
The King of the Belgians? Small beer.

The count drummed the back of his chair. One of those fits of breeziness that were thin placenta to his loss of a mistress and his terror.

Erzberger:
I don't think we should suffer too much. I don't think it's required we be anxious.

As he spoke, he still looked at his sweating hands, their stewed appearance, like the hands of a laundress or kitchen-hand.

Erzberger:
We all know what our tasks are.

They had apportioned tasks at a meeting after breakfast.

Erzberger:
It is a comforting idea that we are in the position of envoys, and envoys carry everywhere with them their immunity.

The count grunted and felt his armpit.

There was a small noise of leather boots in the entrance way. In an instant and too soon the Marshal stood opposite Matthias, staring him in the eyes for a few seconds, letting him taste the ocular fire. General Weygand arrived on one side of the Marshal and two British admirals on the other. A pair of junior naval officers took a table in the corner which, unlike Blauert's table, was equipped with a telephone. Two junior French army officers passed through into the serving area and took the table beyond the ornamental glass, sending the telephonist away through the kitchen. Everyone was so quickly, crisply in place; it was such a well-oiled positioning.

No American, no Belgian, no Italian. Only the Marshal, Allied focus on earth, and the admirals with their will to blockade.

Looking at the ceiling, the Marshal spoke. The two interpreters, von Helldorf at one end of the table and a French lieutenant at the other, talked at each other in both languages, nervously seeking the sense of the utterance. In the end young von Helldorf was ready to tell Matthias.

Von Helldorf:
The Marshal requests your accreditation papers, Herr Erzberger.

Opposite the sea captain, Weygand had his right hand out to take Matthias's documents.

The Marshal hooked spectacles on to read them and then spoke again in French.

Von Helldorf:
The Marshal and Lord Admiral Wemyss will withdraw to examine the credentials. No delegate can sit at the table until he has been accepted. He requests that we all wait here.

The statement had been quite literal: only the Marshal and the admiral left. While they were gone, Erzberger took from his attaché case the communiqué from U.S. Secretary of State Lansing. After a few seconds' doubt he carried it to Maiberling.

Erzberger:
You're fluent in English?

Maiberling:
Oh yes.

Erzberger:
Could you read this if it is required?

Maiberling:
Yes.

Little General Weygand watched them out of the corner of his compact face as if he might at any second revoke their right of communicating.

TO SIT AND SMOKE

In the saloon compartment next to his sleeping cabin, the Marshal invited Wemyss to sit and smoke. Seating himself, the Marshal packed and lit his pipe, unfolded and read once more the accreditation papers, brushed ash from them and handed them to the admiral.

The Marshal:
All as on the list. Let them think for a while. Perhaps you think it's wrong to delay things even a little?

Wemyss:
I wouldn't go so far.

The Marshal:
It will get better terms in the end. And more lives thereby saved than would be lost while a man smokes a pipe. Do you ever go in for pipes?

Wemyss:
I'm used to tailor-made.

The Marshal:
Turkish.

Wemyss:
Turkish, yes.

He did not however produce one. He sat back with eyes almost closed. Hoping the Marshal could not tell how much he wanted to get back to the table.

The Marshal:
This is a North African tobacco. Strong, yes. But I like its smell.

Wemyss:
Very aromatic.

His lids still down, he put the German documents on a leather-tooled coffee table. To indicate how easy he felt.

Wemyss:
We mustn't forget those.

The Marshal:
What?

Wemyss:
Those accreditation papers.

HOPE'S LETTER TO HIS WIFE

Meanwhile Admiral Hope had sat at the table and begun a letter to his wife:

Darling Nora,

By the time you receive this the news it carries will be public knowledge.…

The German plenipotentiaries watched him, the goats watching the sheep on judgment day. Admiral Hope did not look up at them or, in the ferment of the occasion, think it a strange time to write to one's wife.

… The German delegates are in front of me at this moment. They represent the final cowardice of that empire. None of their notorious leaders have come to face us. Instead a minister without portfolio, a decadent count, an out-of-work general, and a mere captain of that great imperial fleet!

None the less he realized all at once he did not want to be there, was close to a sort of vertigo.

None the less [he wrote] I feel the heavy onus of being placed here by God and Britain. Our responsibility, to balance demands for proper precautions against mere lust for vengeance, to destroy the mechanisms of the German empire without destroying young and old indiscriminately. I believe that never since Pentecost has a descent by the holy spirit of wisdom upon mere men been so necessary.

And with the writing of the words he began, in fact, to feel Pentecostal, infused: and his breathing eased.

Of course, one suffers a bit from that old recurring question: why me? There are so many generals, so many admirals, so many nations to speak for. It is exactly the way one feels in battle while timing the flight of enemy shells. Why should this ship of all the British ships in all the British seas be the one to go sailing amongst the vapors of death?

You and I know the answer: there is no arrangement that is not divinely arranged.

How are Catherine and dear little Edmond? I'm glad that at last Major Henderson has stopped calling on her. I think he's an insensitive man, a common enough kind of regimental oaf, not up to Trevor's weight. On the other hand, there is really no need for her to go about dressed as a widow all the time—three months black is enough these days. Now that I have seen the front, there is something I wish you to pass on to her. Tell her that if it was meant for Trevor to die it was best it happened quickly, as soon as the German artillery began firing. On our way here I met Horace Turner, who is commanding a division near Amiens. He told me that when our retreat began, men trampled over the wounded in the rain, became mad things shut off from each other, lost to brotherhood. He says he saw a shell-shocked subaltern walk calmly down a line of wounded shooting through the head whoever groaned loudly. This is such a terrible war that we cannot be sure it was not precisely such a destiny that even an upright young man like Trevor was saved from by his instant death. Do I sound too callous? France is a running graveyard, my love, from Calais south, but, because I cannot believe that God refused to admit to his light any of the young who died here, it follows that there are worse things than death. There are living hells and the memory of living hells. As painful as it may be to say, it must be said. There are men alive now who would gladly take Trevor's place in quick and honorable oblivion. How to say this to Catherine? I can't say. But I rely, my darling, on your tact and wisdom.…

READING OF TERMS

The Marshal and Lord Wemyss returned in a faint tobacco sourness. Erzberger was asked to indicate his party, the Marshal introduced his, the nervous interpreters referred to each other for the spelling of names. Von Winterfeldt at center table had sense to know they would not like his aid.

All this settled, the Marshal signaled that they could take their places and with a similar bare gesture of his left hand that Erzberger should speak. Phlegm impeded Matthias's throat and could not be easily expelled. When he could talk his words were breathless, the voice furry.

Erzberger:
I have come to hear the Allied proposals for an armistice.

Laperche translated to French, the Marshal answered, Laperche transmitted, in merely viable German, the answer. That was the pattern.

The Marshal:
I have no proposals to make.

The count put a combative elbow on the table, in the manner of sane diplomats.

Maiberling:
We wish to inquire as to the conditions under which the Allies would agree to an armistice.

The Marshal:
I have no conditions to propose.

On Erzberger's left von Winterfeldt exhaled, expelling perhaps his last residues of Gallic enthusiasm. It wouldn't be of any use to remind the Marshal that they had once dined together. Beyond von Winterfeldt, however, Maiberling, glowering at his hands, showed the most urbane anger. Now that diplomatic contact had been made he seemed a man of exquisite protocol and sense. The idea of his extracting his armament from the overcoat and putting a bullet into the Marshal's stiff neck was no longer probable.

Erzberger:
President Wilson informed our government that
you
have authority to state conditions. I would like my colleague Count von Maiberling to read our last communiqué from the government of the United States.…

The Marshal permitted it. Perhaps he had not received a copy himself before leaving Senlis. Perhaps the American President did not honor his allies with copies of all state papers exchanged by Germany and the United States. Perhaps that was why the Marshal had permitted no American here.

Maiberling began to read, pausing at the ends of sentences for the French interpreter.

Matthias watched the Marshal haul furiously at the ends of his pipe-stained mustache. And Wemyss, ample face concentrated on the keeping of his monocle in his right eye, taking from his pocket first one pair of spectacles, then another. A regular Cowes review of his optical armament.

How shall I speak to them? It is almost beyond belief that they manage to speak to each other.

Maiberling finished the reading of the American communiqué.

The Marshal drove his body forward in the chair. Out of furious good will he would sort out their clumsy overtures.

The Marshal:
I am here to answer you as to terms if you require an armistice. Do you require an armistice?

He drew the possibility in the air as if it were a remote and theoretic one.

The Marshal:
If you do, I can
acquaint
you with the terms. I cannot
make
them myself. That is the work of the governments I represent.

He stored his tongue in his left cheek and held it there, something cleverly achieved.

Matthias and the count both spoke at once. Eager to be acquainted with terms.

General Weygand began to read from the document before him. Even in French it sounded ruinous to Erzberger, doubly ruinous when Helldorf translated. The massive terms rose, sucked oxygen out of the air, made Erzberger dizzy, gallows-gay.

They wanted Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine evacuated in
fourteen
days. They wanted repatriation of all natives of the nominated areas in fourteen days. These demands stung Matthias on the raw side of his conceit—he wrote on the paper provided,
Der Volkerbund
, Chapter IV. It was as far as he could go toward telling them: in the book whose title he had just noted down he had chastely written against expatriation, and now felt insulted by the punishing time limit.

They wanted five thousand heavy and field guns given up in good condition. Thirty thousand machine guns (good news for the soviets), five thousand trench mortars, two thousand fighters and bombers.

Von Helldorf translated impassively; perhaps he was happy if the regimental horses were not touched.

They wanted evacuation of the districts on the left bank of the Rhine. And across the river from Mainz, Coblenz, Cologne, and Strasbourg, bridgeheads thirty kilometers deep. From the end of the table came the noise of choking. Captain Vanselow had begun to weep. Was he a Rhinelander? Erzberger could not help feeling the captain was off cue. Weren't his tears supposed to be for the fleet?