Josephine Baker's Last Dance

by Sherry Jones

  “Whatever happens,” he said, ending the speech, “the flame of French Resistance must not and shall not die.”

  “Vive la France!” she cried, pumping her fist in time with her full, beating heart. François stood to join her, “Vive la France, Madame Baker,” and then the Laremies, “Vive la flamme de la résistance,” all crying and embracing one another, enlivened with hope for the first time since the French government had abandoned Paris, a span that seemed like years but which had only been eight days. If only Jacques were here.

  It didn’t take him long to join them, although it felt, to Josephine, like a century. She was cutting flowers from her garden beds, breathing in petals, blossoms, fleurs, such a pretty word, scents of rosemary and thyme washing over her, the sun winking down, life greening and blooming at her feet, the Dordogne glittering past at the base of the hill, birds flitting from branch to leafing branch, the sun warming her arms and throat. Les Milandes—her fortress, her gift from God, her refuge—towered above.

  Pétain, not Hitler, ruled this countryside, and de Gaulle from London, his broadcasts swelling her heart more every day. All who wanted freedom for France should join him in London, he said. Josephine wanted to go, but she must wait for Jacques. He would come.

  Paulette came up from the river, her dark curls tied in a red kerchief, her face rosy, a pistol dangling from her right hand. Beside her walked François, touching her waist. When he saw Josephine, he dropped his hand. Aha!

  “She is doing very well,” François said.

  “I shot a bird in flight,” Paulette said.

  “Poor little creature,” Josephine said. Paulette was a better shot than she was. Damn.

  The maid shrugged. “If I hadn’t finished it off, one of your cats would have done it.”

  “Quelle insouciance,” François said, and the look that passed between them made Josephine wonder if more than guns hadn’t been going off in the brush.

  The rumble of an automobile froze them in place. François took the pistol from Paulette and tucked it into his pants. “Let’s go inside,” Josephine said, but the nose of the car appeared: the tilted grill, the extravagant, winglike wheel covers, the headlights rising on posts like the eyes of insects—

  “Jacques!” she cried, hands springing to her hair, feet running as the black car pulled up to the house. She stilled herself: Let him come to her. As he approached, his eyes never left hers, as blue as ever, French blue, the Germans had no idea. Love filled her mouth and nose, and she dipped her head before it could reach her eyes. She offered him a kiss, left cheek, right cheek, left cheek, and slipped her arm through his.

  “Foxy,” she said. “You finally came. When are we going to join de Gaulle?”

  BUT THEY HAD to wait for orders. Jacques had absconded from the Deuxième Bureau when de Gaulle left, intending to go with him to London, but the general had other ideas. An intelligence officer would be more useful in France gathering information, he’d said. Jacques told him about Josephine and the other Maquisards, so de Gaulle had sent him to Les Milandes.

  “He will call us when we are needed,” Jacques said. He shrugged when Josephine said she’d rather go to London, but she could see his disappointment.

  One evening in October, a tall, white-haired man came to the door, his eyes darting and wary, asking for Captain Abtey.

  “There is no one by that name here,” Paulette told him.

  He leveled his gaze upon her as though addressing a stupid child.

  “Whatever name he is using, then.”

  He had come from Marseille, sent by Paillole, a captain in the Deuxième Bureau with Jacques and now a leader in de Gaulle’s Free French force. Paulette invited him in, to Josephine’s consternation: he might be a spy for the Germans. But his story had seemed plausible to the maid, and he’d even produced a letter of introduction. He left the following day with Jacques’s passport, saying Paillole would produce a new one with a different name and an older age, since men under forty were not allowed to leave France. They also requested a passport for Josephine.

  A week later, four Nazi soldiers and an officer came to the door, saying someone had reported gunfire coming from her property. Josephine knew it was a ruse: everyone in her home knew to silence their guns during target practice. The Germans wanted to search the château and outbuildings for weapons.

  “What do you think of that?” the officer said, narrowing his eyes.

  “I think, monsieur, that you cannot be serious.” She wondered under whose authority they had come—this was the free zone, after all—but, eyeing their guns, she didn’t ask.

  “Gunfire? That’s probably my old Peugeot somebody heard,” she said, gathering her wits. “The engine backfires, can you believe it? I knew I should have bought a German model. How do you like the Mercedes-Benz you’re driving?”

  She rang for Paulette and asked her to make tea for the visitors, then led them into the sitting room.

  “I’ll give you a tour of the place first, sure, but what kind of hostess would I be if I didn’t offer you something to eat and drink? We raise geese here, and Paulette just cooked one up last night for supper. She made pâté from the liver, you’ve got to try it.”

  She heard herself chattering too much, but the Germans didn’t seem to notice. The tall one had eyes like a winter sky that lingered on her breasts. She made sure to touch him often as she spoke and smile into his face. The sound of the dumbwaiter trundling down the laundry chute relaxed her nerves a bit: she knew it carried a hammer, the secret signal to her guests—Trotobas, two defected officers from the French army, and the Laremies—to hide themselves. In a moment, they would be scurrying through the secret panel and into the cave that they had dug. Jacques, having heard the car, came up from the river, fishing rod in his hand, and introduced himself in a twang as “Jack Saunders,” an American tourist who’d befriended Josephine.

  “I’m a mighty big fan,” he said in English. “Seen all her pictures.”

  “Your timing is perfect, Mr. Jack,” she said. “I was about to give these men a tour.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. The German officer scowled, as if the American were imposing, as though he might have had a chance at some fun with Josephine after forcing his way into her home and poking around for a reason to arrest her.

  “He does not look like an American,” the officer said. “Let me see your passport, sir.”

  “In those waders, he looks more like a sewer inspector,” Josephine agreed, her heart clamoring; Jacques had sent his passport to Paillole. He pulled out one of his phony business cards and gave it to the officer, smiling big.

  “But I don’t think he understands German. You know how it is in the United States: they don’t teach foreign languages in school. By the way, you don’t look like a military officer, you’re far too handsome. Have you done any acting? I’m working on a new movie, and we have a part that would be perfect for you.”

  As she talked, filling their heads with words, she led the men up the stairs to the top floor, Jacques bringing up the rear, ready to defend her if needed, she supposed, although she wished he would disappear—without a passport, the situation was too dangerous for him. She kept her smile big and bright as if the men were dinner guests instead of Nazi thugs. The two soldiers looked around while she talked and flirted with the officer, and Jacques kept everyone occupied with his endless questions to her, in English, about the castle’s history and each piece of furniture and every photograph and painting. She regaled them with so many stories that, listening, the Nazis forgot to search very hard, which was just fine with her—they missed the gun in the back of her nightstand drawer. When she said the tour was finished except for the kitchen, no one even asked about the basement.

  “We have found no weapons, Frau Baker,” one of the soldiers said, beaming at her.

  “Of course not,” she said. “While it’s true that I had red-Indian grandparents, they hung up their tomahawks quite a while ago. The war dance is t
he only dance I haven’t done.” She slanted her eyes at the officer. “I prefer love to war, don’t you?” And, placing her hand on his arm, let him escort her into the kitchen.

  Paulette had fixed a plate of pâté and bread and a pot of tea and set them on the table. Josephine poured tea, continuing to chatter. The officer passed the plate her way and she took only a nibble, saying that, as much as she enjoyed pâté, it was fattening. She had a tour coming up, and must watch her figure.

  “I will watch it for you,” the officer said.

  “Will you? Ha ha! You are so witty, Karl,” she said.

  When the trio left, each bearing autographed records, she stood at the door waving farewell—and then turned and collapsed into Jacques’s arms.

  “That was superb,” he said. “The most marvelous performance of your life.”

  His arms around her, holding her, his hands on her back, her waist, his mouth on her mouth—it was nearly worth the ordeal to have him close to her at last. In the months since he had come to Les Milandes, Jacques had hardly slept with her—out of respect, he said, not wanting to stimulate gossip, and also from “a desire not to cause trouble in the group.” Knowing he had visited his wife and children before coming to Les Milandes, she’d thought his explanations dubious. But now she saw that old glimmer in his eyes.

  Feeling his gaze as she walked to the dumbwaiter and pulled it up. Her body tingling. Paulette came in with François, her eyes wide to see that the Nazis had left, and that she and Jacques were both still there.

  “We are safe,” Josephine said. How did she sound so strong when her body felt like rubber? “The Germans left satisfied and will not return.”

  “They will return,” Jacques said, glancing at her. “One of them, I am certain, has not been satisfied.”

  He and Josephine must leave now, he said, to see Captain Paillole in Vichy, tell him what had occurred, and request orders. Paulette would take the Laremies into the village and help them find another residence.

  “Then you will remain here until François returns for you,” he told Paulette. “If any Nazis come to the door, tell them Josephine has left on her tour.”

  Trotobas and the officers came into the room. “Pack your belongings. We must all disperse immediately,” Jacques said. “Les Milandes is our safe haven no more.”

  CHAPTER 26

  1940, Lisbon

  Lisbon was exciting, decadent, filled with life, free—everything Paris used to be: a fete of music, bright lights, nightclubs, restaurants, and endless parties. The city was perfect for eavesdropping, the Alfama neighborhood at the base of St. George’s Castle a maze of narrow streets teeming with spies, Spaniards, Italians, Germans, Russians, British, Jews, and French—everyone hiding secrets like daggers under their cloaks. Only the Portuguese were neutral, but even some of them were on the take.

  Wherever there were spies, so was Josephine, working the crowd, playing dumb, brushing up against the enemy when Jacques wasn’t looking. He had warned her against flirting—this was not the Italian embassy with its wet-behind-the-ears attaché—but she thought he might be jealous. At last.

  From here, once their visas came through, they could travel to Brazil for a tour, Jacques as her maître de ballet—she’d had it inscribed on his passport, “agent to Josephine Baker,” increasing his respect for her, for now if he were arrested she would be, too.

  “The Germans aren’t concerned with you,” she’d said with a shrug. It was true. When they had obtained their passports from Paillole along with maps, photographs, and fifty-two documents about the Germans (including the Nazi plan to grab the rest of France), she’d pinned the photos and maps inside her underwear and bra, transcribed all the information in invisible ink onto her sheet music, and walked through the swarm of Nazis as though she were royalty. The Germans hadn’t even checked her handbag; they’d wanted only a kiss and her autograph. Of course, she sang, “J’ai Deux Amours,” pretending she wasn’t sick of the song, and letting them all kiss her again when she had finished. The men hadn’t bothered with “Jacques-François Hébert,” standing meekly by in his old-man getup, heavy glasses and fake mustache, supposedly forty-one but looking ten years older, so nondescript that nobody paid him any mind. At the other end, in Lisbon, the agent was so smitten with Josephine that he never even glanced at Jacques’s papers.

  “If you are killed, they can kill me, too,” she said to Jacques “I don’t want to live without my Fox.”

  He had warned her against keeping secrets from him, but did he really want to know about the consul she’d seduced to get their visas? Whom did she have to sleep with, now, to get them out of Portugal? Jacques gave Paillole’s intelligence to a British air attaché along with a letter asking to meet with de Gaulle in London, but the captain replied, again, that they were to wait.

  Neither of them was good at waiting, especially now, when the fate of all they loved hung in the balance. But when Paillole summoned Josephine for a meeting in Marseille, Jacques didn’t want her to go.

  “Doesn’t he realize the danger? The Germans could march south at any time. If you are captured . . .”

  “I have my poison,” she said. “We must be brave, darling. Please, hold me.” Shameless, yes, but who knew when—if—they would see each other again?

  IN MARSEILLE, SHE checked in at Le Grand Hôtel Noailles, into a beautiful room overlooking the water, and went to see Paillole.

  “Your stability impresses me,” he said over coffee. “I had feared otherwise.”

  “Because I am a woman?”

  “Because you are Josephine Baker.” He offered sugar and a demitasse spoon. “I have heard tales of your temper. It is the way of the artist, no?”

  “I’m confident in our success,” she said, changing the subject. “The United States will send troops very soon. When that happens, France will crush the Germans to dust.”

  “Your optimism is heartening.” He smiled. “And very American.”

  She could have danced back to her hotel. She had made a good impression on a high-ranking member of the Resistance, not with coy looks or flirtations, but with her mind. She relayed the information she had coaxed from an Austrian colonel, at a dinner party the night before: Germany planned another major air raid on London at the end of the month, and would soon move into North Africa. Greece had beaten back the Italians, but the Germans would now invade. As she’d spoken, she’d watched the skeptical Paillole’s expression change, and saw him unfold his arms and lean across the table toward her. And not once did he ask for her autograph or to hear her sing “J’ai Deux Amours.”

  When she left, he shook her hand.

  “You have become one of our most valuable agents,” he said.

  Most valuable—her! And a secret intelligence agent, meaning that she was intelligent. She hadn’t been called that since grade school, when Mrs. Mason had helped her with her homework and said she was “bright.” She floated on that cloud back to her hotel, where the reality of her situation brought her crashing back to earth.

  As she headed for the stairs, the hotel manager approached. Although she had already checked in, he now wanted her room payment up front. These were “unpredictable times,” he said. Josephine pasted on a smile and told him she was cash-poor and would be until her agent arrived from Lisbon in just a few days. The manager frowned; there were no exceptions to this rule. She took out her purse and showed him the few folded bills inside. Would he take them as a deposit? He shook his head, apologized again, and suggested a more affordable hotel near the train station.

  Shivering in the tawdry lobby of the cheaper place with its sagging sofas, dingy carpet, low-class whores, and boozy drunks, Josephine worried for the first time about her survival. She paid for her room with fingers numbed by the cold, and when she turned to pick up her suitcase saw her old friend Frédéric Rey, her dance partner in La Créole.

  He was trying to leave France, he said, but had no passport. Years ago, he’d entered the country illegally, sne
aked in from Vienna by Mistinguett, who had been seduced by his sensitive face and slender body. She hadn’t wanted to wait for him to get papers, so had smuggled him in a trunk of clothes. Now he was stuck.

  “The Germans do not like homosexuals,” he said, twitching like a rabbit.

  “Il faut! We will get you out!” Seeing his frightened eyes renewed her strength. She jabbed her fist before her nose like a boxer. “I will help you when my agent arrives. But until then, we’re in the same boat. The Germans don’t like Negroes, either, and I don’t have a sou to my name. But we will prevail, Frédéric. Il faut!”

  They cooked up a scheme to earn some money. What if they revived La Créole for Christmas? Frédéric had already sought work at the Opéra Municipal de Marseille, but they had no performances planned due to the German threat. Before the day was through, they’d sealed a deal with the house manager. They had only two weeks to put it all together: sets, costumes, performers, and rehearsals.

  After sleeping in her heatless room—even wrapped in her fur coat, she couldn’t get warm—Josephine developed a nagging cough. In the mornings, she bathed herself at the sink in cold water, her teeth chattering, and dressed in a haze, having only skimmed the surface of sleep. Strong coffee alone kept her going—for she could not afford to eat—as well as the telegram from Jacques saying that he would join her by Christmas. At night she lay shivering and, when she dreamed, imagined him beside her, keeping her warm.

  The dress rehearsal went better than she had imagined. Somehow she managed not to cough, and her singing brought the audience to its feet. Even the “gods” in the upper tier demanded curtain call after curtain call, tossing flowers and shouting her name. She’d almost forgotten the inner glow that an adoring audience could ignite, their cheers blowing on the spark that always kindled inside her, bursting her into flame, into joy, into life.

  Jacques surprised her by showing up in Lisbon a few days early, his hair in need of a cut, his mustache shaggy, his expression glum. Paillole would not send them to London, after all. Germany was about to attack the city, and the Resistance team had scattered. The two of them would go to Morocco, instead, to gather information and pass it to the British in Lisbon.