Peter Vansittart - Secret Protocols

I objected that the Sage would not have benefited the White Rose or July Plot. He surprised and disarmed me by retreating, then assenting, though not altogether convincing me of his sincerity as he smiled, ‘Love–fifteen!’

His attitude displeased Marc-Henri, resolute atheist. ‘Possibly,’ Wilfrid replied to the other’s aggressive assertion that religion was criminal fraud, ‘God does not exist, being employed elsewhere on matters more urgent. Conceivably, being can have existence without life.’ Marc-Henri’s expression, and perhaps my own, sternly denied this;Wilfrid bowed his head in sham humility, then turned to me. ‘Certainly the gods were dilettantes, they built nothing, save Valhalla, itself a confession of weakness. They made an art of completing very little, were creatures only of promises, poses, atmosphere. As for God…’ he regarded Marc-Henri as he might a dog, much respected but needing a bone, ‘I met her only once, in her small flat at Malmaison.’

I laughed obediently. Marc-Henri did not. When we were alone, a rash of sunlight gave Wilfrid an effect of nonsensical transfiguration, glistening, taller, but vague, though when he spoke he was coolly unspiritual. ‘You and I, Erich, might share something with your namesake, Erik Satie, who once folded his umbrella during a thunderstorm, to save it from getting wet.’

This left me wondering whether this was complimentary, though I later made a weak joke at which Wilfrid rose and lowered his head in salutation, murmuring, ‘Love–thirty!’

Wilfrid would introduce me as his secretary, to the chagrin of Marc-Henri, who, though, usually included in the invitations, seldom obliged by accepting them. An actual secretary, Ursule, arrived each morning, to work with Wilfrid in what he called the shakes of routine. That he was involved in UN committees was divulged by his brief speech at an Elysée reception for Trygve Lie, Secretary-General, and Dr Julian Huxley, Unesco Director. A function not very useful, he told Marc-Henri, of his speech, though, I reflected, he might say the same of his death. One newspaper account included his reference to Jewish children, not those protégés of M. Bousquet but Roman, rounded up in buses for the train to Auschwitz and, passing St Peter’s, screaming for the Pope to save them.

I suspected that he might have had part in the idealist German Kreisau Circle and knew that he had had some dealings with von Moltke, Stauffenberg, Adam von Trott and perhaps Pastor Bonhöffer. His reticence perplexed but was also a relief, a sign that he was not really expecting me to emigrate to West Germany.

As if contradicting this, I found, left open and unavoidable, an architectural blueprint surmounted by a stylized flower and stamped White Rose . It delineated low, glassy buildings, uncluttered lines, of an international college, humanistic, independent, sited amongst woods and meadows near Munich, as memorial to those students, rather few, conspiring for peace, hanged for treason. For this project, Wilfrid admitting helping in a most minor capacity, extracting funds from German industrialists, some of whom had been indicted at Nuremburg for employing slave-labour, and indeed suffering an undignified but brief imprisonment, and were now back at their desks.

Undeniably I could expect work there, as teacher or interpreter but knew I would never apply. Its attractions were countered by images best symbolized not by obvious wartime atrocities but by the early German films I had been seeing: absorbing, haunting, with mountains beautiful but fearsome films, inducing images of suicide, uncanny fairgrounds, malignant puppets, a murderer of children chuckling in a quiet, respectable hotel, a slanted, empty street. No linden blossom.

Such thoughts were removed by Wilfrid announcing that, as always, in an insignificant, even microscopic way, he had been co-opted on to the committee arranging a September International Conference to discuss European cultural opportunities just possible now that the USSR might be expecting a regime fumbling and perhaps more liberal. ‘We must try to assume that the Cold War may diminish, though opposition can be anticipated from quarters mostly at odds with themselves.’

Marc-Henri was uninterested, nor was I much more concerned. ‘Conference’ rang dully. Munich, Wannsee, Teheran, Yalta… the League, the Axis. I foresaw disruption of our easy existence, feared being recruited to man a telephone, assess mail, run errands, endure asphyxiating speeches from a congress of fat Ten Per Centers, verbose, self-satisfied and wheedling for treacly compassion and hard cash.

Wilfrid could usually apprehend my feelings. ‘I agree…’ as though I had uttered a challenge, ‘that there will be danger of too much what the English like to call jabber.’

The Press was already buzzing. Malenkov proclaimed the Conference a further proof of Anglo-American aggression, and East European participation was forbidden. Einstein declared support, Winston Churchill was donating a painting for auction and had accepted honorary presidency, together with Albert Schweitzer, Pandit Nehru and Jean Monnet, prophet of United Europe.

None of this reassured me, and I was soothed only by Wilfrid driving me to a Longchamp tennis club, not sententious or high-minded but ostentatiously fashionable and frivolous. I was swiftly inserted into a foursome – sweaty, hard-hitting Americans and a Frenchman, a skilled though reckless volleyer. I performed well enough to be invited for a return match next week.

On another court Wilfrid was distinct in long, cool whites amid coloured shorts and hairy legs, his play an elegant repertoire of shots, not fierce but adroitly slanted, impishly witty in their timing as they wrong-footed opponents or left them reaching a shade too wide. Afterwards, exhilarated, hot and sticky from more muscular efforts, I found him sitting, as though he had yet to play, drinking champagne with several men and girls attired in the latest, and briefest, sporting modes.

‘Ah!’ Wilfrid rose to introduce me, then, with an air of possessing momentous and specialized information, said that I would grieve to hear that Miss Marlene Dietrich might have broken her leg. Showing considerable mournfulness, I lay back, very content, hearing only stray words. ‘Godard… Kinsey…’ and, drowsily, my glass assiduously refilled, watching swift white movements on green and white surfaces, balls rising, falling, in a scene from Renoir or Proust and promoting more international harmonies than any expensive, ill-tempered conference. Girls were dainty and evanes-cent as ballet and as much beyond reach.For this instant, no matter.

When the others departed, Wilfrid lingered. ‘Tolstoy, did he not, remarked about the impossibility of describing happiness. He forgot that he had already done so. You remember the young Rostovs’ evening with delightful and disreputable “Uncle”? The smell of fresh apples, the spontaneous laughter, the darkening countryside, the lamps, Natasha thinking of fairyland. And Uncle’s Cossack coat, his fat mistress.’ Upholding his shimmering glass, Wilfrid adopted a slight, foreign intonation and I at once heard Uncle, amongst fireflies, cherry brandy, honey, mirth. ‘This, you see, dear friends… is how I am ending my days. Death will drive up. That’s it. Come on. Nothing will remain. So why harm anyone?’

More normally, he remarked, ‘Uncle at his guitar…’ I was able to join with him, chanting under our breath:

We were on pleasure island, indolent, dandyesque, complete. The bottle finished, Wilfrid made farewells, collected racquets, lifted a hand, irony discarded, the agreeable club member.

‘Tonight, Erich, there’s a concert. It might, do you think, round off the day.’