Ken Follett - Fall of Giants

Walter had set up a small intelligence bureau at the Hotel des Réservoirs, monitoring the French, British, American, and Italian newspapers and collating gossip picked up by the German delegation. He knew that there were bad-tempered arguments between the Allies about the German counterproposals. Lloyd George, a politician who was flexible to a fault, was willing to reconsider the draft treaty. But the French prime minister, Clemenceau, said he had already been generous and fumed with outrage at any suggestion of amendments. Surprisingly, Woodrow Wilson was also obdurate. He believed the draft was a just settlement, and whenever he had made up his mind he became deaf to criticism.

The Allies were also negotiating peace treaties to cover Germany’s partners: Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. They were creating new countries such as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and carving up the Middle East into British and French zones. And they were arguing about whether to make peace with Lenin. In every country the people were tired of war, but a few powerful men were still keen to fight against the Bolsheviks. The British Daily Mail had discovered a conspiracy of international Jewish financiers supporting the Moscow regime-one of that newspaper’s more implausible fantasies.

On the German treaty Wilson and Clemenceau overruled Lloyd George, and earlier that day the German team at the Hotel des Réservoirs had received an impatient note giving them three days to accept.

Walter thought gloomily about his country’s future as he sat in the back of Fitz’s car. It would be like an African colony, he thought, the primitive inhabitants working only to enrich their foreign masters. He would not want to raise children in such a place.

Maud was waiting in the photographer’s studio, looking wonderful in a filmy summer dress that, she said, was by Paul Poiret, her favorite couturier.

The photographer had a painted backdrop that showed a garden in full flower, which Maud decided was in bad taste, so they posed in front of his dining room curtains, which were mercifully plain. At first they stood side by side, not touching, like strangers. The photographer proposed that Walter should kneel in front of Maud, but that was too sentimental. In the end they found a position they all liked, with the two of them holding hands and looking at each other rather than the camera.

Copies of the picture would be ready tomorrow, the photographer promised.

They went to their auberge for lunch. “The Allies can’t just order Germany to sign,” Maud said. “That’s not negotiation.”

“It is what they have done.”

“What happens if you refuse?”

“They don’t say.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Some of the delegation are returning to Berlin tonight for consultations with our government.” He sighed. “I’m afraid I have been chosen to go with them.”

“Then this is the time to make our announcement. I’ll go to London tomorrow after I’ve picked up the photographs.”

“All right,” he said. “I’ll tell my mother as soon as I get to Berlin. She’ll be nice about it. Then I’ll tell Father. He won’t.”

“I’ll speak to Aunt Herm and Princess Bea, and write to Fitz in Russia.”

“So this will be the last time we meet for a while.”

“Eat up, then, and let’s go to bed.”

Gus and Rosa met in the Tuileries Gardens. Paris was beginning to get back to normal, Gus thought happily. The sun was shining, the trees were in leaf, and men with carnations in their buttonholes sat smoking cigars and watching the best-dressed women in the world walk by. On one side of the park, the rue de Rivoli was busy with cars, trucks, and horse-drawn carts; on the other, freight barges plied the river Seine. Perhaps the world would recover, after all.

Rosa was ravishing in a red dress of light cotton and a wide-brimmed hat. If I could paint, Gus thought when he saw her, I’d paint her like this.

He had a blue blazer and a fashionable straw boater. When she saw him, she laughed.

“What is it?” he said.

“Nothing. You look nice.”

“It’s the hat, isn’t it?”

She suppressed another giggle. “You’re adorable.”

“It looks stupid. I can’t help it. Hats do that to me. It’s because I’m shaped like a ball-peen hammer.”

She kissed him lightly on the lips. “You’re the most attractive man in Paris.”

The amazing thing was that she meant it. Gus thought: How did I get so lucky?

He took her arm. “Let’s walk.” They strolled toward the Louvre.

She said: “Have you seen the Tatler?”

“The London magazine? No, why?”

“It seems that your intimate friend Lady Maud is married to a German.”

“Oh!” he said. “How did they find out?”

“You mean you knew about this?”

“I guessed. I saw Walter in Berlin in 1916 and he asked me to carry a letter to Maud. I figured that meant they were either engaged or married.”

“How discreet you are! You never said a word.”

“It was a dangerous secret.”

“It may still be dangerous. The Tatler is nice about them, but other papers may take a different line.”

“Maud has been attacked by the press before now. She’s pretty tough.”

Rosa looked abashed. “I suppose this is what you were talking about that night I saw you tête-à-tête with her.”

“Exactly. She was asking me if I had heard any news about Walter.”

“I feel foolish for suspecting you of flirting.”

“I forgive you, but reserve the right to recall the matter next time you criticize me unreasonably. Can I ask you something?”

“Anything you like, Gus.”

“Three questions, in fact.”

“How ominous. Like a folktale. If I get the answers wrong, will I be banished?”

“Are you still an anarchist?”

“Would it bother you?”

“I guess I’m asking myself if politics might divide us.”

“Anarchism is the belief that no one has the right to rule. All political philosophies, from the divine right of kings to Rousseau’s social contract, try to justify authority. Anarchists believe that all those theories fail, therefore no form of authority is legitimate.”

“Irrefutable, in theory. Impossible to put into practise.”

“You’re quick on the uptake. In effect, all anarchists are antiestablishment, but they differ widely in their vision of how society should work.”

“And what is your vision?”

“I don’t see it as clearly as I used to. Covering the White House has given me a different slant on politics. But I still believe that authority needs to justify itself.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever quarrel about that.”

“Good. Next question?”

“Tell me about your eye.”

“I was born like this. I could have an operation to open it. Behind my eyelid is nothing but a mass of useless tissue, but I could wear a glass eye. However, it would never shut. I figure this is the lesser evil. Does it bother you?”

He stopped walking and turned to face her directly. “May I kiss it?”

She hesitated. “All right.”

He bent down and kissed her closed eyelid. There was nothing unusual about how it felt to his lips. It was just like kissing her cheek. “Thank you,” he said.

She said quietly: “No one has ever done that before.”

He nodded. He had guessed it might be some kind of taboo.

She said: “Why did you want to do it?”

“Because I love everything about you, and I want to make sure you know it.”

“Oh.” She was silent for a minute, in the grip of emotion; but then she grinned and reverted to the flip tone she preferred. “Well, if there’s anything else weird you want to kiss, just let me know.”