Secrets and Showgirls

by Catherine McCullagh

  ‘Ah, Madame, what an angel, what a rare and heavenly being.’

  ‘Oui, Monsieur, Mademoiselle Crecy is indeed a rare being,’ murmured Gloria, immensely grateful for Crecy’s uniqueness. ‘Do you plan to meet again?’

  ‘Oh yes, Madame, with your permission we will meet here each week for a little chat. Mademoiselle Crecy is so understanding and so generous with her time. She listens, she gives me hope, her words touch me here.’ Napoleon’s hairy paw patted his enormous chest. ‘In return I will find her a few little essentials she can no longer buy. It is the least I can do to repay her.’

  ‘Of course, Monsieur.’ There must have been something in Madame Gloria’s look, for Napoleon grasped her hand and looked searchingly into her eyes.

  ‘She does it for me, Madame, she makes me feel strong and admired. I feel I can live again.’ He released Gloria’s plump little hand and drew himself up to his full height, jutting his jaw and puffing out his vast chest, his eyes wearing a glint of steel that Gloria was sure echoed the last film he had seen.

  ‘Madame, you see before you a happy man!’ He winked dramatically at her and strode out the door. Gloria clapped her hands to her mouth in dismay. Her fears had been realised: her black marketeer had fallen in love with a cabaret singer of dubious sexuality and there was absolutely nothing she could do.

  Chapter 14

  The crushing cost of survival

  Monsieur Maurice had been shaken to the core by the arrival of German soldiers searching for those without the right identity papers. He had experienced a profound sense of helplessness and betrayal at his own inability to protect his employees. He could not shake the feeling that there were members of his company who would certainly have been detained by the Germans had they been discovered. His instincts told him that there were several with rather questionable pasts and, like it or not, he resolved to acquaint himself with the facts of their identity. Forewarned, he told himself, was most decidedly forearmed. Quite apart from this, he had the niggling feeling that the Germans had been tipped off, that someone somewhere knew a great deal more than he did about the more secretive members of his company. This almost certainly meant that the Germans would return and that, should they find a transgressor, Maurice himself would also be detained. A cold shiver tripped up and down his spine. What would become of Madame Claudette? Of the newly widowed Madame Gloria? Of his potentially leaderless company? Maurice took a gulp of air like a drowning swimmer who has a last chance to strike for the shore.

  An inherently practical man, Monsieur Maurice had kept a careful list of the members of his company who had completed the October census and, more importantly, those who had not. He decided that it was time he spoke to those who had not complied on the sensitive matter of identity. For Monsieur Maurice, this would be a task of some difficulty. He was not given to prying into the secrets of his performers and considered that their former lives were best relinquished along with their former employment. He girded his loins and compiled a mental list of his more ambiguous employees. He would simply have to tackle them one by one, discreetly, quietly and without adding to the permanent air of anxiety that had arrived with the Germans and infused the entire city.

  The lurking issue of identity aside, food had become the dominant topic of conversation beyond the walls of Madame Gloria’s cheery apartment boarding house and throughout the French capital, its popularity challenged only by complaints about the scarcity of fuel as the November chill deepened and the French began to shiver. The city’s supplies of heating oil and coal were dwindling fast, requisitioned by the Germans to keep themselves warm and to aid the war effort which ground relentlessly on. At Le Prix, the practice rooms, traditionally warmed by steam-filled pipes powered by a coal-fired boiler in the basement, were now heated for just a brief period prior to rehearsals as Monsieur Maurice struggled to conserve his stocks of coal. Madame Claudette increased the length and complexity of her warm-up exercises so that the girls would be properly ready to perform the high kicks and leaps that dominated their routines. Cold muscles meant injuries and the scrupulous Monsieur Maurice was keen to avoid payments to doctors. In truth, he was keen to avoid extra payments of any description, hoarding his small profits in an emergency fund. The unpredictable climate of the occupation meant that he had to be prepared for almost any contingency and Monsieur Maurice was a very careful man.

  Madame Gloria was managing to feed her tenants with the help of the ever-resourceful Napoleon, although portions were small. The girls had also learned not to ask what precisely lay hidden in Madame Gloria’s thick stews as beef was replaced by horse, pigeon, rabbit, crow and anything else that could be persuaded to resemble meat. While Madame Gloria drew the line at cats, dogs and rats, she knew plenty of other women who were less selective. Parisians had become so desperate that the newspapers now regularly published articles warning of the dangers of eating stewed cat. Coffee was becoming so scarce that an ersatz coffee had been produced to replace it, a concoction brewed of nuts such as chicory or acorn that resembled the genuine product in colour only. The girls grimaced and coped, seeking other means to acquire real coffee. Poppy’s German friend Gunther, Sadie’s banker and Coco’s clients were pressed to provide coffee and the small supply was carefully cached. Even the Germans knew the value of what was referred to at Le Prix as ‘liquid gold’. Lily, who now met Bobby Metzinger regularly in the heady aftermath of the weekly shows, resolved to ask him whether he could help at all. Bobby was Swiss and, as an entrepreneur, presumably had access to supplies of all sorts, and Lily had visions of Swiss coffee and chocolate delivered personally to her room in neat little parcels by the handsome Bobby.

  To Monsieur Maurice’s enduring satisfaction, Le Prix seemed largely unaffected by the shortages afflicting the capital. The artistes and showgirls performed at their brilliant best and their patrons continued to flood the theatre for the four nights Le Prix was open. The German Governor ensured that the cabaret was never short of alcohol and never bothered by the restrictions of the curfew. For his part, Monsieur Maurice kept a careful eye on his performers lest they embarrass him by gracing a German cell for the night. It was an arrangement that worked well on both sides.

  While maintaining the peace between his employees and the city’s landlords was proving relatively straightforward thus far, what now taxed Maurice’s ingenuity to the limits was the increasing fragility of his beloved Madame Claudette. Madame was simply not coping with the occupation. She had become increasingly nervous and was eating little and sleeping badly. To Maurice it seemed that her strength and drive had been trampled by the first footfalls of the German invader. Gone were the barked commands, the restless tapping with one insistent heeled foot. Gone were the impatient raps with the cigarette holder and the flurry of Russian invective at any missed cues or sloppy steps. Madame’s fire appeared to have been extinguished and she was a hollow imitation of her former imperious, demanding, charismatic self. Now she had assumed the attitude of an invalid, sitting in a comfortable chair buried in shawls, surrounded by cushions and waited on by her seamstress and assistants. The girls had rallied around, assisting Madame with choreography and devising new routines, adjusting and refining as she directed. As rationing tightened its grip and the most basic commodities began to disappear, the little treats with which Maurice could sweeten her day became increasingly difficult to find. The occasional tantrum which he considered an intrinsic element of the artiste and even the stamp of genius, was now almost entirely absent, and small disagreements, if not soothed on the spot, led to bouts of weeping that could last the rest of the day. He took to insisting that she take a nap every afternoon, in the vain hope that she was simply overwrought and could be cured by inactivity. His anxiety over his beloved wife escalated steadily as Maurice searched vainly for an answer. He could not take her south to the health spa at Vichy for a rest cure as it lay in Zone NonO and the Ausweis that represented German permission to travel was almost impossible to obtain. He could have used
the money from his little emergency fund to buy additional food, but what was the point when there was simply no food to buy? Maurice shook his head and resolved just to nurse Claudette through the occupation as best he could. Surely this wretched war could not last forever.

  Maurice’s concerns over Madame Claudette’s fragile health aside, the diminutive manager was quietly pleased with the way Le Prix and its little company were coping with the occupation. But as winter deepened and the bitter cold began to bite, Maurice became increasingly anxious at the rapid drop in the stocks of coal and wood that produced Le Prix’s balmy temperatures and assured its patrons of cosy comfort despite the murderous chill outside. He enquired delicately of the formidable Madame Fresange who seemed to have little trouble obtaining coal for her apartment boarding house. La Fresange, however, spying an opportunity to make some quick cash, quoted him an exorbitant price for paltry supplies of coal and wood that would last little more than a week at Le Prix’s current rate of use. Monsieur Maurice turned in despair to Madame Gloria with whom he increasingly enjoyed a cup of ersatz coffee and a cosy chat. Madame Gloria was relentlessly cheerful, optimistic and wore a ready smile, never mind that she seemed to be permanently tipsy. Monsieur Maurice assured himself that this was simply her way of coping with widowhood and the extraordinary circumstances of an occupied city.

  Madame Gloria also enjoyed Monsieur Maurice’s little chats, despite the fact that real coffee had reached such a price on the black market that she could no longer afford to buy a small quantity to share with her friend. Ersatz would have to do — and without milk and sugar as these were likewise only available to those with sumptuous funds or small children. Monsieur Maurice seemed not to mind — it was her company he sought, he told her gallantly, not her coffee. Madame Gloria patted her somewhat faded brassy coiffure — hair dye, like coffee, now a distant memory — smiled shyly and offered him a glass of champagne which he invariably refused in the most courteous manner. Maurice was an old-fashioned gentleman with impeccable manners and a charming courtesy that he extended to Gloria in every way possible. He made her feel like a lady. But, as he communicated his difficulties over heating supplies to Madame Gloria, she now faced the quandary of whether to tell him that she was rather less a lady than he had supposed and was, in fact, deeply immersed in trade with a black marketeer. Having skirted the subject for some minutes, Gloria took the plunge, revealing the existence of the perennially resourceful Napoleon who, for the price of a cup of acorn coffee with Crecy, had become her personal supplier. Monsieur Maurice almost choked on his coffee at the thought of the unwitting black marketeer cosying up to the ambiguous singer and had to be patted vigorously on the back as he regained his composure. Madame Gloria hastened to allay his fears by assuring him that Napoleon’s meetings with Crecy were carefully supervised and that Napoleon himself had sworn to remain faithful to his wife. Maurice was less than reassured, but decided to leave the nature of the tryst in Madame Gloria’s capable hands. These were, after all, consenting adults, and their moral welfare was, thankfully, not his responsibility.

  Maurice was comforted more by Madame Gloria’s assurances on the supply of coal. Napoleon, she told Monsieur Maurice, would find supplies of heating fuel for him, of that she was certain. Madame Gloria was also careful to assure Maurice that he could rely on Napoleon’s absolute discretion in return for Monsieur Maurice’s commitment never to reveal his sources. Maurice was filled with hope, although he was very apprehensive over the price of black market fuel. He sighed and resolved to worry no more until he met Madame Gloria’s rather dubious-sounding friend who might be willing to trade a few bottles of wine for a sack or two of coal.

  A week later, Monsieur Maurice was invited to Madame Gloria’s sunny apartment for a cup of coffee and a meeting with the mysterious Napoleon. He arrived on the neat little doorstep of the shabbily colourful apartment to be met by Crecy who was wandering off to Le Prix to rehearse a new song. Maurice doffed his hat in greeting and received a pat on the shoulder and a husky murmured ‘Hello dahling’ as the blonde vision wafted past. As he replaced his hat, Maurice was ambushed by the strong smell of cologne. He glanced after Crecy — this was not the sort of perfume the delicately feminine songstress usually wore. It was so acidic as to be almost rancid and smelt distinctly masculine. Maurice shrugged his shoulders — perhaps perfume was so tightly rationed that the desperate Crecy was resorting to cologne. He drew his handkerchief and waved it vigorously to ward off the offending fumes which clung to him like a vine. He made a mental note to find perfume for Crecy; this terrible cologne would simply not do and would certainly frighten even Crecy’s most ardent admirers.

  Inside Madame Gloria’s little apartment, the pungent presence of the cologne lingered insistently. Maurice greeted Gloria with his usual smile, somewhat disrupted by his waving handkerchief as he continued to battle the fumes. Gloria smiled and winked before introducing Maurice to a giant bear of a man with enormous hairy hands and a dark complexion. The man was squeezed into a tight black suit, its deathly pall relieved only by a red spotted tie and a bright red carnation which Maurice recognised as silken and having originated in one of Madame Gloria’s vases. The bear held out one paw as the little manager was introduced and immediately Maurice discovered the source of the insistently ambushing cologne. So this was Crecy’s beau. Monsieur Maurice shook the enormous hand warmly and tried to dispel his mental images of the bear warding off the attentions of the curvaceous singer. They sat to a cup of genuine coffee provided by the grateful Napoleon and Maurice, having exchanged the usual pleasantries, gently broached the subject of fuel for his cabaret.

  Napoleon listened intently as Madame Gloria hovered and clicked her tongue in sympathy.

  ‘So you see, Monsieur,’ concluded Maurice with a sigh, ‘I find myself in dire need of additional supplies and have nowhere to turn. Could you help me?’ Napoleon nodded his head faintly, his eyes focused on Maurice as he digested the little man’s plight. At last he drained his coffee in one gulp and spoke.

  ‘Monsieur, there is perhaps an easier solution for you and one that could also be a little less costly.’ Maurice was immediately taken aback. An easy solution? He could hardly believe his ears.

  ‘There is, Monsieur?’

  ‘There is. But it may take a little courage.’ Maurice’s heart sank. He had little money, but even less courage. Was the suited bear now going to suggest that he steal the coal from the Germans?

  ‘Monsieur?’ he asked, his brows colliding in confusion.

  ‘You say that your cabaret is frequented by the Germans.’

  ‘Oui, Monsieur.’

  ‘Are you prepared to ask them to supply your coal?’ Maurice opened his mouth and closed it again. Yes, he had thought of that, but he hated the prospect of asking the Germans for anything at all. It was unpatriotic, a betrayal of his French heritage at best, and smacked of the profits of collaboration at worst. Maurice’s mind floundered. How could he explain his hesitation to a man whose current raison d’etre appeared to be profiting by any means available to him?

  ‘Non, Monsieur,’ Maurice shook his head sadly, ‘I cannot bring myself to ask them. It is too distasteful to me ... I fear I am perhaps overly patriotic.’ Napoleon studied him for a long moment.

  ‘Monsieur Maurice,’ he spoke steadily, gravely, ‘it is magnificent to be so patriotic at a time such as this. But your patriotism has its price, know what I mean? Your performers will suffer and the Germans may no longer patronise your cabaret — there are plenty of other cabarets that are well heated on these cold nights. What will happen to your artistes? Your showgirls? How will they live?’ He surveyed Maurice with a steely stare and Maurice shrugged and felt small.

  ‘I will tell you,’ replied Napoleon, answering his own question. ‘Without the patronage of the Germans, your cabaret will have to close. Your performers will have to find positions in other cabarets which will not be easy for them. If they cannot, they will have no money and then what will th
ey do?’ He paused to allow his words to sink in as Monsieur Maurice swallowed and nodded gravely.

  ‘Your patriotism could be the death of your performers, Monsieur, know what I mean?’ Maurice looked up at the big face, its hardened look that of a businessman used to surviving in adversity.

  ‘Oui, Monsieur,’ whispered Maurice lowering his head in a gesture of abject resignation, ‘I see that you are right.’ His face was clouded with disappointment but, in the deeper recesses of his mind, he realised that he had been expecting to have to compromise his patriotism at some stage. He looked up at the big man in the ill-fitting suit. How deceptive appearances could be. He had mentally dismissed this man as a barely educated thug who specialised in racketeering and knew little more than the rule of the fist. Now he began to see that Napoleon possessed an intimate knowledge of the way the Germans worked and was just as expert in ruthlessly exploiting their system for his own ends. Maurice sighed and accepted defeat, well acquainted with the terms of his own surrender.

  ‘But of course, Monsieur,’ he acknowledged with a trace of bitterness, ‘the Germans hold the key.’ The words of the German Military Governor’s representative came drifting back to him, the promise that he had only to ask and his needs would be satisfied. Maurice nodded decisively.

  ‘I will ask the Germans — after all, I am the manager of the Governor’s favourite cabaret. How can he refuse?’ Napoleon continued to regard him seriously before gradually breaking into a smile. He grasped Maurice’s hand in his huge paw and shook it with a heavy jolt that Maurice was sure would break a bone. He held the manager’s hand in a vice-like grip as he moved his head closer.

  ‘Monsieur Maurice,’ he said quietly, ‘are you prepared to go one step further?’ Maurice started in surprise but was pulled back by the grip of Napoleon’s hand on his.