The Heart of the Ritz

by Luke Devenish

  ‘Run where?’ said Tommy, softly.

  ‘Underground? We have friends. We could hide if we wished to.’ She looked from Tommy to Mimi. ‘All of us, if needs be.’

  ‘There are too many fighting the Boches from the cover of this hotel for us all to run,’ said Mimi. ‘Far more than you know, Polly. Far more than you need to know.’

  Although their situation couldn’t have been worse, Polly actually felt hope at learning of this. ‘Is that really true?’

  Mimi nodded. ‘And I, for one, will never run from the Ritz,’ she said. ‘Which I’m sure does not surprise you.’

  It didn’t.

  ‘Nor will Claude,’ said Mimi. ‘Despite what has happened. The fate of this great hotel and his own are too inextricably linked.’ A tear rolled down her soft cheek.

  Polly was buoyed by this too. ‘Then don’t expect me to run either.’

  ‘Don’t be so reckless,’ Mimi snapped. ‘You could escape them still.’ She looked to Polly. ‘You both could.’

  Tommy was silent.

  ‘I won’t do it.’ Polly looked defiantly to them both. ‘Not in the face of Alexandrine’s example. Or Lana Mae’s courage – or Suzette’s sacrifice. How could I possibly run with the memory of any of them?’

  ‘Not even to fight?’ Mimi challenged her. ‘Stay here, my dear, and you’re wasted for France. Run and the two of you might still join the fight for our victory.’

  Polly clenched her fists. ‘You can’t make me do anything, Mimi.’

  The old lady was cold. ‘Don’t you think you owe me a debt for your time here?’

  Polly stood up from the chair, crushed. ‘Madame – you can’t mean that.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Mimi. ‘The one thousand and one night’s accommodation paid by your aunt’s legacy ran out long ago. Am I just an endless fountain of charity?’

  Polly was ashen. ‘Is running away really what you want me to do, Madame Ritz?’ she asked quietly.

  There was a long moment before Mimi lowered her head, ashamed. ‘I’m sorry – it’s the shock of it. Odile was like a granddaughter to me . . .’ She sobbed.

  Now Polly struggled to hold back more tears. ‘Madame – since Alexandrine was taken, it’s become so difficult to access my aunt’s funds.’

  Mimi was at Polly’s side, kissing her hands. ‘Oh, my dear – no explanation is ever needed.’

  ‘But my continuing to stay on at the Ritz has weighed so heavily on my conscience.’

  ‘You’re not a guest – you’re family,’ Mimi insisted.

  ‘One day, I’ll make it up to you.’

  Mimi fiercely waved this away. ‘You have every right to resist to the last with dignity,’ she told her. ‘And I have no right to take that from you.’ She looked back to Tommy. ‘And what about you, my boy? You have not said what you will do.’

  Tommy looked up from where he’d been staring at the floor. He was resolute. ‘I would have thought it was obvious.’ He glanced to Polly. ‘We will both stay here.’

  Polly nodded.

  ‘But we will not stay here and wait.’

  Polly knew what was coming.

  ‘We will find a way to get Odile back,’ Tommy vowed.

  Mimi closed her eyes against his youthful idealism. ‘Oh, my boy . . .’ she whispered. ‘What you propose is impossible.’

  ‘We will,’ he insisted, ‘we will find a way to succeed. There will be a way.’

  ‘There is no way.’ Mimi was drained of all fight. ‘Was there a way to save Guy?’

  Tommy bit back his guilt at the memory. “We knew nothing then. The krauts have grown decadent and weak. We can defeat them if we stay strong. We are defeating them.’

  ‘Odile is lost to us,’ said Mimi. ‘You must accept it.’

  ‘No!’ Tommy shot back at her. ‘Just like we accepted all the rest? No, Madame. Not Odile. Not with everything she’s done – and not while we still live.’

  Mimi could only stare at him. ‘Do you do this because you feel love for Odile?’

  Polly saw Tommy falter at the question.

  ‘Why, can’t you answer me?’

  He doubled down. ‘Of course, I love Odile. How could you doubt that?’

  ‘You love her as a friend, I’m sure – but as something more?’

  He was flustered. ‘Madame . . .’

  ‘All this time you’ve never told her you love her – why is that?’

  Tommy squirmed. ‘Please, Madame . . .’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there has been no time for love,’ he insisted, ‘no room for it. We’ve been filled by our purpose, our commitment to resist – haven’t we, Pol?’

  Polly heard her very words from that day on the stairs thrown back at her.

  ‘It’s all we’ve ever thought of,’ Tommy went on.

  Mimi looked at her hands. ‘You speak about love without knowing anything about it,’ she said. ‘The commitment you feel only seems like love because it unites you – but true love is different. If you truly loved Odile, you would have told her so long ago. You wouldn’t have been able to stop yourself. You wouldn’t have been able to ignore your heart.’

  And Polly thought then: to ignore one’s heart is all too easy when life is full enough to distract from it.

  ‘I think you’ve told yourself that you love her because it is easier than acknowledging love elsewhere,’ said Mimi. ‘Love with Odile is conveniently impossible and that’s why you’ve chosen it.’

  Tommy’s defences went up. ‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’

  ‘I think you do.’

  ‘I do not,’ Tommy insisted. ‘We are above such things.’

  A searching look passed between Mimi and Polly.

  ‘No one is above love,’ Mimi said. ‘Free yourself from this burden.’ She pleaded with them both. ‘You do not know Odile’s heart as well as you think you do.’

  Polly couldn’t hold Mimi’s eye any longer.

  ‘We will save our Odile,’ said Tommy. ‘You’ll see that we will.’ He looked urgently to Polly. ‘Won’t we, Pol?’

  She smiled back at him warmly, willing what she felt inside from her face.

  * * *

  Polly was overcome with fear, but gave no hint of it, the experience of which was surreal. She felt as if she was standing at a great distance away observing herself through a telescope. Returning to the Cambon lobby again, she didn’t look back at Tommy or see where he went. Instead, she glanced in the bar and saw Zita alone at a table. The Art Deco room was near empty.

  The film star looked up and spotted her, her eyes raw. She at once looked away, shocking Polly with this reaction. Zita was overwhelmingly ashamed. At that terrible moment, Polly guessed what had happened to Odile had a connection to Zita. As if still watching herself from a distance, Polly stepped inside.

  ‘What is it, Zita?’ she called across the room.

  Zita stared at her hands in her lap, deaf to her.

  ‘Please – what’s wrong?’

  The film star turned and glared as Polly approached the table. Polly now saw how dilated her pupils were. ‘Are you all right?’

  Zita grimaced. ‘I don’t want you talking to me anymore, Polly.’ There was spittle on her lips. ‘Have you got that?’

  Polly took an unconscious step back, frightened but determined to persist. ‘All right.’

  ‘I mean it. Don’t test me. Fuck off from now on.’

  The words stabbed Polly. ‘I said all right.’

  ‘Good.’ Zita turned her back to her.

  Polly just stood there.

  After a moment, Zita said, ‘You still waiting?’

  ‘Yes,’ Polly said. ‘Yes, I’m still here.’ Her voice broke in her throat.

  Then Polly heard the sound of Zita weeping.

  Polly went to her. ‘What is it?’

  The film star shook her head.

  ‘Please tell me,’ said Polly.

  But Zita could not.

  ‘Zita,’ Polly b
egged her, ‘there is only you and I – there’s no one else anymore. So, who else loves you like I do? And who else loves you like I always will?’

  ‘Oh, puss . . . you don’t know what you’re saying.’

  ‘You can tell me anything, and still I’ll love you,’ Polly whispered, ‘no matter how bad you think it might be.’

  Zita stared at her, desolate.

  ‘And I will say this always – you can tell me any secret, any secret at all.’

  Zita mocked her. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Anything . . .’ said Polly.

  For a long moment it seemed to Polly that Zita was on the cusp of telling her something unimaginable. Then a different instinct kicked in and Zita threw her attentions towards a middle-aged man who was passing the table.

  ‘Bonjour Monsieur – it’s Doctor Kahle, isn’t it?’

  Polly knew him then, too: Göring’s old specialist, once lauded now rejected. He had remained at the Ritz long after the Reichsmarschall had left him to it. Now he was looking as nerve-racked as Zita was. Kahle gawped first at Zita and then at Polly.

  ‘I’m Mademoiselle Zita,’ she reminded him, presenting her hand, ‘and this is my ward, Mademoiselle Hartford. Don’t you remember us from so many nights at l’Espadon?’

  ‘My God – of course.’

  Zita gestured comically.

  He grabbed her hand. Zita winced at the sweat slick he left on her fingers. ‘It’s a fine idea approaching them of your own volition, meine Damen – a fine idea,’ he told her. ‘It shows good faith to the Gestapo.’

  Zita pulled back her hand like he’d bitten it. ‘The Gestapo?’

  Kahle nodded effusively. ‘To choose fleeing instead is just fatal.’

  Zita was thrown, refusing to look at Polly. ‘Someone you know has been taken for questioning?’

  ‘Someone I know?’ Kahle echoed.

  Zita leaned forward a little. ‘I have heard that relatives and friends are treated with courtesy when making enquiries.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Perhaps you could tell the Gestapo that you believe a mistake has been made with your friend?’

  The doctor was bewildered. ‘I’m sorry, meine Dame – but don’t you know?’

  Zita was frightened. ‘Know what?’

  ‘Oh my God . . .’ New nervousness crashed over him.

  Polly’s own nerves intensified. ‘Doctor Kahle,’ she asked him, ‘what is it that we should know?’

  The doctor stared back at her. ‘The Führer,’ he whispered. ‘The attempt that was made to assassinate him.’

  Zita had a sudden intake of breath. But Polly had already heard this news.

  ‘Don’t fear, he lives,’ Kahle reassured them, ‘but at cost . . .’

  Zita seized on this. ‘He is injured?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kahle, ‘but nothing so serious, thank God. The cost is not to his health.’

  Zita stared at him levelly. ‘Can you tell us what is happening please?’

  The doctor looked around him as if fearing hidden listeners. Yet the bar was near deserted. ‘The assassins were Germans, meine Damen.’ He let the shock of that sit as Zita absorbed it, before delivering the next: ‘And the assassins’ conspiracy was born at our hotel.’

  ‘You mean right here in Paris, Herr Doctor?’ said Polly.

  ‘I mean here right at the heart of the Ritz.’ A sweat droplet fell from his nose to the floor. ‘General von Stülpnagel,’ he whispered, ‘along with Colonel von Hofacker and General Speidel – they’ve been exposed as the ringleaders.’

  Zita’s mouth fell open.

  ‘Stülpnagel tried to kill himself last night on the road from Paris – he blew out his own eye in the attempt but not his brains, the poor fool.’ He gestured hopelessly. ‘They have him now . . .’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Zita said, quailing.

  ‘Von Hofacker and Speidel are on the run still.’

  Polly looked from Zita to Kahle and back again, trying to grasp what it was that wasn’t being said. ‘But I don’t understand,’ said Polly, ‘why are you so frightened, Herr Doctor?’

  ‘All of us – all of us – are under suspicion in this,’ he insisted. ‘The Führer said he’d be merciless in his reprisal . . .’

  Polly now saw Zita’s unmistakable flash of fear.

  ‘All of us?’

  ‘Everyone at the Ritz. None will be spared in discovering the full extent of accountability.’ Then he saw how badly he was misinterpreted. ‘Oh, meine Damen, do not worry yourselves,’ he added, seeking to reassure them. ‘I do not mean the French guests.’

  ‘But why not, Herr Doctor? We live at the Ritz, too,’ said Polly.

  ‘Yes, of course, but this is a German outrage.’ He took a long breath, contemplating. ‘Just consider the boldness of it, the breathtaking ingenuity – how could a French mind ever lend itself to such an audacious attempt? No, no, the conspirators are born of the Fatherland.’ He pulled at his collar, loosening it. ‘Which means that it falls to those of us who are already considered guilty to take the initiative in proving we are not.’ He meant himself. ‘I am giving myself to them. Just as soon as I’ve had a drink or two for courage.’

  Polly felt a sudden, tremendous exaltation at this. With the Allies advancing from the west, the Occupiers were consuming themselves.

  ‘This bar is usually full of Germans,’ Kahle said, indicating the empty room.

  It was only now that both Polly and Zita realised the truth of this.

  ‘You mean the Gestapo have been arresting people?’ Zita whispered.

  ‘Arresting Germans,’ Kahle reminded her.

  Polly watched as a great weight lifted from Zita.

  ‘No French citizens have been taken from the Ritz today?’ said Zita.

  Kahle shook his head.

  ‘None? Not one French citizen today at all? You swear it?’

  Kahle looked at Zita in puzzlement. ‘Were you expecting such an arrest to occur?’

  Zita batted this question away. ‘Of course not.’

  Polly knew then that Zita was lying. She had expected Odile to be arrested. Yet here was Kahle telling them that this could not have occurred. So, had Odile’s arrest even happened? It had only been reported by Metzingen – no one trustworthy had witnessed it. Polly put her own confusion aside in order to watch Zita intently.

  ‘Who among the Germans then –’ Zita pressed him. ‘Who has already been taken – and who is still likely?’

  The doctor gave her some names. ‘I have no knowledge of any of them. And those who are still free I name only as conjecture.’

  ‘Hans?’ Zita whispered. ‘Will they arrest Hans?’

  Polly’s eyes widened.

  ‘You mean Metzingen?’ Kahle asked, astonished.

  Zita stood on a cliff edge. ‘Will he be arrested?’

  The doctor threw his head back with mirth.

  Polly watched Zita’s hands shake, brushing at her dress.

  ‘Oh God,’ Kahle said, trying to recover himself, ‘that’s a good one.’

  Zita had gone very still. ‘Why is that so funny?’

  Kahle wiped at his eyes. ‘Forgive me, meine Dame – it was just the surprise of it.’ He cleared his throat, his fingers pulling creases from his coat sleeves. ‘Of course, Oberstleutnant Metzingen will not be arrested. You have no reason to fear for him, if that is indeed what you feel.’

  Zita clearly believed she betrayed nothing. ‘But why will he be exempt?’

  ‘Because Metzingen couldn’t conspire his way through breakfast.’

  Polly was quietly devasted by the wound these words made upon Zita. She shut her eyes to it, realising now everything it meant.

  ‘But how can you say that?’ Zita whispered. ‘He is a powerful man.’

  ‘I can say it because he is drug addict, meine Dame. Everyone knows it. He is hopelessly hooked on the dope. The power and responsibilities he once had are long taken from him. He’s an embarrassment to the Reich, a bad joke. So pitiful is our Oberstleutnant that even the R
ussian front has no need of him. He’s been left here in Paris to drift – and to drown. No one will arrest him, meine Dame, because no one will get sense from him.’

  Polly made herself watch the tear that fell from Zita’s kohled eye.

  The doctor watched, too, and was compassionate. ‘There is a love affair between you?’

  Zita said nothing. She didn’t need to. The truth was so obvious.

  ‘I advise you to abandon it, meine Dame,’ Kahle told her. ‘It is only sensible. After all, he has already abandoned himself . . .’

  * * *

  When Kahle had moved off to the bar to order a drink, Zita stayed where she was, staring into space. Then, when Polly spoke to her gently, Zita rose from the table, but needed Polly to guide her to the doors. It was Polly who bid farewell to the doctor, offering certainty that all would be well, even though she didn’t care if he was shot.

  It was Polly who knew she had lost Zita somehow – the woman by her side was a phantom. It was Polly who clung on fiercely to her guardian’s arm, wanting to cry, but not letting herself do so as they entered the Cambon lobby. As they began to cross the floor, they saw Blanche coming down the stairs – her arm linked through Odile’s.

  She had not been arrested.

  Zita stopped still then, staring at her friend’s sightless daughter.

  It was Odile who spoke. ‘Hello, Pol,’ she said, somehow knowing she was there. ‘I hear you met my friend Anaïs today?’

  Polly blinked. ‘Anaïs?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Odile, ‘she was visiting here earlier – wasn’t she, Mama?’

  Blanche nodded, her eyes cold upon Zita.

  ‘You and Anaïs are friends?’ Polly asked, surprised. ‘I didn’t realise that.’

  For the first time in the four long years Polly had known the remarkable girl, Odile blushed.

  Blanche patted her daughter’s hand, protectively. ‘You’re real good friends with Anaïs, aren’t you, sweetheart? She’s a very nice girl. I like her.’

  A secretive smile came to Odile’s face. ‘Anaïs came to visit especially today, so Mama could meet her,’ she confessed. ‘And Papa, too. She came up to our suite and surprised me. If we’d known you were around, Pol, we would have invited you, too, for some tea and some cake.’