by Jina Bacarr
‘Bonjour, mes amis, I’m so happy to see everyone.’
I close my eyes and imagine myself as that sixteen-year-old again on the first day I came here with Emil, so scared and frightened, but excited to be in pictures. I had fire in my belly then that’s since ebbed and flowed, but has never gone out, even in my darkest days. I conjure up in my mind Jock at my side, so strong and handsome, his dark eyes intense, holding onto my arm and sharing this moment with me. I think of him as I give out publicity photos. A new photo, so glamorous, my fans love it. I’m wearing the white slinky gown and the heart-shaped diamond pin I wore in Monte Carlo when I met Jock. I’m wearing the pin today on my houndstooth suit… no one knows it’s a fake. It’s as real to me as my love for Jock.
When this war is over, mon chéri… we shall meet again.
I pray that’s true. Winnie writes to me he’s involved in what she calls the ‘spy squad’. I think it’s more a romantic musing on her part than reality. Most likely, he’s sitting behind a desk at the Foreign Office signing paperwork and trying to deal with England’s ‘Phony War’ while fielding intelligence about Hitler’s plan to invade Scandinavia.
I remember the last time we met here in the Faubourg… so long ago. Before France was at war with Germany. I’ve heard whispered reports the government believes Hitler himself will be in Paris by summer.
But not today.
Today is my triumphal return since Jock and I came here after Monte Carlo to the place I’ll always treasure. I’ll never give it up. I bought the seventeenth-century first floor apartment where I started out when I first came to Paris at sixteen. Overlooking a quiet street, the place is my solace, my home for all things heartfelt in these times. Emil thinks I should give up my fantasy of being a ‘star of the people’ like a modern Joan of Arc, that I must understand filmmaking is a business.
I’m doomed by sentiment to spend my life striving for that.
I paid cash for the two-bedroom residence with the high ceilings and iron-paned wide windows. Why not? I’ve earned it. Angeline secures my spot as a premiere star of French cinema, according to Ciné-Miroir. The tragic love story of Peter and Angeline sends swooning audiences into tears. Everywhere I go, I’m mobbed by fans.
No more than here in the Faubourg.
I ask the laundress’s daughter to help me distribute the flowers and sweets I’ve brought for everyone. No one goes home empty-handed. I adore my fans in the working-class neighborhood. I have warm memories of wandering in and out of the passageways and courtyards, talking to the inhabitants – woodcarvers, furniture makers, and textile weavers – getting ideas for my Ninette stories. How many times have I acted them out for Emil and the writers on my films?
Especially Raoul.
I’m worried about him and Halette as I hand out pink and yellow coconut bonbons to giggling little girls with ribbons wound in their hair. I called him at his sister’s shop in the Marais district and invited them for coffee and raspberry tarts yesterday at Aux Deux Magots, but he couldn’t make it. His voice caught on the words. I didn’t question him, like he was afraid someone was listening on the phone.
I’ll stop by the shop tomorrow.
For now, I owe it to my fans to sign autographs.
I take a wide panoramic look at their bright, eager faces and I can’t help but feel lighthearted. Here I can put away the fears and insecurities that still hit me every time I face a camera, that I’m not good enough. My illegitimate background has soiled my soul with a red stain I can never erase. My whole career is built on a lie. Here it’s not true. They love me as Ninette or Angeline or whatever part I play that moves them to cry or laugh or love. This is my haven away from the camera where the world of make-believe becomes real because they believe in me.
Where I can break bread with Lili, a laundress, over hot coffee.
Trade gossip with feisty Madame Frenier who dances with La Goulue from the Moulin Rouge at the yearly post Lenten fair.
I bend over and tickle the pink cheeks of petit Jacquot, while his mother, Emmeline, and her mother, both widows, carry on the family’s textile trade.
These women give me so much. It’s true what they say, an actress’s most important tool is her keenness to observe, to find the soul of her character, and what souls these femmes de Paris have shown me.
I pray they never change.
‘I need your help, Sylvie, to secure passage to America for Halette.’
I clutch onto the Dutch doll I’ve been admiring and shoot a blank stare at Raoul, not certain I heard him correctly. We exchanged small talk when I arrived at his sister’s shop on Rue des Rosiers in the Jewish quarter, then I waited while Raoul sent Halette to bring me a coffee. I always enjoy browsing the charming array of dolls dressed in everything from eccentric Victorian costumes to flappers along with the scented candles that take me back to another time.
I never expected my dear friend to ask me for a favor that will break his heart.
‘Why would you want to send your only child so far away?’
‘I’m desperate, Sylvie.’
‘Desperate? Why, Raoul?’
‘I’ve been worried about her safety ever since Hitler invaded Poland, dreading the day when the unthinkable might happen.’ He wrings his hands and the long scar on his cheek reddens. ‘What will happen if the Germans take Paris?’ he continues. ‘So many Jewish writers, actors, and directors left Vienna when Hitler annexed Austria to the Reich… will I be forced to do the same? Or God help us, will it be worse?’
‘Hitler’s a madman, but he’s not a fool. One hundred and fifty thousand Jews live in Paris and our industry is filled with talented, dedicated Jewish artistes who contribute greatly to the success of French cinema, including you and your outstanding writing talent. I don’t know what I’d do without Yvette who does my hair and makeup, or Marcel who does such a fabulous job lighting me for the camera. Two French-Jewish citizens I depend on. That France depends on. You can’t destroy an entire people because der Fuehrer has an itch up his backside.’
‘I hope you’re right, Sylvie, but after losing Estelle, I can’t lose Halette.’ His eyes grow fierce, making me wish I could be certain what I said was true.
I’m not.
I fumble with the long, golden braids on the Dutch doll, thinking. His fears aren’t unfounded. I can’t ignore the gossip going around the studio, from the grips to the makeup girls to the suits in the executive offices. Everyone’s on edge. Anyone Jewish or married to a Jew has a right to be frightened. I’ve heard speculation the Nazis could prohibit Jewish ‘participation’ in filmmaking as they seek to ‘Aryanize’ the arts like they’ve done in Germany.
‘Can you check on passage for Halette on a ship leaving for New York, Sylvie? I fear playing my hand in the open… you never know who’s on the Nazi payroll. Fifth Columnists are here doing their dirty work.’
‘Why don’t you go with her?’ I have to ask, not understanding. ‘Halette is very responsible, more so than most girls her age, but it’s dangerous for her to travel alone.’
‘It’s more dangerous for her to stay here in Paris.’ He leads me over to a corner in the shop where the smell of lavender and rose from the candles is overpowering. ‘I can’t leave Paris.’
‘Why not?’
‘My younger sister Hela needs help to run the shop and to buy milk and vegetables and chicken to feed the children.’ For a tall, proud man, I see what’s running through his mind is difficult for him to accept. ‘My lazy brother-in-law gambles away the store’s profits.’
I put down the doll and grab onto his shirtsleeve, staring up into his eyes. He’s desperate to keep his child safe. I love this brilliant man as a brother and I’m grateful he doesn’t push me away when I grab onto him tight. I want to embrace this dear soul into my heart and help him every way I can. I tell him what we both want to hear to assuage his guilt, quiet his mind from worry, and soothe the pain in his heart aching from losing his beloved wife.
‘France is s
trong, Raoul, we are strong… the Germans will never make it past the Maginot Line. And Paris? Unthinkable.’
I’m wrong… the Nazis invade France through Belgium.
And I regret every word I said, that I could be so foolish not to believe it could happen.
I groan in anguish, clutching my heart when the Germans march into Paris on 14 June 1940 because I know then nothing will ever be the same.
It’s the beginning of an extraordinary shift in my film career I never see coming.
21
Juliana
Be careful what you wish for
Ville Canfort-Terre, France
Present Day
I can’t find Sylvie’s reel-to-reel recordings anywhere.
I’m at a crossroads. I don’t have much time left to clear her. I have to go back to LA to meet with the producer on the new show or I won’t have a job.
I’ve doubled checked where we found the box in the dungeon. Nada. I’ve talked to the Mother Superior who’s willing to do her best to help me. She has her staff check the numerous storage closets for anything looking like it’s at least half a century old, but the young postulants and the nuns find nothing. When the convent chateau was modernized in the nineties, anything deemed of no value was tossed.
Which means the recordings could have been destroyed.
I’m heartbroken. The photo we found showing Sylvie arm in arm with the SS officer as well as the newsreels Ridge showed me all point to her voluntary collaboration with the Nazis. I have no idea what’s on the home movies… I’ll find out when we set up the projector. Yes, the Mother Superior’s posse found the old movie theater projector and are checking it out for me.
I decide to give the dungeon another look, then it hits me. Sister Rose-Celine mentioned there was also a suitcase. Maybe it wasn’t a suitcase, but a carrying case for a 1950s tape recorder?
Then where are the tapes?
Didn’t Sylvie mention the choir ‘recording songs in the library’?
A clue, perhaps?
I go on a mad search through the library with Sister Rose-Celine’s help – opening up cupboards, going through bookcases, looking for a storage compartment when, hidden behind a wall, we find a cache of nineteenth-century books, a grey, dusty carrying case – the tape recorder – and a large, brown satchel with two thick straps and big buckles.
I hold my breath. I open it up and—
Oh, my, it’s filled with reel-to-reel tapes marked: ‘Sylvie Martone – The War Years, 1940–1944.’
Then in smaller letters: ‘Narrated by the actress in summer 1950.’
My chest tightens with excitement, a million different scenarios playing out in my mind as I anticipate what I’ll find.
Redemption for Sylvie? Or the final proof of her guilt?
Praying the old recorder works, I load the first tape, turn it on, and listen.
I can’t tell you the thrill that goes through me when Sylvie’s voice comes through loud and clear in exquisite French. I have to rewind the tape several times to catch a phrase, but with Sister Rose-Celine’s help, I’m transported back to the chaos that ensued when the Germans invaded France and headed toward Paris… how at Emil’s coaxing, Sylvie fled the city to the Cȏte d’Azur in the South of France with the idea of making films for the Vichy. She hints this was a painful time in her life, seeing how French men and women were falling all over themselves, trying to believe ‘everything was normal’ when it wasn’t.
Finally, she had enough.
Sylvie returned to Paris and speaks about how she felt when she first saw the Germans marching along the Champs-Élysées…
Life during the German Occupation when I returned from the Free Zone in the South was nothing like what I expected.
The glorious yellow sun warmed the pavements with a soothing heat while the Napoleonic blue skies overhead assured us life would go on. No matter if the boulevards trembled with the sound of black hobnail boots, we were aware of the quiet hush over the city. We adjusted, we had to. Curfews. Rationing, no gasoline. Parisians rode bicycles everywhere.
I stood in long queues for bread, cringing at seeing swastika flags flying over the luxury hotels. When I went out, I pretended I was auditioning for a part in a film, going about my business in disguise. Laundress, teacher, old woman. Looking for food became the primary mission for each day. We feared catching the eye of a Nazi and giving him reason to demand our papers.
You may ask, ‘But you’re Sylvie Martone, star of French cinema, why did you stand in line for bread?’ Because, ma petite, I was afraid. When I arrived in Paris with Emil complaining all the way along the crowded road about the Vichy and their obstinance to allow him complete freedom to make the pictures he wanted, my Trocadéro apartment was filled with Nazi doryphores (‘beetles’ we called them because of those unfashionable helmets) looking for alcohol. The German Army wasn’t particular about which ‘abandoned’ apartments they pillaged and spared no one. Including me. The joke was on them since I’d been sober for a while. They didn’t believe me and searched my apartment like impertinent rats looking for cheese. How I hated those miserable creatures and their primal instinct to enslave, making me fear France will never be free again. That was the moment I grabbed what I could and stormed out of my apartment after they left. I wasn’t the only tenant ‘inconvenienced’ by the search. Some tenants left, others stayed, resigned to the Nazis’ unannounced visits under the New Order. (I hid my jewels in the trunk of my car.) I needed to get my affairs in order so I could draw out funds. Were my assets seized? No one at my financial institution could tell me what was in my accounts – they were too scared they’d be reported since I was listed as ‘missing’ when the local Kommandant checked the whereabouts of major depositors. So I went back to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. There I found peace away from the maddening crowd of German soldiers laughing and cavorting like naughty schoolboys on a holiday.
To be safe, I told no one but Emil about my return to my old place in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and took to wearing disguises to keep a low profile. My old neighbors were lovely and I adored them, but they gossiped. I didn’t trust the German High Command who had a habit of seeking out famous personages to do their bidding. The Nazis had their spies in Paris long before they marched into the city, checking out buildings, residences, brothels. No doubt they checked out anyone popular in the arts and the cinema.
I couldn’t hide forever, I needed to work, but I wouldn’t make it easy for them to find me.
As I went about trying to survive, I found I liked the old lady disguise the best. She gave me the freedom I needed to move about Paris undetected, poke my nose in places where I could sting the Nazi beast with small indiscretions to irritate them (when I saw German soldiers looking at a map of Paris, I gave them wrong directions), but she was in the early stages of character development then. I didn’t know how important she’d become to me later on… I’m getting ahead of myself. Alors, mon enfant, life took on a new normal in late 1940. By 1941, we were back to making pictures… surprised, non? Me, too. I was thrilled when Emil insisted it was time my presence in Paris became known to the head of Galerie Films, a new German-funded film studio. I believed I could make a difference for my fans, for the people of France. I didn’t know then what I was getting into, which is why I’m recording these tapes for you. So you know the truth.
I shall go and check on you now, my angel, watch your sweet face as you sleep, the way your nose crinkles when you smile when I tickle your tummy. You’re still mon petit enfant even if you’re almost six years old now. Then tomorrow we shall play with the Dutch doll I gave you… do you remember the doll with the long, blonde braids? She was a gift from my dearest friend, Raoul… that story will be for another tape. A terrible time when my heart broke and everything changed and things started that I couldn’t stop. I had to embrace the core of a terrible evil to keep you safe… and others, too. I shall tell you soon… bear with me because those times are most difficult for me to talk abo
ut, but if I’m to free my soul, I must.
Till next time… bonne nuit à toi… and always remember, ta maman loves you.
I turn off the tape recorder, exhausted, though a spirit of hope comes over me as I listen to Sylvie’s innermost thoughts, revealing the life of the French actress that fills me with new understanding… and new fears.
What unspeakable event turned Sylvie Martone into a Nazi collaborator?
22
Sylvie
The man in the bowler hat
Paris
1941
Emil insists I meet him at Café de la Paix. He may have film work for me. He sent word early this morning by bicycle messenger since I don’t have a phone in the Faubourg apartment that works. We made it through the harsh winter of 1940, but going to the pictures has never been more popular with Parisians.
I’ve been in hiding for months, keeping a low profile after selling an emerald bracelet on the black market. Then I discover someone tipped off the German High Command I was in Paris. Emil, of course. He made no secret of his whereabouts – or mine – when he discovered a new organization called the Filmprüfstelle (they answer to the military command and are in direct contact with Berlin) is in the process of permitting French film production to begin soon. A new film company called Galerie Films is founded and entirely funded by German money.
‘What do I care where the money’s coming from?’ he insists when I call him out on it. ‘We’re making motion pictures, not invading North Africa.’
We watch Parisians and Germans alike strolling along the boulevard near Café de la Paix. Parisians… heads down, shoulders hunched, reluctant to catch anyone’s eye. German soldiers… scrutinizing the scene around them, everyone with a posture that says everything from arrogance to bewilderment. We keep our voices low since two German soldiers are enjoying a beer next to us. The cafés are hotbeds for Nazi spies eavesdropping for anti-German sentiment talk.
