The Heart of the Ritz

by Luke Devenish

  ‘That is not what he called me.’

  ‘Oh heavens. I must have it all wrong. You know what the Ritz is like for Chinese whispers. What did he call you, dear?’

  Lana Mae said nothing. Zita glanced away, ashamed for her.

  Coco tittered. ‘We really mustn’t tease our dim American friend – should we, Zita?’ She smiled, as if the film star had been equal part of this.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not when she’s doing such good for once . . .’

  Lana Mae shivered, thinking of the news that Lacaze had broken to her.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Zita, who had no idea what Coco might be referring to but didn’t intend letting on.

  Coco waited. After a moment she said, ‘If I’m not mistaken, Lana Mae, your poor little Folies Bergère chorine knows nothing of what you’ve been up to.’

  Lana Mae drew herself up straight. She looked at puzzled Zita. ‘You know how I said I’d surprise you one day, baby? Well maybe that day is today.’

  Zita blinked, waiting.

  ‘Lana Mae has started a charitable organisation,’ said Coco, grinning, ‘with some of her American friends.’

  ‘Really, puss?’ said Zita, indeed surprised.

  ‘With Babs Hutton and Flossie Gould,’ said Lana Mae, and then for Coco’s benefit, ‘and the Duc de Doudeauville.’

  ‘Really, puss?’

  ‘None of whom would have a scrap to do with her if it wasn’t for all her money,’ said Coco.

  Lana Mae felt sick. ‘Lucky that’s not a problem. I’ve got more money than you.’

  Coco chuckled.

  ‘What is the charity for?’ asked Zita.

  ‘For wounded French soldiers,’ said Lana Mae. ‘We’re gonna make care packages to send to all the hospitals.’

  ‘Oh, Lana Mae . . .’ said Zita, standing up suddenly. Her kohl-black eyes sparkled with emotion. And then, because she could think of nothing more appropriate to say, she whispered: ‘Like Marjorie would have done.’

  Lana Mae’s own eyes sparkled as she nodded. ‘I thought, if a pair of snooty broads like Babs and Flossie ain’t going home, despite the Germans, then I ain’t going home either. I’m sticking around to do something – something good for France.’ She looked at Coco with a sneer. ‘Something better than shutting up a lousy, stinking store, anyhow.’

  The designer had chosen not to hear her. ‘Ah, Monsieur Lacaze, so long you have kept me waiting.’

  Lana Mae winced as the banker appeared at the top of the stairs, ready to meet the designer. She shot Lacaze a blistering look to remind him of his promise to her.

  Coco stood up from the club chair, arranging her pearls. ‘Well, good luck with it all,’ she said to Lana Mae. ‘I know I like to have my fun, but really, you are doing good, and who knows, perhaps one day people will even respect you for it?’

  Lana Mae held herself together all the way out of the Société Génerale building and onto the Boulevard Haussmann. Then the shock grew too much. She began to sob in the street.

  Zita, who had been quietly marvelling that her friend had kept her activities quiet, was stunned to see her abruptly overcome. ‘Puss! Puss, what is it?’

  They had to sit at a café table, while Lana Mae held a handkerchief to her face as she cried. Eventually, she could put enough words together to tell Zita what had happened.

  ‘The American government, they’ve put a stop on my funds.’

  ‘They’ve what?’

  ‘They’ve frozen my money. They won’t let me transfer one more nickel to the Paris bank.’

  ‘But they can’t do that – it’s your money!’

  ‘They say there’s too much chance it’ll end up going to the Germans.’

  Zita clutched her friend’s hand. ‘Does this mean you’re broke?’

  Lana Mae nodded, in agony.

  ‘Just as we were both thinking of good Marjorie . . .’

  Lana Mae closed her eyelids. ‘I saw her.’

  Zita blinked. ‘What?’

  Lana Mae opened her eyes again to stare at her friend, imploringly. ‘I saw Marjorie. When the krauts came to the Ritz, I saw – I don’t know what it was – a vision, a ghost, you tell me, all I know is that I saw Marjorie sitting at a table, smiling. And she thought well of me, baby, she knew I was good.’

  Zita was bewildered. ‘Well, of course she did, you are good, Lana Mae.’

  Lana Mae shook her head. ‘If you’d heard what the bastard said to me . . .’

  ‘Who, now?’

  ‘Metzingen.’

  Zita’s guilt reached crescendo.

  ‘He told me what he’s got inside my file.’

  ‘It’s just stupid bits of paper,’ Zita pleaded with her, ‘meaningless. Don’t take it seriously – please don’t. They’ve got a stinking file on everybody now.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Lana Mae, ‘but what he’s got on me, it’s true. Everything he accused me of, every terrible thing that he said, it was right.’

  Zita closed her eyes, willing away her self-loathing. ‘I never said anything bad about you, puss, I swear it. I never gave him anything that would hurt you.’

  Yet Lana Mae wasn’t blaming her. ‘It did hurt me, but it wasn’t what you’d told him – it was how he twisted it. And you know what? I’m glad it hurt.’

  Zita’s eyes filled with tears, mortified. ‘Oh, Lana Mae, how can you forgive me?’

  But the American had forgiven her months ago. ‘That’s why Marjorie came to me,’ she said, softly, ‘and that’s why I have to do good, don’t you see? I called myself Marjorie’s friend for over twenty-five years but I never followed her example, I never did anything to help someone other than me.’ She scrubbed the tears from her cheeks. ‘And now here I am as some phony mother to her niece? Polly should mother me.’ She considered this, and suddenly laughed. ‘God, it’s like she actually does. No, honey, no. I’m ashamed of what I must seem like to that sweet, lovely girl.’

  Zita’s expression was stark. ‘You’re ashamed. Oh Christ, the irony. Next to what I’ve done, you’re an angel – a saint.’

  ‘You did what you did for Lotti.’

  ‘Or for love . . .’

  Lana Mae stared at her. ‘Do you mean to tell me you still love that bastard?’

  Bleak, Zita wouldn’t – couldn’t – say that she didn’t.

  Lana Mae’s face fell, sad and dismayed for her. ‘Well, I guess he’s good looking . . .’

  ‘It’s much more than that. You don’t know how it is between us.’

  The American was resolute. ‘Well, I’m no saint either.’ She wiped her cheeks a last time and put her handkerchief away. She signalled to the café waiter. ‘Can you bring me a glass of water, honey?’

  The man nodded.

  When the water came, Lana Mae drank long and in silence. She put the empty glass on the table and opened her handbag to fossick for a coin.

  Zita’s eyes popped at the bag’s bulging contents. ‘Are you crazy?’ She looked around in alarm. ‘Shut your bag for Christ’s sake. I’ll get the tip.’

  Lana Mae closed her bag again. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I’d forgotten about those. I got the rest of my jewels out of the vault.’ She patted the leather. ‘That’s all of ’em now.’

  Zita placed a coin on the table. ‘I know I said you were dumb for keeping your jewels in the bank but ignore me. It’s safer than carrying them around.’

  Lana Mae was untroubled. ‘I won’t be carrying them for long.’

  ‘What the hell are you going to do with them all?’

  The shapely, red-headed American had found a new poise. ‘I’m gonna do what Marjorie would have done.’

  * * *

  Polly erased all mention of the ‘Tips for the Occupied’ pamphlet when she told Alexandrine what had happened. Erased, too, was any mention of the missing gun, although it filled her thoughts totally. Polly knew she had been very lucky. The gendarme had accepted her lies and she had nearly cried with relief when he let her sign the re
gister book to receive her week’s ration tickets. ‘This has made me wonder just whose side the gendarmerie are on,’ she claimed to Alexandrine, as they emerged from the Metro at Monceau.

  ‘They are on the side of the Government of France,’ said Alexandrine, adding: ‘the government that is really the Boches.’

  This had now become all too clear to Polly as well. The new French Government, led by the Great War hero, Marshal Pétain, along with the government’s instruments of enforcement like the gendarmerie, was not governing for France at all, but Hitler’s Germany, and was doing so willingly.

  They were walking along the Boulevard de Courcelles, towards the home of the Comte Ducru-Batailley. With every step, Polly ran through her mind the names of those few who could have had access to the Hermès bag – and thus to the gun: Zita; Lana Mae; and, of course, Alexandrine. Added to this very short list were the names of those who knew that the gun had been hidden there: Monsieur Auzello and Tommy.

  Polly’s account of what had happened at the prefecture was giving Alexandrine doubt. ‘Are you sure you didn’t provoke him?’

  While she hated suspecting Tommy, Polly was also fearful for him. If it was revealed that Tommy had given the pamphlet to her, he could be deprived of his job. Polly’s lies grew into further lies. ‘Perhaps I did provoke the gendarme a little . . .’

  ‘Polly! What on earth did you say?’

  She pulled a fib from the air. ‘I complained about the outrageous price hikes in fashion.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Well, it is outrageous,’ said Polly. ‘Lancel raised the price of a lovely suede bag from 950 francs to 1700. We women of Paris are being priced out of buying our own wardrobes.’

  Alexandrine looked at her in a way that Polly hadn’t seen before.

  ‘What is it?’ Polly asked, worried she’d exposed her untruth.

  ‘Nothing, darling.’ She was a little wistful. ‘You’re growing up. I wish Marjorie could have seen what I did just then.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  The Comtesse couldn’t put it into words. ‘I suppose we must expect as much from the war.’ She gave her a little sideways squeeze.

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Polly, not sure if she’d got away with it.

  ‘You were right to speak your mind, if that’s what you did. It’s true about these price hikes.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Polly, ashamed of herself now for being believed. ‘I merely pointed out that the police are supposed to be investigating these sorts of abuses, and yet where were they at Lancel? Gendarme Teissier may have felt I was saying he was incompetent, but I didn’t mean him personally, of course.’ She trailed off. The loss of the gun made her feel small and vulnerable.

  Alexandrine’s attention was further along the boulevard. ‘That’s a Boche car.’

  Polly looked ahead. A long, black Daimler-Benz was drawn up at the side of the avenue. Polly and Alexandrine had lately become too familiar with such vehicles at the Ritz. ‘It’s someone important,’ said Polly. ‘But I can’t see any soldiers.’

  ‘There’s only a driver,’ said Alexandrine.

  The window down, a Wehrmacht soldier smoked a cigarette behind the wheel, his eyes on a newspaper.

  ‘The arrogance of him,’ said Polly. She thought of how the pamphlet had told her not to let her anger diminish. ‘He must think he’s untouchable, just sitting there like that.’

  ‘He is untouchable,’ said Alexandrine. She gave her a warning look. ‘Speaking your mind to the ugly gendarme is one thing, but never do something so bold when the Boches might hear you.’ She increased her pace. ‘Hurry. We must see Suzette.’

  The graceful façades along the Boulevard de Courcelles were beautiful in being identical, as façades were in so many Parisian streets. Polly didn’t know which one hid the Comte’s residence.

  ‘It is not one of these,’ said Alexandrine, ‘it is this one.’

  They had reached one of the few buildings in the street that had been specifically constructed to stand out. It struck Polly for its resemblance to one of the little palaces in the grounds of Versailles.

  ‘This one is older than all the other houses?’ Polly wondered.

  ‘Actually, it’s rather younger,’ said Alexandrine. ‘My husband’s late father built it just before the Great War. He would have been pleased to hear your remark, however – he wanted people to think it had been here for centuries. Come inside, where the illusion continues. There’s not a single item of furniture to be found that dates later than the Revolution.’

  They reached the threshold of a pair of heavy green doors. The Comtesse cast an uneasy glance at the Daimler-Benz, parked level with them at the curbside. The Wehrmacht driver looked up from his newspaper but showed no interest in getting out. He dropped his cigarette butt into the gutter. Alexandrine went to press the bell when she realised the right-side door was ajar. She pushed it open, revealing a spectacularly gilded entrance hall, filled with eighteenth-century paintings and sculptures, and bathed in the reflected glow from long French windows that opened to a garden at the rear.

  ‘What a wonderful room,’ said Polly, awed by the first impression it made.

  Alexandrine went very still. ‘I think we should leave . . .’

  A German-accented voice called out from somewhere above them. ‘Ah, look – look! You have more visitors, Herr Comte!’

  Looking down at them from the top of a palatial staircase stood a group of three men. A dark-haired gentleman, perhaps in his forties, and exceedingly handsome, casually styled in an oriental dressing-gown that only a man of the aristocracy would acquire, raised a muscled arm in greeting.

  ‘Lecki. This is a nice surprise. You should have called first.’

  His bonhomie failed to hide the strain in his voice. Alexandrine didn’t move.

  Polly guessed this was the Comte, but he was not the man who had called out as they’d entered. This was a man they already knew from the Ritz: Oberstleutnant Metzingen. At his side stood the young and capable Hauptmann Jürgen. In the shadows behind them, as tiny as a bird, was Suzette.

  It was the first time Polly had seen the old housekeeper looking frightened.

  ‘Come in, come in, my dear Comtesse,’ called Metzingen, delightedly. ‘We were just now viewing that exquisite Renoir. It is a portrait of your late mother when she was a girl, the Comte informs me?’

  * * *

  They were seated now in a first-floor salon that had once been Alexandrine’s morning room, before she and Eduarde had come to the arrangement that had seen her move into the Ritz. Alexandrine was seated next to her husband, on a wide, white divan. Polly, dismissed by the Germans as a child, had been allowed to sit where she pleased. Only the aristocrats were of interest to Metzingen, who strode with pleasure around the room, examining furniture and ornaments.

  ‘Such exquisite beauty to be found in this room, Herr Comte, I congratulate you.’

  ‘Thank you, Monsieur,’ said Eduarde, evenly.

  Metzingen paused at a four-leaf screen. ‘Is this by Boulard?’

  ‘I believe that it may be, yes.’

  ‘Extraordinary. From the mid-1780s, I assume?’

  Eduarde deferred. ‘Monsieur knows more of such things than I do.’

  Studying the German from where she was being ignored at the wall, Polly guessed that this was the impression Metzingen intended to convey.

  Jürgen had disappeared. Suzette had been sent to bring them coffee.

  ‘And this tea table,’ said Metzingen, rubbing his hand along another polished piece. ‘Quite magnificent. By Molitor, surely?’

  Alexandrine was growing angry. ‘What is happening, Monsieur? I am extremely confused.’

  The Renoir portrait, still bearing the scar on its frame, looked over them all from where it hung above the mantle. ‘Confused?’ Metzingen said, turning to her.

  ‘Why are you here in my husband’s home?’

  ‘Dear Comtesse, such a tone. Please remember we are all civilised.�
� He reached into his uniform and withdrew a packet of German cigarettes, lighting one from a matchbook. ‘Do you know, it puzzles me that you have never taken the courtesy to introduce yourself to me at the Ritz.’

  Alexandrine was cold. ‘In France, a woman does not introduce herself to a man.’

  ‘No?’ said Metzingen. ‘Nor in Germany, too, thank God. All the same, I have been expecting it from you. Aren’t you cut from the same cloth as the charming Mrs Huckstepp?’

  ‘Please explain why you are here,’ said Alexandrine.

  He turned to Eduarde. ‘Why don’t you inform your wife, Herr Comte?’

  A look passed between Comte and Comtesse that Polly, watching in fear from her chair near the wall, tried in vain to make sense of. Eduarde was a polished diplomat, a man of effortless charm, and in every sense Alexandrine’s equal. On the face of it, they were a splendid match. Things were being said between them that were not being put into words.

  ‘Lecki, darling, I’m sure I told you all about it,’ said Eduarde ‘you’re such a silly-head at times.’

  Alexandrine didn’t smile. ‘Of course, you did, darling, you always tell me everything, but you know what I’m like.’

  ‘I do.’ He glanced at Metzingen, before turning back to her. ‘I’m sure you remember that Monsieur Metzingen has such an interesting job.’

  ‘Bullying us all at the Ritz? I’m sure that can only be so interesting.’

  Metzingen chuckled but allowed Eduarde to go on.

  ‘I believe it’s rather more than that,’ said Eduarde. ‘He has been charged with nurturing the artists and patrons who will continue to keep Paris so culturally vibrant. The Ritz will be central to this.’

  Alexandrine looked at the German with faux interest. ‘How lucky we are then.’

  ‘The Comtesse teases,’ said Metzingen. ‘Perhaps she doubts my qualifications? If so, I do not blame her. For what could a German know of the decorative arts?’

  ‘What indeed?’

  The Comte gave her a look of warning. ‘The Oberstleutnant was a student at the Sorbonne after the Great War,’ said Eduarde. ‘His time spent in Paris gave him a deep love of our city.’

  Alexandrine said nothing at that.