by Jina Bacarr
‘If you’d be so kind, monsieur, to buy a lady a drink…’ I burp, blink. Burp again. I feel sick, but I keep my game face on.
‘Sorry, mademoiselle, I can’t do that.’
I smirk. ‘Who are you, God?’
He chuckles, folds his hands in his Roman cassock sleeves. ‘No, I am His disciple. Father Armand.’
I shade my eyes with my hand, trying to get a better look at this man who pinged my ego with his curt rebuff. A swath of black billowing in the hilltop wind stands over me, white collar, large brim black hat.
A priest. He looks so young. I gaze upward. Is this Your idea of a joke?
‘I don’t need your help, Father. Go away.’
He smiles, a kindly smile that’s neither wide nor nondescript but knowing. As if he’s heard those words more times than there are stars in the sky. ‘As you wish, mademoiselle, but you will not find me a bad companion on your journey.’
I laugh. ‘I’m not going anywhere but—’
‘There is another path, mademoiselle.’
‘Not for me.’
He tips his hat. ‘I see. Well then, since you’ve given up, I shall be on my way.’ He turns to leave and his holy but arrogant attitude gets to me, making me uneasy. How dare he pretend to want to help me, and then walk away like my soul isn’t worth a centime?
I scrape the skin on my arms with my nails, poking at my face, my whole body twitching. What did I expect? I’m acting like a scruffy streetwalker, talking back to a man of the cloth who offered to help me and I turn my back on him. No wonder he’s walking away. Am I that much of a fool? Or is there another answer, one I don’t want to face?
That my soul is lost forever, that I can never come back from this insanity I’ve created for myself. I want to get sober, but every time I try, I slide back to my old ways. Lose myself in the bliss of an alcoholic stupor then face the deep, hidden pain of loneliness that resides within me like a constant sore that won’t heal. An ache so deep inside me it comes upon me at the oddest times, reminding me of everything I’ve done, that everything I have is worth nothing without someone to share it with.
So I share it with the bottle.
A cold, heartless piece of glass that keeps my soul prisoner like a butterfly that will never be free. When I stop drinking, I shake, get so angry with myself, then fearful, anxious. So I have a drink and the bliss returns. Not for long. Once again, I end up tossed aside. I hate this feeling, more so now because this is the second time I’ve been turned down by a man tonight, even if he is a priest. It’s time I assert myself and set him straight. I don’t need him or whatever he’s selling.
I pull myself up to my knees, sway back and forth until I’m close enough to grab onto the hem of his robe. ‘You can’t talk to me like that,’ I cry out with an arrogance to match his. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘I do, mademoiselle.’ He leans down, cups my chin in his hands and looks into my eyes with a knowing spirit like he opened the confessional window. ‘You are Ninette.’
‘What…?’ His words send shivers through me. ‘How…?’
‘I watched you climbing up the steps to the basilica after that man left you, your tormented soul in need of a prayer… and I swore I knew you. When the first ray of dawn broke upon your beautiful face, your platinum hair shining like an angel’s, I held back, my breath wanting, my eyes not believing, Yes, it was you, a woman my dear mother adored… she believed in you, a star in the sky who taught her to have dreams when she went to see your pictures. Ninette gave her hope… and the courage to go forward even during the worst of times, and that hope can be as powerful as any prayer.
‘She prayed I'd be chosen to serve God since I aspired to the seminary. But when I was a boy, we were too poor for me to even have a bed. I slept in a hammock. We lived in the suburbs of Paris, where my widowed mother worked in a button factory to support her three children and prayed every day for the two she had lost. Every Saturday when she got paid, she took my two sisters and me to the pictures. We’d watch you up on the big screen in the darkened theater. Maman never gave up believing I’d find a path to serving God because she believed Ninette showed her how to work hard and be strong for us. She found the courage to go on even when she became ill with the cough because it was what Ninette would have done.’
I stifle a sob, his gentle voice moving me in a manner that makes me listen. He’s speaking from the heart, pulling up a memory so real to him that I, too, can see the picture he paints. No, he’s not acting, spinning a pious yarn as do so many of his ilk. I know bad acting when I see it and the humble priest is as real as they come. Which does nothing to assuage the guilt slamming through my soul, the shame at him finding me soiled and damaged. I’m not surprised he recognized me. My face is everywhere. On kiosks advertising numerous products… posters bigger than life hung outside movie theaters.
I lower my head and bring my knees to my chest to hide from him.
He won’t go away.
He bows his head, remembering. ‘Her prayers were answered when a patron sponsored me at the seminary. I swore then I would do His work with every ounce of my strength. So when I found you here on these holy steps, I couldn’t turn away, couldn’t believe I was seeing the great Sylvie Martone so lost when she has given so much to France. I couldn’t leave to chance you’d survive the night unharmed by the denizens who slither out of their holes to prey on the innocent, so I waited beside you, and no, you didn’t know I was there. You tossed and turned, fretted and swore, called out God for abandoning you when you were a child. More than once you cried out, Help me… please help me. I believe God heard you and sent me here to guide you since most days I attend to the sick at this hour. Today I heard His voice telling me to go to Sacré-Coeur… now I know why, mademoiselle. He sent me to you.’
I smirk. ‘Even if I believed your story, which I don’t, why help me, a sinner?’
‘We are all sinners, mademoiselle, but you’re the reason I wear the cross today.’ He holds my hand, doesn’t let go. ‘I’m so grateful to you for giving me those wonderful years going to the pictures with my mother before she died of tuberculosis. She was forty-five.’
‘I wish I were more like Ninette,’ I admit in a broken, harsh voice. I mourn for the loss of those early years when I was making the Ninette two-reelers. If only I’d grabbed onto the depth and sincerity of the character I played, the goodness of Ninette, and held it close to my heart, things would have turned out different.
‘You are, Mademoiselle Martone,’ Father Armand insists, helping me stand then guiding me up the stairs with a gentle hand and through the grand portals of the basilica. ‘You wouldn’t have come this far if you didn’t have her strength.’ We anoint our foreheads with water from the holy water font and make the sign of the cross. I lower my eyes and my need for alcohol is so powerful, I lick the water off my fingertips, wishing it were vodka. I catch the priest’s questioning look. ‘Do you believe in God, mademoiselle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you think He would put temptation in your path?’
‘No. But the devil would.’
‘You needn’t fear him. He hasn’t got the guts to come in here.’
His humor makes me smile. ‘Now what, Father?’
‘We pray.’
Prayer. I’m so mentally and physically tired, so emotionally drained, my will to resist his request is stripped from my mind. Deep-seeded comfort from prayer isn’t something I coveted growing up, but it feels right. As if I have come home.
As we take a place in the brown, wooden pew, Father Armand has the hand of the Lord on his shoulder when he says the devil, whatever shape he takes – Emil, Bastien, or the others – can’t come in here. For the first time since Sister Vincent took my hand that day my mother left me at the convent, I feel safe.
We kneel in the back of the grand basilica, my knees hurting. When was the last time I prayed in a church? I shift my weight back and forth as the pew squeaks and the priest chants a prayer in La
tin.
‘Actiones nostras, quaesumus Domine, aspirando praeveni et adiuvando prosequere…’
I know enough Latin from the sisters to recognize the prayer; he’s asking for the Lord’s help before we begin our journey – a journey, if I’m honest, I’m not keen on.
How do you get an alcoholic to give up the one thing they want most in the world?
It’s then it hits me, that with everything I have – I can buy anything, go anywhere – I chose alcohol and cocaine for my companions. What a sorry mess I am. There’s no glamor to ending up in the sewer, stiff-legged and lips tinted blue like a bloated corpse.
I need help.
Or I damn well will.
I’m sober enough to know this is my last chance. Father Armand believes in me. His story touches me deeply and damn Emil and his control over me. I am Ninette and more determined than ever to quash any gossip about where I come from the best way I know how.
By getting clean and sober.
By being the film star loved by the people of France. I’ve never let my fans down. I choose only products I believe in to put my name on. My brand is everywhere – on face powder, stockings, and perfume. Magazine covers. I’m so well known on the streets of Paris, I often resort to wearing disguises to get a breath of fresh air in the Tuileries Gardens.
A cleansing breath escapes my lungs now.
I don’t know how long we pray. Every time the doors open and a faithful follower comes in, a belligerent wind sweeps in with them and pounces on my poor body with its cold hand, making it clear to me how badly off I am. My chest hurts so much, I find it hard to breathe, like someone is trying smother me. I try to shake off the tremors that make me shake all over, the severe headache pounding in my temples. I can’t. My teeth chatter.
Oh, God, please make it stop!
Sweats… perspiration dripping from my body… dreams… voices… anger, oh, so much anger because my body is craving alcohol… and drugs. That innocent sniff of white powder I took led to a habit that nearly killed me. It isn’t my drug of choice, neither are the pills they gave me to lose weight. Alcohol is… it’s a demon on my back I can’t get rid of.
‘Father Armand…’ I tug on his sleeve. ‘I need help.’
He stops praying and nods. ‘It is time.’
He guides me to an alcove as the basilica fills and the Church goes about its business of saving souls. We enter a staircase hidden behind a plain wooden door, a secret passageway, he explains, left over from the building of the basilica by the workers when they were constructing the four main staircases. It leads to a storage room filled with vestments, votive candles, and crates filled with clothes donated to the poor of Paris by wealthy patrons.
‘I fear leaving you to your own designs, mademoiselle, so I shall accompany you to your destination.’ He lowers his eyes. ‘First you must cover yourself.’
‘Where are you taking me, Father?’ I marvel at the pile of petticoats, long, woolen overcoats, shoes neatly arranged.
‘I have a friend who can help you: a physician of the mind who aided me when I lost my mother and I… well, as I said, we are all sinners.’
I nod, my admiration for this young priest swelling in my heart. I do believe God sent him to me. He secures a long, velvet cloak cast with the sheen of the grey dawn from the donated items. Tattered at the bottom, most of the sequins on the shoulder are missing. A few sparkling stars wink at me, giving me hope I can shine again. I imagine this cloak belonged to a rich bourgeoisie who never dreamed it would save a film star from ruin.
I fasten the clasp on the cloak and put on my shoes, winding the straps around my calves. With a dramatic gesture, I dangle my beaded purse on my wrist. ‘Is it far from here?’
‘Outside the city… a place where you can heal filled with green woods and ponds with lily pads and happy frogs.’ He smiles. ‘I will need to secure transportation.’
I fluff my hair with my fingers, then wiggle my nose à la Ninette and hand him the keys to my red Bugatti roadster. ‘Can you drive a motorcar, Father?’
11
Sylvie
One day at a time
Sainte Albertine, France
1935–1936
I thought it was hard to deal with my success in pictures. Dealing with overcoming my addiction… is a nightmare.
I check myself into the sanitarium outside Paris, a place where cowbells ring instead of cathedral bells, and the butterflies landing on my shoulder flutter their wings like I fluttered my eyelashes. Once an estate for a minor aristocrat who fell onto hard times, the Gothic buildings consist of a carriage house, stable, greenhouse, and main living quarters, and caters to anyone who wants anonymity as well as treatment.
I felt a sense of comfort when I arrived, aided by the presence of the fascinating Father Armand. I imagine it’s the only time a patient arrived here in a red Bugatti roadster driven by a priest.
For years I ran from my addiction, years of pretending that I could be the fabulous Sylvie Martone every moment of my waking life. I worked hard at being a cinema star, but the fantasy of my perfect life in the magazines belonged to someone else, not me. I was unprepared to handle the pressure, the hounding by Emil to stay on top by sleeping with powerful men. The man I thought was family was more like a debauched uncle sneering at me. So I grabbed another bottle, a cigarette, a snort of white powder, then I’d find myself in a café signing autographs from British tourists who found me so French and glamorous.
The Sainte Albertine Sanitarium is anything but glamorous.
And detoxing is a hell of a mindbender.
The intense cravings, chronic nausea, trouble sleeping. My chest hurting so badly from the emotional outbursts I can’t control.
Yelling… screaming. Panting hard, banging my head against the brass bed when I can’t sleep, until I pass out. Then I can’t get up, don’t remember where I am, fighting the dizziness that rolls over me. All the crying fits that start and stop like someone yelling ‘Cut!’ make it clear to my subconscious I am a drunk. A fact that comes as no surprise to Emil when I wire him about my sudden departure from Paris. I’m seeking treatment and I don’t know when I’ll be back. Six months… maybe more. Although I kept my addiction from the press and Father Armand would never betray me, Emil knew about my fall from grace but chose to ignore it as long as I made pictures for him. The staff tells me he checks often to see how I’m doing. I don’t want to see him. Not yet. How many times a day do I stare at myself in the mirror (how I wish this place were like the convent without mirrors), the drained, pale skin of a ghost staring back at me? Eyes red-rimmed, hair coarse like straw, lower lip trembling.
And I can’t stop it.
The anger, the lashing out, the insane craving that takes weeks to simmer down. And when it does, then the downer, depression… and the craving for sugar hits you. Hits you hard. I want to devour everything I see, vanilla cakes and raspberry tarts with whipped country cream. The sweeter they are, the more I want it. I gain weight, but it’s expected. Still, it’s better than the alternative… a quick slide to Hell and this time there’s no guarantee I’ll ever come back.
It’s not easy to kick an addiction… you don’t get over it like a bad review. I’m trying a new therapy that’s finding popularity across the pond about taking one day at a time. Knowing your triggers, knowing you have to give up your old friends and knowing you’re never an ex-addict. You’re an addict in recovery. Of course, I could say I was never an alcoholic, never addicted to cocaine and pills. That’s like saying I never bleached my hair.
Today I sit by a tall, narrow window, pondering my state of mind as I tear at the seams of an unfashionable… no, ugly, chemise. Something a crone would wear in a film about a nineteenth-century workhouse, loose-fitting and washed so many times the threads hang together in an unholy alliance. For years, I was like every other alcoholic.
In denial.
I raced along making film after film, a few flops, mostly hits, emoting my heart out on the sc
reen, trying to connect with my feelings. That fourth wall between you and the audience is a hard one to step through to find the right balance in your personal life. To find someone in your corner, to help you with the ups and downs, the good and the bad of show business. Yes, I was surrounded by sycophants eager to tell me what I wanted to hear. I had no one in the studio hierarchy looking out for me. They had their own agenda. I’m not making excuses or feeling sorry for myself. I wanted to be a cinema star more than anything, but I was young, so young. Sixteen, eighteen… I didn’t know how to handle the success, so I turned to the bottle and the white powder to fill that void in me. Then those awful pills Emil got from the studio dispensary that amped me up, helped me starve myself.
I often wonder if I’d had a child, maybe I would have straightened up my life sooner, but I didn’t.
I walk every day around the grounds, acres of wooded forest, searching for the secret to finding my way to being sober. It’s not that simple. After months of therapy from caring physicians and nurses in starched white, I come to grips with the truth that I’m in charge of my own sobriety and only through hard work will I ever go home.
For now, I form an uneasy alliance with Emil when he shows up at the sanitarium today. His weekly check to see how I’m doing. I feel confident enough at this point in my treatment to speak with him. I should be flattered he’s concerned, but I know him too well not to know he’s up to something. He tugs at his extravagant black cravat, blows his nose numerous times (is he sniffing the white powder?), and manages to avoid answering questions from the psychiatrist about why he believes I’m here. Did the director see the signs of my drug use, they ask, was I sexually abused? Peeking through the door, I laugh at that last question. I’m supposed to be at a ceramics class, working with my hands to quiet my mind and its constant cravings. I’m also taking English classes to stimulate my brain and retrain my learning process, but watching him squirm is so much more therapeutic.