Part Six: Operation Overlord — Chapter 1 - The Barman of the Ritz

PART SIX: OPERATION OVERLORD

FEBRUARY 2, 1944

Paris is in the throes of a blizzard. It snowed heavily all night. Gusts of wind have piled snowdrifts high on the boulevards and still the snow falls. It’s been bitterly cold these past few days. Behind the wheel of the Ritz’s little van, Hans Elmiger drives with the utmost caution, his nose pressed to the windscreen of the Citroën T23. In the passenger seat, Frank Meier is in a fog, devastated by his own inaction.

His battle is going nowhere. You cannot fight a war alone. Süss and Luciano are gone. Blanche is still in prison. Having no news of her is agony. Marie Sénéchal, the chambermaid, has been fired, so he can’t even distract himself with plans of revenge for her betrayal of Luciano. Frank managed to stay strong for a few days, until the Gestapo’s suspicions of him were dispelled, then he crumbled. Engulfed by a terrible sense of grief, he has lost the will to act. His courage has grown stiff with age and cowardice has prevailed. For a while, he clung to his regular visits from Inga, but after the summer she went back to Germany. She left him a vintage edition of Goethe’s poems as a souvenir. He still flicks through it sometimes but finds in it more sadness than comfort. He can no longer even tell himself that at least he is helping Jewish families: since Süss left, he has not provided a single forged passport. Fersen suggested it might be prudent to stop, that the risks were too great now that the Vichy government is controlled by pro-Nazi French. For months now, Frank has been resigned to his fate, like the haggard young men he knew back in the trenches who had to be shaken out of their apathy when it was time to go over the top. His son has tried to get him to talk, but to no avail. Jean-Jacques and Pauline are worried. Every morning, it is a little more difficult to get out of bed, and every night, as he opens the bar, he loses a little more of his soul. Meanwhile, the Germans are holding strong. No matter what happens in the outside world, there they are in his bar, every night. It is getting harder and harder to pretend. Frank needs to get a grip on himself, but there is nothing he can do, something inside him is broken… He works like an automaton, going through the motions. In the twenty minutes they have been driving, he and Elmiger have not exchanged a word, and that suits Frank just fine. He can no longer tell how he seems to other people. Like a dead man walking, probably.

“We’re here.”

Frank sits up in his seat, and, through the fog, he can just make out warehouses on the Rue Lecourbe.

“I’ll go and talk to them while you park the van, monsieur,” he says to the hotel manager.

“Thank you, but I would prefer that you wait for me before going in.”

Frank has not set foot on the Left Bank for almost a year. They are here now because the Germans have decided to inspect all the stores and depots owned by the Ritz, looking for weapons or explosives hidden by “terrorists.” Mostly, it seems to be an opportunity to commandeer anything of value that might have eluded them thus far. Elmiger had no choice but to agree. This morning, he has tasked Frank with a secret mission: while he shows the German guard around, he wants the barman to discreetly retrieve a few bottles of grands crus from the stores that he and Süss hid there for safekeeping just before the Nazis marched into Paris in 1940. Frank has always hated this neighborhood. Dirty, dreary and gray, it reminds him of the squalor of the Favoriten district in Vienna. A little way off, five boys are playing at war in a wrecked car.

What are they doing out in this cold?

And when did they last have a meal? They look emaciated.

The intensifying bombing raids and the damage to the streets have made it even more difficult for people to get supplies. Yesterday, Pauline arrived home saying that it was impossible to find a piece of meat in all of Paris. To say nothing of the fact that the price of a single egg has soared to twenty-five francs. Some mothers deliberately wound themselves in the hope of being hospitalized and getting food for their children.

The German officer salutes Elmiger and strides to the warehouse. Brandishing a bullwhip, he orders the hotel manager to open the trunks, one by one. Elmiger does as he is told. The lids swing open to reveal all manner of curiosities, treasures entrusted to the Ritz by the guests who fled Paris: a Fabergé egg of lapis lazuli, a tortoiseshell comb, an ivory shaving set, an ebony walking cane, an Hermès leather saddle, poplin dress shirts from Charvet, an antique book on wigs at the Court of Versailles, a Tuareg dagger in a sheath set with rubies…

Frank watches as the officers begin to realize that they will not find a weapons cache belonging to the Resistance and try to think of some excuse to requisition a few of the trunks. If he and Elmiger weren’t there, they would doubtlessly already have taken everything. While the officers are studying a snuffbox of carved buffalo horn inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the hotel manager gives Frank a wave. Time to slip away. He has five minutes, no more. He has room in his bag for four, perhaps five, bottles. A champagne, two white wines, two reds; that should be enough to replenish the Ritz’s reserves.

Frank was expecting to feel something at seeing his cellar again, but when he turns on the light, he feels overwhelmed. There must be at least a hundred thousand bottles here. He had forgotten there was so much, and only now remembers that it took them six weeks to transport everything over in the first place. If the three German officers were to see these treasures, they would undoubtedly commandeer them, even with Elmiger present. What to choose? Get a move on, Frank, trust your instincts. He starts with a Krug 1911, a vintage that has all but disappeared, a true museum piece. Then two bottles of Meursault. He carefully wraps these in brown paper so that they don’t clink, and places them in his bag. When he comes to the Bordeaux, he spots a 1921 Château Haut-Brion but settles for a 1909 Château Pétrus. In the two minutes remaining, he just has time to survey the Burgundies and finds a 1933 Romanée-Conti. Frank is about to go back upstairs when he hears the now-familiar guttural growl.

“And below, what’s down there?”

Shit. The short, stocky lieutenant has seen the entrance to the cellar. Frank feels a rising panic. What can he possibly tell the officers? A hundred thousand bottles—how can he explain that away? He feels the sweat trickle down his back. Breathe. The old wooden steps creak beneath the weight of the lieutenant’s jackboots. The man is wide-eyed.

“Mein Gott! Was ist das, Herr Direktor?”

“A wine cellar,” says Elmiger simply.

“From the Ritz?”

“Just so.”

“Sehr gut, you have hidden this from us. We’re taking all of this!”

Elmiger stops him with one hand, with astonishing calm.

“I am very sorry, Herr Oberleutnant, but that is not possible.”

“Ach, why not?”

“Because… this is Reichsmarschall Göring’s personal reserve.”

“Mein Gott! I had no idea!”

“Monsieur Meier is something of a personal sommelier,” Elmiger continues. “He is intimately acquainted with the Reichsmarschall’s tastes.”

“Jawohl, jawohl. Forget what I said…”

Elmiger smiles.

“A bottle for your lunch, Herr Oberleutnant? Just between us, of course.”

“Nein, danke schön.”

“Very well, then. Have we finished? Like you, I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

A few moments later, Frank and Elmiger are back in the Citroën T23.

“I managed to get five bottles.”

“Excellent.”

“And I have to say I was very impressed with your quick thinking. He froze as though Göring himself had caught him red-handed. That took nerve.”

Elmiger gives a modest smile and settles into the passenger seat. Frank gives him a sidelong glance as he turns onto the Boulevard Pasteur. Elmiger reminds him of those men in the trenches in the Ardennes who proved themselves in the baptism of fire. Many came to the front lines looking taciturn and anxious. Often schoolmasters or clerks, they had tears in their eyes and were desperate to go home. But, against all odds, their cautious temperament made it possible to survive. Under the sustained machine-gun fire, a moral strength was forged within them. They straightened their backs, tightened the straps on their helmets, and overcame their fears. As the days of shelling passed, the very men who had been quickly judged as cowards assumed a quiet self-confidence that reassured other soldiers. Many even led their men over the top.

“What are you thinking?” Frank says, wiping the mist from the windshield.

“I hear that you are in the business of false papers, Meier, that you can help people escape Paris.”

They come to a crossroads. The Citroën stops. Frank doesn’t answer but stares straight ahead. He senses trouble and finds he can’t move.

“Don’t worry!” Elmiger says, noticing Frank’s sudden discomfort. “Süss told me. Unbeknownst to you, you have already helped a friend of mine. A man who had been rounded up in Lyon and sent to the internment camp at Drancy. He bribed one of his guards with money that was slipped to him in a parcel, managed to escape and hid out in the attic of the Ritz for three weeks last December. Thanks to the papers you provided, he was able to make it to Spain. Now he is safely in London.”

“I’m glad to know that I have been helpful,” Franks says, allowing a small smile to cross his lips.

“Much more than that, Frank. You have been brave.”

Elmiger knew all along.

“Could I ask you a question, Monsieur Elmiger?”

“Please do.”

“Why did you fire Marie Sénéchal?”

“For her repeated indiscretions. She created such a scandal among the chambermaids, it was impossible to keep her on. It was complete chaos.”

“You didn’t sack her because she accused Luciano of being a Jew?”

“That wasn’t her! You don’t know?”

Frank almost missed the turn onto the Rue de Vaugirard.

“Do you?”

“Of course I know. I thought you did too. It was one of our former fishmongers, Bertrand Barterote.”

“Barterote? I can’t put a face to the name…”

“Early thirties, from Cherbourg. He was standing next to Luciano at the urinal in the staff toilets and saw that he was circumcised. Straightaway, he called one of Lafont’s thugs in the hope of getting a tip. Three days later, the bastard resigned to join the French Gestapo at the Rue Lauriston.”

Shit. I’ve been such a fool. He had almost taken his revenge on an innocent woman.

“Marie Sénéchal is a good girl, really,” Elmiger says as though reading Frank’s thoughts. “She’s just in the market for a husband, and she is prepared to take whatever she can get. All the young Frenchmen are either in Germany or in the Resistance, so she has little choice. We shouldn’t be too quick to judge her.”

Frank can think of nothing to say.

“So, have you had word from Luciano?”

“No, nothing.”

Last week, Frank finally decided to send a telegram to the Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz, but he has yet to receive a reply.

“Is there any news of Monsieur Süss?”

“No. He has completely disappeared,” Elmiger says after a moment. “It’s just you and me now, in the middle of a snowstorm.”

A snowstorm that has swallowed up my friends. Who else will be swept away before this damned war is over?