Paris 1935: Destiny's Crossroads

by Paul A. Myers

Andre Malraux in 1935

  Dexter reached out and took Marcelle’s hand and pulled her over next to him. Malraux caught sight of Dexter out of the corner of his eye and smiled quickly in welcome. He held out his arm opening up the circle of conversationalists without missing a beat in his torrent of words. Dexter and Marcelle stepped up to the circle; Chamson and Lucie stood just behind them.

  Malraux took a breath and Dexter interjected, “Let me present my friend Marcelle. She heard your concluding speech at the Writers Conference.”

  Malraux’s eyes lit up; Marcelle held out her hand and André took it and looked deeply into her eyes with his intense stare. “What appealed to you? The art or the politics?”

  Marcelle replied, “Both. I believe art illuminates politics from a perspective outside the confines of analytical debate.”

  Malraux smiled and looked askance at the others in the group. “Yes. Factional debate robs the Left of political momentum.” Turning back to Marcelle, he asked, “How do you see art explaining politics?”

  Marcelle opened the palms of her hands as if cradling an answer and started, “I was never so moved by literature, so overcome by the mix of waiting and expectation, as I was when Man’s Fate was serialized in Nouvelle Revue Française in 1933. My friends and I could not wait for the next installment.”

  Dexter remembered Malraux’s novel. It had won the Goncourt prize in 1933. He had been transfixed by the image of the ever-approaching armored train, its mournful whistle distant in the night, symbolizing the awesome power of the Nationalist forces, closing in on the doomed revolutionaries in Shanghai. Powerful images.

  Malraux asked, “Your friends?”

  Marcelle replied, “Yes, my co-workers in the ministry of labor and some friends at the Quai d’Orsay. We had never been so engaged by art as a tool to illuminate international politics as we were in reading your book. It was so new. And so far away. Revolutionary China. But the clash of revolution with nationalism seems to be the emerging conflict of the age.”

  Malraux quickly asked, “Is it the revolutionary struggle—its romantic overthrow of existing order—or its confrontation with colonialism that engages you?”

  “I was in West Africa—Dakar—when I was a young woman. The exploitation of one group by another inherent in colonialism always produces a revolutionary backlash. Often given additional power by nationalism. Revolution inevitably confronts colonialism.”

  “Inevitably?”

  “I believe so.”

  Malraux turned thoughtful. “That is the big issue of this century. I hope to address colonialism later this year. It has been on my mind. ”

  Dexter looked over at Marcelle; her insight into revolution confronting colonialism was bracingly refreshing.

  Malraux quickly turned upbeat and his glance swept up the entire group. He summed up, “But right now, in 1935, we need to unify the Left in its stand against Nazism and the rise of a militaristic Germany. Anti-Fascism is the order of the day.”

  Heads nodded in agreement.

  A voice broke in from the side. “Hey, we’re moving down to Lipp’s.”

  Malraux turned to his wife Clara. “We must be going. We must meet with Ehrenburg,” referring to the Communist journalist Ilya Ehrenburg, who was sort of a Soviet ambassador to the Left Bank.

  Turning to Dexter, Malraux added, nodding at Marcelle, “You must bring your friend to one of our get-togethers.”

  Clara smiled at Marcelle and laughed. “You see, revolution is always meeting one another. We are just up the street from Dexter.”

  Marcelle smiled at Clara and then André.

  Out on the street, Dexter took Marcelle’s hand and they started down the sidewalk. He said, “We’ll go to Brasserie Lipp with the crowd. It’s always fun.”

  Marcelle replied, “Okay, but only for one champagne cocktail. I have another big week coming up and then I go to Lyon to visit my family.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “I should be free by the end of September.”

  Dexter turned thoughtful and said absently, “Good.”

  They followed along with the gaggle of writers, editors, wives and girl friends all heading for Saint-Germain-de-Prés. Outside Brasserie Lipp, the bright neon sign overhead, the crowd started to push through the revolving doors into the brightly lit lobby of the restaurant. One of the editors made a request; a big upstairs table had been reserved earlier in the week. The Gallimard publishing company had a standing reservation for Saturday nights at Lipp’s.

  As the group waited, André Chamson and his wife Lucie sidled up to Dexter and Marcelle. Lucie said to Marcelle, “I’m impressed. You had more conversation with Malraux in five minutes than most people have in five months. Man’s Fate changed a lot of people’s attitudes about what a powerful story can say about the fast-changing politics of this era. I think he’s still processing its impact in his own mind.”

  Chamson nodded in agreement. “André really touched the younger generation. They are skeptical of the old.”

  Dexter added, “Yes, they have been cut off from the past by the war.”

  Chamson agreed, “Yes, and the revolutionaries in China feed a feverish romanticism.”

  Marcelle glanced over at a party of people sweeping forward to leave. Oh no, she thought. Not now. She saw the minister of finance, plump in black tie and evening attire, escorted by an elegant woman in early middle age. They were coming towards them somewhat unsteadily and followed by a small entourage. The woman had a touch of gray at her temples, a pretty face, and was rather well bejeweled, thought Marcelle.

  Marcelle quickly hid behind Dexter and then, shoulders hunched down and ducking her head, she started taking small baby steps to keep Dexter between her and the departing party like a child playing hide-and-seek. Chamson looked amused and poked his finger out for his wife to watch. Lucie watched Marcelle moving backwards, head down, in childlike hiding from the departing minister.

  The minister glanced over, his expression quizzical, and then his eyes went wide with astonishment. With his arm, he stopped his escort in her tracks. The minister stepped around in front of Dexter and said to Marcelle, “Ah, Madame Lambert, I see you. Peeky boo.”

  Marcelle stepped forward in front of Dexter and extended her hand, “Good evening, Monsieur le Minister.”

  The minister beamed and shook Marcelle’s hand and said expansively, “I am so pleased to see that le gouvernement has decided to take a night off.”

  Marcelle stood in deep embarrassment. Chamson and Lucie looked on, highly amused.

  The minister continued, “Ah, Madame la Chef de Bureau, my ministry’s humble endeavors meet with your every approval, I trust,” and he put a sly expression on his face, “none of those little inconsistencies that Monsieur le Premier warned of?”

  Then he turned to his escort, “Comtesse, let me introduce you to Madame Lambert, leader of the petticoats at the Matignon.”

  The comtesse, looking askance at the rather buoyant minister, playfully held out her hand, “Enchantée.”

  Marcelle reached for the hand quickly and gratefully in the hope that introductions would swiftly lead to departures, “The pleasure is all mine, comtesse. Monsieur le Minister of course exaggerates the humble role of our bureaucratic administration,” and she looked hopefully at the minister.

  The minister rocked back, unsteadily on his feet, “Oh no, comtesse…I exaggerate not…I just wanted to say hello to la marquise…one of the powers behind the throne.”

  Marcelle gently spoke up, speaking brightly, “Oh, Monsieur le Minister, remember, we are a republic.”

  The minister dipped his head and gravely said, “Yes, but real power is rarely in the cabinet.”

  Chamson silently nodded in agreement at the minister’s statement.

  The comtesse tugged at the minister’s hand, smiled a goodbye at Marcelle, and soon had the minister walking a little unsteadily towards the door. Seeing Chamson, the minister tipped his hat, “André.”
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br />   Chamson replied, “Minister.”

  Watching the minister and comtesse depart, Lucie asked, “Is she really a comtesse?”

  Dexter laughed and with the smooth panache of a man-about-town answered, “Of course. She is rumored to be related by blood and marriage to three banks and two steelworks.”

  The group laughed.

  Still chuckling, Chamson turned to Marcelle and poked some fun at her, “Ah, pardon, Madame la Sous-Chef?”

  Marcelle smirked, the thwarted look of the little girl caught with the cookie coming across her face. Changing posture, she then took on a grand air and said to Chamson, “I hold a temporary appointment at the Matignon as chef de bureau.” She turned to Dexter and added insistently, “Only temporary.”

  Dexter laughed, “For the minister to compare you with Madame de Pompadour…” as Dexter made the allusion to the powerful mistress, la marquise, of Louis Fifteen who was said to rule France from behind the scenes in the 1750s and 1760s.

  Marcelle rolled her eyes. “I will never hear the end of it.” She looked at Chamson. “Besides, when André and his friends in the Popular Front win the elections, the little redactrice will get sent packing back to the ministry of labor as a sous-chef,” and she paused, “or worse.”

  Chamson laughed. “Marcelle, everyone on the Left is deeply impressed with the competence with which Laval has implemented the deflation program. With your detailed knowledge of the decrees and their administration, you will be in great demand.”

  Marcelle smiled tentatively. “You think so?”

  Looking directly into her eyes, Chamson said, “That would be my expectation.” Then he turned and said to Dexter, “Premier Laval is a renowned lawyer. It would figure that his redactrices are needle sharp.” He paused and looked at Marcelle, “Correct, Marcelle?”

  She sighed a sigh of resignation and said, “Yes.”

  The editor from Marianne came up and announced, “This way. Upstairs.”

  Marcelle turned to Dexter. “Remember, just one glass of champagne. Or I will go out of here like Monsieur le Minister.”

  “That might be fun.”

  She looked at him sharply. “I’m not the comtesse.”

  Dexter smiled and pointed her towards the stairs.

  Later in the evening, walking towards rue Monsieur, Marcelle said to Dexter, “I have been thinking about your comments about Odysseus. Why do I remind you of Penelope?”

  “Because you remain single after all these years.”

  She looked up at him. “You think I keep the suitors away so that I can continue my dead husband’s service to France? That I carry the family flame, is that it?”

  “Yes and no.”

  She snapped, “Yes and no. How diplomatic.”

  Dexter took a breath and explained, “Yes, I think you keep the suitors away. But not to carry a flame for a light long extinguished.” He paused and then said, his voice falling to a low note, “Rather for the flame of your own ambition.”

  She looked up at him, giving him a very even look. There was not the slightest trace of annoyance. He could see that his argument had hit a chord of understanding if not sympathy. She replied softly, “I see.”

  Dexter took another breath and continued, “I know the little black ribbon helps to explain to some people why you hold the preferment in the bureaucracy that you have. It provides them a rationale for when they are passed over.”

  She agreed, “Yes.”

  Dexter continued, “But the little black ribbon also masks your own ambition.”

  She did not disagree. “I see.”

  Then she looked into his eyes and asked, “Why?”

  Dexter’s manner eased and he returned to his customary self-assurance, “Oh, you think that somewhere in the future that dedicated service will contribute something better to your country, your society. Every professional civil service has a few of those who, shall we say, labor under this delusion.”

  Marcelle turned back and looked ahead, walking forward purposively, vibrancy back in her voice. “Oh, are there any of those in the American Foreign Service?”

  Dexter, catching up, looked at her and said, “Yes.” Then he added, “Quite a few in fact.”

  She looked up at him and smiled.

  Coming to 7 rue Monsieur, Dexter asked, “Marcelle, I have an invitation to use the ambassador’s box at the Opéra in early in October. We could make a night of it?”

  Marcelle, taken aback, stammered, “The Opéra? I couldn’t. I haven’t been out like that in years. A long dress? And gloves?” She looked momentarily perplexed. Then she said, “I have nothing to wear.” She looked tentatively up at him. He was standing still, arms crossed, tapping his foot in mock irritation.

  She eased, her expression softening, and said, “Yes, I would like that very much. I’ll have to go to the very back of my closet.”

  Dexter brightened and briskly replied, “I’ll pick you up a seven.”

  Marcelle turned thoughtful for a second and said, “Wait. Could you come at six? We could have a champagne cocktail here before we go. I could show you my apartment.”

  “I would like that very much.”

  Marcelle laughingly replied, “And since we will be leaving for the Opéra at seven, I can be sure of getting you back out the door.”

  “I always leave when a lady asks,” and bowed his head in a gentlemanly nod.

  “Yes, of course,” she said in quick reply. She smiled at him enigmatically. She stepped forward and presented her right cheek for a kiss, then her left. She turned and put the key in the lock and opened the door. Then she was gone.

  Dexter’s eyes followed after her. Yes, they were of one mind, he thought. My little straight-laced revolutionary. He turned and headed back to his flat.