Lawrence Durrell - Esprit de Corps - Sketches from Diplomatic Life

“We could not call the roll for twenty-four hours and when we did it seemed nothing less than a miracle that we had endured no major casualties. It’s the sort of thing which almost makes one Take Refuge in Religion.

“As for Benbow, he had gone on long leave by next morning and was not due back for six months. It was a tactful retreat. Polk-Mowbray himself drew the moral and adorned the tale by remarking to the Chancery: ‘The Great Thing in Diplomacy is Never to Over-reach Oneself.’ I think he had got hold of something there, even if he was just being wise after the event.”

“If there is anything worse than a soprano,” said Antrobus judicially as we walked down the Mall towards his club, “it is a mezzo-soprano. One shriek lower in the scale, perhaps, but with higher candle-power. I’m not just being small-minded, old chap. I bear the scars of spiritual experience. Seriously.” And indeed he did look serious; but then he always does. The aura of the Foreign Office clings to him. He waved his umbrella, changed step, and continued in a lower, more confidential register. “And I can tell you another thing. If there is anything really questionable about the French character it must be its passion for culture. I might not dare to say this in the F.O. old man, but I know you will respect my confidence. You see, we are all supposed to be pro rather than anti in the Old Firm — but as for me, frankly I hate the stuff. It rattles me. It gives me the plain untitivated pip, I don’t mind confessing.”

He drew a deep breath and after a pause went on, more pensively, drawing upon his memories of Foreign Service life: “All my worst moments have been cultural rather than political. Like that awful business of La Valise, known privately to the members of the Corps as The Diplomatic Bag Extraordinary. Did I ever mention it? She was French Ambassadress in Poland.”

“No.”

“Shall I? It will make you wince.”

“Do.”

“Well it happened while I was serving in Warsaw some years ago; an unspeakable place full of unspeakable people. It was the usual Iron Curtain post to which the F.O. had exposed its soft white underbelly in the person of Smith-Cromwell. Not that he was a bad chap. He was in fact quite intelligent and had played darts for Cambridge. But he was easily led. As you know in a Communist country the Corps finds itself cut off from every human contact. It has to provide its own amusements, fall back on its own resources. And this is where the trouble usually begins. It is a strange thing, but in a post like that it is never long before some dastardly Frenchman (always French) reaches for the safety catch of his revolver and starts to introduce culture into our lives. Invariably.

“So it fell out with us in Warsaw. Sure enough, during my second winter the French appointed a Cultural Attaché, straight from Montmartre — the place with the big church. Fellow like a greyhound. Burning eyes. Dirty hair. A moist and Fahrenheit handshake. You know the type. Started living quite openly with a girl in the secret police. Most Questionable fellow. Up till now everything had been quiet and reasonable — just the usual round of diplomatic-social engagements among colleagues. Now this beastly fellow started the ball rolling with a public lecture — an undisguised public lecture — on a French writer called, if I understood him correctly, Flowbear. Of course we all had to go to support the French. Cultural reciprocity and all that. But as if this wasn’t enough, the little blackhead followed it up with another about another blasted French writer called, unless my memory is at fault, Goaty-eh. I ask you, my dear fellow, what was one to do. Flowbear! Goaty-eh! It was more than flesh and blood could stand. I myself feared the worst as I sat listening to him. I had of course wound up and set my features at Refined Rapture like everyone else, but inside me I was in a turmoil of apprehension. Culture spreads like mumps, you know, like measles. A thing like this could get everyone acting unnaturally in no time. All culture corrupts, old boy, but French culture corrupts absolutely. I was not wrong.

“The echoes had hardly died away when I noticed That awful look coming over people’s faces. Everyone began to think up little tortures of their own. A whole winter stretched before us with practically no engagements except a national day or so. It was clear that unless Smith-Cromwell took a strong line the rot would set in. He did not. Instead of snorting when La Valise embarked on a cultural season he weakly encouraged her; he was even heard to remark that culture was a Good Thing — for the Military Attaché.

“At this time of course we also had our cultural man. Name of Gool. And he looked it. It was a clear case of Harrow and a bad third in History. But up to now we had kept Gool strictly under control and afraid to move. It could not last. He was bound to come adrift. Within a month he was making common cause with his French colleague. They began to lecture, separately and together. They gave readings with writhings. They spared us nothing, Eliot, Sartre, Immanuel Kant — and who is that other fellow? The name escapes me. In short they gave us everything short of Mrs. Beeton. I did my best to get an arm-lock on Gool and to a certain extent succeeded by threatening to recommend him for an OBE. He knew this would ruin his career and that he would be posted to Java. But by the time I had got him pressed to the mat it was too late. The whole Corps had taken fire and was burning with the old hard gem-like flame. Culture was spreading like wildfire.

“A series of unforgettable evenings now began, old boy. Each mission thought up some particularly horrible contribution of its own to this feast. The nights became a torture of pure poesy and song. An evening of hellish amateur opera by the Italians would be followed without intermission by an ear-splitting evening of yodelling from the Swiss, all dressed as edelweiss. Then the Japanese mission went berserk and gave a Noh-play of ghoulish obscurity lasting seven hours. The sight of all those little yellowish, inscrutable diplomats all dressed as Mickey Mouse, old boy, was enough to turn milk. And their voices simply ate into one. Then in characteristic fashion the Dutch, not to be outdone, decided to gnaw their way to the forefront of things with a recital of national poetry by the Dutch Ambassadress herself. This was when I began to draft my resignation in my own mind. O God! how can I ever forget Madame Vanderpipf (usually the most kind and normal of wives and mothers) taking up a stance like a grenadier at Fontenoy, and after a pause declaiming in a slow, deep — O unspeakably slow and deep — voice, the opening verses of whatever it was? Old boy, the cultural heritage of the Dutch is not my affair. Let them have it, I say. Let them enjoy it peacefully as they may. But spare me from poems of five hundred lines beginning ‘Oom kroop der poop.’ You smile, as well indeed you may, never having heard Mrs. Vanderpipf declaiming those memorable stanzas with all the sullen fire of her race. Listen!

Oom kroop der poop

Zoom kroon der soup

Soon droon der oopersnoop.

“And so on. Have you got the idea? Perhaps there is something behind it all — who am I to say? All I know is that it is no joke to be on the receiving end. Specially as she would pause from time to time to give a rough translation in pidgin for Smith-Cromwell’s benefit. Something like this: ‘Our national poet Snuger-pouf, he says, eef Holland lives forever, only, how you would say? heroes from ze soil oopspringing, yes?’

“Then she would take a deep breath and begin afresh.

Oom kroop der poop

Zoom kroon der soup.