The Heart of the Ritz

by Luke Devenish

  She had a rapt audience in Hans.

  Powder took away her conscience, or it mostly did. When the powder didn’t quite manage the task, she found herself doing reckless things in a desperate effort to placate her shattered morality. That was what the blackmail film had been. The production had been lucky the krauts didn’t have the brains to read between the lines – Metzingen chief among them. For a man who had been to the Sorbonne, he could certainly be dim. Zita had never been schooled past the elementary level, yet she had seen the sly truth of the screenplay the second she’d read it.

  She knew they’d not be so lucky again. Better to stick with the powder.

  Zita emerged from the ladies’ room at l’Espadon just as the fresh effects took hold. It was her third little line of the night and it likely would not be her last. She felt glorious – and deliciously deadly. Dinner was over and done. Now it was all champagne and cognac until the Germans retired to their rooms, which was always long after midnight. The curfew never applied to them. Zita’s eyes raked the tables as she decided who of the Ritz regulars to drop in on.

  ‘Hello, Zita.’

  She spun around in surprise at the voice.

  ‘Polly!’ A spark of Zita’s conscience kindled – the girl shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be seeing her like this. ‘What are you doing in l’Espadon, puss? I thought you’d given it all up?’

  ‘I was bored.’

  She looked unaccountably mature to Zita, wearing a stunning gown belonging to Alexandrine.

  ‘I wanted to see people. I wanted to see you. We hardly spend time together these days since you’ve been so busy at the new studios.’

  Zita felt a violent surge of love for her. ‘Mother Mary and Christ – you say all the right things.’ She linked her arm through Polly’s, beating her conscience back into the dark. ‘I was looking for a partner in crime. I’m feeling dangerous.’

  Polly laughed. ‘Who’s here tonight? I feel I’m hopelessly out of the loop.’

  ‘Out of the noose, more like it,’ said Zita, ‘a lucky escape. But if you insist on having some fun with me, then let’s see who’s still awake.’

  Together, they scanned the tables.

  ‘There’s Göring,’ said Polly.

  Distant alarm bells somewhere rang for Zita that Polly would even contemplate engaging with Göring, but she made herself deaf. ‘Well, we could go say hello, I suppose,’ she mused. Then something like sense kicked in. ‘But even when I’m as high as a cloud his jokes are still stinkers.’

  ‘High as a cloud?’

  ‘I’ve had some champagne? That’s a crime now?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Polly, ‘it’s nice to see you so happy.’

  Telling herself that if she looked that way, then she must surely be so, Zita considered other tables.

  ‘The playwright Guitry’s still here,’ Polly pointed. ‘Who are all those women with him?’

  ‘Fawning actresses.’

  ‘Friends of yours?’

  ‘Acquaintances. From the Comédie-Française.’ She turned up her nose as she said it.

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Polly. ‘They resent famous film stars?’

  ‘They’re jealous. Bitterly. Someone must have let slip what I get paid.’ She waved gaily to the table.

  Arm in arm, they moved further into the mirrored dining room.

  Zita locked eyes with Metzingen at last. He was sitting at a table full of the Wehrmacht high command. She thanked God for the powder now, and she wanted him to know she was using it. He would guess all the signs just by watching her. The re-written script between them had gained a new storyline: the heroine was being maddeningly, glamorously self-destructive, to match the recklessness of the love-struck hero.

  She took unexpected strength from Polly; warmth from her arm.

  ‘There’s Jean Cocteau,’ said Polly. ‘He looks a bit strange.’

  ‘He is strange. But we could go over if you like?’ Zita knew the poet was as high upon dope as she was, but it was a different dope, one that flattened him out rather than flinging him up to the ceiling where she preferred to be. There was no fun to be had in that.

  She saw the ideal table and let go of good sense entirely.

  ‘Hullo, puss!’ she called out. ‘You look embalmed tonight. Is it true what Vogue says and you’re dead?’ She marched across to Chanel, leading Polly by the arm.

  The designer beamed at them, although her wariness was obvious. ‘Zita, darling. How very nice. Do you know, if these walls could talk they might tell us how many knee-tremblers you’ve had up against them?’

  Zita threw her head back and roared. Helping herself to a generous glass of the designer’s bottle of champagne, she fixed her eyes upon Chanel’s Teutonic companion. She suspected they were screwing, which meant Chanel was no better than she was. ‘Hauptmann Jürgen,’ she purred, ‘tell me I’m mad, but you seem to get younger every day.’ She gave theatrical looks back and forwards between him and Chanel. ‘Unless it’s just the effect of the comparison?’

  It was Chanel’s turn to laugh, although less raucously.

  ‘Fräulein Zita enjoys her teases,’ said Jürgen, saluting her with his glass.

  Zita winked and turned to Chanel again. ‘So, what is it with you and those Jews?’

  There was a pleasing ripple across Chanel’s composure. ‘Whatever could you mean by that, Zita?’

  ‘Oh puss, it’s all over town.’

  ‘What is, dear?’

  Zita turned to Jürgen. ‘Coco has no head for business. It’s sad.’

  Jürgen chuckled. ‘Now we know you’re drunk.’

  ‘But it’s true,’ said Zita. ‘Overlooking for now that she threw her whole workforce onto the street when she shut down her shop as a “patriotic act”, back in the ’20s she sold off her famous perfume, didn’t she? Well, it wasn’t famous then.’ She lowered her voice to a stage whisper, clicking her tongue. ‘She sold it to Jews.’

  Jürgen stiffened.

  Zita felt Polly becoming uncomfortable, but she didn’t see it as reason to stop. With the powder, there was never a reason to stop anything that was fun. ‘Yes, she sold it to nice friendly Jews,’ said Zita, reminiscing. ‘And Christ, what they did with it, Hauptmann. What a smash they made of the stuff. They earned more money than God from that perfume. More money than poor old Coco did from it, anyway.’

  Chanel’s humour had evaporated. ‘Zita . . .’

  ‘All water under the bridge now,’ said Zita, placatingly, ‘she’s just got the perfume back in her paws again, haven’t you, puss? Thanks to these new Jew laws. What was it you actually paid them for it? That’s right: not one single, stinking red sou.’

  Jürgen abruptly stood up. ‘You take exception to the laws regarding Jewish property, Fräulein Zita?’

  She resisted Polly trying to pull her away. ‘Not me, Hauptmann – why would I? Not when Mademoiselle Chanel does so well out of them.’

  Jürgen glowered at her and she could see his mind ticking. Then he turned to Polly. ‘Fräulein Hartford, it is such a pleasure to see you returned to our evenings at L’Espadon.’

  Polly was gracious. ‘Thank you, Herr Jürgen.’

  ‘Please let me extend to you my condolences for the news.’

  ‘What news?’

  ‘About poor Frau Huckstepp. It is so very sad. We were fond of her here.’

  The unasked-for image of interned Lana Mae pricked Zita, her old friend suddenly embodying her banished conscience. She tried to force Lana Mae away, refusing to think of her behind barbed wire. Zita scrabbled in the brief onset of darkness for the light of the powder again and found it.

  Polly was speaking. ‘Of course, it is sad our good friend can no longer continue her charity work –’ But the look upon Jürgen’s face brought Polly to a stop.

  ‘I see you have not heard.’ He turned to Chanel, who was listening with wordless interest from the comfort of her chair. He clearly wanted her to appreciate this. ‘There was a report today
from Vittel. Frau Huckstepp has been diagnosed with womb cancer.’

  The shock was total.

  Yet the powder wouldn’t let it feel real.

  Zita looked at Jürgen. She looked at Chanel. ‘That can’t be right . . .’

  ‘I tell you it is,’ said Jürgen.

  The girl at Zita’s side crumbled. Polly sank to the floor.

  Zita watched her as if watching herself in a film where she observed an actress playing Polly dissolve. She was utterly detached from it, completely unmoved. Polly’s agony meant nothing. She looked to Chanel again, feeling that perhaps she should explain the girl. ‘She is still only young –’

  But the designer was stricken by what had occurred. Polly’s weeping was terrible to hear. People around them had stopped talking, staring at the scene. Zita looked to Jürgen again. His nasty surprise had backfired on him. He was ashamed at drawing tears from someone so innocent.

  He tried to help Polly to her feet. ‘Fräulein Hartford, forgive me –’

  Polly could only shake her head, unable to reply to him, unable to get up.

  Zita glanced across the dining room and saw Metzingen staring at them. In the powder’s grip, she was pleased.

  Chanel stood from her chair, as ashamed as Jürgen was. ‘I’m so sorry, Zita. We wouldn’t have wished such a thing on Lana Mae, you must know that.’

  ‘Do I, puss?’

  Chanel didn’t have a retort. ‘I’m so sorry, Polly.’

  Jürgen took Chanel by the arm as they left the restaurant together.

  When Polly stood up of her own accord, she kept her hands to her face. Zita helped her sit down at Chanel’s abandoned table. The other diners stopped looking at them, respecting Polly’s distress.

  ‘I’m sorry, that was lousy news.’ Zita glimpsed beneath Polly’s hands and thought she seemed somewhat dry-eyed. Had the weeping been real?

  ‘I’ll be all right in a moment,’ Polly told her.

  Zita slipped her a handkerchief from her purse. Polly pressed it to her face.

  Zita’s heart soared. Polly was up to something. The girl was enacting a deception in the face of a kraut, and he’d fallen for it. ‘Feeling better now?’

  Polly nodded. ‘I’ll sit here a while.’

  Polly looked sideways at her, trying to tell if she’d bought the performance as easily as Jürgen and Chanel had. Zita tried not to let on, her love for the girl expanding in her chest until bursting point. ‘I don’t believe she’s got cancer,’ Zita told her. ‘She was as healthy as a horse before they took her.’ She stood up before Polly could read her face.

  Zita saw Metzingen coming towards them. Empowered by Polly as much as the powder, she decided it was time to milk the reward for her own performance. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

  She walked off at speed, diagonal to him, in the direction of the doors, forcing him to change path. She made it to the Cambon lobby before he did and stood there invitingly, looking up the stairs.

  He gripped her by the shoulder, furious, spinning her to face him. ‘You’re on dope again.’

  ‘So, what if I am?’

  ‘You told me you’d stop this self-indulgence.’

  ‘Did I? Turns out I lied. Took a page from your book, didn’t I?’

  She relished seeing his rage melt away, transforming into pathetic concern. ‘Liebchen, please – don’t do this to us.’

  ‘Us? I’m doing nothing to you, Hans. I’m not sniffing snow for two.’

  ‘But how can you do it at all? How can you let yourself become an addict – like him?’

  ‘Who? Göring?’ She laughed. ‘I do it so that I might feel happy.’ She grinned at him. ‘Sorry, but the dope is all that I have at hand.’

  He clutched at her. ‘Let me make you happy – please, Liebchen. The Ritz is all ours.’

  She laughed at that, wild-eyed. ‘Fuck the Ritz. You’re welcome to it.’

  He was shocked. Then angry once more – the angriest she’d made him this evening. She saw his hand pull back to slap her. ‘Do it, Hans. Beat the insolence from me.’

  His hand stayed where it was.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she taunted. ‘Don’t I deserve a beating for insulting your beloved Ritz?’

  His hand fell to his side again.

  ‘I hate to break it to you,’ she told him, ‘but you still don’t actually own this hotel. And until you do, you don’t own any of us who might choose to live inside it.’

  He took in her words. ‘Who says I don’t own you?’

  She knew what was coming next. She’d opened the door to it.

  ‘I owned you the moment the whore became the spy . . .’

  She held his look before the weight of her guilt became too much again.

  He was remorseful. ‘Please, Zita – I didn’t mean that.’

  She scrubbed a tear from her cheek. ‘You want me to stop killing myself? Then give me the one thing I need to keep living for, Hans – the one thing you forever deny me.’

  She watched him sag and give in to her, a familiar routine.

  ‘All right.’

  She believed none of it. ‘So, say it then.’

  ‘I will take you to Lotti.’

  She dismissed him in disgust. ‘So easily you always make those words, Hans, but I know you never will. In the meantime, I’ll keep on taking the dope.’

  She was pleased to see she was frightening him.

  ‘I mean it, Liebchen. I’ll take you to her. Just stop this self-destruction.’

  ‘More lies. I’ll be free of them dead.’

  ‘It’s the truth this time, I swear it is.’

  She shook her head. ‘It never is. I’ll only believe you when I have our daughter in my arms.’

  ‘We’ll go the asylum together. You’ll be able to hold her.’

  ‘When?’

  There was silence. He grappled for an answer. ‘In a week.’

  She snorted. ‘Too vague. In a week it’ll be another week, and then another week after that. I’ll need all my dope just to cope with it.’

  He clutched at her hand. ‘I swear it, Liebchen. I’ll need time to arrange it – but – but we will visit together in a week. You will see.’ He so desperately wanted her to believe him.

  Zita’s kohl-rimmed eyes drilled into the very heart of her lover, past all the layers of clung-to ideals. She saw the rejected, humiliated man he once had once been. The man he claimed had held the door for her at the Ritz.

  ‘All right, Hans.’

  ‘Yes?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I trust you.’ She felt the surge at her loins at the glimpse of vulnerability in his eyes – too rarely seen. If only she could find this in him always, she thought. If she could, she might even feel more than mere lust for him. But for now, lust was enough. Indeed, on the powder it was everything. Zita kissed him on the mouth, tender with longing, aroused by the drug. ‘Just think of it, Hans – in one week’s time we will be little Lotti’s mama and papa again . . .’

  His face was hidden from hers in the kiss. Zita knew she should look at him, knew she should see if his sincerity remained, or discover if it had been replaced by something that fit him better. But she didn’t want to look at him.

  Thanks to the powder, all she wanted was a handful of his prick.

  * * *

  Jürgen returned to l’Espadon without Chanel. He had deposited the designer in her tiny room high on the Cambon side of the hotel – her old Vendôme suite having long been taken from her – and resisted her entreaties to stay for a ‘nightcap’. Ordinarily he would have done so quite happily. The famed designer’s attentions gave him kudos among those colleagues who were aware of the trysts. Still, with Chanel easily three decades his senior, quite possibly more, despite being unarguably well preserved, sometimes he missed the pneumatic flexibility of a woman closer his age. For all his accomplished athleticism and rapid rise through the Wehrmacht ranks, people forgot just how young he was. Jürgen was still four years away from turning thirty, af
ter all.

  The Ritz dining room was emptier now, although revellers remained. Von Hofacker, von Stülpnagel and Speidel were in a huddle together, well away from the other tables – something he’d seen quite a lot from them lately. He half-suspected they were plotting something. Metzingen had gone, he was pleased to see. Jürgen scoured the room for the reason he’d rejected his evening with Chanel – and found it. He strode to the very same table near the terrace where he had left her fifteen minutes before.

  ‘Fräulein Polly?’

  The girl looked up at him, startled at first. Then her expression relaxed somewhat. He hoped that his smile had disarmed her. He was pleased to see that her tears had dried. Her face showed no evidence of the pain he had caused her – the pain he so keenly regretted now.

  ‘Herr Jürgen? Have you forgotten something?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have forgotten to properly apologise to you.’

  She was surprised by that.

  ‘Would you allow me to sit down to do it?’

  ‘Of course.’ She still seemed apprehensive of him as he took a chair, yet his senses told him that she was also attracted. In truth, how could she not be? They were both fine specimens. Jürgen knew they would make an excellent pair.

  ‘I’m confused,’ Polly told him, ‘what is it that you feel you should apologise for?’

  ‘Fräulein, please – I am ashamed of what I did.’ He hoped she could see the sincerity in his ice-blue eyes. ‘I broke the news of Frau Huckstepp’s illness to you in an indifferent way.’ He saw the pain in her face again.

  ‘Oh. Well . . .’

  ‘She is your guardian – you love her – it was very wrong of me.’ He realised she was hanging on his words now. He dug deep in himself to speak with complete honesty. ‘I am a man of the Wehrmacht. We are expected to lose our sensitivity in order to fight. But sometimes we forget when we need it again. I forgot. And so, I am very sorry for it.’

  She looked long at him. For a moment nothing more was spoken between them. Then she said, ‘I forgive you for it. Zita was being provocative.’