Coco at the Ritz, page 14
“You know her?” asked Max.
“She works for the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter, the organization that oversees looting. She’s an acquaintance of Spatz’s. I met her once. She came into the boutique to buy perfume.”
Max gave her a stricken look.
Coco started to say something, and Max held out his hand palm forward to stop her. “We won’t discuss him. I’ve never passed judgment on your lovers, and now’s not the time to start.”
They could hear the Germans knocking around on the floors below, working out what they were going to take and what would be left behind. Laughter. The creak of heavy frames banging the walls.
“What would that German woman do if she saw you with me?”
“Probably tell Spatz.”
“Would that be bad?”
“I don’t like people knowing my business. Especially awful women like Fraulein Lichten,” said Coco. “You never know with those types. You hear her down there barking orders.”
“Reminds me of someone I know.” Max smiled at Coco, and she rolled her eyes.
“I wonder what they’ll do with the loot,” Max said.
“Goering likes nudes. And tasteless luxury. Maybe it’ll all end up in one of his mansions.”
Coco wiped the dust from an old trunk with her palm and sat on the edge. “I hope we’re not stuck up here forever.”
“Do you want to tell me why you’re really here?” Max asked.
Coco smiled. Max could always tell when she had an agenda. “Now’s as good a time as any,” she said. She removed from her purse a gray felt jeweler’s case and handed it to him. “Open your present.”
The box held an exquisite bracelet, a fringe of diamonds on a slender diamond link, from a collection Coco had designed in the thirties. “It’s beautiful, but too small for me,” Max said, holding out a hairy, thick wrist.
Coco laughed. “It’s yours, should you ever need it.”
It made Coco feel good to help Max. And the others—Serge Diaghilev of the Ballet Russes, the composer Igor Stravinsky, Cocteau. She was generous, too, with her lovers; her nephew, André; and, for years, her brothers. But usually there was a quid pro quo—she was buying access or love or, in the case of her brothers, bribing them into silence. She didn’t feel that way with Max.
For the next twenty minutes Coco and Max sat on the floor of the studio. The Germans were still wandering through the first floor when the sound of tires crunching gravel rose up from the driveway. Coco went to the window. “Oh God, my driver with the car,” she said.
When Coco and Max appeared downstairs, the Germans stopped talking and stared. “Mademoiselle Chanel! What are you doing here?” said Fraulein Lichten.
“I was visiting my friend,” said Coco, nodding to Max. “He’s a monk at the monastery in Saint-Benoît. We thought we’d take a drive and came upon the house. We were just looking around.”
Lichten looked Max up and down, taking in his monk’s cassock and the cross around his neck. Then, turning to Coco, she asked severely, “Is that your car that just pulled up?”
“Yes. We’re leaving.”
“Do you have a permit?”
“No.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t take it out again.”
* * *
Coco and Max spent the rest of the afternoon touring the countryside and dined that evening on the terrace of a roadside bistro attached to a farm. Moonlight brightened the drive back to Saint-Benoît. “It was a lovely day,” Max said when the car stopped in front of his boardinghouse. “A day almost outside the war.”
“Until we ran into Fraulein Lichten.”
“I hope you don’t get in trouble at home.”
Coco smiled and squeezed Max’s hand. “I can handle Spatz.”
* * *
A few days later, Spatz drove himself to La Pausa in a Reich-owned Mercedes. He arrived at noon with a trunk stuffed with champagne bottles, tubs of Russian caviar, and filet mignon steaks packed in ice. As Spatz’s arms overflowed with bouquets of white roses, Céline rushed out of the house, wiping her hands on her apron, to take the flowers.
“Are you ready for tonight?” Spatz asked Coco, as they kissed.
“It’s a lot of work for Céline and Ugo.” Coco nodded toward the caretaker, a stocky man in workers clothes who was arranging lanterns along the stone walkway.
While Spatz played golf at a nearby course, Coco spent the afternoon sunning herself on the terrace above the quiet blue sea. The olive trees were in full bloom, their fresh white flowers singing out against the dark pines on the hillside. But the glorious weather didn’t ease Coco’s black mood. She was not looking forward to the evening. Spatz was using her, at least in this case—using her house, her staff, her hospitality, to meet and court a group of people who might be sympathetic to the Germans. Coco had no idea to what end, but she resented it, and she brooded on it for hours. Hoping to numb her feelings, she drank a glass of champagne, then a few glasses more, though the alcohol only deepened her distress.
That evening, Leonor Fini and Consul Lepri were the first to arrive. Leonor was a small, delicate woman of forty with auburn hair and a lively manner. Though born and raised in Argentina, she had lived in France for two decades. Her lover, Lepri, was in his sixties, portly and bald and dressed in a bespoke Italian suit. “How are things in Berlin?” Lepri asked Spatz, as he took a glass of champagne from Ugo, who, dressed in a black suit and white shirt, acted as butler on dinner party evenings.
“The trains aren’t running on time, and the air raids are annoying. But people are getting by,” said Spatz.
“Just like we’re getting by,” Coco interjected.
Spatz shot her a sharp glance.
An arpeggio of laughter rose from the entry hall and, a moment later, Jean-Louis and Liliane de Faucigny-Lucinge stepped into the room. “What a view! I could see the spires of the cathedral from your driveway!” cried Liliane. She was a cheerful gumdrop of a woman in a pink silk sheath and a froth of blond curls.
“A plane just now flew overhead, narrowly missing the top,” said Jean-Louis. He was a few years older than his wife, a slender, elegant man with gray-streaked hair slicked back on his head and lively dark eyes.
Coco led the couple into the salon, where she introduced them to Leonor and Lepri. Ugo offered them champagne from a silver tray, and they each took a glass.
“I don’t think the Germans will bomb Monte Carlo,” said Coco.
“Did you see the Cinema des Beaux-Arts is showing Vol de Nuit?” said Liliane.
“I saw it when it first came out. Nothing’s more exciting than a night flight over mountains in dangerous weather,” said Leonor.
“Just ask Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess,” said Coco.
“It’s a French film,” said Spatz impatiently.
“I wonder what happened to Hess? Wasn’t it a few months ago that he crashed a plane in Scotland on the grounds of the Duke of Hamilton’s estate?” said Jean-Louis.
“Hess survived, but he was taken prisoner by the British,” said Lepri.
Coco raised an eyebrow at Spatz, and he quickly looked down at the carpet.
“What was Hess doing flying over Scotland?” asked Liliane.
“I’m speculating, but I think he was hoping to enlist Hamilton’s aid in convincing Britain to broker a peace favorable to Germany,” said Lepri. “Hamilton hates Churchill almost as much as Hess does.”
“What do you think, Spatz?” asked Leonor.
“I think we should all have more champagne.” Spatz strode to the bar cart and lifted a bottle by the neck from a silver bucket.
Spatz refilled Coco’s glass, which she quickly emptied. “The Germans don’t know how to talk to the British. I do! You know Churchill and I are great friends.” She held her glass out to Spatz, but he shook his head and returned the bottle to the bucket.
Céline announced dinner, and the party moved to the dining room. Before taking her spot at the head of the long mahogany table, Coco opened the doors to the terrace. The white taffeta curtains billowed out, and she felt the warm evening air against her skin, drawing her back to her first days at La Pausa, to her romance with Bendor, the Duke of Westminster, and her friendship with Churchill. Bendor and Coco loved visiting the Riviera, and she had built the estate so the couple wouldn’t have to stay in hotels. At the time, Coco had wanted to marry the duke. He was twice-divorced, tall and athletic, with a beefy face that was almost handsome and a galumphing exuberance that reminded Coco of a Newfoundland puppy. Early in their affair he introduced her to his old friend Winston Churchill, the pudgy, reddish-haired chancellor of the exchequer. Coco had sat next to the future prime minister at a dinner at La Pausa, then joined him as his partner the next weekend at Bendor’s hunting lodge in Mimizan. Together, they tromped through the woods hunting boar. The out-of-shape Churchill watched in fascination as Coco scrambled up a steep hill, then elbowed her way through a dense thicket of ferns to corner a huge boar. Coco fired once, hitting the beast square between the eyes and sending him crashing to the ground. Afterward, Churchill told her, “You are a great and strong being, fit to rule a man or an empire.”
The Germans should let her talk to Churchill, she thought. Hess was crazy. Look at how he’d bungled things with his idiot mission. She’d make sure whatever peace was brokered was as favorable to France as it was to Germany.
Céline had laid a platter of steaks, bowls of haricots verts, scalloped potatoes, and a basket of bread on the table. “We should do something after dinner,” said Jean-Louis, as he took a generous helping of potatoes.
“Plan a mission?” asked Coco snidely.
“Play cards,” said Jean-Louis. He glanced around the table. “Bridge, anyone?”
“An excellent idea!” said Spatz.
“I love bridge!” cried Leonor.
“It’s settled, then. A round of bridge after dinner,” said Jean-Louis.
Céline returned and whispered something in Spatz’s ear. He pushed out his chair and stood. “I’ve a phone call,” he said, and disappeared into the salon.
Leonor leaned toward Coco and spoke softly enough that Lepri across the table couldn’t hear. “God, he’s handsome. If they all looked like that I wouldn’t mind the Germans sticking around.”
“Most of them look like toads,” said Coco. “And they’ve got bad breath.”
“I hear Hitler has bad breath, too.”
There was the scrape of a chair, and Spatz was back at the table.
“Has another cabinet minister crashed in Scotland?” asked Coco.
“My golfing partner left his jacket in my car.”
“What a relief. Goering and Goebbels are still loyal Germans.”
Spatz scowled. He’d come to expect these bursts of sarcasm from Coco. Holding forth around the table, she raged against the idiocy of Hess, then moved on to the unattractiveness of the Nazi high command and the frumpiness of their women. She was glad she’d closed her ateliers. The Germans had ruined fashion, as they’d ruined all of French culture.
Spatz talked over her, raising his voice as he turned to Leonor. “Tell us about your upcoming exhibit at the Galerie Georges Petit.”
Coco’s eyes held a sinister glint. “I’ve seen your work. It’s cubism, exactly what the Nazis consider degenerate. What did you have to do to get the Germans’ approval—promise your firstborn to the Third Reich?”
Leonor went pale. “My new canvases are more traditional—” she began feebly, but Coco interrupted.
“I’d like to know. It can’t be because the Germans love your art. If they did, they’d just swipe it. Have you met Fraulein Lichten, who loots for the Nazis? I have, and she’s a witch.”
“Someone from cultural affairs… from the… the embassy came to my studio.…” Leonor stammered. “There wasn’t any problem.”
Coco continued to natter on about Nazi looting and the Germans’ poor taste in art, ignoring the glum, downcast looks on her guests’ faces. At the end of dessert—a delicious chocolate mousse—Jean-Louis thanked Coco for the dinner and said he and his wife had to be going.
“What about bridge?”
“I’m afraid we can’t.”
Coco turned to Leonor. “You’ll stay for at least one round?”
“We should retire, too,” said Lepri. “Leonor and I need to get an early start tomorrow for Paris.”
Coco and Spatz stood in the doorway as the cars that had brought their guests wound down the curving drive and slipped into the velvet night. Spatz shut the door violently and shouted at Coco. “For once, I wish you’d just fucking shut up!”
He turned on his heel and strode toward the guest wing to spend the night alone.
Coco watched him stomp away, a tall, blond German in an elegant suit, and she saw him then as Misia saw him, an enemy of France and of herself.
NINE
The following day, Céline told Coco that Spatz had left early while she was still asleep. “He asked me to tell you he was on his way to Berlin,” the maid said.
Coco returned to Paris that evening. Her head ached, and a heaviness had settled in her bones. For the next week, she sat in her suite, indulging her misery, imagining that she and Spatz were finished. He doesn’t deserve me, she told herself. He’ll regret screaming at me and taking off without so much as one word of apology. She hoped Spatz was as miserable as she was. She wanted to punish him. If he phoned, she vowed not to take the call. When he returned, she’d refuse to see him.
But he never called. Ten days passed, and finally one evening at ten Spatz showed up at the Ritz carrying an enormous bouquet of red roses. When Coco saw him standing in the little salon looking even more handsome than she remembered, her heart melted. “Let’s not fight, darling,” he said, hugging her tightly.
They made love twice that night and fell asleep in each other’s arms, their quarrel forgotten.
* * *
“How would you like to go to Spain for a few weeks?” Spatz asked Coco the next morning.
They were sitting side by side on the sofa in their bathrobes, drinking coffee.
“With you?” Coco asked.
“No. I need to stay here.” Spatz cleared his throat. “You’ve been complaining about how difficult it is to run a perfume business during war and how depressing Paris has become. I thought you’d welcome the change of scene.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” Coco said in a joking tone.
“Hardly.” Spatz kissed her neck as he cupped her right breast. Straightening his back, he spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “An associate of mine, a Frenchman I just saw in Berlin, is coming over today to talk to you about traveling to Madrid. Will you hear him out?”
Coco shrugged. “I suppose.”
“We should dress. He’s due here in an hour.”
At nine, a chubby man in his late thirties arrived at the door. Spatz introduced him as Baron Louis de Vaufreland, a French aristocrat with close ties to the Germans. “Herr von Dincklage tells me you had a nice sojourn in Roquebrun,” Vaufreland said to Coco as he settled in an armchair near the fireplace. He had wispy brown hair combed over his balding head, and he was dressed in an expensive suit that was a size too small for his lumpy body.
Vaufreland pulled an envelope from a pocket inside his jacket and handed it to Coco. “Here’s a train ticket to Madrid and a visa—all the documents you need to get across the border into Spain.”
“I have no plans at the moment to go to Spain.” Coco shot Spatz a sharp look.
“Herr von Dincklage says you have a perfume distributor in Madrid. Don’t you need to talk to him about sales in Spain?”
“Why are you so interested in my business?”
“You’re a friend of the Reich. As am I.”
The room altered around her. Shakily, she took a cigarette from the pack on the coffee table, and Spatz stepped forward to light it. “Listen to what he has to say, darling.”
Coco exhaled a jet of foul smoke toward Vaufreland, and he turned his head to avoid it.
“We’d like you to talk to your British friends in Madrid. We’d like to know what people are saying about the… um… political situation,” Vaufreland said.
“And if I don’t feel like leaving town?” Coco took a last drag on her cigarette and stamped it out in an ashtray.
Vaufreland’s face darkened, and his tone turned harsh. “Mademoiselle Chanel, would you like to see your nephew released from prison?”
“Spatz has been promising—”
Vaufreland cut her off. “Do you know how many French soldiers are in German hands? A million. And do you know how many die each day? Thousands upon thousands. Do you want your nephew to be another statistic?”
If she refused, would the Germans execute André out of spite? Would they put him in front of a firing squad? Or chop his head off with an axe—a method Misia claimed Hitler used on his most despised enemies? An image of henchmen in black hoods dragging André into a prison courtyard filled her mind. She felt as if someone had slugged her in the chest.
“All right,” Coco said, her voice raw. “I’ll do as you wish.”
When Vaufreland left, Coco snapped at Spatz. “I suppose he’s not a spy, either.”
“He’s working with us.”
“But you want me to become a spy.”
Spatz took Coco’s face in his hands and kissed her gently on the mouth. “Think how happy you’ll be to welcome André home.”
“I better pack.”
When Coco started for the bedroom, Spatz placed his hand on her arm, stopping her.
“Have you heard recently from Brian Wallace?” He was a British diplomat Coco had befriended years earlier during her affair with Bendor.
“Not in a long time. I’ll send him a cable.”
“Maybe you can see him at his office at the British embassy. Keep your eyes and ears open. I’d like to know what your friends are saying.”
