Mademoiselle Chanel (6 page)

É
tienne Balsan did appear at the shop, sending Madame G. aflutter when he delivered several shirts for repair—though I didn’t find a single rip or tear on them and thus was not swayed. Nevertheless, he persisted on calling on me after work to take me on carriage rides, strolls about the square, and suppers. He often brought his well-heeled friends, sons of affluent families who, like him, served in the military—though, unlike him, they were eager for war to break out with the Prussians or Germans.

Balsan smirked as they stamped their boots and declared that only in war could a true gentleman prove his mettle. “They wouldn’t know a cannon from a trumpet until the Huns were upon them,” he said, leaning to me. “Such fools does money breed.”

Despite my misgivings, I found his dry wit amusing. But I was not attracted to him. He did not press his advantage, either. We passed the next months in a whirlwind of drinking and dining, with Adrienne and I eating better than we ever had, squired about town by some of the barracks’ most eligible bachelors. One in particular, Baron Maurice de Nexon, became enraptured with Adrienne and she reciprocated his interest, for he met all of her qualifications for knighthood. But she had several others panting at
her heels and her sudden popularity kept me up until dawn in our room as she anxiously deliberated over whom she should most favor.

I also gained my share of attention. My doubts over my looks began to diminish as I heard such fervent declarations from Balsan’s friends that I was almost tempted to believe them. But I did not, having developed a well-honed suspicion of flattery. With a carefree laugh, I brushed aside these scions of the high bourgeosie even as I toiled in the House of Grampayre and sang several evenings a week at La Rotunde. I refused to be seen as another impoverished seamstress, willing to forgo her virtue for a rich man’s bed. Every centime I earned went into my tin under the floorboard. I also continued to decorate my hats, though Madame G. refused to sell such “atrocities” in her shop and I had to wear my creations myself, hoping in vain to attract notice from some milliner.

Balsan attended my nightly performances. I had only to peer out through the layer of smoke over the crowded tables to find him at his spot near the stage, his legs crossed to reveal his exquisite Italian-made boots, sometimes in his pressed blue uniform with its epaulettes and sash, other times in a tailored suit, but always with a smile on his lips.

Afterward he would take me out for a late supper. It was during these intimate evenings that I began to learn about him. He told me of how he’d been sent to an exclusive boarding school in England where he developed a passion for Thoroughbred horses and demonstrated singular disregard for his studies (“I sent a telegram to my family from my dog Rex, advising them that I’d failed all my courses,” he laughed). Later, he rebelled against the expectation that upon his father’s death, he’d assume a position in the family cloth business.

“I only enlisted in the military because of my uncle,” he explained as we lingered over coffee. “He said that breeding horses is a hobby, not an occupation, and I must support our name with some accomplishment. Oh, how I hated hearing that,” he sighed, lighting a cigarette and passing it to me. Having noticed how the other chanteuses at La Rotunde employed cigarettes to make themselves appear seductive (and how their artful blowing
of smoke rings earned them extra tips), I’d trained myself to master the vice, enduring the burn in my lungs and coughing until I could do it with ease. Adrienne despised it, calling it a filthy habit, but I had made more money because of it. Men loved seeing a woman with smoke coming out of her nose, for some reason.

“I hate military service,” Balsan went on. “I first enlisted in the foot regiment, which was intolerable. I wanted to be with horses, so I had myself transferred to the cavalry instead—if I must serve my family name, let it serve me, as well—and was dispatched to Algeria to the African Light Cavalry, which was boring, unbearably hot, and boring.”

“You said twice that it was boring,” I remarked.

“Did I?” He rolled his eyes. “That’s because it was. I was so bored, in fact, that I ended up sleeping while on duty and was thrown into lockup. But then our horses began to suffer from a skin ailment the veterinarians couldn’t cure. I made a pact with my superior. If I could treat the horses successfully, they would transfer me to a post in France. I distilled an ointment used in England for such ailments. I had no idea if it would work, but it did, and so here I came, to the Tenth Light Horse of Moulins—which, I might add, was as boring as Africa until I met you.”

I feigned a careless smile, though his story fascinated me. That he’d forgone a lucrative post in his family business to indulge in his obsession for horses and challenged his uncle’s expectations—it made my head spin. I, who had nothing, with no name to speak of, found his contemptuous disregard of his advantages both shocking and intoxicating.

“As soon as I’ve completed my service,” he said, “I’m going to do as I please. I am twenty-six and my inheritance is mine; my uncle can’t take it from me, no matter how much he threatens. I’m going to buy a château and breed the best racing horses this country has seen. I don’t care what anyone thinks. We have one life. I intend to live it by my rules.”

Although I still did not find him particularly attractive, my feelings toward him deepened in ways I could not explain. Perhaps because I had never met anyone like him, his brazen confidence and nonchalant air burrowed
inside me until I found myself eagerly awaiting his arrival, the rest of my existence taking on a grayer hue when he was not there.

Adrienne probed me about him. “Has he expressed his intentions?” she asked as we lay tumbled on our cot, having spent the night dancing with Balsan and his friends. “I see how he looks at you. He watches you every moment. He doesn’t seem to care that you sing in the café or mend petticoats. Do you think he might love you? Has he tried to kiss you yet?”

I felt her trembling; I had the impression she had already been kissed more than a few times. Her questions only roused my anxiety, for Balsan had not so much as touched my hand. He had reason, even if I did not afford him opportunity. He must know that others in his circle had tried in his stead; I was also young and pretty enough, if not beautiful, to entertain several admirers, as Adrienne did. Yet I did not want to. I had no interest in those boastful men. Balsan was the only one who appealed to me, so why did he not stir any of the feelings I had heard Adrienne go on and on about with her baron?

I wondered if there was something wrong with me. I had never wanted to belong to any man save my father. Had he imparted such a harsh lesson that I could not bring myself to rely on anyone? Did I not want to get married and have a family of my own? Adrienne had made it her entire reason for living, but I—I felt none of those yearnings, though surely these were the only acceptable ambitions for girls like us.

“Balsan and I are just friends,” I finally said, and I turned away, silencing her questions.

But I soon found myself watching Balsan as much as he watched me, for a sign that I meant more to him than a casual dalliance. He asked me about my past, expressing an interest that made me more insecure, for when gentlemen did that, Adrienne had said, it usually meant they were debating our suitability.

In my eagerness to appear more than what I was, I spun outrageous stories of how my father had gone to America to build his fortune after
my mother died, leaving me and my sisters with caring aunts, who had us educated by the nuns. I never mentioned Aubazine or my lost brothers or that I had turned my back on my grandparents. After I heard these falsehoods reel from my lips, I waited, breathless, for him to burst out laughing and chide, “Coco, what a liar you are!” But he never did. He accepted everything I told him and I began to see how easy it was to conceal my past. After all, other girls must find themselves in my position, especially as I took pains to elaborate that I’d chosen to earn my own way, because the alternative—to be sent to a matchmaker or wed one of the boys whose families knew mine—was unacceptable.

“Though of course,” I added airily, “I hope to marry someday.”

“Of course.” He leaned to me. “It seems we both share an intolerance for expectations. Perhaps we are destined for each other,
ma petite
Coco.”

It was the first time he had alluded to a possible future together and it roused equal parts hope and consternation. My plans had not come to fruition; I had not sold a single hat. No milliner in Moulins would give me the time of day. I was still under Madame G.’s thumb, singing my throat raw in the café, and though the money in my tin slowly increased, if no one wanted to buy my hats, what could I do? At this rate, I feared I would become my mother—enslaved to work that paid enough to keep a roof over my head but never enough to raise me out of the gutter. Balsan could change my fortunes with a snap of his fingers, but did I want him to? I had no illusions that he might propose; men like him did not take girls like me for a wife. And while becoming his mistress would resolve my financial difficulties, could he make me happy?

I evaded my own conflicted emotions, never asking him to state clearly his intent. After nearly two years of working in Moulins, I decided staying was pointless. Adrienne and I had to make a change, and after much cajoling, I persuaded her to move with me to Vichy, where we would rent a room and find work in the more sophisticated cafés of that city. We had experience now, I argued; surely, that counted for something. She was reluctant until Balsan assured her that he thought it was a delightful idea and he would provide us with sufficient means to establish ourselves. Moreover,
her besotted baron declared that he would follow her to the ends of the earth and Vichy was hardly that far.

“But won’t it be like . . . ?” she fretted as I threw our few belongings into our suitcases, after having enjoyed the satisfaction of delivering our notice to Madame G.

“Like what?” I barely paid attention to her, prying up the floorboard to remove my tin box and counting the money inside, half hoping it might have reproduced on its own.

“Well, like . . .” She lowered her voice. “Like those women who sell themselves.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Are you saying that if we accept Balsan’s help, it makes us prostitutes?”

“Not exactly,” she said, though her troubled expression contradicted her. “Only that, well, it is
his
money, and if we accept it, it does carry a certain expectation . . .”

I restrained the impulse to remind her that not long ago she had suggested I might aspire to be a
grande cocotte.
Now she was worried about accepting assistance from a man we had known for months, with whom I had done nothing improper?

“It’s not the same thing,” I retorted, for while I thought her fears absurd, her suggestion carried a disquieting truth. “Étienne Balsan is a friend. It’s a loan. We will pay him back.”

“Louise is very upset,” she went on, gnawing at her lip. “She told me when I went to see her that this move of ours is most ill-advised and Vichy is no place for us to be on our own. She said if we are so unhappy here, we should move to Varennes to live with her.”

“And do what?” I banged my tin on the floor, making Adrienne flinch. “Help her decorate those silly hats and tend to the goat? Honestly, Adrienne. You’ve a baron in love with you and me at your side. If you want to go to Varennes, do so. But I am going to Vichy—with or without you.”

Her eyes filled with tears. I had to hold her in my arms as she snuffled and choked out between sobs that not everyone had my courage, and sometimes I could be a perfect brute.

“I know,” I said, wondering why I didn’t share this paralyzing fear of independence that she, my sister Julia, and so many other girls felt. “But we’ve been to Vichy before and you can do all the things you do here, and visit Louise, too, as we’ll earn enough to buy the train ticket.”

“It won’t be the same,” she muttered but she stood by with our valises while I haggled with Madame G. over our final wages.

Balsan had bought us third-class tickets for Vichy, at my insistence; I didn’t want to accept more charity than necessary. He left for a monthlong visit to Lyons to see his family but promised to come see us once he returned.

Third class was better than the coach, but we still arrived in Vichy after standing the entire time, the few available seats taken by others. And the room I had rented during a previous trip with Balsan didn’t look nearly as nice as when I’d first seen it. The one lopsided window opened onto an alley swarming with leavings from nearby restaurants; it smelled of damp and garbage, and I had to squash an enormous cockroach under my foot and kick it under the bed before Adrienne saw it. But we had livable furnishings, including a cracked mirror over the sagging bureau, and as Adrienne regarded it in miserable resignation, I said, “At least we don’t have that awful stove to worry about,” and proceeded to unpack with determination. “We’ll be fine, you’ll see,” I kept saying. “In a few weeks, we’ll have more work than we know what to do with.”

It didn’t turn out that way. Most of the cafés had a surfeit of chanteuses and queues of hopefuls at their back doors, as did the local shops. We managed to find part-time work taking in mending but the pay was no better than Madame G.’s, and though I emptied my precious tin to purchase an appropriately corseted costume for auditions, no proprietor of the boulevard cafés offered to hire me. Finally, as the summer season ended and Vichy emptied of its spa guests, I received my only offer from an off-the-boulevard cabaret named Le Palais Doré, though the only thing that could be described as golden about it were the nicotine stains on its walls.

Here I sang every night in the
beuglant
: ten of us, arranged in a chorus, subject to howling sailors on leave and other riffraff. I fended off more
hands and slobbery lips than I could count and walked home every night, despite the drunkards on every corner. As soon as I opened the door to find Adrienne wilted on the bed with the daily mending at her feet, I adopted a bright smile and declared I’d made more tips in a night than in an entire week at La Rotunde.