Wild Lavender

by Belinda Alexandra

  The waiter set down our entrées. I stared at the blinis on my plate and wondered how to eat them. I watched André pick up a spear of asparagus with his fingers and dip it in the bowl of sauce. I shrugged; I might as well be adventurous and guess. I rolled the blini closed with my fork and ate it in one bite. The nutty flavour of the caviar exploded in my mouth. Whether that was the correct way to eat blinis or not, André didn’t seem perturbed.

  ‘Are you and your father very similar?’ I asked him.

  My intuition could have answered that for me. Ever since I had met André, I had read everything in the paper I could find about the Blanchard family. In his business dealings Monsieur Blanchard came across as a formidable character, confident to crush strikers protesting against low wages and to use foreign immigrants as labour in the face of public opinion. André, from what I had seen of him, was ambitious but also warm and fair-minded.

  He shook his head. ‘We are different people. I thrive on change while my father has a horror of it. He lives his life by clockwork, disappearing into his office at the same time each day, eating his meals precisely on the hour and going to bed at exactly twelve minutes past midnight. When they were first married, my mother made the mistake of rearranging his office. I don’t think he has ever forgiven her for that.’

  I was unsure whether to laugh or sympathise. André was smiling, but something in his eyes told me that his father’s exacting behaviour was not as humorous as he made out.

  ‘My father has a theory that money is made in the first and second generations and lost in the third and fourth,’ he continued. ‘He is determined that I won’t follow that trend. He has said I can have all the fun I want and hone my entrepreneurial skills on any business I care to, until my thirtieth birthday. Then I must marry and take over the business.’

  ‘You must feel under pressure,’ I said, beginning to understand André’s fascination with the music hall. Life was beautiful on stage and unpredictable off it. There was a sense of living on the edge. Doing exactly the same thing every day because that was what you had done for years didn’t seem like living to me.

  ‘I have more than a decade yet,’ said André, the lightness returning to his voice. ‘I am only nineteen. I like people much more than I like machines. I am going to show my father that what he considers my hobbies are things I can make financially successful. I am not going to lose the family fortune, but I am determined to live differently to him.’

  ‘I have a feeling you will succeed,’ I told him. My words were sincere but I was trying to hide my surprise at his age. So he was nineteen? He was only a couple of years older than me but seemed worldlier. Perhaps that was the way wealthy people were, because they had less insecurity in their lives.

  Something behind me caught André’s attention. ‘Now there is a sight you should see,’ he said.

  I turned to find a black woman standing in the entrance of the grand salon. She had expressive eyes and a shiny helmet of hair. I knew instantly who she was; I had seen her poster everywhere. Joséphine Baker. She stood motionless until one by one the tables grew quiet and every eye turned to her. Then she flung the chinchilla coat she was wearing to the floor—sending the cloakroom girl scrambling for it—to reveal a scarlet gown with a neckline slashed to the waist.

  While the maître d’hôtel showed Mademoiselle Baker and her hangers-on to their table, the music hall star batted her eyelids and wiggled her hips for the diners at every table she passed on the way. ‘Bonsoir, mes chéries,’ she called out, sweeping her arms about her and blowing kisses. ‘How wonderful you all look this evening.’ Although it wasn’t considered the done thing to interrupt people while they were eating, no one was affronted by her behaviour. Smiles lit up as she passed by. The whole mood of the salon had transformed. Instead of the subdued whispering of earlier in the evening, the conversations were animated and laughter burst from all the corners of the room.

  ‘Did you see that?’ André whispered, amusement twinkling in his eyes. ‘She is not half as talented as you. But she knows how to play the part of the star.’

  ‘Is star quality something people just have? Something they are born with?’ I asked.

  André shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t suggest that if you had seen her before. She has learnt from watching what others do and added her own touch.’

  ‘And I haven’t learnt it,’ I said. ‘That is what you are trying to tell me.’

  André leaned forward. ‘I am trying to tell you that if you cultivate it, you will be formidable. You should take what Jacques Noir did to you as a compliment. If he thought you were nobody, he wouldn’t have bothered. You threatened him.’

  I looked down at my plate. ‘How will I cultivate it?’

  André reached across the table and brushed a speck of caviar from my chin with his thumb. ‘I could help you,’ he said.

  I clutched my serviette in my lap, rolling it into a tight ball. My skin burned where he had touched me. I had thought about André often enough to know that I liked him. He was every showgirl’s dream—handsome, young, rich and willing to help my career. And yet I could feel my feet pressing into the floor as if I were slamming on brakes. I did not want to be one of a succession of girls on his arm. I imagined Camille taking me by the shoulders and shaking me: What do you expect, Simone? Love?

  ‘Rivarola and I weren’t lovers,’ I said. I was taken aback by the tone of my own voice. The coldness in it made the meaning clear. I lifted my eyes to meet André’s. If he was disappointed, he recovered quickly.

  ‘I have entrepreneurial blood in me,’ he said, pushing his plate aside. ‘One thing an entrepreneur can’t stand to see is wasted potential. And when I look at you, that’s what I see: millions of francs’ worth of stardom going to waste. A potential French icon floundering on the river bank like a dying fish.’

  The image of a fish struggling to breathe startled me. I laughed and the atmosphere between us relaxed.

  ‘Listen, you will be my apprenticeship in enterprise and I don’t expect any more from you than that,’ André said. ‘This is my plan: I will take you out of Paris and together we will work on creating a new style for you. Then, when you have a unique angle to offer, we will come back here.’

  His firm tone assured and disappointed me at the same time. Did I want a purely professional relationship? I should probably have asked more questions—after all, it was my life he was discussing—but I was intrigued by André Blanchard and flattered by his interest in my career. When he mentioned that Mademoiselle Canier would come too, I resigned myself to the fact that perhaps he truly was only looking for something adventurous in which to invest his entrepreneurial skills.

  ‘Where do you propose we go?’ I asked.

  ‘Berlin,’ he said, as if there were only one answer to the question.

  I stared at him. Berlin? When I thought of Germany, I thought of Anke screeching her distorted songs and the country whose army had almost blown my father to pieces.

  ‘We will go to all the cabarets and music shows. You will work hard and you will learn,’ André said. His shining eyes appealed to my sense of adventure. Was that the bond between us? That we were two people who loved a challenge?

  ‘I don’t speak German,’ I said.

  ‘Not even “Guten Abend meine Damen und Herren”?’ André asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even “Wir haben heute sehr schönes Wetter”?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even “Sie sind sehr hübsch und ich würde Sie gerne küssen”?’

  I shook my head.

  André’s face broke into a grin. ‘Is there anything else that worries you about going to Berlin, Mademoiselle Fleurier?’

  ‘No…I mean, yes,’ I said, taking a gulp of champagne. ‘Can my cat come too?’

  I explained to Monsieur Etienne that I was going to Berlin for a while to develop my talents, and wrote to my family with the same news. Then, a week later, André and I left Paris. We arrived at Potsdammer
Station just after dusk. While André took a taxi ticket from the policeman at the exit, I slipped Kira into her wicker cage. She blinked at the people rushing by and at the porter pushing our trolley of suitcases. She wasn’t even perturbed when a man walked past us with an Alsatian straining on a lead; she merely yawned, rolled herself into a ball and fell asleep.

  André showed the taxi driver the ticket and the porter packed our suitcases into the boot. I gazed out the taxi window, lost in a dream. Along the boulevard, garlands of electric bulbs adorned the doorways of theatres, restaurants and cabarets with names like Kabarett der Komiker and Die Weisse Maus. The terrace cafés were crowded with men and women sipping glasses of beer. So this is Berlin, I thought. Apart from the signs in Gothic German print, the city did not look so different to Paris. And yet, somehow, it was. I realised it would take further observation to be able to see exactly where those differences lay.

  The taxi stopped outside a building with stone columns on either side of the doorway and a bronze plaque that read Hotel Adlon.

  André paid the driver. ‘This is where we are staying,’ he said to me, slipping his wallet back into his jacket pocket.

  We had two days alone before Mademoiselle Canier joined us. We had taken breakfast with her before departing Paris and the most I had been able to draw out of her was ‘Oui’ or ‘Non’. For someone who had everything—including André—she appeared discontented with life. She had looked around the elegant restaurant with the intention of finding something displeasing, whether it be the consistency of the butter or the buttons on the waiter’s shirt. Every so often I sneaked a glance at André, wondering if he was really attracted to her. To my vexation, André gazed at Mademoiselle Canier as if he could not believe what he was seeing, and constantly patted her hand or stroked her arm. She was beautiful, but how could a man of his vitality and intelligence spend his time with such a sourpuss? For her part, Mademoiselle Canier accepted his attentions with a wan smile. The real insult, however, was her nonchalant attitude towards me: although I was going to be alone in Berlin with her male companion, Mademoiselle Canier did not even perceive me as a threat.

  A bellboy with hair so short that he could have been a young military officer took our bags from the taxi. I thought it strange that we should be staying at the Adlon when André had told me that his father owned the Ambassadeur and had shares in the Central.

  ‘Why are we staying here if it is not one of your father’s hotels?’ I whispered, my heels sinking into the reception area’s plush carpet.

  ‘To compare,’ he answered. ‘The Adlon is considered the best hotel in Berlin. But I think with a few changes at the Ambassadeur we can outdo it.’

  While André organised our rooms, I studied the marble foyer and gilt chandeliers. I turned to look at a bronze statue and caught the eye of a man standing by the elevator. He ran his fingers through the slashes of grey hair around his temples and smoothed his moustache. His expression was half-stern and half-amused.

  After André had registered, the bellboy led us to the elevators where the man was waiting. His eyes narrowed on André. ‘Good evening, Monsieur Blanchard,’ he said, in French. ‘It is always a pleasure to have a man of your high standards come to stay with us.’

  ‘Good evening to you too, Herr Adlon,’ replied André, a wry smile on his lips. ‘May I introduce Mademoiselle Fleurier?’

  ‘Enchanté,’ said Herr Adlon, leaning forward to kiss my hand. ‘I trust that you will enjoy Berlin and your stay at the Hotel Adlon.’

  Once inside the elevator, André stared up at the ceiling, trying not to laugh. As soon as the doors opened and the bellboy walked ahead to show us the way to our rooms, André whispered to me, ‘There was a time when Herr Adlon would have thrown the son of one of his competitors out of his hotel. But with the war and the German economy the way it is, he has to accept anyone who can pay.’

  ‘Perhaps he takes it as a compliment,’ I said. ‘Most performers think that if another star turns up at their show.’

  I had thought that the glamour of the stage had no equivalent in real life, but I changed my mind as soon as the bellboy opened the door to my room, switched on the lights and gestured for me and André to go on ahead of him. My eyes followed the line of the French pilasters up to the high ceiling then down again to the marble fireplace and the two onyx candelabras on either side of it. There was a bowl of plums and a vase of long-stemmed roses on the side table. The air in the room was a mixture of their heady scents combined with the smell of fresh linen. If Mademoiselle Chanel could have bottled the amalgamation she would have discovered a perfume more profitable than Chanel No 5. The bellboy opened a set of double doors to reveal a bed so sumptuously dressed in Rudolf Herzog linen that I felt like sinking into it as soon as possible. I set down Kira’s cage next to the sofa.

  André stepped to the window and peeped through the curtains. ‘You can see the Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg Gate from here.’

  ‘The Unter den Linden is the most famous boulevard in Berlin,’ the bellboy explained in precise French. ‘It is named after the lime trees on its strip.’

  He placed my suitcases near an armoire. Kira stretched her paw between the bars of her cage and tapped my shoe. I undid the latch and she sprang out and scampered across the carpet. She sniffed at the Constantinople rug and the gilt skirting boards, inhaled the scent of the table legs and twitched her whiskers around the sofa. Suddenly her tail and ears pricked up. For one terrifying moment I thought she was going to claw it but she bolted past me and through André’s legs in a burst of kittenish energy. She did three whirlwind turns of the room before jumping onto the sofa and settling down there. I wagged my finger at her and she looked at me as if to say, ‘This is much better. This is what I had been expecting all along.’

  After the bellboy had showed me how the bathroom taps worked and where the light switches were, he wished me a pleasant stay and headed towards the door. André followed him. ‘I’ll let you settle in,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Let’s eat in the hotel restaurant and get an early night. We can start on Berlin tomorrow.’

  The Adlon’s dining room was a Venetian palace with a mural on the ceiling and bronze candelabras on the walls. André ran his palms along the arms of his chair. ‘Did you know these are jarrah-mahogany? From Australia?’

  Australia? I wasn’t sure where that was. Somewhere near South America?

  André’s eyes scanned the room, taking in the details. ‘Did you notice that there are no bells anywhere? They use flashing lights to summon the chambermaids so as not to disturb the other guests.’

  I had never stayed in a hotel that used bells let alone flashing lights. When Madame Lombard wanted to summon me she would stand at the foot of the elevator and bellow, regardless of the other residents.

  I glanced at my menu. I had been curious to try German food but the dishes were French or English: truffled capons; fish in caviar sauce; roast beef; woodcock. I peeked at André’s sable eyes, which looked even more brilliant in the soft light. No, I told myself, if you want to be a star then you must be professional. You must focus. But why was it that when I was with André, my mind said one thing and my heart another?

  ‘They have one of the most efficient kitchens in the business,’ André said, nodding towards the kitchen doors. ‘The chef’s secretary is a genius. They serve the finest dishes but there are never any leftovers, never any waste. She and the larder steward run the storeroom with military precision.’

  I stared at André, not sure of his point, but I didn’t have to wait long for an explanation.

  ‘A hotel makes as much from its banquets and restaurants as it does from its guests, so it is important to be efficient. Many a brilliant hotel has gone down because of losses in the kitchen.’

  I turned back to my menu, wondering if the analysis of the hotel’s features and its administration was going to be the theme of our entire conversation. André’s enthusiasm reminded me how young we both were. Compared t
o the dignified guests sitting around us, we looked like two children who had escaped from their parents and were playing at being grown-ups for the day.

  After we had ordered our food, the wine steward arrived and conferred with André about what to drink with our meal. When he left, André turned to me and said, ‘Their wine cellar is worth millions. If one of the chefs orders wine for the ingredients of a meal, the steward puts salt in it, to make sure the kitchen staff don’t drink it.’

  I knew I had to humour André because he was doing so much to help me, but I was in a new city and I wanted to talk about Berlin, about the stage, about what we were going to do and see. I wasn’t interested in the industrious operating procedures of the Hotel Adlon. But then André surprised me. He pointed to the glasses the steward was setting down before us. I was readying myself for another fact regarding the Adlon’s wine cellar or the quality of the crystal, when he said, ‘I have ordered the best vintage champagne, and claret that used to belong to the Kaiser’s cellar. We are going to celebrate our first night in Berlin, our partnership and the beginning of your new career!’

  I awoke the next morning as daylight was breaking across the sky. The maids had drawn the nightshades and curtains when they had turned down the bed the previous evening, but I had been unable to sleep and had opened them again to watch the car headlights streaming down the boulevard. I propped myself up on the pillows and stretched my arm behind my head, catching a whiff of almonds. I sniffed my wrist. The scent of the hotel’s luxury soap still lingered on my skin.

  Kira was crouched on the windowsill, her eyes darting to and fro. I wondered what she was looking at and untangled my legs from the sheets. ‘You silly kitty,’ I said, looking over the boulevard, which was empty apart from a few bread trucks and bicycles. ‘There’s nothing there.’

  I ran my fingers through her fur and let out a yawn. The excitement of being in Berlin was playing havoc with my body clock. This was the time of day I would normally be arriving home, not waking up. I lay down on the bed and rested my cheek against the cool silk of the coverlet. The hotel was quiet. No taps being turned on and off, no noisy footsteps on the stairs, no chamber pots being emptied into the latrines. It wasn’t at all like my hotel in the Latin Quarter. But I was too awake now to go back to sleep and, even though André and I had dined well, I was voraciously hungry.