Mistress of the Ritz

by Melanie Benjamin

  And Blanche took it that way.

  But now, it made her sick to remember how easily, eagerly, she agreed with him. How delighted she was that she did not look “too Jewy.”

  This day, however, she knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as it usually was—or as easy as she’d convinced herself, over the years, that it usually was. Blanche understood it from the moment they were greeted, upon approach to the Palais Berlitz where the exhibition was held, by an enormous mural, four stories tall, of an ugly cartoon of a Semite, complete with hooked nose, beady eyes, and gnarled fingers, clutching a globe. The symbol of the Jew out to destroy the world—the message was not subtle, Claude whispered.

  Blanche felt her nose—she couldn’t help it, her hand flew up to touch her damn nose, to see if it had suddenly grown three sizes, developed a hook where there had been none before.

  Claude took her hand and held it tight within his. He kept his wife this way—so close against him that she couldn’t fall down—the entire afternoon.

  The Auzellos shuffled like conjoined twins, as if his non-Semitic blood could seep through his skin to change hers, to make her, inside and out, “less Jewy,” through room after room of exhibits. Exhibits explaining—in German with French subtitles—through photographs, through artwork, through damned dirty lies, how the Jews wanted to take over the world, wanted to squeeze every sense of decency and morality out of it, wanted to kill Christians in their sleep. Jews were ugly, were venomous, were sick. They were responsible for Communism and Marxism. They had poisoned French culture with their art, their movies, their music.

  They were unworthy of kindness, dignity. Unworthy of life itself.

  And all that Blanche had convinced herself that she’d left behind in New York when she first sailed to France came flooding back, threatening to smother even the shaky breaths she was taking. She was overwhelmed with memories; old photographs, the starched white dress with the red embroidered collar she wore one Passover, the equally ironed and stiffened black dress with huge leg-of-mutton sleeves she wore to her grandmother’s funeral, as well as the enormous black taffeta bow her mother used to tie back her hair so tight, she had a headache the entire time; tradition, family, oft-told stories, dreams, Mama and Papa and her sisters and her brothers and glimpses of her grandparents and distant aunts and relatives, all her worst fears, everything she spent a lifetime leaving behind and why had she? Blanche couldn’t remember anymore, not when confronted by such slander about them. About her.

  Lies about people like her grandparents, who had come over from Germany; they never learned English, so the family always spoke German in their presence. They were kind people. Gentle people who only wanted the best for their children and grandchildren. These were the same monsters that were supposed to be plotting to murder all Christians in their sleep? Blanche’s grandfather Rubenstein couldn’t harm a fly—a memory flashed through her mind. A memory of how, once, a mouse had gone on a spree in the kitchen of his small apartment, the first home he and her grandmother had rented in America, the apartment he’d never been able to give up despite her parents’ urging. But Grandfather couldn’t kill the mouse, despite her grandmother’s haranguing; he grabbed his old-fashioned top hat (like Abe Lincoln’s) that he insisted on wearing even though it was long out of fashion, and scooped the mouse up in it. He carefully released it out in the small patch of yard behind the building, where a cat promptly killed it, and Grandfather wept like a child.

  That top hat was the nicest thing he brought with him from the Old World, when he arrived in America. In the Rubenstein family album, there was a photograph of him as a young boy wearing it, his face too young and small for such a towering hat. But he had such a proud expression on his face.

  That young, hopeful face—that was what Blanche saw as she read the hateful propaganda proclaiming the Jews the evil of the world, the scourge of humanity.

  Her own face, too—suddenly she saw it as if looking in a mirror. Saw it as it had been, before she’d so eagerly decided to seek a different life, a better life, although wasn’t the laugh on her? Here she was, a Jew in Occupied Paris, surrounded by Germans every single damn day.

  But her own face—brown eyes, cute little nose, dark hair that she’d started dying blond so long ago, she wouldn’t recognize the real color now—she saw her own face in the images of the photos, the cartoons, the artwork.

  How Can You Recognize a Semite? one of the displays asked.

  How, indeed? Blanche sure as hell didn’t know anymore, even though the display helpfully provided an answer: By greasy hair, beady eyes, hooked nose, grasping hands.

  But they left out a few other traits. How can you recognize a Semite?

  By the terrified pounding of her heart. The liquid in her bowels. The tangible relief—really, she could touch it every time she caressed her passport—that she had erased her identity decades before. For reasons that seemed so ridiculous now: to help her husband’s career; to further escape a past that, in retrospect, didn’t seem all that terrible; because it was a day ending in a “y”; because the sun was shining.

  Because, because, because—it didn’t matter, it had been so easy; Blanche talked to Frank Meier who introduced her to Greep who, with a few expert scribbles, a photograph, and fifty francs, erased her past and gave her a new identity. So easy, she wondered why everyone didn’t do the same. Change names, change nationalities, change religion—delete a few years, too, might as well—as easily as a flapper could change the color of her hair or the brand of her cigarette (Lucky Strikes for Gauloises).

  Confronted with so much hatred in this exhibit—it was like running into a wall made of barbed wire, rusty nails, flayed flesh exposing organs still pulsing with life—Blanche knew it wasn’t as easy as that, after all.

  Not in this packed exhibition that reminded her, with every step she took, that there were people who were so anxious to be told that their worst fears and prejudices were understandable, if not admirable, that they believed every single lie they were told. She saw two men laugh at a horrible cartoon of the former prime minister—twice he was elected to that office!—Léon Blum, depicting him with a nose the size of a banana; they laughed until they had tears in their eyes.

  Blanche overheard a mother earnestly telling her daughter, who couldn’t have been more than nine or ten, that it was true, yes it was: Jews sometimes ate little girls like her, and so it was a good thing the Nazis were here, to save her.

  “They are animals,” Claude hissed beneath his breath, as he gripped his wife’s arm so hard she knew there would be marks. “These Nazis have no conscience. This would never happen in a free France.”

  Blanche nodded toward the mother and daughter. “Do you really believe that, Claude?” After all, he was the one who first told her about the quotas that certain hotels and restaurants unofficially enforced. He was the one who had told her all about the decades-long L’affaire Dreyfus, and how his own parents had been pleased when the innocent man had been found guilty and imprisoned.

  He was the one who did not try very hard to talk her out of changing her passport, right when he started at the Ritz.

  Blanche’s husband—eavesdropping while the mother went on to explain to her daughter that it was a good thing the Germans had put on this exhibition, because some of their neighbors didn’t share their beliefs, but now, thank heavens, they would know the truth because one thing was certain: Nazis didn’t lie—did not answer.

  But he did grip his wife even more tightly and hissed into her ear, “Thank God you had the foresight to do what you did, back then.”

  He’d never thanked her for doing it. He’d never really acknowledged it at all; it seemed natural to him: the American Jew converting to Catholicism in order to marry a Frenchman. It was a building block of the Auzellos’ marriage, one of the foundations—as essential, if unspoken, a truth to the story they told about themselves as the
circumstances of their meeting, what she was wearing, how he almost forgot the ring for the ceremony.

  Once this was all over, she would leave, she told herself as they left the exhibit. Leave Claude, leave their convenient marriage—for that was what it was, by this time; a convenient excuse for her not to go home—and return to New York. To her family that she’d too easily left behind.

  To the religion she’d too easily abandoned.

  * * *

  —

  AS THE TRUCK PULLS out of the Place Vendôme and onto the rue de la Paix, Blanche stops thinking about the past and begins to register, fully, what is happening now. She is no onlooker; she is no actress; she is no fake sophisticate, no Parisienne. She’s no longer Blanche Ross Auzello.

  She is, finally, once again—Blanche Rubenstein.

  How can you recognize a Semite?

  Throw her in the back of a Nazi truck with her hands tied too tightly behind her back, and point a German gun at her head.

  He races down the stairs, her passport in his hand. She’s forgotten it, and all he can register is that she needs it now; she needs to prove she’s Blanche Ross Auzello, Catholic. So he runs through the lobby, waving the passport like a madman, shouting, “She forgot it! She forgot her passport! Blanche—she forgot it!”

  And then he realizes that all the Germans in the Place Vendôme side are staring at him in amusement. Where his wife is going, no passport is necessary.

  Still, he whirls around until he can glimpse a kind face—and there is von Stülpnagel, trundling down the wide staircase, tucking his shirt in his pants.

  “What is going on?” There’s a sharp click and Claude realizes that a soldier has pointed a rifle at him, but he can’t be bothered by that right now. He actually puts his hand out and lowers it, as if it is merely a fly to be swatted away.

  Blanche is gone. Blanche is gone—it’s a hammer repeatedly striking a gong in his brain, the only words that matter, the only sound that he hears.

  “My wife—Herr von Stülpnagel!” Claude Auzello, all dignity forgotten, throws himself on this man, this Nazi. He has no shame, no pride. All the months he’s fetched and carried for these swine—surely it means something? Surely they will remember, and help him? “My wife, Blanche—she was just taken! She forgot her passport!” Claude waves the precious leather book right in the man’s face.

  “Herr Auzello, please.” Von Stülpnagel pushes Claude away, but gestures for the others to return to their duties. The soldier with the rifle holsters it and walks away.

  “Herr von Stülpnagel, I beg of you. I know she did a reckless thing—she told me all about it. But she is my wife! She is the wife of the director of the Ritz! She’s foolish, yes. Impulsive. But she’s done nothing terrible, nothing that warrants being arrested.”

  “It is not my decision, Herr Auzello.” Von Stülpnagel sits down, wearily, on a small gilt chair—it is too delicate, too fine, for this German in his gray-green uniform. “I am not the Gestapo. I only told them where to find her when they came here looking.”

  “You? You told them?”

  “I had no choice. I answer to a higher command, you know that—you’re a soldier, too. I tried to—I tried to talk them out of it.” The man’s shoulders slump, and Claude has a moment of hope. Perhaps this Nazi has a soul, after all. “But she committed a grave crime against the Reich. She desecrated a lieutenant’s uniform; she disrespected him in public. We cannot have that. It will give the citizens the wrong idea if we tolerate it, especially now. Even Frau Auzello of the Ritz can’t get away with that.”

  Claude sinks to his knees; he has never done such a thing. But for Blanche, he does.

  “I beg of you, please. Talk to the Gestapo, ask them to let her go. I’ll take her away, I promise. I’ll take her out to the country, where she’ll be no threat, where she’ll live quietly until—”

  “Until what?” Von Stülpnagel removes his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose, puts them back on, all the while glaring at Claude. Daring him to complete his thought.

  “Never mind—I didn’t mean—just let me take her away, I promise. She will do nothing further, nothing that disrespects the Reich.”

  “I told you it’s out of my hands, Herr Auzello. Even if I wanted to—and I’m not saying I do—the Gestapo will not listen to me. They answer directly to the Führer, not the military.”

  “At least tell me where she will be taken?”

  “I don’t know. Drancy, maybe. Fresnes? She could be in one of the smaller jails in the city, I suppose, but that’s not likely. I’m sorry, Herr Auzello. I, too, have a wife. I haven’t seen her in months, and it’s likely I won’t see her anytime soon. All leaves are canceled until further notice. So I understand, but I cannot do anything about it.”

  And to Claude’s astonishment, the man does look sorry; he looks miserable, actually, still slumped in the chair, bowed down by so much responsibility, so much collective hate passed down from his superiors.

  Finally von Stülpnagel rises, wearily. “I would like my usual lunch brought up to my office now, Herr Auzello. Please take pains to see that it is warm this time. Yesterday, it was cold.” He peers at Claude, hesitates; he places his hands on Claude’s shoulders. “We have to keep at our jobs, don’t we? There’s nothing else we can do but keep working. It would be foolish, dangerous, to think we can do more than that, Herr Auzello. You understand?”

  Claude nods, but he balls his hands into fists, his vision swims so that all he sees are red dots; his head is throbbing with anger—anger, also the color red.

  Red—the color of the background of the flags with the swastikas, hanging from the ceilings, covering the antique tapestries.

  But Claude Auzello is nothing if not disciplined; he remembers, just in time—everything, all. His training, his duty. His responsibilities.

  His wife, in these creatures’ hands.

  “Of course, it will be my pleasure to arrange your lunch, Herr von Stülpnagel. And—thank you.” But for what, Claude doesn’t quite know—other than showing him a glimmer of humanity, when he most needed it. “But please, if you will—can you make sure whoever has Blanche gets this?” Claude hands the man the passport.

  Von Stülpnagel takes it, then he trudges back up the stairs, to his office. Claude understands that he should not take too much to heart the man’s unexpected kindness, but he can’t help himself; his eyes fill with tears, and he feels, for a moment, not quite so isolated in a terror that is his alone to bear.

  Then he has to walk past German soldiers—the same Germans he’s soothed and catered to for four years now—toward the long hallway. Back to his office, to at least attempt to resume his duties, as von Stülpnagel advised.

  But the Ritz, for the first time, seems false, like a pasteboard cake covered in icing that is used to decorate the window of a pastry shop. Beautiful to look at. But hollow inside.

  Inside his office, Claude can’t bring himself to focus; he picks up the phone, desperate to talk to Martin, who might have an idea, he’s such a clever fellow—but he remembers all phones are tapped here at the Ritz. Tapped by their guests. And for the life of him, Claude does not know what the code words are for a situation like this.

  Claude remembers, finally, the gun. In the locked drawer, with the hemlock, the ant poison, the lye. He opens the drawer and surveys the bounty, so tempting. A drop of lye in von Stülpnagel’s tea. Hemlock in Speidel’s soup. Why stop there? Hemlock for all! A banquet of poison, he could surely find some allies in the kitchen who would be more than happy to cook up such a treat for their German guests.

  Or maybe something quieter? Something more personal, an intimate dance between himself and some random German soldier, the grand finish simply a little matter of a bullet in his brain? Then he would get himself arrested, he would be with Blanche wherever she is being taken, they would be jailed together—


  And he would never be able to help her, now, would he? Of course not, Claude, you fool. Do not think like a passionate lover. You had your time for that. Now is a time for more rational, clearheaded thinking.

  His hands are shaking—not a mere tremble but a body-rattling earthquake. Claude shuts the door, sits down, puts his head in those unstable hands. Tries to think, comes up with nothing.

  He remains this way for the rest of the day, anything to delay returning to his rooms.

  Where Blanche will not be, to greet him.

  She is only one of many women, also shackled, bouncing around in the truck as it rumbles through the cobblestone streets. One of them asks the soldier pointing the gun where they’re going. He doesn’t answer but another woman does.

  “You’ll see. Fresnes. The last stop before hell.”

  “Go ahead and talk,” the soldier finally says, good-naturedly; he takes a cigarette out of his pocket, lights it, throws the lit match at a woman three feet away from him. “It’ll be the last time you do, so why not?”

  This shuts them up.

  It’s a warm day. Is it a warm day? It’s still June, still summer; only yesterday Blanche was walking in a short-sleeved blouse with Lily. Through the streets gaily bordered with flower boxes, ivy bursting into greenery, birds chirping. So it must be still warm, Blanche thinks, yet she’s turning inside out with cold, her body shaking so violently she thinks she’s going to be sick.

  “Stop it,” the woman next to her says once. Then she says no more.

  Trundling along in the back of the truck like potatoes, the women are silent, except for some sobs, as they’re driven out of the city. Soon they’re in the suburbs, dull and charmless, and eventually the truck stops in front of a guarded gate, is waved through, and pulls up in front of a gray fortress, and they’re shoved out of the back of the truck as roughly as they’d been shoved into it. More soldiers with rifles march them into the building, where they are corralled into a windowless, spare room packed with even more women in various states of shock and terror. There are more soldiers. Some officers, too. Watching them, rifles at the ready.