Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

by Francine Prose

  The Führer said he was glad Lou liked Berlin. In his opinion (he smiled) Berlin was the only city since Imperial Rome that could call itself a city. He had been to Paris. A pitiful Alpine village.

  This was tricky for Inge to translate. Paris was Lou’s home. And everyone knew that the Führer had a lifelong love for Paris.

  Lou was being tested. Inge and the Führer wanted to see if she could take a joke.

  Lou laughed. No hard feelings! The heavy mood lightened again.

  A waiter approached with bottles of wine. Inge shot Lou a warning look, but the Führer, master of surprises, motioned for Lou’s goblet to be filled with red wine. How thoughtful! How could Lou ever thank him for letting her have a glassful of help with the social demands of the evening.

  Lou said, “Berlin is beautiful.”

  Inge said, “Berlin ist schön.”

  More waiters interrupted them, proffering mountains of food. The waiters looked like Olympic athletes, blond, with broad shoulders and narrow waists. A tray of sliced meat bypassed the Führer, and this time, when Inge signaled Lou to say no, the Führer didn’t countermand her. Lou would have loved some meat, which had been scarce in Paris, even if one could afford it. The juicy slabs of beef looked better than anything she’d seen all summer, but Lou shook her head. No, thank you. Following Inge’s cue, she lifted her chin in a welcoming nod at a platter of breaded schnitzel.

  “Nut cutlets,” explained the Führer.

  Inge didn’t, couldn’t, translate for fear of dissolving in giggles. It thrilled Lou that she and Inge were already sharing private jokes about the Führer’s diet. Inge was right to trust her. The Führer wolfed down half his cutlet and pushed his dish away. The plate was removed, along with Inge’s. This allowed the Führer to talk and Inge to translate more freely, though Lou held on to her plate and, as she listened, masticated tiny mouthfuls of oily fried-sawdust croquettes.

  Now the Führer spoke at length, and after some pouting and a theatrical sigh, Inge said, “The Führer says his views on nutrition are well known to me and probably even you, but still he wants to say: try a simple experiment. Put two things in front of a child—a dead animal and a pear. The child will reach for the pear. Because the child is in touch with its instincts. Now put a sausage in front of the child, who will scream and cry. What brilliant anthropologist can explain why chewed-up regurgitated flesh, stuffed into a pig’s gut half-cleaned of excrement, is the most beloved delicacy of the German people?”

  “I don’t know,” Lou said. Inge didn’t bother to translate.

  The Führer seized Inge’s forearm, gesturing as he spoke, as if he were a ventriloquist and Inge his pretty dummy.

  The Führer said, “That is why the German people desperately need a leader. This is one of many things for which we can thank the Jews, turning herbivores into practitioners of ritual sacrifice addicted to animal flesh, all because the Jews could make a bigger profit from sausage than from salad.”

  “I love salad,” Lou said.

  “She loves salad,” said Inge.

  Now the Führer focused on Lou, talking to her as if he could will her to understand German. But not even he could do that.

  Afraid of disappointing him, Lou turned to Inge, who said, “In the early days of the party, when the Führer was in jail, do you know what got him through?”

  “You wrote Mein Kampf, my Führer,” Inge went on, covering for Lou.

  “Obviously,” said the Führer. Again he spoke intently. “During the day I wrote. At night I dreamed of cars. I could hear them driving past my cell window. The prison was on a curve. Cars were all I thought about. I swore that, when I got out of jail, I would get the biggest, fastest Mercedes money could buy. Which is what I have now. Though who would have predicted that by the time I got my dream car, Germany would need me so badly I couldn’t risk driving it myself.”

  Inge continued translating, but now Lou had the eerie sense that she was understanding German without Inge’s help. The Führer motioned for Lou’s glass to be refilled, a gesture that shocked Inge and two hundred other guests up and down the table.

  “What did he say?” Lou asked Inge.

  “Do you want to hear about his favorite thing in the world?”

  Lou nodded. Certainly! The Führer’s favorite thing!

  Inge said, “His favorite thing is racing American cars in the middle of Berlin. Sometimes when he and his driver are alone in the Mercedes, and an American vehicle pulls up beside them, the Führer orders the driver to step on the gas—and they leave the big fat hairy American buffalo in the dust. The Führer laughs till his sides hurt. They are idiots in Detroit!”

  “That’s what I always say,” said Lou.

  The Führer said, “Inge also loves cars. Like we do.” Lou felt as if she and Inge were receiving a benediction. No wonder the Führer had sat with them. Everything made sense.

  Lou had something she needed Inge to tell the Führer, but her glass had refilled itself, and she forgot what she wanted to say. The Führer asked about the Olympics. Was she looking forward to the games? Wait till she saw the stadium! “Ladies, listen! When we began to plan the games in Berlin, my architects informed me there were two possibilities only. On one hand . . .”

  Inge winked so only Lou saw. How joyous Lou felt, spotting the Führer’s favorite phrase: another private joke.

  “One possibility was a stadium costing eleven hundred thousand marks. The other was a stadium costing fourteen hundred thousand marks.” The Führer smacked the table. Lou and Inge should have seen the ministers’ faces when he told them that he was allotting fourteen million marks!

  “The stadium has already brought in twice that much in foreign currency, which Germany needs to rebuild. And still they complain that our stadium wasn’t constructed exactly to Olympic specifications! Let the weaklings whine. The next Olympics will be held in Japan, but after that the games will take place every year in Berlin, and Germany will decide what Olympic proportions are.”

  The Führer asked Lou something about France. Inge said, “He wants to know if France has a network of local sports associations. Like we do here.”

  The Führer leaned toward Lou. Lou covered her wineglass when the waiter came round again.

  Speaking slowly, Lou said there were thousands of sports clubs, all over France. There was hardly a village that didn’t have its own men’s and women’s tennis or gymnastics, bicycle-racing, swimming, or golfing society. And Lou had friends in every one! This was an exaggeration, but only a slight one. Lou wasn’t so much describing the present as making a promise about the future.

  The Führer told Inge to ask what Lou knew about the early history of the party.

  “Nothing, I’ll bet,” said Inge.

  “Not much,” admitted Lou.

  The Führer said that when the party was outlawed by the parasites, cowards, and thieves who nearly destroyed the homeland, the old soldiers went underground. And the patriots who helped them were often members of sports associations, exercise clubs, gun clubs, and village teams.

  The party would have succeeded without them. Destiny was on its side. But it would have been harder. And besides, it was only right. Athletics was the pure expression of the National Socialist ideal. Perfect bodies, perfect souls. Youth and strength and hope. The sacred beauty of nature uncorrupted by civilization!

  Though some of his less progressive advisers argued against strenuous sports for women, the Führer believed that physical fitness would empower Aryan mothers to bear a healthy, revitalized nation. The Aryan girls’ associations required its members to schedule, during each meeting—the Führer counted on his fingers—a five-minute run, twenty-five minutes of gymnastics, forty-five minutes of track and field, and at least that much of games. Did Lou know that the older girls’ groups operated under the direction of the Faith and Beauty League? Did Lou know that their nationwide Strength through Joy program had tripled the average productivity of the German worker?

  Lou was t
hrilled that she could say yes without lying. These were among the first things that Inge had told her about the Fatherland.

  The Führer was glad the Olympics were being held in Berlin because it let Germany show off the youth that National Socialism was producing. The world would come to appreciate their drive toward excellence, their optimism, and their belief that Germany will outshine every star in the constellation of nations. Inge had heard this so often that she could translate before the Führer finished speaking.

  Then he said something else about France, which Lou had to prod Inge into translating, and possibly (Lou got the sense) toning down what he said. France was a once great nation. But now it was like a child who had wandered off the path. And its kindly older brother, the Reich, could help the child find its way home. With Germany’s loving guidance, France could again become the thriving society it was before it was attacked by enemies from outside and by parasites from within. This answered a lot of questions for Lou. Since she’d arrived, she’d noticed that the Germans seemed better off than the French. It bothered her. She was French. She loved France. But the Führer also loved France and was offering to repair her country and restore it to the French people.

  Just then a young man in uniform tapped the Führer’s shoulder. Rising, the Führer thanked Lou and Inge for their time and attention. He made a sweet, almost childlike face, blinking both eyes as he apologized for leaving. He assured them that his men would try to make Lou’s stay in Berlin enjoyable and productive.

  He was gone by the time Inge finished translating that, and before Lou could thank him. But what would she have said?

  She would have said, I will do anything. Anything you ask.

  Would that have seemed excessive? Would it have embarrassed Inge? Would the Führer think she had drunk too much, as in fact she had?

  Anyway, the evening was ending. The party was breaking up. Inge reminded Lou that the Führer liked to go to bed early.

  In the car going back to the hotel, Inge took Lou’s hand and brought it to her lips. She said she wanted to kiss the hand that the Führer had kissed.

  In the middle of the night Lou and Inge shared a cigarette. The curtains to the balcony fluttered in the warm wind. They sat up, naked, cross-legged, on their canopied bed. They joked about how nervous they’d been at dinner, how hard it had been for Inge to translate the Führer’s words when her teeth were chattering because they were with the Führer, and she’d been so attracted to Lou.

  Lou said she was surprised by the lack of formal speeches or toasts. Inge said she too had expected speeches. But the Führer was famous for doing the unexpected. Who could have foreseen that the Reich’s sovereign leader would spend all evening talking to them?

  Then Inge sighed and said that she and Lou could have been together like this, they could have been lovers since Brooklands. If only Lou hadn’t acted like the stuffy German and forced Inge to behave like the slutty French girl.

  Lou didn’t like apologizing. But for the first time she liked the feeling of saying she was sorry. It was like being pushed, too high and too hard, in the swing.

  Inge hoped that Lou hadn’t been offended by the Führer’s remarks about France, and Lou said no, not at all. It was always a relief when someone told the truth.

  Inge said, “When the Führer wants to win you over, he calls you ‘a good soul.’ After the Führer calls you that, your heart belongs to him forever.” Inge touched Lou’s cheek and said that in her opinion Lou really was a good soul. No one had ever called Lou that. Nor had anyone touched her like that.

  That night Lou and Inge exchanged the stories of their lives. They spoke in quiet voices, sometimes in a whisper, pausing when tears welled in their eyes and they didn’t trust themselves to go on. At moments Lou recounted her history as if it were a tragedy, or a joke, or a true story she couldn’t believe herself. She described her chilly mother, her disappointed papa, her sweet grandmother, the cruel British governess, but not the mad brother. She included the javelin demonstration at the Vélodrome d’Hiver but left out the boxing match and Dr. Loomis’s attack.

  Inge stroked her shoulder, a soothing repetitive touch that smoothed the rough edges of Lou’s life so far and hypnotized her into feeling a tender forgiveness for everyone who had hurt her. There were plenty of things she regretted and wished she could do over. But tonight she felt reluctant to disturb the fragile ecology of the past that had brought her to this moment, in this pretty hotel room, with Inge.

  Inge had grown up in a family in the foreign service. She had lived all over the world, never feeling at home anywhere except behind the wheel of a car. Just the names of the places Inge had traveled—Siam, Abyssinia, India, the Belgian Congo—gave Lou the shivers. How could such a brave, adventurous path have led Inge to her?

  Inge asked Lou when she first knew that she wanted to dress like a boy. Lou said ever since she knew what clothes were. Inge told her that in India there were men who dressed as women. They sang and danced professionally and blessed weddings and new babies. When a boy was born that way, he found these troupes, and the men embraced him and took him in. Sometimes a boy’s parents brought him to them because he was that way, and they embraced him and took him in.

  “What about little girls?” asked Lou.

  Inge said, “They’re taken care of. They’re allowed to be their true selves, strong and brave citizens of their ancient country.”

  It made sense that India, with its vast expanse, its deep spiritual wisdom, and its historical role as the cradle of the Aryan master race, should have a vision broad enough to acknowledge and accept every aspect of human nature. Lou had never talked about these things with anyone, not even with Arlette. She was grateful, even blissful, to discover that people like her had existed since the dawn of civilization. Inge saw her as no one ever had. Inge loved her, body and soul.

  It was almost dawn before Lou Villars finally took off her shirt. She held her breath as Inge gently traced one manicured fingertip along the scars where Lou’s breasts had been.

  In the morning, a blond youth in a uniform with gold epaulets rolled their breakfast in on a cart. Lou jumped up and pulled on her pants, but he didn’t seem fazed to see two women in bed. This wasn’t what Lou had heard about Germany under the Führer! She’d heard there were harsh penalties for loving one’s own sex. But she’d also heard that coffee and sugar were even scarcer than in Paris, and here was Inge, pouring Lou a large cup of coffee and stirring in three sugars, just the way Lou liked it.

  Inge said, “It would kill the Führer to see us eating sausage!” And she burst out laughing as she swallowed a juicy morsel of weisswurst.

  Before Lou could begin to express her happiness, Inge tore off the soft inside of a hard roll and ate it. A feather of bread hung out of Inge’s mouth. Lou tried to remove it, a gesture that started out clumsily and ended in a kiss.

  Later that morning they were woken again by noise from the street. With their arms around each other’s waists they stood on the balcony watching soldiers, workers, and schoolchildren in uniform, marching in perfect columns. From above they saw the caps and hats all turned in the same direction, the angular geometries of raised arms and uplifted knees.

  It was drizzling, but no one minded. The wet banners must have been heavy, but the flag bearers held them high. Lou saw a boy stumble under a flagpole, and instead of tormenting him, as older children do, two big boys rushed over and helped him.

  In the afternoon a car came to take Lou and Inge to the stadium, past masses yearning to glimpse the Führer, lining the roads so thickly that soldiers had to push them back, out of danger. Inge said that whole families had been camped out all night.

  “In the rain?” Lou asked.

  What was a little rain? This was something the German people would remember all their lives and tell their grandchildren about. After a while Inge said, “Look, the Olympic towers!” The towers came into view, two stone monoliths with a chain of Olympic circles floating in midair betw
een them.

  Look! Inge kept saying. Look! She’d begun to sound hysterical, infecting Lou with her panic as Lou tried to figure out what Inge was telling her to look at now.

  An enormous zeppelin, like a giant inflated shark with swastikas on its tail, hovered over the stadium.

  “The Hindenburg!” said Inge.

  “Beautiful,” Lou said.

  They would not be watching from the Führer’s box. But they had an unobstructed view of where he would be sitting. In the seat beside Lou was a familiar-looking man. Max Schmeling! The heavyweight champion had just returned, in that very same zeppelin, from beating the Negro Joe Louis. He and Inge greeted each other like old friends, though they seemed confused about what to do first, kiss or say Heil Hitler. Inge introduced Lou in French as a famous auto racer. Schmeling (also in French) said he was honored to meet her.

  “The honor is mine,” said Lou.

  Inge asked if the voyage had been comfortable, and Schmeling said yes, thank you, and Inge said he was the hero of the German people and the Aryan race, and Schmeling said thank you again.

  Lou’s attention lapsed. Why really was she there? What could a garage mechanic have done to deserve this? Was it all about Inge and how popular she was? Had she been invited to be Inge’s imported French plaything?

  The spectators had found their places when the Führer arrived, surrounded by guards. The entire stadium rumbled. Lou grasped Inge’s hand. Heil Hitler Heil Hitler Heil Hitler she chanted along with the crowd until she could no longer tell if the chanting was inside or outside her, until the pounding hearts around her were pumping blood through her veins. Exalted and hypnotic, the incessantly tolling bells summoned her from the pasture and sent her into battle. The crowd roared and fell silent and roared again, the roaring crested and subsided, only to rise and fall. Many people must have been hoarse, but they kept on yelling. Tears streamed down Lou’s face, and she was embarrassed until she saw that Max Schmeling was weeping too.