Part Four: War of Attrition — Chapter 10 - The Barman of the Ritz

JULY 14, 1942

Two months have passed and no one has died—at least no one at the Ritz. The British pilot was successfully smuggled out, but Fersen made it clear to Frank that he would not always be able to help in such emergencies. As Süss predicted, the demand for forged papers has soared: since June, all Jews in Paris have been forced to wear the yellow star.

On the Eastern Front, the summer weather has allowed the Wehrmacht to advance into Russia. In the south, the battle for Bir Hakeim is over; German troops have routed the 1st Free French Brigade and retaken Tobruk. There are times when Frank almost wishes that the Germans would win.

If only to put an end to this bloody uncertainty!

Frank feels utterly shattered. He cannot confide in anyone and almost regrets his divorce. He no longer has any contact with Maria; he does not even know where she lives. Fortunately, he has just received a letter from Jean-Jacques, which made him happy, and eased his loneliness. In the letter, his son told him that his cousin Pauline had joined him in Nice, where they were sharing an apartment and supporting each other.

For the third time, there will be no Bastille Day celebrations at the Ritz. For the past three years now, the little satin tricolors have been moldering in cardboard boxes. Despite the lack of celebrations, Frank’s bar is packed on July 14. Barbara Hutton is wearing a new necklace of extraordinarily large pearls. She’s got so thin she looks emaciated. It’s terrifying. Next to her, Laura Corrigan is singing Lucienne Delyle’s latest hit, “Mon Amant de Saint-Jean,” in a New York accent. Leaning on the bar, Charles Bedaux, armed with a toothpick, is trying to skewer the olive in his dry Martini, with as little success as he has had landing a ministerial role in the Vichy government. Sacha Guitry mockingly whistles the Marseillaise in muffled tones while he polishes his spectacles. His play at the Madeleine, N’écoutez Pas, Mesdames!, has been a roaring success. At the table behind him, two recently arrived young German officers are playing backgammon and giggling like children.

Sitting alone at her table, Florence Gould has spent the past hour writing—is it a letter to her husband, or maybe to her lover Captain Jünger? Serge Lifar is quibbling with a journalist about republican decadence and moral bankruptcy. The journalist proposes a toast to Maréchal Pétain, Bedaux raises his glass. Jean Cocteau is sketching in a notepad, while his laughing friends try to guess what he is drawing. Their amusement seems to be irritating the elderly Wehrmacht commander with the balding pate who is sipping his glass of Veuve Clicquot at the far end of the bar. This is the third time he has come to the bar this week, without ever saying a word to anyone. Frank is convinced that he is listening to everything.

Nearby, Coco Chanel is sitting at a table with her uniformed lieutenant and some young woman Frank does not recognize. Like a strange doll with heavy makeup. A blonde-haired creature with porcelain skin, delicate features, an aquiline nose, and sparkling eyes. There is a cat on her lap, a copper-eyed Chartreux that she is languidly stroking. As he listens intently, Frank catches just a hint of a German accent in her otherwise impeccable French. She is talking about having seen the Breker exhibition earlier today, and about the amusing prank that Pierre Laval’s daughter, Josée de Chambrun, played on some friends she invited to her home on Tuesday. She announced to her guests that Arno Breker “had gifted her with an original” and promptly had an athlete stride into the room, naked as the day he was born. Coco Chanel laughs. The woman with the cat shoots Frank a meaningful look.

That’s the second time. Who is this woman?

He will not get the chance to find out as, just then, the telephone rings and Luciano beckons him.

“Monsieur Elmiger has asked to see you in his office right away.”

“We close in less than an hour. Tell him I’ll come and see him then.”

“He was very insistent, monsieur. He wants to see you immediately, he says it’s urgent.”

What could possibly be so urgent? Elmiger has spent so long walking a tightrope that now he sees danger everywhere.

Diary of Frank Meier

The worst has happened. Did I secretly suspect that it was inevitable? One way or another Blanche’s loose tongue was going to get her into trouble.

Elmiger was pale when I entered his office. One cigarette dangled from his lips while another burned out in the ashtray. Never had I seen him so serious. I was instantly on my guard. What did he know? Who had he been talking to? He gestured for me to take a seat in the chair opposite him. But I remained standing, so great was my panic. I felt small beads of sweat gather on my forehead, but I dared not wipe them away. I didn’t want Elmiger to see my fear.

“What’s happened?” I said, my voice not my own. Do I have time to run should it come to that? Or are they already on their way to arrest the Jewish barman?

“Please, Frank, sit down.” Elmiger gestured once more to the chair and I all but fell into it.

“Blanche Auzello has just been arrested by the German police,” he announced. The ground beneath my feet seemed to disappear. They had not come for me, then, but for Blanche.

“Tell me what happened,” I asked him, barely audible. Something strange had happened to my voice. Elmiger sighed, took a long pull from his cigarette and began to speak. I leaned forward, concentrating to catch every word.

“She and Lily were having dinner at Maxim’s,” Elmiger explained. “They ordered champagne and langoustines. The waiter told them they had run out of langoustines, but ten minutes later, he served a German colonel a seafood platter piled high with them. Blanche flew into a rage and lashed out at the maître d’hôtel: ‘I see there’s only food for Krauts here in town,’ and so on. You get the picture. Then she raised her glass and shouted ‘Vive la France!’ ”

My God. What is wrong with Blanche? It is a question I have asked myself a million times.

“They were asked to leave. Outside, two officers of the Gestapo were waiting and they were taken away in a van. About an hour ago.”

It was hard to believe, to understand. The Gestapo! Arrested! Would I ever see her again?

Elmiger went on to tell me that he had been informed of the news by the maître d’hôtel from Maxim’s, but that no one else knew yet, including Claude. Then he asked the question I feared most: “Frank, you know Blanche, is there anything that might put us at risk if she were to talk?”

Elmiger was staring at me, as though trying to read the answer in my face. I prayed my face was as blank as the snow in winter. And then, without waiting for an answer, he jumped out of his seat, fury in his eyes.

“She’s a Jew, isn’t she? Tell me the truth, Frank!”

Oh dear God.

“No!” I almost shouted, also getting to my feet. Elmiger and I were watching one another, like two lions, each waiting for the other to pounce. But then he seemed to deflate and sat down again.

“Monsieur Meier,” he said, his calm restored. “Do you really think I don’t know what goes on in my hotel? And then there are the rumors of the Englishman in the attic! Can you imagine? We searched and searched, of course, but we didn’t find anyone. Do you know anything about that? Madame Auzello could have got caught up in this whole affair by her friend Kharmayeff’s Bolshevik connections.”

Tell the customer whatever he wants to hear: it never occurred to me that life as a barman would have prepared me for an interrogation. I too had regained my composure by that point.

“Madame Auzello would never do anything that might jeopardize her husband,” I said, firmly.

He was intent on informing Madame Ritz, but somehow I persuaded him to hold off for the moment. The women were drunk, they’ll sober up and the Krauts will let them go, I reasoned. Thankfully, Elmiger agreed.

As I stood to leave his office, I felt a blade of terror in my stomach. Terror and rage. I needed a drink, something strong, but I couldn’t face the crowd at the bar. I wandered the hotel corridors until I could walk no longer and slumped onto a sofa in a hallway.

Blanche in the hands of the Gestapo! How could she be so stupid—insulting the Germans at Maxim’s! What will they do to her? Will they torture her?

Never did I imagine that the end of our story could come so abruptly.