by Jina Bacarr
‘You know the answer to that.’
‘Listen to me, Emil. The public love costume dramas. I remember a script Raoul told me he’d written about the Sun King and Versailles before we did the Angeline film. A big, action-filled melodrama with romance and intrigue. Just what the fans want.’
He taps his fingers together, purses his lips. ‘You have a point, Sylvie, who would know? The Propaganda Abteilung wants results and doesn’t care how we get them.’ He turns to me and takes my hands in his. They’re shaking. He’s not doing as well as I thought. ‘Bibi isn’t working out, Sylvie. She’s a terrible actress.’ He gives me a kiss on each cheek. ‘Get me that script by Raoul and we have a deal.’
I force myself not to turn away, though his touch makes my skin crawl. I wrestle with telling him off and keeping my pride, but my need to help Raoul wins out.
It isn’t the first time Emil has used me and it won’t be the last.
25
Sylvie
Lights, camera… action!
Paris
1941
It’s unimaginable a film can get into production in six weeks, but it happens.
Production on Le Masque de Velours de Versailles (Velvet Mask of Versailles) begins in late 1941. It’s like the Occupation doesn’t exist when we’re shooting on the soundstages at Delacroix Studios. The entire team is humming with good feelings and big smiles, none as big as mine. It feels so good to be in front of a camera again. I revel in the early 6 a.m. call, the fittings and blocking. Everything moves at a rapid pace.
Raoul, under the name ‘Henri du Pons’, did a fast script rewrite, and the casting director assembled a wonderful group of actors within days (the line for actors reached around the block for the casting call). The costume designer called in a favor from another studio and pulled rows of costumes from a seventeenth-century drama made years ago. Table readings, screen tests for makeup and costumes, then rehearsal. Sets appear almost by magic – we pulled them out of storage in a studio property warehouse overlooked by the Nazis. (They were too busy looting artwork from famous collectors.) Thankfully, my set designer, Bertrand D’Artois, knew where to find the flats, backdrops, and set dressing we needed.
It’s a grand welcome home party the first day on the set. The whole gang is here, including my old crew, at least those who didn’t flee to the Unoccupied Zone in the South and are trying to their best to make Marseilles the French Hollywood. What they don’t realize is in the real Hollywood, the Nazis never win. Here they do. I’ll take Paris any day. I greet Marcel, who’s a genius at lighting me and making me look years younger. Annette, who does my makeup and hair (oh, God, do I need my roots done). Orval, who always knows how to conceal a few extra pounds in my costumes. Bertrand, who has such an artistic gift for sets I convinced him to come back.
And of course, Raoul.
Where they’ve been, no one asks. All that matters is we’re eager to get back to work when film production begins again in the City of Light with an exciting and bold new historical drama.
For everyone’s safety, no one knows Raoul wrote the script.
Because he’s Jewish.
So are Marcel and Annette, and I question their decision to stay in Paris. They insist they won’t leave the city where they’ve lived their whole lives, where their friends are, their family. Besides, where else could they work for such a big star as Sylvie Martone?
I smile at their kind words when we hug, the warmth of those words flooding me with hope we can do this… Deep down, I have my doubts. The events of the past few weeks have changed me… new fears haunt me… a Gestapo man following me… a handsome SS officer pursuing me. Some nights I don’t sleep at all, questioning if I’m doing the right thing for me… for France.
I’m happy to be working again with my crew, but I’ll never forget the series of events that brought me here today.
I assure you, what I had to do to make this film happen does not make me proud.
There’s much to be said in the world of filmmaking about the power of coincidence in the story, like when the heroine misses seeing the hero off at the train station by minutes, or a telephone call that goes unanswered that could change a lonely widow’s life, or a road not taken.
When coincidence happens in real life, it can save lives.
Jewish lives.
As the door of my dressing room opens on a rainy, late winter morning, I don’t look up but continue flipping through the costume sketches approved for the exterior scenes. I’m expecting Bertrand to burst through the door any minute with his layout of the gardens and gazebos we plan on using when we gather up the entire crew and the actors and go on location to the Palace of Versailles for two weeks. We’re awaiting the final permission from a Nazi general who’s not too happy an entire film crew is about to invade his privacy as he’s taken over rooms in the palace as his personal retreat.
I notice Bertrand keeps a close watch on me whenever we have a certain ‘visitor’ to the set, a curious Nazi official who wants his picture taken with me. I admit I like his protective presence.
I look up quickly when I hear a loud sneeze. It’s not Bertrand I see, but a rain-drenched Halette bursting through the door, wet white scarf tied around her dark hair, rumpled tweed coat, soggy galoshes.
‘Halette, how charming to see you. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.’
Emil requested two new pages of dialogue and since no one knows Raoul wrote the script, the screenwriter called me at my Trocadéro apartment and said he was sending Halette with the pages.
‘Papa gave me what you asked for, mademoiselle,’ Halette says, surprising me by keeping to formalities. I fear something is wrong with the child as she lays the envelope down on my makeup table. She’s shivering and her eyes and nose are red, like she’s been crying. ‘I’ll be going now.’
‘You’ll do no such thing, Halette. I appreciate you bringing me the new pages, but you’re not going back out in that rain. Stay.’
‘I can’t, mademoiselle… I’m worried about Papa.’
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask, concerned.
She lowers her voice to a whisper. ‘He’s worried the Nazis are going to close Aunt Hela’s shop and take her and the children away because my uncle is in big trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Papa said he cheated Germans involved in the black market, promising them goods hard to come by, then pocketed the money and disappeared.’
So that’s why the elusive uncle hasn’t been around.
‘Then Papa says he lost thousands of francs at the horseraces and he owes bad people a lot of money.’
‘Oh, dear God…’ I’m taken aback, knowing what agony Raoul is feeling. Their identity cards are marked in red, identifying them as Jewish and making it impossible for them to leave the city. ‘We have to get them out of Paris… but how?’
‘Perhaps I can help, Sylvie.’
I look up. Bertrand.
How long has he been standing there?
It’s that friendship and trust Bertrand and I have for each other that now comes into play.
After I send Halette to the wardrobe department to get dry clothes, Bertrand and I find a quiet spot among the rows and rows of hanging costumes where we won’t be overheard.
‘You can get Raoul’s family new identity cards?’ I keep my voice low, the smell of mothballs and dried human sweat emanating from the costumes makes it hard for me to breathe. I wonder how long it took for Bertrand to decide to spring this on me. The funny thing is, I’m not surprised. I always thought he’d make a great cloak and dagger character in my films with his inquisitive nature and powerful strength.
‘Yes, but I’m not certain how long it will take.’ He checks over his shoulder to make sure no one is listening. ‘I promise you, it won’t be easy, but I will get them false identity cards.’
‘Why are you risking your life to help me… and Raoul?’
‘Because you both love France as much as my frien
ds and I do.’ He doesn’t speak for a moment, and his blue eyes go wide with excitement, then confirmation. ‘I wasn’t sure if I could trust you with my secret, but when I overhead you and Halette, I decided not to wait. I’m taking a chance by asking you to join us, but the Resistance needs patriots like you, Sylvie.’
He tells me about a secret location where members of the Resistance meet, how they use the underground passages to move agents and refugees between locations without being seen.
‘I’m an actress, not a soldier.’
‘We’re all soldiers now. We need to know what the Nazis are thinking, planning.’
‘And you think because of my public image, I’m above suspicion?’
‘Yes. I know you’re on the Gestapo’s watch list, but you’re too much of a beloved public figure for them to do more than throw idle threats your way. Once this picture is finished and distributed, you’ll be a bigger star than ever.’
‘And a bigger asset to the Resistance.’
‘Bien sûr.’ He holds my hands in his. ‘Will you help us, Sylvie? The work is dangerous, and there’s no guarantee you’ll always entertain the gracious admiration of the Nazis. If they find out you’re helping us—’
‘They won’t, if no one in your organization knows who I am.’
‘What are you thinking?’
I smile. An idea has been forming in my mind as we speak… a character so familiar to me since I was a teen sneaking into Monsieur Durand’s theater, then later useful when I wanted to move about the city unnoticed, a way of helping free my country from these Nazi madmen unique to me.
‘I will meet your friends, Bertrand, but only you will know my true identity. You will introduce me as a widowed baroness with a worthless title but a sharp mind, a woman who can get into places no one else can.
‘A woman named Fantine.’
With my plan in place, I’m all smiles when Herr Geller pays me a visit on the set. He’s pleased with my willingness to make a new film for my adoring fans – French and German alike.
‘How could you ever doubt me, Herr Geller?’ I coo his name sweetly to please him, noting the two Nazi soldiers at his side. He’s not as easily manipulated as Captain Lunzer.
‘I was testing your loyalty to the Party, mademoiselle.’ He looks around, making notes. ‘And that of your crew.’
‘I assure you, everyone here is an artiste interested only in making pictures for the French people. We’re not political creatures by nature.’
‘Perhaps… perhaps not.’ He sniffs around the lighting equipment, takes a seat in Emil’s director chair, and then peers through the camera lens. What’s his game? I’m grateful Emil isn’t here, but instead giving a young actress a tour of the studio during a break in filming. ‘We shall see, but that’s not why I’m here today.’
‘Oh?’
‘The director of the Propaganda Abteilung is in need of an actress to make a short film about shopping hints for Paris department stores for our female German auxiliary workers. You will do the part in French and we will add German subtitles.’
‘Why me?’ I’m afraid to ask.
‘The order came directly from Herr Goebbels. He’s seen your films and chose you personally for the honor.’
Talk about a royal command.
‘We’re under a tight production schedule, Herr Geller—’
‘Auf Wiedersehen, mademoiselle.’
He tips his bowler and with a nod he’s off, his two German lapdogs clicking their heels and then following him.
I breathe a sigh of relief after the Gestapo man is gone. Obviously, I have no say in the matter. I’m the new spokesperson for what Parisians call ‘Grey Mice’, female German workers.
Me-ow.
Blindfolded, I shuffle though the double portals, pushing aside the overgrown plants poking in my face, the scent of sweet jasmine filling my nostrils. Then cool dampness as we walk down a steep ramp. Like we’re underground. Keeping my head down, my lace veil over my face, I limp along with Bertrand as my guide, the pathway twisting and turning. He chuckles, amused at my disguise. It’s a non-glamorous role I covet, donning a scraggly wig I cover with the lace veil Sister Vincent made for me, extreme makeup with my putty nose, heavy brows, and fake beauty mark, and a harness to give me a limp. I’m wearing an elegant, thread-worn purple brocade dress and black coat, black stockings, and brown laced-up boots.
‘Are you certain you want to do this?’ he asks me in a deep whisper, then removes the blindfold. The leader of the Resistance unit requires new recruits secure a scarf over their eyes before being led through the secret passageway to their meeting place.
I grin. I know where I am, any actress worth her mascara would. The Art Deco design on the walls mixed with Asian artifacts piled up in the corner tell me we’re under the stage of a charming Oriental-themed, deserted movie theater in the 7e arrondissement.
‘Yes. I need a way to share whatever intelligence I gather from my SS officer as well as staying clued in to the resistance movement,’ I answer in my normal voice, then louder with a dramatic accent I call out, ‘Zut alors, messieurs, do you always blindfold your guests?’
A ruffled-looking man with a beret and a pipe stands off to the side, speaking with two other men. Workmen wearing caps. Smoking. A young woman wearing round glasses sits in a tattered bamboo chair knitting.
They all look up, curious.
‘Meet the Baroness de Ravenne.’ Bertrand introduces me as a feisty aristocrat widowed twice, penniless, but with a sharp mind for sabotage.
The partisans Bertrand introduces me to have no reason not to accept me, but it’s up to me to prove myself.
I give the character a background, telling them I’m from a small town in the Unoccupied Zone (making it harder to trace my story), both my husbands died, and the last one was a minor noble giving me the title Baroness de Ravenne.
‘I believe she will be a valuable asset to our movement,’ Bertrand adds. ‘She has entrée into numerous literary salons here in Paris as well as impressive connections in the black market.’
True. As Sylvie Martone. But no one must know my identity.
‘You can call me Fantine,’ I add quickly. ‘I believe you need my help in securing information about a certain shipment of arms from Hamburg the Nazis are keen to receive.’
‘Mais oui, madame, you know the railway route?’ asks the man with the beret and pipe.
‘Yes. Using intelligence I gathered, Bertrand has made a map for you with the coordinates, terrain, and Nazi outposts located nearby.’
Bertrand hands him the map he drew with his artistic flair and the leader passes it around.
He’s not convinced. ‘How do I know you’re not a German spy?’
Bertrand steps forward. ‘I trust Fantine with my life, Yves. You can, too.’
Yves nods. ‘No one in our unit has been successful in securing details about this shipment. How did you come by this information?’
‘A Nazi Kommandant with a big ego,’ I answer honestly. Bertrand told me how difficult it is for them to get accurate intelligence at the highest levels of the Wehrmacht. ‘And two bottles of aged cognac my late husband won from a Munich banker back in 1935 in a game of poker.’
The truth is, Captain Lunzer invited me to dinner at the Hôtel Ritz to impress a rotund general eager to brag about his exploits. A tickle under his chin and a knee bump under the table and he was talking so fast, I ran to the powder room to write down the information with my lipstick. Amazing how years of learning lines from a script takes on new meaning in these troubled times. Though it pains my heart, I have more to gain by showing the world I’m collaborating with the Nazis.
Even more importantly, it gives me the freedom I need to make the films that give the French people hope.
Hope to once again see a free France.
‘If your information proves correct, Fantine, and the mission to blow up the railway line is successful,’ says Yves, the leader, ‘next time you won’t need a blindf
old.’
26
Juliana
Confessions of a reluctant Mata Hari
Ville Canfort-Terre, France
Present Day
As I turn off the tape recorder, the double-clicking sound punctuates Sylvie’s words about how she became involved with the Nazis and it’s the happiest moment I’ve had since I found her old photo. How she never wanted to ‘collaborate’ with the enemy… that whatever she did was to save her Jewish friends – and for France.
I want to jump, sing, and hug Sister Rose-Celine. More than that, the nun can’t hold back her emotions and pushes herself up off her scooter and dances.
Yes, dances. I join the sister in celebrating and we dance around in that funny circle you do when you’re kids, singing, ‘Sylvie was not a Nazi… Sylvie was not a Nazi…’
I can’t wait to tell Ridge. I go to text him right away, then hold off on sending it when I realize he’s still asleep. He’s already put up with my texting at odd hours. I want him to hear Sylvie’s voice when he’s not in the middle of a deep sleep. I miss him, even more as I listen to Sylvie’s heartbreak and loneliness…
We dance till we’re both exhausted, exhilarated by the tape from 1941 about how Sylvie got back into making movies. I admit, after hearing her voice catch several times and nearly crack, I’m worried sick about what happens to Raoul and Halette, Hela and the children…
Sister Rose-Celine and I head off to the convent kitchen to celebrate our victory with hot cocoa and chocolate nonpareils. Imagine our surprise when Mother Superior arrives with a flurry of several ‘Pardon, mademoiselle…’ and says she has a surprise for us.