Mademoiselle Chanel (29 page)

T
he driver that the maître d’hôtel located for me went by the name of Larcher and demanded a criminally exorbitant fee. He refused to take my Rolls, arguing that it would only call attention to us. I had to leave my car behind in the Ritz garage and clamber into his rattling Cadillac with its grease-stained seats, already loaded with his own things. The clamor to leave Paris had taken on a frantic air, with even the most privileged bartering for whatever means of transport they could. Given the circumstances, I could not afford to quibble. Ordering the concierge to stencil my name onto my trunks and store them in the hotel, I left with one suitcase, hoping my other belongings would not end up in some Nazi fräulein’s closet.

I had not thought in advance of where to go and debated whether to seek refuge with Adrienne. I decided against it, thinking her home would be too crowded. I elected to travel south to La Pausa instead, until I determined what came next.

We braved the congested roads, inching along among carts piled with belongings and aged relatives, packed buses and private cars wedged between mule-drawn wagons and thousands of people with children in tow, trudging by the roads or heaped on bicycles, wincing every time an airplane droned overhead. It was not long before I realized I’d never make it.

That was just as well. Three days into my journey, word came that Italy had joined Germany and was bombing the Riviera in retaliation for a British air strike on Turin. Behind me, Paris was receiving incendiary strikes on its outskirts, prompting more terrified residents to leave everything behind and flee on foot. I could not have turned back even if I had wanted to.

“We’ll go to Corbère,” I told Larcher, after paying more for petrol from a roadside government profiteer than I would have for diamonds. “My nephew has a house there.”

Corbère was near Pau, close to the Pyrenees on the Spanish border. It was rumored that Franco had struck a pact with Hitler. Perhaps there would be no trouble there.

Banished memories of the past returned to torment me. I had not been out in the world with so little since my youth, and I clutched my suitcase and handbag to me like weapons. As the situation grew more dire, people would turn savage. I saw plenty of evidence of this as we drove. Under a drenching rain, those who had been bludgeoned and robbed sat with faces in their bloodied hands as their children and wives stood by helplessly, ransacked luggage at their feet.

Finally, after days of taking muddy back roads to avoid the chaos, we reached Pau, where an afternoon downpour lifted to admit rain-speckled sunshine. I thought of staying awhile but resisted the temptation, pressing onward to the village of Lembeye. By now, I was traveling blind. I had no idea if Paris had fallen, if the Germans had overrun the city or burned it to the ground; if those of us who had escaped would find ourselves trapped, forced into desperate gambits to get across the border into Switzerland or Spain.

By the time we reached Corbère and my nephew’s red-tiled home, I was nearly dead from exhaustion. André’s Dutch wife, Katharina, rushed out with my niece as I staggered from the mud-spattered car, every inch of me aching from the long drive. Katharina enveloped me in her embrace as she whispered, “Gabrielle, thank God. We thought something terrible might have happened; the news from Paris . . . it’s terrifying.”

I had not heard any news but could now assume the worst. Murmuring
that I was tired but otherwise fine, I turned to my nine-year-old niece. She had grown since I had last seen her several years ago, when André and Katharina came to visit and I took them out for tea at the Ritz. I recalled a sturdy fair-haired toddler who stuffed her mouth with éclairs until Katharina scolded that she’d get a tummy ache, which indeed she had. Now, she regarded me solemnly, with her mother’s blue eyes and André’s piquant face, reminding me with a jolt of how my sister Antoinette had looked at her age. I found myself blinking back unexpected tears.

“Tipsy,” I said softly, using her childhood nickname. “Do you remember me?”

She nodded. “You’re Auntie Coco, the lady with the pearls. When we went to Paris to visit, you gave me éclairs.”

I smiled despite my overwhelming fatigue. “Yes, I’m Auntie Coco. But this time
sans
the pearls or éclairs, I’m afraid.” I held out my hand to Tipsy as Larcher unloaded my suitcase and bag. “Will you help me inside?”

Without a word, she took my hand and led me into the cozy château.

I SLEPT FOR TWELVE HOURS STRAIGHT.
When I finally woke and bathed—the water ran off me black with soot—I went downstairs to the kitchen to sit with Katharina, Tipsy close by my side with her somber expression as we listened to a static-filled broadcast over the wireless that confirmed Paris’s surrender to the Germans. They had entered the city in a monstrous parade of their indomitable panzer tanks, marching down the Champs-Élysées as silent crowds gathered to watch—all those who’d failed to get out in time or had been forced to turn back when the roads were blocked by Nazi soldiers. On the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, they hoisted their red flag with the black swastika; Hitler had announced he would arrive to make his tour of the city and decide its fate. Our defeated, craven government defected to Vichy, France’s southern capital, where I’d first tried my luck at fame. Already they abased themselves to avoid reprisal, offering to abolish the French Republic and institute a cooperative division between occupied areas and the southern portion of France.

I could not hold back my grief anymore. It came pouring out of me, a gut-wrenching torrent of sobs as I sat with tears sliding down my face and whispered, through choking breaths, “Not a fight. Not one. No one even lifted a finger to stop them.”

Katharina started to reach for me, but Tipsy hugged me first, wrapping her thin arms around my neck. “Don’t cry, Auntie Coco. Don’t be sad. Paris is not dead.”

Unable to speak against her bony chest, finally, after days of keeping it pent up inside, I let myself
feel
. Misia and Cocteau; my apartment with my possessions; my shop—they were all still there, as far as I knew.

Paris was not dead. But in my heart, nothing would ever be the same again.

THE WIRELESS WENT OUT
on occasion or broadcast only a crackling nothingness that sounded more ominous than any news could be but we eventually learned that Hitler had decided to spare Paris. Instead, he would make the city a prized possession of his Third Reich. Triumphant German-paid announcers took to the air to proclaim that the Nazis were our friends and we need not fear friends—“unless of course you’re a Jew or a Communist,” I remarked to Katharina. “Then you’d better hide in the cellar.” I had started to revert to my former self, gaining resolve as the seclusion of Corbère worked its pastoral magic on me. Despite everything, I was still alive.

Unfortunately, Katharina received word through a contact in the village that the Germans had captured and imprisoned thousands of our soldiers. We feared André might be among them, though we had no way of establishing his whereabouts. Katharina rummaged under the floorboards for a tin filled with money, which brought an unwitting chuckle to my lips, reminding me of my tin in Moulins. Together, we went to the village to pay the contact for more information; he worked in the rural telegraph office and promised to try, but I knew almost at once that he would fail.

“We need to be in Paris to make a proper inquiry,” I told Katharina
as we returned to the house along the winding path, wildflowers flattening under our feet, the mountains rearing in the distance with nature’s majestic indifference. “Maybe I should go there and find out myself.”

She gave me a startled look. “You only just left Paris, and the wireless says the Germans are not advancing farther. They may leave us alone here.”

“Yes, but André isn’t safe, not if he’s a prisoner. Someone needs to find him and you have Tipsy. You must stay here. I, on the other hand,” I said, with a careless shrug, “have nothing to worry about save myself.”

She was not convinced, but over the next few days, as Tipsy enticed me to play ball with her and plait daisies in our hair, I formulated a plan. It was rudimentary and risky, as any movement now would be, but I was still somebody, I explained to Katharina, and not suspect in any way. “I’m a famous designer. I paid for my suite at the Ritz in advance. I can return anytime I want. I know everyone; the Germans wouldn’t touch me.”

She bit her lip, looking down at her work-chafed hands. Though I had always provided André with ample money for his expenses, he and his wife had elected to live simply, their home rustic and tidy, their needs few. She had more than enough to get her through the next months, while I did not. I had fled Paris with a few articles of clothing and not much else. Indeed, I was down to the last precious drops of my sedative, my syringes and supply of injectable Sedol still packed in my trunks at the Ritz. I wasn’t sleeping well; I could barely look in the mirror, stunned by my haggard appearance, my dark-rimmed eyes and gaunt cheeks, my sallow skin and seamed lips, which my one red lipstick and powder compact could not erase. I was seeing myself as I had that horrible night in Vichy when Balsan found me—a woman growing old before her time, only I was not young anymore.

“I am almost fifty-eight, too old to be a refugee,” I went on, reaching over to clasp Katharina’s hand. “I’m not meant for all this. I must go back. André needs me.”

At length, she nodded. “But you must not compromise yourself. Promise me. André wouldn’t want it. If it’s not safe, if you fear any harm, you must come back.”

“Of course,” I assured her. I refrained from voicing my belief that
coming back might prove even more difficult than my exodus had been. Once I returned to Paris, I could not hope to go unnoticed. Even the Germans—especially high-ranking officers—would know who I was.

“You must be very careful,” said Katharina. “These rumors we keep hearing about the Jews . . . They say already in Poland, they’re herding them into ghettos like cattle.”

“I’m not a Jew. You mustn’t worry. I’ll find André and bring him home. What else is Auntie Coco good for these days, eh, if not to be a spy?”

Prophetic words, though I did not realize it. Still, as I kissed her good night on the cheek and climbed the stairs to my bedroom to pack, I was more frightened than I would ever admit.

For the first time in my life, Paris had become a place I feared.

TAKING LARCHER,
who had eaten his fill of goat cheese and ham, and drunk the one tavern in the village dry, I made my way to Vichy. The ramshackle government holed up in the city was supposedly cooperating with Hitler’s new order and many of Paris’s displaced elite had sought refuge there, their access to deluxe havens in the Riviera cut off by the bombing.

We were down to petrol fumes by the time we reached Vichy. I was amazed by the utter indifference I encountered—the bistros and restaurants bursting with customers, the fashionable strolling as always down the boulevards. The women, I noted, wore stylish huge hats that were the latest trend, but looked as overblown to me as they had been in 1910. I found accommodation in the garret of a gendarme boardinghouse after plying my name everywhere. Alas, every hotel room was booked, I was told. After taking a tepid bath in a lime-streaked tub, I put on my best jersey ensemble, applied my makeup, and went to the spa restaurant to dine.

I had barely sipped my consommé when a voice cried out, “Coco! Coco, darling, is that really you?” A pretty brunette in a slim tweed skirt and fitted jacket hurried over to me. She smiled with exaggerated relief. “It
is
you. Oh, isn’t it marvelous to find a familiar face!”

It took me a moment to identify hers: Marie-Louise Bousquet, one
of the many socialites who religiously attended the Graumonts’ costume balls. She noticed my hesitation, for she pouted, waving her hand over her person. “Have you forgotten me? I am one of your devoted customers. Look—this is one of your outfits.”

“Naturally I remember you,” I said, rising to kiss her on the cheeks, though in truth I barely did. “Please, won’t you join me? Whatever are you doing in Vichy?”

Out came the familiar tale, no doubt shared by thousands. She had left Paris upon the Nazi invasion with whatever she could carry, but now, “I’m so terribly bored. It really is ghastly here. So
provincial
. They’re not at all concerned about anything; indeed, I’m told there is nothing to be concerned about.”

“Yes.” I glanced at a nearby couple, toasting with champagne and laughing. “I did notice it’s like high season here.”

My tart remark was overheard; the man at the table swerved in his chair to me and glared. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

“I meant,” I said, “that people seem very cheerful.”

Marie-Louise wasn’t a skilled socialite for nothing. Turning a brilliant smile to the scowling man, she purred, “Do you know who this is, monsieur? She is Coco Chanel.”

He grunted. He clearly didn’t know or care who I was, but his wife, at his side, did, for she nervously touched his shoulder, directing an apologetic look at me as she murmured, “Don’t be rude, dear. She is quite famous.”

“Is she?” The man turned back to his table. “When? She looks a hundred years old.”

My hand clenched my fork. Marie-Louise waved aside the remark, saying to me, “I was hoping you were planning to return to Paris. Tell me you are. I am simply desperate. The Graumonts are still there; so are many of our friends. I’m told it’s perfectly safe for us.”

I did not fail to detect the emphasis she placed on “us.” She meant anyone with the means and status to weather the tiresome setbacks of occupation.

“The Germans don’t hate us,” she went on. “They love France. They’re
living at the Ritz, attending the theater and the Opéra, dining out; they have money and they’re spending it, just like old times.
Très joli!
” As she laughed with as much élan as the couple at the table, I resisted the sour twist in my gut. “Will you come with me?” she asked. “A woman traveling alone these days is hardly safe, but two of us . . .” She paused. “You have a driver, I suppose?”