‘Well, she has tea in the nursery every day.’
‘But, Nanny, so do I – nearly every day.’
‘And gives little Foss his bath often as not, and, what’s more, every Saturday and Sunday Mr Dexter gives him his bath. He is a nice daddy, Mr Dexter.’
Unfortunately Grace was stumped by this. Nobody could say that Charles-Edouard was that sort of nice daddy; he never went near the nursery. He liked the idea of Sigi, and was delighted when people said the child was his living image, but a few minutes of his company at a time were more than sufficient. He was such a restless man that a few minutes of almost anybody’s company at a time were more than sufficient.
Grace said to Charles-Edouard,
‘You know my friend Carolyn?’
‘The beautiful Lesbian?’
‘No, no, Carolyn Dexter.’
‘You said she was a Lesbian at school.’
‘I said we were all in love with her, that’s quite different. Besides, people are all sorts of things at school – Carolyn used to be a Communist then – we used to point her out to visitors as the school Communist – and look at her now! Marshall Plan up to the eyes. Anyway, can we dine there on Thursday? – I’m to let her know.’
‘You keep our engagements, it’s for you to say.’
‘We are quite free, but I wanted to know if you’d like it.’
‘Who will be there?’
‘Well, it sounded like this, but I may have got it wrong. The Jorgmanns of Life, the Schmutzes of Time, the Jungfleisches, who are liaison between Life and Time, the Oberammergaus who have replaced the Pottses on the Un-American Activities Committee, European branch, the Rutters, who are liaison between the French Chamber of Commerce, the Radio-Diffusion Française and the Chicago Herald Tribune, and an important French couple, the Tournons. Are the Tournons important really?’
‘Of course they are, in their way, but it won’t be those Tournons. It will be what we call les faux Tournons – he is chef de cabinet to Salleté, very dull, but she is rather nice.’
‘Carolyn says these are all people you ought to meet.’
‘Why ought I to meet them?’
‘Now darling, do be serious for once. It’s all that Aid and so on. They might like you, and it’s so terribly important for them to like French people because of the Aid. Carolyn’s always saying so, and she’s very clever, as I’ve told you. She says what happens is that the important Americans who come here meet all the wrong sort of French. Then they go back to the middle of America and tell the people there, who hate foreigners anyway, that the French are undependable, and so nasty it would be better to cut the Aid and concentrate on Italy, where they are undependable too but so nice, and specially on Germany, where they are dependable and so wonderful, and leave the nasty French to rot. All because they meet the wrong sort. And all this is very discouraging to Hector Dexter, who is dying to help and aid the French more and more.’
‘Well of course Hector Dexter would lose his job if they cut the Aid, that’s very plain.’
‘There you are, being French and cynical, just like Carolyn always says. And as if it would matter to Mr Dexter whether he lost his job or not. He’s far too important.’
Indeed the word important seemed, at that time, to have been coined only for Mr Dexter, and his name never occurred either in print or in conversation without it. It seemed that he was one of the most, if not the most, important of living men.
‘My dear child, do you really think, when a great country like America has settled on a certain policy with regard to another great country like France, it can be deflected from it by the Jungfleisches, meeting the wrong sort of French person?’
‘Carolyn says it can.’
‘And what makes you think I’m the right sort of French person for them to meet?’
‘Well look at what you did in the war.’
‘But the Americans hate the people who were on their side in the war. It’s one thing they can never forgive. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed that. Never mind,’ he said, seeing her face fall. ‘We’ll go, and I’ll do my best to be nice, I promise you.’
10
The Dexters invited their guests at eight, but only sat down to dinner at nine. The intervening hour was spent drinking cocktails while Hector Dexter talked about the present state of France.
‘I have known France all my life. I came here as a kid; I came during my vacations from college; I came on my honeymoon with my first wife, the first Mrs Dexter, and I was here during World War II. So I am in some sort qualified to make my diagnosis, and I have made my diagnosis, and my diagnosis is as follows, but first I would like to tell you all a little story which I think will help me to illustrate the point I am going to try if I can to make.
‘Well, it was just before the Ardennes counter-offensive; we were up in this little village near the frontier of Belgium, or no, maybe it was near the frontier of Luxembourg – it makes no odds really and doesn’t affect my story. Now there was this boulanger in the village, and I think now I will if I may describe the state of the village. Well it had been bombed by the U.S. air force, precision bombed, if you see what I mean; it had then been bombed by the Luftwaffe quite regardless I am sorry to say (sorry because I am one who hopes very soon to see the Germans playing a very very important part in the family of nations), bombed, then, quite regardless of civilian property and military objectives. It had then been shelled by U.S. infantry and taken and occupied; it had then been
