Gossip From the Forest Read online

  Tonight as any night and even in the dark there is a faint nimbus (having to do with innate success) about the head.

  He turns over and shows us a scar under his left eye. His thumb rubs another under his jaw. Won the same day he lost his two teeth.

  That was in May 1916. In that month the British wanted to make a great frontal assault to the north of the Somme. The French command required Foch to use his army group as well, along the north and south banks of that hazy country stream. It would take pressure off the French salient at Verdun, the crumbling fortresses, redoubts, caverns that were too old-fashioned in 1880 but had attained a sanctity like Notre Dame’s in Frenchmen’s minds. The unreality depressed the general (as he was then). He admitted the depression only to Maxime and told no one at all that he feared he might once again be given pre-experience of the deaths of poilus.

  As well he believed, for soldierly reasons, the Somme attempt could not work. In his lecture room he had spoken not only of élan, dash and drive, but also of sureté, matériel, fire-power. By May 1916 he had come to respect sureté, and the fact that the enemy had a bunker system which could withstand much of it.

  As well, a third of his divisions were transferred from the Somme and sent down by train into the tragicomical bulge the French insisted on keeping at holy Verdun.

  By way of staff officers, the Marshal (or general) leaked this more professional discontent with the plan into the offices of the highest—into the office of the President of the Republic. Then he was himself invited to give voice to it, and he gave voice to it. (See, says the thumb, now an inch from his jaw and barely discernible over the rim of the blanket, the growth in knowledge.) Leave it till next year, he’d said in May and June 1916. That’s a unilateral policy, he was told. The enemy won’t wait till next year.

  He’d said, attack each defensive line separately, giving each a preliminary bombardment. Don’t expect Western Europe to open like a can of peaches and according to your wish. (He could, in fact, sense it was wish not will that had led his brothers and elders to make these summer plans.)

  On 16 May 1916 Foch’s car went into a skid on a road flanked by drainage ditches. MEAUX 2 KM a local signpost said. It was a touring car and above him the limpid spring sky which, without being seen to inhale, breathed down mad ideas of invulnerability on all the allied bivouacs from Labroye to Guiscard now began jerking like a ballooning muscle, a frightful lung. He believed therefore this was going to be a bad crash. When it was clear the ditch couldn’t be avoided, the driver seemed to want to swing the car head-on for it, as if that were his favorite way of entering ditches. He was thrown over the windscreen and General Foch took his place face-first at the driving wheel. Two staff officers were also thrown about in various ways.

  When he was clear again a senior medical surgeon was suturing his face under a lamp in the hospital in Meaux. The damage was small by the standards of what could happen to soldiers. General Foch thought then, in a concussed way, that the sky had never meant to impose a serious accident on him. The rips in his face had been given him so that he could remember, while touching his skin or being shaved, that he had tried to argue away the offensive on the Somme. (The suspicion lasted through concussion into clarity and is very strong with him tonight, even while he sleeps.)

  He needed the feel of his scar tissue at the end of ’16’s summer when the British and French had advanced eight kilometers on a front of thirty-five and lost between them 630,000 men. He needed it in the winter when they took him off the battlefield and forced him to a notional job in an office. Perhaps he will need it in an era of peace.

  Here, in the wagon-lit, there are no papers, no family letters from his wife. Only the books, the two-tooth plate, the scars. His baggy uniform is hung away. Beneath the blankets the body is quite small under the large head. We feel he is a partially deflated manikin.

  The window jalousies rattle a little because the window beyond them is open some way. Not even cold air from the forest breaks up the cabined smells of his sweat and tobacco, the persevering tang of his manhood.

  ASLEEP IN THE PLUSH

  When Count Maiberling said he thought he would sleep as he was, amongst the plush, Erzberger felt grateful and knew he himself did not wish to sleep alone that night. Only von Winterfeldt and Helldorf went off to the sleeping car.

  The count laughed and suggested they might have an indecent purpose. Erzberger and Vanselow unlaced their sodden boots and did not join in the joke against the military.

  They hung the furnishings of the imperial saloon with wet socks and overcoats. Since it was quite warm they also shed their suitcoats. As they stretched amongst the cushions an orderly came and took their cognac glasses away.

  Major Bourbon-Busset, upright in an armchair to see that no shutters were opened, sent him to get blankets for the dignitaries.

  As soon as they had settled down the major, like a dormitory prefect, switched off the main lights. Matthias felt some shame at not forswearing the saloon and Bourbon-Busset’s supervision.

  Maiberling: Take care, Major. As soon as you’re asleep I intend to raise the window. And read the caliber of your raindrops.

  No one laughed. The count muttered amongst the opulent leather.

  Maiberling: Good suspension. A nice ride.

  Christ, Erzberger thought, in two hours the Buttenhausen clever-boy Matthias must speak up to the victors. He would have consented to ride on on the good suspension, under the rain and even under the major’s direction, for eternity, his feet cramped and blanketed in the plush, his brain blinking and nuzzling in its burrow.

  Maiberling: Matthias. Can you hear me?

  Erzberger considered lying.

  Erzberger: Yes.

  Maiberling: Do you have a mistress?

  Erzberger: No.

  Maiberling: Should I believe you?

  Erzberger: Of course. How could I keep a mistress? With my background? It would be in all the conservative press.

  Maiberling: I suppose.

  Erzberger: Let me tell you, Alfred. They hire detectives to find such things out about me.

  Maiberling: You’d like to have a mistress. If it were expedient.

  Erzberger: This isn’t profitable talk.

  Maiberling: Paula doesn’t satisfy you.

  Erzberger: Don’t force me to be angry.

  Maiberling: And you have no mistress. So you come on a flirtation with the great whore History.

  Erzberger: Go to sleep.

  Maiberling: I understand these things.

  Erzberger: You have a mistress!

  For some seconds the count kept a poignant silence, as if he had not forced Matthias to make the barbarous claim.

  Maiberling: I know you, Matthias. And this sort of journey is typical of men your age. Ardent bastards who know they’ll never be satisfied. The bull goes to be poleaxed.

  Erzberger: I won’t believe it.

  MATTHIAS WAKES AT FIRST GRAY LIGHT

  When he woke up all lights were out. Wakeful Bourbon-Busset stood by a window smoking without interest through his long nose. First light from an unshuttered window fell across his chest and hands. Oh dear Jesus, Erzberger thought. Arrival.

  He sat up, resentful about the state of his mouth. He began putting his boots on and noticed they’d been cleaned by invisible orderlies in the night. He did not like the idea of Frenchmen padding around his couch while he slept, and watching his open mouth. However he was grateful for the polish.

  The boots were dry and solid, as if they’d been put on a hot-plate. When he had them on he walked up yawning behind Bourbon-Busset. He saw small trees and a farm two fields away, stained with moss.

  Erzberger: Where are we?

  Bourbon-Busset: At the edge of the forest.

  Erzberger: What forest?

  Bourbon-Busset: The forest where you’ll meet our delegates.

  Erzberger: I thought it had perhaps a name on the map.

  His dream of the winter forest and umbrella struck
him as his irony faded. He made a small cry Bourbon-Busset did not hear. That instant, a few kilometers away, the Marshal woke and went to his window, interested to know what sort of colors the day of the triumph of will came dressed in.

  Bourbon-Busset: We’ll be there by seven. From that hour breakfast will be served in the dining car. You’ll find your baggage in your wagon-lit. The attendant will bring you shaving water.

  Erzberger would not be dismissed but stayed on to watch the forest pass. Its floor was lower than the railway line and matted with ivy. He saw a hunting trail, well kept. Therefore we are well into France. Near Paris? Fontainebleau? Germain-en-Laye? Mists kept station behind beech trees.

  He found a sleeping cabin marked with his name. Quite comfortable; he’d been mad to spend the night in the saloon. A steward came with shaving water. Erzberger tried French.

  Erzberger: Where are we, please?

  Steward: I don’t know, sir. You see, I’m from the north, I don’t know this line.

  Erzberger did not know how to state disbelief in French.

  He changed his shirt and socks and went to the dining car.

  Erzberger: Where are we, please?

  Waiter: I don’t know this line, sir. I’m from the north.

  The line branched and the slowing train took the right-hand track and stopped. Off to the left, about seventy meters away, another train waited. Solid republican first class, no imperial coaches inset. Duckboards ran over the mud, amongst small elms, between the trains, and two poilus chatted by them in long blue trench coats. Erzberger sat panting over his coffee, trying to exhale all the tensions of the journey. Von Winterfeldt came in. His riding boots glistened and he began speaking to the waiters and asked that the cook be also brought in. The debate grew. At last the general gave it up and approached Erzberger.

  Von Winterfeldt: They say they don’t know where we are.

  Erzberger: I know they do.

  Von Winterfeldt: They’re lying.

  Erzberger: Yes.

  Once more the general seemed humiliated that his special Gallic knowledge had no currency in this France. That he might as well never have made friends with the French subjunctive.

  Von Winterfeldt: I ought to tell you. General Groener wants me to stress the matter of rolling stock. He wants me to read out a statement.…

  Erzberger: After I have spoken.

  Von Winterfeldt: Of course.

  The general sat and received coffee and raised the cup to his sculptured lips. Matthias thought, I must try to speak to him, I must not treat him as Prussian small beer.

  But before Erzberger could open his lips, the general turned to the waiter and, as if for companionship, conversed with him in French. Even Matthias could understand the first sentence.

  Von Winterfeldt: I have a French wife.…

  PART TWO

  2417D

  OVER THE DUCKBOARDS

  Nine o’clock. Knowing where they were and that they could even walk on a radius of two kilometers into the forest (though not enter the other train unless invited), the German plenipotentiaries climbed from the rear door of the saloon straight onto the duckboards. Bourbon-Busset led them. Matthias and the count. Von Winterfeldt, Vanselow, and the aides. At the edges of the clearing winter birds made much busy small-song. The air was raw. Matthias saw his breath making vapor. We have at least been recognized by the foreign climate.

  Poilus came from the trees to watch them cross the duck-boards. Matthias thought he saw them come close to shrugging, as if they would go back to their wet tents saying, after four years they might have sent us faces that meant something.

  The duckboards led them to a restaurant car. They boarded it. Inside it seemed as republican as it had looked at first light from the other track. Window drapes cut close beneath the level of the sills; a heavy dining table. Its only cuisine, blotters and government paper. Matthias and the others were perhaps meant to climb in here and be unmanned by the bourgeois virtue of the fittings, the little tables in the corners, the simple yellow lampshades on the main table, dreary lampshades, stylized blossoms inverted over the electric bulbs. Perhaps we are meant to think, where is the renowned French decadence the Kaiser called on us to destroy? Perhaps we are meant to have our moral wires crossed.

  Bourbon-Busset: You will find your names on the left-hand side of the table. Would you please stand behind the place tagged with your name. Captain von Helldorf can sit here at the bottom of the table and Captain Blauert at the small desk in the corner. I think you will find pens, paper, and all you need.

  He left them. They could hear faintly the high voice of an army telephonist beyond a glass partition, testing the line. An orderly took their hats and overcoats and hung them by the entrance lobby. Maiberling refused however to give up his overcoat.

  They found their places at the dining table.

  Maiberling: Like a wedding.

  Erzberger: Do you think so, Alfred?

  It is the unhappy tumor of my apathy, Matthias thought, that lump the count carries in his armpit. And now, it seems, I shan’t be seated by him to restrain his arm.

  For the seating arrangement was: Vanselow nearest the door, Erzberger, the general, and, at the table’s end, Count Maiberling.

  While they stood by their places, Matthias watched and was unreasonably annoyed by Vanselow’s jaw locked down over his collar.

  Erzberger: A battle injury, Captain?

  Vanselow: A fall, Herr Erzberger. Down a companionway.

  Erzberger: And nothing can be done for it?

  Vanselow: The spinal column was damaged.

  Erzberger: Ah!

  On his white blotter, the captain made emphatic movements with his hand, careful lest Erzberger should imagine screaming gales off Heligoland and ice on all the rungs.

  Vanselow: It happened in dock. In Wilhelmshaven.

  Erzberger: Unlucky for you.

  Vanselow: At first they thought little damage had been done.

  Erzberger: Oh?

  He was tiring of the captain’s neck.

  Vanselow: They had to be persuaded how serious it was. They don’t know everything. Doctors.

  The count, an eye on the telephonist’s back, risked a calm glance down the row of chairs on the far side of the table. He was half back to his place when a small French general came in, said “Weygand” and that he would let the Marshal know they had come, and walked out again.

  Maiberling reported his observations.

  Maiberling: The seats aren’t labeled.

  Erzberger: Four places.

  Maiberling: The names of the asses. That’s the question.

  Von Winterfeldt had no doubts and reeled names off.

  Von Winterfeldt: Haig, Pershing, Foch, the King of the Belgians.

  Forlorn Vanselow would not agree.

  Vanselow: There must be admirals. British admirals.

  Maiberling: The King of the Belgians? Small beer.

  The count drummed the back of his chair. One of those fits of breeziness that were thin placenta to his loss of a mistress and his terror.

  Erzberger: I don’t think we should suffer too much. I don’t think it’s required we be anxious.

  As he spoke, he still looked at his sweating hands, their stewed appearance, like the hands of a laundress or kitchen-hand.

  Erzberger: We all know what our tasks are.

  They had apportioned tasks at a meeting after breakfast.

  Erzberger: It is a comforting idea that we are in the position of envoys, and envoys carry everywhere with them their immunity.

  The count grunted and felt his armpit.

  There was a small noise of leather boots in the entrance way. In an instant and too soon the Marshal stood opposite Matthias, staring him in the eyes for a few seconds, letting him taste the ocular fire. General Weygand arrived on one side of the Marshal and two British admirals on the other. A pair of junior naval officers took a table in the corner which, unlike Blauert’s table, was equipped with a telephone. T
wo junior French army officers passed through into the serving area and took the table beyond the ornamental glass, sending the telephonist away through the kitchen. Everyone was so quickly, crisply in place; it was such a well-oiled positioning.

  No American, no Belgian, no Italian. Only the Marshal, Allied focus on earth, and the admirals with their will to blockade.

  Looking at the ceiling, the Marshal spoke. The two interpreters, von Helldorf at one end of the table and a French lieutenant at the other, talked at each other in both languages, nervously seeking the sense of the utterance. In the end young von Helldorf was ready to tell Matthias.

  Von Helldorf: The Marshal requests your accreditation papers, Herr Erzberger.

  Opposite the sea captain, Weygand had his right hand out to take Matthias’s documents.

  The Marshal hooked spectacles on to read them and then spoke again in French.

  Von Helldorf: The Marshal and Lord Admiral Wemyss will withdraw to examine the credentials. No delegate can sit at the table until he has been accepted. He requests that we all wait here.

  The statement had been quite literal: only the Marshal and the admiral left. While they were gone, Erzberger took from his attaché case the communiqué from U.S. Secretary of State Lansing. After a few seconds’ doubt he carried it to Maiberling.

  Erzberger: You’re fluent in English?

  Maiberling: Oh yes.

  Erzberger: Could you read this if it is required?

  Maiberling: Yes.

  Little General Weygand watched them out of the corner of his compact face as if he might at any second revoke their right of communicating.

  TO SIT AND SMOKE

  In the saloon compartment next to his sleeping cabin, the Marshal invited Wemyss to sit and smoke. Seating himself, the Marshal packed and lit his pipe, unfolded and read once more the accreditation papers, brushed ash from them and handed them to the admiral.

  The Marshal: All as on the list. Let them think for a while. Perhaps you think it’s wrong to delay things even a little?