Coco at the Ritz, page 8
Spatz rarely said a word against any of his countrymen. He never discussed Nazi ideology, though he was loyal in his defense of what the Nazis had accomplished at home. Germany had won her self-respect back. People had jobs, food, medicine. There were new factories, new roads, and new schools. But success had come at a terrible cost. Spatz wouldn’t discuss the violence, the killings, the rounding up of citizens. Once, when Coco deplored the Gestapo’s execution by firing squad of an innocent seventeen-year-old French boy in retaliation for an attack on Germans by the Resistance, Spatz shrugged. “Nothing is perfect,” he’d said.
As Coco tossed the magazine onto the table, a piece of paper fell to the floor. Picking it up, she saw that it was Reverdy’s flyer. He must have slipped it between the magazine’s pages the day he visited. She glanced at the crude illustration of the Marianne, the French Goddess of Liberty. Coco thought of herself as deeply patriotic, a kind of living Marianne. Her work had been part of the nation’s cultural glory, her perfume business a significant contribution to France’s economy. How had she so easily fallen into bed with a German?
Throughout her life she’d pushed for more status, more money, more fame, more proof that she was no longer a poor, loveless orphan. It was never enough. She’d never felt secure in her position at the top of French life. The hierarchies were too ambiguous. With the Occupation, though, the lines between insiders and outsiders had been starkly drawn. Deep in her heart, she knew she’d made the wrong choice. But everything in her biology, her background, and her environment pushed her to align herself with those in power. She was doomed from the start.
Coco crumpled Reverdy’s flyer and stuffed it under the sofa cushion. She wouldn’t think about the poet. She would think only of the man sitting opposite her and the strong, solid feel of him in her arms. “Let’s not go out tonight,” she said to Spatz. Coco squeezed next to him in the armchair and began to unclasp his belt. “Let’s have dinner ordered in, and…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. He was kissing her too hard.
FIVE
The worst part of the day for Coco was when Spatz left in the morning after breakfast. “Time to go,” he’d say, palming his fedora and setting it on his head before walking out the door. At these moments, they were an ordinary bourgeois couple, with the man going off to his office and the woman left behind with nothing important to do. Only they weren’t an ordinary couple. Spatz was an enemy of France who worked out of an office in the former Hotel Lutetia, where God knew what he actually did. He never confided in Coco. Sometimes, though, he told her about his lunch dates, golf outings, and poker games, mostly with low-ranking German officers and Frenchmen he’d known before the war. Coco got the sense he spent most of his time socializing.
Meanwhile, Coco was bored and antsy. Each day after Spatz left and she finished dressing, she’d head across the street to her boutique to chat with the vendeuse Veronique and take care of whatever correspondence there was related to perfume sales.
One morning during the first fall of the Occupation, Coco found Veronique slumped over the glass display case, sobbing. “My God, what is it?” said Coco, draping her arm over the young woman’s heaving shoulders.
“My husband, Henri, has been dismissed from his job!” She spoke in gulps between sobs.
“Isn’t he a teacher at the L’École Sebastian?”
“Was!” Veronique stood straight, wiping her tears with the backs of her hands. “It’s the law now. He’s a Jew!”
“I didn’t know.… You’re Jewish, too?”
“No. But my children are.” Veronique had two daughters, ages ten and eight. “Henri thinks we should leave. Go to the unoccupied zone, where my sister lives.”
“But you have a job.”
“I can’t work here anymore. Henri won’t let me.”
“Why?”
Veronique looked at the floor a moment, then directly at Coco. “Monsieur von Dincklage.” Spatz always said bonjour to Veronique on his way upstairs to see Coco in her apartment. And if he was waiting for Coco to meet him downstairs, he’d pass the time chatting with Veronique.
“He had nothing to do with Henri losing his job.”
Veronique had stopped crying now, and she spoke in a cold, severe tone. “He’s German.”
“So what?”
“Henri doesn’t want me to work for someone who lives with a German.”
“And you do everything Henri tells you?” Coco shook her head, then reached in her handbag and pulled out a wad of franc notes in a money clip. She removed the clip and handed the cash to Veronique. “This will help you for a while. It’s what I’d owe you at the end of the month, anyway.”
Veronique bowed her head. “Thank you, Mademoiselle. Is it all right if I leave now?”
Coco clicked shut her purse. “Suit yourself.”
After Veronique left, Coco locked the front door. She deplored the laws that denied Jews their jobs. Everyone had a right to work—and to fight and compete in business. Glancing at the shelves holding bottles of Chanel No. 5, she wondered what sales would be this month. At the start of the Occupation, her Jewish partners, Paul and Pierre Wertheimer, had fled to New York and no longer had access to her perfume’s unique floral essences from Grasse. Pétain and his Vichy functionaries were cowards, allowing the Nazis to interfere in French commerce. But there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it. Reverdy and the rest of the maquisards were fools to think they could halt the German war machine.
On the phone in her apartment upstairs, Coco started calling her former vendeuses. None of them were available—they’d either left Paris or found other jobs. Then she remembered Angeline, a curvaceous blonde with a flirtatious manner whom Coco had fired for sleeping with the husband of a client. Angeline was ecstatic to have her job back and agreed to return to work the next day. “I’m warning you, behave yourself this time, or you’re never getting another chance,” Coco told her. “There’s a guard on duty. He has keys and will let you in.”
When Coco arrived late the following afternoon, Angeline was at her post behind the perfume counter talking to a dark, wiry man in worker’s clothes. The pretty vendeuse stood ruler straight, her elbows digging into her sides and her hands clenched in front of her, as the man leered at her across the glass countertop. Angeline had taken the boss’s warning to heart. Coco was used to seeing strange men in the boutique. They often stopped in to buy perfume for their wives as special-occasion presents. But there was something familiar about this man’s leer, also his round head topped by tight, graying curls, and his rough, square hands. When he looked up, Coco saw with a jolt that it was her younger brother Alphonse Chanel.
“Gabby! Still my glamorous big sister,” he cried, opening his arms wide. He grabbed Coco by the shoulders and kissed her on each cheek. “How can you women stand it here?” Alphonse said. “Those German bastards are everywhere. I almost tripped over a few just walking down your street.”
Coco shushed him. “Don’t talk like that. You’re in Paris now.”
Still the same Alphonse, thought Coco. Years earlier, she had pushed her brother out of her life, and now here he was, no doubt wanting something. “Let’s go upstairs,” she told him.
In Coco’s salon, Alphonse went straight to the long suede sofa and stretched out. “Had a hell of a time getting here. Had to take three trains, and they were all late,” he said, as he arranged himself on the cushions, careful to keep his scuffed boots, with their worn soles, off the sofa. Once he was settled, his eyes flitted around the room, taking in the Coromandel screens and animal sculptures, the leather-bound books and gilt mirrors.
“Still, it’s a good thing you didn’t bring your Bugatti. It would have been confiscated,” said Coco.
“No more car, Gabby. It’s at the bottom of a ravine. In smithereens.” Alphonse smiled, showing the white, even teeth he and Coco had inherited from their handsome father.
Coco scowled. “That’s the third car I’ve bought you that you wrecked.”
“The Bugatti was the best.” Alphonse grinned.
“You’re not getting another one, if that’s why you’re here.”
Alphonse fished around in his pockets and pulled out a folded newspaper clipping—the Ce Soir story about Coco’s reopening. “Is this true?” he asked.
Coco glanced at the clipping. “No.”
“Because if it is—”
Coco cut him off. “I’m sorry you came all this way to find out that my situation hasn’t changed, despite what the newspaper wrote. I’m not resuming your allowance.”
For years, Coco sent monthly checks for three thousand francs to Alphonse and their younger brother, Lucien. She stopped the money flow in 1939 when she closed her house, explaining to her brothers that she could no longer afford the stipends. That had been a lie, and she winced now to think how gullibly Alphonse had accepted the news. Since she’d cut off his allowance, Alphonse had run a café-tabac in Saumur. But Coco suspected he spent most of what he earned gambling and playing poker.
Lucien was hardly better. He made a living peddling cheap shoes at local markets. Coco was embarrassed by her brothers. The funds she’d given them were mostly bribes. The Chanel brothers understood that in exchange for Coco’s financial support, they were to keep away from rue Cambon and never talk about their sister to the press. Lucien, a sweet-natured man who was devoted to his wife and children, rarely left Clermont-Ferrand, where Coco had bought him a house. But Alphonse showed up occasionally in Paris, often to nudge Coco into giving him money to cover his gambling debts or to pay off a girl he’d gotten pregnant and promised to marry, though he already had a wife and a mistress and children by both.
“Alphonse, there’s no more money,” said Coco.
“It looks like there’s plenty,” he said, running his hands along the sofa’s luxurious fabric.
“I still don’t have an income, except from the perfume and a few things sold downstairs. We’re in the middle of a war. Who knows what’s going to happen? The Germans could take everything I have.”
“The damn Germans. I hear Julie’s boy’s a prisoner. What’s his name?”
“André.”
“Never met him. But I hear he’s a nice fella.”
What a family they were. Uncles and nephews who were strangers. A sister who shunned her brothers.
Alphonse plumped up the fringed satin pillow at his back. “If I were younger, I’d join the Resistance,” he said. “I’d like to kill a few Krauts myself.”
Coco shook her head sharply. “You can’t talk like that,” she repeated. She wondered if Alphonse knew about Spatz. Had he heard rumors? Fortunately, Spatz had told her he wouldn’t visit that night—he was playing cards with friends and staying at his apartment.
“That’s how I feel,” Alphonse continued. “The French need to stand up for themselves.”
“Hush. Talk like that will get you killed.”
Alphonse affected a nonchalant pose. “I don’t care. It’s true.”
Coco knew she had to get him out of there. Her brother—just eighteen months her junior—had always amused her with his tough, scrappy ways, but in Occupied Paris, he was a ticking time bomb of insolence. “You better get going now,” she said. “Travel is dangerous these days.”
Alphonse made no effort to move and, in fact, looked entirely settled on the sofa. “Why don’t we have dinner?” he asked. “I’m starved.”
The thought of appearing in public with her shabby brother while he spouted noisy insults to the Germans terrified Coco.
“I’ll call the Ritz and have dinner sent over. We can eat here. But then you have to go—you can’t stay; there’s a curfew. You don’t want to be arrested.”
That seemed agreeable to Alphonse, so Coco called the Ritz dining room and ordered two steaks, cooked medium rare, with sides of potatoes and vegetables, to be delivered to her apartment on rue Cambon.
An hour later, a butler arrived with the food. He was an elderly man in the blue-and-white livery of the Ritz, complete with spanking white gloves. Once Coco and Alphonse were seated at her square walnut table, the butler poured their wine and filled their water glasses. Then he stood behind Alphonse’s chair, with his nose in the air and his hands folded at his back.
Alphonse picked up his knife and fork, looked at Coco with a mischievous glint, and said, “Tell that geezer behind me to fuck off. It bugs me having him back there!”
The butler’s eyes widened with shock, and his mouth began twitching nervously. He slipped into the pantry off the dining room and shut the door. Coco burst out laughing.
“Ah, Gabby, just like old times, huh?” Alphonse winked at Coco and popped a big chunk of steak in his mouth.
He still ate in the frank manner he had as a boy, mouthful after mouthful with no pause for polite chatter. Coco swallowed only a few bites of her steak, pushed her plate aside, and lit a cigarette. She studied Alphonse as she puffed. He’d been a wild, uncontrollable child, stealing money from the patrons of the flophouses where the Chanel family lived and frequently fighting with other boys. He was a great source of worry and vexation to their mother. But Coco admired Alphonse’s strength and energy. He was so different from timid Lucien, six years her junior, who rarely spoke and cowered in the corner if anyone scolded him.
The Ritz butler emerged from the pantry carrying a coffee service on a large silver tray. Just as he set the tray on the sideboard, the front door opened, and a moment later Spatz stepped into the dining room. His eyes grew wide when he saw the scruffy man at Coco’s table.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” said Coco. Her throat had tightened, and she could barely squeeze out the words.
“I left my clubs in your closet. It’s golf day tomorrow,” said Spatz, leaning in to kiss Coco on the lips. Then he turned to Alphonse and extended his hand, as if this country peasant were a visiting dignitary. “I’m sorry, we haven’t met. I’m Hans von Dincklage.”
“Alphonse Chanel.” Coco’s brother stood and took Spatz’s hand.
“My brother was just leaving,” said Coco.
“I think I’ll have my coffee first,” said Alphonse. He scowled at the butler and pointed to his cup.
Spatz looked at Coco. “Your brother?” He smiled. “I’m learning more and more about the mysterious Coco Chanel.”
The butler asked Spatz, “Would you like something to eat, Herr von Dincklage?”
Coco saw her brother’s eyes spark.
“No, thank you,” said Spatz. The butler bowed and scurried back to the pantry as Spatz helped himself to a glass of red wine from the bar cart. He remained standing and spoke to Alphonse in a cordial tone. “What brings you to Paris?”
Alphonse opened his mouth, but Coco didn’t give him a chance to talk. “You better leave now. You’ll miss the last train.”
“There’s one at eleven thirty.”
“Not anymore. The curfew’s at eleven.”
“I don’t care about the Krauts’ damn curfew. They can kiss my ass.”
Spatz cleared his throat. “Monsieur Chanel, do you play golf? I’d like to get Coco on the course in the Bois, but she won’t go until I take her riding first. She tells me she had horses growing up at your aunts’ house. You must be an expert rider, too.”
“I see Gabby’s been at it with her stories again,” Alphonse said.
Coco rapped her knuckles on the arm of her chair as her foot shook frantically under the table. “Alphonse, really, you can’t be out past curfew.”
“Let your brother relax,” said Spatz. “It’s I who must be going—I’ve an early tee-time. I’m afraid I won’t be joining you for coffee.” He nodded to Alphonse. “A pleasure to meet you. Have a safe trip home.”
Alphonse took Spatz’s hand for a moment, then dropped it as if it were a hot coal.
Spatz squeezed Coco’s shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow evening, darling.”
“Herr von Dincklage,” Alphonse said in a snide tone when Spatz had left.
“What do you mean?” said Coco.
“I heard the geezer call him Herr. His French is better than mine, but he’s got a little accent. He’s a Nazi, isn’t he?”
“He’s not a Nazi.”
“My God, my sister is shacking up with a Nazi! Wait ’til I tell Lucien our Gabby is a traitor!”
“He’s working on having André released.”
“You believe that?”
Coco threw her white linen napkin on the table and hurried to her desk in the next room. A minute later she returned with a check and handed it to Alphonse. “Here’s five thousand francs,” she said in a flat tone.
Alphonse glanced at the check and slipped it into his pocket. He pushed back from the table and strode toward the door.
“Good-bye, Alphonse,” Coco said. “Please don’t come here again.”
* * *
Coco returned to the Ritz and spent a tortured two hours worrying about how Spatz would react. Would he abandon her? Have her thrown out of the hotel? Worse, denounce her to the Nazis for harboring someone with anti-German views? Or would he denounce Alphonse and have him arrested? Alphonse was still her brother. She didn’t want anything bad to happen to him.
Coco injected herself with morphine and fell into a deep sleep.
In the morning she went to her boutique, mostly to distract herself. Business was moribund, just a few Nazi officers, talking to one another in German, laughing, sniffing bottles of perfume, looking entirely carefree and pleased with themselves. Coco scuttled up to her apartment to await her horrible fate.
