And here, attached to the breast of a man in a blue tweed jacket, a man who looked no different than Claude; a man with a very French nose, long and suspicious. A small mustache. Manicured nails. Hair trimmed weekly and scented with pomade. Shoes polished so that they reflected the yellow star every time he took a step.
Over there, an elderly couple, both wearing their stars, his on a ragged sweater, hers on a prehistoric fur coat, possibly from the Victorian era. They sat side by side on a bench, shadowed by a tree—Claude had noticed, lately, that Jews tended to keep to the perimeters of things, even in the few streets and parks and sidewalks where they were allowed. Always trying to hide, although there was nowhere in Paris where they could escape notice. The couple sat on the bench and he had his hand on her knee, very proprietarily. She clutched her handbag on her lap with both hands, and they both sat looking forward, and they never did stop blinking at the world passing them by, this world they no longer recognized. Her handbag was enormous, and Claude wondered if, inside of it, she kept everything dear to her—old photographs, birth certificates, jewelry. A change of clothing. Just in case.
Blanche and he did not comment on the stars. They did not linger too long. Without saying a word they both began to walk, more rapidly than usual, back to the Ritz, back to their rooms, and still without speaking, they both crawled into bed, fully clothed, atop the sheets and blankets. They lay side by side, his arms about her, and she trembled, or perhaps it was him, or perhaps it was both of them, and she finally spoke, for the first time, of the thing they had never been able to speak of.
“Thank God we never had any children, Claude,” said his wife of nineteen years.
He could only nod, while he clutched her to him, his wife. The princess he had rescued who had turned into a confounding woman with a warm, vibrant body, her more vibrant mind, her generous heart. Her goodness, her boldness, her courage, her fears. Her recklessness, her stubbornness. That temper, barely concealed beneath her designer clothing. Sometimes, he could admit, he neglected to remember that his wife was a person and not an abstract feeling (irritant, usually); a beautiful, infuriating mass of cells, a contradiction of soft and hard, logic and emotion, just like all women.
But in the eyes of the Boche, some collections of cells, combinations of bones and flesh, pulsing blood, beating hearts, weren’t people at all.
“Blanche, please, stop seeing Lily,” he breathed into her ear. Immediately, she stiffened. “Please, I have a bad feeling about her. I don’t know what she might make you do. But you must be careful, and when you drink…”
“When I drink, what?” Her voice was sharp. Suspicious.
“You get careless. You can’t afford to do that. No one can these days.”
“Let me make you a deal, Claude.” She rolled away from him, sat up, and smoothed her hair. But kept her back turned to him. “You stop going out every time the damn phone rings at night, and I’ll stop seeing Lily.”
“Blanche—” For the first time, Claude was tempted. Tempted to halt his nocturnal activities, which were growing more frequent, more exhilarating as the Boche tightened the noose about Paris in the wake of the Vél d’Hiv roundup.
Curfew is now strictly enforced—which makes furtive meetings in the shadows more feverishly exciting. No gatherings of more than four people are tolerated, not even in cafés or nightclubs. There have been some shootings of Nazi soldiers, which have resulted in roundups and shootings of citizens—mostly Jews, but not always—in retaliation.
But no. It is more important than ever to find relief for his stress, of the juggling he has to do, daily, to please everyone—his wife, his employees, his guests who aren’t really guests. The memory of César Ritz. The memory of Claude himself, who he used to be. Only outside the Ritz can Claude find himself again, and he won’t stop his meetings with Simone—and Michele, and Martin. Meetings that have expanded beyond vegetables; now Martin is in the business of selling other things. Things Claude needs and things he wishes he had no use for, but still he takes them off his friend’s hands, sometimes keeping them—the cupboards in the Ritz are large and mainly hidden from view—and sometimes passing them on to someone else.
However discreet Claude believes himself to be, he is always assessing his behavior, on the watch for any dereliction of his duties. He has, it pains him to admit, sometimes slipped up. The other night, he visited the basement kitchen right around ten-thirty. There was an air raid going on; British bombers dropping their payload on the docks outside of town, docks integral to the German war effort. The Ritz, Claude happened to know, was on the precise latitude to aid those bombers flying over a city blacked out at night. Should someone happen to leave the kitchen lights on…
And sure enough—strangely enough—Claude found the lights burning brightly, despite the blackout. And if the Nazis found out, if they discovered who had left them on…Claude shuddered, imagining. He felt a lightbulb; it was barely warm. So whoever had done this had only just left; he thought he smelled a whiff of something familiar—perfume, perhaps, or hair oil—but dismissed it. And made a note to be more observant of his staff—he would find out who had done this, and put him or her on notice.
He turned around and took the stairs back up to his rooms, where Blanche was just now taking off her shoes and stockings, her breathing heavy, irregular—“The damned blackout, I couldn’t find my way back here for the life of me!” And Claude forgot all about the light in his anger at her for being out so late during an air raid; soon the two of them were arguing so vociferously, they drowned out the heavy vibration of the bombers overhead.
The next morning, he was summoned to von Stülpnagel’s office and not-so-gently interrogated before being dismissed with a warning that the incident was not yet over. For those kitchen lights had shone a beacon along the straightest path to the docks, easily visible from above. The Allies had done quite a job of it, apparently.
So Claude must be careful; he must not allow his passion to interfere with his work, and bring hell down upon the Ritz.
He is, in his way, proud of his activities. Until he sees the sadness in his wife’s eyes, the resignation that he has lived down to her expectations of him. His wife is disappointed in him, in his lack of faithfulness to her, in his work, as well; he cannot ignore the disgust in her voice when she mocks him for bowing to the Nazis, running to do their bidding. In the days after that air raid, Claude doubled down on his efforts to please his Nazi guests, even going so far as to personally polish von Stülpnagel’s boots himself, since the man had expressed displeasure at the regular boot boy’s efforts in the past.
“Claude, you would make a very good German,” von Stülpnagel said, admiring the gleam of the polished black leather. “Maybe you can come to Berlin with me and run one of the hotels there.”
Claude smiled and said, “Merci.” He said, “I would like nothing better.”
Tonight, then, when the phone rings again, Claude is even more eager than usual to answer its call. Blanche smiles that unfathomable smile she has of late and gives him a slap—mild, desultory, almost as if it’s a fond reminder of better times—and leaves first. She always, lately, leaves first. And comes home last, incoherent and glassy-eyed, her clothes reeking of gin and vermouth. While Claude does what a Frenchman has to do, even in the Paris of 1943.
He shuts his eyes, but still he can see stars—the stars she has given him with her slap. The yellow stars on the streets of Paris.
For a moment—he looks at his watch, counting the seconds, allowing himself only sixty of them—Claude despises this world, this war, this occupation, this stain, this plague, this nightmare. He doesn’t know what to call it anymore.
The minute is up, and he shuts off his hate, locks it tightly in a little compartment in his heart and tucks away the key where he can find it again without too much effort. It’s time. He has to go. Claude splashes some water on his face
, straightens his tie.
And ventures out into the night to meet a beautiful woman.
A few months after Lily returns, more violets show up at the Ritz for Blanche. Another meeting on the same bench in the flower market—although this time with Lorenzo, not Lily.
“Where is Lily?” Blanche asks, snuggling into her fur coat for warmth; she always forgets how unforgiving Paris winters can be.
She is answered by a glare, and then she remembers the first thing she was told about the Resistance—no questions.
“I have something for you,” Lorenzo says. Blanche twists the nosegay of violets and listens. It’s dangerous, he continues; he won’t lie to her. They—a nonspecific “they” that Blanche knows better than to inquire about—have come into some microfilm of planned troop movements along the coast. The Germans are looking everywhere for it. It has to be given to a contact at the Gare du Nord, who will get it out of the country to the Allies. And Blanche is to take it to him. She speaks French, so she can pose as the contact’s wife.
She can walk away, she knows. The old Blanche would have. The Blanche who once thought that having lunch with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor was something to be proud of (she even wrote her parents about it and included a photo); the Blanche who used to spend hours curled up on a velvet sofa, watching the rich, famous, and delusional strut through the doors of the Ritz, their jewels ostentatiously displayed for all to see.
This new Blanche follows Lorenzo to the back of a different flower stall without a word. He hands her a tin lunch pail and a French identity card proclaiming her as one Berthe Valéry. Listening intently, she understands that she is simply taking her husband, Moule Valéry, who works on track five, his lunch. Blanche is shown a snapshot of the man—he looks as if someone has just shot his favorite dog, his expression is so morose—before Lorenzo tosses it in a coffee can and sets it on fire. He hands her a plain dress and a housewife’s kerchief—then he seems to take in her chinchilla coat for the first time.
“You look too goddamned Ritz,” he snarls, bending over a pile of old clothing, pulling out a cloth coat with a pocket flapping, torn. “Leave that ridiculous fur here—I can sell it, get some money.”
“But—it’s—” Claude gave her this coat on their first anniversary; she remembers his face, so shyly proud that he could afford this on his new salary at the Ritz. She doesn’t want to part with it; it’s like parting with one more memory—and there are too few of them anyway—of a fading, more tender, more hopeful, past.
“Do you want to help or not? We can buy passports, petrol, train tickets, things that will help. Guns, too. I thought you were willing to fight, Mistress Ritz?” Lorenzo looks at her with such unveiled disgust and arrogance; she longs to wipe that look from his face.
“Of course, take it. Get as much for it as you can.”
He doesn’t even thank her. Instead, he says, “As soon as you give him the pail, leave. Right away, just walk out. Are you sure you can do this?” He leans toward her, fixing Blanche with his doubting gaze; challenging her. And she realizes that to him, she is expendable, as useful for the moment as her fur coat, nothing more.
“I could do with some excitement,” Blanche replies.
“Are you sure?” Lorenzo scowls; he takes off his cap, scratches his head, and looks about, almost as if he’s hoping someone else will pop out from behind a flower bucket and take her place. “You understand what’s at stake here? You know you cannot talk about this to anyone, and if you’re caught, you’re on your own. You can’t reveal names, you can’t talk. Or else.”
“Or else what?”
“If the Nazis don’t murder you, we will.”
She represses a shudder, but says nothing.
“When you are done, don’t come back here.”
“Where do I go? My clothes—” Blanche pats her dress, the printed silk that she slipped on so thoughtfully this morning. “What do I do with them?”
“I’ll sell those, too.” He laughs at her foolish, feminine concern and stands there, arms folded across his chest, waiting for her to strip.
Blanche shrugs, does so, and changes into the costume; the housedress is a little too tight, while the coat is a little too big. Emerging from the tent with the pail, she stops to arrange the kerchief low on her forehead. Lorenzo doesn’t follow; she doesn’t recognize anyone as she makes her way through the market, pausing now and again to look at flowers—mainly bittersweet branches, a few hothouse flowers under glass—simply another French housewife spending a few coins on flowers to brighten her table. But every Nazi soldier she brushes against is like an electric shock to her system; she recoils, her heart hammering as she grips the pail tighter, but none give her a second look. So she begins to walk toward the Seine. Toward the Gare du Nord.
This isn’t like the other time, with the young airman. Then, she was entirely swept up in the moment, a giddy, reckless adventure, as if she were an understudy suddenly called upon to step into a role she hadn’t rehearsed. She didn’t have time to contemplate the consequences.
What if she never sees Claude again? The question catches her off guard and makes her think, once more, of the coat she has just given away, and all the memories attached to it. Until today, she realizes, she hasn’t thought of her husband as a person in so long; he is the source of her distress, the excuse for her drinking, the reason she runs away. Will she grieve, if she can never see him again?
Will he grieve for her?
This conundrum drives away all the other, more immediately terrifying thoughts until she realizes she’s almost at the station, and that she is actually swinging the precious bucket, like it is a handbag or a picnic basket and not the hiding place of stolen microfilm that every Nazi officer in France is searching for. For a terrible moment, Blanche fears she’s lost the fake identity card—did she leave it back at the flower market, with her real clothes? But then she remembers it’s in the pail, on top of the checkered cloth that covers the sandwich that protects the precious microfilm. She pats her cheek to hide her fear, then she shows the card to the Germans at the entrance. She makes herself look them in the eye; she can’t appear nervous or suspicious. The soldier who takes it barely gives it a glance before thrusting it back to her and continuing a conversation with his friend.
As soon as she steps inside the great, cavernous, noisy station, Moule—looking just as sad as his photo—runs up to her (How? He’s never seen her before, as far as she knows); he grabs her by her shoulders, scolding her in a torrent of French.
“What took you so long, woman? I am starving! It’s not enough that I slave all day for you, but you can’t be bothered to bring me my lunch on time?”
For a moment, Blanche is too stunned to react; has the man lost his reason? Then her former acting instincts kick in.
“You vile excuse for a husband! How dare you? I was trying to make myself pretty for you!”
“Ha! You did not succeed.”
A fascinated audience has suddenly assembled to witness their volatile domestic drama.
Blanche slaps Moule. He growls, then she grabs his collar and kisses him, passionately, on the lips. The man is so stunned he drops the pail.
She stifles a panicked cry; Moule’s pupils dilate with a terror that matches her own.
They both, at the same time, look down.
The pail is intact; nothing has fallen out of it, not even the soggy sandwich. Giddy with relief, Blanche grabs Moule and plants another, more passionate kiss on his lips. This one, he returns.
The German soldiers watching burst into applause and one shouts, “Vive la France!” Blanche—finally releasing the stunned Moule—is so exhilarated that she almost bows. But she catches herself, just in time, and spins on her heel and marches away, cursing all Frenchmen and their follies at the top of her voice.
By the time she gets back to the Ritz, her arms are sti
ll swinging, and she’s grinning, madly—only dimly, in the back of her mind, lies the thought that she could still be arrested; she’s convinced herself that would only have happened during the drop. The drop—she’s already thinking like a militant, a spy.
But now she’s back at the Ritz, where nothing bad can happen to her, and so she can revel in the rush, the thrill. She’s done it, done it brilliantly—she replays the entire scene in her head, and she grins, remembering how she kissed that poor bastard, his gasp of surprise. Oh, she wished that Claude could have seen her! She wished someone had seen her, someone like—
Lily. Who is sitting on a chair outside the Ritz bar when Blanche pushes through the doors of the rue Cambon side, still exultant but in dire need of a stiff drink, a reward for a job well done. Lily, who bursts into tears as soon as she sees Blanche. Blanche grabs her, pulls her into the bar, ignoring the stares—of course, she’s still in these ragged clothes, although she does tear off the kerchief and tries to rearrange her hair. Frank Meier, without a word, only a probing look, pours them both martinis.
“I told him no, Lorenzo—I told him not to have you do this. He sent me off on wild goose egg chase, to get me away. Oh, Blanche—you shouldn’t have, you fool. It was great danger. I will kill him, that Lorenzo!”
“Hush…” Frank hisses, inclining his head, ever so slightly, toward the German officers at the end of the bar whose conversation has grown less animated as theirs has grown louder, and Lily finally calms down.
“But you did OK, Blanche?”
“More than OK. Lily, I was grand!”
Mistress of the Ritz Page 18
