Mistress of the Ritz

by Melanie Benjamin

  “A mistress is not a whore, Blanche. You Americans use the word interchangeably but it is not—”

  “Oh, shut the hell up. Don’t you dare lecture me, you—you—do you know I can divorce you over this?”

  “What?” It was Claude’s turn to look perplexed. “First of all, only Americans get divorced. We do not in France—it simply isn’t done, it isn’t necessary. Husbands and wives have so much more of an understanding of these things here, my love. This is why it’s absurd for you to even think about this—I cannot understand it.”

  “Because you’re cheating on me!”

  “No, no.” Claude almost laughed but caught the violent gleam in her eye just in time. “No, that is not how it is. It is how you Americans think it is, but you have it all wrong. How could I cheat on you with a woman I see only once a week, and have told you about? I don’t love her, I love you. I’m not married to her, I’m married to you—you have my name, it is with you that I share my worldly goods, you are my partner in life. She—she is only—only—” Once more, he struggled to find the word in English. But English was not the correct language for this conversation.

  “A piece of ass?”

  Claude shuddered. “Blanche, that is vulgar.” His fairy princess had turned out to possess the vocabulary of a dockworker, to his bitter disappointment.

  “I’m vulgar? Oh, boy, that’s rich. Do I need to remind you what I did, Claude Auzello, when I married you?”

  Claude winced; it was the first time she had brought this up, this thing that she had done. Claude had nothing to do with it, had never asked her to do such a thing, although he confessed that there was a part of him—a larger part than he would have expected—that was relieved when she did. But they had agreed to bury it, to forget about it—for the good of all involved.

  “This conversation is ridiculous. I did you the courtesy of informing you where I will be on Thursday nights, and you react like a spoiled brat. This is not worthy of you, Blanche, it is not worthy of us—merde!” Claude saw stars, felt blood trickling down his forehead.

  For Blanche had just thrown a vase at him and was picking up another.

  “Stop!”

  “You go to hell! You go to hell, Claude Auzello!” The second vase missed and shattered against the wall, and he threw his arms up to protect his face as she began to search for something else to hurl; he ran out of the room and closed the door, holding it shut as she began to pound on it, calling him the most inventive names he’d ever heard, and he had to admire her creativity: “slimy son-of-a-bitch frog,” “two-timing no-balls bastard,” “cheating, lying, gutless worm of a wanker.”

  Suddenly the pounding and the invective stopped; all was quiet. Eerily quiet.

  “Blanche, I—” Tentatively, Claude opened the door a crack; when the silence continued, he opened it wider. Blanche was standing there, looking perfectly calm with a smile on her face. Then she reared back and punched him in the nose.

  * * *

  —

  HE STAYED AWAY FROM the apartment for two days and prayed she would not show up at the Ritz in her current state of mind; it would not help his career to have his wife marching through the hallways shouting that he was a “two-timing no-balls bastard.” Marie-Louise Ritz would not stand for that.

  Claude rationalized that it was good to give her time to absorb the lesson and cool down. And he did blame himself, somewhat; he had, once again, discounted the difference between American and French. The French understood that an occasional visit to another land—like a holiday—is good for a marriage. That is all it is; the delight in discovering different flesh, now and again. The restfulness that comes with being satiated physically, without emotional attachment—it is important for a busy man in charge of a household. His own mother knew about his father’s mistresses over the years; all she ever asked, like any reasonable French woman, was that he not flaunt them, not introduce them to the children, not allow them to take up more than a modicum of his time and energy and—most important—money. And if she had affairs—impossible to imagine, but perhaps—naturally, no one knew.

  Blanche would learn to understand this, Claude believed; she was a quick student. She had proven adept at understanding, even embracing, most other things French. Claude felt a couple of days apart were all that would be needed for her to see the situation more rationally.

  However, at the end of the second day, when he returned home to the apartment and discovered that her wardrobe was empty, he grew alarmed, and did the unthinkable—he sent a message via the Ritz messenger boy to Pearl, who replied by telling him to come over to her flat.

  Claude had begged Blanche to end her friendship with this woman. Pearl’s film career had not been restored here in France. She’d been reduced to lending her name to tawdry nightclubs, where she was trotted out to crudely reenact some of her more famous movie scenes with young men clad only in loincloths. Even that work had dried up, lately.

  One night, after too many bottles of champagne elsewhere, she showed up at the Ritz to see Blanche and attempted to breach the bar where, naturally, she was not allowed. Blanche tried to stop her, but Pearl was not to be stopped that night; her old fur stole was stained, her stockings had enormous runs, her makeup was streaked down her face. Blanche wept when she saw her. But Claude saw only a disaster of Pearl’s own making. Blanche had told him that she had pawned almost everything she owned and was subsisting on handouts from whatever lover she could dupe at the moment. Blanche saw bravery in this.

  Claude saw disgrace.

  Even Blanche was appalled that night by Pearl’s behavior; the woman had actually struck Frank Meier with an umbrella. Blanche was finally able to coax her out to the street and into a taxi. Claude had not seen her since.

  But he made the long trek out to the 20th arrondissement, to a neighborhood of decrepit, narrow mansions all broken up into tiny flats. This was an area devoid of absolutely anything—few cafés, no restaurants, shops widely scattered, some of the streetlights burned out. It was not a place to linger, let alone live.

  Pearl had an attic flat, so he climbed six flights of stairs. And he hoped, with each step, that Blanche would be waiting for him at the top.

  But she was not; Pearl was, clad in a stained wrapper, formerly trimmed in fur but now the fur was missing in great patches, and what was left was matted flat, shiny with grease. Her blond hair was streaked with gray; she wore no makeup but somehow that made the lines of her face less prominent. Her mouth, devoid of that garish lipstick, was a pale, attractive pink. She was far prettier than she had been the first time Claude met her; some women did grow more beautiful with pain and suffering. He recognized now that Pearl was one of them.

  “Hey, Claude,” she said, and moved aside to allow him into her flat. He looked around eagerly for Blanche, but she was not there.

  “Where is she? Where is my Blanchette?”

  “She’s gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gone. Vanished. Vamoosed.”

  “From our apartment?”

  “From France.”

  “No.” Claude’s legs felt weak; he had to sit down, and Pearl hastily removed a torn negligee from the only armchair before he sank into it.

  “Yes. What’d you think she’d do, you idiot?”

  “I thought—I thought—she is my wife! How can she do this to me?”

  “Oh, Claude.” Pearl laughed raucously, and it turned into a rib-shattering cough that went on for so long, he grew alarmed and went to the sink (the kitchen, living room, and bedroom were all one space), found a cloudy jam jar, obviously used as a drinking glass, and filled it with water.

  “Thanks,” she rasped, and she drank it, then started to laugh again. “You men! How can she do this to me? What about her, Claude? How could you do this to her? Don’t you know Blanche by now? She’s a little girl, Cla
ude. Not sophisticated like you and me. Blanche, for all her polish, her salty language—that broad can curse like a sailor—is just an innocent little schoolgirl at heart. Everything she does to make it seem otherwise is an act. A damn good one, but an act. She believes in love, she believes in goodness, she probably still believes in Santa Claus for all I know. The thing is—she believes in you, too, you dumb bastard.”

  “But I love her—surely she understands that. I don’t love anyone else but her!”

  “You have someone on the side. You told her about it—Christ, you big dummy, if you hadn’t been so damn honest, you probably would have gotten away with it.”

  That, Claude had not thought of before. To be dishonest about his mistress? A woman—yes, a beautiful woman, a discreet woman—but only a woman, still. Not a wife. He was certain he was being honorable in telling Blanche. Yet another way that Americans were so frustrating! Had he not told her—had he deceived her—they would right now be spending a cozy evening together at the Ritz, the picture of contentment. By being honest with her, Claude had lost her.

  How was that possible?

  “Where did she go?”

  He felt, somehow, that Pearl was on his side—and he knew he did not deserve her support, but was grateful for it.

  “To London.”

  “London?”

  “J’Ali is there,” Pearl added, softly.

  “No!” Righteous rage propelled Claude out of his seat; he bumped his head on the sloped ceiling of the flat. “Not back to that man—he does not love her. He does not respect her.”

  “I know that and you know that, but Blanche—she doesn’t. She doesn’t see much of a difference between how J’Ali treated her, and how you did.”

  “But there’s a world of difference. I made her my wife!”

  “Why did you? I’ve always wanted to know. Do you even like her? Because I can’t help but think she’s not your type. Do you need her?”

  “I—well—” Claude had to sit down and take the tumbler of water from Pearl. This was not a question he had ever asked himself; it was not a question any man he knew had ever asked himself. Women were necessary, but that wasn’t the same thing as professing a need for them. As for the notion of liking his wife—

  He thought of the ways Blanche surprised him, the things about her he’d never thought he’d desired, until he met her—drama, intrigue. Excitement. A keen mind that probed and pushed, instead of simply acquiescing.

  “I need her, yes,” Claude said slowly. “I need her, for my days would be quite—boring—without her. I cannot imagine now, for myself, any other woman than her. Any other wife.”

  “Then go get her, Claude. Go get your wife.”

  “I cannot.” Claude picked up his hat, too frustrated to remain—but too proud to cross the Channel. “If she cannot see the difference—if she cannot see that I need her, that she alone is my wife, that there is no other reason that I saved her from that man, other than to honor her in this way—I cannot make her. I will not make her. It is not my place.”

  “Then you’ll lose her.” Pearl shook her head and—surprisingly—gave Claude a kiss on the cheek. Again he perceived her sympathy, despite all odds.

  “I won’t believe that, either.” Claude felt surprising tears in his eyes, for her kindness. Perhaps he had been too judgmental in the past. “Try to stay out of trouble, Pearl. Blanche worries about you.”

  “Blanche worries about everyone—do you know what that crazy girl did? She hocked some of her jewelry so I could pay my rent.”

  “She did?” Claude’s eyes brimmed over again; he was stunned. Claude tended to think of two women as natural enemies, competing with each other for clothing, jewelry, attention. Men. That they could be so unselfish and supportive was yet one more revelation in a day full of them, and he suddenly yearned for a good glass of port and a friend to talk it all over with.

  But Blanche was that friend—another stunning revelation. In the short time they had been married, Claude realized, he had never once shared a glass of port with a friend or co-worker the way he had before he met her. Now, whenever he had a problem, a bad day, or just a desire to laugh at his fellow man, he went to Blanche.

  “Where is she staying in London?” Claude asked Pearl before she could shut the door behind him.

  “Where do you think?” She laughed again.

  “Ah.” Claude chuckled, despite his turmoil. “Of course she is.” He bade Pearl good night—after first thrusting whatever money he had in his pockets into her hands. She tucked the notes into her bosom and smiled—a ghost of her old smile, the one he first saw across the lobby of the Hôtel Claridge, when he met the fair maiden he knew he had to rescue.

  Claude smiled, too. Because all was not lost, after all. Even if Blanche could run away from him, there was one thing she loved that she simply could not turn her back on.

  The Ritz.

  It startles Blanche to look out of the sparkling windows of the Ritz—where everyone, Nazis and civilians alike, still dresses and drinks and gossips like the old days, retiring safely at night in beds made with fresh linens, maybe starting to be a bit threadbare, but the Ritz seamstresses repair them with such delicate stitches, it’s barely noticeable—and witness the displacement of certain families. For now there are new laws, decrees coming down from Vichy, which are really from Berlin: All the Jews in Paris have to register. They’re now prohibited from professions like the law, medicine, teaching, or even owning shops. Homes—with their treasures, sculptures and paintings and rugs, all packed up neatly and warehoused in empty stores, archived in great detail by Nazi secretaries and curators—have been requisitioned, leaving entire families out on the street.

  Many of these families she recognizes as patrons of the Ritz bar or restaurant, even if the Ritz has always discreetly, as Claude puts it, enforced the unspoken quotas against Jews in the past. (“We must always make sure our clientele is comfortable, Blanche. Rothschilds are very much welcome; in fact, they are investors in the Ritz. There are Jews and there are Jews,” as Claude put it. “And you very well know it, for you Americans are not so very different from us.” He’s right, of course. It’s the same in New York, where Guggenheims are much more acceptable than Goldbergs.)

  On her way to have tea with a duchess or simply to get air, because even the rarified atmosphere of the Ritz gets stuffy these days, thick as it is with German accents, Blanche passes more and more of them. Maybe she even goes out of her way to seek them out: Papa in a fine felt hat with an overcoat sitting helpless on the curb while Mama in a fur coat with a brave slash of red lipstick—always a brave slash of red lipstick, and a silk scarf tied perfectly, so French, even now—corrals her children like little chicks and begins to knock on doors or telephone relatives from call boxes. It is Mama, always Mama, who is able to move and think. And plan.

  Why does Blanche call them that? Mama and Papa? She always does, in her mind, in her heart, when she encounters these discarded families; when she walks past them, stopping to press money into their hands; when she walks on, walks toward wherever she is headed, free to move, free to return to her home, but always she glimpses someone familiar in their faces, someone from a memory. Or is it a nightmare? Someone from an old photograph, perhaps. Or a face conjured up from childhood stories.

  She also sees, in their displaced faces—foreign faces mostly, the Jews who had fled to Paris in the last decade from Germany and Austria—Lily.

  It’s been almost four years since she first met Lily. When Blanche ran away from Claude, yet again.

  It had become their pattern, their little game. He insisted on sleeping elsewhere every Thursday, they argued about it, she could not make him see how this humiliated her and he could not understand why she cared. Blanche ran away for a while before returning again—or sometimes he came to her, for the romantic thrill of bringing her back himself. For
a few months, they lived and loved in a brittle truce, Thursday night passing without drama. But it began again. It always began again.

  And it was on one of these—excursions—that Blanche first met Lily.

  * * *

  —

  “WHERE YOU SAY YOU are going, Blanche?”

  “Back home, to Paris.”

  “Paris.” The small woman—she looked like a little girl but talked like a drunken sailor with a tenuous grasp of English—next to Blanche nodded. They both stood at the railing of the steamer, watching as their ship sliced through the Mediterranean, leaving foam in its wake.

  “I go, too,” she said, with determination. “I go with you. I always wanted to see Paris.”

  Her name was Lily, she’d said. Lily Kharmanyoff. Blanche asked if she was Russian, but she only shrugged. Blanche asked if she was Romanian, but she only shrugged. Blanche asked if she was from any particular country at all. But she only shrugged.

  “You’ll fit right in in Paris,” Blanche replied, with a sardonic laugh.

  “Why you say, Blanche?”

  “You’ve got the shrug down pat.” And Blanche shrugged, too, to illustrate. Lily laughed delightedly and clapped her hands. People around them stared, but Blanche was already getting used to that. People had a tendency to stare at Lily.

  It wasn’t merely that she was tiny, excitable, prone to poking total strangers on the shoulders to ask them the most personal questions. (Which was how she met Blanche.) It wasn’t merely that she dressed like an orphan who had gotten into a bag of discarded circus costumes—today she was wearing a red beret atop her short black hair, cut in a Dutch boy style, along with an emerald green sweater studded with rhinestones with patches on the sleeve, a tight black skirt, yellow gloves, and flat purple shoes, the sole flapping at her right heel. Her black stockings were pristine, but too big; they bagged at the knees. She wore no makeup and had a charming smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose, which gave her an elfin quality.