by Jina Bacarr
Is the Nazi threat going to jeopardize that, too?
We finish the picture on time after I go on a regimen of strong coffee, strawberries, and fish to detoxify my body. I refuse to take those pills the studio doctor pushes on me. Three days of an alcohol binge and I’m done. They say relapse is normal. The strange thing is, I’m stronger. Even if my heart still aches. Winnie gives me updates on Jock which amount to ‘he’s safe’. It’s enough.
For now.
I owe it to my fans to stay sober. They never let me down. They helped me through this before and they’ll do it again. Which makes me more determined to give them the best film I can to take their minds off the fear we live with every day since the invasion of Poland as the Nazis gobble up Europe. A fantasy to capture their imagination. Wrap them up in a tragic, rolling romance and let them fall in love all over again with Sylvia Martone.
It’s when I run into my old friend Pierre Limone I get an idea. We talk about the good old days and his amazing makeup techniques, and how much fun we had making the Ninette pictures and the interesting characters we played in Retour à Venise. How the enduring fantasy of good versus evil always works.
Wouldn’t it be fun to update it?
Make the male lead a Prussian war hero, a physician who lost his power to heal during the Great War… a beautiful aristocratic heroine whose life he must save or he’ll lose her. A gangland villain who wants the heroine for himself and to destroy the soldier-hero.
And I know the screenwriter for the job.
Raoul Monteux.
‘Did you see this piece of merde Emil brought to me, Raoul? A box office bomb.’
I give my cooling espresso a sip as I wait for him to scroll through the script, his expert screenwriter’s eye catching the lack of a good story.
I begged him to meet me this morning at Café de la Paix. The sun is shining today even if the war news isn’t good. We’re in what they’re calling ‘drôle de guerre’ (Phony War). What amazes me is how Parisians carry on as if nothing is happening. Scurrying about the boulevards like rabbits sniffing for a new carrot in the shops, the patisseries, the cafés. Happy bunnies while Hitler is digging up the entire cabbage patch of Europe.
I can’t think about that now. I wait patiently for Raoul’s opinion. The tall, lanky man cocks his black beret to the back of his skull and stretches out his long frame under the tiny table and shakes his head. Raoul is in his mid-thirties though he appears much younger. He trained as a playwright but he got into pictures when one of his plays caught my eye. I feel a flush of pride at having discovered him. I love his witty banter, strong emotional connection between the characters, plot twists. I brought the play to Emil’s attention and he hired him on the spot.
I study him now, thinking he looks different. More serious. Like he’s worked up about something, but he won’t talk about it.
His dark brown hair is cut unevenly, like he did the job himself. His dark eyes hooded by heavy lids from lack of sleep. His angular face bears a long scar running along the side of his nose, from a fight I heard he got into in the Marais district when he saved his wife’s father from hooligans beating up the old man because the family is Jewish. His wife died a few months ago and Raoul took it hard. Nearby, his fourteen-year-old daughter Halette is nose-deep in a book of poems, pretending not to listen to our conversation but she keeps peeking at me, curious.
I smile at her, and nod. Embarrassed, she hunches her shoulders and tries to hide behind her book.
‘You’re right, Sylvie,’ Raoul says, slapping the notebook down on the round table. ‘The story has no heart, only jokes.’
‘You’ve got to write a script for me, Raoul.’
‘I just finished a spec script about the Sun King and Versailles… intrigue, action, romance—’
‘I have no doubt it’s fabulous, but I’ve got an idea for a story that’s perfect for these times… and my fans. Wait till you hear it.’
‘Pardon, mademoiselle, may I listen, too?’ Halette asks, moving her chair closer.
I hesitate. ‘It’s a scary story, Halette.’ I look to her father for his approval.
‘Go ahead, Sylvie. I don’t keep anything from Halette. She’s going to have a hard enough time as it is growing up in this world with Hitler and his gang.’
I nod, understanding. He rarely lets Halette out of his sight since Estelle succumbed to a rare blood disorder.
I look at Raoul and Halette, and then begin. ‘I see the story as a mystery thriller about the gang underworld… and a Prussian war hero who was once a physician and saves a beautiful girl, a postulant, from death after she’s attacked by slave traffickers… very bad people.’ I look over at Halette. She’s not the least bit shocked.
‘Like the Nazis?’ she asks.
‘Yes, that’s a wonderful idea, Halette. What do you think, Raoul? Why not set the story in Berlin in the early 1930s during the decadent Weimar era and make the fictitious gang bear a strong resemblance to the brownshirts I read about in Germany?’
‘Très bon, Sylvie. I like it.’
My hands fly through the air, moving this way and that, my wild gestures expressing my excitement. ‘In the script, the soldier-physician and the postulant bring down a murderous gang while trying to find her kidnapped sister sold into slavery… and fall in love, the hero doing his best to save her as he works to find a cure for her illness, knowing if he doesn’t, their love is doomed.’
‘Are we doomed, Papa?’ Halette begs to know.
She looks to her father for guidance. I have the feeling this subject has come up often between father and daughter. I know Raoul considers himself and his family French first, Jewish second. Like most Jewish intellectuals, they came to Paris to find the freedom and tolerance stripped from them in other parts of Europe. But the fierce crossing of his brows tells me he’s worried. He also has a sister with a lazy husband and five children who run a doll and candle shop on Rue des Rosiers in the crammed Marais district. An area filled with tenement buildings housing Eastern immigrants trying to make their daily bread.
A pang of guilt hits me. I know Raoul needs money, but he won’t take charity from me. He confided to me he made poor investments with the funds he received from his last script to help pay for Estelle’s devastating and costly illness and he’s nearly bankrupt. And he has Halette to care for. She’s smart and more than once I let her stay in my dressing room when her father takes meetings at the studio, reading or cutting out pictures of film stars out of Ciné-Miroir and pasting them in a scrapbook. She confided to me I’m her favorite.
I’ve no doubt Raoul is worried about his daughter’s future… and is wary of the climate in Europe with Hitler on the move. He confides in me he needs the money to take Halette to America.
‘What can I do to convince you to write the script, Raoul?’
‘You know I can’t refuse you, Sylvie. I owe my career to you and I’ll never forget how you visited Estelle in the hospital and made sure she had flowers till the end. I admit, I was ashamed when you paid for her final expenses… I’ll pay you back, I promise.’
‘You can pay me back by writing a wonderful script. I’m only as good on the screen as the words you write.’
Raoul grabs me and kisses both my cheeks. ‘When does production start?’
The next few weeks move quickly with Raoul coming up with a complete script quicker than I thought possible. Next, I’m thrilled when a celebrated actor is cast opposite me.
Angeline is on a grueling production schedule in 1940 to get into theaters as the dark clouds of war get closer to Paris. I insist Raoul come to the set, changing lines at my request and driving Emil crazy. During the entire production, everyone is on edge as Hitler continues his insane plan for conquest, invading the Netherlands and Belgium, and England introduces rationing and evacuations of children to rural areas.
I think of Jock… wonder where he is, what he’s doing, if he thinks of me. I accept our relationship has to remain on hold during this wa
r, that afterward we face an uphill battle. I’m willing to wait. For now, all that matters is defeating Hitler. Making pictures may not be a frontline battle, but it’s what I can do to give the French people courage and hope.
And the will to fight for freedom should the enemy get too close.
I pray that never happens.
19
Juliana
A girl named Angeline
Ville Canfort-Terre, France
Present Day
I open my eyes and all my frustrations and hopes and fears come out in one big whoosh.
It’s not another diary I find, but the complete script for Sylvie’s film, Angeline. I don’t see how this will help me, but I can’t resist reading the production notes to Sister Rose-Celine, copious notes detailing the characters and key plot points. It’s not only a poignant love story, but a social commentary on the world at the time.
‘Berlin, 1931.
‘Count Peter von Stryker, war hero and physician.
‘Wild, reckless, he’s lived with the loss of his ability to heal since the end of the Great War. When a young woman dressed as a postulant and with a saintly aura enters his realm, his world is brighter, not so black.
‘Peter can't deny he’s drawn to this innocent in ways he never imagined. She isn't like the other dancers he meets in Berlin. Angeline is a French runaway from a convent here to find her kidnapped sister. She makes him want to strip away the pious sanctity of her religious cloth to reveal to him the sensual woman underneath, a woman seething with a ravenous need to let go of the guilt that forces her to choose a life of abstinence.
‘He’s determined to have her. Will she sell her soul to him to find fulfilment as a woman? Or will she hide behind her religious veil and never experience the passion, the depth of a great love?’
‘I remember this film, mademoiselle,’ Sister Rose-Celine says, sighing heavily, ‘and the handsome Prussian officer every girl fell in love with.’
‘You’re not alone. I’m falling for this guy already and I haven’t read the whole script.’ Because he reminds you of Ridge? ‘I’ve got to find out more about the heroine.’
I keep reading, stumbling a few times over phrases, but the sister joyfully comes to my rescue with the proper translations.
‘Angeline can never fall in love. Like Peter, she lives with a deep loneliness even her strong belief in God cannot cure.
‘She’ll do anything to find her sister – even if it means aligning with the mysterious count who promises to help her. She should run and never look back. She can't. She ignores the prickling of her skin as she stares up at the mysterious, looming structure silhouetted against the gloomy sky overhead. Obscured from the lack of sunlight, she can't read the faded name plate on the dilapidated building as if the street has no name. Angeline will never forget that first night when she enters the domain of Count Peter von Stryker and he awakens in her a heated desire she can’t ignore.’
I keep flipping the pages and come upon the villain… and oh, is it juicy.
‘A different pain grips Peter when he encounters Lord Helmut von der Mein, a fellow ex-Army officer. A Blood Lord who taints the honor of the secret society when he flaunts his aristocratic heritage but acts like the devils he’s cavorts with. Drinking and carousing with party members of the national socialists.
‘They are the new evil emerging, professional soldiers loyal to no one but their commanders. Peter witnesses the rise of men believing Germany can rule herself without the influence of the Kaiser. They must be stopped.’
‘The Nazi Party… what a daring idea, Sister.’
‘Sylvie must have based the heroine Angeline on her own life in the convent.’
‘This is my favorite part: It’s a strange path the elusive soldier and the young postulant must follow as they become entwined in each other's lives.
‘Peter resides in a world of midnight black, while Angeline lives for the promise of the white veil when she becomes a holy sister – a novice.
‘But it’s the color red – blood-red —that enflames their passion for each other.’
According to the Internet, it was one of her biggest hits, grossing more than her previous two films. Why did she put it into the box with the diaries and the photos and films?
Is Sylvie trying to say something about her activities during the war?
She marked certain scenes in the script, comparing them in her notes to the mood in Europe with the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Germany.
Notes I believe she made after the war.
Why didn’t I encourage Raoul to leave Paris before it was too late? she writes in the margins.
Why didn’t I protect Halette from her great loss?
Why didn’t I use my talents sooner to save others?
I’m unfamiliar with the screenwriter, Raoul Monteux, and a quick Internet search turns up little information – as if he disappeared off the face of the earth after the Berlin film. I have no idea who ‘Halette’ is. What loss is Sylvie referring to? Hopefully, she left additional clues, clues that will show the world Sylvie wasn’t a willing Nazi collaborator.
I check in with Ridge via Skype. He’s excited about what I’ve found, including the script for Angeline.
‘And you also found a print of the film?’ he wants to know. I’ve caught him working late in the studio. His dark, silky hair is mussed like he hasn’t slept for two days with a stubble beard that draws my attention to his manly appeal. He’s up to his eyebrows in metal vintage octagonal film canisters.
‘Are you eating tacos from Olvera Street without me?’ I question, miffed. For years we’ve been doing Taco Tuesdays at this hole in the wall with the best Mexican food. My mouth is watering for a bit of home. Or is it Ridge I’m missing? ‘Just you wait till I get back to LA. You owe me—’
He cuts me off with a ripple of laughter and then a wink right into the camera with that sexy smile that makes me hungry. And not for tacos. I wish he’d stop flirting with me and making my cheeks hot and my toes curl. I feel embarrassed, considering I’m having sexy thoughts about him. He’s gone super casual in a black tank top ripped across his chest so tight I swear I can see his muscles straining underneath.
I find this side of Ridge intriguing and it worries me when he comes back at me with, ‘I’ll wait for you as long as it takes, Juliana.’
What is that supposed to mean? That he’s waiting to see me so we can talk about my adventure? Or he’s into me in a romantic way? I’d never get over it if I was wrong. So I go back to my safe place where I don’t react, and let his sexy retort fly right over my head. I don’t know what came over me. I never flirt with him like this. I can blame it on my romantic longing heating up after reading about Sylvie and Jock’s amazing love affair. Like I said, why ruin a beautiful relationship? He’s the best guy ever and so supportive in this crazy time in my life. I don’t want to lose that.
‘Yes. And Sylvie’s Versailles film, too,’ I tell him, keeping a straight face. ‘I can’t wait to see them.’
We chat about the photos and home movies I found, then the hot weather in LA while Ridge munches on his taco but never takes his eyes off me. I’m reminded of Sylvie and Jock and their sexy lobster meal with more than a twinge of embarrassment tinting my cheeks. Thank God, he has no idea what’s going through my head.
Then with a shaky smile, I click off with a promise to call him with any news.
Before I make a complete idiot of myself.
Late into the night, I sit in what I refer to as ‘Maman’s study’, surrounded by artifacts and paintings from centuries gone by, reading the Angeline script, fascinated by the story.
Then I find a torn diary page in French stuck between pages that sets my heart racing:
I find great joy writing down my life for my dear Madeleine so she won’t forget me. But I’m such a slow writer… Sister Vincent says, am I not a great actress? (Her words, not mine.) Why don’t I record my thoughts instead?
What a
wonderful idea!
Sister Vincent secured a recorder for me and blank tapes from Paris with funds I gave her, telling the proprietor the nuns’ choir wants to record their songs in the library. We have no choir, but he didn’t know that.
And so I shall begin recording what happened to me during the war… how I fought the Nazis…
I can’t believe my luck; my hands are shaking. I’m overcome with excitement.
My God, to hear my grandmother’s voice telling her story, it’s too fabulous. Heart pounding in my ears, I sift through the films in the box, hoping in my excitement I mistook a film for a reel-to-reel tape… nothing.
I clutch the script tight to my chest, willing it to whisper its secrets to me.
I hear nothing but the night wind outside the window doing a final dance before the dawn settles it down.
Tears well up in my eyes. I’m disheartened.
Where are the recordings?
20
Sylvie
The quiet before the Nazi storm
Paris
Spring 1940
I park my red Bugatti roadster outside the carriage gate in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and even before I get out of the motorcar, I’m mobbed by fans.
‘Salut, Sylvie!’
‘We love you, Sylvie!’
I gush with excitement at seeing so many people from the old neighborhood cheering for me, tossing daisies and violets into the air, showering me with flowers and affection.