Coco at the Ritz, page 7
On rue Suchet, the Mercedes passed the large stone mansion that had been rented before the war by the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson, the American woman he had given up his British crown to marry. If I reopened, I could count on Wallis for big orders, Coco thought. She found the thrice-married Wallis dull, but had to admit she wore clothes well, and she owned her share of Chanel couture. But Wallis wouldn’t be around for fittings. As unrepentant Nazi sympathizers, the duke and duchess were an embarrassment to Britain, and King George, the duke’s brother, had swept the pesky couple out of the way by appointing the duke governor of the Bahamas. Now, their Paris mansion stood empty. A heavy chain bound the tall wrought iron gate; a Nazi guard holding a rifle kept vigil on the front steps.
“Why are the Germans protecting the Windsors’ house?” Coco asked Spatz.
Her lover nodded toward the driver and put his right index finger to his lips. “I’ll explain later,” he said.
With its dark paneling, burgundy flocked wallpaper, and picturesque landscapes in gilt frames, Bignon’s resembled the dining room in a French country house. Before the war, the restaurant served simple French food: roast chickens, cassoulets, soups, and fruit tarts. After the Occupation, Bignon’s began offering schnitzel, rouladen, sauerbraten, and chocolate cake to cater to German tastes.
Coco and Spatz sat a table near a roaring fire, perusing the menu. “Champagne?” asked the slender, dark-haired waiter in a white jacket and bow tie. Spatz nodded, and the waiter poured two glasses. After returning the bottle to an ice bucket on a nearby stand, he planted himself next to Coco’s chair with his feet spread wide and his hands clasped behind his back.
Coco inspected her fork. “This is filthy,” she told the waiter in a disgusted tone.
“I’m so sorry, madame.” The waiter bowed, then scurried away to fetch a substitute.
“Really? A dirty fork?” said Spatz.
“I did that to get rid of him. He stands too close, as if he wants to get in on our conversations.”
Coco took a sip of champagne. “Before he gets back, tell me about the Windsors’ house.”
Spatz leaned across the table and spoke in a low voice. “The duke and duchess met Hitler when they visited Germany in 1936 soon after their wedding, and they struck up a friendship with him. The Führer promised to restore the duke as King of England with Wallis as his queen after Germany conquered England. In the meantime, at the duke’s request, the Reich is protecting the Windsors’ Paris mansion. Also their château in Cap d’Antibes. The duchess is insanely fond of her possessions. Once, after the Windsors arrived in the Bahamas, Wallis discovered she’d left her favorite Nile green swimsuit on the Riviera. The duke got a German officer to retrieve it from her bedroom, and the officer had it flown to her overnight. The Abwehr dubbed the mission Operation Cleopatra Whim.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Coco.
Spatz shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to him.
It was bad enough that a member of the royal family was keeping property in enemy-occupied territory. But enlisting the Nazis in retrieving a swimsuit was beyond the pale. Coco wondered if Winston knew about it. Coco had gotten to know the prime minister in the late 1920s, during her affair with the Duke of Westminster, when they were both guests at Bendor’s hunting lodge in the Aquitaine. At the time, Churchill was chancellor of the exchequer, a plump, out-of-step politician in a pin-striped suit and polka dot bow tie, smoking endless cigars. Churchill’s Tory principles appealed to the savage businesswoman in Coco at a time when France and much of Europe were falling in love with socialism. They became friends, and Churchill always visited Coco when he was in Paris. The last time was right before the war. They had dinner together in her apartment. Churchill got drunk and began moaning about Edward abdicating. “He never should have married that woman,” Churchill said.
The waiter returned with a clean fork and laid it at Coco’s place, then continued hovering.
As Coco sipped her champagne, her eyes roamed the room slowly, stopping on the German ambassador, who sat at a table near the windows with an elegant blonde. “There’s Otto Abetz and his wife,” she said, smiling tightly and nodding to Abetz when he caught her eye.
“We have a dinner with them next Friday,” said Spatz. “He’s expecting you to come. He likes to show you off.”
“I wish he liked me a little less,” Coco said. Abetz kept inviting her to parties at the embassy, and she continued to refuse. She rested her clasped hands on the lace tablecloth. “Can’t you tell him that I don’t like going out?”
It was one thing to have dinner in an obscure bistro frequented by Germans, and another to go to large parties at the homes of Nazis. Though Coco had a fatalistic feeling that the Allies were doomed—the Germans had already taken Belgium and Libya—she wasn’t on their side and didn’t want it to appear so.
“I’ll come up with some excuse,” said Spatz. He crooked his finger at the waiter, motioning him over. “For me, the veal schnitzel,” he told him. “Steak for the lady.” Spatz handed the menus to the waiter, who wheeled and disappeared into the kitchen.
Spatz leaned forward and opened his mouth as if to say something. Then he sat back abruptly, just as a tall, elegant man in his sixties walked by on his way to the toilet—Michel Pelissier, a lawyer and old acquaintance of Coco’s, whose wife, Amélie, had been one of her best clients. Coco called out to him.
“Michel! What a surprise.”
“I was just at your boutique,” said Pelissier, stopping and bending to kiss Coco on both cheeks. He wore a gray wool suit and carried a small black-and-white bag emblazoned with double Cs. “I bought a fresh bottle of Chanel No. 5 for Amélie.” He held up the bag by balancing the black cord on the tip of his index finger. “I looked for you to say bonjour, but I couldn’t find you.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen you here before,” Coco said.
“It’s my first time. My friends suggested it. They live in the neighborhood.” Pelissier glanced toward a group of well-dressed middle-aged men sitting at a table near the entrance.
Coco nodded toward Spatz. “This is my friend…”
“Nice to see you, von Dincklage,” said Pelissier. He took Spatz’s hand.
“You’ve met?” Coco looked back and forth between the two men.
“On the Riviera, several years ago,” said Spatz. “I was living on the Côte d’Azur with my wife, my then wife.”
“How is Catsy?” asked Pelissier.
“I’m afraid we’ve lost touch,” said Spatz.
“Ah, well, if you do see her, give her my best.” Pelissier again bent low to kiss Coco.
After the lawyer had left, Spatz said softly, “That man doesn’t like me.”
“You’re imagining things.” Nothing in Pelissier’s manner had given her any inkling of awkwardness or hostility. Why would Spatz say that?
Spatz didn’t argue, but after their dinners, their desserts of sliced fruit, cheese, and coffee, Spatz took Coco’s hand and led her out of the restaurant quickly, not giving her a chance to say bonsoir to her old friend.
* * *
Though Coco missed fashion with an aching longing, she remained ambivalent about reopening the House of Chanel. She didn’t trust the Germans not to change their minds again and move couture to Berlin. What was left of couture, in any case. Materials were scarce—most fabrics, including wool, cotton, linen, and silk, had been requisitioned for German uniforms, parachutes, blankets, and bandages. And the Nazis had instituted a draconian list of restrictions on couture, ranging from skirt lengths to the number of garments that could be shown in a season. Coco had no desire to reopen under such circumstances.
Who knew what the Germans were planning? Every day, it seemed, they passed a new law further restricting the rights of French Jews. First, Jews were barred from the army, then journalism, politics, academia, law, business, and medicine. One day while she was out shopping with Misia, they passed Baruch’s lingerie shop on rue des Capucines. A harsh yellow sign in black lettering in German and French hung in the window: JEWISH BUSINESS. The sign was so huge, even Misia could read it. “Poor Monsieur Baruch,” Misia said.
The proprietor, Gustave Baruch, was a World War I hero, and he’d propped up his medals, including the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor, under the sign. As if that will protect him, thought Coco.
“The next thing you know he and his family will be deported,” said Misia.
“You don’t know that,” said Coco.
“Thousands of Jews already have disappeared,” said Misia. “My concierge told me about a family in her building in Montmartre who were arrested by the Nazis and taken away in the middle of the night. Why do you think the Nazis required Jews to register? So it’ll be easy to find them and send them away. The Nazis are cagey. They aren’t doing it all at once. But you’ll see, it’s only going to get worse and worse.”
At the Ritz later that evening, Coco asked Spatz, “Why do the Germans have to do this? Baruch is a nice man.”
Spatz claimed to know nothing about the anti-Jewish statutes or the deportations. “My office has nothing to do with it,” he said. “Berlin keeps us in the dark as much as you.” He flung his newspaper onto the coffee table. At the bar cart, he poured himself a generous glass of scotch and downed it in two gulps.
* * *
With no clothes to design and no business to run, Coco found it impossible to distract herself from the horrors of the war. She tried not to dwell on where the Jews who’d disappeared had been taken and stopped pressing Spatz for answers. His insistence that he was in the dark was unwavering. To avoid the black thoughts overwhelming her, she started taking singing lessons. She’d loved to sing, since her days warbling for tips at La Rotonde, the café-concert in Moulins, where she’d moonlighted from her tailoring shop job. The slight, dark-haired girl with the luminous personality had two songs: “Ko-Ri-Ko” (Cock-a-doodle-do) about a rooster, and “Qui qu’a vu Coco?” (Has anyone seen Coco?) about a lost dog. Though Gabby, as she was known then, had a small, tinny voice, the café’s male patrons were charmed by her gamine looks and lively manner, and they began calling her “Coco.” The nickname stuck, though she would never admit to Spatz or anyone else how she’d acquired it.
A singing coach, a skinny woman with frizzy red hair who dressed in layers of fringed shawls, came several times a week to Coco’s apartment on rue Cambon. Coco had installed an upright piano in the salon, and on music days she spent all afternoon singing scales with her coach.
After her music lesson, she would usually join Spatz for drinks in her rooms at the Ritz. They’d relax with a cocktail or two before Coco dressed for dinner. Some evenings, however, Spatz didn’t show up. Usually, he’d send a message that he’d been held up, though he rarely explained why. Invariably, on these evenings, he’d sleep in his own apartment. Coco never asked him who he was with when they were apart. Every man she knew, married or not, had a craving from time to time for the heat and sweetness of a new body. No one had ever been faithful to her, and she did not expect fidelity from Spatz. She assumed he occasionally saw other women. Perhaps from time to time he visited one of the city’s more exclusive brothels, where the whores were young, impeccably groomed, and closely monitored by doctors for any sign of disease. But these girls meant nothing to him, she was sure.
She tried not to dwell on his more significant dalliances from the past. One was Hélène Dessoffy, a former client of Coco’s, whom Spatz had gotten to know on the Côte d’Azur in the 1930s. Hélène lived mostly in the south. She was not part of Coco’s circle, and, except for her occasional visits to rue Cambon, Coco never saw her and knew little about her private life. She’d heard rumors, though, that Spatz had embroiled Hélène in some kind of diplomatic scandal. The rumors were vague, and Coco never asked Spatz about them. She didn’t tell him the truth about her life, and she didn’t expect him to tell her the truth about his, a willful denial that enabled them to live comfortably as the world went to hell around them.
One afternoon, as her music lesson was winding down, Coco glanced out the window and saw Hélène Dessoffy slip into the Chanel boutique underneath the apartment. Coco noticed with dismay that the silky brunette, who was fifteen years younger than Coco, looked as youthful and beautiful as ever. When Coco went downstairs ten minutes later, Hélène was waiting for her at the perfume counter.
She was dressed in a green jersey suit from one of Coco’s distant collections and wore her hair in a simple bun at the nape of her neck. Small diamond studs glittered in her earlobes, and a brown schnauzer lay in her arms. His intelligent eyes fixed on Coco as she kissed Hélène on each cheek. “This is a pleasant surprise,” said Coco, trying to sound sincere.
“Is there somewhere we could talk?” asked Hélène.
“I’m afraid I’m late. I’m meeting someone,” said Coco.
“Spatz?”
Coco eyed Hélène cautiously. “Yes.”
Hélène stroked the schnauzer’s furry back. “You know about him?”
“What do you mean?”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about.” Hélène’s voice quavered with distress.
Coco led her to the opposite end of the boutique and motioned for her to take a seat on a large beige ottoman. Coco sat next to her and folded her hands in her lap. Hélène lowered her voice. “Spatz is a spy. He’s in the Abwehr, the German intelligence organization that works closely with the Nazi SS.”
Coco’s heart started to pound, but she kept her voice level. “He works for the embassy, overseeing textile production. But he’s not very ambitious and we never talk about it.”
“That job is just a cover. He wants to drag you into it, like he dragged me. You could be arrested for treason.”
The schnauzer lifted his ears and set a paw on Hélène’s sleeve. “That’s preposterous,” said Coco. She blew the dog a kiss, and he settled back in Hélène’s arms. She still missed her own pets, Lune and Soleil, gifts from Boy Capel who were buried at La Milanese, the house she’d shared with Capel long ago.
“No one else should have to go through what I went through,” said Hélène. As if in assent, the schnauzer emitted a sharp bark. “Dieter, hush,” said Hélène.
“Your dog has a German name?” said Coco.
“He was a present from Spatz.” Hélène brushed the top of the dog’s head with her lips, leaving a bright red smear on his little skull. “Spatz gave me Dieter when he left France in 1939, so I wouldn’t be lonely.”
Hélène lowered her eyes as she stroked the dog’s ears. “He told me he couldn’t bear bloodshed. He’d had enough of it during the first war and would have no more of it. I helped him go to Switzerland and arranged for him to stay with friends of mine. I wrote to him at my friends’ address, but French Intelligence intercepted the letters! Every word of love had a hidden meaning to those suspicious men. Because of Spatz, they arrested me and accused me of being a spy myself and kept me in jail for four months.”
Coco remembered hearing from acquaintances on the Riviera that Hélène had a serious drug problem. She was known to use opium daily and often seemed to people who encountered her to be in a drug-addled fog. She looked sober enough now. Perhaps, though, she’d been in jail for drugs, not espionage.
“I risked my life for Spatz,” said Hélène. She started to cry softly.
She still loved him! That was why she had come, thought Coco. She was jealous. Spatz had spurned her, broken her heart, and now she wanted Coco to be as miserable as she was. Warning Coco about Spatz’s so-called spy activities was just a pretext. She was being overly dramatic, trying to scare Coco. Standing abruptly, Coco told the younger woman, “I appreciate your visit. But I must go. I’m already very late.”
In her suite a few minutes later, Coco found Spatz reclined on the settee with his newspaper. She lit a cigarette and puffed on it nervously. “Hélène Dessoffy just showed up at the boutique,” she said. Her hands were trembling.
“Oh?” Spatz folded his newspaper and gazed over the top of it with a furrowed brow.
“She says you’re a spy.”
Spatz slapped the paper on the coffee table. “Every German is a spy to the French.”
“Why did she go to prison?”
“She’s a drug addict.”
“You didn’t enlist her in espionage missions?”
Spatz sat up and clenched his hands together with his elbows on his knees. “Look, this was all before the war. My job was to improve relations between our nations. That meant forging friendships with the French and placing articles favorable to Germany in French journals. If you want to call that spying, fine. Most people call it propaganda.” He straightened his back and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not happy about what happened to Hélène. For a while I thought I loved her. But the drugs.” He shook his head. “There’s no future with someone who’s addicted to drugs.” He grabbed his newspaper and, shaking it out, resumed reading.
Spatz didn’t know that Coco used morphine from time to time. When they were together and she had trouble sleeping, she took Seconals.
Coco stamped out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray on the side table and picked up a copy of Les Parisiennes lying next to it. Amid the articles about gardening, new ways to wear turbans, and the best diets were several full-page propaganda ads issued by Vichy. In one, an illustration of a Frenchman working in a German factory was juxtaposed with a picture of a young mother at the dinner table in Paris with her little son. The caption read, Father works in Germany to protect our liberty at home.
Who believes this rubbish? Coco lit a fresh cigarette and, puffing furiously, flipped through the pages with a sharp snap of her wrist. Another feature, titled “A Day in the Life of an Elegant Woman,” showed a series of black-and-white illustrations in which a slender, dark-haired Parisienne and a tall, dashing blond man strolled down the Champs-Élysées, took in an art exhibit, dined at a restaurant, and relaxed at home. The man wore the same dark suit, white shirt, and striped tie in every frame, but the woman’s outfit changed from a short dress to a jacket-and-skirt ensemble to an evening gown and a robe d’intérieur. The couple looked happy. They weren’t hurting anyone. They could have been Coco and Spatz. Love wasn’t political. Love was a country without borders.
