Mademoiselle Chanel (34 page)

I HAD NO IDEA
how he managed it. He secured the necessary papers, the coveted
Ausweis
; he booked first-class compartments on the express train. At the station in Cannes, he had a fueled car waiting, which he drove himself to my villa.

My staff had locked up everything and departed; only a few miles away, parts of the Riviera lay in rubble from the bombings. As I went through the house, unbolting shutters and scraping dry leaves from crevices, the scent of my garden reached me, rich with jasmine and heliotrope, with the roses planted with such hope when I still believed Bendor would propose.

I expected ghosts. The house, much as I loved it, teemed with them. All the friends who had dined at my rustic table now scattered to the four winds; all the dead, like Iribe, whose collapse on my tennis court had turned my refuge into a pantheon of grief.

But I found emptiness. Only my photographs framed on the mantels offered reflections of happier times, when maintaining supremacy in fashion was the only battle I knew.

In the room where I had mourned Iribe, I made love with Spatz with the windows open, to let in the salty air from the sea and the whispers of the pines. By day, we walked in the hills or drove into the village to buy bread, fresh butter, and jam. Though the south remained unoccupied, fear stalked here, as well; the Vichy roundups had begun and many refugees were fleeing to the coast, desperate to escape.

My architect, Robert Streitz, came to see me, having heard I was back. If he had not told me who he was, I would not have recognized him. He was gaunt, unkempt, his eyes sunken and his skin like parchment. He looked as if he had not eaten a full meal in weeks, and I plied him with food, chattering about inconsequential things, avoiding any mention of the war until he asked to take a walk with me by the empty pool, to show me, he said, incipient cracks in the tiles.

I knew he wanted to get away from Spatz, who stayed behind on the veranda, drinking wine. As we paced around my forlorn pool, barren of water and streaked with rotting vegetation and algae, Streitz cleared his throat and said, “Mademoiselle, I was wondering . . . Do you have any objections if I stay here and undertake the work necessary to fix these tiles?”

I frowned. Fishing in my trousers pocket for my cigarettes, I offered him one. He pounced on it as if he had not seen real tobacco in months. As he drew on the cigarette, his eyes half closed, I glanced to Spatz’s silhouette on the veranda before I said, “What do you really want?”

Streitz froze, smoke trailing from his nose. “To . . . to fix the tiles. You see, if they continue to be exposed to the elements, those cracks will eventually widen and—”

I shook my head. “Forget the tiles. I promise that whatever you ask will stay between us.” I smiled to ease the disquiet on his face. “Just tell me what you want.”

He lowered his gaze. “Your cellar. It is large enough to hold twenty or thirty people.”

“I see.” I did not ask him more, but with the subject broached, he could not contain himself. “We have many people coming here in search of refuge. We are trying to gain them passage to Italy, but the permits take
time to forge. While they wait, they need places to hide. As you know, most of the villas in the area have British owners; the houses are either locked up like yours or patrolled by dogs and hired guards. We suspect the Germans are also having some of the villas watched. We cannot trust anyone; there are informants here, too. If we could use La Pausa . . .” His voice faded as he saw my quick glance again to the veranda. “If it’s too much to ask, I understand,” he said. “It’s only that . . . I thought you might . . .”

I shifted my gaze back to him. “Are you sure my house isn’t being watched?”

“Yes. I knew you were here because we’ve been monitoring it. But no one else seems to be paying it any attention.”

I went quiet. “If you are found,” I said at length, “you realize what will happen, don’t you? To you and your refugees, your friends who are helping them, and possibly to me, as well?”

“I do. But we cannot look away. It’s a risk we must take.”

I should refuse. It was indeed a risk, and a monumental one, at that. As I hesitated, Streitz added, “I would also be using a transmitter to communicate with our comrades on the other side of the border. You should be aware of it before you make a decision. The transmitter is British, encoded to evade surveillance, but nothing is completely secure.”

I extended my silver cigarette case and Cartier lighter to him. “Take these. Sell them to help your cause.” I started to return to the house. He followed. Before we reached the veranda, I said, “I’m returning to Paris in a few weeks. You can stay here to fix the tiles. I’ll pay you in advance. If anyone asks, you are working for me. I’ll draft a letter you can show to that effect.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “God bless you, mademoiselle.”

I smiled. After everything I had done, divine blessing was the last thing I could expect.

“EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT?”
Spatz asked after I saw Streitz to the gate. He was uncorking another bottle of chardonnay; as he sniffed its bouquet,
I thought of the extensive cellars below our feet, where he had gone to fetch the wine, and my response felt strained.

“Yes, of course. He is going to live here this winter to do repairs. The pool and the gardens; I have left the house abandoned. Since he needs the work, I thought, why not?”

“Oh.” He poured me a glass. I tried to drink it, but the wine turned acrid in my mouth. “Is that all?” said Spatz. “He seemed a bit . . . desperate.”

“War will do that to people,” I said sharply. I set the glass aside. “I have a headache. I think I’ll rest awhile before dinner.”

As I ascended the grand staircase that Streitz had re-created from Aubazine, I heard Spatz call my name. The curtness in his tone brought me to a halt. “Why are you lying?”

I turned around. He was staring at me. “Lying?” I said lightly even as my heart began to race. “I just told you, the tiles around the pool are cracked and—”

Spatz took a step toward me, the sound of his shoe heel on the flagstone entry as loud as a thunderclap. “When will you trust me? Because if the answer is never, we should end this now. I am not with you to be used; I get enough of that from my superiors.”

“Use you?” My laugh was brittle. “Is that what you think I am doing?”

“I don’t know. I have done what I can, but you obviously still don’t trust me. If you did, you’d not be lying to me now.” When I did not answer, my hand clenched on the balustrade, he added, “He’s working for the resistance, isn’t he? He wants to use the house for it.”

“I think you should ask him,” I said, even as I heard the catch in my voice. “But it is my house. I can do with it whatever I like.”

He strode up the steps to me. All of a sudden, he looked every one of his years, a bit slack under the chin, a mosaic of tiny veins on his nose betraying his fondness for drink. “Do you think I am your enemy? Is that why you will not tell me what he has requested?”

My reply was harsh, forced out between my teeth. “You have no right to question me.” As he expelled an impatient breath, I added recklessly,
“You must think me a fool if you expect me to believe you are not what you appear.”

“You are impossible,” he said.

“So I’ve been told.” I turned away. He reached out, circling my wrist with his fingers. I paused, and took a pointed look at his hand before I said, “I thought you could help me free André.”

“I am trying,” he said. “Momm is trying. You have no patience. You expect miracles—”

“Miracles?” I yanked my wrist away. “I am tired of hearing how difficult it is, of how much paperwork and bribery are required. I’m sick to death of your excuses.”

A tremulous voice suddenly said from the doorway, “Mademoiselle?” and I turned with a gasp to find Streitz standing there, my cigarette case in his hand. “You must have dropped this. It . . . it has your monogram on it.”

I froze, fear hurtling through me. Spatz said calmly, “Come inside and shut the door, monsieur. I think we must have a talk.” He glanced at me. “Alone. Can you do that for me?”

I almost shouted at Streitz to run as fast as he could, across the mountains into Italy or Switzerland, anywhere they would not find him, but instead I nodded and watched Spatz escort my architect into the living room. I should stay here, I thought. I should wait until I heard them talking and then creep closer to eavesdrop. All of a sudden, I wished I had a pistol; and as I thought this, I understood, for the very first time, how dangerous and complicated, how compromising, my situation with Spatz was.

I was prepared to kill him. This was how far I had come.

Reeling back up the stairs, I went to my suite, shutting the door and standing there, not knowing what to do. Finally, I perched on one of the gilded chairs by the window and stared out to the incoming dusk, burnished with the ebbing light of the sun, a seam of coral like the color of my evening gowns, deepening to mauve where the sky touched the sea. It felt like hours before Spatz knocked on the door and entered.

Without looking up, I said, “Did he tell you?”

“He did.” The carpet’s pile muffled his approach. “He wants to use the
cellars to hide refugees and the gardens as a staging post for their transfer to Italy. He has a transmitter he must also keep hidden; I suggested he use the cellars for it, too, as the thickness of the walls will quiet any static.” He stopped a few paces from me. “He also has a friend, a Jewish professor who has been arrested in Vichy. He asked for my help. I am going to see if I can arrange a release. It’s not a camp; the professor is being held at the local detention center, so perhaps a bribe will suffice.”

I finally met his eyes.

“Is this enough for you?” he asked.

“For now,” I whispered, though in truth I did not know if it was, if anything would ever be. I had made a pact with the devil; now, for better or worse, I must see it through.

“Good.” He turned away. “I’ll have dinner ready in an hour; I’ll call you when it’s ready. Streitz will be joining us, after he takes a much-needed bath. Your brave architect stinks.”

O
n December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed the American base at Pearl Harbor.

I was back in Paris at the Ritz; when the news came over the wireless, there were cheers and the uncorking of champagne as the Germans rejoiced. Their anxiety about the Americans joining the conflict had apparently been eased by the stealth attack that proved America’s vulnerability.

Sickened, I avoided the Ritz’s restaurant from then on. A few days later, Cocteau came to lunch with me at a bistro near my shop. I was surprised by how well he looked, his angular face fuller than I had ever seen it, his thatch of hair as unruly as ever, but his person trim, with some much-needed weight on its spare frame. He lacked that agitation I had grown so used to; after years of knowing him, its absence proved remarkable.

“The war,” he said, when I remarked on his appearance, “it does wonders for vices.”

I took this to mean he had weaned himself off the drugs while holed up in the Côte d’Azur at various friends’ homes with his actor-lover. Cocaine, morphine, and other indulgences were nearly impossible to obtain, save through a Nazi contact or Marie-Louise’s thriving contraband, and cost a fortune when they were.

“You should come with me to Misia’s,” he said as we ate a meal that was as tasteless and gray as the city itself. “She’s been asking about you, wondering how you are.”

“Has she?” I forked my fillet of—well, I had no idea what it was, only that it was smothered in soggy onions and cabbage, the only two vegetables available these days. “I find that odd. I thought she never wanted to see me again.”

“She says you walked out on her.” He leaned over to me with impish confidence, making me lose whatever was left of my appetite. His expression reminded me of the time he had come to visit me during my separation from Boy, when he told me about Misia’s addiction. “She claims you were hysterical.”

I chuckled sourly, lighting a cigarette to disguise the tang of the unidentifiable meat. “Of course she did. How could anything ever be her fault? She would blame the war on me, too, no doubt, if anyone would believe her.”

“Coco, she cares deeply for you.” He looked forlorn, but I could not tell if it was because he truly was sorry about the discord or because he felt deprived of an afternoon of malicious gossip. He must have seen by my attitude that I was in no mood for this. “She was very upset that you had that fight, and over a German, too.”

I bristled. “It was not over a German. It was something else.” I paused, regarding him through the smoke of my cigarette. “Did she tell you why?”

He shrugged, though his face brightened with anticipation. “Bits and pieces. She was rather reticent, for Misia.” He paused. “So, it wasn’t about this new lover of yours?”

I resisted the urge to squash my cigarette into the mess on my plate and leave. “That is why I will not go to her house anymore. She has too many opinions on things she knows nothing about.”

“But she said you are trying to save your nephew, that he is in a German camp and it’s driving you insane. She blames the circumstances, not you.”

“Did she tell you she is Jewish?” The words were out of my mouth
before I could stop them and the moment they were, I wanted to snatch them back.

He went still. “Misia is . . . ?” He glanced around at the near-empty tables around us, a gesture that gave me perverse satisfaction. It had become second nature to the rest of us, this terror of being overheard; it pleased me that he, too, was not impervious. “I thought she was Catholic. She says she is. She has icons and crucifixes all over the house.”

“She is Catholic. I was just wondering if she ever mentioned it.”

“Not to me.” He licked his lips. I felt ill. Misia had not told me she was. She had been making a point, throwing my decisions back in my face. Now here I was taunting one of Paris’s most inveterate scandalmongers with a potentially deadly tidbit.

“She was trying to gain my sympathy,” I said, with forced carelessness. “You know how she is. If they were rounding up horses, she’d be a lame mare.”

He giggled, to my relief. As avid as he was for dirty linen to air, I had learned I could also easily persuade him in any direction. “That she would. Misia does love her martyrdom. She’s become a recluse; she almost never leaves that house anymore, and she and Sert—” He shuddered. “They must hate each other, the way they carry on, but there they are, on top of each other day and night, though he has his own apartment and surely could live there if he chose.”

“They don’t hate each other.” I motioned to the waiter for the check. “They need each other. Which,” I added, “is an entirely different sort of arrangement.”

“So, you’ll come?” He dabbed his lips with his napkin. He had eaten everything on his plate, even sopped up the disgusting sauce with bread. “Lifar is back from his tour of Berlin; we’re gathering tomorrow to hear about it. Coco, you must. We all miss you.”

“I’ll wash my hair and think about it,” I quipped. “Come, let’s take a walk and you can tell me about your new play.”

It was the oldest trick I knew: ask a writer about his work and everything else flies out the window. As usual, it worked like a charm.

I DID GO TO MISIA’S,
however, and I took Spatz with me. It was the first time I had introduced him to my circle and I did it deliberately, in defiance, entering her living room in my belted mink and pearls, my lips painted red and my scarf perfumed. There was a larger group than usual: some of Jojo’s artist friends, a few petty cooperating officials from the regime, as well as Marie-Louise, Cocteau and his lover, the matinee idol Marais, and Lifar with his dancer du jour.

Misia looked aghast as Spatz helped me out of my coat and I smoothed my manicured, multiringed fingers over my dark wool suit. Jojo lumbered forth to shake Spatz’s hand. Marie-Louise batted her eyes at him. Spatz spoke only French; we had agreed on it beforehand. French or English, but no German.

After a bountiful lunch that demonstrated where Jojo’s true interests lay, I sat at the photograph-laden piano—it was in desperate need of tuning—and with Lifar and Cocteau at my side, played some of my songs from Moulins, which had so enchanted the garrison officers a lifetime ago. My voice was smoky, breaking on the high notes, but everyone applauded, and while Spatz smiled, I let go of my inhibitions and played a few more, laughing when I forgot the lyrics to one song and Lifar sprang in with his lovely baritone to override my lapse.

Misia did not say a word.

Afterward, over Spanish cognac that Jojo had managed to acquire from who knew where, someone began talking about the catastrophic losses suffered at Pearl Harbor. It did not dampen the mood; no one seemed to be paying any mind, in fact, until Spatz remarked, “The Americans do not want to get involved, but after this, they’ll surely—”

“What?” Cocteau piped up. “What are they going to do? Or better yet, what
can
they do?”

“Yes,” drawled Lifar, from where he reclined on the chaise lounge. “They’ve lost their entire fleet. They’ll have to throw gumballs at the Japs.”

“And Coca-Cola bottles,” said Cocteau, clapping his hands. “And peanut brittle!”

As the silence thickened, the petty officials—all French-born bureaucrats
who were stuffing their larders from others’ misery—looked askance at my intemperate friends, until Misia directed her baleful stare at everyone and said, “Get out.”

No one moved.

“Get out,” she repeated. She came to her feet, glaring at us. Her crumpled jersey dress—one of mine, I noticed, though so stretched out of shape, I scarcely recognized it—clung to her heavy thighs and breasts. Seeing that no one even made a move for their hats or coats, she tromped away to her bedroom, slamming her door with enough force to rattle the paintings on the walls.

Jojo rolled his eyes. “Go see to her, will you, Coco? She’s been like this for weeks.”

I wanted to refuse. Instead, I nodded, taking up my handbag. As I departed, the room erupted, everyone now debating whether the Americans would enter the war, their arguments laced with ridiculous supposition and disparagement of the crippled President Roosevelt.

I did not knock on Misia’s door. I assumed it was unlocked, pushing it open to find her slumped on the edge of her bed, a handkerchief twisted in her hands. She looked up through tearstained eyes before she looked away. “Have you come to gloat?” she muttered.

Shutting the door behind me, I leaned against it and crossed my arms. “How long do you plan to act like this? Because I haven’t the patience for it, and neither does Jojo.” I reached into my handbag and removed three vials, setting them on her bureau. “Here.”

“Thank you,” she said, without giving me a glance.

“That’s it? Well then. You’re welcome.” I turned to the door.

“Coco, wait.” Her voice had a ragged edge. “I . . . I am sorry, about everything I said the other day. I was upset. This war, it’s . . .” She choked back a sob.

Going to her, I sat at her side and took her hand in mine. “We have been friends for over twenty years. Friends argue. They fight. It happens. I know how much this is wearing on you. I am sorry, too. I did not mean to be so angry with you. It’s not your fault, after all.”

She sniffled. “I’m just an old woman in a shoe. I don’t recognize the world anymore.”

“None of us does. But this is how the world is, for now.”

She nodded, her hand tightening in mine. She finally lifted her gaze. It struck me in that moment how weathered she was, how aged. I had forgotten in the furor of our estrangement that Misia was almost seventy, and while I did everything I could to conceal my age, she had fallen into its maw with near-helpless abandon.

“He seems nice,” she said. “Your friend. He is not what I expected.”

I chuckled. “He doesn’t wear the SS uniform, if that’s what you imply. He’s a diplomat.”

“Yes. I can see that.” She managed a weak smile. “Are you happy?”

Her question gave me sudden pause. I had not stopped to consider it. Happiness was not something that seemed possible anymore, or at least not something any of us should aspire to.

“Don’t you know?” she said when I failed to answer. “Coco, do you love him?”

“No,” I finally admitted. “But I need him, like you need Jojo. Do you now understand? Without him, this life would be unbearable. He makes me . . .”

“Forget.” She nodded. “Yes, I understand perfectly. He’s like our blue drops.”

“Better. Or less expensive, at any rate.” I saw her shift her attention to the bureau. “Do you want me to help you?”

She shook her head. “I’ll manage. I just . . . I can’t see anyone else right now.”

“Of course. I’ll tell them you wore yourself out and are taking a nap.” I kissed her cheek. She smelled of powder and a subtle trace of something else. “Is that Number Five?” I asked, surprised.

“Every day.” She cocked her shoulder, with that sudden verve of the Misia I had known. “ ‘A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future,’ ” she said, quoting one of my ads.

I laughed, rising to go to the door. I glanced over my shoulder. “I don’t
know if I can love a man anymore,” I said, “but I do love you, Misia. I always will, no matter what.”

Her smile was heartrending. “It is all I live for.”

THE WAR DRAGGED ON,
and dragged us along with it. My so-called fellow designers accommodated as best they could to the strict rationing of fabric, with German-ordained restrictions on lengths and hemlines that, if breached, would result in crushing fines. My finances were not under scrutiny, however. Though I had no access to my money in the bank, I earned enough by working at my shop, trying to keep my perfumes in supply, and wrangling with the new ownership of Parfums Chanel, which proved no less troublesome. They insisted on abiding by the terms of my previous contract. I had managed to rid myself of the Wertheimers but accomplished nothing else, arguing for a new and better contract to no avail.

Every week, I had Spatz check with Momm. Every week, he returned with no word on André’s case, though by now I had paid Momm enough for bribes that I should have been able to secure the release of an entire legion.

News from abroad, however, showed improvement. The Americans joined the Allied powers, and by the end of 1942, Germany’s disastrous offensive against Russia had incurred heavy losses. As Misia had predicted, the tide began to turn, and as a result, persecution of the French Jews increased, with over thirteen thousand in Paris alone arrested and confined for a week in the Vélodrome d’Hiver, an immense cycle track not far from the Eiffel Tower.

That summer of 1943, the heat was stifling. At night, with my room’s window shoved open as wide as it could go, I sat quiet as Spatz detailed the horrors the Jews had endured, left without water or shade under the Vélodrome’s blue-painted glass roof, roasting alive, until a band of protestors led by Catholic priests advanced on the site, demanding their release.

“They were dispersed with tear gas and shots,” said Spatz as he paced, his hand trembling as he tried to light a cigarette. “Many were also arrested
and deported with the Jews.” His visible consternation drove me to him. Taking the lighter, I lit his cigarette for him.

“There is nothing we can do,” I said, despising the sound of my own voice, the weakness in it, the overwhelming sense of impotency. “We cannot stop it.”

He bit at his lower lip.

“We are helping all those we can at La Pausa,” I went on. “You got Streitz’s friend released; countless others are being sent over the border. But this . . .” My paltry attempt at an excuse faded into silence. Thousands had been removed from their homes and businesses, forced onto trains, and sent away. No, we couldn’t do anything to save them, but I felt like a hypocrite for thinking it. After all, I’d seized advantage in the same laws that the Nazis used against the Jews. Misia had warned me; she’d said I would regret it. God help me, I already did.

“They are all going to die,” he said quietly. Despite its audible tremor, his voice hardened. “This war will become an atrocity unlike any ever seen. It will destroy Germany for generations to come. Our only hope is—” He cut himself short, drawing on his cigarette as he avoided my stare. He had never done this before, never expressed such overt hesitation, and I heard myself say, “What is it? What else has happened?”