by Sherry Jones
Her new maid, Paulette, a Parisienne with a pouf of dark curls and a small, knowing face, surely noticed the pouches under Josephine’s eyes from lack of sleep and her frequent, obsessive queries about whether the mail had arrived. Her shrewd eyes saw too much, watching Josephine’s every move. The girl always appeared wherever Josephine happened to be. Sometimes, Josephine locked herself in the toilet just to escape that piercing gaze. Was she a German spy? If so, the Nazis ought to fire her ass, because she didn’t know the meaning of the word discreet. She was always pointing out news reports about this anti-Nazi group or that one, leaving articles around for Josephine to see, presenting her breakfast tray with the newspaper folded so that she was sure to see every story about the Maquis, the rogue group that slit Nazi throats, shot them in their sleep, and set off bombs where they gathered.
“Aren’t the Maquis exciting?” she would say while combing straightener though Josephine’s hair. “Hiding out in the mountains, shooting guns, becoming stealthy. One story said they imitate nature, learning from jaguars and panthers how to creep about without making a noise.”
“Jaguars and panthers! Hmph,” Josephine said. “You won’t find those anywhere in France, except in a zoo.”
“They keep the animals as pets, to guard their hideouts.”
“They’d better watch out, then, because those creatures get bossy when they get big.” And then, Lord have mercy, she was chattering away, regaling Paulette with stories about the cheetah she used to have, Chiquita, her costar in a Casino de Paris show. She’d taken that creature everywhere, up and down the Champs-Élysées on a diamond leash, turning heads. But then, one day in a movie theater, it sprang from its seat next to Josephine and ran down the aisle and into the orchestra pit, sending everyone running for the exits. Paulette’s eyes grew bigger and bigger as she talked, until Josephine, thinking they might pop right out of her head, started to giggle, and then the two of them were laughing together as Josephine, gasping, told how the cheetah had snarled at Pepito while he was driving and nearly caused them to hit an oncoming car.
“It was his own fault for shouting at me and calling me names,” Josephine said. “I took that shit plenty, but Chiquita wasn’t about to.”
“What happened to Chiquita?”
“He died in the zoo.” Josephine’s voice cracked. “Pepito made me take him. He said Chiquita was unsafe, and that it was either him or the cat. Looking back, I made the wrong choice.” And then the laughter again, and Paulette was rushing Josephine to the sink to rinse the conk from her hair, time flying so that she’d almost burned her scalp.
Loose talk aside, Josephine was a good spy. She knew how to get people to spill their secrets, and how to play innocent—and she knew better than to agree or disagree when Paulette started her treacherous talk. It was hard to be on her guard every minute, though, so from time to time, she slipped. One time, the girl piped up, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone in France joined the Resistance? No one would do anything the Germans said.”
“No one would do business with them,” Josephine said, caught up in the notion.
“Or give up their homes.”
“Or get on those trains.”
“Instead, everyone would fight back. The Germans would always be in fear for their lives.”
“The Nazis would have to leave,” Josephine said, then stopped herself. What was she saying? Maybe Paulette was a good spy, after all.
“But that would only happen if everyone joined the Maquis.” The maid became animated, waving her hands. “They are the fighters, the trained killers. Krystyna Skarbek is the most wanted woman in Europe. And Michael Trotobas—ah, Trotobas! Have you seen him? So handsome.” She placed her hands over her heart.
“Watch out for handsome men,” Josephine said. “They know how good they look, believe me, and they’ll use it. They don’t even think about you.”
“Yes, but all men are that way—children who never grow up. I would rather be with a pretty baby than an ugly one, wouldn’t you?”
AND THEN IN June, the inevitable happened: the Germans blew into Paris like a terrible storm, a thunder of jackboots, a rumble of tanks and cars, an ominous dark cloud descending on the City of Light. Josephine and Paulette watched the invasion from the window of the apartment overlooking the Champs-Élysées, the streets completely empty except for the ugly invasion of green and gray, no one allowed outside, a curfew announced over loudspeakers that morning by their own government. They heard no shots fired in opposition, not a word shouted, nothing but silence and cringing from a people whose own leaders had betrayed them in the worst possible way.
“Like taking candy from a baby,” Josephine said. “They just waltz in and invade our city, and what do we do? Roll over and play dead.”
Paulette’s eyes widened. “But some of us are only playing. Isn’t that right?”
Josephine sucked her teeth. The girl had to be a German agent, sent to entrap Josephine.
“Why do you keep saying things like that?” Josephine snapped. “Are you recording me?” She gripped the maid’s arm and patted down her childish body, apron pockets, all over her little chest, up her thighs to her crotch, everywhere. All she found was lint and loose change. When she let go, Paulette whimpered and rubbed the red marks on her arm.
“I’m sorry, madame. I feel like I am in a bad dream and I cannot get out. I want to join the Resistance, myself—there, I have said it, so fire me if you must. My beloved Paris. I can’t bear it!” She burst into tears.
Josephine put her arms around her. “I’m sorry, Paulette. I can’t bear it, either. Dear Lord, what will happen to us all?”
The next morning, she went to the theater to collect her final check from M. Varna. The previous evening, before the curfew began, he had told the cast and crew that he was closing Paris et Londres. As she walked down the Champs-Élysées, the sight of the Nazi flag flying from atop the Arc de Triomphe made her want to hit somebody. A pair of Nazis approached on the broad sidewalk, machine guns at the ready as if they expected the city to suddenly wake up and start fighting. The battle would come soon enough, but not in the way they expected. As they passed, Josephine lowered her gaze. If they saw what her eyes held, they would shoot her on the spot.
The dark hand on her heart squeezed more and more tightly as she walked. The Germans were defacing the beauty of Paris with their ugly handmade signs. LUFTWAFFE. The German army had claimed the Luxembourg Palace as its headquarters, degrading that noble place. And, most sickening of all, NO JEWS. Josephine wondered how her ex-husband Jean, a Jew from a Jewish family, would feel when he saw them. They made her think of the NO COLOREDS signs posted on the doors and windows of shops, hotels, and cafés in the South. How ashamed she’d felt, seeing those awful signs, as though she’d done something wrong.
After a tearful farewell to M. Varna and the rest of the cast, she took a cab to the bank, which was filled with Nazis. Their stares lifted the hair on her neck and made the teller’s hands tremble as she cashed Josephine’s check. Josephine wondered where the city’s Jews were doing their banking today. Though she’d converted to Judaism when she’d married Jean, she kept that bit of history to herself.
At home she hid her money, sewing it into the hems of her clothes, and prayed for a letter or message from Jacques. Deliver me from the valley of the shadow of death, O Lord.
LATE THAT NIGHT, she awoke to a banging so loud she thought bombs were dropping. She flung open the shutters and saw a Nazi soldier hitting her door with the butt of his rifle. Crying out for him to stop, that she would be right down, she threw on some clothes and called out for Paulette. Where was that girl? Josephine’s pulse raced so fast she had to gasp for air. The banging resumed, and she ran down the stairs to open the door. A man with colorless skin and angry eyes held the gun still poised as if to smash it into her. Her blood ran as cold as ice water.
“Good evening, monsieur,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“The Jew who is you
r husband,” he said. “We want to see him.”
“He isn’t here,” she said.
“Where is he?”
“In Marseille, on business,” she lied. When the Germans had crossed the border a month ago, Jean had disappeared. She didn’t even know whether he was alive. But Jacques had warned her never to say “I don’t know” to a Nazi. Do not make them suspect you of lying. Make up a story if you must, and speak it with authority.
The man looked over her shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell us, fraulein?” he said.
She turned to see Paulette standing behind her, her face flushing a deep red.
“Do you want me to have him get in touch with you when he returns?” she said to the soldier as sweetly as she could force herself to.
“There is no need. Herr Hermann Göring, president of the Reichstag, will be waiting for him. He has chosen this house for himself. You must vacate immediately.”
When he had gone, Josephine shut the door and, leaning against it, closed her eyes. They had not arrested her. She was safe—for now. She heard a clatter and looked to see Paulette dropping to the floor. She rushed over to revive her and, when the girl awakened, asked her what the hell was going on.
“You’re a German spy,” she accused.
“No, madame. They paid me to spy on you, and I took their money, I admit. My father had died and left me penniless, and I was desperate. But what I really wanted was to join the Maquis. The officer told me they suspected you of working with them and wanted me to report. But I have had nothing to tell them—and if I had, I would not have said a word.”
Josephine stood, letting her drop back to the floor. “That’s where you belong, in the gutter,” she said. “Get out of my house.”
The girl struggled to her feet, and Josephine saw the butcher knife lying under her. “What’s that for? Were you going to kill me?”
“No, madame, it was not for you but for him. If he laid a hand on you, I would have stabbed him to death.”
“He would have killed you.”
She lifted her chin. “What is my life worth compared to yours?”
THE NEXT MORNING, a man phoned and asked her to meet him at a café on the Place Pigalle. I have a message from M. Fox. Josephine, who’d relented and allowed Paulette to stay, slipped out without telling the maid where she was going, only that she would return soon. She left the girl packing Josephine’s clothes in trunks, the only servant she had left: no one wanted to wait on the notorious Hermann Göring. The idea of that monster living in her home and writing out his evil decrees at her Louis XIV desk made Josephine want to set the place on fire.
She sat in a back corner table on the café terrace, sipping one café crème after another, lifting the cup to her lips with both hands to hide their trembling. Across the street, a grocer arranged oranges on a tray as if this were just another day. Citroëns and Renaults, French cars, crowded the street along with, now, the black Mercedes-Benzes the German officers favored, as well as green and gray military trucks. Men and women in business attire—suits and ties for the men, women in V-necked dresses that fell just below the knee—milled about as they had before the invasion, filling the sidewalks again, except that, now, most wore the colors of mourning in spite of the heat. Josephine herself had put on her navy Chanel suit, which fit her dark mood. The men at the table beside her chain-smoked Gauloises, and for the first time in her life Josephine felt tempted to ask for one, wanting something—anything—to calm her nerves.
Where was the mystery man with news of Jacques? Why hadn’t Jacques come himself? Now that Philippe Pétain, France’s sorry excuse for a prime minister, had rolled over for Hitler and had to move his whole army to southern France—the only part of the country left for him to “govern”—Jacques was most likely helping with that transfer. Or maybe he was dead, and this new man would take his place. Tears filled her eyes at the thought, which she banished. The Germans would never vanquish the wily Jacques Abtey.
The terrace filled with men in uniform, then emptied, then filled up again. Two older officers stared at her, openly hostile, one muttering neger. From all around her, the German language ricocheted against her ears like machine-gun fire. She pretended to read a book, tried to imagine what Jacques’s message would be. Get the hell out of Paris, most likely. She didn’t need a messenger to tell her that. She had Les Milandes, her château in the Dordogne, far from Nazi rule. Thank the Lord for leading her there! She’d fallen in love with it at first sight, as they’d driven through the French countryside and it had come into view, a fairytale castle high on a hill above the sparkling Dordogne. The FOR RENT sign had only confirmed what she’d known from the start: she was destined to have it. Jean had tried to talk her out of it, pointing out that medieval stone buildings lacked heat and hot water. But Josephine didn’t let any man tell her what to do, except, now, Jacques.
Would he send her away? The murderous hatred on the faces of the men beside her made her want to run. Now that Hitler had taken Paris, what was the point of spying? What was the point of anything?
She leaped up—and collided with a passing waiter who dumped coffee all over her dress. “Merde,” she cried, in surprise rather than pain since the coffee was cold (a detail she would recall later). A swarm of café staff surrounded her and ushered her inside, into the kitchen to clean the stains. “Voilà,” they said, maneuvering her toward the very back of the room, where someone opened a door and pushed her into a closet. Her senses reeled. She raised her fist to pound on the door but felt herself pulled backward, through the wall. She lost her footing and would have fallen but for the arms that caught her. She tried to scream, but a hand clamped over her mouth.
“Vive la Résistance,” a woman’s voice whispered.
Josephine relaxed. This was not the Gestapo. Her abductor released her, and she took a steadying breath.
When her eyes adjusted, she found herself in a secret world, surrounded by stone walls. The dark-haired woman replaced the panel she had removed from the wall and led Josephine down a steep staircase dimly lighted by tiny bulbs, into the bowels of Paris. Josephine walked carefully, unsteady on her heels. In the chill, gooseflesh rippled over her arms.
At the bottom, the woman unlocked a heavy door, which she led Josephine through and locked behind them. The stench of excrement filled Josephine’s nose; a rat skittered near their feet; the drip of water made her think of blood, turning her stomach.
“Where are we?”
“Only in the sewer. We are safe,” the woman said.
And then—thank the Lord—there was Jacques, sitting at the head of a table made from a wooden door piled on some stones. Gas lanterns cast flickering shadows across his face. It was all she could do not to run to him and throw herself, weeping in gratitude, around his neck. He was alive.
He strode to her and greeted her with a kiss on each cheek. He introduced her to his companions, uttering the names that she had read in the papers: Krystyna Skarbek, Michael Trotobas, La Besnerais—the most wanted people in France, the heroes whom she and Paulette had marveled over.
Skarbek, the famous freedom fighter—if only Paulette could see her, in a leather jacket and men’s trousers!—turned to Josephine and placed a pistol in her hand: metallic, heavy, lethal, cold.
“Josephine Baker,” she said, “welcome to the Maquis.”
CHAPTER 24
The Casino de Paris had gone dark when the Nazis marched into Paris, but Chez Joséphine remained open. No music filled its hall now, for Josephine would not allow it: Music was for happy times. Still, the fine champagne flowed freely, supplemented, now, by good German beer, for Nazi soldiers and officers crowded the tables for her autograph—not all of them hated her, it turned out. Often they requested a dance, but she begged off, saying she had gotten too old. The fact was, she would not entertain these men. While a single Nazi remained in Paris, Josephine Baker would not dance.
Folks whispered about her keeping the club open, but she didn’t care: she had her
reasons. In fact, the gossip about her being a Nazi sympathizer was the best cover she could ask for.
Wearing a red dress cut nearly to her navel and glittering spike-heeled shoes—her assignment, after all, was to seduce—she moved from table to table, pouring champagne, No empty glasses, that’s the rule, and slipping past grasping hands while she kept an eye on the entrance, where, at last, the handsome blond capitaine with the smirking mustache sashayed drunkenly in with a group in military uniform. The chisel-faced Trotobas, handsome as the devil himself, followed arm in arm with two slender Nazi youths and winked at Josephine behind their heads; Krystyna Skarbek tossed her black hair and clutched Jacques’s arm possessively, her eyes slanting a warning to every other woman to stay away. They put on this charade in case the Germans were watching, which, of course, they were, their eyes on Krystyna instead of on Jacques, which was the plan.
Josephine ordered champagne and beer for them. The Maquisards would only pretend to drink the bubbly, but the hard-drinking Nazis would slurp down the beer like it was soda pop, which was also the plan. Josephine slipped her hand inside the purse dangling from her shoulder and felt for her cigarette case. The microfilm inside held a copy of the German-Italian Codebook she’d filched from the Italian ambassador’s desk. She’d wait for the handoff until the Luftwaffe were good and drunk—which, at the rate they were sucking down the juice, wouldn’t be long.
After making the rounds at all the tables and settling a new crowd of guests, she went to the bar and ordered four bottles of German beer, which she carried to the high, round table where Jacques and his companions smoked and laughed as if it were New Year’s Eve instead of doomsday.