Coco at the Ritz, page 19
“Don’t worry,” said Coco, blowing smoke toward the windows. “I know what I’m doing.”
THIRTEEN
As a honey-haired, blue-eyed, and peachy-skinned young woman, Vera Bate had epitomized English rose beauty. Her looks were enhanced by her aristocratic connections. Her godmother was the daughter of a duke, and through her mother’s second marriage to a cousin of King George, she was distantly related to the Crown. Coco had become close to Vera in the 1920s. At the time, Vera was divorced from her first husband, an American military officer she’d met while working in an American hospital in Paris, and she needed money. Coco gave her clothes and paid Vera a small salary to wear them to society parties and openings, where she was photographed by the press. She also gave Vera the use of a little house at the back of the garden at La Pausa. Later, Vera had married an Italian cavalry officer and captain in the National Fascist Party, Alberto Lombardi, and moved to Rome.
Out of the blue one day soon after Coco’s trip to Berlin, a German officer arrived at Vera’s Rome apartment with a dozen red roses and a letter from Coco. The letter said Coco urgently needed Vera’s help to find a location for a new boutique in Madrid. Would Vera meet her at the Ritz in Paris to discuss the plans further? Don’t forget, I’m waiting for you in joy and impatience. All my love, Coco wrote. Vera hadn’t heard from Coco in years and had no interest in helping her or in leaving Italy. Since the fall of Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini the previous July, her husband, who feared reprisals from Allied forces, had been in hiding in Salerno. Vera knew his location and was preoccupied with being reunited with him. She declined Coco’s invitation emphatically.
A few days later, the Fascist secret police arrested Vera at her apartment on the trumped-up charge that she was an Allied spy. She spent a few nights in a black, rat-infested cell with prostitutes and pickpockets and was given a choice by the Fascists: join Coco in Paris or stay in jail.
Vera arrived at the Ritz on a cold, clear evening. Coco met her in the room she’d secured for Vera a few doors away from Coco’s suite. Vera had changed since her years in Paris as Coco’s house model. At sixty, she had gained weight. Owlish glasses perched on her nose. Her hair had gone gray, and she wore it in short curls.
The women embraced. “It’s good to see you, Coco,” said Vera with a tight smile.
Coco doubted her sincerity. She’d expected a torrent of abuse from Vera for being dragged to Paris, and she wondered if Vera had a secret agenda.
The former model had brought one small, battered suitcase and only two rather worn dresses. “Don’t you have anything else?” Coco said with dismay.
“I just grabbed any old thing from my closet,” said Vera. “I was too worried about my dog, Teague, to think straight. The Germans took him when they arrested me, and I don’t know where he is.” Vera handed Coco a picture of herself and her husband with Teague between them. He was a savage-looking, bristly-haired creature the size of a bull calf.
“I’ll find out where Teague is,” said Coco. As a dog lover, she sympathized with Vera’s anguish.
“Won’t you be glad to go to Spain, where the Nazis aren’t in charge?” Coco asked.
“I suppose so,” said Vera.
Coco counted on Vera’s doubts disappearing and her old affection for Coco returning. Vera wouldn’t completely forget her friend’s kindness, would she? Surely she’d remember how, when Vera walked out on her first husband in the 1920s and struggled to make a living painting folding screens, Coco had bought many of the screens and given them as presents to friends. Of course, Vera had helped Coco, too. She was a stellar advertisement for the House of Chanel, a real beauty in those days who always drew the attention of photographers and reporters.
With Spatz’s help, Coco managed to locate Teague and arranged for the beast to be cared for in Vera’s absence by dog breeders who lived on a farm outside Rome. With Teague safe, Vera’s mood brightened. She nodded while Coco talked fabric and trimming, shop layout and workroom organization, seemingly unsuspecting that Coco had no intention of opening a Madrid boutique. Coco wondered how she could be so gullible. There was no good reason for Coco to expand her business in the middle of a war. There was no tourism. No one was traveling around buying couture.
Vera should have discerned something fishy when Coco kept her trapped at the Ritz, not letting her leave the hotel. “I’d like to see Misia,” Vera said one morning after breakfast in Coco’s suite.
“She’s not well,” Coco lied.
“I’d like to talk to her, at least.”
“Don’t make any calls. The phone is risky; it could be tapped.”
Coco continued to talk fashion on the train to Madrid, where the friends checked into separate rooms at the Ritz. “Why don’t you have a bath and take a nap?” Coco said, as they parted in the hotel lobby. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”
Coco watched Vera step into the elevator, followed by a porter carrying her bags. As soon as the door slid shut and the elevator had begun its ascent, Coco handed a banknote to the porter holding her luggage. “Please take everything to my room,” she said, and dashed to the street to hail a cab.
At the British embassy, a receptionist ushered Coco into the ambassador’s office overlooking a leafy square. Samuel Hoare, whom she’d met many years earlier through the Duke of Westminster, sat at a large mahogany desk piled with papers. “What a nice surprise,” he said, rising from his chair to kiss Coco on each cheek. He looked genuinely happy to see her. They chatted amiably for a few minutes before the ambassador, concerned about getting back to his work, asked Coco what had brought her to Madrid.
“I’d like you to give this to Winston—to the prime minister,” she said, and handed Hoare the letter she’d written to Churchill requesting a meeting to discuss the war. Hoare read it, crumpling his brow like corrugated cardboard. When he was done, he pushed his spectacles in place with a crooked finger. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mademoiselle Chanel, but Winston Churchill will not be coming to Madrid.”
The color drained from Coco’s face. “Why not?” Her voice came out in a breathy gulp.
“The prime minister is gravely ill with pneumonia in Tunisia. His doctors have forbidden him to travel.”
“And when he’s recovered?”
“He’ll return immediately to London.” Hoare handed the letter back to Coco.
She snatched it from Hoare’s hand and stuffed it in her purse. For this she had risked being killed by a bomb in Berlin? Or murdered by rabid Nazis? Coco took the stairs to the ground floor, and as she crossed the lobby to the exit, she ran into Vera Bate. They stood, feet firm, looking fiercely at each other like two bulls in the moment before a violent charge.
Coco spoke first. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“You tell me why you’re here,” demanded Vera.
Coco sighed, defusing the tension. “Let’s go back to the Ritz. I’ll explain everything.”
Over tea in the hotel restaurant, Coco told Vera the entire story—there was no point holding back now. She admitted that the plan to open a boutique was a ruse. She had a much more important mission. She told Vera about visiting Schellenberg in Berlin, about her plan to end the war, about her letter to Churchill and her discovery—just a few minutes before—that the prime minister was ill and would not be stopping in Madrid. Vera then confessed that she, too, had a secret plan. Once in Madrid, she hoped the British embassy would help reunite her with Alberto.
“You betrayed me,” Vera snapped.
“You weren’t exactly being open with me,” said Coco. “But what’s done is done. We’re going back to Paris tomorrow.”
“I’m staying in Madrid.”
“With what money?”
“I have friends here—real friends.”
“You also have a passport stamped with a German visa. How do you think that’s going to look when you try to get back into Italy?”
“I’ll figure something out.”
“I’m only paying for one more night at the Ritz.” Coco removed an envelope from her handbag and handed it to Vera. “Here’s your train ticket. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She took a final sip of her tea, flung her napkin on the table, and marched off to her room for a nap.
Early the next morning, Coco called Vera’s room. When there was no answer, she asked the concierge to knock on Vera’s door. The concierge reported that the room was empty. At the Atocha rail station, Coco stood on the long gray platform, her eyes darting about in search of Vera. When the train rumbled in at eight, the Englishwoman had still not appeared. Coco boarded a middle car and settled into the plush seats. “That ungrateful cow,” she muttered as the whistle blew and the train sputtered out of the station, headed toward Paris.
* * *
On the long trip home, Coco felt beaten, crushed, depressed, and alone. She dreaded facing Spatz and his inevitable “I told you so.” She wanted to be comforted, but she knew she would not find solace with her friends. Cocteau would probably make a joke out of the debacle, and Misia would no doubt scream at her for being a megalomaniacal idiot. As the train sped north, Coco’s thoughts turned darker still. If the Allies won, and Spatz, Momm, and Schellenberg were arrested and revealed the Modellhut scheme under questioning, Coco could face charges for treason.
She wanted to make these wretched thoughts disappear, but her morphine was in her suitcase in the luggage rack above her head. She couldn’t get to it without attracting the attention of the Nazi guards who patrolled the train. Then, an idea struck her. What if there was hard evidence that she really had gone to Madrid to scout boutique locations and that instead of abandoning Vera, she’d tried to help her? It would be her word against the Germans’ (and Vera’s, for that matter). She removed the letter she’d composed to Churchill from her handbag, ripped it into tiny pieces, and stuffed them in her pocket. Then she took a fresh sheet of Ritz Madrid stationery from her purse and began a new letter to Churchill, partly in English and partly in French, which Churchill spoke fluently:
My dear Winston,
Excuse me for disturbing you at such a grave time as this. I had heard that Vera Lombardi was not very happily treated in Italy on account of her being English and married to an Italian officer. You know me well enough to understand that I did everything in my power to pull her out of that situation, which, indeed, had become tragic as the Fascists had simply locked her up in prison. I was obliged to address myself to someone rather important to get her freed, and to be allowed to bring her with me to Madrid, where I am planning to open a boutique. That I succeeded placed me in a very difficult situation, as her passport, which is Italian, has been stamped with a German visa, and I understand quite well that it looks a bit suspect. You can well imagine, my dear, after years of occupation of France, it has been my lot to encounter all kinds of people! It would please me to talk over all these things with you!
In short, Vera wants to return to Italy with her husband. I think a word from you would settle these difficulties and then I could return untroubled to France.
I hope your health has improved.
I remain always affectionately,
Coco Chanel
When the train stopped at the border in Hendaye, Coco gave the letter and one hundred francs to a French porter sweeping the platform. The porter stashed the envelope and the money in his pocket. He promised, as soon as he had the chance, to post the letter, which Coco had addressed to 10 Downing Street, London.
Settled once again in her seat as the train left the station, she wondered if the porter would mail the letter after all. Perhaps he would discard it. Perhaps the Nazis patrolling the platform had seen him talking to her and searched his pockets. A fresh wave of worry washed over her and stayed with her, keeping her awake on the long journey home.
When she saw Spatz again at the Ritz the morning after her return, his eyes were as hard and cold as blue agate, and she knew he’d understood the cable she sent: “Friend unavailable. Coming home.”
“That was a disaster, as I knew it would be,” Spatz said. He stood several feet away from her to avoid kissing her. “You’ve placed me—and Teddy Momm—in a terrible position.”
“I thought it was worth a try.”
“This isn’t your world. This isn’t fashion. In diplomacy, if you make a grave mistake, you can’t rip out a seam and start again to make everything right. Schellenberg will be furious.”
“You’ll think of some explanation, since you, unlike me, are so expert in diplomacy,” said Coco with icy sarcasm.
“No,” said Spatz, anger pulsing in a vein in his right temple. “You are going to explain it to him.”
* * *
A week later, Coco was back in Berlin, sitting in a chair opposite Schellenberg’s desk at SS headquarters. “Who knows about this?” the intelligence chief asked.
“You, Herr von Dincklage, and Captain Momm,” said Coco. She made a point of looking directly into Schellenberg’s eyes and keeping her voice steady.
“And this Lombardi woman?”
“No,” Coco lied.
“She doesn’t suspect anything?”
“Nothing.”
Lying came so naturally to Coco, as naturally as breathing, and usually she assumed her lies were accepted as truth. Now, though, she saw suspicion in Schellenberg’s narrowed eyes. Her heart began to pound, and her face grew hot. She felt her cheeks turning red and the flames spreading to her neck and chest. She looked out the window to escape the intelligence chief’s gaze. Black cars lined the curb. A few men in Nazi uniforms strolled by. Coco took a deep breath and told herself not to worry. She’d always been the nimblest of liars. All she had to do was pretend she was telling the truth. It was easy.
The trouble was, she was not herself this morning. She felt old, exhausted, disheveled. The long train journey from Paris had been a nightmare, her car jammed with snoring soldiers and old men. Many tracks along the way had been destroyed by bombs, causing a series of lengthy delays, as the train had to wait its turn to be rerouted. Finally, the train arrived in Berlin at midnight, six hours late. An SS agent had met her and driven her to a small house on the edge of town where she was to spend the night. A glowering old woman, the owner of the house and the widow of a German official, showed her to a room on the top floor. It was small and unheated, with only one dim lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. When Coco had asked for water to wash, communicating by pantomiming a pitcher and basin, the old woman shook her head furiously and flailed her arms. “Kein wasser, kein wasser,” she cried, saying in German that there was no water, and waddled out of the room.
In the morning, Coco dressed in a fresh set of clothes, combed her hair, applied a thick layer of powder and lipstick, and sprayed herself with No. 5 perfume, hoping it would hide her animal stench. She might have overdone it with the perfume, as the driver who transported her to SS headquarters kept glancing at her in the rearview mirror and rubbing his nose.
Schellenberg looked handsome and rested. Oh to be young again, thought Coco with a fierce yearning. If she were still in her thirties, it wouldn’t matter that she hadn’t slept or washed, that the powder she’d applied over her stale layer of makeup had cracked. That she had smudged mascara under her eyes. Nor would the disaster of Modellhut matter. He would still want her. Maybe he would lock the door and make love to her right there on the camp bed next to his desk, the horror of the war and all they had been through giving urgency to their passion. Her imaginings helped distract from her fear.
“You’ve gotten in way over your head, Mademoiselle Chanel.” Schellenberg’s voice drew Coco out of her fantasy, back to harsh reality. “I was wrong to trust you, but what’s done is done. The important thing is that no one knows, that you never speak of it.” He stood and walked around his desk, signaling that he had nothing left to say. “The mission never happened. Do you understand?”
“Clearly,” said Coco. She’d come all this way just to be scolded like a naughty child. She shivered with humiliation.
“Good day,” said Schellenberg, extending his hand to Coco and nodding his head with an elaborate politeness that hid his glacial disdain. “Have a safe trip home.”
* * *
A few nights after Coco returned from Berlin, Spatz took her to Bignon’s for dinner. Their usual waiter was absent, and they enjoyed a pleasant evening free of his hovering presence. As they left the restaurant, a gaggle of Nazi officers entered, talking loudly as they stomped snow from their boots. Coco and Spatz stepped into a waiting Mercedes, but they’d traveled only a few blocks when a cavalcade of police cars with lights flashing and sirens wailing sped past them toward Bignon’s.
The next morning, they read in the papers that a group of Resistance fighters had burst into the restaurant soon after Coco and Spatz left. When the Resisters began shooting, the Germans returned fire. In the end, the death toll was twelve: four Nazi officers, three Resisters, and five innocent French citizens shot in the cross fire, including a young couple and their three-year-old daughter.
* * *
A week later, Bignon’s reopened, but Coco refused to dine there again. “It’s cursed,” she told Spatz. “Besides, I never liked the food.”
The Germans retaliated by executing twenty of the hundreds of Resisters being held at Drancy—five Resisters for every Nazi killed at Bignon’s—lining them up in the courtyard at dawn and shooting them down. The Resistance struck back with more violence still. One morning, Coco walked out of the Ritz to find the body of a German soldier lying in the street, his uniform soaked in his own blood. After that, she refused to leave the hotel.
“People shouldn’t live like this,” Coco complained to Spatz.
“Then don’t,” said Spatz.
“You don’t hear the bombs going off? The guns? The city is a battlefield.”
Coco remained cooped up for weeks, spending long hours on the phone with Misia, the two women griping to each other about the Germans, the French, the state of the world. Her boredom was broken one day in January 1944, when Cocteau stopped by the Ritz. “I need you,” he said. “I’m reviving my Antigone at the Paris Opera, and I want you to design the costumes.”
