Mistress of the Ritz

by Melanie Benjamin

  “Back home. To good old America. He and Zelda had to return—some emergency with her family, I’m told.”

  “I’m sorry, I hope it isn’t serious.” Blanche didn’t really like Zelda—she was too petulant, too predatory, like a hawk, Blanche thought. Her narrow blue eyes always searching for a weakness, ready to pounce. But Blanche did admire her commitment to keeping up with Scott, drink for drink. Even if she didn’t always admire the results—she sometimes felt as if there ought to be a crew following the Fitzgeralds around Paris, cleaning up the debris of their drunken sprees, wounding arguments, and shattering explosions.

  “Is this where we have tea, Blanche?” Lily had relaxed in the bar, which was easy to imagine anywhere else but in the Ritz, it was so relatively cozy. But Blanche shook her head.

  “No, Claude’s meeting us in the Garden Terrace.” Even though it was October, it was still warm enough to dine outside.

  Reluctantly, she bade her chums farewell and steered Lily toward the Garden Terrace. They walked down the long hallway connecting the two buildings—the Hallway of Dreams, it was called—and Lily’s frown deepened with every step as Blanche pointed out the lighted display windows on either side, filled with luxury items such as Mark Cross pens, Louis Vuitton handbags, flasks of Guerlain perfume, diamond necklaces from Cartier—items far beyond the reach of most Parisians, but chump change for those who could afford to stay at the Ritz. The retailers paid a pretty penny to advertise their wares in this way; Claude was very proud of it, as he said there was none like it in any other hotel. But Lily only glared darkly at the goodies that most people drooled over.

  She looked the same during tea; her discomfort as item after item was presented—delicate little pâté sandwiches, exquisite fondant-covered cakes, sugared nuts in silver swan dishes—was palpable, but Blanche saw her sneak a few tidbits into her raggedy handbag to take home, as well as some silverware and napkins. She could only hope that Claude hadn’t noticed.

  Blanche didn’t think he had, but he did look as if he needed an antacid. Blanche realized too late that he and Lily would never get along, and she should have known it from the start; after all, Claude had never approved of Pearl, either. How silly of her, how foolishly hopeful she was—like a little girl showing off her new friend. And God forbid that Lily was not, obviously, someone who would be at home at his precious Ritz—Claude the prig, Claude the uptight. He never changed, and it was such a cruel trick that he had so dazzled her in the beginning that she couldn’t see who he really was.

  But then again, she supposed she’d deceived him, too—no, she knew that she had.

  Lily’s dismay at all the opulence, the whispered, oh-so-polite behavior, the ostentatious orderliness of the Ritz was only too apparent by her refusal to say hardly a word. And Claude’s clipped answers, too, spoke volumes. Blanche found herself keeping up an inane chatter the entire time until she was wrung out with exhaustion; the weather, the fashions, salty tales of her travels and her shipboard antics with Lily were all met with stony silence, until she made the mistake of talking about the current political situation in France.

  “Socialists!” Claude could barely say the word. “They keep trying to unionize the Ritz—they tried, in the General Strike, but fortunately I was able to stop it.”

  “Why? What is wrong with unions? People deserve a living wage!” Lily came to life for the first time; she balled up her napkin, her inky eyes blazing.

  “Which we pay them, and more. Our salaries are the highest among all the hotels in France, and we are very generous with time off.”

  “Good for you, then. But is not like that everywhere. Everyone deserves the right to feed their families!”

  “Are you a Socialist?” Claude began to pale.

  “No, a Communist.”

  Claude dropped a spoon into his tea glass, splattering the tablecloth.

  “How about these croissants?” Blanche offered the silver basket around to her dining partners, who both declined. Claude excused himself shortly thereafter—with a long, significant look at Blanche that told her exactly what he thought of her new friend.

  Lily didn’t even wait until Claude had left the terrace before she spat out, “Blanche. I know he’s your man and I know I shouldn’t say, but—how awful he is!”

  “No, he’s not,” Blanche assured her. “He’s really not. Claude is so generous, he doesn’t like to show it because he thinks it makes him look weak. He’s very invested in his staff; he does take good care of them. But you see, he is—very French.”

  “But the people of France are changing. They’re waking up. Just in time.”

  “Some of them are, I suppose.” The new prime minister, Léon Blum, was a Socialist—he was part of the Popular Front party—but the heart of France remained staunchly conservative. Catholic. “Trust me—most of the people in Paris are just like Claude. It’s not that they’re uncaring. It’s just that they’re set in their ways.”

  “But your friends—in the bar—they are not.”

  “No.” Blanche thought of her friends, her drinking buddies, as rudderless as she was. “They’re Americans, and they don’t give a good goddamn about French politics as long as they can sit and drink their kirs and their absinthe. They love France, but they’re not of it. France is a vacation from reality for them.”

  “Are you part of France, then? Is this where you belong, your home?”

  “I—I—I don’t know.” And Blanche didn’t; she didn’t see herself as American any longer, but neither did she feel one hundred percent French. Especially in the ways of the heart. “You don’t have a home either, do you? You just drift about. You won’t even tell me where you’re from.”

  “Ah, is different. I have no home because home is gone—vanished. Destroyed. America is very much still America. I hear it’s a great country. I hope to go there someday.”

  “It is, and it isn’t—it’s not perfect, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Neither is France.”

  “Neither is anywhere—or anyone. Not even you, Lily.” Blanche felt she had to take her new friend down a peg; she was getting to be a little annoyingly self-righteous.

  “You must decide who you are, Blanche—American, French, something. You must stand for something.”

  “Oh, must I?” Blanche arched an eyebrow. “Like you?”

  “Yes.” Lily threw her wadded-up napkin down on her plate and rose. She nodded in her decisive way. “Yes, like me, like others. Not like here.” She gestured to the rest of the court, filled with satisfied, richly clad people. “I thank you, Blanche. But your Ritz—is not for me.”

  “I guess you’ll want to leave those sandwiches and the silver and the napkins behind, then, won’t you? If they offend you so, I mean.”

  Lily flushed and sat back down.

  “Listen, Lily.” Blanche leaned across the table. “You don’t know a damn thing about me or the Ritz. Or Claude, for that matter. Or even Paris. You can’t make pronouncements like that—you can’t barge into people’s lives and tell them how terrible they are.”

  “You invited me, Blanche.” Lily attempted to shrug with her usual insouciance. But she also looked a little intimidated; her freckles seemed to darken on her pale face.

  “I wanted to share some of my life with you—that’s what friends do. And friends don’t walk off with the silverware and napkins in return.”

  Lily reached into her bag and stealthily put back the items in question, although she kept the food and Blanche didn’t call her out on that.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, don’t do that again. If you need something, just ask me. I like you, Lily, and I’m not sure why. Except that you make me think about things I generally try to avoid, and maybe I need that.”

  “I do?”

  Blanche nodded, relieved to see Lily—obviously pleased—grin, l
ooking once more like the Artful Dodger.

  “I haven’t had a close friend in a long while. I’m lonely, sometimes.”

  “Here? At this Ritz?” Lily’s eyes were enormous and Blanche saw herself in their brilliant reflection as Lily must—as an enchanted Alice in Wonderland.

  “Yes, I am. I like these people, I think they’re interesting in ways they don’t even know. But I’m not sure I’m as much like them as I thought I was. I’m not sure I want to be like them anymore, to tell the truth.”

  “I like you, too, Blanche. You are swell. You need me and I am here, thank God.” Lily clapped her hands twice and rose, bent down and kissed Blanche’s cheek—only her cheek, to Blanche’s great relief. She gathered up her gloves and bag and umbrella, ready to leave.

  “Maybe you need me, too,” Blanche called after her. Lily grinned and waved, unaware of the stares she was gathering, like a lone, gaily decorated little tugboat sailing among proud, great ships.

  “Maybe I do!”

  The next day, a small nosegay of violets was delivered to Blanche.

  Thank you for visit and I’m sorry for being rude because I was your guest. I don’t know this soft life but maybe you teach me. But next time, you see me. I show you some of my life like you said friends do. I show you France, real France. A week from Wednesday for lunch. Love, Lily.

  What a bizarre message! This odd foreigner who’d only been here a matter of days, when Blanche had lived in Paris for nearly fifteen years—Lily wanted to show her France?

  However, Blanche realized she was looking forward to it; that she wanted Lily to—show her, wake her up, tell her something. And that this, perhaps, was the reason she’d invited Lily to the Ritz in the first place. She needed someone to help her to see beyond the gilt and the polish that had blinded her, truly, these last several years, since she’d become Mistress of the Ritz. What was Paris like for Lily, for those who came here from other shores without a franc to their names? Well, like Blanche had, to tell the truth. The only difference between her and Lily, when you came right down to it, was that Blanche had been kept by one man and rescued by another to be ensconced at his castle. At the time, she’d thought herself rather clever, really. But now, she had to wonder at her willingness to be rescued. And ensconced.

  But before Blanche could find out the answers to any of the dozens of questions that suddenly were keeping her up late at night, long after Claude had gone to sleep, snoring softly beside her, Lily was gone. And Blanche couldn’t help but wonder if she had taken all the answers with her.

  * * *

  —

  SO EVEN NOW, IN 1941, Blanche still keeps looking for her, every day when she leaves the Ritz. She ducks into stifling little bookshops tucked into small mews, she checks out dark cafés where everyone stops talking when she enters. Restaurants that serve foods like goulash instead of ratatouille. Blanche searches all the places she’d never normally frequent—places that the Germans, too, seem not to have discovered yet; places where someone like Lily might be. Because she misses her, yes, of course; even though they were together for such a short time, Lily illuminated Blanche’s life like a fluttering, persistent firefly. But—

  Lily needed her, too; Blanche is certain of that, despite all evidence to the contrary. There was something about Lily that made Blanche want to take care of her, to feed her nourishing soups, to mend her clothing, to take her to get a decent haircut. Perhaps, Blanche muses, Lily is the child she’d never had. But she also remembers that kiss—that remarkable, disturbing kiss. And she realizes that Lily is much more than that. Not just a friend, not just a child, not a lover, either; a complicated engine, that’s what Lily is. And engines propel people.

  Blanche also searches for Lily because she needs someone to tell her what to do, how to live with these occupier/guests, how to continue to be worried about the Friedrichs, the Astrids, especially now.

  Now that, every day, she passes another family huddled together; every day more people disappear into the night. Simply—gone.

  And more and more, in her dreams, in her nightmares—

  Blanche is one of them.

  And caused great distress throughout the kingdom…

  After the Anschluss, Claude urged Blanche, as he urged all his staff, to be more careful around their German guests, particularly around Spatzy. But Blanche—of course!—was fond of the fellow (who was, Claude had to admit, good-natured and as admiring of pretty women as Claude himself was) and enjoyed practicing her rusty German on him, to his great amusement. They would sit for hours in the bar, having dirty conversations in German and laughing like two schoolchildren.

  “Spatzy’s a regular guy,” she told Claude one day in his office. “I like him. Nazi or not.”

  Claude swallowed, loosening his collar; his wife’s timing was most unfortunate.

  “Von Dincklage is a member of the Abwehr,” Claude informed her coldly. “The German military intelligence organization. He reports to Goebbels himself.”

  “That’s crazy.” Blanche laughed, perching on the corner of his desk in a bright pink silk dress with the new shoulder pads making her shoulders look sharp and dangerous, nothing like the way a woman’s shoulders should. Her hair was shining, swirling up around her head in the front, hanging down her neck in the back. She was so naïve, his sheltered wife. So in need of protection—of rescue—and he warmed to his long-forgotten role; it was certainly easier than being her husband. She especially needed protecting in these times. He reminded himself, as he did a hundred times a day, that she was an American. And Americans were so foolish. She might dress like a French woman, she might speak the language fluently—although mon Dieu, that accent! She might be able to order a fine wine without Claude’s help now.

  But she was, deep in her heart, still that trusting American. And it was Claude’s privilege—his duty—to protect her. As he had, from the very beginning.

  “Your Spatzy all but told me he was a spy, just this minute. I found him downstairs in the wine cellars, snooping around—making a list, actually. Counting the cases, marking the vintages.”

  “So?”

  “So—he is not allowed down there. No one is except staff. But von Dincklage—and other Nazis—have been snooping around the Ritz, Blanche. Asking questions. Taking inventories. Even measuring windows and doorways. And not just the Ritz; I’ve heard from my friends in the business that they’re seeing the same thing. At the George V, the Crillon, the Le Royal Monceau—even the Claridge. The Germans are taking stock, taking inventory. I threw Spatzy out of the cellar—I told him to go to hell.” Claude wished that he had a glass of water, for his throat was unaccountably dry. “I should not have done that. He is, after all, a guest. But why, Blanche, do you think he was snooping around?”

  She shrugged and wiggled a foot out of a shoe; reaching down, she picked the shoe up and began to massage her instep. How could she be so blissfully unaware?

  “Because they are planning to invade, Blanche. I’m serious.” Claude grabbed her shoulders, looked right into those laughing, taunting—innocent—brown eyes. “The Germans want Paris—they want all of France, all of Europe. What’s going on in Spain is only the prelude. There will be war, just as your Lily has said. They’re building planes, tanks, roads that lead to the border—that’s what I’m hearing. And you, my love, will be in great danger. We all will be, of course—but I never thought that you, my wife…and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  For even Claude couldn’t protect Blanche from the Nazis, should the day come when they—but no, he would not think of it.

  “What do you mean?” Her eyes were no longer dancing. “What on earth could you do, Claude?”

  “Send you away, for one thing. Back to America, where you would be safe. America won’t be drawn into any European war, at least not for a while.”

  “Popsy!” She grabbed his waist, pulled
him to her, and whispered in his ear. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Claude Auzello, no matter how hard you try. I don’t give up. Don’t you understand that by now?”

  It was what Claude wanted to hear. It was what he was afraid to hear.

  “But it is my duty to keep you safe, Blanchette—from the very beginning, when we first met, I knew that—”

  “And it is my duty to be by your side. I’m your wife, remember? Will you be called up?”

  “It’s only a matter of time, I think.” Daladier’s government had already mobilized two million men, and Claude, at least in his eyes, was still young—only forty.

  “Then I will go with you, wherever you are garrisoned.”

  “No, Blanche.” Claude shook his head. “No, you must return to America. I’ve thought it through. Or even to that—that J’Ali, that man—I would put you on the boat myself, if I thought it would keep you safe.” Claude did not quite know what he was saying; he was simply overwhelmed by all that could happen, should the Germans start using those tanks and planes while all of Europe merely shrugged and played on.

  “Claude, you’re talking nonsense—go back to J’Ali? He’s fat and full of syphilis, last I heard. Anyway, I’m staying right here in France, and I’m going where you’re going, so I can keep my eye on you. I’m not going to be sent away so you can have your—so that she can take my place.” Those eyes were now filled with devastation, and Claude flinched.

  But he had recently come to a decision; one that was not, after all, that difficult to make.

  “Blanche, you must know—there is—I’m through. With my Thursday nights.”

  “You are?” Instantly she was skeptical, alert. A volcano on the verge of erupting.

  “Yes. This is not the time for—that. There is only time for survival. For—for love?” Claude did not approve of the question mark; it made him sound too vulnerable. But he also could not prevent it. In all these years of marriage, he had never asked his wife if she loved him. Claude took it for granted, as any Frenchman would. Or rather—Claude took it for granted that it did not matter much, one way or the other.