Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

by Francine Prose

  My husband wasn’t a fanatic like his late brother Armand. But he was a loyal Frenchman, and it shamed him to do business with the Germans.

  Were we traitors? I don’t think so, and neither did the French government. After the war no charges were ever filed against us. We weren’t making tanks but luxury cars of a breed so rarefied and expensive that Didi insisted on presiding over every sale. We never produced military transport vehicles, as did our competitor Louis Renault, who was prosecuted as a collaborator and died—under mysterious circumstances, as they always say.

  What harm did selling a few cars do? Enabling a few porky Germans to take their mistresses out for a “picnic” in the country. It was an act of sabotage against high-ranking German wives and by extension their husbands. I always hoped that some wurst-stuffed fattie would screw his girlfriend in one of our cars and have a heart attack. We knew that it was only a matter of time before the Germans seized our factory and our business.

  Everyone has an explanation for why they did what they did. Why they had to do what they did. My husband’s factory employed over four hundred workers. Should their children have starved because Didi and I had principles? Should we have planted bombs or weakened the brake lines of the cars we sold to Germans? Four hundred families would have been on the street. Or in jail. How innocent we were compared to, let’s say, our former employee, Lou Villars!

  I decided to go back to Paris and help Didi face the stress. Later I found ways of reinvesting some of our profits so as to make up for who our customers—some of our customers—had been.

  It was oddly pleasant, the drive back to Paris, considering that we were constantly being stopped and harassed by uniformed hooligans. Gabor and Suzanne sat in back. I rode up front with Frank, our driver, whom I would like to thank for, among other things, teaching me how to take sedative pills without water.

  We made the trip in four days. I spent every night with Frank. If the Rossignol money ever runs out, and the value of my art collection plummets, I plan to fund my retirement with one of those books French women write for their American sisters. My book will describe in detail how a middle-aged baroness with a history of sexual and romantic disappointments could, at the eleventh hour, find erotic fulfillment with her Italian chauffeur, twenty years her junior. With Frank, I understood why people make such a fuss about sex, why they would do anything to lose themselves in that fog of bliss, to feel as if they are sharing a dream with another person.

  I know there will be readers who can only see through the reductive lens of social class, wealth, and power. Such small-minded prudes will naturally conclude that a woman like myself could only let down her defenses and experience pleasure with a social inferior. All I can tell these bigoted snobs is that, if kindness, patience, imagination, and sexual know-how are the exclusive territory of the working classes, then I had been born—or rather, married—into the wrong province.

  Not for one instant did Frank or I imagine that our fling would last beyond the moment we saw the roofs of Paris. But our on-the-road affair was a lovely surprise.

  In memory, the warmth of desire fills the luxury sedan as we sped along those misty country roads, past oily black trees, rubble, the muddy earth scarred by war. I remember the touch of Frank’s hand against the small of my back while our passengers slept like babies. It was the closest I have ever come to a conventional domestic scene: Frank and I playing Mama and Papa, while our children, Gabor and Suzanne, snoozed in the backseat, and we headed into the wicked heart of Nazi-occupied France.

  Bounced awake by cobblestones on a suburban street, Gabor and Suzanne leaned forward. Frank returned both hands to the wheel.

  Half asleep, Gabor mumbled, “Mama, Papa, we’re home.”

  Back in Paris!

  December 1, 1940

  Dear parents,

  As you know, you and I have now become official allies, or unofficial enemies, depending on whether one thinks that Hungary’s being forced to join the Axis puts us on the same side, or in opposing camps. What if this letter were read by the censors in France or in our homeland? Would they come after me, or—my hand trembles—would they hunt you down? My fear of that is so profound that this letter will never be mailed but will join the growing pile of aerograms I put aside to send when we can again communicate safely. Before my courage failed, I sent you a few letters. But they were returned, and I have stopped trying.

  You must know many Hungarian boys who have been drafted to fight for the Nazis or to work in German factories. For the moment I am, believe it or not, above the age of conscription. But every day the parameters are widened to fill the need for cannon fodder and free labor. I know you would not want that for me, though I suspect there are times when you think, At least a soldier’s parents get letters home from the front!

  I am keeping these unsent letters in the box in which I have saved our correspondence. That box was among the things that drew me back to Paris from the south. I couldn’t bear to imagine your letters falling into the hands of the vandals who might invade my studio and help themselves to my prints.

  Everyone knew that I worried about my work. But I could tell no one, not even Suzanne, how I feared for a box of letters. Leaving them behind was one of the foolish choices that I, like so many Parisians, made in panic and haste.

  A blazing poker pierces my chest when I open the box and Mama’s potpourri rises from the blue paper strudel. I would give anything to wake up tomorrow and find a letter fretting about my insomnia, which is worse than ever since the curfew was reimposed. Now, as we move from shadow to shadow, we can be shot at by drunken soldiers.

  I cannot describe the longing I feel to see you. Only with you can I recall certain incidents from my childhood. Only you will understand that I am telling you the real truth about what life is like now. The incident of the caterpillar. The incident of the landlady’s goose. The incident of the algebra teacher. The incident of the butcher boy and the broken bottle. The incident of the hotel maid. The incident of the beehive. Especially the beehive.

  I have forgotten how to pray, but I entrust us all to Mama’s prayers, if prayers are permitted under the new dispensation. Papa, you would know the name of the poet who said, “Shorter are the prayers in bed, but more heartfelt.” A poem about a medieval knight on the eve of a battle. I think you’d translated it from German, but I am not even sure of that.

  I should throw this letter in the fire. But though I am a coward, I will keep it with the others and give it to you when the war is over and I can deliver it in person.

  Till then, from your son who thinks of you always,

  Gabor

  From The Devil Drives: The Life of Lou Villars

  BY NATHALIE DUNOIS

  Chapter Twelve: A City at War

  LOU VILLARS HAD mixed feelings when Germany invaded France. As a patriotic Frenchwoman, she was naturally less than delighted to see a giant swastika hanging from the Arc de Triomphe, German soldiers goose-stepping down the Champs-Élysées, and signposts in German measuring the distance to Berlin from the Bastille. But she understood that this was a temporary situation. A temporary inconvenience, like leaving one’s car in the shop for repairs.

  The Germans weren’t annexing France but fixing it. Their ministers and soldiers were visionary mechanics. In a reasonably short time they would leave her country—tuned up, restored, cleansed of grime and grease, strong and efficient enough to function as an essential component of the engine propelling a Nazified Europe into the future. As she told the customers who brought their vehicles into her garage, These things can’t be rushed.

  Lou and Inge and doubtless quite a few Germans were the only people who knew what Lou had done to help bring this about. Lou’s opinion was that she deserved neither blame nor credit. Well, maybe a little credit.

  Sooner or later, the Germans would have found a way to breach the French defenses. More soldiers might have been killed. She had done France a favor, even if others might not see it that way. Eventual
ly, they would find out—and thank her. She would be a heroine, the Joan of Arc of the Franco-German peace détente.

  Meanwhile, she and Inge would resume their glamorous prewar life in France and Berlin. There would be invitations to parties, delicious food, champagne, a generous travel budget in return for the occasional item of local gossip.

  When she heard that the Führer had paid a surprise visit to Paris, Lou felt as if a close relative had come to town without letting her know. It consoled her that he’d arrived at dawn and stayed only a few hours, just long enough for a whirlwind tour of the high spots. Most likely the thoughtful Führer didn’t want to wake her.

  When the clocks in Paris were set ahead an hour to run on the same time as Berlin, Lou thought it would be easier to call Inge, who was getting harder to reach. Often Inge’s maid said that she was out and would call back. She was busy.

  Lou checked the mail several times daily, but the invitations to the diplomatic parties never arrived, a mystery that she had more (too much!) spare time in which to contemplate. Because of the gasoline shortage, many of her former customers kept their cars garaged.

  Now her clients were mostly Vichy officials and high-ranking Germans. Lou knew that some of her neighbors disapproved. Let them turn up their noses! A carburetor had no politics. Who cared whose engines needed work, as long as their owners paid? If Lou were making more money, she could afford to be choosy.

  Inge still came for long weekends of road trips, espionage, and increasingly rushed, tepid sex. Lou and Inge had documents that allowed them free passage, but being stopped at the checkpoints and roadblocks made travel slower and more stressful.

  Everyone was wary, even Lou and Inge’s friends. The most trusting souls in the sports clubs were suddenly curious: why did Lou and Inge want to know? Fortunately, alcohol—even the homemade wine and beer, which was frequently all they could get—still worked magic. Two glasses of wine, a few mugs of beer, and everyone remembered the good times, the confidences they’d shared.

  Now the gossip typically involved someone harboring a British soldier or a Jew, or distributing an anti-German pamphlet.

  “Boring,” said Inge. “Why should I care?”

  Why? Because the outcome of the war might turn on the information they provided. Because they were saving innocent French and German lives. More than ever, the future of France depended on the alertness, the courage, the steadfastness of its citizens.

  Just as she had with Arlette, Lou responded to her lover’s growing coolness by inventing unlikely scenarios on the theme of her own importance, tall tales meant to remind Inge of how lucky she was to be with her. Did Inge know that Heydrich had sent Lou a message expressing his personal gratitude and the Führer’s best wishes? No, Inge did not know.

  Partly thanks to the shortages of laundry soap and fuel for heating water, the country inns that had once seemed so charming now seemed merely unclean. Lou tried not to think about those first balmy nights in Berlin, when she and Inge had longed to stay awake forever. Now Inge seemed sleepy and impatient for the sex to end. Afterward she rolled to the far edge of the bed while Lou stared into the darkness, resolving to drink less and earn more—enough money to buy the gifts that might show Inge how much she was loved.

  In Paris Inge did nothing but complain. It was dull compared to Berlin. Didn’t Lou know one amusing person in the entire city? Lou heard from a customer, a German general’s wife, that Inge’s racing career was not what it had been when the party came to power. What did Inge expect? There was a war going on. Though the Führer had promised that German drivers would beat the rest of world, even loyal racing fans had turned their attention elsewhere. Whenever Lou felt overwhelmed by worries about the garage, or depressed by the widening distance between herself and Inge, she recalled her dinner with the Führer and vowed to remain the person he’d entrusted with a sacred mission.

  One rainy weekend Lou and Inge went to Rouen, where Lou was scheduled to speak to women who had stayed focused on physical fitness even as rationing made it a challenge to eat well. The hall was chilly, the lecture underattended. Just as Lou was talking about the honor of being invited to the city where Joan of Arc died for France, someone’s stomach grumbled. More intestinal noises chorused around the drafty room, as if the women’s digestive systems were having a parallel conversation.

  Lou ended her speech to a scatter of relieved applause. She and Inge dined on greasy sausage and overcooked peas in a café where the lighting made its customers look like victims of liver disease. Having drunk more than they should, they returned to their hotel room. Dressed in a bulky sweater and a stained lime green slip, Inge sat on the edge of the bed, paring her toenails and cursing when her manicure scissors nicked her toe and blood dripped onto the sheets.

  It depressed Lou to remember the time when so many of Inge’s sentences had ended with exclamation points. Now they were bursts of anger or ellipses of vague complaint.

  Later Lou would try to recall how the argument had started. What had possessed her to suggest that Inge had never loved her, that she’d only been with Lou because of . . . because of their work. She couldn’t bring herself to say what exactly their work was. If Inge left her, she would never again find someone with whom to share the guilt and the pride.

  Their next trip was to Angers to check out a tip about a Resistance group infiltrating a factory that manufactured parts for tanks. They waited for hours in a smoky café, but the women—their friends and informants—never showed up. Inge took it personally. Not even ignorant peasant gymnasts wanted to waste an evening with them, though Inge would have bought the drinks.

  The weather was bad, the road slippery, the drive back to Paris slow. Inge missed the last train to Berlin and had to stay until Monday.

  On Monday morning Inge slept late. Lou went down to the garage. That afternoon, when Inge came downstairs to say good-bye and tell Lou that she would be busy for the next few weeks and not to bother calling, Lou was occupied with a regular customer, a man by the name of Jean-Claude Bonnet.

  Several books have been written about the career of Jean-Claude Bonnet, focusing on his activities during the Occupation. Though each author argues for a slightly different view of his role in the most despicable crimes committed against the French, they all agree that he excelled at maintaining a false identity, staying behind the scenes, and serving (at least nominally) as the deputy minister of information in the Paris office of the Reich. He was an excellent recruiter and an exacting boss. His photos show a tall, thin, dapper aristocrat dressed in tailored suits and paisley silk cravats, always wearing sunglasses, which along with his pallor and his white-blond hair, fed the (in my opinion, false) rumor that he was an albino.

  During intense conversations, Bonnet would remove his glasses, revealing two ordinary (if rather small) blue eyes, perpetually pink rimmed, like the eyes of those ghostly marsupials that lumber onto the highway at night. Soft-spoken and impeccably polite, he had many eccentricities, among them an obsession with cleanliness and germs, so that he was unable to shake someone’s hand without interposing a handkerchief between his palm and theirs. He was sensitive to cigarette smoke; no one could smoke in his presence. Though in public places, Bonnet made an exception.

  Despite these oddities, Bonnet was known for his personal charm. During the interrogations at the French Gestapo headquarters in the rue Lauriston, he would knock politely, enter the cell, and try to persuade the prisoners to tell him what they knew. Bonnet knew that he wouldn’t succeed. It was a form of theater.

  He would mime disappointment before he left the cell and sent in the torturers to try another approach. So one might say that his theater of charm was the first act of torture. That was what the courts ruled, though it had little effect, since by then Bonnet was gone, some said to Paraguay, others said to Argentina, where he was later hired, by Stroessner, or Perón, once again demonstrating that the truly evil never stay unemployed for long.

  During his time in France, Bonn
et modestly acknowledged that he was the grandnephew of the late Eduard Bonnet, a decorated veteran of World War I and the founder of several influential right-wing organizations. Eventually it would come out that he was neither a nephew of the Bonnet, nor was his real name Jean-Claude Bonnet.

  In fact he was a German, Fritz Schreiber, a name under which, after the war, he was found guilty of crimes against the citizenry of France and sentenced to ten years in prison, a judgment never carried out, his escape to South America having been facilitated by the Church.

  What had brought Bonnet to Lou’s garage was his 1939 black 540K Mercedes-Benz Cabriolet B: a gorgeous vehicle, very rare. Hermann Göring drove one. Considering how expensive Bonnet’s car was, Lou was appalled to discover that it suffered from more problems than she would have expected to find under the hood of a cheap Citroën. In peacetime Bonnet could have sent it back to the manufacturer, but thanks to the war, the company had other things to do besides fine-tune a custom-made roadster.

  Bonnet soon became Lou’s best client, if such a thing could be said about the owner of a car on which, as soon as something was fixed, something else broke down. He never once complained about the cost or the inconvenience.

  Whenever he had to leave his car in Lou’s garage, he was driven away in a sedan with windows so dark that Lou couldn’t tell if the driver was military or police. Lou never asked what Bonnet did, and he never said.

  On the afternoon Inge stopped by the garage to tell Lou that she’d be unreachable for the next few weeks, Lou and Bonnet were watching the Mercedes emit ominous curls of black smoke. Bonnet held a handkerchief soaked in cologne over his nose and mouth.