Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

by Francine Prose

  I’ll admit I was disappointed when the editor from the Herald, Chuck van Something or Other, asked if I’d be interested in covering the trial of Lou Villars. A short piece, six hundred words, about a lady auto racer he’d heard about, suing to get back a government license that had been revoked because she dresses like a guy. Was this even true? Were people in Paris talking about it?

  “Round the clock,” I said. How much was the paper willing to pay? Twice as much as I expected.

  I said, “So, Chuck, does this mean happy days are here again?”

  Chuck said, “We’re dying. The circulation guys are all over me for a sexy story like this.”

  Sexy? Chuck didn’t know Lou. I tried to see the sexy part. Lesbians. Fast cars. Was I supposed to mention Lou cutting off her breasts? The Herald was a family paper. How could I phrase that so no one in Jersey got their panties in a twist? Who would think a voluntary double mastectomy was sexy? Maybe a few deviants. Not enough to boost circulation.

  I say, “Well, you know, Chuck, it’s funny. I know Lou pretty well. I’d been planning to attend the trial.” That part was a lie. I was planning to harass the clerks at American Express in case Beedie had wired a few bucks. Then I planned on hunkering down in my favorite café to work on the book that has become Paris in My Rearview Mirror.

  If I was writing about the trial, I could get in to watch. And the baroness would be grateful. Any press was good for the Rossignol brand, even in New Jersey. Given the state of the world, it might be a smart idea to have the well-connected baroness—finally!—in my corner.

  I didn’t blame the Rossignols for turning Lou’s misfortune into publicity for their car. They’d invested time and money. In fact I admired the baroness for spreading the word that the Joan of Arc of the racing world had been destroyed by a moronic bureaucrat on trumped-up charges designed to safeguard the moral health of the French—an oxymoron, if there ever was one.

  Had she been allowed to compete, Lou would have won, instead of Inge Wallser, who brought home the gold medal for Germany in the Mercedes. A story about Lou’s trial was better than no story at all. If life was handing the Rossignols lemons, they’d make citron pressé.

  The Rossignols should have seen what was coming. They should have cared about Lou’s career. They knew Chanac wanted her dead. They knew that cross-dressing was technically illegal. They should have hired a chic designer to tailor some unisex culottes. Didi and Armand could have fixed this. Now they’d found her a lawyer, and everyone hoped for the best, which, as everyone but Lou seemed to know, would not be all that good.

  When I discussed the case with Gabor, he defended the baroness. That worried me, needless to say. You don’t want to watch your friend selling his soul to the devil. You don’t want to see a decent, talented guy fall in love with a rich, controlling, neurotic snob who’s been trying to buy him for years.

  I hadn’t planned to write about Lou for Paris in My Rearview Mirror. But I could work on the newspaper piece and my book at the same time. I’d earn a few bucks and get something for my memoir. Maybe a three-way sex scene involving Lou, the baroness, and me.

  Neither woman attracted me, but the orgy they had in my fantasies was exciting. I hadn’t gotten laid in so long I was fantasizing about Beedie, in Jersey City. Her gambler husband had been shot dead and left her comfortable, if not rich. Maybe that was why I’d thought of her first when the editor called.

  So I told Chuck, Yes. Absolutely. I’ll cover Lou’s trial so the good citizens of New Jersey can be distracted from their catastrophic unemployment rate by the story of how the supposedly permissive and sexed-up but actually snooty and prudish French are keeping Lou Villars out of professional racing because she wears pants.

  There was a lot I couldn’t fit into six hundred words. Would the writer inside me erupt and blow apart the obedient reporter?

  How could I convey the bizarre, Old World formality of the French court? You would have thought the guillotine was at stake instead of a racing license. A rising politician was using a women’s sports federation and a fortune in French taxpayer money to ruin his mistress’s ex-girlfriend. Wouldn’t it have been simpler just to have her killed? People were being murdered every day, for political reasons. Chanac had already massacred dozens of blameless Parisians.

  In France, cases took decades to come to trial. Money must have changed hands, favors been promised or called in. Chanac rushed the case through the system. He knew he was going to win. It was just entertainment for him—and a lesson for Arlette.

  There were plenty of reporters, which pleased the baroness. Lou also enjoyed the attention, though she seemed not to know what it meant.

  Another thing I couldn’t include in the article was my personal opinion. I think people should be allowed to dress however they want. I like low-cut dresses on women, but I wouldn’t make it a law. Nudity would be the best, though perhaps not for gents of my age. Women should drive as fast as they like and be free to mutilate their own bodies.

  Obviously, I omitted the sex scene I’d imagined: me and Lou, then Lou and the baroness, then the three of us together. Six hundred words for a family newspaper gave me no room to observe that the judges from Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc were sitting on Lou’s tribunal. I didn’t know if the film had been released at home, and I would have had to explain.

  But why am I tantalizing my readers with the fun bits I couldn’t fit into the piece? Here is what I wired the Jersey City Herald:

  All of Paris is talking about the case of Lou Villars, the talented auto racer currently suing the French government and the French Women’s National Athletic Association to force them to reinstate her professional license to compete.

  Ever since last spring, in a dramatic public encounter, Villars has been barred from the track. She had been slated to represent France, driving the Rossignol 280 in the Women’s International at Montverre. Since then Villars and her mostly female supporters have been holding weekly demonstrations on the steps of the Third Tribunal, where the trial began today.

  This morning the judges heard from the defense, arguing that Villars sets an unhealthy example for young woman athletes—and all French women. She smokes three packs of cigarettes a day, swears like a sailor, drinks whiskey to excess, punches referees, and corrupts innocent girls. (Could I say this in the paper? Let the editors decide.) In addition she dresses in trousers, an offense to public decency, and has gone to the extraordinary length of surgically altering her body to look more like a man.

  As evidence, the prosecutors introduced a photo of Lou Villars in male attire.

  When the buzz subsided, Lou’s lawyers presented their case. She should have her license back. Had the judges heard of Joan of Arc? Would they have ruled like her judges?

  Their client admits that she underwent an elective operation, but not because of vanity and certainly not perversion. Like everything she does, it was for sport, which, along with God and France, is her reason for existing. And what was wearing trousers compared to the treason committed by the government and the French Women’s National Athletic Association by not letting the French auto industry prove itself against Germany, Italy, and Great Britain?

  All eyes were on Lou, who was seated between her attorney and Armand de Rossignol, the scion of the auto manufacturing family. Dressed in a man’s white cotton suit, a silk tie, and a white fedora, Lou was a model of gangster high style. When her lawyer pronounced the word treason, Lou’s arm shot up in the salute of the French far right. The judge instructed Lou’s lawyer that his client would be removed from the courtroom unless she behaved.

  Highly sensational testimony is expected to follow, though the word on the boulevards is that the bookies are offering ten to one against Lou Villars. Meanwhile the racing-world star has announced that, if she loses, she will move to Italy or Germany or even the United States, any country that accepts her—and knows how to treat its athletes.

  In fact Lou Villars never mentioned the United States. An
d she never gave the fascist salute. But no one in Jersey City ever found out or complained.

  September 16, 1935

  Dearest Mama and Papa,

  Imagine Papa learning that his favorite student had grown up to become a killer of children. Or Mama paying a Sunday social call and bringing her most delicious strudel, and when no one is watching, the hostess’s beloved toddler chokes to death on a slice of Mama’s cake.

  That is how I felt at the Third Tribunal when my photo “Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932,” was introduced as evidence of Lou Villars’s decadent manner of life.

  I know you two have doubts about Lou. You warned me that such pictures could get me in trouble. I should never have told you what powerful enemies she has. Nor did your opinion change when I wrote you that Lou is a fan of my work. No other photographer got the access she gave me at the track. No one else was allowed to shoot her inspecting the engine before the races.

  Lou thought she was letting me show the world what she was doing for France. The baroness thought that Lou and I were working for Rossignol Motors. I thought that Lou was helping me make a living from my art.

  Lou used some of her prize money to purchase my portrait of her and her former girlfriend, Arlette. She’d asked for a print many times, always when I was most busy. Now she has paid full price, without trying to get a bargain. However she dresses, Lou has proved herself to be, in this regard, a lady.

  The baroness says that beneath the swagger, Lou is a tragic soul. That will not stop people from seeing a woman who has crossed the line men draw, a woman who not only competes like a man, but who dresses and loves like one too. Do I sound like a feminist? You taught me to listen to women. And women appreciate the attention, not only the baroness but also Suzanne. If I see less of her than I used to, or anyway so she claims, it is only because I have become so involved in the crisis that, thanks to Lou’s involuntary retirement, is currently facing the baroness and her husband’s firm.

  When it comes to viewing Lou Villars without prejudice or preconception, the eyes of Paris are not so unlike those of our provincial town. People share the same narrow view: men should be men and women should be women—meaning that women should do what men tell them.

  Please try to understand how I felt when my portrait of Lou was used against her in court! I wish you were here, so you could rout the demons buzzing around my head like monsters out of Goya. The demon who says that Yvonne was right to forbid me to photograph at the Chameleon. The demon who says, Everything you told yourself about the sacramental transaction between you and your subjects—every word was a lie. You have exploited these people for your so-called art. The homeless sleeping under the bridge should have tossed you into the river.

  If only I could have photographed in the courtroom. I would love to have an image of the judges’ faces as they inspected my portrait of Lou and Arlette. Were they all really seeing it for the first time? Hadn’t one of them seen my book? They were disgusted by my photo, more than they would have been by my shot of the half-naked prostitute awaiting her customer in bed. I’d like to put a picture of the judges up in my studio and look at it every day as a reminder to never take another picture without warning my subjects that their portraits could be used against them.

  Lou came up to me after the hearing and told me she didn’t blame me. It was nice of her to say so. We shared a peaceful moment of something like understanding.

  Lionel is a real friend. He tried to cheer me up. He said they would have ruled against Lou with or without my photo. He said it’s a badge of honor when the courts hate your work. What clearer sign does an artist need that he’s on the right track?

  As usual, Lionel was talking about himself. His own life changed for the better when the judge in New York decreed that his book was filth. Many more people have heard of his book than if it hadn’t been banned. I thanked Lionel and told him our situations were very different. Lou let me take her picture, and I returned the favor by destroying her life.

  Lionel said, “You paid her. It was a job.”

  Lou took the stand in her own defense. Whatever skills I’d developed writing for the Magyar Gazette fail me as I try to describe what made the start of her speech so touching. Her eyes shone with tears as she told the court that she lived only for sport, God, and France. When she asked the surgeon to remove her breasts, it was to avoid danger and pain. She never wished to marry and have children she might have to nurse. I could tell that Lou’s lawyers wished she hadn’t said that.

  Her breasts had been a handicap and a hazard. Having them removed had nothing to do with wanting to look like a man. She was proud of being female and of the God-given chance to show women what they could do. They needn’t live the way she lived. But they must be willing to suffer as she had—to nearly drown swimming against the current, to drive on winding mountain roads at high speeds without a rail between her and the abyss. To lose a part, two parts, of her body. There was no way to win that didn’t require gritting your teeth and telling yourself, Faster! Harder! Stronger!

  When she talked about suffering, I felt that I was hearing an artist speak about art. But apparently the role of my “art” had been to undermine Lou’s case.

  Mesmerized, as we all were, the judges let her continue. Lou spoke briefly about how the Maid of Orléans was her patron saint, how she tried to emulate her, on and off the field of battle. She went on too long. She gave the judges too much time to slip back into seeing what they’d seen at the start: a young woman with a man’s haircut, dressed like a man, in a suit. They’d seen my photo of her with her arm around the bare shoulders of a pretty girl in a party dress. A lovely girl who might have been theirs if this Amazonian predator hadn’t seduced her with her secret female sex tricks!

  In a more honorable world, Arlette might have come to her old friend’s defense. But Chanac’s team had told Arlette to stay away from the courtroom.

  When the probable outcome of the hearing finally dawned on Lou, her demeanor took a sudden, shocking turn for the worse. She began to rant about the hypocrisy of her accusers, how the women of the athletic association were trying to take away the thing she loved most as punishment for the “cardinal sin” of wearing trousers. They themselves were only pretending to be innocent and pure.

  Lou had spied the French Women’s National Athletic Association President, Madame LeNotre, with her tongue down the throat of a swimming coach twenty years her junior. And the vice president, Mademoiselle Blanc? Lou had caught her in a men’s locker room with her behind in the air, doing a “favor” for a soccer star. Before they ruled against Lou for wearing the comfortable clothes of the opposite sex, let the court consider how many men become priests only because taking holy orders allows them to wear skirts!

  The judges banged their gavels. Order in the court! It took them fewer than fifteen minutes to decide against Lou.

  Her license will not be restored. She cannot compete. She has no way of earning a living.

  As Lionel said, her enemies would have won, no matter what. But my photos helped destroy her. The baroness begged me not to take it to heart. This was not the first time that great art had been used for evil purposes. I thanked her for her kindness, but I remained inconsolable.

  The baroness, her husband, and her brother-in-law went off with Lou and the lawyers to figure out the next step. Out of politeness, they asked me to join them. I appreciated the gesture, but I was in no mood to attend a meeting to which I could contribute nothing but shame over my (innocent) mistake. A meeting at which everyone ignored the fact that my “art” had not only harmed Lou but also Rossignol Motors, which has always supported my work. As have you!

  Lou’s defeat is bad news. I’ve sold a picture of her meeting with a lawyer and another of her practicing to keep up her skills. But the papers only want so much of that. And those pictures only remind me of my role in Lou’s downfall.

  I can still do celebrity portraits for French and American magazines. But they have started
to bore me. The stars all have assistants who know how to set up a shot. I’m just there to click the shutter and sign my name on the credit line. My muse found me again at the races and has left me once more.

  Auto magazine asked if I wanted to go to Germany and photograph Inge Wallser training in the Mercedes. But I refuse to take pictures that could be used by Hitler. It’s bad enough that my work has ruined an innocent woman’s life.

  The Rossignols dropped me off at my studio on their way to the baroness’s house. I walked into my haven, my home, the site of so many discoveries, the place where so much of my life has tiptoed past so as not to disturb me.

  It was changed beyond recognition. All around me were pictures of people with guns to their heads. And I was holding the gun.

  I wrote to you. I closed my eyes. I lay like a corpse for two hours.

  I was awoken by the phone. The baroness was calling to see if I was alone. She knows it can be awkward when she and Suzanne are together. In fact I’d chosen to be alone, even though Suzanne, who knew how I was suffering, had offered to come over.

  I heard the baroness’s car shriek to a stop beneath my window. The desk clerk sent her up. She had come to assure me that Lou would land on her feet, and that my portrait of her and Arlette was a work of art. We talked for several hours. We shared a bottle of wine. I made the baroness coffee so that she could drive home.

  As she was leaving, I asked her to wait. I found a reasonably decent print of my photo of her at Brooklands. I examined it to make sure that it was an appropriate gift. I was astonished all over again that this woman was my friend, this streamlined radiant sunbeam of sleek modern beauty.

  I’d had an argument with Suzanne when she first saw the picture. She’d insisted that I and the baroness . . . She accused me of having feelings for the baroness that I do not have. Unlike Suzanne, whom I care about deeply, the baroness would know better than to misread an image that way.