FIFTEEN
The show at the Casino de Paris was so popular that it was scheduled to continue until May the following year. Despite the success, it was a lonely life for me. Aside from Odette, the effusive applause of the audience was the only companionship I knew. When I looked out past the floodlights and saw the rows of enchanted faces night after night it was like meeting with friends—an illusion I could maintain as long as the spectators remained anonymous to me. I would return to my dressing room to find it flooded with flowers and bottles of Amour-Amour. There were always cards attached, expressing the sender’s esteem and requesting a rendezvous. I was mindful to be charming and polite with my admirers but I knew those men—and some women too—were not really interested in giving me anything. Rather, they were hoping to take something away.
‘Men are ruthless,’ Camille told me one evening when she invited me to supper in her apartment. ‘That’s why, if you are smart, you will take what you can while you have the opportunity. Only fools feel sorry for them. As if they are acting with any morals! When a man makes a decision to get rid of a woman, you can be sure he won’t take pity on her.’
I cut a slice of Neufchâtel and spread the velvety cheese on a piece of bread. I had been flattered at first by Camille’s invitation—after all, she was a real star—but as the evening wore on I began to feel like a nameless audience to her philosophies on life and men. I could have been anybody. And yet I listened with rapt attention because I wanted her to like me. Or if not like me, at least approve of me. I was too inexperienced to agree or disagree with Camille on the subject. My knowledge of men—other than my father, Uncle Gerome and Bernard—was negligible. And out of the three of them, only Uncle Gerome could have been described as ruthless.
‘Their decisions aren’t made in the heart, no matter how in love they appear to be,’ continued Camille, breaking a piece of bread and taking some cheese for herself. ‘They are not even made in le pantalon, as the chorus girls say. When they get an idea, it is made impassively in the head, with themselves as the sole beneficiary.’
Camille called in her maid and asked for another bottle of wine to be brought to us. I studied the room. The Aubusson tapestry and the bronze d’oré chandelier belonged to the hotel but the giltwood chaise longue and the chairs with arms carved in the shape of lion heads were Camille’s. She certainly was amassing a few things for herself from Yves de Dominici. There was even a rumour that he was intending to buy her a house at Garches on the Seine outside of Paris, where many of the French set had villas.
After the maid had poured the wine, Camille turned her attention back to cutting the cheese. I studied the delicate pallor of her hands and, when she looked up, stole a glance at her sapphire eyes. Did she really think that all men were ruthless? I wondered about Camille’s daughter, but when I had enquired about her earlier in the evening, Camille had told me not to mention the child as the maid was a busybody and she didn’t want people to know about her. Was it being left to take responsibility for a child on her own that had made Camille so jaded?
I didn’t avoid my admirers because I was sure they were ruthless, but rather because I couldn’t see how anything they could offer me could be more exciting than the music hall. I didn’t find the real world as beautiful as a set designed by Gordon Conway or Georges Barbier. And even if my admirers bought me dresses worth thousands of francs, where else but the stage could I wear angel wings and a towering headdress studded with pearls? At each rehearsal I strove to perfect some aspect of my dancing or voice, and was thrilled when with each show my performance improved. Such things were much more enticing to me than being wined and dined in restaurants with too much cutlery and then carted from party to party like some kind of showpiece. Besides, I was making my own money and buying my own luxuries. Although it would have been nice to live in the Hôtel de Crillon, I wasn’t prepared to do so at the cost of my liberty.
There was one exception to my lack of interest in the opposite sex: André Blanchard. Although I hadn’t seen him since that night at Le Boeuf sur le Toit, it didn’t stop me thinking about him. Sometimes when there was a break at rehearsal or I arrived back at my hotel too pent up to sleep, I would imagine conversations between us. We would talk about the music hall, about the things we liked best about Paris, about what foods we liked to eat. It was a strange thing to do, seeing as he and I had never exchanged more than a few words. But I was too inexperienced to understand the feelings he stirred in me or the chemistry of attraction. I tried not to think about Mademoiselle Canier, who I saw as an obstacle to my fantasies. I remembered the curé at home giving a sermon in which he insisted that ‘to think about doing something is as bad as actually doing it’. I didn’t see how that could be true. I couldn’t control all the thoughts floating through my head at any one time, but I could control my actions. But something my mother often said proved true: whatever you think about most will eventually manifest itself.
One evening during the interval I opened my dressing room door, with the intention of calling Blandine, my dresser, and found that André Blanchard had manifested himself in the hall.
‘Good evening,’ he said, holding out a bouquet of roses.
I stood in the doorway with my mouth open.
He gazed past me and gave a slight cough. I woke from my dream and invited him into my dressing room, the first man ever to cross the threshold while I occupied it. I wasn’t used to receiving guests and I kicked a pair of panties under the skirt of my table and cleared some stockings off a chair for him. The chair creaked and wobbled when he sat on it. I didn’t have a vase for the flowers so I put them in the water jug.
‘It is the Casino de Paris for you now, Mademoiselle Fleurier,’ said André, perching as far forward as possible on the chair so that it might stop its embarrassing eek and prrrf sounds. His eyes fell to my jewelled brassiere with the tissue paper stuffed in the cups, which was hanging on the arm of the chair. He glanced away, searching for somewhere he could look other than at my face. ‘Your new act becomes you.’
I sat down opposite him, unnerved by his sudden appearance. I hadn’t seen him for weeks. My dressing area was tiny and our knees bumped. I was surprised to feel that his were trembling. Mine began to shake too, in sympathy. There was a case of cigarettes in my drawer and I took it out and offered him one. André shook his head. ‘I only smoke one a day,’ he said. ‘And don’t crave another until the following day.’
I opened a packet of spiced pecan nuts instead, the only food I had in the room, and poured them into a bowl. The nuts had been given to me by an admirer, along with some chocolates, but I had never opened them. Nuts are anathema to a singer’s vocal cords.
I wondered how old André was. There were no wrinkles on his golden skin and he didn’t look more than twenty. For someone with such a high social position, he didn’t seem very conscious of it. But he spoke with maturity and carefully measured words, which made me think he was older than he looked. I put his age at twenty-five.
My thoughts were interrupted by a crunching sound. André had taken a handful of nuts and was tossing them into his mouth one at a time, the way a dog might snap at a treat thrown to him by his master. It wasn’t a refined mannerism. It wasn’t the way Antoine or François would have eaten nuts. André must have forgotten himself and it was all I could do not to laugh. I was dazzled by his wealth and presence, but his temporary lapse put us on a more even footing.
‘Who is your manager?’ he asked.
‘Michel Etienne.’
André nodded. ‘Ah, good. Conservative but experienced and thorough.’
‘Do you know much about the music hall?’
‘I am interested in business—and it is show business,’ he said, smiling. ‘I would pay a million francs to be able to sing like you, but that’s not likely to happen. I would have liked to have been an actor but my parents thought that was ridiculous. So it is factories and imports and exports for me, like my father.’
‘Don’t you
like enterprise?’ I asked him.
He threw back his head and laughed that wonderful laugh, then looked at me with sparkling eyes. ‘I love it, Mademoiselle Fleurier. Taking something and making it a success thrills me. But I suppose that with the figure of my father looming over me, I feel I have a terrifying potential to fulfil.’
I had a sense that the previous times I had seen him, André had been hiding behind a public façade. Now he seemed to be letting that guard down a little.
‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’ I asked. Being an only child, I had a fascination with the idea of siblings.
André’s face darkened. ‘My older brother was killed in the war so I am the only male heir.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Don’t be,’ André answered. ‘My family is not the only one to have suffered a loss from the war. I have a sister who is married and behaves more like an aunt towards me. I also have a younger sister, Veronique. She is the rebel of the family and acts like a boy. She prefers frogs to dolls.’
‘Each to his—or her—own,’ I said, smiling.
‘Unfortunately, rebels are not welcome in the family,’ André said, taking another handful of nuts. ‘Veronique will be bundled off to a finishing school if she doesn’t change her ways.’
There was an edge to his voice when he spoke about his family. He had seemed happier when we talked about business so I asked him about the Blanchard enterprises.
‘My grandfather started out selling ribbons and eventually became the owner of the biggest textile mill in Lyon,’ he told me. ‘But diversification was his dictum and his sons were expected to develop their own business interests, which they did: in newspapers, gas, railways and imports.’
André paused and gave me a disarming smile. I felt so taken into his confidence that the intimacy made me lose my nerve. I blurted out, ‘And how is Mademoiselle Canier?’
‘Mademoiselle Canier is well, thank you,’ André answered, turning red around the ears. ‘She is on the Riviera at the moment, with her mother. I shall be joining them next week.’
I could have kicked myself. There had been such a friendly ease between us; why had I sabotaged it by mentioning ‘the Siamese’?
André was about to say something else when Blandine burst in the door. Not used to seeing me with visitors, her eyes opened wide. ‘Pardon,’ she said and retreated.
André rose. The chair creaked and prrrf-ed again. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Mademoiselle Fleurier must be needed on stage again soon, and I should go.’
He turned to me. ‘I have to travel with my father on business to Venice and Rome. I wonder if I may call on you again, when I return?’
I nodded, wondering what this visit had been about if Mademoiselle Canier was still in the picture.
After André had left, Blandine turned to me. ‘Was that André Blanchard?’ she asked. ‘What’s he doing visiting you?’
‘I have no idea,’ I told her.
One evening, in the middle of March, the stage manager knocked on my door. ‘Mademoiselle Fleurier, please go to the wardrobe mistress before your next slot,’ he said. ‘Your headdress was coming loose in the last act and they want to refit it before you go back on stage.’
‘Of course,’ I called out to him. ‘I didn’t notice. I’ll go straightaway.’
I listened to his footsteps fade down the hall. There was another forty minutes before I had to appear on stage again, but I knew better than to keep the wardrobe mistress waiting. She wasn’t a motherly figure like Madame Tarasova; she was a despot who wasn’t afraid to slap a fine on someone for having a dog hair on their tights or for losing a sequin. Besides, I didn’t want the wardrobe assistants, who were always frantic during and just after the interval, to be put under more strain because of me.
On my way to the wardrobe mistress’s room, I came across the stagehands struggling to fix a set whose hinges had come loose. It was for the knife-thrower’s act, which was scheduled straight after Jacques Noir, so they didn’t have much time. Although they were blocking my way, I could tell from their red faces and the carpenter’s exasperated curses that it would be wiser not to disturb them. I decided to go around through the wings. The chorus girls had just gone on stage for their chessboard number and as long as I was careful to count the number of wing segments as I went through, I thought I would be able to avoid appearing before the audience in my dressing gown.
It was forbidden to be in the wing area during a performance without the stage manager’s permission, so I tried to crawl behind each curtain as discreetly as possible. I was making good progress towards the exit door when I slipped through what I thought was the last curtain and found myself face to face with Jacques Noir. I froze. The rook prop entrance had been discarded because Noir claimed that it made him claustrophobic, but I had been sure that he made his entrance from stage right, where his wife usually sat, and we were standing in the left wing. I squinted in the dark and realised that Noir had not seen me. He was bent over a bucket, gagging. It was only then that I noticed the acrid smell of vomit.
‘Oh God!’ he moaned, his shoulders trembling as if he had a fever.
I glanced to the opposite wing. Madame Noir wasn’t there but her knitting needles and a ball of wool were perched on her empty chair. Perhaps she is on her way here, I thought, almost praying she was, because it was clear that something was very wrong with Noir. My mind flew back to Zephora at Le Chat Espiègle. At least I could be sure that Noir wasn’t having a baby.
He let out another moan and clutched his chest. As much as I loathed the man, I knew I had to do something quickly. Someone had once told me that vomiting could be a sign of a heart attack. Or perhaps he was having a stroke, like Uncle Gerome.
‘Monsieur Noir,’ I whispered, stepping forward and putting my hand on his shoulder. ‘Can I help you? Do you want me to get your wife?’
Noir bolted upright and fumbled for his handkerchief, patting his face and wiping the cloth across his mouth. When he recognised me, a shudder passed through his body. ‘You stupid girl!’ he snarled. He charged at me and punched me so hard in the chest that I fell to the floor.
I looked up at him, my eyes smarting from the pain. He has lost his mind, I thought. Noir glowered and I was sure he was about to attack me again when the orchestra started up the music for his act. Then I questioned if it was I who had gone mad because Noir transformed in an instant. He threw away his handkerchief, straightened his suit, donned his top hat and leapt out onto the stage exactly as he had done the last time I saw him perform.
‘Ladies, ladies. Please! What will your menfolk think?’
I stared at the stage, unable to believe my eyes. I glanced at the opposite wing. Noir’s wife was back in her seat, knitting.
I picked myself off the floor and staggered to the wardrobe mistress’s room. Fortunately, she had been called away for another emergency and Agnès, her senior assistant, had taken it upon herself to start working on my headdress without me.
‘Good!’ she said, standing on tiptoe to slip the headdress on and fasten it behind my ears and at the nape of my neck. ‘It fits properly now. Hurry! We must go to your dressing room and get you ready.’ She peered at my face. ‘Your mascara is running.’
I touched my cheek and examined my fingertip. It was chalky black. I wondered what I looked like. I couldn’t believe what had taken place with Noir. If it wasn’t for the throb in my chest where he had hit me, I might have thought it was a dream.
‘Quick!’ said Agnès, pushing me out the door. ‘There are only seven minutes before you go back on stage.’
Agnès’s warning spurred me into action. I couldn’t explain what had happened with Noir, but there was no time to think about it now. I had an audience to entertain.
What had happened became clear the next day, however, when I arrived for my rehearsal and found Monsieur Etienne waiting outside the stage door.
‘They want to fire you,’ he said. ‘You are accused of trying to sabo
tage Jacques Noir’s act.’
I dropped my purse. It clattered down the steps and my compact and lipstick tumbled out. Monseiur Etienne’s announcement had stunned me so much that I couldn’t speak.
‘You have a contract and I am going to argue the decision with that,’ said Monsieur Etienne. ‘But you had better tell me what happened last night before we go to face Monsieur Volterra.’
Monsieur Etienne was an impeccable dresser but that morning the knot in his tie was crooked and his hair was dishevelled. It occurred to me that I had never seen him look so agitated. The blood rushed to my head. Fire me? Lose my beloved act at the Casino de Paris after less than three months?
‘It is a lie, Monsieur Etienne.’ I sank down on the stairs and tried scooping up my lipstick but my hand was trembling so much I ended up knocking it further down the steps.
‘Oh, I am sure of that!’ said Monsieur Etienne.
The tone of his voice calmed me a little. If Monsieur Etienne didn’t doubt that I was innocent, perhaps once I’d had a chance to explain what had happened, Monsieur Volterra wouldn’t either. I told Monsieur Etienne why I had been in the wings and about Noir.
Monsieur Etienne clenched his fists. ‘I knew it would be something like that,’ he hissed. ‘This is not the first time Noir has pulled a dirty stunt. He gets rid of any talent that he perceives as a threat.’
‘But we don’t do the same act,’ I said.
‘You got a better review than him from the same reporter,’ said Monsieur Etienne. He reached into his pocket and passed me his handkerchief. I wasn’t crying, but the fear of being fired was stinging my eyes. If Jacques Noir sullied my reputation at the Casino de Paris, I would have difficulty getting work anywhere else.
‘Was he pretending to be sick?’ I asked. ‘Was that a trick?’
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