I dropped my hand and glanced at Jean Renoir as he discussed the frame with the camera operator. ‘We’ll reblock the shot,’ he said. ‘I want to shoot through the window.’ I get to work with geniuses, I thought. And humble geniuses at that.
Jean Renoir was the son of the painter and every inch a great artist, although in a different medium. His camera movements were carefully choreographed and he sweated blood over the cuts with his editor. Although my first two films had been commercial successes, I had cringed when I saw the way I batted my eyelids and swung my arms around. My gestures were too extravagant for the screen. But in this, my third film, I was transforming under Renoir’s instruction.
‘Underplay, Mademoiselle Fleurier,’ he told me from the first day. ‘You have real potential as a dramatic actress, only I don’t want you to act. I want you to think and to feel. The slightest movement of your eyes on screen can say as much as twenty lines of dialogue or one exaggerated sigh.’
I was lucky that such a brilliant director believed in me, but then someone had once said that Renoir was so gifted he could teach a wardrobe to act.
I watched the technicians relighting the shot. Joseph de Bretagne, the sound man, sent me a smile. The previous week we had been shooting on location in Montmartre for the scene where my lover and I say goodbye outside a jazz club. Renoir hated dubbing and believed in the sound being recorded on location. The only problem was the level of background noise in the street, which on that day included a goatherd blowing his pipe to attract the attention of housewives—a shot Renoir could use—and a sewage wagon pumping the waste from a cesspool—something Renoir could not. Joseph had tried to dampen the background noise by surrounding me and my leading man with mattresses and hangings. None of that showed in the scene of course, but whenever I saw the film I thought of those mattresses propped around me like some sort of outdoor bedding store.
After the second take, Renoir was happy with my performance and Jacques Becker, his assistant director, called everyone to stop for lunch. Although my shooting schedule was only for the mornings—so I could rehearse for the evening shows at the Casino de Paris—I usually stayed for lunch. What I liked best about making films was the camaraderie of the cast and crew. Making movies was more fun in those days and more egalitarian.
‘So have you got yourself a yo-yo yet, Mademoiselle Fleurier?’ Jacques asked, filling my wine glass.
‘Oh, please,’ I said.
A craze had taken Paris by storm. You couldn’t walk anywhere without seeing grown men, and some women, spinning yo-yos. They swung them on the métro platforms, on trams and buses, in cafés and even during the interval at the opera.
‘Come on, Mademoiselle Fleurier,’ laughed Renoir. ‘I hear Cartier has made one in gold. Only two hundred and eighty francs.’
After three years of balls and candlelight suppers with the beau monde of Paris, I could believe anything. I loved fashion, interior design and food, but I wanted to talk about other things as well. Elsa Schiaparelli was more interesting than the people who wore her clothes, and I accepted invitations to dine at her apartment just so I could hear about the art movements and new technologies that influenced her. Whenever Tout-Paris tried to be interesting it was pretentious. The latest thing was to take ‘adventure’ holidays. No longer was it enough to holiday in Biarritz or Venice, you had to go hunting in Peru or Africa, fishing in the Kuban or swordfishing in the Canaries. My thirst for more substantial conversations was another reason I loved to make films with Renoir.
‘What has come over Paris?’ I asked him.
‘Denial,’ he answered, buttering a piece of bread. ‘Frivolity has always been the Parisians’ reaction to danger. We can’t deny the Depression won’t affect us any more. Our economy has slowed down and industry profits are falling. It’s not so bad in Paris yet but it has already hit the other cities. The rest of Europe is going the same way. Hitler would not be chancellor if it wasn’t for the state of the German economy.’
I sipped a spoonful of soup and gave the matter some thought. Perhaps that would explain the extravagance of Tout-Paris and their need for constant diversion. The previous month, André and I had attended a ball organised by his mother to raise money for the unemployed. When I spoke to some guests, I discovered they had no idea what the ball was for although they were more than happy to come. Eventually André and I learnt to not expect more of Tout-Paris.
‘If it wasn’t for my family’s position, and out of respect to my mother and Veronique, I would give it all away,’ André often said, when he was exasperated by the ignorance of the people in our social circle.
I wasn’t sure that was quite true. Now that he was twenty-seven, André was taking on more of the business as his father prepared to retire and hand over the running of the Blanchard company to him. André had once told me that he was a born entrepreneur, and there was no denying it. He may not have been keen on mingling with Tout-Paris, but he loved his work. I could see the pride in his eyes when he surveyed the plans for a new manufacturing plant or a hotel. His work kept him up late and got him out of bed early, but he was never tired. He was as passionate about business as I was about performing. You couldn’t separate the man from the talent, and to try to would be to kill his spirit.
‘You were there, weren’t you?’ Joseph asked Renoir. ‘When Hitler was made chancellor.’
Renoir’s face clouded. ‘I was trying to raise funds for a film. I thought I would stay to see history in the making but what I saw was a bunch of brownshirts forcing an old Jewish lady to crouch on the pavement and lick it.’
We fell silent. Renoir and I had shared many conversations about Berlin, because he liked Germans, despite having been wounded in the Great War, and I had fond memories of the city from my time there. ‘Berlin is a city in which the best and worst flourish,’ he told me. ‘War destroys in a matter of minutes what a slowly evolving culture has taken centuries to create.’
The location secretary rushed in. ‘Mademoiselle Fleurier, there is a telephone call for you,’ she said. ‘The gentleman says it is urgent. You can take it in the office.’
I picked up the receiver and was surprised to hear André on the line. ‘Are you almost done?’ he asked, trying to sound cheerful, but I caught the anxiety in his voice. ‘Are you able to skip the rehearsal this afternoon?’
‘Yes. Why?’ I asked.
‘Count Harry is here. And he needs to see us immediately.’
It wasn’t the first time Count Kessler had come to Paris. He had seen all my shows but we hadn’t heard from him for a few months. His health had not been good for a while but this time I sensed there was something more than that in his sudden need to see us.
‘Something is wrong, isn’t it, André?’
‘Come as quickly as you can,’ he said. ‘I am sending my car.’
As I put down the receiver I was overcome by a feeling of darkness that I couldn’t explain.
André and I met the Count in the apartment of one of his friends in île St Louis. The place consisted of two rooms crammed with books on lopsided shelves, but it wasn’t the disorganised clutter that shocked us, it was the appearance of the Count when he met us at the door. Was this the same man? The eyes that had once been so full of amusement now darted around like those of a frightened animal.
‘I have good and bad news for you,’ he said, ushering us into the apartment. ‘The good news is that you will be seeing more of me than before, for a while anyway. The bad news is that I am in exile.’
André and I were too stunned to speak.
‘I have been denounced,’ said the Count, lifting his hand to his head. ‘By my manservant, would you believe?’
‘Denounced?’ said André. ‘What for?’
‘Oh,’ said the Count, gesturing for us to sit down at a table by the window, ‘in a police state it doesn’t take much.’ He explained that he had come to Paris with the intention of staying until the elections took place in Berlin. He had opposed the terror ta
ctics used by the Nazis to put Hitler in power, and had supported a Freedom of Speech congress at the Kroll Festival Hall. It would have been dangerous for him to stay while there were storm troopers in the streets. But a friend had contacted him and warned him not to go back to Germany. The Count’s manservant, Friedrich, had informed on him. The Nazis had raided the Count’s house and found a republican flag in the attic.
The Count glanced at me, tears clouding his eyes. ‘It is a terrible thing to have to…Well, it is a terrible thing to be betrayed.’
I put my arm around him. This was not a time for formality.
‘I feel as if this is an evil dream and I keep hoping that I will wake up from it,’ he said. ‘I read, I go for walks, I meet old friends, but all the time I am aware of the pain in my heart.’
‘Is it true they are persecuting the Jewish people?’ I asked.
The Count nodded. ‘They are being beaten in the streets and thrown out of their jobs.’
I thought about Monsieur Etienne and Odette. I was glad to be French. ‘Such a thing could not happen here,’ I said. ‘The French people would not stand for it. Catholics, Jews—we are all the same.’
‘We thought the same thing in Germany,’ said the Count. ‘But Hitler has persuaded people who normally would not hurt a fly to support his thuggery.’ He covered his eyes with his hands. ‘It makes me sick to think of that philistine ruling Germany. I ask myself, “How did this happen? Those of us who could have stopped it—where were we looking?” Suddenly artists, authors and intellectuals are delegated to second-rate citizenship and vendors of cheese and gherkins are the only ones who count any more.’
‘People in high circles support Hitler too,’ said André. ‘How else could he have got the chancellery?’
‘True,’ agreed the Count.
I looked around the apartment and noticed that the only piece of furniture in the other room was an iron bed with a leg missing. The fourth corner was supported by a chair. Despite the ramshackle nature of the apartment, it was cosier than those I had stayed in when I first came to Paris, but it was not comfortable enough for a sick man. I wondered if the Count had sufficient money. And if he didn’t, I wondered how I was going to get around his pride to ask him. André and I would be glad to provide him with a more suitable apartment.
André must have been thinking the same thing. ‘What do you intend to do?’ he asked the Count. ‘I have an apartment on the Right Bank that you are welcome to for as long as you want.’
The Count patted André’s wrist. ‘I am lucky to have friends like you and Simone. But I am all right. I have given instructions for the sale of my home in Weimar. Then I plan to move to Mallorca. I have always dreamed of retiring on an island.’
He managed a wan smile before his composure broke down. ‘No, that is not what I dreamed of at all,’ he said, weeping into his hands. ‘I wanted to live out my days in Germany.’
He said the name of his country the same way a mother might cry out for a lost child. It brought a lump to my throat. I glanced out of the window. The sky had turned overcast and reflected the grim mood of the day. A storm was brewing somewhere but I had no idea from which direction the tempest would come.
In 1934 my mother and aunt came to stay with me in Paris. I was busy with my show and it would be some time before I could travel to the farm again. It was not their first visit; Aunt Yvette loved Paris and took up André’s offer of a car and driver so that she and my mother could make day trips to Versailles and Senlis. My mother was more reserved in her appreciation of the city, and I sensed from the way she eyed the flamboyant café waiters and froze whenever she found herself caught in a pedestrian rush that she would never have left Pays de Sault if not for me.
She refused to let me buy her new clothes and we visited museums and ate at brasseries with my mother wearing her traditional Provençal dress. When people stared at her, she stared back. And it was always my mother who won the match. André took it in his stride and usually accompanied us to Provençal-style restaurants so my mother and aunt would feel comfortable. I loved him all the more for it—and my mother and aunt too. For while the food never came up to the standard of their cooking, they always ‘Mmm-ed’ and ‘Oh-ed’ as if they were tasting the finest cuisine in the world.
One day we came across Guillemette and Felix in Parc de Monceau. Guillemette had seen us approaching and tried to steer Felix off on another path, but was foiled by a group of nuns coming from the opposite direction. Guillemette stared over my mother’s head when André introduced her and even Felix, for all his snobbery, blushed at his wife’s rudeness. But if my mother noticed, she didn’t show it. She greeted Guillemette with the dignified manner suited to her own position as a village healer and owner of one of the most successful lavender farms in our region. Guillemette’s eyes opened wide, unnerved at my mother having so easily seized the upper hand. To top things off, as we parted ways, Aunt Yvette whispered loudly to me that a tablespoon of olive oil a day was good for ‘that sort of thing’. By which she meant a cure for what she had interpreted as Guillemette’s case of constipation.
‘My mother and aunt might seem harmless but they both have a wicked sense of humour,’ I explained to André later, as he rolled around the sofa in his apartment laughing. He acted as if my mother’s high and mighty attitude and my aunt’s interpretation of Guillemette’s pinched face was the funniest thing he had ever seen.
‘They are so proud of you,’ he said, wiping the tears from his eyes. ‘It shows in how they look at you.’
Poor André, I thought. I knew how much he would have loved to see that same pride in his father’s eyes.
One day, André took Aunt Yvette to the Louvre, leaving my mother and me to spend the morning alone together. I looked across the dining room table at my mother who was mending one of my nightdresses with her red thread. I might be a stage and film star but I was still the daughter of this quiet, mysterious woman. I wondered why she and my father had not had more children. Maybe the Fleuriers were not fertile. Aunt Augustine didn’t have any offspring and Uncle Gerome had never produced children with Aunt Yvette.
When I was a child, my mother was not like a normal woman to me. She had always been an enigma. But now that I was grown, I was curious to know more about her.
‘Maman, how did you save Papa’s life when the hospital had given him up for dead?’ I asked.
My mother continued to sew. She took so long to answer that I thought she mustn’t have heard my question. But finally she said, ‘One night when there was a full moon, I crept into the hospital with a basket of thirteen eggs. Your father was dying of an infection that had spread throughout his body, so I opened the curtains to let in the moonlight and rubbed every inch of him with the eggs, chanting a healing prayer as I did so. I disposed of the eggs by burying them in various parts of the forest. In the morning, when the doctor came to see your father, he was sitting up in bed. Cured.’
‘Why didn’t his eye and leg heal?’ I asked.
She looked up at me and smiled. ‘I told you when you were a little girl that you were too logical. It is always black and white with you. That is why I am a healer and you are a singer.’
‘But why, Maman? Didn’t it test your faith when he did not heal completely?’
My mother tied off the thread and put her work down. ‘It strengthened it,’ she said. ‘Who knows the wisdom of why things are the way they are? I have never sought to change what is meant to be. I have only ever sought the wisdom and beauty in what is.’
I sensed that she was trying to teach me something but I found her lesson hard to understand. She considered my troubled expression, and reached across the table and patted my arm. ‘Your father was a good man from the beginning, but he became a better one because of his injuries. He may have had one eye less, but he saw things more clearly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He became more visionary about the farm. Remember, it was your father who decided to plant lavender.
He was no longer content just to follow in the footsteps of his father. He became his own man in a way that Gerome never did.’
At the end of the visit, André drove us to the station and helped my mother and Aunt Yvette with their bags. My mother smiled at André then turned to me.
‘I am getting old,’ she whispered. ‘I won’t be around for ever.’
I was too happy to have spent time with her and Aunt Yvette to let her words trouble me. ‘Maman, you are barely in your mid-forties.’
‘Our time in this world does not always correspond to our age,’ she said. ‘Get married, Simone. It is bad luck for you and André to love each other but wait for so long to make it a sacred union. Your father’s family was against me from the beginning, but we never let them stand in our way.’
I was flooded with gratitude and squeezed her hands. I had never told my mother about André’s family and their attitude towards me, or how it hurt to be snubbed. She had guessed from the rude way Guillemette had treated her that all was not well.
The train whistle sounded and I waved to my mother and Aunt Yvette. ‘I will see you at the farm in a couple of months,’ I called. ‘Give Bernard my love.’
My mother was right: the Fleuriers had opposed her as an outsider and yet my father had still married her. But there was some light ahead for me and André. He had broached the subject of his enduring love for me with his father, who had promised that if André and I were still together in the year André turned thirty, he would believe that I was a suitable match for his son. I told myself not to care about Monsieur Blanchard’s condescending attitude towards me. No matter how rich I became in my own right, he treated me as some sort of frivolous gold-digger. I couldn’t help wondering if Monsieur Blanchard would have relented at all if André had been his favourite son.
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