No Regrets

by Carolyn Burke

  The next night, it was Edith’s time in the spotlight. Her opening at the Versailles had been sold out for weeks. Marcel, awkward in the tuxedo she insisted he wear, kept her company in her dressing room before taking his place in reserved seats with Charles Trenet, Sonja Henie, and the former French boxing champion Georges Carpentier. Edith opened with “C’était une histoire d’amour,” a bittersweet Contet song about romances that begin joyously but come to a sad end. Then she surprised the audience by singing five songs in English. Her command of the language had improved so much in a year that she was able to summarize her French repertoire—including “L’Accordéoniste” and “Le Fanion de la légion,” which electrified the crowd. When she obliged those who called out for old favorites like “Elle fréquentait la rue Pigalle,” some enthusiastic young women climbed on the tables. “Marcel had never felt so close to her,” his biographers write. “Yesterday it was his turn, today it was hers.”

  The only impediment to their happiness was Roupp’s insistence that the boxer return to Paris for the celebrations that awaited him. He put off his departure for another week to be with Edith. Their mutual absorption was obvious. She beamed when New Yorkers called out, “Hello champ!” but preferred to stroll around Manhattan with him without being recognized. “Like Marcel she wore her heart on her sleeve,” a friend observed. “They would stop to talk to the bums: Marcel gave them change but Edith went overboard, handing out twenty-dollar bills.… What was touching about their rapport was their shared admiration.”

  One night they drove to Coney Island after Edith’s gig at the Versailles—“the happiest moment of my life,” she recalled. He lifted her onto the merry-go-round before buying tickets for the kids who recognized him as “the champ.” Holding hands, they rode the roller coaster “like a couple of children.… He shouted with delight. I screamed with terror.” People gathered round them, shouting, “It’s Cerdan! It’s Piaf!” The crowd called out for “La Vie en rose.” Edith started to sing; the merry-go-round went silent. “When the people applauded for me,” she continued, “Marcel seemed stunned. He said, ‘What you do, Edith, is better than what I do. You bring them happiness and love.’ … It was the finest compliment a man could pay me, one I did not think I deserved.”

  When Marcel flew back to Paris, Edith turned to Bourgeat. “I love him so much that when he isn’t near me I don’t want to go on living,” she wrote. “Never in my life have I loved like this.” Marcel cabled on arrival in Casablanca, but she feared that he was forgetting her. Though her engagement at the Versailles was a great success, “there are times when I feel like giving it all up.… Could you tell me where one can find happiness?” After getting a letter from the boxer, Edith wrote that she was “literally obsessed.” Even if she was unable to sleep, people seemed friendlier, and Momone became “the nicest girl in the world” when seen with the eyes of love. “I don’t know anyone kinder … than [Marcel],” she continued. “God set him on my path to make him happy. He gave me this mission and you can be sure that I will accomplish it.”

  In November, she kept busy with piano lessons, English lessons, and two performances a day. Now that Marcel had promised to return to New York, she was no longer having “dark thoughts.” Trying to be optimistic even though the political situation looked unstable (because of the communist takeover in Eastern Europe?), she told Bourgeat, “This century is exciting; you know, it must not have been so easy in the days of the Romans or of Napoleon!” The Americans were about to elect a president. “Their kindness to me keeps growing and I realize that each day is a great step forward!” Shortly before Marcel was to arrive, she already felt his presence: “I’m going to have him all to myself and I can assure you that I’ll take advantage! … How I’d have loved him to be my husband!”

  A few days later, after Cerdan’s return to New York, a crisis erupted that threatened the couple’s happiness. Momone’s long-standing jealousy of Edith, fueled by alcohol, got the better of her. She threatened to inform both the police and the press of their liaison, and to adduce proof with copies of their letters. When Marcel tried to reason with Momone, she became hysterical and fled. The boxer brought her back to the apartment, where they kept her until Barrier could put her on a plane to France. “I had to send Momone away,” Edith told Bourgeat. “She was drinking again and nearly caused a scandal.… She’s more to be pitied than anything else. I don’t hold it against her, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s that.”

  The couple flew to Orly on December 18, at the end of Piaf’s three-month run at the Versailles. A photographer for Ici Paris who was hoping for a scoop became angry when she spotted him and deliberately turned her back. After he told his editor that she had told Marcel to punch him, word of the incident reached the Paris press. Noting that Piaf and Cerdan had again returned to Paris together, the Parisien libéré noted coyly, “Edith is known to like tough guys but she does not wish to say anything more.”

  Piaf returned to work almost immediately in the new year. After singing for a radio program called C’est ça la France (That’s France), she began rehearsals for two performances at the Salle Pleyel in January, which were quickly sold out. On the first night, as the red velvet curtains parted, the crowd went silent. “We never tired of … being seduced,” a spectator wrote. “The singer’s infinite artistic resources [kept] the audience holding their breath all night long.” Her art was “extremely sober,” he continued: “Each of her gestures, which are few, slow, and measured, conveys intense meaning; after the last note of a song, her performance ends with the enactment of deep emotion.” If some still missed the “môme” of her prewar years, the street kid was now a princess who bestowed her love on her adoring audience.

  Edith continued to believe that Momone was, above all, to be pitied, even when her old friend filed charges against her and Cerdan two days before her next concert. Calling herself Piaf’s secretary, Momone claimed to have been subjected to “violence and illegal detention at their hands,” according to a New York Times article that called Piaf one of Cerdan’s “most ardent fans.” Knowing that Roupp disapproved of their liaison, Momone tried in vain to enlist his support. Edith explained to the magistrate that she, not Marcel, had struck her friend when Momone became drunk and disorderly. When Momone got what she wanted, a generous settlement, she withdrew her suit and apologized. Edith forgave her because of their years together, and despite Marcel’s doubts about her intentions.

  Piaf gave the press her version of the affair in an attempt at damage control. She was sending Momone away for a rest: “She’s like a sister,” she said, “but I don’t know what evil spirit gets into her sometimes.” As for the singer’s relations with Cerdan, they were “sincere and fraternal.” Knowing each other abroad had brought them together in a shared struggle to succeed, “which inspired in each of us a friendly affection.” Was this so difficult to understand? she asked with the artfulness usually reserved for performances. Piaf ended the interview by quoting the medium who had called her a positive force in the boxer’s life: “Marcel is a little superstitious. He thinks I bring him good luck. You have to take all that into account.”

  The boxing world took note of Piaf’s increased influence when Cerdan told France Dimanche that she had not, as their reporter claimed, brought him bad luck and, some days later, announced that Jo Longman would replace Roupp as his manager. Tongues wagged about her power over the champion. Roupp recalled Cerdan saying that he wanted his sons to have what he had missed: “I’ve been made to see that I lack culture, that it isn’t only fists that count in life. I read all sorts of books that I barely understand; I listen to music that makes me yawn. I’m a peasant and don’t want my sons to be like me.… I’m not to hang out with my old pals any more; they don’t have anything in their heads. I need to see people who are educated, well behaved. I must forget the old gang, and that hurts.”

  Edith could not accept that others might not share her passion for self-improvement. Marcel’s soul was “supe
rior to the circumstances of his birth,” she told a friend. He loved all that she was able to give him in this realm; his “inferiority complex was disappearing little by little.” Tino Rossi recalled an evening at Piaf’s apartment when she urged a reluctant Cerdan to show the guests what she had taught him: “Cerdan got up, thought for a moment, then, to our great surprise, like a good schoolboy, recited a long sequence of Racine’s Britannicus.” When they applauded his rendition of this French classic, Edith said admiringly, “He learns well, doesn’t he!” Her love blinded her to the cost of learning on demand and at the expense of one’s former associates.

  For the next nine months, Edith was happy and productive. During this time she wrote a number of songs, including “Hymne à l’amour”—the hymn to love that conveys her adoration of Cerdan. To the music of Marguerite Monnot, whose soulfulness complemented her own, she set a lyric that is as brave as it is poignant: “Le ciel bleu sur nous peut s’effondrer / Et la terre peut bien s’écrouler. / Peu m’importe si tu m’aimes. / Je me fous du monde entier.” (“The blue sky can tumble down / And the earth can fall apart. / It won’t matter, if you love me. / I just don’t give a damn.”) The woman lists all that she would do for her lover: go to the ends of the earth, unhook the moon from the sky, renounce her country, even dye her hair blond—a humorous note in an otherwise heartrending lyric.

  By the end, the song’s resemblance to a hymn is striking: “Si un jour la vie t’arrache à moi, / Si tu meurs, que tu sois loin de moi, / Peu m’importe, si tu m’aimes / Car moi je mourrai aussi. / Nous aurons pour nous l’éternité.” (“If one day life takes you from me, / If you die when far away from me, / If you love me, it won’t matter, / We’ll have all eternity.”) In the final line, “Dieu réunit ceux qui s’aiment” (“God reunites those who love each other”), Piaf’s earthly and spiritual faiths match up like hands in prayer. Her credo—love conquers all—had never been stronger.

  Edith and Marcel were often apart in 1949 because of professional commitments. She flew to Egypt for a series of concerts at the end of February, including four at the Ewart Memorial Hall in Cairo—where the Egyptian diva Oum Kalthoum often performed. The French-speaking elite filled the hall: “Words are too poor to express the range of emotions that this grand little woman, this admirable tragedienne … made us experience,” one of them wrote. When she took a day off to visit the Pyramids with her entourage, Marc Bonel filmed her astride the camel that she renamed Mistinguett because of the resemblance she saw between her mount’s teeth and those of the French entertainer. Piaf sang next in Beirut, at that time an outpost of French culture known as “the pearl of the Orient.”

  Between engagements, she flew to London in March to bring Cerdan luck at his next match, with Dick Turpin—who collapsed under his assault in the seventh round. In April, while Edith was singing at the A.B.C. with Les Compagnons, Marcel spent time in Casablanca with his family, a separation that made her miserable until she began paying for Ginou to fly there to deliver her letters and return with his replies.

  In her spare time, Edith shopped for Marcel. She chose piles of shirts made to order, ties, scarves, and sweaters, often in the hue she preferred for him, pale blue—perhaps reasoning that, if he could not be with her, his wardrobe could. His scent filled their bed, she told him in one of the letters that Ginou took to Morocco that spring; he replied that he missed the touch of her skin. In May, Edith searched for housing that would offer greater privacy than her Auteuil apartment, finally settling on a house in nearby Boulogne, where the press was unlikely to find them.

  A well-paid three-week stint at the Paris Copacabana kept Piaf from accompanying Cerdan to Detroit in June to bring him luck at his match with the redoubtable Jake La Motta. Her heart was with him, she wrote: “I’ll be in your gloves, your breath, everywhere. I’d like to bite La Motta’s ass, that bastard. He mustn’t touch you or he’ll answer to me. Au revoir, mon petit, my boy, my life, my love.” When Cerdan damaged his left shoulder early in the fight and lost his crown to La Motta, it seemed that Edith’s medium had been right about Marcel’s needing her. Blaming herself for not being by his side, she made arrangements to travel with him in secret for the rematch in September.

  Meanwhile, according to the contract Barrier had devised to maximize her time with Cerdan, Piaf toured other colonial capitals in preparation for her summer engagements in French watering spots. In July, she sang to huge crowds in Oran, Algiers, and Casablanca, often accompanied by the boxer, who also joined her for a week on the French Riviera. The day after their return to Paris in August, Piaf slipped past the press at Le Havre to board Cerdan’s ship to New York: he would train for the rematch with La Motta while she rehearsed for her engagement at the Versailles. This bout was “God’s way of letting me be close to you always,” Edith wrote, since each time they were apart something bad seemed to happen.

  In New York, their schedules allowed the couple stretches of time with each other. Edith spent several days incognito at Loch Sheldrake; Marcel came to stay at her apartment on Lexington Avenue, accompanying her on daily walks to Central Park to see the squirrels. She planned to sing “Hymne à l’amour” for the first time in public on September 15, opening night at the Versailles: it was about Marcel and herself, she told her entourage. The crowded nightclub audience, full of such luminaries as Cary Grant, Gary Cooper, Rex Harrison, Barbara Stanwyck, and Claudette Colbert, greeted her as the queen of song. “Edith Piaf made her debut before the most select group ever assembled, and she is better than ever,” one critic wrote. “She’s the star of the year,” another observed, “even greater than Sarah Bernhardt.” Betting on Piaf’s growing American fame, Columbia issued Chansons parisiennes, two albums of her best-known songs, with covers featuring maps of Paris and dancing policemen.

  A change of plans brought Cerdan to Manhattan sooner than expected when the match scheduled for September 28 was postponed until December 2 because of La Motta’s damaged right shoulder. At first Edith was overjoyed: the postponement meant that she and Marcel could have two more months together. But, despite her supplications, the boxer insisted on going to see his family in Casablanca. “I’m terribly disappointed,” Edith told Bourgeat. “I thought that Marcel loved me more than anything and I see that I’m only his mistress.… This time was a gift from heaven and he let it go.” Since they would never have the chance to be together “without causing any harm,” she announced her intention to drop out of his life by organizing increasingly longer separations, even though they caused her great pain. “I thought he suffered when we were apart,” she continued, “but the day he was to leave, he was singing at the top of his voice in the shower!”

  When Jacquot told her to think of Cerdan’s wife, Edith displaced her anger at the boxer onto her mentor: “Does that woman deserve to be happy? She isn’t capable of bringing up her children, he’s the one who takes them to the doctor when they’re ill.” Jacquot was wrong to judge Edith on conventional grounds: “If all women did their duty as I do, they wouldn’t have many regrets. Because if one day those kids get a good education, it will be thanks to me, not her.” He was more concerned with his prose than with the heart’s truths, she scolded: “Don’t tell me about the poor unhappy children … !” Still, she loved her old friend and hoped to get a letter “written from your heart, not taken from the books in your library.”

  After a training match outside Paris, Marcel phoned to say that he would soon sail for New York. Edith begged him to take a plane, which would give them more time together; he promised to come as soon as possible. After their conversation, the boxer gave a statement to the press: “I have to beat La Motta, I will beat La Motta. I’ll be perfect on December 2. You can be sure I’ll come back to France with the middleweight crown placed securely on my head.” Just before boarding an Air France night flight on October 27, he told the millions of fans glued to their radios, “I’m so eager to get back to New York and Madison Square Garden that if I could have left sooner I’d have done s
o.” He promised to fight like a tiger.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1949–1952

  Loulou Barrier and Marc Bonel drove to La Guardia on October 28 to welcome Cerdan. They were to bring the boxer to Edith’s apartment to greet her when she awoke after a night at the Versailles. On the way to the airport, they heard an ominous report about his plane’s disappearance; at La Guardia, they learned that it had crashed in the Azores. Everyone on board had died.

  All New York knew of the disaster by early afternoon, when Edith, still in her dressing gown, emerged from her bedroom to find her friends pacing nervously. Thinking that they were playing a joke, that Marcel was behind the door, she asked gaily, “Why are you hiding?” Barrier took her in his arms. “Edith, you must be brave,” he said. “There are no survivors.” As she began screaming, the men rushed to secure the windows. Edith sobbed all afternoon, unable to accept what she knew to be true.

  When Barrier alerted the Versailles to cancel her appearance, the manager came to her apartment with the vegetable broth he brought her each night before she went onstage. She drank it, turned to him, and said that she would sing after all. Her entourage tried in vain to protect her from the journalists besieging the apartment. Once she realized that the whole town knew of the disaster, she spoke briefly with a photographer who asked her about her plans. “Oh, Marcel!” she exclaimed, and burst into tears.

  On the way to the Versailles, she stopped at a nearby church to light a candle in the hope that he was alive. The club was tense, sympathizers having rushed to book all available seats. When Piaf came onstage, Bonel and Chauvigny had tears in their eyes. She embraced them and told the audience, “Tonight I’m singing for Marcel Cerdan.” She managed to get through her repertoire until “Hymne à l’amour.” Feeling faint, she clutched the curtain, then collapsed before she could sing the final line, “God reunites those who love each other.”