Much, much later, Lily emerged from the bright lights of the theatre into the cool gloom of the darkened alleyway and paused a moment to allow her eyes to adjust. As she stood blinking in the doorway, a hand reached out of the shadows and grabbed her wrist, pulling her into the pool of darkness. She gasped and overbalanced and, as she reached to break her fall, felt herself caught and shoved up against a wall. A man leant his weight against her and the sickly sweet smell of cologne invaded her senses while the rough rawness of a tweed jacket grazed her face. At the same time a voice she recognised immediately jarred softly in her ear.
‘Allo love, bet you don’t remember me.’
‘Bet I do,’ gasped Lily, never more certain in her life. The cockney twang, barely submerged by his atrocious French, told her immediately that it was Paul Colbert. ‘What do you want?’
‘We didn’t get off to a very good start, did we? An’ I so wanted us to be friends.’ Lily snorted derisively. But Colbert ignored her.
‘I can ’elp you, you know.’
‘I don’t want your help!’
‘But you need it, don’t you?’
‘No!’
‘I can get them for you,’ he wheedled, ‘just say the word and I’ll get them. I’m ’appy to forget our previous disagreement ’cos I’m a generous cove — a real gennelman, in fact.’
‘Get what?’ asked Lily, her curiosity overcoming her desire to flee this odious man.
He stood back, relinquishing his hold on her, lighting a cigarette and glancing towards the end of the alleyway as he shook the match to extinction. He turned back to Lily.
‘Wanna fag, love?’ Lily shook her head. He studied her for a moment.
‘Papers,’ he replied. ‘I can get you some new papers.’
‘I don’t need new papers.’
‘Yes you do, you’re hidin’ people, aren’t cha? And I bet there’s a Jew or two among them.’ Lily felt her heart sink and fought to remain calm.
‘We’re not hiding anyone.’ She cursed inwardly. Had he seen something suspicious? Had someone told him they were hiding illegals?
‘Oh, I think you are ... fact is, I know you are.’
‘Well, you’re wrong, we’re not.’ Colbert pulled a face of such despondency that Lily was tempted to laugh had she not been desperately afraid that this man was working for the Gestapo.
‘I’m disappointed in you,’ he told her solemnly, shaking his head slowly. ‘I’m disappointed that you don’t trust me, ’cos we all need friends in these difficult times.’ His long face retracted and the oily smile returned. ‘But I’m prepared to overlook that out of the goodness of my ’eart.’ He slapped a hand across his chest for added emphasis. ‘You ask your friend Monique, she’ll tell you I’m the real deal. She’ll tell you ’ose side I’m on.’ He studied Lily carefully as he drew on his cigarette and nodded emphatically in the direction of Madame Gloria’s apartment boarding house. ‘But I tell you what,’ he added with conviction, ‘when you want those papers, you’re gonna have to be real nice to me. Get it?’ And he turned and disappeared, the darkened alleyway swallowing him silently.
There was no denying the terrifying fact that Paul Colbert, obviously a Gestapo informer, was convinced that Le Prix was hiding fugitives from the Germans. The problem was, Colbert was right. Lily knew that the fragile pretext under which Alain and Guy remained at Le Prix would certainly be shattered by one word from an informer such as Colbert. They would be whisked away and probably disappear like so many others who had the misfortune to fall foul of the regime. She climbed the stairs and slipped into bed beside Guy, who reached over and pulled her close, curling around her. Could she tell Guy what had happened? No, he would almost certainly decide that the time had come for him to leave, embarking on a perilous trip to the coast or the Spanish border — a trip he would be unlikely to complete successfully without the help of the resistance or some other sympathetic body which could smuggle him out. Certainly there was no-one at Le Prix among the leggy showgirls and exotic performers who could perform such a duty. Clearly help lay elsewhere. Perhaps she should set off in search of Sister Marguerite and ask her when Guy was to be moved. But she had no idea which convent was home to Marguerite nor how she could find her without knocking on the door of every convent in Paris and arousing suspicion. It was hopeless.
Lily barely slept that night, instead searching her mind for any scrap of information that would reveal the identity of a Jewish fugitive. Colbert may have been guessing — or he might have known and been playing games with Lily. She finally fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, only to wake as daylight bathed the chintz curtains at her window and Guy began to stir beside her. But Lily’s mind, taxed beyond its usual duties of remembering dance steps and avoiding drunken German officers at Le Prix, had come up trumps after its night-time exertions. It had produced a name: Lena Varigny. No-one knew anything about Madame Gloria’s latest addition, she had simply been added to the colourful cast of tenants without the merest explanation. Lena Varigny — could she be a Jewish fugitive? Lily smarted with quiet fury as she constructed a scenario. Bobby Metzinger had fallen in love with a Jewish girl and foisted her on Le Prix. No, she decided, dismissing all other possibilities, it was definitely Lena, and Lily resolved to warn Monsieur Maurice as soon as the hour was decent. Later she would tackle the duplicitous Bobby. His explanation had better be good.
Having devoured the rubbery vegetable-bread that Madame Gloria had produced for breakfast and washed it down with a cup of acorn coffee, Lily and Guy set off for the theatre, Guy to assist Alain and Hiram move some wine barrels for Madame Lucille, while Lily looked for Monsieur Maurice. But Maurice’s cheerful presence was conspicuously absent from Le Prix and, having quizzed Alain, Hiram and Lucille to no avail, Lily decided that he must be taking an extended breakfast in his apartment. She wandered past the front of Madame Gloria’s and caught sight of the little landlady in her front garden, swathed in shawls against the cold and digging the few scraps from her tenants’ breakfast into the frosty soil of boxes that had been converted to tiny vegetable gardens. Nothing was wasted in wartime Paris and Madame was determined to find fertiliser wherever she could to ensure the health of next year’s produce. Her own welfare and that of her tenants could well depend on her gardening skills. Lily gave her a cheery wave and suddenly decided to change course. She was well aware that Monsieur Maurice was very anxious about the fate of Le Prix and its assorted artistes and she was reluctant to add to his anxiety. Perhaps Madame Gloria, who was often surprisingly well informed, would know more about the mysterious Lena.
Half an hour later, having shared a tiny glass of Gloria’s first batch of syrupy mulberry wine which almost brought tears to her eyes and threatened to rob her of her senses, and listened to Gloria’s description of Monsieur Maurice’s fears for Madame Claudette’s health, Lily was convinced she had been right in her decision not to trouble her manager. Gently she broached the subject of Lena Varigny. How much did Madame Gloria know about her? Was there anything in her background that she felt was of particular concern? Could she possibly be Jewish?
Madame Gloria knew far more about her mysterious tenant than Lily could have hoped. But she was equally adamant that Lena was not Jewish. Indeed, she told Lily, whispering conspiratorially, Lena was a member of the resistance, no less. This was why she spent so long away from the house during the day. She was involved in clandestine work. But Lily’s response was stunningly similar to that of Monsieur Maurice. Lena in the resistance? No, she did not believe that for a moment. She conjured images of moustachioed fighters and their sturdy, masculine women and immediately dismissed the waif-like Lena from their midst. Everyone knew resistance members were a tough, determined breed who would shoot their own grandmothers for the sake of freedom. Not that anyone had ever met a resister, of course, but there were those who had distant relatives and friends of friends who were reportedly involved in some way. There were rumours aplenty, and it was easy to allow a fertile i
magination to run rampant given the romantically dangerous associations of such activities. Given all she had heard and all she had imagined, Lily could not believe that the slender, fragile Lena would be sufficiently robust for such hazardous clandestine activity with all its inherent risks. Indeed the very fact that she had allowed her lover to hide her in a cabaret was ample proof of that. And the idea that Bobby Metzinger was also somehow mixed up in the resistance was clearly so far from the truth as to be laughable. No, it had to be something else. She sighed to herself as Madame Gloria chattered on. She was prepared to accept Madame Gloria’s assertion that Lena was not Jewish, but none of this resistance bunkum. No, she would simply have to tackle Bobby on the delicate subject of precisely what the mysterious Lena did during the day. The question was, when?
Lily’s mission to tackle Bobby was scheduled for later that week, when she knew the suave businessman would grace his usual table at Le Prix. In the meantime, Lily was eager to find Monsieur Maurice as, anxiety or no anxiety, she was determined to warn him about Paul Colbert. But first she would have to have a little nap, as the combined effects of a sleepless night and the potency of Madame Gloria’s mulberry wine threatened to overtake her. How on earth did Madame Gloria imbibe vast quantities of alcohol during the day and yet remain reasonably lucid? Truly that woman had a cast iron constitution.
It was almost midday by the time Lily woke from her nap. Indeed, had it not been for a lengthy discussion between Crecy and Poppy over the attributes of Crecy’s latest lover which had been staged in the sitting area not far from Lily’s door, she might have slept a good deal longer. She shook the fog of sleep from her head and peered out the door, catching Crecy’s eye as she did.
‘Toby?’ she ventured, idly curious about the subject of the discussion. Crecy flung a set of jewelled talons to his rollered head in a theatrical gesture.
‘Oh dahling,’ corrected Crecy, ‘Toby is sooo last week! It’s Robert — such a sweet boy — still lives with his mother, you know.’ He drew heavily on a cigarette that perched at the end of the dainty cigarette holder and exhaled delicately, sending curling tendrils of smoke into the air. ‘How fortunate that he has a nice girl like me to educate him in the ways of the big, bad world.’
‘Lil!’ hooted Poppy, ‘you could at least keep up!’ She grinned at Lily before turning back to Crecy, adding a more serious note to her voice. ‘And how do you get on with his mother?’
‘Ooh, I love mothers!’ declared Crecy dramatically, ‘we have so much more in common than simply their sons ...,
Lily closed the door on the discussion. She had heard enough. There were times when she wondered whether she was the unwitting resident of a home for the deranged rather than a cabaret. She shook her tousled head again, finally shaking herself free of her slumber and remembering her mission to warn Monsieur Maurice.
It was not until later in the week that she found the opportunity for a cosy chat with Monsieur Maurice. Winter was a time of added anxiety for the diminutive theatre manager as Madame Claudette’s health declined with the deepening of the winter chill and he engaged in a constant search for medicines. He was also concerned to ensure that Le Prix’s supplies of coal did not run out and force him to pay Napoleon’s exorbitant prices or, worse still, beg more supplies from the Germans. But he smiled cheerfully at Lily who he considered one of his more stable employees and who, of course, had brought him the dependable Guy. He was fond of Guy and fervently wished that this young man had been his son. But he and Claudette had not been blessed with children. Ah well, perhaps in time of war it was better not to have children to worry about.
They sat in a little room adjacent to Mademoiselle Gris’ sewing and fabric room in which she and her assistants created costumes of extraordinary colour and ingenious design that never failed to amaze the girls. Truly Mademoiselle was a rare talent — if only she were not quite so shy, she might have taken the fashion world by storm. Lily began by asking the natty manager if he had encountered Paul Colbert, aware that the shady operator might have avoided being seen by any of the male staff of Le Prix. She was right. Monsieur Maurice shook his head, his brow wrinkling at Lily’s description of the unpleasant character. He was keen to keep such troublesome types away, well aware of his good fortune that his personal racketeer, Napoleon, was blessed with a cheery and good-hearted disposition. He also shared Lily’s concern over the safety of Alain and Guy, all too conscious that his own fate was tied to theirs.
Lily took a deep breath and described her encounter with Paul Colbert. She left the details of his threat until last, hesitant to overburden the man who was responsible for the safety of the entire cabaret and its staff. Finally she told him, repeating the threat that had shaken her to the core. Maurice was also shaken, his face paling and his eyes widening. As they sat momentarily in stunned silence, a slight noise from the next room caught their attention. Maurice forced a cheerful tone to his voice and called through the curtained entrance, ‘Is that you, Mademoiselle?’
‘Oui, Monsieur, forgive me,’ came the reedy voice, ‘I did not wish to interrupt you. I just came to collect a costume to mend.’ Mademoiselle Gris’ retreating footsteps told the pair that she had disappeared and the sound of the door closing behind her confirmed that they were alone once again. They looked at each other. How much had she heard? Would it matter? Probably not, as the dowdy seamstress was never seen in conversation with anyone other than Madame Claudette and Madame Gartrille, the mannish pianist with whom she shared an apartment.
‘So, there may be a Jewish person hiding here?’ resumed Maurice.
‘Or Colbert was fishing, perhaps trying to frighten me,’ offered Lily. ‘If that’s what he wanted, he certainly succeeded,’ she added, biting her lip. Maurice patted her hand gently.
‘We are all in this together, cherie,’ he told her, ‘we will face this and fight it as one, you will see. Now,’ he began again, his tone more businesslike, ‘let us suppose that there is a Jewish person hiding here ... who could it be?’ Lily breathed hard and shared her theory with him. Maurice nodded slowly, agreeing with Lily’s assessment that Lena Varigny was unlikely to be working for the resistance.
‘I can’t think why she told Madame Gloria that,’ he admitted, ‘if she really were a resister, she would be unlikely to be so indiscreet.’ But Lily had an answer.
‘I think she’s trying to throw us off the scent and perhaps stop us asking her questions about what she does all day. After all, Madame Gloria told me that she didn’t ask Lena what she did, Lena volunteered the information that she was a resister.’ Maurice nodded again. It all made sense.
‘Should I talk to her perhaps? Or to Monsieur Metzinger? I wonder whether he would tell me.’ Lily smiled.
‘Perhaps I should talk to him one night after the show,’ she suggested coyly, ‘I’m sure once he’s had a glass or two of champagne, I could persuade him to part with the truth.’ Maurice laughed.
‘Of course, cherie, you could employ all your considerable charms to good effect!’ he agreed with a wink.
Lily looked for Bobby later that week but, failing to find him, realised that he must have returned to Switzerland for the winter, which she knew was his custom. He would be absent from Le Prix until after the snows had melted and the heavily guarded roads and railway lines from Switzerland were back in operation. She bided her time as the winter chill began to loosen its grip and the days gradually lengthened. By February the little spring flowers had poked their way through the frozen earth and spirits had begun to lift. Le Prix adopted a spring hue and the performers responded with new vigour as if they, too had been reborn following the harsh barrenness of winter. One Wednesday night, as the showgirls kicked and flounced their way through the cancan, Lily spotted the neat shape of Bobby Metzinger in the audience, cigarette in one elegant hand and glass of cognac in the other, his face wreathed in smiles. He was obviously enjoying the vigour of the performance and Lily felt her heart sing. He was ripe for a little gentle interrogatio
n.
Changing into her sequined hostess gown, Lily requisitioned a bottle of champagne and two glasses from Madame Lucille and slipped into the seat next to Bobby which was fortuitously empty. She passed him a glass of the bubbly elixir and they toasted the new year — 1942. She began with polite chit-chat: she had missed him, it was so lovely to see him again, she hoped business was good, that the Swiss winter had not been too harsh for him, and how was his ‘special friend’, Lena, settling in at Le Prix? Bobby was no fool and was evidently used to being pumped for information by his German business clients, but Lily had surprised him.
‘So you think she’s my mistress?’ he asked her, raising a quizzical brow, ‘I don’t know what gave you that idea.’
‘Oh,’ responded Lily, trying to look disinterested, ‘she is clearly very fond of you.’ She looked at him, a little smile flitting across her face. Bobby eyed her and stubbed his cigarette.
‘No, Lily, I can assure you she is not.’
Lily let him absorb this first salvo for a moment before launching another. This time she was ready to play her ace — or gamble hopelessly, she could not decide which. She leant closer and whispered conspiratorially.
‘She told Madame Gloria she was in the resistance.’ Bobby registered little in the way of surprise, his expression reflecting instead mild curiosity.
‘Did she?’ he smiled, ‘how very amusing. Once again, Lily, I can assure she is not. Didn’t I mention that she is an artist’s model?’
‘Yes,’ replied Lily casually, ‘but I don’t believe you.’
‘No?’ now Bobby was openly amused.
‘No.’ He regarded her for a moment, as if assessing whether he could trust her.
‘Actually, she works for me.’
This was more believable and Lily began to feel she had moved closer to the truth. She stopped short of asking him what precisely Lena did for him, but decided that one more question was in order.
Secrets and Showgirls Page 21