Part Six: Operation Overlord — Chapter 8 - The Barman of the Ritz

MAY 18, 1944

The Allied landing is expected any day now. Every morning brings the same newspaper headlines: the Allies are bombing, and the Germans are executing “terrorists.” At the Ritz, time stands still. They are waiting. In the west wing, the French guests languish amid the last vestiges of opulence and luxury; these days they take what little comfort they can in comparing their lives to those outside or in listlessly sipping cocktails at the bar. In the east wing, the Germans are in a frenzy, fearfully spying on one another. Their allegiances have splintered under the threat of the looming siege. They too are drinking a lot—Frank’s reserves of schnapps have almost run dry.

Amid these sad scenes, in the greatest secrecy, encrypted messages are being passed over the bar. There are half a dozen people taking part in these exchanges, some uniformed, others in civilian clothes. They arrive just as the bar opens, or when it is at its busiest, but always with the utmost discretion. Frank is the middleman. There are a few poems, but most contain cryptic phrases or a series of numbers intended to imitate betting odds. To his surprise, the betting has started up again; Frank is convinced that someone issued an order so that the flurry of betting slips being passed over the bar would hide other messages.

There are fewer and fewer leftovers to be had from the kitchens.

When not on duty, Frank wanders the streets of Paris, hands in his pockets, fists clenched, his heart aching. Jean-Jacques spends all his free time with a new girlfriend—Frank does not know her name, only that she works as a salesgirl at the Galeries Lafayette on the Grands Boulevards. Frank misses his son, misses the first inkling of a filial relationship. But children grow up, forge their own lives, and move away. Just as he had done.

In recent days, Frank has been thinking a lot about his mother. What would she have thought of her son’s behavior during this strange war? Holed up in comfort at the Ritz, incapable of telling a woman he loves her. He thinks she would have accepted that there are mitigating circumstances. Perhaps she would even have been able to convince him that he has done his best.

After he left for New York, Frank never went back to visit his parents in Vienna; he genuinely believed at the time that he had left forever, which has proved to be more or less true. His mother died of tuberculosis at the age of forty-one, three years after his “escape.” For weeks, he’d cried like a baby in his little Manhattan room. His father died a few years later in 1912, aged fifty-two, an alcoholic in a Favoriten slum. By then, Frank was back in Europe but was so swept up in his new life that he did not even go to the funeral. To this day, he does not know where his parents are buried. Probably in paupers’ graves. He has never been back to Vienna, though he has had the opportunity many times since he began working at the Ritz. Wracked with guilt, he has been nursing his grief for the past forty-five years. Perhaps this sense of abandonment is the price he has paid for his achievements.

It’s also been the driving force behind my success. I’ve always known that.

As he crosses over to the Left Bank, Frank leaves the Palais Bourbon behind and smiles wistfully as he thinks about times past. He ended up living in Batignolles by chance, after his divorce. How many boxes has he never unpacked? Recently, he feels as though he has been living alongside Jean-Jacques and Pauline, despite the floors separating their apartments. Not that he is complaining: his relationship with his son is calmer now, and his niece has turned into the lady of the house. She sometimes teases him about his unpacked boxes, but how can he confess to her that he lives in a state of perpetual uncertainty?

Always ready to flee in the middle of the night. Forever an exile.

Turning onto the Boulevard Saint-Germain, he sees a mass of German troops marching in formation. Are they marching towards the English Channel for the final battle? The caterpillar tracks of the panzers shriek across the boulevard in a sinister symphony. Opel Blitz trucks trailing gun carriages are filled with young soldiers headed for damnation.

Frank is still lost in thought when a woman’s voice calls to him from across the street.

“Monsieur Meier! What are you doing here?”

It is Marie Sénéchal. Frank gives her a smile.

“What about you, where are you headed with that suitcase?”

“To Montparnasse train station,” she says. “I’m going home to Quimper.”

“To visit your mother?”

“Yes. And then to take shelter. Please, monsieur, you must take care and keep safe. The Yanks are coming!”

Her face is illuminated on the boulevard.

“What do you know about it?” asks Frank.

“I’ve got another German boyfriend, and take my word for it, the Krauts know they’re coming soon. I’m scared stiff.”

“So where is this boyfriend?”

Marie shrugs.

“I haven’t told him I’m leaving, I didn’t want to have to deal with goodbyes. No thanks. But he’ll get over it. I was never in love with him the way I was with Karl. You know I never heard a word from that little rat again? It was devastating. I was heartbroken, you know.”

She sniffles vengefully, as though this new German soldier she is leaving has to pay for the way she was treated by her “little captain.”

“It’s funny seeing you like this,” Marie says. “Just this morning, I saw Madame Auzello on the terrace of the Café de Flore with her friend, that Russian woman. And I often think about poor Luciano. Have you had any news of him?”

“Not a word.” Frank shudders.

“We used to fight a lot, but he had a good heart. And I swear it wasn’t me who informed on him.”

“I know, Marie. I know.”

“You really should go back home too,” Marie continues. Frank says nothing, but bows his head to her.

“Well, my train leaves in forty minutes.”

“You be careful, Marie.”

“You too, Monsieur Meier.”

Go back home. But where is that? That’s the problem.