Part Two: Strategic Warfare — Chapter 6 - The Barman of the Ritz

“Close the curtains, turn down the lights, and pour us both a dry Martini,” murmurs the spectral wife of the erstwhile manager.

Blanche is already heading towards the bar.

“Did anyone see you come downstairs?”

“No, of course not! Pour us a drink, Frank, please.”

The barman’s hands are clammy.

He’s already doing her bidding. He knows she’s trouble. He knows he should ask her to leave, and he also knows that he won’t.

“Who did I hear you talking to?”

“Luciano, my apprentice.”

Warily, she glances round the bar. Frank reassures her: they are alone with their memories and with the mute rage in Blanche’s eyes. Or perhaps it is fear? He has already grabbed a bottle of Beefeater.

“Frank, look at me, please. Frank!”

Now it’s clear: that look in her eyes is sheer terror. “Who here in the hotel knows I’m Jewish, apart from you and Claude?”

Frank is startled. He swallows hard. “No one. Why…?”

“What about the attaché at the embassy who helped us?” she says quickly, urgently.

“He was reassigned to London two years ago.”

Blanche does not seem comforted.

“But Frank, haven’t you heard the news?” She glances around the bar, lowers her voice to a whisper. “Yesterday, the Nazis decreed that all Jews have to register at the local police station by the end of October.”

There has been nothing about this in the newspapers: all the front pages were filled with stories of the humiliation of General de Gaulle’s fleet off the coast of Dakar, and the Battle of Britain being fought over the North Sea.

“But why?” asks Frank.

“Because they want us to be tagged like cattle. I’ve had a gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach since this morning.” There is panic in her eyes, her lips quiver as she speaks.

“According to your passport and your papers, you’re an upstanding Catholic, madame, so you don’t need to worry.”

“How can I be sure?” Blanche says desperately. “I mean, you could turn me in to the Widow any time.”

“Why would I do that?” Frank runs a hand through his thinning hair.

How could she even ask such a thing?

“I don’t know—to curry favor with her, to protect your position? That’s the world we’re living in now—everyone is corrupt, everyone is out for themselves. We do what we have to do to survive.”

Does she really believe what she is saying? If so, she can have no idea of the depth of my feelings for her.

“Oh, Frank.” Blanche takes his face in both hands. “Put yourself in my place: I’m at my wits’ end, I can’t think about anything else. I can’t help it. I feel as though I’m surrounded by enemies. And I have no one to blame but myself. After all, I agreed to come back from Nice with Claude. But there’s a silver lining to our return: I have been free from morphine for three months now.”

Frank was right, she had been going through withdrawal.

“Well, you could at least act surprised! Maybe I have a survival instinct after all. I had to stop before it killed me. I really thought I was going to die. I spent whole days and nights in bed tormented by terrible migraines. I didn’t care about anything. Sometimes I’d wake up bathed in sweat and want to claw the skin off my arms.”

“Does Monsieur Auzello know?”

Blanche gives a sad little laugh.

“Claude doesn’t know anything. He thinks I’m scared because we’re here, because of the Nazis, because of the Widow. He feels guilty that he persuaded me to come back from Nice. He can be so naive sometimes.”

She shakes her head, then drops her voice to a hoarse whisper.

“I’m so terrified I can barely sleep. A couple of nights ago, I got up at two in the morning and I left our apartments—it was the first time since we came back. I wandered the hotel corridors. I didn’t see anyone, apart from the chambermaid collecting Nazi jackboots to polish overnight. I realized that my life could have been like hers, I could have been a chambermaid in a Manhattan hotel. Would I have been any less happy? Absolutely not. Certainly not now that I find myself surrounded by a pack of ravenous wolves!”

“Be kind to yourself, madame. Show your face around the hotel from time to time instead of shutting yourself away. Go out, get some fresh air, that should help dispel these fears.” Frank manages a small smile.

Will she take my advice?

“I haven’t gone out into the city yet,” she says as Frank pours two dashes of vermouth into the cocktail shaker. “Claude told me how much everything has changed. Paris under enemy occupation, soldiers everywhere. Apparently, all the Krauts are buying Chanel N^o 5 for their wives. Berlin will stink of the stuff! Coco must be raking in a fortune—some people seem to have all the luck. That said, she has been evicted from her suite, just like us. The old hag could only get a tiny room up in the attic. Serves her right!”

“At least this way she gets to save money.”

Blanche flashes him a wan smile. The penny-pinching ways of Coco Chanel are a private joke for them.

“Claude saw her yesterday sitting at a table in the summer garden with a dashing German officer. I can’t help wondering what she’s plotting.”

“That would be Baron von Dincklage,” says Frank. “Everyone calls him Spatz.”

According to rumor, as soon as she came back from the Côte Basque in August, Coco Chanel took the baron as her lover. She hoped he might help free her nephew André, a prisoner of war in Bavaria, who had developed tuberculosis. After her sister’s death, she had sworn to look after the boy.

“I’ve missed you, Frank.”

How Frank has longed to hear those words.

“I’ve missed you too,” he murmurs as he slowly pours their cocktails into two Martini glasses.

“Do you know something, Frank? I’ve always felt safe inside your bar, no matter the chaos of the world outside. I think the other guests do too. It’s part of what makes it feel so magical.”

Frank is unsettled by the intimacy of the moment; rarely has he seen Blanche so effusive yet so vulnerable. For a moment, he is tempted to tell her his secret: that, like her, he is also a Jew, and that he too is afraid, for himself, for her, and for Luciano.

The dim light of the bar envelops them in tender silence.