Coco at the Ritz, page 5
“Here, let me help you,” said Spatz, stepping forward. He palmed two fistfuls of chiffon, releasing a space for Coco to move. She spun around and around until the fabric was puddled on the floor, and she was facing Spatz. “I feel like the luckiest man in Paris tonight to be here with you,” he said. With his right index finger, he tucked a strand of dark hair behind Coco’s ear and leaned in to kiss her. Then, taking her by the hand, he led her to the bedroom and closed the door.
THREE
I hear you’re sleeping with the enemy,” said Misia Sert over the telephone two weeks later. Misia was Coco’s best friend. A faded beauty with failing eyesight, she knew everyone who was anyone in Paris, stretching back to the Belle Epoque.
“He’s not the enemy,” Coco snapped.
“He’s German, isn’t he?”
“His mother is English. If you met him, you’d like him.”
“We’ll see. Bring him to lunch.” Misia hung up the phone with a loud click.
Coco had tried to keep her affair with Spatz secret, but one evening at the end of August Jean Cocteau, Coco’s other best friend, happened to be walking up rue Cambon and saw her exit the back entrance of the Ritz arm-in-arm with Spatz. Cocteau put two and two together and immediately called Misia to tell her about Coco’s elegant German.
By then Coco and Spatz had become a couple, sleeping together nearly every night at the Ritz and dining together, mostly in Coco’s apartment above her boutique. Her heart melted with love and longing at the sight of him, and the most exciting thing was, he desired her. She no longer felt old. She felt young and alluring, as at the start of her career, when men—famous men!—like Igor Stravinsky and Crown Prince Dimitri of Russia fell all over themselves to court her. “Mein schöner liebling,” Spatz had whispered in her ear that first afternoon they’d made love. She asked him not to speak German in bed. “Ma belle, mon amour,” he’d said, his cheek brushing hers. “No, not French, either,” she’d insisted. “English, please.”
“Very well, my love,” he’d answered.
In English pillow talk with Spatz, Coco smothered the truth of her German lover, as she smothered so many other truths.
Coco’s spoken English was rough, but she understood everything that was said in the language. When Spatz spoke English, she could fool herself that he really was English, like his English mother and like the great love of her life, Boy Capel. Oh, her life had been sweet in those days. Boy believed in her and encouraged her ambitions. She remembered his first present to her: a white silk gown by Lanvin. He’d given it to her not to wear, but to take apart so she could study its construction.
Spatz, too, understood her need to create. Fashion was her canvas, her blank page. That was why he’d brought her that exquisite bolt of silk chiffon.
At one o’clock Coco and Spatz ducked into a sleek Mercedes waiting with a driver in front of the Ritz. The city felt almost dead, the streets nearly empty. A few cyclists pedaled along. Occasionally, a car whizzed past. The café on the corner where Coco had often taken lunch in her working days had a lone table of customers, three young women sitting with two German officers. Loudspeakers set up in the Tuileries blared treacly Viennese waltzes. A huge “V” hung off the entrance to the Louvre and a banner announced “Deutschland Siegt An Allen Fronten,” Germany victorious on all fronts.
It was still Paris, still tall and luminous, with the bridges arched gracefully over the Seine, and the light the exact shade of soft gold as in a painting by Monet. But something strange and horrible hung in the air. It was as if all the molecules of the city had been smashed and put back together, but without the true heart and soul of Paris.
The Mercedes stopped at a red light. A few pedestrians scurried past the windshield. One did not. A gray-haired woman in her sixties peering into the car recognized Coco and planted herself in the middle of the street, her eyes darting madly from the German soldier driving the car to Coco and back to the soldier. “Who is that?” asked Spatz.
“She looks familiar. A seamstress who once worked for me, I think.” But Coco had seen scores of seamstresses come and go over the years, and she couldn’t be sure.
The light changed. As the Mercedes lurched forward, the woman spat at the car, then picked up a rock and flung it at Coco’s window. She heard the jagged chimes of breaking glass, as Spatz pushed her head down with the palm of his hand. “Scheize,” he said.
Coco watched the woman dart up the street on thick veiny legs. She hadn’t gotten very far when the driver screeched the Mercedes to a halt. He pulled a gun from a holster on his belt and started for the door handle. Spatz stopped him with a hand on the driver’s shoulder. “Let it go,” he said.
The car moved forward, and Coco felt a sharp stinging in her right cheek. “My God, you’ve been cut!” exclaimed Spatz.
Coco put her fingers to her face, and when she took them away, she saw they were covered with blood. Spatz dabbed his handkerchief on the wound. “It’s just a surface cut—nothing serious,” he said. For the rest of the trip, he pressed his handkerchief to Coco’s face, and by the time they arrived at Misia’s, the cut had stopped bleeding.
“Misia’s blind, and Cocteau’s so self-absorbed he probably won’t notice,” said Coco, as she inspected her face in her compact mirror and applied a heavy layer of powder to the angry red line on her cheek. She clicked her compact shut and took a deep breath. Turning to Spatz, she whispered, “Please, from now on, let’s only have drivers in civilian clothes.”
* * *
At Misia’s gray stone building on rue Constantine an old iron elevator clanked them up to the third floor. In the salon, Misia lay on a burgundy brocade sofa, a beige satin comforter pulled to her chin. She had light green eyes in a flat, round face etched with fine lines. Her once glorious copper hair frizzed around her head in a dyed red nimbus. On a spindly chair next to her sat Jean Cocteau, skinny and sharp-featured with a crop of cowlicks sprouting from a mass of brown hair. Cocteau wore a dandy’s jacket pinched at the waist and a green paisley tie that matched the handkerchief triangle in his breast pocket. When Coco and Spatz entered, he jumped to his feet. “Ich bin sehr erfreut dich kennenzulernen,” Cocteau said, shaking Spatz’s hand.
“So, Jean Cocteau speaks German. It’s lovely to meet you, too,” said Spatz. He bowed slightly.
“I learned it in childhood from my governess. It’s a pleasure to be speaking it again,” said Cocteau.
“You don’t find hearing so much German unreal, as some of my French friends claim?” asked Spatz.
“Paris is unreal. But I find upheaval invigorating. It’s good for creativity.”
Misia clucked loudly. “It has the opposite effect on me. I can barely move.”
“You were always a lazy cow,” said Coco, smiling wickedly.
“Shut up,” said Misia.
Cocteau sighed and turned to Spatz with a rueful expression. “I’m sorry, Herr von Dincklage,” he said in German, so the women couldn’t understand. “I’m used to this. I’ve been listening to the bitchery of these two for decades.”
“No need to apologize,” said Spatz, also in German. Then, in French to Misia. “I’m sorry you’re not feeling well, Madame Sert.”
“I’m worried I’ll die before JoJo gets back,” said Misia in a dramatic tone.
Spatz smiled warmly. “I would have enjoyed meeting your husband. I admire his paintings.”
Coco thought of correcting Spatz but decided not to draw attention to Misia’s peculiar situation. In truth, José Maria Sert was Misia’s ex-husband. The couple had been divorced since 1927, but Misia remained in Sert’s thrall and spent as much time with him as he’d allow. At the moment he was in Madrid with his mistress.
“You’re not dying,” said Coco in an exasperated tone.
“Perhaps we should come back another time,” said Spatz.
“Misia’s fine. She just wants attention.” Coco elbowed Spatz in the ribs, and he sank into the armchair behind him.
The maid brought in trays of cold ham, potatoes, bread, and haricots verts, and they ate balancing plates on their laps. In the middle of the meal, Cocteau let out a little yelp. “Coco, your face!”
She blotted her cheek with her napkin—some blood had seeped through her powder. Spatz started to explain, but Coco interrupted him. She didn’t want to relive the frightening incident or call attention to the fact that Spatz was a German with a Nazi chauffeur. “I cut myself this morning on a ring,” she lied. “The stone had fallen out, and the sharp prongs were exposed.”
Cocteau narrowed his eyes at her. “You look pale,” he said.
“It’s just a scratch,” Coco said.
Spatz ate quickly and laid his plate on the Louis XIV table next to his chair. “I’m afraid I can’t stay for dessert. I have a meeting at the embassy,” he said. “Thank you so much, Madame Sert. Lunch was delightful.”
Spatz held out his hand to Misia, but she ignored it. Then he turned to Cocteau, who jumped up and enthusiastically clasped Spatz’s hand with both his own. “I hope I’ll see you again soon,” said Cocteau.
“I’m sure you will.” Spatz bowed to Misia and, before turning on his heel and disappearing under the arched doorway, kissed Coco on the lips. As soon as the door closed behind him, Coco glared at Misia.
“You were rude.”
“He’s very handsome, I’ll give him that,” said Misia.
“You couldn’t even lift yourself from the couch and shake his hand,” said Coco.
“My grandmother was Jewish!” cried Misia.
“Coco likes to forget unpleasant truths,” said Cocteau.
Coco gave him a vicious look. “It’s disgusting how you flirted with him.”
“He flirted with me!”
“I actually saw you bat your eyelashes! You might have been irresistible at twenty, but you’re no longer twenty.”
“Neither are you, my dear.” Cocteau smirked. “Von Dincklage looks to be quite a bit younger than you. Robbing the cradle again?”
“You’re the pederast. How old is Marais—twenty-six? And you’re over fifty.”
Jean Marais, Cocteau’s golden-haired, astonishingly handsome lover, was the most famous actor in France. Jeannot, as his intimates called him, had been discovered by Cocteau seven years earlier when he was still in acting school, and they’d been together ever since.
“Did you tell your German how old you are?” Cocteau asked in a mocking tone.
Before Coco could respond, the maid entered carrying a silver tray piled with envelopes. “The mail, madame,” she said to Misia, and placed the tray on the coffee table.
Misia went through the letters, holding each one close to her eyes to discern the name of the senders. “Look at this,” she said, handing a soiled sheet of notebook paper to Coco. It was from their friend Max Jacob, a Jewish poet who’d converted to Catholicism many years earlier and who was living near a monastery in Saint-Benoît in the unoccupied part of France. Coco donned a pair of black-framed glasses from a pocket of her jersey jacket and read out loud:
Dear Misia,
A short word to tell you that my brother-in-law, the husband of my sister, Mirté-Léa, was arrested by the Germans last week, pulled off the street in one of the Nazis’ regular round-ups. We don’t know where they’ve taken him. He is sixty-four, myopic, and in poor health owing to injuries he suffered fighting for France in the first war. That apparently was not enough to protect him. I wonder if you can send some money to my sister. I would ask Coco, but she has already sent me a check this month for my own expenses, and I don’t want to impose on her again.
Coco placed the letter on the coffee table and sighed deeply. “I’ll send him another check.”
Max Jacob was the absent musketeer in what Spatz had noted was their little band of avant-garde adventurers. Together the four friends had scaled the heights of creative Paris: Max with surrealist poetry; Cocteau with film, theater, and prose; Misia with arts patronage; and Coco with fashion. You couldn’t tell the story of one without telling the story of them all. Max never had any money, so the others—mostly Coco—helped him out when they could. In return, Max acted as their sidekick and court jester, amusing them by telling horoscopes and performing imitations. Sometimes, he was a ballet dancer pirouetting with his pants rolled up to his knees, exposing his hairy gorilla legs. Or he’d pretend to be a lady opera singer wrapped in veils and singing off-key. The clowning, though, hid Max’s deeply spiritual nature.
“I hope you think of Max when you’re in bed with your German,” Misia scolded.
“Have you forgotten? Max is a Catholic now,” said Coco in a sarcastic tone.
“You never took his conversion seriously,” said Cocteau.
“Neither did you.” Coco picked up her purse and pulled on her gloves as the maid entered with a tray of pastries. Before passing through the doorway into the entry hall, she shot Cocteau a fierce look. “You never take anything seriously.”
As soon as she returned to the Ritz, Coco opened the center drawer of her desk and removed a black leather account book. She wrote a check to Max for two thousand francs. Then, as she fumbled in the drawer for an envelope, her eyes fell on her passport. Opening it, she saw her birth year, 1883. Without thinking twice, she took a black pen and turned the second “8” into “9,” shaving ten years from her age. Now she was only three years older than Spatz, no matter what Cocteau or anyone else said.
* * *
That evening Spatz took Coco for a walk by the Seine. The river shimmered under a rosy sunset. Children cried as their parents gathered up their toys and games and led them way. Along the quay, booksellers shuttered and locked their display boxes. Couples hurried by, desperate to get home by curfew. Coco and Spatz leaned against the stone balustrade, looking out at the silvery water. “You can’t know how glad I am to be back in Paris, away from the hornet’s nest of Berlin,” said Spatz.
“Aren’t you worried they’ll forget about you here?” asked Coco.
“I’ll be glad if they forget about me. All I want is to stay here with you.” He pulled Coco close and kissed her on the mouth. “Paris is home.”
“Even with your countrymen stomping all over?” said Coco. “It’s bad enough to have German street signs and swastikas hanging off every building, but do they have to parade every day down the Champs-Élysées, in case anyone didn’t notice they’re in charge?”
“I’d prefer they weren’t here, too. Let’s pretend they’re not.” Spatz squeezed Coco’s hand. “We’ll draw a line around ourselves and not let anyone cross it.”
“Fine with me. I have a harem-woman side that loves seclusion.”
Secrets. Stolen moments. The erotic charge of forbidden love had always appealed to Coco.
“You’re my harem of one,” said Spatz. He touched the cut on Coco’s face. “It stopped bleeding. I can hardly see it.”
“Remember, you promised. No more drivers in uniform.”
“I promise.” Spatz kissed her again. “Finally, I have what I’ve always wanted—a woman of true elegance and sophistication.”
As the sky turned a deep blue, Coco and Spatz found themselves alone on the quay. The booksellers had all departed, their black boxes lining the pavement like shut coffins. “It must be curfew,” said Coco. “We should go back.”
“I have an ausweis. Let’s enjoy this. We have the city to ourselves.”
Suddenly, the bluesy notes of a trumpet rang out. “Duke Ellington,” said Spatz. “It seems to be coming from an open window in an apartment across the river.” He nodded toward the building and crooned in a clear, gentle voice, “Things you say and do, just thrill me through and through.”
It was the first time Coco had heard him sing. He had a fine voice. She admired how Spatz knew American songs and the best French wine, how he spoke several languages and dressed impeccably, how easily and comfortably he fit into her stylish world. He draped his arm across Coco’s shoulder, and she rested her head on his chest. They stood there for a few minutes in the blue moonlight and the cooling air, listening until the song ended. Then, leaving behind the river and the moon and the dying sounds of the trumpet, they started home to the Ritz.
FOUR
Coco stood on a little wooden footstool in front of the triple mirrors in her third-floor atelier, wearing a new dress made from the blue silk chiffon Spatz had brought her. It had a bodice held up with thin fabric straps and a long skirt with tiers of soft ruffles. Manon, the only seamstress Coco had kept on after closing the House of Chanel, had sewn the dress according to Coco’s instructions and now knelt on the floor next to her boss, pinning up the hem.
It was the first time in a year Coco had entered her atelier, a large square room flooded with light from the tall windows facing rue Cambon. In her working days, the atelier had buzzed from morning to late at night with mannequins and seamstresses chatting and milling about. Bolts of cloth and boxes overflowing with buttons, sequins, and bits of embroidery had cluttered the floor. Handbags, hats, and shoes had piled up on the tables. Now the atelier was empty, everything cleared away and put into storage, the thin carpet of needles, thread, pins, and fabric pieces long ago vacuumed up.
Coco studied the dress in the mirror from all angles. “Don’t make it too short,” she told Manon. “Just below the knee.”
“Does Mademoiselle have in mind an occasion to wear this dress?” Manon asked.
“I’m going to save it—to celebrate the end of the war.”
Manon dropped the hem and made the sign of the cross. “God willing, we will live to see it.”
There was a loud pounding on the door, and a moment later, two stern-faced Nazi soldiers burst in with their guns drawn. “Step back,” barked the taller of the two.
