Coco at the Ritz, page 16
“Didn’t Spatz tell you? It was his idea to give you the code name of your old lover.”
“What do you mean, code name?”
“My dear, you’re a registered agent of the Abwehr now. Number F-7124. I memorized it before our Madrid trip, and now it’s seared on my brain.”
“That’s preposterous! I don’t want to have anything to do with you or your so-called Abwehr military intelligence.”
“How’s your nephew?” Vaufreland grinned viciously.
Coco stiffened and looked past Vaufreland to the door. “I have to go.”
“I don’t think you’ll feel that way when you see this.” Standing, Vaufreland handed Coco a large brown envelope. “Let me know if I can help you in any other way.” He placed his hat on his head and, still smiling, walked past Coco and out the door.
Coco tore open the envelope. It was a copy of a bill of sale, dated a year earlier. The Wertheimer brothers had sold their 70 percent stake in Chanel Parfums—their controlling share—to Félix Amiot, a Christian Parisian industrialist.
Coco hurried across the street and burst into her apartment, where Spatz lounged in the salon. “Look at this!” she cried, waving the document.
Spatz put down his newspaper and took the bill of sale from Coco’s hand.
“It’s a sham!” Coco’s face had turned bright red. “Amiot is just a front man!”
Spatz studied the bill of sale with a furrowed brow. “It looks like an attempt by the Wertheimers to avoid the law,” he said. According to the laws of the Third Reich and Vichy, Jewish businesses were subject to confiscation. When Spatz looked up, his face had brightened with a smile. “Darling, this could be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.”
“Now that I’m an Abwehr agent? Vaufreland says you’ve registered me as a spy with the code name Westminster.”
“It doesn’t mean anything. I had to do it to arrange the Madrid trip.”
“Well, I’m not doing any more favors for the Germans.”
“No. It’s our turn to do more favors for you.”
* * *
Coco had complained bitterly to Spatz about her attempts over the years to wrest full control of her company back from the Wertheimers. She had met the brothers in 1923, when they already owned the largest perfume company in France. Coco was impressed with their worldwide business network, and they were impressed with Chanel No. 5, which Coco had been selling out of her boutique. They offered her 10 percent of the profits if she sold them the rights to the scent. She agreed, never imagining the perfume would turn into an international hit, and she soon became convinced she’d been cheated. The truth was, the Wertheimers, through their brilliant marketing of Chanel No. 5, had made it the most popular perfume in the world, and Coco one of France’s richest women.
Coco and the dashing Pierre had been having an affair at the time the perfume deal was struck, but that ended when Coco began to think she wasn’t getting enough from Chanel Parfums. In 1933, she sued the brothers, arguing that she deserved more of the profits. It was the first of many lawsuits she filed against them. Nothing ever came of these legal proceedings.
The Wertheimers arrived in New York after escaping occupied France through Spain. From their new home, they produced 350,000 bottles of perfume from a production facility in Hoboken, New Jersey, and sold the fragrance throughout the United States. Coco assumed that the American version of the perfume was a poor fake. Moreover, the French division of Chanel Parfums had shrunk considerably during the war as the American division expanded, diminishing Coco’s profits even further.
Spatz spoke to his superiors, and the Germans launched an investigation. The Gestapo dragged Amiot in for questioning and warned him that he was playing a naïve and dangerous game—that he could be imprisoned for his complicity in hiding a Jewish business from German authorities.
Spatz also arranged for Coco to meet with Kurt Blanke, the German lawyer in charge of enforcing the Nazi race laws and ridding the French economy of Jews.
As the date of the meeting approached, Coco had second thoughts. She abhorred the Nazi program to seize Jewish businesses and property. She knew those Jewish owners were sometimes seized themselves—and never seen again. Still, she knew the Wertheimers were now safely in New York. This was simply a chance to earn what she deserved from a perfume she created.
Early one Monday morning, Coco climbed into the back seat of an Abwehr Mercedes parked outside the Ritz. It took twenty minutes to reach the Hotel Majestic on avenue Kléber. Over the years, Coco had attended many lavish events here in the vast gilt ballroom, which now served as headquarters for the German military command. A young man in uniform met Coco at the door and led her through the echoing marble foyer into a small office crammed with file cabinets. A pretty blonde in a green silk dress sat behind a big black typewriter stabbing the keys with her index fingers. The familiar scent of Chanel No. 5 floated up from her rosy skin. It was the smell of elegance, slightly astringent, like jasmine and rose misted with alcohol. “Mademoiselle Chanel! This is such an honor,” said the blonde, her face reddening with excitement. “He’s expecting you.” She stood and opened the heavy double doors behind her.
Coco entered a huge, high-ceilinged salon with walls the color of a frozen lake. The blue silk upholstery covering the chairs and settees and the cut crystal dripping from the immense chandelier and sconces added to the room’s chill. Not even the flames struggling for life in the enormous stone fireplace could dispel the shivery feel.
The man in the gray suit who sat at the mahogany table in front of the windows was so dwarfed by the room that he looked like a figurine in a dollhouse. He’d been scribbling in a journal, which he now closed. Kurt Blanke regarded Coco with dead eyes behind black horn-rims. He was a slim man in his late forties, with a pocked face and cardboard-colored hair slicked back from a high, deeply lined forehead, and a small, thin mouth.
“Ah, the famous couturière,” said Blanke, rising to shake Coco’s hand.
The blond secretary hurried in with a document and placed it on Blanke’s desk. “For your signature, sir,” she said.
“Fraulein Silber, you should thank Mademoiselle Chanel for the perfume.”
“Merci,” said the girl, curtsying slightly.
Coco had sent a crate of Chanel No. 5 to Blanke’s office the previous week—greatly diminishing the supply in her boutique—and Blanke had distributed the bottles to his staff.
“I’m not sure how your office operates, but I understand you’re very successful,” said Coco.
“We are acting in the best interest of France,” said Blanke with a tight little smile. Shadows from the fire streaked the wall behind him, and the room took on motion.
Coco cleared her throat. “Am I correct that the purpose of your office is to return property to Aryan citizens?”
“You are correct.” He wasn’t making this easy.
“My company is worth more than four million francs, and it is still the property of the Wertheimers.” Coco paused.
Blanke looked at her but said nothing.
“They’re Jewish,” Coco said. She stared at the floor a moment, then raised her eyes to meet Blanke’s gaze. “I have an indisputable right of priority. My profits are disproportionately small, as Chanel No. 5 is my creation. Here are the documents from my lawyer.”
Coco removed a sheaf of papers from her purse and handed them to Blanke. Included was a letter from Ernest Breaux, the chemist who’d worked with Coco to create a fresh, modern scent that reflected the pared down elegance of her fashion. As Breaux explained, the secret to Chanel No. 5 was the combination of florals with aldehydes, a rare and innovative ingredient that was made up of molecules harnessed from the florals. The aldehydes made Chanel No. 5 extraordinarily expensive to manufacture. The perfume was an exclusive luxury, and, during a time of rationing and deprivation, a time when all other luxuries fell away, it became a potent symbol of the good life that might never return.
A toilet flushed somewhere in the building. As if that were the signal for Coco to go, Blanke rose and straightened his tie. “We want to help,” he said. “I will look into this immediately.”
* * *
A week went by, then another, and still Coco heard nothing from Blanke’s office. One day, she had Misia to lunch on rue Cambon. Afterward, the older woman said she wanted to buy a negligee for her niece who was getting married, so they took a stroll around the corner to Baruch’s lingerie shop on rue des Capucines. Gustave Baruch had been forced to relinquish his business to the Nazis, and now the shop was run by a Christian Frenchman appointed by the Germans.
The shop door swung open, and out stepped a stout middle-aged woman in a brown wool dress capped by a fluff of gray curls. She was Victorine Balsan, the wife of Coco’s first lover, Étienne Balsan. When they’d first met, Victorine was a glamorous young demimondaine. Coco was a scrappy twenty-three-year-old seamstress. Balsan had rescued her from the tailoring shop in Moulins where she’d been repairing seams for a pittance. He came in one day to have his trousers mended, a pleasant-looking young heir to a textile fortune, and struck up a flirtation with the dark, wiry shopgirl. The next thing Coco knew, she had quit her job and moved into Balsan’s estate. He had several mistresses. Coco was his irregulière, hidden away in an attic bedroom.
She cringed now to think of her humiliation, how she’d never been allowed in Balsan’s salons or invited to his dinner parties. One evening, however, after she thought all the guests had left, she slipped into the dining room. She’d been out all afternoon riding through the woods on one of Balsan’s horses, and she had eaten supper in the kitchen with the servants, as she always did when Balsan entertained. On an impulse on her way to her attic bedroom, she opened the door to the dining room. She heard moaning from a far corner and saw Balsan and a shapely blonde leaning against the wall. The woman was covered in laces and ruffles and billowing skirts, her waist corseted within an inch of her life. Balsan had his hand down her bodice. Coco had no power over this luminous beauty except her contempt, which she expressed by going to Balsan’s closet and cutting up his clothes. She didn’t cut them to shreds. She cut them to fit herself. She stayed up all night sewing, while he was with her. The next day, Coco showed up at lunch in a simple white shirt, plain jacket, and a pair of jodhpurs. That got her lover’s attention. “Don’t you look smart,” he said. “Let’s take the horses out.” Coco had Balsan to herself that afternoon. But by evening, he’d gone back to his silly blonde, with her privilege and wealth and stifling, ridiculous clothes.
Now Victorine Balsan was a frumpy dowager in a shapeless dress. “Coco, it’s been ages. I haven’t seen you since you closed your house,” she chirped.
“Is Étienne with you?” Coco kissed the air beside Victorine’s powdered cheeks.
“I left him in the country trimming our rosebushes. I’m here for only a few days. I was hoping to pick up some lingerie. But there’s nothing to buy. Not even one nightgown.” Victorine nodded toward the shop entrance, then lowered her chin and looked at Coco over the tops of her rimless spectacles. “Perhaps you could come over—we still have the townhouse on Place Dauphine—and go through my closets with my maid. Advise her on what to keep and what to give away.”
Coco wasn’t about to play assistant to Victorine’s lady of the manor. “I’ll send my vendeuse over after the boutique closes,” Coco said in an imperious tone. “Say bonjour to Étienne for me.”
“There’s no point in going in,” said Misia. “I’m tired. I should go home.”
“We can share a taxi, if we can find one,” said Victorine.
As the women waited on the curb, a beggar appeared at Coco’s side, wafting a foul stench and holding out a greasy, stubby palm. Opening her purse, Coco realized she had no change, only large bills. “I’m sorry, not today,” Coco said. As Misia and Victorine scrabbled through their own handbags for coins, the beggar grabbed Coco’s arm. “The Kraut whore doesn’t have any money!” he yelled.
Coco caught Victorine’s eyes. Madame Balsan glared at her. Did she know about Spatz? “Ignore him,” said Misia.
“I think I’ll walk,” said Coco, then to Victorine: “Please see that Misia gets home.” Coco hurried away as the beggar continued to shout “Kraut whore! Kraut whore!” A little crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. People were staring at Coco and whispering behind gloved hands. She knew they agreed with the beggar. She was nothing but a Kraut whore.
* * *
That evening, Coco met Spatz at Bignon’s. The maître d’ showed the couple to their usual table in front of the fireplace. Their usual black-haired waiter handed them menus, and, as usual, he stepped slightly to the side and hovered.
Coco was still reeling from her encounter with the beggar, and distress etched her face. “You look terrible. I suppose you heard,” said Spatz.
“Heard what?” Coco lit a cigarette and took a long, calming drag.
Spatz turned to the waiter. “A bottle of Côtes du Rhône.” The waiter bowed and slunk away.
Spatz leaned across the tablecloth and took Coco’s hands. “I’m afraid I have bad news about Chanel Parfums. Herr Blanke issued his decision this afternoon. He decided that it can’t be considered a Jewish company.”
“Why not?” Coco felt a surge of disappointment. Around her, glasses clinked against cutlery, the ringing sound mingling with the low hum of voices.
“According to Blanke, your company passed into Aryan hands in a manner that was legal and correct.”
“The Wertheimers backdated the stock transfers to 1938 so it looked like it was done before the war. Any fool can see through that ruse.” Coco sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Pierre’s surrogate must have bribed Blanke.”
“Possibly.”
“There’s nothing to be done?”
“I’m afraid not, darling.”
The waiter returned with a bottle, pulled the cork, poured Spatz a taste, and served the couple.
Parisians were starving, but Bignon’s larder never lacked: steak, roast beef, lamb, veal, caviar, the finest cheeses, the best wines, fresh vegetables and fruits flown in from Spain.
“May I describe the specials?” the waiter said.
“We’ll share the bouillabaisse,” Coco said quickly.
The waiter bowed with deference and disappeared into the kitchen
“I was thinking of a veal chop tonight. Why did you do that?” asked Spatz, annoyed.
“To get rid of him. He’s a pest. He doesn’t let us dine in peace.”
“You might appreciate the service. He’s right there to pull out your chair and light your cigarette. He’s efficient.”
“He probably thinks I’m a Kraut whore.”
“What?” Spatz scowled.
“A beggar outside Baruch’s lingerie shop today called me a Kraut whore. You should have seen the looks on the faces around me on the street. The hatred. I could tell they were thinking the same thing.”
“Had you ever seen this vagrant before?”
“No.”
“I’m sure he had no idea who you are. He was a crazy old man who probably insults every well-dressed woman who doesn’t give him a handout.”
“Perhaps.”
Spatz studied Coco’s face. “You seem more upset about the beggar than your company.”
Coco shrugged and gave an exhausted sigh. Spatz smiled slightly. “None of this will matter when we win the war.”
* * *
Several days later, Coco and her nephew were in her rue Cambon dining room picking at the heavy lunch of steak, potatoes, buttered green beans, and bread that Coco had ordered from the Ritz dining room in her ongoing effort to fatten André up. Coco never ate much, and the robust appetite André had enjoyed before the war hadn’t yet returned. He’d been released from the hospital months earlier after a stay of six weeks, but he was still too weak to resume full-time work. Before the war, he’d been the director of a branch of her company that made silk, but that business was mostly defunct now. So when André was up and around again, Coco gave him an office below hers on rue Cambon. He spent a few hours there every day looking over the books and handling correspondence before returning to his family in the nearby apartment Coco had rented for them.
She watched him cut a piece of meat and push it to the side with his fork.
“You don’t like steak anymore?” she asked.
“No, it’s just…” André put his hands in his lap and looked hard at Coco. “It looks bad, Aunt Gabby. You should break up with Spatz now.”
“You owe your life to him,” Coco said.
“I owe my near death to his countrymen,” said André.
Coco flinched at the comment. Her nephew had met Spatz just once, soon after he’d left the hospital, at an awkward dinner in that very dining room, during which André had sulked like a churlish adolescent. Spatz had brought presents for André’s daughters, matching rose velvet dresses from Galeries Lafayette that Spatz had chosen himself. André accepted the brightly wrapped packages and thanked Spatz (a little too grudgingly, Coco thought), but later he refused to take the gifts home. Coco ended up stashing the unopened parcels in the closet of an empty atelier.
André had always pushed back against Coco’s right-wing political views, matching her arguments with arguments on the liberal side that were bolstered by his knowledge of history and close reading of contemporary newspapers. She never minded being bested by André in these discussions. For his part, André knew how glowingly proud Coco was of his intelligence and seriousness, and he basked in her unshakable love. They talked often about many things—not just politics and business, but also André’s daughters, art, and literature. There had been fewer of those conversations since André had returned. Coco told herself it was because André’s energies were focused on his recovery. But a sense that he was pulling away from her nagged at her heart. She couldn’t help but feel Spatz was to blame.
