Mistress of the Ritz

by Melanie Benjamin

  For she is Blanche Ross Auzello. American. Parisian. Among other things, many other things, past, present, future, that she will have to conceal from now on. But then again, hasn’t she been concealing most of them these past twenty years anyway? So she is very good at this, deception. As, she must acknowledge, is her husband.

  It is, perhaps, the thing that binds these two even more closely than it tears them apart.

  “Herr Auzello! Frau Auzello! It is a pleasure to meet you!” The commanding officer tumbling out the door to greet them has a voice that is both slippery and guttural in the German way, but his French is flawless. He bows to Claude and reaches to kiss Blanche’s hand, which she hides behind her back just in time.

  For it, too, is suddenly trembling.

  “Welcome back to the Ritz. We have heard so much about you. I am here to explain that management has been relocated to the other side.” The Nazi bobs his head to indicate the rue Cambon, which runs behind the building. “We—we Germans—have made ourselves at home, thanks to your staff’s hospitality, here on the Place Vendôme side. Your other guests are all over on the rue Cambon. And we have taken the liberty of removing your personal items from your office and installing them in another, in the gallery above that side’s lobby. You will find much of your staff intact and awaiting your instructions.”

  “Fine, fine,” Blanche hears herself replying—as if she encountered a Nazi officer every day, and she can’t help but marvel at her own performance. Damned if it didn’t take a German invasion to mold her into the kind of actress she’d always wanted to be. “I expected nothing less. Now, will you have your men take our bags around for us?”

  She turns to smile reassuringly at Claude, whose face, she’s startled to see, has paled beneath the ruddy tan acquired in the South of France. As the two soldiers begin to gather up the luggage, she can’t help but notice that Claude grips his attaché case tightly when they motion for it, the knuckles on his hand white with effort, the ropy muscles in his neck twitching. She shoots him a questioning look, but his face remains smooth and unworried.

  They follow the two soldiers through the square, taking a left to the narrow yet impossibly chic rue Cambon. Once again, she’s aware of eyes, watching. She reaches out to grasp Claude’s other hand; he keeps her tightly within his grip. The two of them, linked this way, won’t falter. Of this, she is sure; it’s the only thing of which she’s sure, at this incredible Wonderland-moment, when nothing is as it should be.

  When Nazi soldiers are escorting the Auzellos to the rear entrance of the Ritz.

  They follow the soldiers through the smaller entrance, and at once the pocket-sized lobby is filled with familiar faces, stricken and pale but breaking into smiles of relief at seeing the Auzellos return. Blanche, too, smiles and nods to one and all, but they don’t stop to chat. Blanche senses that her husband is not up to the emotion of homecoming, of being greeted by the staff he left almost a year ago, his family, his children in the truest sense. Normally her husband would have deserted her while he caught up with them, broke open a bottle of port in his office, listened to all the stories that have waited until his return to be told: The young florist is gone, married to her lover; there is a new provider of butter, because the old one died and his children sold the dairy.

  But today, Blanche suspects that he knows the stories he will be told are not pleasant, trivial ones. Stories of staff disappearing in the chaos of the invasion, of young bellhops dying in battle, of that pretty young florist—last name of Chabat—not marrying after all but trying desperately to get a visa to England. Stories of how the Nazis want things to run here in his hotel—yes, her husband thinks of the Ritz as his own despite the fact that the family of César Ritz are the true owners. He is arrogant in that way, her Claude; if Blanche were to be honest—something she allows herself to be at least once a day—it’s one of the things she most admires about him.

  Claude is in an awful hurry to get to their rooms. Blanche breaks into a jog to keep up with him and the soldiers in their black boots with the steel toes striking hard against the plush carpets. And she finds herself worrying—always the wife of the director of the Ritz!—that the carpets will not stand up to this kind of treatment. Not carpets more accustomed to slinky heels of leather. Again, she remembers her own shoes, grinding dirt into the carpets as well, and for the first time in a very long time, she feels less than her surroundings.

  Blanche has grown accustomed, over the years, to dressing up to the Ritz. There’s just something about the place that inspires you to wear your best, to sit up straighter, talk more quietly, drape your best jewels about your neck, check your reflection one last time before venturing out into its marble halls, every surface always shining and polished. Those whose job it is to shine and polish retreat into hidden cupboards and corners the moment they see a guest, so that the overall effect is that of a magic castle lovingly tended to by sprites who only come out at night.

  But now she notices the Nazi flag on display in the enormous urns that hold palm trees. The utter silence in the opulent halls and sitting areas; the sense that lurking behind every polished door is an ear, pressed, listening. And she forgets about her shoes again.

  * * *

  —

  THE AUZELLOS ARE SHOWN to their old suite, conveniently already located on the rue Cambon side of the hotel. The bags are stacked neatly for them but damned if Blanche is going to tip a Nazi; she merely nods as the soldiers leave. Claude and Blanche both turn away from each other, as if the moment of homecoming—nightmarish as it is—after so long away is simply too much to acknowledge. So the two of them, like tourists, begin to walk about the rooms, surveying. Blanche is startled to see that there’s a layer of dust on every surface—impossible to imagine, before. There are some small fault lines in the gilded wallpaper—were there bombs dropped nearby, prior to the Occupation? There’s a staleness to the air, as if the small suite—by Ritz standards, anyway—has been holding its breath until their return. She opens a window; below her is a cluster of Nazi soldiers talking, laughing, as gleeful as schoolboys on holiday.

  “Why were you behaving like a guilty kid out there?” She draws away from the window with a shudder and finally turns to Claude, who is still gripping his case.

  “I have…” He begins to laugh shakily, his neat little mustache quivers, and his slightly-protruding eyes blink repeatedly. “Oh, Blanchette, you foolish woman. I have papers with me.” He thumps the case. “Illegal papers. Blank travel passes and demobilization papers. I stole them from the garrison, so I could use them here in Paris for—for whoever might need them. I could have been thrown in prison if the Nazis had discovered them.”

  “Jesus Christ, Claude!” Now it is Blanche’s turn to pale; she collapses into a chair, imagining the scenario playing out. “Oh, Claude. You should have told me when we left Nîmes.”

  “No.” Claude shakes his head, fingers the collar of his shirt. “No, Blanche. There are things you shouldn’t know. For your own good.” And he’s back to normal, Blanche’s husband; her infuriatingly French husband with his rules and pronouncements and lectures. They’ve been married seventeen years, and still he’s trying to make a docile French wife out of a rebellious American flapper.

  “Oh, Claude, we’re not back to this old song and dance again, are we? After all we’ve been through this past year? After today?”

  “I have no idea what you mean, Blanche,” her husband says in his priggish way—and normally, this would be the red cape inciting her to fury. She remembers, with a guilty start, that some of those rips in the wallpaper were there even before they left. Courtesy of flying vases and candlesticks; courtesy of one of their innumerable arguments concerning the very nature of marriage. Specifically, theirs.

  But today, Blanche is too exhausted and bewildered to fight. And suddenly, too thirsty. When was the last time she had a drink? Days. She laughs, although
it sounds tinny to her ringing ears. A German invasion is a hell of a way to dry out.

  “Well, that’s that,” she says, and finds, to her astonishment, that she has to wipe an unexpected tear from her eye. “It was good while it lasted, I guess.”

  “What do you mean?” Claude, who is searching the rooms for a place to hide his contraband papers, frowns.

  “I mean that nothing’s changed, after all. After that time at Nîmes, when we—when we almost had a marriage. Paris might be under German rule, but you’re still lying to me.”

  “No, no, it’s not like that at all,” Claude says—sadly, to Blanche’s surprise. He drops his case down on a table, as if he no longer has the strength to carry this burden; his face softens, and it looks almost as young and pliant, able to smile and laugh, as it did when they first met. For a moment, he looks repentant, and Blanche leans toward him, her hands clasped over her heart like a young girl. A foolish but hopeful young girl.

  But then Claude doesn’t bother to explain exactly what it is like and so Blanche shrugs—the one thing, according to her husband, that she does as well as, if not better than, any French woman—and begins to unpack.

  “Now.” Claude stretches, arching his back, which creaks alarmingly, his usually composed face so weary that, despite her disappointment, she has a momentary longing to draw him a bath and tuck him into bed. “I must go to Madame Ritz and see what is going on over on the other side, where the Germans apparently are residing. Nazis in César Ritz’s palace—mon Dieu! He will be turning in his grave.”

  “Go, go. You’ll be useless until you’ve walked over every inch of your beloved Ritz. I know you, Claude Auzello. But should we go back to the apartment later, though? To check on it?” For the first time Blanche remembers their roomy flat on the avenue Montaigne in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. The Auzellos’ destination, always, from the moment they left Nîmes in the chaos of retreat, had been the Ritz. It is their true north. But they do have another place to stay—a place that is not inhabited by Nazis. And thinking about soldiers lurking around every corner here at the Ritz makes Blanche’s skin thrum with the desire to flee, to hide. The fearless imposter who stood outside and ordered Nazis around like peasants is gone; in her place is—a woman.

  A frightened woman with no real home—an alien in a country occupied by a terrifying enemy—making her infuriatingly dependent on a husband who disappoints her more often than not.

  Almost as much as she disappoints him.

  “I think not,” Claude says with more than a trace of his usual enraging superiority, and Blanche, in her current state, is relieved to hear it. “If there is rationing or shortages, it’s best we’re here at the Ritz. I’m sure the Germans will see to it that they have the best of everything, and perhaps we can live on the scraps.” Claude, after a moment’s hesitation, goes to his wife. He folds her in his arms, and whispers into her ear.

  “You were brave today, my Blanchette,” he croons, and Blanche can’t help but shiver a little, and nestle closer into his chest. “Very brave. But perhaps it is best for you to try a little cowardice, instead? Until we see—? Until we see.”

  She nods; he makes sense. Oh, he always makes sense, her Claude—except in one area. One very important area. Still, she allows herself to slump a little against him. He is not tall, he is not broad or muscular, her husband. But he manages to make her feel protected anyway, as he has from the very beginning; a man who is as certain as he is, as annoyingly upright and proper, can do that. Even when his hands are small, and his throat as slender and fine as a dancer’s. So she clings to him; he is, after all, the only thing she has left. She could have gone back to America when the world started to go to hell. She could have joined an old lover in a different country, one that most likely would remain safely on the sidelines of this grotesque circus. But no, she’d stayed here in France, with this man, this husband.

  Someday, she really should get around to asking herself the question of why. But not today; she’s already been through too much. And she needs a goddamned drink.

  * * *

  —

  AS SOON AS CLAUDE leaves, with a promise not to be long—a promise they both know he won’t keep—Blanche decides to take a good look at herself in the mirror; she hasn’t seen her reflection in days. The blond hair—not natural; the ruby ring on her right hand—not authentic. She hocked the jewel years ago and had it replaced with a fake, and never did tell Claude, who would not have approved of her reason. The delicate gold cross at her throat, a wedding gift from her husband—a joke, she had thought at the time, but soon realized it was anything but; the passport in her handbag, creased and soft from carrying it with her, day in and day out—well, they’re all a joke, really, when you come right down to it, she thought bitterly.

  Everything’s a joke now. A farce. A sham.

  This new reality, this new nightmare that she finds herself in…it’s so far removed—light-years, Biblical years—from the Paris, the Ritz, the man she met when she first sailed from America. Seventeen years ago, it was. A lifetime ago.

  A dream ago. Several of them, actually—dreams. Mostly unfulfilled.

  As dreams, Blanche Auzello knows all too well, tend to be.

  Once upon a time, before the Nazis arrived…

  “Hey, get a load of this, will you? Hey, mister, hey!”

  The young man looked up from his ledger, his brow already furrowed. Unsurprisingly, it was an American calling across the lobby of the Hôtel Claridge. The voice was loud, strident, insistent. Americans spoke as if they believed the entire world wished to hear what they were saying; they had no discretion.

  But Americans paid his salary, and so, with effort, he unfurrowed his brow.

  Paris—his Paris—was flooded with these vociferous newcomers. Naturally, it was because of the Great War. Those cocky American soldiers who boasted that they had saved the day—even though they arrived only at the twilight, not the dawn—decided they had to see more of Gay Paree, tantalizingly glimpsed only on their leaves. So they came back in droves, bringing their women, and they took over the cafés, ordering coffee with their meals—absurd!—and drinking absinthe until they went blind. Talking, always talking, even to strangers. “Hello,” one of them said to the young man only yesterday, as he took a chair next to him at a café, remarking on its small size. “I’m Bud. What’s your name?”

  The young man did not tell him, naturally. What business was it of this American? He would never understand this compulsion of Americans to announce their presence everywhere. Why should anyone care?

  More than anything, Parisians simply wanted to be left alone. Left to their grief, for they were the ones who died and lost. They especially resented the young American men, for in 1923, France had few of them left under the age of sixty.

  But the Americans didn’t care; they smiled their big, white-teethed smiles and waved their huge paws full of francs and could not stop enthusing about how cheap everything was. What they were really saying was: We’re not truly allies; we’re better than you.

  But the young man—Claude Auzello was his name—swallowed his anger and distaste, for his very livelihood depended on these gleeful foreigners continuing to wash ashore off the boats in Calais and following the Seine into Paris like rubbish.

  “May I help you?” He strode over to the loud American woman who was waving at him from across the lobby.

  “Yeah, thanks, Mr.—?”

  “Auzello. Monsieur Auzello. I am here to take care of all your needs.” Bowing slightly, he fingered the brass name tag on his coat, revealing his exalted position at the Hôtel Claridge: Assistant manager.

  “Well, aren’t you the bee’s knees?” She batted her eyelashes at him, this brassy woman—in her thirties, Claude guessed with a practiced eye; late thirties, actually. The powder settled in the lines of her face, and the lipstick on her Kewpie-doll l
ips was far too red for her complexion. She was a blonde—natural, it looked like to Claude. She was tall and broad-shouldered and swathed in furs and jewelry, resembling a mangy Christmas tree.

  “Oh, Pearl, you were right. This is the end, the total end!”

  Another pushy American woman! Stifling a sigh, Claude turned to greet her, a merely professional smile already making its way to the corner of his lips. But this woman froze it there; something gave way in his chest and for the first time in his life he wondered if he, Claude Auzello, was on the receiving end of Cupid’s arrow.

  For the woman who strode over, hand outstretched in that confident American way, was the most beautiful woman he’d ever beheld. She was blond, too—although Claude suspected from the bottle, but what did it matter when it suited her perfectly? She had big, sparkling brown eyes and this was a combination—blond with brown eyes—that Claude had never been able to resist.

  But it was more than her coloring that froze his heart; it was her smile, so dazzling, so unforced. She was younger than her companion by at least ten years; the dew was still fresh on this American Beauty rose. She was also tall—all American women were so tall—so that Claude had to tilt his head, ever so slightly, to meet her dancing gaze.

  “Is this your first time visiting us, mademoiselle?”

  “It’s my first time outside of New York. I can’t believe I’m actually here!” How charming! No airs or pretensions of sophistication, as many first-time visitors attempted. This young woman was simply overjoyed and didn’t care who knew.

  “Then I will make it my personal business to show you Paris,” he replied, deciding quickly.

  As the assistant manager of the Hôtel Claridge, Claude Auzello was no stranger to showing Paris to beautiful women; he considered it one of the perquisites of his position. In fact, if he were being painfully honest, he would have to admit that there had been a small…misunderstanding…between a beautiful woman and himself only last month; a misunderstanding that led to the beautiful woman departing the hotel assuring one and all that Claude was responsible for her expenses. A business transaction, most assuredly, that had never been discussed during midnight suppers at Maxim’s when this beautiful woman had proven to be charmingly susceptible to champagne and Claude’s arsenal of female flattery.