Coco at the Ritz, page 23
Coco hesitated. How much did these salauds know about her? “Spatz liked the food. But we stopped going after that awful shooting incident—four French citizens killed and a baby girl!”
Coco detected the Interrogator’s lips quiver slightly under his mustache.
“Four Nazi officers eliminated,” he said.
Coco shook her head. “I hate violence.”
The Interrogator glared at her a moment, then moved on. “You have a house in the country. You could have stayed there.”
“Where did you spend the war? Here in Paris, like me?”
“Please answer the question,” the Interrogator persisted.
“I had a very good reason for staying in Paris. I was working hard to have my nephew released from a German prison. Spatz helped me. He notified German officials on my behalf, and we managed to secure André’s freedom. Otherwise, he would have died.”
“Your nephew was released two years ago, and still you stayed with your Nazi at the Ritz.”
Coco didn’t respond, but glanced at the boy scribbling notes, his head bent over his notebook, one beefy forearm lying at an angle on the table, his thick wrist and fingers as white and smooth as a baby’s. He looked nothing like her nephew, who, like all the Chanels, was dark, short, and slender-limbed. Yet there was something in the boy’s expression, an innocence and gentleness, that recalled André.
“Young man,” said Coco, nodding toward the boy.
He looked up.
“You remind me of my nephew. He’s left-handed, too. A good boy, as I’m sure you are.”
The boy glanced nervously at Coco, while the Interrogator leaned back in his chair and regarded her carefully. “A very touching observation,” he said. He continued to stare, studying Coco’s face. She had the feeling he kept waiting for her to do something or say something—some kind of acknowledgment or confession. But she was a hard stone no one could crack. She’d made sure of that.
Coco removed a slip of paper from her purse and laid it on the table in front of the Interrogator. “That’s Churchill’s private line,” she said, nodding toward the paper.
The Interrogator sat motionless with his arms crossed over his chest.
“This is ridiculous,” said Coco. She lunged for the phone, grabbed the receiver, and held it out defiantly. “Call Churchill. Ask him about me.”
The Interrogator took the receiver from Coco and replaced it. “Sit,” he commanded.
Coco hesitated, then dropped into her chair. “Please call Churchill. He’ll put an end to this wicked farce.”
The Interrogator regarded Coco with smug authority. “I don’t think Churchill can help you now.”
“You think I was pampered by the Germans?” Coco said sharply. “Because of Spatz? Because they let me live at the Ritz? Well, you’re wrong. They took my suite away and stuck me in a pair of maid’s rooms. And that’s where I stayed.”
The Interrogator scowled. “Still, the Nazis were going to help you reopen your fashion house. You were dying to go back in business with the Germans.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Really?” The Interrogator reached in a file and pulled out a yellowing copy of Ce Soir with the article about Coco’s relaunch. “What do you make of this?” He handed the clipping to Coco.
She glanced at it for a moment and handed it back. “I remember that story. I did think about reopening. The Germans were pressuring me, and I didn’t feel I could out and out turn them down.”
“You were willing to do business with the Nazis when you knew they were butchering Frenchmen?”
“I never met a dress that committed murder.”
“You’re rich. You didn’t need the money.”
“I’m not as rich as everyone thinks. Anyway, I never did reopen my house.”
The Interrogator returned the clipping to his file, carefully arranging it in place, as if he had all the time in the world. After a while, he said, “But you did work with the Germans. You designed costumes last January for the Paris Opera’s revival of Antigone—a production approved by the Nazis.”
“Antigone was about an act of resistance! Which you’d know, if you’d paid attention in school.”
“I’m well aware of the symbolism of Antigone.”
“Then I don’t have to tell you Antigone is a heroine, a brave girl who defies authority. She’s willing to die for her beliefs.” Coco drew herself up dramatically and recited from memory a line of the play. “I can say no to anything I think vile, and I don’t have to count the cost.” She continued. “It’s a play I know well. I designed costumes for the 1922 production at the Théâtre de l’Atelier. And my costumes got more attention than Picasso’s set or Cocteau’s direction, I’ll tell you that!”
“You could have said no to the Nazis,” the Interrogator argued. “You didn’t need to work with them.”
“It’s very easy now, when the war is ending, to act brave and tough,” Coco said. “But even just a few months ago, no one would refuse the Nazis unless they wanted to die.”
The Interrogator stood abruptly. “Come with me. I want to show you something.” He took Coco firmly by the arm and led her to the window. She looked out to the square below. Men wearing FFI armbands and rifles slung over their shoulders stood in small groups smoking and chatting. One had his foot on the empty chair where a half hour before a young woman had sat while her hair was shorn. Fluffy brown and blond clumps cluttered the ground. Coco thought of the little piles of fabric scraps that collected every day under the worktables in her atelier. The youngest of her workers, the adolescent apprentices, would sweep the scraps from the floor. The next morning, the snipping would start again, a cutting away that created beauty from disorder, unlike this barbaric shearing, which only added to the chaos of Paris.
“Within an hour, four women like you will be brought here for punishment,” the Interrogator said. “A shopgirl from the rue du Bac, the concierge at the Hôtel des Marronniers, the cashier in the glove department at Galeries Lafayette, and the wife of a pharmacist who had a child by her German lover.”
“You give haircuts more than once a day?” Coco said, jerking her arm free.
“France has a lot to avenge,” said the Interrogator.
“On poor, helpless girls. Yes, avenge yourself on them.”
“You’re hardly a girl.”
Coco glared at him. He was trying to goad her into an outburst. She fought to control herself and said carefully, “I’m Coco Chanel. France knows me. You can’t put me up as a spectacle.”
“Let the citizens of Paris see you for what you are. It’s important for the nation to know that it’s been betrayed by some of its most famous celebrities. You won’t feel so arrogant after I parade you up and down rue Cambon with a shorn head. Your perfume customers will know what you’ve done, and Chanel No. 5 will start to stink to high heaven. It will be so worthless you might as well dump it all in the Seine.”
Coco turned and strode back to her chair. She lit a cigarette with shaking hands. “I bet you spent the past four years hiding in the woods, while the Germans tromped all over France!”
The Interrogator resettled himself behind the table without responding. Growing more frantic, Coco continued. “What do you want from me?”
“To start, tell us where von Dincklage is.”
“I’ve already told you, I don’t know.” Coco sighed deeply. “What else do you want?”
The Interrogator paused before responding. “Admit what you’ve done. You’ve collaborated with the enemy of France. You have aided the Nazis and supported their vicious cause to your advantage. You have used your fame and money to live in comfort while millions of your fellow citizens suffered. You have committed outrageous treason against your country and its people.” He leaned forward while Coco recoiled. “Admit your guilt.”
Coco couldn’t breathe. The air had been sucked out of the room and now the walls were closing in. She looked at the floor for a moment and closed her eyes, summoning the strength of will that she knew was within her, the hard determination that had gotten her through every crisis of her life so far. She opened her eyes, and when she raised her head and saw the Interrogator’s stony face with its ludicrous mustache, she knew how to respond. “Who are you to judge me?” she said in a firm voice. “Your pals in the Resistance did much more damage than I ever did. Look at the innocent people who died whenever they derailed a train or shot up a restaurant.”
The Interrogator drew himself up proudly. “I’d rather sacrifice a few innocents and die myself to end Nazi rule.”
Coco eyed him coldly. “Most people want to live no matter who rules.”
“If you’re not fighting the Nazis with every breath, you’re one of them.”
“You’d imprison the doctors who treated German children?”
“Yes.”
“The bakers who sold the Germans bread?”
“Yes.”
“And beggars who accepted coins from Nazi officers?”
“Yes.”
“Even beggars need to eat.”
The Interrogator picked up the scissors lying next to his files, and as he distractedly fingered the handles, the sharp tips pointed toward Coco. “Collaboration or resistance. That’s what it comes down to in the end for all of us.”
“You’d condemn an entire nation?”
“Not the ones who were deported.”
Coco crushed her cigarette on the floor and made her voice steady. “Would you use those scissors on the Mona Lisa? You wouldn’t, would you? Because she’s a national treasure. Well, I’m as valuable to France as da Vinci’s masterpiece.”
“Because you’ve helped some rich women get dressed?” The Interrogator took a deep breath and, loosening his grip, let the scissors fall to the table.
“Everyone has to wear clothes.”
“Not six-thousand-franc dresses.”
Coco turned to the boy. He’d been writing furiously in his notebook, but he hadn’t yet said a word. “Young man,” Coco asked, “if you could afford it, what would you drink—champagne or table wine?”
The boy lifted his head and looked at her with wide eyes. “Champagne!”
“So, you can talk.”
The boy’s face brightened. “We always had champagne around the house. My uncle is a wine broker. He saved the cellars at Clos de Varlet from the Germans. Also Château René Chasse.”
The Interrogator rapped his hand on the table. “That’s enough, Raoul.”
Sensing an opportunity, Coco pressed. “How exactly did he save the wine—by drinking it?”
The boy’s expression fell, his round white face turning red. He was like a child, with a child’s inability to mask his emotions.
At that moment the big black phone rang, and the Interrogator picked up the receiver. “I’m in the middle of—Give me a minute.” He hung up and shot a pointed look at the boy. “I’ll be right back. Keep an eye on her—and don’t talk!”
The Interrogator left the room, shutting the door behind him with a hostile click.
Coco lit another cigarette. Her mouth was getting dry from all the smoking. She cleared her throat. “So your uncle was a wine broker,” she said.
“He dealt with all the best Paris hotels and restaurants.”
Coco let her eyes wander from his frayed shirt cuffs to his cheap cotton pants. “You must be from the poor side of the family.”
“The Lebel family isn’t rich, but we’re proud.”
Coco cocked her head. “Is your uncle Lebel, too? Antoine Lebel?”
“Yes.” The boy looked at the floor, his voice a whisper.
Coco smiled slyly, pleased with herself. “I know Uncle Antoine. He sold wine at the Ritz.”
“He’s a hero.” The boy scowled at Coco.
“He kept the wine flowing throughout the war in the Ritz dining room, all les grands crus. Your uncle Antoine also kept a very nice car, a gleaming, custom-built Hispano Suiza. I noticed it parked outside. Hard to miss that car.”
“He bought two Jewish wine châteaux so he could save them for their owners and return them after the war.”
“He didn’t buy them so he could do business with the enemy?”
“Never! He saved the best wines for the French. He gave the Germans duds.”
“You call the Château Ausone’s Bordeaux a dud? Or the Château Lafleur Pomerol? I saw a lot of those bottles on the tables of German officers. Uncle Antoine dined every week with the weinführer. They’d walk arm-in-arm through the lobby.”
The boy hesitated, then blurted, “He was putting on an act, pretending to be the Germans’ friend.”
“It’s all right. You’re not your uncle,” said Coco in a gentle tone. “A nice man, by the way. Very cultivated. Speaks English and German beautifully.”
“I would never speak German,” said the boy. “I’m a Resistant of the first hour! I joined before Serge!”
Coco looked toward the door. “Serge—is that the name of your colleague?”
The boy nodded.
“Is he your boss?”
“I’m his assistant.”
Coco made a small show out of considering this information. “So, as you were saying, Raoul, even though you are Serge’s assistant, you joined the Resistance before he did.”
“A couple of years ago, my best friend was arrested for refusing to sell tobacco to a German soldier at his parents’ shop. When they took him to the Field Kommandant for questioning, I was waiting by the side of the road, so I could give him a basket of food my mother had prepared. His face had been beaten to a pulp. His eyes looked like blue-and-black balls. Ever since—”
The door swung open, and the Interrogator returned. “They’ve got two of the women, and they’re waiting for two more,” he said.
The boy shifted nervously in his seat. “Did you see the major?”
“No.”
The Interrogator looked back and forth at Coco and the boy. “What’s this?”
Coco smiled at the boy, and his face flushed. “Nothing. Your little deputy is a good soldier.”
The Interrogator started rummaging through some file boxes on the floor. When he couldn’t find what he wanted, he stepped into the hall, where more boxes were stacked.
“My uncle despised the Nazis,” the boy whispered. “He loaned his car to the Resistance to transport weapons. He saved the Rothschild’s wine cellar. We have a letter from Baron Philippe of Château Mouton-Rothschild.”
Coco cocked her head toward the door. “Is your boss investigating Uncle Antoine, too? No special dispensation for friends and family?”
“He will be cleared.”
“If they can find him. He’s disappeared, no? I haven’t seen him around since the Liberation. Where is he? Hiding in one of those Jewish wine cellars he bought?”
“My uncle is not a traitor.” The boy’s lower lip puckered out.
“Maybe I can help,” said Coco.
The boy gaped at her. He seemed so young, still an adolescent barely out of short pants. “How?” he asked.
“Charlie Ritz, who owns the hotel, is a good friend of mine. He can keep Uncle Antoine safe until this madness blows over. I’ll talk to him.”
“Talk to who?” asked the Interrogator, reentering the room with a sheaf of papers.
“You. I’m afraid this boy has confessed that he’s not very good at taking notes.”
The Interrogator glared at the boy. “I told you, Raoul, no talking. Do you want me to throw you out?”
“Why are you employing children?” Coco asked.
“He’s old enough.”
“For what? To play at policeman, jury, and judge?”
“To judge you, yes, on your anti-Semitism.”
“What?”
“You deny that you’re an anti-Semite?”
“Where are you getting this information?”
The Interrogator stroked his mustache with his left index finger and thumb as he read through the papers he’d just brought in. When he found what he was looking for, he said to Coco, “At a dinner party at the home of Misia Sert you went into a long diatribe against the Jews, though a member of the Jewish Rothschild family was present.”
“Who told you that?” Coco recalled how she’d gotten carried away that night. Even Spatz thought she was out of line. She wondered which of the guests had spoken against her to the FFI.
The Interrogator looked amused at what he was finding in the file. “Apparently, you made quite a scene, ranting about the Jewish furrier you claimed had been cheating you since you started your business.”
“He was a crook.”
“Given your anti-Semitism, I’m not surprised you lived with a German.”
“I have many Jewish friends, many…” Coco stumbled briefly. “The playwright Henri Bernstein. Max Jacob…”
“Jacob, the poet?”
“We were very close.” Coco stared into the Interrogator’s dark eyes. “I’m not anti-Semitic. I’m anti–whomever is annoying me at the moment.”
The Interrogator abruptly turned away to sift through his box of files. He pulled out folders, perusing the documents inside, and then returned the folders to the box. It seemed he was forever searching through his documents. Coco watched his expressionless face. He was just like any other dour, self-important Frenchman, she thought. He looked almost familiar.
Did he know about Modellhut? Were there any records of her trips to Berlin? Did he have copies? After several minutes of silence, Coco reached for her packet of correspondence from Churchill. It still sat tied with a pink grosgrain ribbon on the table in front of her. If the Interrogator was going to delve into his evidence, she would delve into hers.
As Coco began reading through her letters, the Interrogator glanced up. He regarded her for a moment, then, seemingly uninterested in what Coco was doing, returned to digging through his files. Coco scanned several letters, mostly short, all typewritten and probably dictated to Churchill’s secretary. Then she came across one that was handwritten on thick ivory paper. Churchill’s elegant, slanted handwriting suddenly struck her as odd, a contrast to his bloated, blustery self. From the embossed heading, Coco saw that this letter came from Château Woolsack, one of the Duke of Westminster’s hunting estates in the Aquitaine. Coco slid the letter across the table toward the Interrogator. “Here’s one you should see,” she said.
