Goodnight from paris a n.., p.17
Goodnight from Paris: A Novel, page 17
“What? Germans?”
“No, that’s the most terrible part,” Elise said, offering us both cigarettes. “They were some young fascists, Montmartre gutter types.”
“Yes, exactly,” Kathleen said. “They threw bricks through the beautiful shop windows of Vanina, Annabel, Toutmain, Marie-Louise. All owned by Jews.”
“That is horrifying,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.
“Truly,” Kathleen said. “So I went and spent a small fortune at the shops that were vandalized. All the stores were packed with people, despite the boarded-up windows. Isidore, the owner of Toutmain, was very emotional about all her new customers; she kept kissing everyone who came through the door.”
The waiter finally came over, and Kathleen looked at the wine list and ordered the most expensive bottle of champagne on the menu, a plate of cheeses, and escargot.
“You don’t need to do that,” I said, gasping at the price of the champagne.
“Oh, Kathleen, you really don’t,” Elise said, eyes wide.
“Oh, sweethearts, I do,” Kathleen said. “We have to celebrate the small victories and enjoy good champagne when we can these days; otherwise it’s all too depressing.”
“Well, thank you,” I said. “It’s so good to see you both. Kathleen, I am sorry it’s been so long. I was surprised when I heard you and Tudor had stayed in the country, to be honest.”
“First, no need to apologize, and second, this is my home; I can’t imagine running away from it now,” she said. “And I think Tudor and I, with his fortune and my connections, maybe we can do some good.
“Elise, I have to ask, how are you holding up?” Kathleen continued, grabbing her hand. “I mean, truly?”
Elise’s dark eyes welled with tears at the question, and I handed her a handkerchief.
“More than anything, I am just so angry. I have moments I am consumed with righteous anger for his death. Pure fury,” she said, blotting her eyes and composing herself. “But I have Corinne. For her sake I need to show her that we can go on, we must go on living. And all this anger? I need to put that energy toward doing something—helping Jean, helping whoever else is involved in getting our country back.”
I knew they were referring to Jean’s work with the Resistance, and the three of us all scanned the streets and the café for any German uniforms. The closest table was four teenage girls giggling, but I still lowered my voice and leaned in to speak.
“That’s why I wanted to meet with you both, actually,” I said. “I need a favor.”
“Anything,” Elise said.
“You both know I plan to move to Barbizon, temporarily,” I said.
The waiter came over with our champagne at that moment, so I paused as he opened the bottle and poured us each a glass.
“To Barbizon,” Kathleen said. “You’re not going to end up some sort of farm girl out there in the countryside, are you?”
“Hardly,” I laughed. I told them about my dinner in Vichy with Laval and the veiled threat.
“Oh no,” Elise said.
“Yes, so that’s part of why I need to live quietly in the country for a while.”
“So what’s the favor?” Kathleen asked; she leaned in this time.
“I need you both to spread the news in various expatriate social circles that Drue Leyton has left the country through Spain,” I said. “She’s no longer in France; say she went to the States, or England, or . . . hell, say I left and joined the circus, I don’t care. I just need people to believe I’m gone. I am Drue Tartière, wife of Jacques, not the American actress from Paris Mondiale.”
“Not the Drue with a Nazi death warrant against her?” Elise said, her face serious as she sipped her champagne.
“Exactly.”
“But . . . so you hide out in Barbizon; what if someone recognizes you when you come back to Paris?” Kathleen asked. We were quiet for a moment as the waiter put down an enormous plate of cheeses, and I realized how ravenous I was.
“I will deal with that if it happens, but the more people that think I’m gone, the better,” I said. “It can only help.”
They both nodded and agreed to do as I asked, and we all helped ourselves to the food.
“If I hear of anyone suspicious asking about you, I will also let you know,” Kathleen said. “The German officers in Paris all want to be friends with Tudor because of his wealth and art collection. It’s disgusting, frankly.”
“Thank you both for your help,” I said. “And there will be more opportunities to help with Jean’s work, as soon as he recovers and we get settled in Barbizon. I promise you. And I must believe conversations like this are happening all over the country.”
“Let’s toast to that,” Kathleen said as we clinked our glasses.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Early the next morning, Nadine and I took the train from Paris to Melun, with our bikes in tow, as it was a twelve-kilometer ride to the village of Barbizon from there. There was a woman sitting next to us on the train, blotting her eyes with a handkerchief as she read Autant en emporte le vent, the French translation of Gone with the Wind.
“Is it a good book?” Nadine whispered to me, nodding at the woman. “I see women all over the city reading it.”
“I have heard it’s a wonderful book; it’s hugely popular in the US. I’m embarrassed to admit I haven’t read it. I’ll get us copies.”
Barbizon was a charming village on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, the so-called hunting ground of kings. As we biked through the countryside, the sunlight and natural beauty were a reminder of why the village had been an artists’ haven in the nineteenth century.
“This reminds me too much of home,” Nadine grumbled as she pulled up alongside me.
“Wait until you see the village; I think you’ll like it,” I said, not sure if I could ever convince her to like the countryside now that Paris had cast its spell on her.
We biked onto the cobblestones of Barbizon’s picturesque Grand Rue, with its mix of small stone and stucco buildings and walls—a blend of villas and cafés and shops, many with shutters painted in pale blues or greens. The beauty of this village was its timelessness—not much had changed for hundreds of years. I felt wistful and sad as the memories of the weeks I had spent with Jacques and his family here in the summer of ’39 came flooding back—the two of us strolling down this street hand in hand in the summer heat, stopping by one of the cafés for something cool to drink, Jacques proudly introducing me to everyone we met as his new wife. It had been perfect for a short time, before the world fell apart.
We passed by a few German soldiers sitting on the terrace of the pub, the Grand Bar Américain, owned by an older expatriate named Alfie Grand, who was married to a Frenchwoman, Giselle. Like the last time I had visited, there was still a huge American flag flying out front. Nadine gave me a sideways glance, amused.
I pulled up to Villa L’Écureuil. Its front curtains were drawn, and an untamed wisteria vine framed the dark-green front door, which was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint. Instead of a nameplate, there was a wrought iron squirrel in a circle hanging on the stucco exterior on the right-hand side of the door.
“This is it? It looks very small,” Nadine said, frowning and skeptical. “And so . . . old. How old is this house?”
“It’s . . . well, it’s three hundred years old, but—” I began.
“That is older than my family’s old farm,” she said with a groan.
When she looked like she was ready to cry at having to return to the country to a house older than the one she had grown up in, I launched into its selling points:
“But it’s been modernized. Both the main house and smaller cottage have central heat, good bathrooms, and electric bath heaters! And see the fence on either side—the main villa goes back farther than you think, and it has a hidden courtyard with a gorgeous vegetable and flower garden, and there’s another cottage and artist’s studio and a garage that also can’t be seen from the street. You’ll have your own one-bedroom cottage. Jean can take the studio.”
“Hmm . . . ,” she said, a little more interested when I mentioned her having her own cottage.
I went up to the door and knocked, waiting a minute before trying again. I told her to wait and went down the narrow lane. The rose and lilac bushes along the property’s stone wall were in desperate need of pruning. I knocked on the big wooden double-doored courtyard gate, but nobody answered there either, and on my tiptoes I tried to peek inside, but it was too high to see over.
“It’s just been requisitioned by the Germans.”
“Marion?” I whirled around to see an elderly woman with a silver bun standing in front of the door across the narrow alley. She was framed by the deep-orange trumpet flowers that grew on a vine on the gate to her villa.
“Oh, Drue! So lovely to see you again,” she said with a warm smile, walking stiffly across the street to give me a warm embrace. She smelled of lavender and mint. I had met Marion on my visit to Barbizon with the Tartières and had socialized with her on more than one occasion. She was an American from Boston’s Brahmin class, with an aristocratic air. “How is dear Jacques?”
I told her in very few words that Jacques was still away and explained why I was in Barbizon, asking what more she knew about the villa.
“That pompous Mayor Voclain believes in carrying out orders to the letter, even if they are Nazi orders,” she said with a shudder. “Nobody has been living there for some time. The garden courtyard is a mess of weeds and overgrown plants. I wish you had come earlier; the mayor agreed to let the Germans have it a few days ago.”
My heart sank, and, seeing the disappointment in my face, she added, “It’s worth asking him if anything can be done. Just be warned—he is, as they say, very ‘correct’ when it comes to dealing with the Germans.”
I thanked her and went back to tell Nadine we had to see the mayor of Barbizon.
“This is crazy,” she said, shaking her head. “We can’t just ‘take it back’ from the Germans.”
“It can’t hurt to try,” I said.
Monsieur Voclain, the mayor of Barbizon, was a retired military officer in his midfifties, tall and gruff, with small, dark eyes and a long face. Nadine and I walked into his office at the city’s small town hall, and he didn’t even look up from the papers he was signing until I finally cleared my throat.
“Bonjour, Monsieur Voclain,” I said with a smile. “I am Drue Tartière—perhaps you remember me from when I visited your lovely town with the Tartière family a little over a year ago? My husband is Jacques Tartière.”
The mayor looked up at me and then Nadine, no warmth in his demeanor. “I don’t remember you,” he said. “And I am very busy; what’s this about?”
“I noticed that Villa L’Écureuil is currently empty. It is owned by a family friend of the Tartières, who has told us we are welcome to use it anytime.”
“I need to see your identification, both of you,” he said with a grunt, finally looking us up and down with disapproval. “Why do you want the house?”
“I have a friend who is sick, with cancer. I was going to bring him here to convalesce,” I said, handing him our cartes d’identité.
“And my husband, Jacques, who has also been ill, may be coming out to stay as well,” I added; better if he believed that I knew my husband’s whereabouts. He examined them for a minute longer than necessary.
“You’re too late; the keys are in the hands of the German commandant, Herr Fieger. Please go,” he said, handing me our papers and looking back down at whatever he’d been working on when we arrived. Nadine, eyes wide, signaled me with her thumb that we head out, and I nodded. But halfway out the door I changed my mind.
“As a Frenchman, you would really prefer the Germans in that house to me and my family?” I said, trying to keep my anger in check at his disloyalty to his own country. I heard Nadine let out a small gasp behind me.
“Madame,” he said, raising his voice to a growl, placing both hands on his desk, “I am following the orders of Marshal Pétain. France is now under the military government of the occupying German army. I must be correct with them, as they are with me. And I don’t like it when an American woman comes into my office like she owns the earth and tells me what I should prefer!”
“OK, good day, monsieur, sorry to bother you, have a nice day,” I said, smiling. I wasn’t going to get anywhere with the petulant mayor. I walked backward out of his office as Nadine grabbed on to my arm and pulled me down the hall.
“He is worse than a Nazi,” she said, making a sour face. “Maybe we should just go back to Paris? We are never going to get that villa.”
We stood next to our bikes, and I looked down the main street, the sun shining, villagers greeting each other, sharing gossip or news of loved ones at war. And amid the provincial calm was the jarring sight of the green-gray uniforms of German soldiers sitting at the cafés and strolling down the streets.
“No, we don’t have time to come up with an alternative plan,” I said. “And I’m not going to do nothing and let myself be intimidated by a politically calculating mayor.”
I got on my bike and started to ride.
“Where are we going?”
“Down the street to the headquarters of the German commandant.”
“We are not,” Nadine said, stopping her bike in the middle of the road, nearly getting run over by an old man driving a cart and mule. “Have you lost your mind?”
“Nadine . . . ,” I said, hands on my head, frustrated and tired. “We desperately need a place to move to outside of the city, and I have no alternative plan. I have to at least try.”
She looked at me, leaning on her handlebars, and let out a dramatic sigh. “All right. Fine.”
“Thank you . . . Oh, one other thing—do you speak German?”
“No,” she said, and burst out laughing. “Do you? No, of course you don’t.”
“Not one word,” I said with a wink.
We had to wait for an hour in the lobby of the hotel that the Germans had taken over as their headquarters in Barbizon to see the commandant. Two soldiers who looked no older than teenagers greeted us politely and, in stilted, broken French, communicated that Herr Fieger would be back from lunch soon. There was a German-French dictionary on the lobby’s front desk that they let Nadine and me borrow, and I scanned it to try to become fluent at a toddler level before he arrived.
“Look, over there,” Nadine said as she pointed to a board of keys behind the front desk, each one with a label attached. “I see the keys to your villa.”
“If only it were my villa,” I whispered back.
Herr Fieger finally strutted into the lobby, and the two soldiers gave him the Hitler salute, which never ceased to make my stomach turn. He had a barrel chest and his pale hair cut very short, and I guessed he was in his late forties. One of the young soldiers pointed to us and told him we were there waiting for him. He looked at us appraisingly, and the stern look on his face softened into a wide smile, taking in our appearance. The Germans admired Nordic looks—blonde hair, pale skin, looks like mine—and I banked on that working in our favor.
“Bonjour,” he said, his expression embarrassed due to his stilted diction. But when he detected my accent, he started speaking English fluently.
“I studied at the London School of Economics,” he said with a smile. “And you’re American?”
“Yes,” I said. “My husband is French, and his family spent many summers here in Barbizon.”
“How may I help you?” he asked.
“If you please,” I said in my sweetest voice, looking into his eyes. “My dear friend is very sick with cancer and needs a place to stay in the country to convalesce immediately. Villa L’Écureuil is owned by a close family friend of my husband, Jacques Tartière. I noticed it was empty, and, if possible, I would be so grateful for the opportunity to lease it.”
Herr Fieger nodded at me, and then Nadine, his hand on his chin, thinking it over.
“At your service, madame,” he said. Clicking his heels, he kissed both of our hands. Then he snapped his fingers and signaled one of the young soldiers to bring over the keys to the villa.
Offering us each an arm, he proceeded to escort us down Grand Rue. Nadine had looked at his arm like it might set her on fire, but, knowing we had to play this little game, she had put her hand on his elbow. I smiled flirtatiously at him again, not quite believing he was going to go through with it. Villagers stared at us, confused as to who these two women were walking with the German commandant.
Herr Fieger had to drop my arm to salute many German soldiers along the way, and for the sake of getting the villa, I had to hide my revulsion every time. When we arrived at the courtyard-gate side entrance, I saw Marion peeking out from behind her lace curtains, and she smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. The commandant took out the ring of keys and opened the creaking courtyard gate, escorting us inside with a dramatic flair.
“Voilà, mesdames,” he said, holding his arms wide and taking a bow.
“Danke schön, Herr Fieger,” I said as he handed me the keys.
“Thank you very much,” Nadine said with a coquettish smile.
We both shook his hand, and he left the courtyard, closing the gate behind him, looking quite pleased with his chivalrous ways.
I stared down at the ancient key ring he handed me on the way out, not quite believing what had just happened.
“I cannot believe that he just . . . he just handed them to you, like nothing?” Nadine said, still staring at the courtyard gate.
“Voilà?” I said with a shrug, holding up the keys. She looked at them in amazement and then we both started laughing.
“Welcome to Villa L’Écureuil,” I said, linking arms with her. “Let me give you a tour; we have a lot of work to do.”
