Grand Days (4 page)

Edith took fright and the Way of Cowardly Flight.

They were, thankfully, confronted by the fruit plate and she found herself again with something to say.

He had fallen into a careworn silence and she felt that it was her fault. That she had better carry things for a while. ‘Orange, apple, and banana,' she said brightly, examining the fruit plate with more attention than it deserved. ‘The three musketeers of the English winter.' She smiled at him, relieving him of the investigation not only because of her perturbation but also from tenderness. ‘I count that as my anecdote on the matter of fruit.'

Edith was still in silent disarray from her efforts to use conversation detectively. Maybe she'd been successful by her code, had dared to go to a new place in ideas. She'd been fearfully close to a blunder, and a blunder could not be claimed as a manoeuvre. But a conversation couldn't be fully managed all the way. Not on trains. Part of the confusion was that it had begun as a conversation with a stranger on a train and had changed to a conversation with a colleague. It had at some point changed again to being flirtation, although she felt she wasn't always good at knowing flirtation from friendliness. She even suspected the flirtation had been moving towards seduction.

The meal was over. Ambrose told her not to pay the bill unless it was written out in her presence and never to make payment on a French train without a bill. ‘Just good practice,' he told her. ‘Keep the bill for the dreadful people in Finance.'

They returned to her compartment, which she had to herself, and he sat beside her and they sipped Singleton's, which Ambrose described as a single malt Scotch whisky, from Ambrose's well-worn and dented hip flask, in the small silver cups which went with the hip flask, embossed with Ambrose's
corps insignia, and they talked of their childhoods and other things through the few remaining hours of the darkening winter's afternoon.

She'd drunk Scotch with her father back in Australia and it reminded her of those conversations where the presence of the Scotch decanter had marked his recognition of her maturity. She relaxed into the motion of the train with its sensation of velocity, the play of the light and dusk at the window, enjoying the landscape blurred by speed, winter snow, the feeling of rushing through time, the alcohol and its rug of carefree warmth, the steam-heating of the train, and the faint smell of burning coal from the engine. If she let her eyes become lazy, the window view became an abstraction of light and shapes. It was a winter dark when the train stopped at Bellegarde. Ambrose told her it was the border. They'd already showed their League
lettre de mission
and other papers to the customs officers who'd moved through the train earlier.

Standing together in the dim corridor after the train moved out on its last few miles to Geneva, looking out of the window, she admitted to him that she was rather elated at the idea of arriving in Geneva and with working for the League and she hoped that, when there, he might guide her in her work and watch over her a little.

‘So you should be elated,' he said, ‘Geneva's the place to be. And I should be proudly happy to be your guide, dear Edith, and to watch over you.'

Having, by her youthful admission, delivered herself into his care, she then let the train rock their bodies together, and she realised that the body also asked questions, and Ambrose kissed her, and as she played with his kiss, and gave herself to the kiss, she could not tell whether there was a difference to the kiss of a man who inhabited a place at or near the border, knowing more
about conversation than she did about kissing. If, indeed, he did. As she looked over his shoulder, she wondered what a lady should do to give pleasure to a gentleman who inhabited this border place. And did she not believe in the ending of national borders? She returned then to the mild swoon of another kiss and, just before she entered the delight of the kiss, his body against hers, the swelling of his groin gave her the message that he belonged to the domain of men and women, definitely in that domain.

On her first day, Edith set out for the Palais Wilson at 7.45 a.m. She was not dressed in her new yellow wool suit with the belt. She wore her familiar, but dapper, fine grey wool suit with black braid trim from her Melbourne days. She wanted not to have to worry about the feel and sensation of unacquainted clothing, especially the colour yellow, and, even though it sounded schoolgirlish, she did not want to appear ‘all new'. Dress so as to pass unobserved. She had, though, heightened her make-up because of the grey.

She carried a parcel of personal things for her office.

Walking along the quai Woodrow Wilson to the Palais, she let a rush of exhilaration pass through her as she looked across Lac Léman but she did not linger and nor did she reveal her exhilaration to the passing Genevans.

She arrived at what she took to be the front door of the Palais, the entrance facing Lac Léman, but was directed to go around to the other side of the Palais by a man inside the building, gesticulating from behind the glass door.

That is, she thought, one incontrovertible error of the League. The front door should be where people expect a front door to be, facing a natural scenic attraction. Maybe the League of Nations had a higher order of priorities which could not acknowledge natural scenic attractions. Perhaps they had not beheld the lake. She believed in the Aesthetic of the Outside of the Inside. That the Outside determined the Inside, was part of the Inside. She wondered whether that should go on to her
list of suggestions for improving the League which she felt a good officer with initiative and drive would be expected to have upon joining. She then thought that her saying, ‘The front door should be where people expect a front door to be,' sounded like something Alice might have said to the Queen. And what would the Queen have replied? ‘Sometimes in this world,' the Queen would have said, ‘it is better to look both ways — hence to have two fronts and no back.'

Edith passed two dogs playing at the ‘front door'. On the steps, she had a momentary but elusive and extraneous thought about carnal love, something from a joke she remembered from the non-members' bar at Parliament House in Melbourne about the ‘two-backed beast', which she had, embarrassedly, asked John Latham to explain. He had not, though, made fun of her in his explanation.

She found herself standing, at last, in the foyer of the Palais Wilson, in the foyer of the League of Nations, in Geneva. Here, in the foyer of the League of Nations, Edith Campbell Berry stands.

This, she thought, is the very centre of the political universe. ‘But only if you think the world is made up of a centre with all else being periphery,' the Queen commented. True, there are various systems of spherical co-ordinates, she told the Queen, and I have studied celestial mechanics.

Edith saw that the foyer area ran all the way through the building from ‘front' to the ‘back', to the door at which she had first arrived. She looked up, up the huge central stairwell rising from the foyer and around which the building was constructed, up the five floors to the skylight. She saw four clocks, one on each landing, all saying 8.29.

She breathed the odour of the building's life and savoured it.

In French, she asked the concierge to direct her to the office of a Mr Cooper, who was, she understood, her immediate superior. She hesitated about giving the concierge her card, confused about the protocol of such an action.

‘This way, madam.'

She was disappointed that he had reverted to English, as if he assumed she would have difficulty in French.

The concierge had a St Bernard dog which she knelt and patted, glad to be able to touch an animal.

As she rose, she said, ‘Oh, is that the Glass-house?' and pointed to the large hall off the foyer.

‘“Glass-room”. The Council room. Yes, madam.'

‘“Glass-room”. Of course. Would you show it to me?'

‘Of course, madam.'

He led her into the room saying, ‘It was formerly the ballroom, madam, when the Palais was the Hotel National.'

She gazed at the room, allowing its authority to ripple through her.

‘Two wars have been stopped in this room,' the concierge added, with a knowing pride.

She looked around at him and smiled. She liked people who loved their work. ‘Were you here when it was the Hôtel National?'

‘Some of us from the hotel were taken on by the
Société des Nations
. Do you begin work here, madam?'

‘This is my first day.'

‘May I welcome madam. You will be working in Internal Services?'

‘In the office of Under Secretary Monnet. For a time, anyhow. Until they find something to do with me. Or send me home.'

‘You will be one of my chiefs,' he said.

‘In a manner of speaking, I suppose,' she said smiling, unwilling just yet to claim any command.

She again breathed deeply, savouring the dignified, wax-polished aroma of the council room.

‘From which nation does madam come?'

‘Australia. All the way from Australia. And you? Are you Swiss?'

‘Austrian. Viennese.'

‘Then you are the first Austrian I have spoken to.' She smiled and held out her hand. They shook hands and introduced themselves.

‘I will escort you,' he said, and they went towards the lift but she said she would rather take the stairs.

‘If you wouldn't mind.' He pointed at his leg. ‘It is the third floor.' He entered the lift and the lift boy closed the clanking grill.

Before going up the stairs, she gazed at the board which showed the location of the sections and services:

To her they seemed like the names of hallowed battlefields.

She trailed her hand on the banister, thinking to herself that her three heroes, Briand, Benes and Lord Cecil, had touched the same banister.

Or maybe they took the lift?

On the third floor, the concierge was waiting for her. He asked for her name, apologising for not remembering it.

‘Edith Berry,' she said, ‘Edith Campbell Berry, to be precise.'

He knocked on the door which said
Chief of Section
and they were admitted. The concierge announced her and withdrew, giving her an encouraging smile. Did she look as though she needed the supporting smile of a concierge?

She saw a file with her name on it on Mr Cooper's desk. She removed her gloves and took her card from her handbag and offered it to him but he waved it away. ‘I know who you are. We expected you today.' He smiled and shook her hand. They looked at each other but for Edith it was a blur of unfocused smiles.

‘It's no good me trying to explain how everything works,' he said, ‘the
rouages
. I think you should just plunge in. When you need to know something, ask someone. Think that's best.'

‘Yes, I think so.' And she understood the French word
rouages
.

He said that she would be ‘on loan', as it were, from the Under Secretary's office to Internal Services. He would see that
she was given experience throughout the internal administration. ‘Do you know anyone here?'

‘I know Major Westwood.' To give the association a certain firmness, she restrained herself from saying they'd just met on the train coming down from Paris. And had kissed.

Twice.

‘Good. At least you're not completely orphaned. I'll introduce you around at lunch. Now I'll take you to see Under Secretary Monnet and then I'll show you your office.' He stood up and came around to where she was standing.

Outside Under Secretary Monnet's office she asked Cooper whether she would be expected to proffer her hand to M. Monnet. She couldn't remember what Theodosia Ada Wallace said about the etiquette of that.

‘Proffer your hand?'

‘To be kissed. In the French way.'

‘Oh no. Only married women. A handshake will be enough.'

At the office of the Under Secretary Monnet she was introduced. She spoke nervously in her best French and she was duly welcomed. M. Monnet asked two questions about the animals of Australia and then she and Mr Cooper withdrew.

In the corridors, the building had come alive with people going around and about her on the business of the world. She glanced at their faces, trying to determine what manner of people they were. She looked at the smart way the women were dressed but did not feel dowdy. They seemed so much in command of themselves.

Cooper took her to a small office, opened the door of the office and she stepped in.

It was small but grand. It had a window overlooking the lake. She went over and looked out. A window box of dead soil awaited a spring planting. Her first window box. She touched
the soil — her first touch of European soil, or was it international soil?

She turned, elated, and looked around the room. Her desk had a blotter and pen and inkstand. Glass and Bakelite. A fireplace and also a steam-heater.

‘Are officers permitted to put things on the walls? I mean, etchings and so forth?' she asked, trying to sound in command of herself.

‘Forge ahead. We in Internal Services decide those sorts of things. We are the Masters. Masters of the floors and walls, at least.'

She rushed to smile at his joke.

There was another door in the office which she tried. It opened on to a second door. Both doors were padded for sound-proofing. She turned to him, puzzled.

‘They are the connecting doors to the other office. It's from the days when this was a hotel and people took connecting rooms. You can lock your side if you wish.'

‘Oh.' She closed the connecting door. She wasn't familiar with hotels with connecting rooms.

‘I suggest you spend the morning finding your way about the building. Have a look round. Good luck.' He again shook her hand and left her.

She looked at the documents in the incoming tray which were only Roneoed notices to staff about remembering to lock doors and drawers and such things. There was a water flask and glass on her desk. She thought she would look for a fine cut-glass water flask and glass for her desk. And a new pen and inkstand, perhaps of polished wood. And a vase. There were three newly sharpened pencils which she noted were from Germany, and which she smelled. She imagined that she was smelling the Black Forest but then the sawmill at Tomerong back home wished to
be remembered. There was a notepad and other stationery with a letterhead which she touched with her finger, drawing authority from it.

She took off her coat and hung it on the door hook. She undid her blouse cuffs and turned them back. She stood staring out the window.

The telephone rang. She picked it up, wondering whether to speak in French or English. ‘
Oui
. Yes.' Then she added, ‘Berry speaking.'

‘
Bienvenue
. Welcome. Welcome on board, Berry.' It was Ambrose Westwood.

‘Thank you, Ambrose — Westwood — Major Westwood.'

She heard him chuckle. ‘In the office “Major” will suffice. I'll pick you up for lunch. Unless, of course, you've made arrangements?'

She told him that, yes, in fact, she had.

‘Quick work. I'll have to be swift if I want to see more of you.'

‘Maybe after we finish for the day?'

‘Right. Drinks at the end of the day. Fine. What is the number of your office?'

‘I don't know.'

‘It's on the door.'

She put down the telephone and went to the corridor and looked at the door.

It was 366. The number of her parents' telephone back in Australia. Since beginning her travels, she'd had a couple of such coincidences. She told Ambrose the number and the coincidence.

‘Oh, travellers' coincidences. Happen all the time when you move about the world. Think nothing of it. We look for connections, I suspect. I will call for you at 6.36.'

‘6.36?'

‘6.36 at 366. Just playing around.'

She worried about the pension which had its meal rather early. She could call them on the telephone and say that she would not be in for dinner, if that were permitted.

And she was presuming, presuming that she would eat with Ambrose Westwood. She could hardly go to a café and eat alone.

‘Will we dine together?' she asked in a hesitant voice, hoping she was not too forward. ‘I ask only because of the pension.'

‘Good idea. Yes, let's dine together.' He hung up.

Part of her wanted to go to the pension after work and sit in her rooms until they melded with her — and to move the furniture perhaps. She had to make her house. But she also wanted to make her way.

To make romance, even, and with an older man.

What did two meals together in three days and two impetuous kisses on a train mean in Europe? Impetuous kisses had happened on the ship coming over but that was something else — the shipboard romance. When the boat docked the romance was assumed to have ended.

Perhaps this evening she would find out about romances begun on trains with older men. Perhaps kisses on trains and meals taken together counted for nothing in Europe.

Or had she already begun a romance? Surely she should know whether she had. She put that aside, sat at her desk and assumed a serious posture.

She unpacked her personal office belongings: her hand towel, her soap, her tooth cleaning things, a desk photograph of her parents and brother, her poor lost brother, and a photograph of herself and John Latham on the steps outside the Parliament in Melbourne — she thought to herself that her clothing in the photograph looked so out-of-fashion, although it had been taken only a year ago.