‘It has a phenomenal climb angle, a flat glide and a safe landing speed,’ my daughter informs me.
I blink.
Chloé adds, ‘That’s what Tante Romy says.’
Romaine laughs and I realise I can’t remember the last time I heard her laugh.
‘Tante Romy,’ I state, ‘seems to say a lot of things.’
My sister has the grace to blush. Because no six-year-old girl should be conversant with climb angles and glides and landing speeds. It is not quite decent.
Chloé takes to running around us, plane in hand, swooping it up and down through the air, but instead of looking at her, I observe Romaine. She looks a mess, though I suspect she has made an effort in my honour. She is wearing a cap-sleeved white blouse and a sand-coloured skirt, but both are old and in need of an iron. She rolls on to her stomach, propped up on her elbows, chin in her hands. Her movements are always smooth and effortless, as if she’s made of air.
‘You’ll come to Monico’s Club tonight, I hope,’ I say softly. ‘A car will pick you up at eight. Horst would like you to come. It’s a long time since we spent an evening together and I’m looking forward to it.’
Her amber eyes slide sideways to inspect me, the sunlight catching her golden lashes that are so much longer than mine.
‘Why?’ she asks.
‘It will be fun. Sisters together.’
She says nothing. Her gaze is on my face.
‘You will enjoy it,’ I smile.
She looks away, back to Chloé who is now sitting on the grass, the model plane on her lap like a pet.
‘Who is Horst Baumeister?’
‘I told you, Romaine. He is an important emissary from Germany who is here to negotiate a defence agreement with France. Roland is a minister in the Ministry of Defence – just like Papa was – and he has plans to ensure peace between our two countries. That’s what we all want, isn’t it?’
‘Not on Hitler’s terms, no. Not on Mussolini’s terms in Italy. Nor on General Franco’s in Spain. No, not on their terms. They are Fascist monsters, they are dictators, they are tyrants who rip the hearts out of their people.’
She is so fierce. So convinced. I should leave it there, but I don’t. I can’t bear my sister to be so blinkered and a twitch of anger gets the better of me. Sometimes I think she takes the high moral stance just to prove she has a mind that is independent of Papa.
‘Romaine, are you blind? Do you really want Communism to sweep across our countries and turn us into the Union of Soviet Socialist Europe? Do you? Because that’s exactly what will happen if we don’t have men like Hitler, Mussolini and Franco to stem the tide.’ I lower my voice to a murmur. I don’t want Chloé to hear. ‘Look at Russia, Romaine. Look at the way Stalin is crippling his country and forcing Russians to live in terror. Is that what you want for us?’
My sister’s mouth softens into the hint of a smile. ‘I like it,’ she tells me, ‘when you care about something other than hats and evening gowns. Even if you are wrong.’
I leave it there. I need her to come tonight.
The gardens are beginning to fill up with Parisians strolling along the allées before the sun grows too hot, promenading arm in arm to show off the latest Chanel navy costume or a new chanteuse mistress. I summon Chloé to me and fold up the rug while Romaine de-wings the FROG aircraft – she tells Chloé it is British-made and its name stands for Flies Right Off the Ground. As she is packing it away in its box, I say what I have come here to say.
‘Maman wishes to see you.’
Romaine freezes. Her eyes narrow. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. She didn’t say. Just asked me to pass on the message.’
‘I am busy at the moment. Flying every day.’
‘You must go to her, Romaine.’
‘Why must I?’
I don’t reply. She knows why she must go.
I walk into the Avenue Kléber apartment, toss my hat and lace gloves on to the marble hall table with a brusque gesture of annoyance, and head straight for the telephone. It isn’t a call I want to make. But even as I pick up the receiver the delicate fragrance of the white roses around the hall drifts to me and I inhale it with a shiver of relief. It is always the same. The way their scent calms me. Soothes the turmoil of my meeting with my sister. The nursemaid, Amélie, wisely sweeps Chloé away to be washed and fed, full of chatter about flying her precious aeroplane with Tante Romy.
What about the doll I gave you, Chloé? The one with the genuine silky blonde hair and the flawless porcelain skin to match your own. What about her? You and I both know she still sits in her box.
I dial a number for Chantilly.
‘Maman?’
‘Florence, I’ve been waiting to hear from you.’ My mother’s voice is as smooth and controlled as always, but I pick out the ripple of some emotion that I can’t quite place, an undercurrent that tugs at me despite the coolness of the tone. ‘Did you see her?’
‘Yes, Maman. I told you I was taking Chloé to the park with her.’
‘Is that wise?’
I laugh softly. ‘Trust me, Maman.’
‘Is she any different? Has she . . .’ A long, pointed pause. ‘. . . improved?’
‘No.’
A harsh rush of air makes the receiver vibrate in my hand. ‘Be patient, Maman.’
‘Are you patient with her?’
‘She is my twin. I love her, so of course I am patient.’
‘Did you do as I asked?’
‘Yes, I told her you want to see her.’ I put my face into a smile to soften the edges of my words. ‘She didn’t look too happy about it but I let her know it was an official summons to Chantilly.’
I recall the tight mouth when I announced the summons, the amber eyes, as hostile and as focused as those of a lioness at bay.
‘Will she come?’ my mother demands.
‘She’ll come.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because I told her to.’
‘When?’
‘Be patient, Maman.’
‘Will she telephone? It would be courteous to telephone to make an appointment.’
‘She is your daughter, not your hairdresser.’
‘Then tell her to act like one.’
Her words came out angry. With claws. They take me by surprise, but I give not a hint of it.
‘She is attending one of Roland’s functions as a favour to him tonight. Horst Baumeister will be there.’
I hear her intake of breath. ‘Why?’ she asks.
‘He wants to see her.’
‘Is that wise?’
‘He’s not giving me any choice.’ I switch the subject. ‘I will remind her to telephone you. But Maman . . .’ My throat grows suddenly tight and nothing more comes out of my mouth except the whisper of a sigh.
‘What is it, Florence?’
‘Don’t be too hard on her.’
‘Why not? She deserves it.’
‘I need her, Maman. Remember that.’
As soon as I replace the receiver, the telephone rings, sharp and insistent. I know it will be my mother again. I eye the black Bakelite instrument with disfavour and am tempted to leave it to ring, but with a shrug I pick it up.
‘Did she say yes?’ It is Roland.
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Well done.’
‘I told her you would send a car for her at eight.’
‘I’ll arrange that.’
I can detect my husband’s impatience to have the coming evening over and done with. ‘Roland,’ I say into the mouthpiece with caution, ‘she wasn’t happy about it.’
‘Now why does that not surprise me?’
‘She might back out.’
‘Make certain she doesn’t.’
There is a pause. Both of us breathing too hard.
‘We went to the park,’ I tell him.
He sighs. ‘Did she ask you for money again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you give h
er any?’
‘No.’
‘Liar,’ he says and hangs up.
CHAPTER TEN
FLORENCE
Roland lies next to me, naked on the bed. We are breathing hard as though we have been running and have just collapsed in a tangle of sheets. A sheen of sweat cocoons his pale skin and glistens on the silky hairs on his chest, catching the light from the bedside lamp.
I can smell him. I can smell our sated hunger still clinging to his muscular limbs, heavy and moist in the dense curls at his groin. And the scent of him, that musk of something feral, it stirs my body’s need for him again even before my sweat has dried. I stretch out a hand and trail it lightly over his chest, aware of the muscles twitching like a cat’s tail at the touch of my fingers.
I turn on my side to face him. Before I can stop it, my tongue slips out and licks the damp skin of his shoulder. He tastes deliciously salty. I restrain myself from sinking my teeth into his flesh.
‘It’s nearly seven o’clock,’ I murmur lazily. ‘We should be dressing for dinner. We’ll be late at Monico’s.’
He takes my hand from his chest, lifts it to his lips and kisses each finger. He would never bite me.
‘Horst Baumeister has been talking with General Ludwig Beck in Berlin,’ he tells my fingertips.
I lift my head, interested. ‘Chief of the German military?’
‘That’s him.’
I tread with care. ‘What did General Beck have to say?’
‘Horst confirms what we suspected. Beck is firmly opposed to the increasing totalitarianism of the Nazi regime and Hitler’s aggressive foreign policy.’
‘Towards Sudetenland?’
‘Exactly.’ His hazel-brown eyes flick to mine with approval and then to my breasts, his pupils still huge with desire. ‘Beck is all for Germany taking back Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia – the same way they took Austria with the Anschluss last March, but . . .’ He pauses and I think for a second that it flits through his mind that he tells me too much, but I can see the thought is gone as soon as it came.
I bend my head and kiss his throat. I feel his pulse against my lips. I picture his heart, strong and vital, pumping blood to the exact spot where my lips touch.
‘But what?’ I prompt.
‘But where Beck crosses swords with Hitler is that he does not believe the Third Reich is yet ready for war. He is certain that France and Britain will not stand idly by, not this time. He calls it a “premature war”. He bemoans the fact that Keitel is giving Hitler poor military advice, or so he believes. Steering the Führer up a blind path.’
‘Is he?’
‘No. The drive to war is coming from Hitler himself.’ He twists a lock of my hair between his finger and thumb like a thread of spun sugar. ‘General Beck believes our new prime minister here in France, Édouard Daladier, will sneak up and seize the Rhineland in the west while the Wehrmacht is off in the east chasing after Jews in Czechoslovakia. But war is heading for France, believe me.’
I kiss his mouth, full and hard. ‘We have to be . . .’
‘Careful?’ he suggests.
‘No,’ I whisper in his ear. ‘We have to be on the winning side. For Chloé’s sake.’
He laughs, a full-throated bellow of amusement that rattles my ribs. ‘You and Chloé will be safe, I promise. General Beck is a cunning one. That man knows the value of keeping one step ahead.’
‘But Hitler’s spies are everywhere.’
Roland wraps his hand around mine on his chest, pinning it there. ‘You know that Beck has created his own intelligence attachés to collect and leak information in all the capitals of Europe.’
‘Men like Horst Baumeister?’
Roland smiles. He is handsome when he smiles. He touches my breast and heat races through my veins and makes me want to spend my whole life in bed with my husband. I swing one leg over him and straddle him.
‘Florence, I have to shower. No time for more of this now.’
I lower myself down on him, skin to skin, my breasts pressed so tight against his ribs that they hurt, my mouth so close to his, I breathe his breath.
‘This evening is work,’ I remind him and take his bottom lip between my teeth. ‘It will not be fun.’ I bite into his lip till it bleeds.
I watch my twin sister like a hawk. I watch the way she turns her head with the unconscious grace of a skylark in the air. I watch the way she laughs up into Horst Baumeister’s face. The four of us are seated at a table, and I see her slide her tawny eyes at me. And at Roland. As though to say, ‘See. I do as you ask. I do more than you ask. I dangle your German like a ripe cherry from my little finger.’
I am shocked. Pleased, but shocked. I can tell by the way Roland smokes his cigar with long satisfied gusts of smoke that he is pleased with Romaine too. And each time his tongue seeks out the scab on his lip, he looks at me. We smile.
I smile a lot in Monico’s nightclub. It always buzzes with a feverish energy that makes the hair rise on the back of my neck and the blood fizz through my veins like champagne. But it’s not just that. I love it here because I meet people. At various times I have been swept across the dance floor in the arms of England’s Duke of Windsor himself, shared a bowl of Provençal olives with the delicious Cole Porter and slipped oysters down the greedy throat of Ernest Hemingway. Only last week I laughed with one of our loveliest French film stars, Ginette Leclerc, when she whispered tales of her attempts to seduce Marcel Pagnol, the director of her latest film, La Femme du Boulanger.
Here you don’t have to be normal. Here in Monico’s on Place Pigalle you can be anyone you choose to be. This is where the chic society of Paris gather in their jewels and their furs and their glossy evening wear to see and be seen, as gaudy as butterflies as the music plays with syncopated rhythm and we each weave our own secret fantasy. I watch my sister and I wonder what fantasy she is weaving as she nods her head solemnly at Horst Baumeister and sketches something on the pristine white tablecloth for him with her knife.
‘She looks nice,’ Roland comments under his breath.
He’s not right. My twin sister looks more than nice, she looks striking. Slender in the elegant navy gown, she looks like a different creature. It makes her move differently, no tomboy foolery, but with a smooth stride, and when she entered the club at my side, heads turned. The usual well-heeled clientele scented new blood in their midst and they liked what they saw. But she held herself aloof and indifferent to them. That’s what nettled them. That she didn’t care for their opinion. It showed. It galled them.
I am wearing the most exquisite Schiaparelli evening gown in the room, biscuit-coloured and flaring into a beaded skirt that flows and glitters around me like sparkling water as I walk. My shoulders are bare, my skin buffed and smooth as silk. Diamonds at my throat. Yet they look at her. Not at me. I know why. She is not one of them and they sense it, they can smell her scorn. She makes them nervous.
‘Not as nice as you,’ my husband smiles.
I shrug a bare shoulder. As if I don’t care. But he knows me well.
‘What is she playing at?’ Roland asks with suspicion. He is seated next to me and drops his voice below the throb of the music, glamorous in his white bow tie and jet-black evening jacket. I am tempted to slide a hand the length of his arm but I quell the moment of desire.
‘She is doing what I asked,’ I say. ‘Being nice to Horst. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?’
‘Since when has she ever done what we ask?’
It isn’t true. But I let it pass.
Roland takes out his silver cigarette case that gleams under the chandelier and offers a Sobranie. He carries them just for me. I accept one, slot it into my ivory holder, and Roland and I lean our heads closer as he lights it for me, so close I can smell the musk of his aftershave.
‘What does Horst want from her?’ I murmur. ‘Why did he insist on her being here tonight?’
‘I wish I knew.’ Roland’s eyes harden as he flicks a glance at them across
the table, engrossed in the knife drawing. ‘He says he finds her intriguing.’
‘I worry.’
‘We have reason to.’
‘How long is he staying in Paris?’
‘As long as he likes.’
I feel my skin spasm, as though spiders are crawling up my arms, and I exhale a skein of smoke to cover my unease. The German is questioning my sister minutely about something, some detail of the drawing. I squint at it.
‘An engine,’ Roland mutters in my ear, irritated.
Horst Baumeister is a good-looking man, in a German kind of way. Thick short blond hair swept straight back, strong regular features and a square jaw. Good skin. Intense blue eyes. Exactly the kind of man I’d expect Hitler to recruit to do his bidding. Just at that moment, Horst stands, smiles engagingly at my sister, then at us, and steers Romaine on to the crowded dance floor. A jazz number is playing, something achingly sad. The band of Negro musicians is swaying with the tempo and I observe my twin sister’s feet. She acquits herself well. Horst’s arms encircle her loosely, not trying to own her, and they talk while they dance. What about? What is it that they find to say to each other?
‘Bonsoir, mes amis.’
I look up to find the flamboyant owner of Monico’s nightclub beaming down at me. Bricktop is her name because of her red hair. Brick for short. She is an ebullient black-skinned American woman in her mid-forties who possesses a voice as rich as dark chocolate and a smile that warms the soul.
Brick started out as a cabaret jazz singer in Harlem, New York, but brought her unique style to Paris and we all fell under her spell. Her nightclub is all the rage and we flock here to listen to the finest jazz musicians in the world. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington love to perform here for her when in town, and Cole Porter wrote her signature tune for her, the irrepressible Miss Otis Regrets. Later she will be performing it for us, but right now Brick shimmies around the tables in her silver dress, stopping to kiss a cheek, rub a bald pate or tell a joke. She is smoking a cigar.
My husband rises to kiss her and she pats his cheek mischievously. ‘It’s good to see you here again, Roland. Because I hear you were slumming it at Mimi’s measly place the other night.’
‘Brick, you have the ears of a bat, my dear.’
The Betrayal Page 7
