Coco at the Ritz, page 26
Pelissier turned to gaze out the window. He sighed deeply. When he looked again at Coco, his face blazed with disgust. “You spent the war with a German spy!”
Coco looked at her hands folded in her lap and let her mind drift out of the interrogation room. She wondered where Spatz was, what he was doing. Had he reached the border yet? Would he be in touch soon? She imagined them together at the Beau Rivage Hotel in Lausanne, in a room on the top floor overlooking the lake. She fought to hold on to that vision, as an image of Spatz huddled in the corner of a prison cell with captured German soldiers filled her head.
Pelissier’s voice brought her back to the present. “Spatz was perfect spy material with his charm and fluency in four languages,” said Pelissier. “In Berlin he’d been trained in the finer points of spy craft. He’d learned to be empathetic, observant, enterprising, and secretive, and he soon warmed to his role. Espionage had its dangers, but it was better than being shot at on the battlefield.”
Coco lifted her gaze and forced her voice to sound firm, confident. “Do you have your car? Can you take me home?”
She knew Pelissier wasn’t there to help her, but if she willed him to have pity on her, if she applied the force of her ferocious strength of mind, he would save her. Perhaps.
Pelissier ignored her request. “Ordinarily, I don’t fault a woman for falling in love, for being in the grip of a passion that leads her to act foolishly. I might even forgive her vile politics, especially if she’s been manipulated by a lover. And I might—under certain circumstances—even excuse a woman’s opportunism.”
Coco scowled at the Interrogator. “He wouldn’t. You saw how he attacked me. He’s bullied and threatened me all morning.”
Pelissier stood in front of the table, making his body a barrier between Coco and her accuser. “You think I should arrest him and forgive you?”
“We’ve all suffered these past four years. We’ve all been forced to do things we didn’t want to do.”
The Interrogator snorted loudly. “Like spy for the Nazis in Madrid.”
Pelissier wheeled to face him with a stern frown. “Serge!”
“Like murder innocent people!” Coco cried.
“A sacrifice for France!”
“Enough!” Pelissier straightened his tie. He walked to the window, wiped the sill with his hand, and leaned against it as he addressed Coco. “You were fond of Max Jacob?”
“Max?” Coco said breathlessly. “We were close friends.”
“Did you think that because Max was a Jew he deserved to die?”
“Of course not!”
“Max Jacob liked to play the clown. So many people mocked him to his face. But he was a talented writer. Your friend Jean Cocteau thinks Max’s best poems surpass those of Apollinaire.”
“Max was nuts. So are a lot of writers.”
Pelissier held his hand out to the Interrogator. “Do you have the Jacob letter?”
The Interrogator pulled a wrinkled piece of notebook paper from one of his files and gave it to Pelissier.
“After he was arrested by the Gestapo last February, Jacob wrote to you,” Pelissier said. “One of our men got it from your maid.” He smiled at the Interrogator.
“You could have asked me, and I would have given it to you myself. I have many letters from Max,” Coco said.
Pelissier held the letter out to Coco at arm’s length, as if she had vicious germs he didn’t want to catch. “Read it,” he said.
Coco took the piece of paper and skimmed it quickly. “I remember this,” she said, handing it back to Pelissier.
“What did you do for him?” he asked.
“After Max had been arrested, there was nothing I could do. There were lines you couldn’t cross.”
“Your Nazi lover wouldn’t have approved?”
“I did what I could.”
“Then why didn’t you sign the petition Cocteau gave you for Max’s release?”
“What petition?”
Pelissier strode to Coco’s chair and peered into her face. “Your lies stop here, Coco. You know exactly what petition.”
Coco shifted nervously. “Ask Picasso why he didn’t sign it.”
“I’m asking you. Jean Cocteau told me he urged you, he pleaded. Did you think he wouldn’t talk? He’s the biggest gossip in Paris.”
“I could tell you a few things about Jean Cocteau. He wanted to marry me. There were rumors that he had! He thought I could cure him of his homosexuality as well as his drug addiction. He had more German friends than anyone. Every week he had lunch at the German Institute and got a hard-on for all the handsome Nazis in their black leather boots.”
Pelissier narrowed his eyes and pointed at Coco with a long, pale finger. “I’ll tell you why you didn’t sign—you didn’t want the Nazis to think you had even one shred of sympathy for a Jewish friend.”
“Nonsense. I would have, but Spatz was watching me.…”
“While Cocteau circulated a new petition, Max grew weaker and weaker.”
Coco felt Pelissier’s words like a blow to her stomach, and she lashed out. “And what did you do?” Nodding toward the Interrogator and the boy, she said, “You let them do the dirty work while you sat out the war at your wife’s estate.”
Pelissier ignored her, as he would an outburst from a witness he was cross-examining in a real courtroom, during a real trial. “Max begged, and you turned your back. It would have cost you nothing, but you wouldn’t even sign a petition.”
“I wanted to sign it. After Cocteau gave it to me, I hid it, so I could sign it after Spatz left.” Coco’s voice rose. “But he found it and ripped it up!”
“You expect me to believe that?” said Pelissier.
“It’s the truth.” Coco felt a hot wave of shame turning her face red. I could have done more, she thought. I could have sent for Cocteau, or gone to his rooms to sign the new petition. What is wrong with me? Why did I do nothing?
The major nodded toward the Interrogator and the boy. “These men brought you in for your traitorous collaboration with the enemy—for spying for your German lover and for denouncing your business partner to the Gestapo. That’s bad, but maybe you have excuses, maybe you can cobble together an explanation of sorts.” Pelissier paused and let his contempt settle over Coco. “But you wouldn’t even pick up a pen; you wouldn’t take the slightest risk to help your friend, a man who had stood by you all those years, who adored you. You wouldn’t even sign your name.” As Pelissier spoke, he picked up the Interrogator’s scissors and gripped them angrily. “We are done talking.”
Turning to the Interrogator, he said, “Have the women in the square released. Their neighbors will take care of them.” He loosened his grip, and the scissors dropped to the table. He strode across the room and opened the door. “As for her”—he jabbed his thumb at Coco—“do what you want.”
The door slammed behind him. The Interrogator and Coco stared hard at each other, their eyes burrowing, as though whoever could stare the longest without blinking would be redeemed from sin, washed clean of all unspeakable acts, all unimaginable tragedy. The Interrogator’s gaze broke first. He turned to the boy and cocked his head in Coco’s direction. The boy pulled Coco to her feet, gripping her arm. She staggered forward toward the table and struggled to sound brave. “What will you do with me?”
“First a haircut,” said the Interrogator. “After, we’ll parade you around the Place Vendôme and maybe the Ritz lobby. Then you can stand in front of your boutique until dark. You’ll spend the night here, in the Conciergerie, with murderers and thieves. Tomorrow you’ll go to the prison at Fresnes.”
As the Interrogator reached across the table for the scissors, Coco lunged forward and grabbed them. She held them up to the naked lightbulb suspended from the ceiling and regarded them as if they were a magical talisman. “Every day from morning until night for twenty-five years I wore scissors like these dangling from a ribbon around my neck,” she said quietly. “Only when I removed the ribbon with the scissors did my staff know we were finished for the day. As long as I had my scissors, my power was safe. My scissors were my weapon against my enemies, all those who wanted me to fail.”
The Interrogator held out his arm and made a cup of his fingers. “Give me the scissors,” he said.
Coco stood erect, defiantly clutching the scissors. “I’m keeping them. I can always use another pair. When I reopen my house, I’ll use them to cut away some annoying threads and think of you. Because I will reopen someday.”
“Give me the scissors.”
“In 1918, I was the first woman in Paris to cut my hair off. People were shocked. But I didn’t need it. A woman’s brain is her most alluring asset.”
Coco’s eyes were fixed on the Interrogator, her jaw was set, and every fiber in her body tensed. “I’ll save you the trouble.”
She lifted a lock of her dark hair, pulled it straight, and snipped it off at the gray root. She grabbed another chunk of hair and snipped again, then another and another, grabbing and snipping, grabbing and snipping. As the hair fell around her, she kept hacking away at her scalp. Coco hadn’t been to confession since she was a charity ward in convent school, but now she felt compelled, not to confess exactly, but to explain away her sin. “I saw my mother die when I was twelve in the flophouse where she cooked and cleaned. I was raised by nuns who didn’t give a damn about me. I fed on deprivation and anguish, and it made me strong!”
Her face was a smear of guilt and sorrow. Tears welled up in her eyes as she chopped her hair. The room was silent except for the sharp click of scissors.
Then the phone rang, a shrieking alarm. Coco, the Interrogator, and the boy all stared at it. Finally, the Interrogator lifted the receiver. “Yes?” As he listened, his face darkened. “No,” he said. “No… I don’t know.” He slammed the phone down and fell back into his chair. Barely containing his fury, he turned to Coco. “You can go.”
“What?” She couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly.
The Interrogator looked at the ground and sighed heavily.
“Was that Churchill?” Coco demanded.
“I said you can go.”
“Winston was on the phone, and you didn’t let me speak to him? What did he say? Who was it? His secretary? Someone else?” Coco flung the scissors on the table. Her body felt cold and her legs were on the verge of collapsing, but her faith in herself was returning. She wasn’t surprised. She had always believed she would survive. If she wanted something enough, she would get it.
“I told you, and you didn’t believe me!” Coco shouted at the Interrogator. “Well, now you know whom you’re dealing with, who you had the colossal nerve to arrest. You put me through this ordeal for what? You think you’re so smart. Well, I’m smarter. When the doorbell rang this morning, I knew it was you. I have a sixth sense about these things. I wasn’t going to hide in the closet or jump out a window. I told the manager of my boutique to call Churchill.”
The Interrogator silently gathered his files and documents and scooped the pile—with the scissors on top—into his arms. The boy opened the door for him. Before stepping into the hall, the Interrogator turned to Coco. “If I were you, I wouldn’t stay in Paris. Down there in the streets, it’s open season on collaborators.”
“Do you think I want to stay with the city in those hands,” she said to the boy, after the Interrogator had left. Her tone turned mocking. “French Forces of the Interior. FFI. Fifis, that’s what they are, little terrorist poodles. The Germans emasculated them, and what do they do? Attack the easiest targets—poor, powerless women. Wait ’til their precious de Gaulle finds out what they’ve been up to. He’d cut off their balls, if they had any.”
Coco grabbed the picture of herself and Churchill, her letters and the bottle of Chanel No. 5 off the table, and dropped them in her purse. “I’m not a nice woman. Too bad. But I’ve done more good in my life than bad. It’s true. Don’t look so shocked.” She smoothed her skirt and arranged her face into a neutral expression as she spoke to the boy. “Do you have anything besides that jeep your friends brought me in?”
He stared at her, a look of disbelief on his face.
Coco sighed. “All right, you can take me back to the Ritz in that.”
When the boy failed to move, Coco snapped at him. “You’ve got something better to do this afternoon? Someone else to torture? I thought you wanted my help to save your uncle?”
“I don’t want anything from you,” said the boy.
“If you won’t drive me yourself, at least call a taxi. You’re capable of that, aren’t you?”
The boy glowered at Coco, and she realized he wasn’t going to help her. She reached for the phone. With one violent jerk, the boy snatched it away and ripped it out of the wall. He stared at Coco a moment, then, carrying the phone, walked past her and out the door, slamming it behind him.
Coco stood for a moment, staring at the blank door. Then she began to pull herself together. She took a mirror from her purse and checked herself, scowling at her hacked hair. She donned her hat, careful to cover the bald spots on her scalp. She applied her lipstick. When she was done, she replaced the lipstick and mirror in her purse and carefully pulled on her gloves. From the handbag draped in the crook of her arm, she removed the bottle of Chanel No. 5. Slowly and ritualistically, she dabbed perfume behind her ears and inside her wrists. Then she sprayed a silver ring of mist around herself and walked through it, as she made her way to the door.
* * *
Outside the Prefecture of Police, tricolors hung from the surrounding balconies. Tinny strains of the Marseillaise wafted from an invisible band shell in a park across the Seine. Bicycles clogged the street, slowing to a crawl a single car headed north on rue de Lutèce. Coco clutched her purse with one gloved hand, while she waved furiously to hail a taxi. She waited more than an hour for a cab to drive by and pick her up.
As soon as she entered her suite at the Ritz, she yelled at her maid to start packing. Then she phoned her boutique. “Did you call Churchill?” she asked the manager.
“Oh, Mademoiselle, I called the number you gave me and left a message for the prime minister. I don’t know if he got it, but thank God, you’re free! I was so worried,” the woman said.
Coco hung up the phone. She paused with her hand on the receiver and wondered.
A moment later, she called her driver. “Get my car out of the garage. Make sure you’ve got gas. We leave for Switzerland tonight.”
In the next room, Coco heard her maid banging drawers and pulling suitcases from the closet. She would not give up these rooms, humble as they were. She called Charlie Ritz and told him she’d be away for a while, but to keep her suite ready for her at all times with fresh linen and wood for a fire. She would pay the bill for a year’s rent before she left.
When she hung up the phone, she started to cry. She lit a cigarette, but it failed to calm her. Puffing furiously, smoke enveloped her in a foul cloud of gloom that drew her back to her childhood. She was alone in the dark again on her cot at the convent. Her mother was dead, and she would never see her father again. No one loved her. She was a horrid little girl, and she grew up to be a horrid woman.
Unlocking the bottom drawer of her desk, she pulled out a syringe and a vial of morphine. Carefully, so as not to spill any and waste her supply, she filled the vial halfway. Leaning back against the chair cushion, she placed the syringe in a fat blue vein of her left forearm, injecting just enough poison to obliterate her shame.
* * *
Across the street, in Coco’s boutique at 31 rue Cambon, the vendeuse Angeline was giving away Chanel No. 5.
An American soldier, one of thousands, would return home with a bottle in his rucksack. He would give it to his mother, and whenever she wore the perfume, as she would every day for the rest of her life, replacing this bottle many times over the years, she would think of the miracle of her son’s return.
And this is how we forget. With each drop of golden scent. The golden scent of treasured life. The golden scent that masks the dishonor of the world.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Coco at the Ritz is a novel, though it is based on true events. In writing my story, I’ve tried not to contradict the known facts, though I’ve invented many details and the characters of the Interrogator, his assistant, and the major. The other main characters are based on real people.
Myriad books have been written about Coco Chanel, but almost nothing is known about her arrest and interrogation by the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) in late August or early September 1944—the various accounts of her life differ on the date. What is certain is that one morning two soldiers from the FFI, the loose band of Resistance fighters, soldiers, and private citizens who took up arms in the wake of the liberation of Paris, led Chanel from her suite at the Ritz Hotel in Paris to an undisclosed location for questioning and released her unharmed a short time later. What transpired during her interrogation, who was present, and why she was set free when so many other women who’d been involved with German men had their heads shaved or were imprisoned, remains a mystery. Chanel never discussed it, and there is no documentation of her interrogation, as there would have been in an official court proceeding.
I first became intrigued by this story while researching Chanel’s life for my 2006 novel The Collection, set in Chanel’s atelier in 1919 in the aftermath of the First World War. Her biographies rarely give a clear picture of her life during the Occupation, and her arrest is barely mentioned, owing no doubt to the scant record. I wanted to know more, and two details I discovered on a trip to Paris in 2007 set me on a course toward writing this book. The first I found at a museum near Montparnasse honoring the Resistance hero Jean Moulin. On a wall display of front pages from the Nazi-controlled press, an article about Chanel’s plans to reopen her fashion house under German rule jumped out at me. (Of course, she never did.) The other was a footnote in a book I was looking through of Max Jacob’s poetry. Even with my poor command of French, I clearly understood the simple note, translated roughly as “People say Chanel refused to sign Jacob’s petition.” Along with several other celebrated friends of the poet’s, including Pablo Picasso, Chanel did not sign the document Jean Cocteau circulated calling for Jacob’s release from Gestapo custody.
