Peter Vansittart - Secret Protocols

Not as descendent of Pahlen, scarcely as Resistance legionary, but as ‘secretary’, I had place amongst notables. Most wore name badges. Martin Büber, Zionist and philosopher, small, spectacled; the American author, Lionel Trilling, tall, elegant, diffidently smiling above a pale green bow-tie: Rudolf Augstein, editor of Der Spiegel , which he called ‘the assault battery of Democracy’, and who had been wounded on the Eastern Front. A Canadian bishop, Toute Vie publicist, promised me a ticket for his Liberal Pacificism lecture. The Gandhist Socialist, Mr J. Narayan, grinned in abstruse complicity, perhaps mistaking me for a hunger-marcher. His mauve, silk jacket, off-white trousers and jewelled fly-whisk, contrasting some tail-coats and sashes, gave him an endearing clownishness.

Surrounded by top journalists, Golda Meier, Israeli delegate, was demanding water as if declaring war on Egypt. Less vehement, twice as tall, was the Norwegian architect, Odd Nansen, son of Fridtjof, whom Gorky had once called the Conscience of Europe: he had dismissed the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 as a futile attempt to restore a dead era and declared that the difficult takes a little while to accomplish, the impossible a little longer. The son had suffered Sachsenhausen concentration camp as hostage for King Haakon. Watched by two polished Orientals, impersonal as fish, he was discussing with a Swedish surgeon, cousin of Björn Prutz, who, in London, 1940, was reputed to have discussed peace terms with ministers behind Churchill’s back.

I overheard that Hans Mayer, East German Marxist, had been seen, thus in defiance of his government. Golo Mann, historian, son of Thomas, was being photographed with Gérard Philipe, anxious, very intent, with the pout he had adopted for Caligula, in Camus’ play. Flashlights were incessant, netting me as if I were being sought by makers of realms, alongside such guardians of culture as Robert Antelme, husband of Marguerite Duras, whose novels Wilfrid recommended. Once a slave in Buchenwald and Gandersheim, Antelme had sadly confessed his joyful relief when executioners overlooked him and selected a comrade.

Standing by the long white table stacked with bottles was the Greek scholar and politician, Michail Stasinopoulos, looking puzzled that the photographers had not yet recognized him. In a later picture I was seen as if raising a fist at him, though actually passing him a plate. André Malraux was encircled by women in smart Italian trouser-suits, though more concerned with a lofty, glowing, untidy English poet, Mr Spender, beside whom he looked much smaller than his publicity pictures. He was lively, dark hair loose over features tallowy, lined, sharp at the chin and frequently twitching as if at a fly. He appeared troubled by his breathing, almost in pain, constantly flicking his nose. His eyes, large, shadowy, yet, seen closer, streaked with red, looked past his companion and the women as if inspecting several others simultaneously. When the Englishman hesitantly began some response, Malraux, whose thoughts filled three continents, from a small green bag selected a sugar lump with some care, though surely all were identical. I thought he might be about to place it into the other’s wide mouth but, shaking his head, he replaced it.

Knowing of Wilfrid’s interest in Malraux and friendship with Spender, I moved closer through the noisy, absorbed crowd, at an angle shielding me from their notice, though in another photograph, in the morrow’s Matin , they appeared to be awaiting my verdict on a momentous dilemma. A black gentleman in unfamiliar uniform joined them, hands in continuous motion as if tying a parcel. Nervy, Malraux smoked constantly, speaking so fast that I heard only fragments. ‘A failure… Palmyra… Aurelian… AD 70… Quattrocento.’ Wilfrid had respected his work on Goya and his Spanish Civil War movie, though distrusting his Arabian escapades and intimacy with Lawrence, Prince of Mecca. His Resistance exploits were still being belittled for alleged thefts of Cambodian art treasures and his desertion of the Left for his hero, de Gaulle.

Near me, I saw, bearded, fair-headed, thickly glassed and, at first sight, nondescript, Primo Levi, Italian partisan, poet, linguist, industrial chemist, friendly yet seeming to reserve space to repel the unwanted. He actually spoke to me, asking if I possessed ‘what was wanted’ . And that? ‘A good memory.’ Curiously eager, he asked about my parents, hopes and about Estonia. My replies won approval and, eyes brightening, reaching to me beneath the high forehead, he touched my elbow. ‘Don’t forget. Always remember.’ He himself seemed tightly suppressing emotions or recollections, and I remembered that a German lady once, very grandly, enquired where he had acquired such excellent German. ‘At Auschwitz,’ touching his arm, marked 174517.

He had gone but had braced my self-confidence, convincing me that I was on the outskirts of history, as I had been as a boy watching a Rathaus ball, listening to the Herr General talk of Count Bernadotte, the Reichsmarschall, the Gutter King or standing to attention beneath Pahlen’s portraits. Scarcely Talleyrand at Vienna, I might pass as delegate of a vanished republic. Malraux’s rosette gleamed like a medal, his dark suit became battle dress, momentarily I was with him low-flying over Franco’s armies or escaping a Nazi prison camp. Such a man could be boxing champion, river-boat card-sharper, Freikorps captain, confidante, then righteous betrayer, of a Napoleon.

I was within a giant glass paperweight, which, reversed, transforms summer to snow storm. In this great mansion, Fouché, hiding from Robespierre, had conferred for an instant with Barras, the latter terrified for his mistress’s life, and from such brief moments came Thermidor, Hagen’s curse upon power. Vast tasselled curtains, giant chandelier, grandiose paintings, ornate mouldings of bacchantes and centaurs, unperturbed by the scowls and hatreds without, would outlast us all, save, perhaps, an immemorial Dr Miracle, who, barely seen, like Primo Levi, forgets nothing.

Followed by television cameras we were shuffling into the ballroom, hung with old gold-and-crimson tapestries. On the orchestra dais, richly caparisoned, the committee was already seated, Wilfrid inconspicuous at one end. The rest of us found chairs in the long, curved rows beneath, and, perhaps in kindness, Trilling seated himself beside me, for which I was almost tearfully grateful. ‘They say,’ his voice was soft but with each word distinct, pointed, ‘that we can expect, by my standards, an unusually fine dinner. Before that…’ His shrug was rueful, in civilized good-humoured forbearance. Then, as if reminding me, he indicated people of whom I had never heard – Nathalie Sarrault, Roland Barthes, Georges Bataille, Maurice Blanchot… I was reassured when he confessed his unfamiliarity with Paris. ‘I hope you can tell me…’

His preliminary shrug was justified. The morning’s chairman, a Brazilian novelist, bright yellow, with few hairs, plenty of stomach, read telegrams, wholesome but repetitive. Truman, de Gaspari, Nehru, Monnet; from Attlee, Hannah Arendt and Churchill, who aroused the loudest acclaim. Then from the UN Secretary General and a recorded sermon from Thomas Mann, during which Malraux, a row ahead, sat with arms sternly folded. Now an American citizen, Mann reminded us of the traditional values and value of Old Germany. This elicited much approval, save from Malraux. Not so the congratulations from Jung, received in unpleasant silence. Even I remembered his pre-war salute to the SS, as a knightly caste, spiritual élite, outriders of the New Order and who had mocked Stauffenberg and the July Plotters as lions quarrelling over a hunk of raw meat. The vision of them gasping and twitching on the rope was a frozen glance from the unspeakable.