Red rainbow, p.1
Red Rainbow, page 1
Red Rainbow
G Johanson
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Interlude I
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Interlude II
Chapter 13
Interlude III
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Copyright © 2021 G Johanson
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Chapter 1
B.W.O.
The Allies have landed! The Allies have landed! Deveral Meyer found he did not get as excited as most of his fellow Parisians did at this news. It was fantastic news, of that there was no doubt, a very positive development. It offered serious hope that their country would experience freedom sooner rather than later. Whether weeks or months left under the yoke, it seemed that the longest stretch was behind them with the end in sight.
The end had been in sight for Deveral for some time now. He could not pinpoint the day when his troubles began. He put his ailments down to his age – at 82, he belonged in a sarcophagus. He realised as the discomfort increased to agony that this was more than that. He was dying. Unless there was a sudden surge towards Paris (and the liberation was going slower than they’d expected upon those initial reports), he was not going to live to see the celebrations. That was hard to take. What was even harder to take was the feeling at the pit of his stomach, not completely masked by the mess down there that was killing him, that he had done nothing. Americans, Canadians, Brits, Free French and many other nations, men with their whole lives ahead of them were dying en masse for his country and a collective cause while he had done next to nothing to help.
Age was no excuse. His good friend Georges was doing plenty in his provincial adopted town. Youth was a better excuse than old age. Some were enfeebled in their dotage, but that didn’t have to stop them from finding some way to aid the Resistance. It didn’t have to be a gung-ho frontal attack on the invaders. But it could be too...
Deveral had funnelled a small amount of money from his theatre to a Resistance group in the early days, the donations ceasing when the group were obliterated. He finally did something substantial to help on June 12. That was the first in a series of calls he made across the Atlantic before he got to speak to her. She promised nothing, prompting Deveral to consider changing his plans. Two days ago, June 28, he got a telegram. No name, just three words.
Je suis là.
I am here. It was open to interpretation. Did she mean Europe, France, Paris? She’d never even said she would come when asked, not even when he begged her. His begging just made the silences longer. Although Deveral had never met her, he knew enough about her to conclude that her silence wasn’t due to being lost for words or concern for his feelings. He was asking her to leave her comfortable Connecticut home to risk life and limb on a hare-brained scheme that would see her hounded until Paris rose again. She was entitled to turn the screw, to try and make him uncomfortable. She was not a figure to look to for kindness. That was why he contacted her, because kindness had no part in his plan. That was not what was needed right now.
What she had, what he needed, was power. Deveral had no powers – he had never had any powers, associating with those that did without picking up any of their abilities. His speciality was knowledge, and he had used it wisely through the years to make a living out of unusual and artistic interests. It had been a good life up until these last few months, a life of performance that got him noticed. His death would follow that trend.
The cat wandered through the theatre with Deveral in the early morning as he went to pick up the paper. If only the mangy tabby was a tiger – it was loyal to him and could do some damage and provide much-needed warmth in bed, though the tabby’s presence still helped a little, the heat it generated surprising for its slight frame. Tossing and turning all night usually heated up his bed in any case, the nature of his ailment not conducive to sleeping. Deveral only turned the heating on for shows. Some of the cast and crew grumbled about this to no avail, rehearsals and meetings remaining cold affairs. Theatres were cold places, that was par for the course. They didn’t have to live here – Deveral did, forced to sell his house just to rent the theatre for a few more months. He would not be able to afford it come September and would be homeless as well as jobless. Luckily, he’d have a new home in the ground by then.
Deveral could have saved some centimes by scrapping his paper subscription back in 1940. A controlled press that couldn’t report the news... it was pointless, really. He knew he wasn’t going to read any favourable articles about the Allied Forces’ progress. Yet he still studied the paper looking for clues, coded messages, anything.
Saturday remained their most profitable day. They ran two shows, an early Matinee at 1 and another at 4:30. Both were usually well attended. They still ran evening shows during the week starting at 5:30 to try and enable their patrons to make it home before the curfew. They tried 6:30 in the early days and had virtually no crowd so moved it forward. They got close to 100 some nights this way... of a 700+ capacity theatre. Saturday was different, both shows usually more than half full. Curtain calls were a thing of the past, though – people had to get home, all bar him.
Their least profitable weeknight over the last few weeks was Wednesday. A couple of the actors and the dresser had stayed over these nights as this was better than the alternative, a lift home from the Germans. Deveral had approached a German soldier who regularly attended and made a proposal to him to make each Wednesday evening exclusive to their German patrons. He presented this plausibly, offering to make these shows for free with the understanding that the soldiers kept their attendance only to these shows. He proposed segregation and they went for it, which came as no surprise. They would pick shows for their invaders’ tastes, Deveral lumping them all together. That was how he had to be. It was no good thinking of them as individuals, human beings with their own identities and values. The dead men on the beach had crossed lines in the sand, and Deveral had drawn some of his own now. He smiled at the men he was at war with and invited them into his Trojan theatre. Phase 1 of the plan had been inviting her across the pond. Phase 2 was getting the Germans to come to his shows. Phase 3, the penultimate phase, was imminent...
“‘Out, damned spot!’ Honestly, you’re not supposed to get pimples at my age, are you?” Charlotte Thiers joked to the makeup artist/dresser, Patience Condeh. Patience did makeup and maintained costumes for the whole cast, which kept her busy prior to and during the shows. The cast was small, Deveral’s company a minor one, but she definitely earned her pay. Several of the actors applied some of the makeup, with Patience applying the finishing touches. One actress left the company quickly after taking issue with having a black woman touch her. She was not missed. Charlotte, thankfully, was nothing like that, always friendly with Patience and down to earth. She was the leading lady and had no airs and graces, thankful to be working at all in these difficult times. Her career hadn’t turned out the way she’d hoped, but a lot of things hadn’t for a lot of people.
“They’ll never see it. I wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t point it out.”
“Patience, my sweet, sweet girl, you are a terrible liar.” Patience stood over her brushing her face with powder, positioned to see every crack, every blemish. Every pimple. She could see Charlotte’s dark roots, which made her look like a fake blonde when all of her hair, from light tips to brown roots, was natural, though she had it coiffured to add volume, framing her features.
“It’s as well I stay this side of the curtain then.” Patience wouldn’t swap places with Charlotte for the world. She was a confident young woman in everyday life. Performing was a step too far, however, Patience happy to remain in the wings.
“Some make the transition. I was a nonspeaking part for many years – I’m making up for lost time now, I know.”
There was a knock at the dressing room door, which opened before either woman had the chance to speak. Charlotte was dressed but that wasn’t the point. She might not have been. She did not fire up when she saw that it was her boss who entered accompanied by a strange-looking woman, a gaunt geriatric with a terrible wide brown wig on, wearing a khaki and floral mix trouser suit.
“Good, you’re clothed. Some of the others weren’t, but there’s no time to delay. Florence joins our company today,” Deveral said, presenting her to them. She was almost as tall as him, and he was well over 6ft, Deveral also spindly due to losing a lot of weight in recent months. He had always been thin, especially in the face, only now he looked unhealthy with it, possibly his grey hair (quite thick for his age) turning a shade lighter?
“Welcome aboard,” Charlotte said, rising and walking across to embrace and kiss her. Florence did not embrace her back and made a
point of brushing the powder off the collar of her jacket, which Charlotte’s face had smeared. Charlotte carried on undaunted, “I’m Charlotte, Bette in tonight’s performance...”
“We’re doing a different show,” Deveral said.
“Oh?”
“I don’t know that one. We’re doing one that I know,” Florence declared.
“Okay. Which one?” Charlotte said with a nervous laugh, looking to Deveral to provide this information which would be helpful for her to know.
Deveral answered, “Macbeth. You need to sort costumes.” He said this to Patience who got moving straight away, running through their collective wardrobe in her head to work out if they had enough period male costumes. She was responsible for buying and renting costumes and had taken some back after they finished their recent run doing this show. It was going to be tricky, particularly so close to showtime with the cast mostly dressed for the contemporary play they had been prepared to perform and half of them made up.
A couple of the actors came to Patience as she frantically searched her stock, one of them coming to have the first choice of gear (not thinking straight, she let him have it when that should have been for their principal, who would surely reprise his role as Macbeth). Another actor came to gossip and moan about what was going on. He made a good point too. The audience was coming to see one show and were getting a completely different one without warning. That was unprofessional. Theatre directors could do what they wanted to the cast and crew, but you didn’t fuck with the audience.
They were losing enough of their already sparse trade since word got out about the theatre being a haven for Nazis who got free entertainment that the French had to pay for. Deveral justified this to the staff well enough. Non-Nazis could attend their other six shows safe in the knowledge that no Germans would be present – this sounded good at the time, Patience realising later that there was no such guarantee. What was he going to do, chuck them out if they came another night, have Louis refuse them at the door? It seemed to work in practice, or they’d kept their uniforms at home. For Deveral to come up with this plan so late into the war with Allied forces so so close to them – it needlessly made them look like collaborators with no net gain.
Patience took the dress for Lady Macbeth and suitable (ish) shoes back to Charlotte’s dressing room. Charlotte had undressed down to her slip, her visitors having left, and Patience helped her into her costume. Charlotte’s eyes were moist but her makeup was unaffected, proving she had held back the tears. She explained what had upset her. “This is my last night in this dressing room. I join the other girls as of tomorrow. This is her dressing room now.”
“Really? I’m sorry – and surprised.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. I can deal with it. Don’t think if I’m quiet that I’m cross. I’m trying to remember my lines.”
“It is very short notice. Jean said about the audience. It does look pretty bad changing the play this late on.”
“Oh, it’s going to be a dreadful show. But he’s decided. And he didn’t even say the Scottish play. This is going to be a mess. More powder, please, these cheeks are going to burn.”
“Phase 3 of the plan is complete,” Deveral said, sitting with Florence in the auditorium now that the doors were locked and the paying public (all experiencing buyer’s remorse) and the cast and crew had departed. Tabby was skulking under the seats with them, remaining unseen but mewing every now and again.
“You should have said it was your plan to change the play. You’re already casting me as the villain.”
“Do you care?”
“Of course not,” Florence replied emphatically. “It would make them turn on you quicker, is all.”
“They take great pride in their work. That travesty pissed them off, believe me.”
“They don’t think on their feet very well.” Florence had chosen the parts of the witches, turned into one singular role, and had based her lines upon watching Macbeth performed on Broadway back in the ’20s. She had the gist of it and improvised lines to fit her scenes. The others floundered as soon as she went off-script – which was from her first line. Trampling over Shakespeare or any of the classics was virtually heretical to them, a way of instantly alienating the audience. People came to see Shakespeare to see Shakespeare (though in this case they had actually come to see something else), not an amateur dramatics brainstorming session.
“They’re good at learning lines. We don’t have long runs. We have our core audience – had – we don’t compete with the big theatres, we do our small shows, different ones most weeks. Some of our regulars were pissed too, which is what we want.”
“Why don’t you bring the German show forward to tomorrow?”
She was keen. “I’m not quite ready yet. We’ll change the show again tomorrow – I’ll pick one they’ve never done. I’ll schedule a meeting for Saturday morning, and I’ll make sure I’m firmly the villain this time.”
Florence smiled. “Make sure it’s another small part. It’s more fun to watch it crumble from the sidelines after agitating things.”
“Don’t enjoy it too much, Florence. Remember that I like these people.”
Florence rolled her eyes and did not respond to his comment. She heard the cat again and asked, “Who’s looking after them when you die?”
“They’ll get jobs elsewhere. Maybe not ’til peacetime, but that’s coming.”
“That’s remarkable considering I was talking about the cats – I sense multiple heartbeats.”
“Didn’t even know it was a girl. She’s a born survivor. She’s not my cat. She just found a way in here. Are you offering?”
“I’ll take care of her if you want me to.”
Although Florence adopted an innocent tone, Deveral decided to reject her offer.
Patience did not have time to take Florence’s measurements the first night with everything being so rushed. She asked if she could do this the following afternoon, Florence rising to her feet and stretching her arms out as though it were a chore. Patience was pleased that Charlotte was in the room with them; otherwise, the atmosphere would have been even more strained. Charlotte was only there to pack up her belongings, and while she had extended the olive branch of friendship to Florence, her failure to take it and her rudeness to Patience was pushing her to her limit.
“She goes out and sources costumes for us. She needs to know our sizes for that,” Charlotte said, speaking up for Patience – though a little anger at her own treatment was included in there too.
“Which is why I’m letting her measure me. Do you have a problem with that?”
“We’ve got off on the wrong foot – these are trying times. What’s your acting background?”
“My acting credits are slim, but I’ve been written about a lot. I’ve been the centre of attention constantly. This isn’t a stretch for me.” The disdain emanating from Florence made Patience greatly uncomfortable even being near her. Deveral seemed prepared to bend over backwards for her and willing to push the rest of the staff even further back to accommodate her. If Florence could not achieve magnanimity, civility would have been something. Instead, she skirted between indifference and hostility. Patience felt this was such a shame as they’d been a small and tight unit for the most part, encompassing a wide range of ages (Patience was one of the youngest at 28, Deveral the oldest in his 80s) and backgrounds without serious division... and it was apparent that all of that was about to go up in smoke.
“We have a core audience who are very particular about what they like and don’t like. I’ll be honest with you, the grande dame bit may fly with them or it may flounder,” Charlotte said.
“Hedging your bets there, aren’t you? That’s the same of anything: it might be a success, might be a failure. Whatever happens, happens.”
Patience was supposed to be measuring Florence for wardrobe purposes, only Patience’s dress had caught Florence’s eye. Those outstretched arms came in, Florence grabbing the yellow triangular patch at the short-sleeved cuff of Patience’s otherwise scarlet red dress. She rubbed it between her fingers curiously, forcing Patience to comment on it. “I add patches to most of my clothing.”
