The Heart of the Ritz

by Luke Devenish

  ‘But I can’t read them, Monsieur, that’s why I asked,’ she spluttered at him.

  Göring’s Daimler slowly passed by the Cambon doors. The Luftwaffe chauffeur was trying to drive with one arm stuck out the window, scraping at the little papers on the windscreen. Metzingen retreated to the lobby, with Jürgen closing the door behind them.

  They stared at each other in mortification for a moment.

  Then they read the little butterfly that had landed in Hans’ cap.

  This little joke is a gift to you from the Freedom Volunteers.

  Hitler is searching for the means to invade England. He drags in the Chief Rabbi of Berlin to help him. ‘How did Moses part the Red Sea?’ Hitler wants to know. ‘If you can get me that information, dear rabbi, I will end my harassment of the Jews.’

  The Chief Rabbi gives this some thought. ‘That sounds like a pretty good deal, my Führer,’ he says to Hitler. ‘Give me a week and I promise to tell you how Moses did it.’

  Exactly one week later, the rabbi returns. ‘I have good news and I have bad news,’ he says to the Führer.

  ‘Get to the point,’ says impatient Hitler, ‘do you have the answer for me or not?’

  ‘Yes, my Führer, that is the good news,’ says the Rabbi, ‘the answer is that Moses parted the Red Sea with his staff.’

  ‘That’s great!’ says Hitler. ‘So where is this staff?’

  At this the Rabbi looks awkward. ‘Well, that’s the bad news, I’m afraid. It’s in the British Museum.’

  For Jürgen, once was enough, but Metzingen read and re-read the little butterfly for a long time. When he looked up at last, the Cambon lobby was still empty. If anyone had come in, they had seen them both, and understood from the Germans’ bearing that they would be wise to retreat.

  ‘You will not visit Sainte-Chapelle today, Hauptmann,’ said Hans.

  ‘Of course, Herr Oberstleutnant,’ said Jürgen. ‘I will go another time.’

  Metzingen nodded. ‘Instead you will find who is responsible. Is that clear?’

  ‘Perfectly, Herr Oberstleutnant.’

  ‘And when you have found them, you will do what is necessary with our friends at Gestapo Headquarters.’

  ‘Of course. I know the procedure.’

  Metzingen nodded again, grateful. He didn’t care that the younger man could see the devastation in his face.

  Jürgen was gentle with him; a friend. ‘It is to be expected, Hans,’ he said, formality dropped. ‘A hotel of this size and renown. Of course, there must be one or two bad eggs. It’ll be someone with an axe to grind from the last war – you see if it’s not.’

  Metzingen was touched. ‘I see sense in that theory.’

  ‘I will find them,’ Jürgen promised.

  ‘I know you will.’

  ‘And when I have, it will be your Ritz again. There will be no repeat of this.’

  Metzingen felt cheered. He tore the thin paper into shreds as Jürgen glanced into the glass and chrome Cambon bar; a room both men disliked for its ugly modernity.

  ‘I will start the search there,’ Jürgen told him.

  * * *

  In almost total silence, not daring even to risk the rustle of their clothes, Polly and Tommy found each other at the top of the stairs. It ached not to laugh with sheer joy at what they’d achieved under the noses of the Germans, as tiny as it seemed in the scheme of things.

  ‘Did you see it go off?’ Polly whispered to him.

  He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t risk it. I went to the kitchen. Tell me what it looked like.’

  ‘Like a miniature blizzard.’

  ‘We’re brilliant!’ hissed Tommy. ‘We pulled the prank off.’

  ‘So, what do we try next?’

  ‘We can’t go back to the apartment. We’ll have to find someplace else.’

  ‘I wish we could look for somewhere together,’ said Polly, before she realised how it sounded. She flushed with embarrassment. ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘What I just said.’

  He was smiling teasingly at her. ‘What did you just say?’

  She crossed her arms. ‘I meant I wish we could look for somewhere together as colleagues in resistance.’

  Tommy raised an eyebrow, still smiling at her.

  Polly thought then of how easy it would be to become lost in Tommy’s soft brown eyes. Then she remembered that it had been the gun that he’d hoped for, not her, when he’d made her part of his resistance, and how disappointed he’d been when she’d told him that someone had stolen it. She retreated to the safety of her old resolve about males, frowning at him. ‘Please don’t you start on this, too.’

  ‘Start on what?’

  ‘Imagining stupid things that simply aren’t there.’

  ‘What things?’

  Polly punched him hard on the arm. ‘Why is no one able to accept that without steadfast resolve and purpose we will never win this war?’

  She saw these words land on him far more effectively than her punch had.

  He was stunned. ‘You say I have no resolve?’

  Polly wavered. ‘Of course not. You inspire me with your commitment. You inspire Odile.’

  ‘You and Odile inspire me back – especially you, Pol.’

  ‘Why me more than her? I’m nobody, Tommy. She’s the inspirational one. Disability means nothing to Odile.’

  Tommy just looked at her.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said simply. ‘You just do, Polly.’

  She started heading down the stairs again. ‘I’m not contributing another word to this ridiculous conversation.’

  ‘Wait –’

  But she wouldn’t wait. ‘And if we ever have it again,’ she told him, looking firmly ahead and not over her shoulder where he stood watching her, ‘then I shall find someone else to inspire me – someone whose commitment is actually as strong as he claims it to be.’

  The impact this exchange left upon Tommy’s face was considerable, but such was the strength of Polly’s resolve that she refused to let herself see it. Yet if she had glanced around as she descended the stairs, she would have recognised in Tommy’s expression one that had so often been her own.

  Tommy Harsanyi, sort of Hungarian, Jew, illegitimate son of a Comte, showed the devastation that came with disregard and rejection – something he’d experienced too much of in his seventeen years.

  Although Polly would never know of it, her own resolve gained a twin in that moment in Tommy. As he watched the last of her disappear down the stairs, Tommy told himself bitterly that the last of his devastation went with her.

  He would never allow himself to be crushed by rejection again.

  * * *

  Guy saw Jürgen approach through the Cambon bar doors and resisted the urge to look sideways for another barman to serve him. His tried-and-true bonhomie would have to sustain the encounter as it somehow sustained all the others he’d been forced to endure with the Germans. It wasn’t as if he disliked them personally; he’d enjoyed a kraut lover or two when there’d been so many of them left broke and washed up in the city at the end of the last war. He’d found that Germans could be perfectly charming and surprisingly accommodating then. Yet this time around so many of them lacked any evidence of charm; charm having been ejected to make way for belief. And what they seemed to believe was highly troubling for someone like Guy, who loved men. His thoughts went then to his lover Baptiste at the Théâtre du Vieux-Colombier bar. The Algerian Baptiste not only had to conceal his sexual proclivity from the Occupiers, but his race: he was quarter-part black. Guy feared for him.

  ‘Bonjour, Herr Jürgen,’ he greeted the handsome German. ‘How nice it is to see you today.’ He resisted his natural urge to call him ‘Cherie’, as he would with any French man. Guy’s compatriots enjoyed harmless flirting. German men largely did not. ‘Would you like your favourite tipple?’ Guy tapped his head. ‘You don’t need to remind me what it is �
�� I keep it up here. I never forget a favourite drink.’

  Jürgen sighed. ‘Why not, Guy. It can only do good. Just like you, my friend.’ He took the camera from its strap around his neck and placed it on the chromium counter.

  Guy took down from the high shelf a little-touched bottle of kirsch and reached for a martini glass. ‘You seem down in the dumps, Herr Jürgen. Having a bad day?’

  ‘It could be better.’ He fiddled with the camera case, distractedly.

  ‘Cheer up. You’re still here at the Ritz. You’re still in Paris. Where else is it better to be?’

  Jürgen smiled at that. ‘True.’ He considered what was weighing on his mind. ‘Still, I am sorry to say that the Ritz has disappointed me today. Worse, it has disappointed the Oberstleutnant. And you know of the great regard in which he holds this hotel.’

  Guy did know. It was impossible not to. Metzingen swaggered around the place as if he owned it. And in his darker moments, Guy fancied that owning the Ritz could well be Metzingen’s intention. ‘I cannot believe this is so,’ he said.

  ‘I would have said so too, had I not seen the disappointment for myself,’ said Jürgen, sadly. ‘The disappointment is great.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I cannot let it drop.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘I really cannot. The Oberstleutnant’s hurt is too deep.’ He leant across the counter to whisper. ‘He has been humiliated in front of the Reichsmarschall.’ He winced. ‘Soon they will all hear of it – von Stülpnagel, Speidel – it will be terrible for him.’

  The hair on Guy’s arms prickled. ‘I see.’

  He handed the German his summer fruit cup as he considered his next words carefully. ‘Hurt and humiliation are of course not welcome at the Ritz, Herr Jürgen. So, tell me, as your humble barman, is there something that I might do to remove this unpleasantness?’

  Jürgen sipped. ‘All right. Why not.’

  Guy smiled, waiting.

  ‘If you had to enact the reprisal on someone, who would it be?’

  Guy’s smile froze. ‘Herr Jürgen?’

  ‘Someone at the Ritz is to receive the reprisal for the Oberstleutnant’s humiliation – who should it be? Give me a name.’

  ‘I’m confused.’

  Jürgen placed his drink on the counter. He took his camera out of its leather case, admiring it. ‘It’s very simple, surely. You know everyone here. So, who should it be?’

  Guy was bewildered. ‘But – but who was it that hurt Herr Metzingen? Who gave him the humiliation?’

  Jürgen shrugged. ‘I wish I knew. It would make the task so much easier, of course.’

  ‘But it was someone at the Ritz?’

  Jürgen scooped a handful of nuts from a dish. ‘Again, I wish I was sure. The outrage occurred in the street outside – I suppose I could find who it was, but why waste the resources? There are far more important things. No, in this instance, the Ritz will just have to do.’ He dropped the nuts in his mouth.

  Guy could only stare at him in horror as he chewed.

  Jürgen swallowed and took another sip of his drink. ‘So, tell me, Guy, who should it be?’

  ‘Herr Jürgen, please –’

  ‘Propose me a name.’

  ‘I can’t possibly do that.’

  Jürgen took the cap from the camera lens and studied Guy through the viewer, pulling him in and out of focus. ‘I will only ask you one more time, Herr Martin. Please give me a name . . .’

  * * *

  The pressure of keeping a straight face was agony, yet somehow, they managed it, every one of the diners, biting the insides of their cheeks if they had to, or the tips of their tongues. As one, without even the ghost of a smile, the l’Espadon patrons watched Reichsmarschall Göring make his entrance to dinner.

  The Ritz restaurant was full. Easily half of the occupants were Germans, high-ranking officers of various commands. Regular uniforms were not permitted in the dining room, by German order, not French, and so the officers wore dress uniforms, mostly in white, which made differentiating the Wehrmacht men from the Gestapo even more challenging for those who comprised l’Espadon’s other half: the civilians.

  Tonight, Göring had a new piece of finery to display: a solid gold baton, made for him by Cartier, liberally studded with diamonds and other precious gems. He swung it in his arms as if he was an obese majorette; his pupils like pinpricks. The collective need of the diners to scream with hilarity at this display was almost overwhelming. Yet no one succumbed. There was only applause.

  ‘I recognise those rocks,’ spat Lana Mae to her friends, over the din of the clapping.

  ‘Think of all the good they bought you, puss,’ said Zita.

  ‘I’d been friends with those rocks for years,’ Lana Mae said ruefully. ‘Horace T. bought ’em for me.’

  Zita patted her hand. ‘We know, puss.’

  ‘That man is on dope again,’ said Alexandrine of Göring.

  Filed along with all the rest of Zita’s culpability was the guilt she reserved for the fact that Alexandrine was drinking more than her friends.

  ‘Shhh, honey,’ Lana Mae warned. She took the glass from her reach.

  ‘Well, he is,’ said Alexandrine, ‘look at the state of him.’ She moved the glass back where she could get it.

  Polly, seated next to the Comtesse, squeezed Alexandrine’s hand. Zita could take solace from the rapprochement Polly had achieved there. Zita had not been privy to Alexandrine’s words spat in the wake of Eduarde’s suicide, but she had witnessed Polly’s devastation afterwards. Polly had forgiven Alexandrine, but Zita knew the Comtesse was as haunted by the vicious things she had said as she was by the memory of her husband’s head in pieces.

  Alexandrine opened her purse on her lap and shook out a pill from a bottle. ‘For my indigestion,’ she said, before anyone asked.

  ‘You haven’t even eaten yet,’ said Lana Mae.

  Alexandrine indicated prancing Göring at the other end of the long, mirrored room. ‘I’m getting in early, darling.’

  Resigned, Zita watched Göring some more, weaving his way around tables of overly jocular Nazis, men who cracked every last joke but the obvious one. He knocked Colonel von Hofacker’s wine glass to the floor, staining the officer’s white trousers deep red. This set off another round of phony guffaws. ‘He’s as high as a goosestep tonight,’ said Zita. ‘Maybe he’ll slip on his arse.’

  ‘If he does then you’d better pretend you never saw it,’ Lana Mae told her. She looked over to Polly. ‘You’re doing swell, honey. You keep up that poker face of yours like a pro.’

  Polly smiled. Zita watched her gaze drift to Tommy waiting on tables among the Germans. Some of them slapped him on the back like he’d become an old friend. She thought of how well his hair made him blend in among them.

  ‘Oh hell,’ said Lana Mae, under her breath. ‘Don’t let that face slip now, Pol. See what’s coming.’

  Zita looked. Metzingen had risen from his table near Göring’s boorish group and was weaving through the room in the direction of their table, greeting fellow officers and guests as if he was personally responsible for the evening. He stopped at one table and regarded the centre flower arrangement for a moment, taking exception to something. He clicked his fingers until a waiter approached. With a brief exchange of words, the flowers were removed. Metzingen looked satisfied.

  Lana Mae hissed at Zita. ‘Honey, there’s something I might have forgotten to tell you . . .’

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘He wants an introduction.’

  ‘Who does?’

  Lana Mae nodded apologetically in the direction of the approaching Metzingen.

  Zita froze. What was he doing?

  ‘Buckle up, baby, we’re all here to protect you,’ Lana Mae told her. She rose in her chair and called out to the Oberstleutnant. ‘Oh, Herr Metzingen! Do you have a little minute to spend with us girls?’

  Metzingen was greeting Speidel, but he looked up and beamed,
before playing a little pantomime that he’d been going to a different table all together. ‘But Frau Huckstepp! Of course, of course. How delightful you look this evening.’

  ‘This old thing?’ said Lana Mae. She clearly wanted to get this over with. ‘I’ve a friend of mine here who’s just been begging to meet you.’

  Zita locked challenging eyes with Metzingen, acutely aware that Polly remained ignorant of any subtext. The complexities of Zita’s secrecy grew daily more challenging. She steeled herself to pull this next performance off.

  ‘Oh yes?’ said the German, as if surprised. He pulled a chair from a neighbouring table and planted it crudely among their own, sitting directly across the table from Zita, so that he might appreciate her fully.

  ‘I don’t know if you’re a fan of the movies?’ Lana Mae began.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Metzingen heartily. ‘I so enjoy the Kino.’

  ‘You do?’ said Lana Mae. ‘Then you must have seen our very good friend on one of your little excursions.’

  Metzingen frowned, apparently confused. ‘The lady is a fan, too?’

  Lana Mae laughed hollowly. ‘Oh, Herr Metzingen, you really shouldn’t kid. This is Mademoiselle Zita,’ she said. ‘Don’t you recognise her face?’

  Metzingen held Zita’s cold eyes. ‘I’m afraid I do not, Frau Huckstepp. I’ve never seen this lady anywhere but l’Espadon.’

  Zita was glad Lana Mae chose silence at this.

  Metzingen presented his hand across the table. ‘Zita, you say? The pleasure is mine, meine Dame.’

  Zita’s ‘Fräulein’ retort didn’t come. Instead she took his hand like it was something decayed. ‘The movies have changed.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a wonder we bother going anymore. Everything’s German now, even the newsreels. And aren’t we sick of the auditorium lights being turned up full? Why do they do that, do you think? To scare off those who might boo?’

  She let herself seem impervious to the leaden pause that followed from Metzingen. Alexandrine took another pill from her purse and washed it down with her wine; her eyes like beads of glass.