Fall of Giants

“It’s a lie,” Walter said angrily. “A stupid, ignorant, wicked, vicious, damned lie.” Germany was not innocent, he knew, and he had argued as much with his father, time and time again. But he had lived through the diplomatic crises of the summer of 1914, he had known about every small step on the road to war, and no single nation was guilty. Leaders on both sides had been mainly concerned to defend their own countries, and none of them had intended to plunge the world into the greatest war in history: not Asquith, nor Poincaré, nor the kaiser, nor the tsar, nor the Austrian emperor. Even Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Sarajevo, had apparently been aghast when he understood what he had started. But even he was not responsible for “all the loss and damage.”

Walter ran into his father shortly after midnight, when they were both taking a break, drinking coffee to stay awake and continue working. “This is outrageous!” Otto stormed. “We agreed to an armistice based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points-but the treaty has nothing to do with the Fourteen Points!”

For once Walter agreed with his father.

By morning the translation had been printed and copies had been dispatched by special messenger to Berlin-a classic exercise in German efficiency, Walter thought, seeing his country’s virtues more clearly when it was being denigrated. Too exhausted to sleep, he decided to walk until he felt relaxed enough to go to bed.

He left the hotel and went into the park. The rhododendrons were in bud. It was a fine morning for France, a grim one for Germany. What effect would the proposals have on Germany’s struggling social-democratic government? Would the people despair and turn to Bolshevism?

He was alone in the great park except for a young woman in a light spring coat sitting on a bench beneath a chestnut tree. Deep in thought, he touched the brim of his trilby hat politely as he passed her.

“Walter,” she said.

His heart stopped. He knew the voice, but it could not be her. He turned and stared.

She stood up. “Oh, Walter,” she said. “Did you not know me?”

It was Maud.

His blood sang in his veins. He took two steps toward her and she threw herself into his arms. He hugged her hard. He buried his face in her neck and inhaled her fragrance, still familiar despite the years. He kissed her forehead and her cheek and then her mouth. He was speaking and kissing at the same time, but neither words nor kisses could say all that was in his heart.

At last she spoke. “Do you still love me?” she said.

“More than ever,” he answered, and he kissed her again.

{II}

Maud ran her hands over Walter’s bare chest as they lay on the bed after making love. “You’re so thin,” she said. His belly was concave, and the bones of his hips jutted out. She wanted to fatten him on buttered croissants and foie gras.

They were in a bedroom at an auberge a few miles outside Paris. The window was open, and a mild spring breeze fluttered the primrose-yellow curtains. Maud had found out about this place many years ago when Fitz had been using it for assignations with a married woman, the Comtesse de Cagnes. The establishment, little more than a large house in a small village, did not even have a name. Men made a reservation for lunch and took a room for the afternoon. Perhaps there were such places on the outskirts of London but, somehow, the arrangement seemed very French.

They called themselves Mr. and Mrs. Wooldridge, and Maud wore the wedding ring that had been hidden away for almost five years. No doubt the discreet proprietress assumed they were only pretending to be married. That was all right, as long as she did not suspect Walter was German, which would have caused trouble.

Maud could not keep her hands off him. She was so grateful that he had come back to her with his body intact. She touched the long scar on his shin with her fingertips.

“I got that at Château-Thierry,” he said.

“Gus Dewar was in that battle. I hope it wasn’t he who shot you.”

“I was lucky that it healed well. A lot of men died of gangrene.”

It was three weeks since they had been reunited. During that time Walter had been working around the clock on the German response to the draft treaty, only getting away for half an hour or so each day to walk with her in the park or sit in the back of Fitz’s blue Cadillac while the chauffeur drove them around.

Maud had been as shocked as Walter by the harsh terms offered to the Germans. The object of the Paris conference was to create a just and peaceful new world-not to enable the winners to take revenge on the losers. The new Germany should be democratic and prosperous. She wanted to have children with Walter, and their children would be German. She often thought of the passage in the Book of Ruth that began “Whither thou goest, I will go.” Sooner or later she would have to say that to Walter.