Mission to Paris: A Novel Read online

  ‘A reasonable editor – I’ve always thought so.’

  ‘He is. I suspect that the, um, perspective you describe simply didn’t occur to him.’

  ‘Perhaps it should have.’

  ‘And so I’ll tell him – we still have time for Wednesday’s edition, and Bonheur works quickly when he wishes.’

  ‘That would make us all very happy, Albert. We really believe in Le Temps, it’s the perfect place for our advertisements.’

  ‘Well, that makes me happy. I can send over the early edition, if you like.’

  ‘That would be wonderful, Albert. Now, tell Jeanette to expect a call from my wife, and prepare to be savaged on the court!’

  ‘We’ll give you a game, I can promise you that.’

  ‘Looking forward to Wednesday, and we’ll talk later this week.’

  ‘Until then, Philippe. Goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye, Albert.’

  When you are in Paris, you have to make love to somebody.

  Stahl was not immune to this, nobody was. And now that life would go on, now that he would not be blown up by a bomb, now that he would make a film, he couldn’t bear to be every night alone. The sandpiles had vanished, the gas masks – insufferable to the entire population over the age of ten – had been returned to the closet, the taxis were back. And as the autumn skies closed in over the city, as the lights in the shops went on at dusk, he grew lonelier and lonelier. He consulted a telephone directory and left a message with a maid for Kiki de Saint-Ange. She called back that evening, her voice warm and surprised. A drink at Le Petit Bar? She loved Le Petit Bar, she loved the Ritz, could he pick her up Friday at six? On that night, the simple act of walking out the hotel door excited him.

  Kiki on Friday night: a black silk cap, snug and shimmering on her chestnut-coloured hair, a very different cocktail dress than the one she’d worn at the party, hem above the knee, neckline daring, in black wool crepe soft and thin enough to show her body when she moved. With silver-grey pearls and earrings, and precise but assertive – child-of-the-night – make-up on her eyes. At the tiny bar, they settled on chairs before a low table, they ordered champagne cocktails, they chatted, he explained the fading bruise on his face, she looked horrified, then sympathetic, then laid a hand on his forearm, poor thing, brave man, such dreadful times these are, what will become of us? Would she care to have another cocktail? Oh yes, why not? Even at the Ritz, a pretty couple. He heard his voice, low and rich – a tale of seafaring, a tale of Hollywood, the adventurer, the wanderer. Her turn: the country house of her parents by the Loire, picking wild strawberries, lost in the forest with her best friend Lisette, a sudden downpour. A husband in Paris, an Italian nobleman, how sad when these things went wrong. ‘Another cocktail? I don’t know … oh what the hell … I don’t know what’s got into me but tonight I don’t care.’ She met his eyes.

  There was a line of taxis outside the Ritz but they walked, out of the Place Vendôme where jewellers waited, up into the cluster of streets near the Opéra. It wasn’t that cold but it was cold enough – she shivered and leaned against him, he put his arm around her and could feel warm skin beneath the thin fabric of her raincoat. Down a side street, a blue neon sign, hotel dubarry; only two windows wide, anonymous, cheap but not dangerous. He never said a word, neither did she; they slowed down, stopped, then turned together and went up the single step to the door. The proprietor was casual, as though expecting a couple like them to appear around this time of the evening. ‘A room for tonight?’ he said. On the third floor, she cranked the window open and a breeze ruffled the sheer curtains. She was, when her clothes were off, smaller than he’d imagined – narrow shoulders, bare feet flat on the brown carpet, a hesitant smile – and, when he embraced her, even smaller. It was more pleasure than passion, as they played, courting urgency, which duly showed up, stronger than he’d thought it would be and welcome, very welcome.

  AGENT OF INFLUENCE

  12 OCTOBER, 1938. THE LEAVES WERE TURNING ON THE PLANE TREES that lined the boulevards, women brought out their scarves, and Jules Deschelles held a luncheon in a little bistro, Mère this or Chez that, near the Luxembourg gardens. Twelve settings, gleaming white and silver, were laid out on the big table on the second floor, where some of the cast and technicians who were to make Après la Guerre would dine together. For Stahl, the event brought a measure of relief, but also some anxiety.

  Relief came in the introduction of the female romantic lead, Justine Piro, a veteran actress of the Parisian stage and film world, not quite a star of the first rank but a good name on a marquee, who would play the Hungarian adventuress, down on her luck and stranded in Damascus. When they were introduced, Stahl took her hand and brush-kissed her on both cheeks, then they took a good, long look at each other. Can we succeed together? Justine Piro – accented on the last syllable in the French pronunciation – was dark, hair and eyes, dressed simply, and not a beauty in midday restaurant light. But Stahl suspected that on screen she would be stunning, a mysterious transformation wrought, in certain individuals, by photography – ‘the camera loves her’ a common saying in the movie business. Nobody could really explain how this worked, but work it did. Stahl also met the soundman, the set-lighting man, and the crucially important character-lighting man, whose job was to emphasize and refine facial expression and physical presence. He could make you a better actor by moving a light one inch. Stahl thought Renate Steiner might attend, but Deschelles explained that she was out at the Joinville studios, working on another movie. The musical composer who would score the film had not yet been hired.

  Anxiety came with the arrival of the second lead, the one-named character actor known as Pasquin. Single-named male actors, like Fernandel and Raimu, typically had the adjective ‘beloved’ permanently stuck to them in print, and so it was with the beloved Pasquin. He was, however, in his professional reputation, not much loved at all. ‘Feared’ said it better. Pasquin was enormous, enormously fat, with three chins and a cherub’s round cheeks, above which tiny, jet-black eyes glittered with malice. Pasquin had a ferocious temper, and he drank: a volatile combination.

  Pasquin was, like Fernandel and Raimu, a southerner, and early in his career had played in movies set in Provence and Marseille. In one of them, Alphonse Gets Married, the production’s director, famously hard to please, called for take after take of a certain shot – action at Alphonse’s elaborate wedding feast – and by the nineteenth take, the character played by Pasquin revealed a new and unexpected dimension. The placid and philosophical village baker now scowled and hissed his line, ‘What if she doesn’t want to?’ This was meant to be spoken in a whining voice by a helpless and befuddled man. But not now. The way Pasquin delivered the line it now meant that ‘if she didn’t want to’, he would tear her head off and throw it through the window. ‘Cut!’ said the director. At take twenty-five, a half-crocked Pasquin lost his famous temper and took it out on the feast. As he swore and shrieked, hams and chickens flew through the air, the bride was showered with olives, the director struck in the face by a hurled artichoke, and soupe au pistou spattered the ceiling and the camera.

  In Après la Guerre, Pasquin would play the earthy sergeant to Stahl’s melancholy warrior Colonel Vadic, and Stahl liked the casting well enough, though how the sergeant retained his girth in a Turkish prison camp might require some ingenuity by the screenplay writers. When Pasquin arrived at the bistro – late, his breath reeking of wine – he squeezed Stahl’s hand in a vicelike grip and muttered, ‘So now Hollywood comes to France.’ Stahl just smiled – I hope you don’t expect me to answer that. Pasquin was trouble, but he was exceptionally popular. With a strong director … Stahl told himself hopefully, then turned away to talk to the set-lighting man.

  And there would in fact be a strong director. As the cheese plate went around the table, Deschelles announced, like the cat that got the cream, that he had signed Jean Avila to direct the film. Stahl’s outward response was properly impressed and appreciative but h
e immediately understood this was either a brilliant choice or a catastrophe. Everybody knew the name Jean Avila: twenty-five years old, with two masterpieces to his credit, the first suppressed by the French government, the second recut, and ruined, by film distributors. He came from a violently political family, his father, a famous Spanish anarchist, strangled in a French prison in 1917. Avila himself followed his father’s politics, but his genius was, for anyone who’d contrived to see either of the films, beyond question. In Stahl’s view, Deschelles had shown himself, and surely Paramount, to have serious ambitions for this movie.

  Stahl left the restaurant – after yet one more delicious lunch barely tasted, a professional commonplace – with Justine Piro, and they walked for a time in the early-autumn afternoon and talked amiably. She said she liked his work, and he sensed she might actually mean it. He enquired about her life, she told him she was married to a physician and had two girls, eight and eleven. They got on well together – at least in the daily world, what might happen on a movie set God only knew – and in time she took the Métro back to the Sixteenth Arrondissement. As Stahl crossed the Seine, he was happier and more excited with every step. Maybe Après la Guerre had a chance to be a good film, maybe even very good. So the message waiting for him at the Claridge didn’t bother him all that much. Not at first, anyhow.

  Stahl read the message in the lobby. 12.25. Mme Brun at the American embassy telephoned, please call her back at Concorde 92 47. His reaction developed slowly, so he was still a film star as he got on the elevator, but by the time he reached his rooms he was an émigré, and called immediately. ‘Ah yes, Monsieur Stahl,’ Mme Brun said. There was a pause, as though she had to consult a list to see what they might want with this Monsieur Stahl. Apparently, she found it. Could he be so kind as to visit the embassy, when convenient? Mr J. J. Wilkinson, the Second Secretary, wished to speak with him. Stahl said that he could. And would it, she wondered, a note of oh dear in her voice, possibly be convenient tomorrow morning, at 11.15? It would. Mr Wilkinson’s office was in the chancery building, by the Hotel Crillon – he knew where that was? Yes, he did. Mme Brun’s version of thank you and goodbye, now that she had what she wanted, was effusive, and genteel.

  Stahl, moments earlier, had been his most optimistic and confident self, but the prospect of the meeting made fast work of that. What could they want? Was there some sort of problem? Sternly, he told himself to cut it out. This was most likely no more than a courtesy call. But it didn’t feel like a courtesy call, it was as though he’d been summoned. No, no, he was Fredric Stahl, a well-known and respected performer, and need have no fear of any government. But another instinct, an older, deeper instinct, told him just how wrong he was about that.

  In a quiet grey suit and the plainest tie he owned, he took a taxi to the Avenue Gabriel, just off the Place de la Concorde, and arrived well before the time of the meeting. He was expected – an official escorted him to the top floor of the chancery, where he waited in a chair outside J. J. Wilkinson’s office. A minute before noon, the door opened and the Second Secretary waved him inside.

  It was a large, comfortable office with a window on the courtyard, a bookcase with numbered volumes on one wall, an official portrait – an oil painting – of President Roosevelt on the wall above the leather desk chair, the desk bearing stacks of paper, reports, memoranda, correspondence. J. J. Wilkinson, in shirtsleeves and loosened tie, his jacket over the back of the chair, was all smiles and affability. He was about fifty, Stahl guessed, with the thickening body of a former athlete and a heavy, boyish face. He might be cast as a guest at one of Jay Gatsby’s parties, scotch in hand, flirting with a debutante. Was he, perhaps, an Ivy League alumnus, making his way easily through a familiar world? Maybe. In the corner, a squash racquet leaned against the wall. Wilkinson indicated the chair across from his desk and said, ‘Thanks for dropping by, Mr Stahl, sorry about the short notice but this wretched business with the Czechs has kept us from our normal routine.’ He glanced at a page of handwritten notes and said, ‘Anyhow, as a resident alien of the US you’re supposed to check in with us when you arrive in Paris. Not everybody does that, of course, and we don’t really mind, but this visit will take care of it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Stahl said.

  ‘So, yes, ah, you’ve been a resident alien for eight years. Any thought of taking US citizenship?’

  ‘I intend to. I’ve been meaning to go to the class, fill out the forms … but I’ve been in one movie, then right away another …’

  ‘You surely have, and very successfully. I’ve seen you, of course, but I never remember movie names.’ His tone was apologetic. ‘Only that I enjoyed them. And with American movies you see in Paris, it’s always someone else’s voice, speaking French, which, frankly, bothers the hell out of me. The last time I saw John Wayne, and he said, “Maintenant regardez, Slim”, it tickled me so bad my wife poked me in the ribs.’ He grinned at the memory. ‘Anyway, what do you think of Paris, these days?’

  ‘Not the same as it was, back in the twenties, but not so different. It’s still the city you fall in love with, despite the politics.’

  ‘Pretty grim, all this hostility, no?’

  ‘It is. The French didn’t used to be so, um, concentrated on it. Before, it was more like a game, but now it’s a war.’

  Wilkinson nodded, I’m glad you agree with me. ‘I’ll tell you something, by trade I’m a lawyer in a Wall Street firm, but I worked for the Roosevelt campaigns in ’32 and ’36 and, believe me, there was plenty of rough stuff going on. But, compared to France, in the last few years, it was child’s play. And now, with war coming …’ He paused, then said, ‘I saw an announcement of your arrival in the Paris Herald and I admit I wondered, I mean, what the hell made you come here now?’

  ‘Jack Warner,’ Stahl said.

  Wilkinson laughed, a bass rumble, and his eyes lit up. ‘I should’ve figured that out,’ he said. ‘But there’s a story about Jack Warner which might explain it. A few years ago, the Warner Bros. representative in Berlin, a man named Joe Kaufmann, was beaten to death by Nazi Brown Shirts – they didn’t like it that he was a Jew – and Warner closed the Berlin office. Then he started to make anti-fascist movies, and he got letters threatening to burn his house down. The other moguls, Goldwyn and Harry Cohn and the rest, don’t want to get involved, but Jack Warner decided to fight, bless his heart.’

  ‘Well, the decision to have one of his actors do a movie in Paris came from the top, from Jack Warner, personally.’

  ‘Glad you came? Showing the flag?’

  ‘I’m not sorry. Actors are told, “always avoid politics, it’s bad for the box office”, but I found out right away you can’t.’

  ‘How so, found out?’

  ‘Two weeks ago I was caught in a street march and got hit in the face with a steel rod. That’s the worst, but it started earlier. I was invited to a cocktail party – a salon – and they carried on like crazy, peace with Germany, peace with Germany, all we want is peace.’

  From Wilkinson, a knowing smile. ‘Which hostess? There are four or five – they’re infamous.’

  ‘The Baroness von Reschke. What a terror! And there was someone else, a man called, what’s his name, he makes champagne, DeMotte? No, LaMotte. Philippe I think.’

  ‘Ah yes, the Comité Franco-Allemagne, a Nazi propaganda outfit.’

  Stahl stared at Wilkinson. ‘You mean … literally? Nazi as in managed from Berlin?’

  Slowly, Wilkinson nodded up and down. ‘Yes indeedy. You’re shocked?’

  ‘I guess I am. Isn’t that, um, espionage?’

  ‘Properly called “political warfare”. One form of espionage.’

  ‘The French government must know what’s going on, can’t they do something about it?’

  ‘They know everything, but they don’t do anything.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Wilkinson raised his eyebrows, surprised that Stahl didn’t know the answer. ‘Political repercussions?’ h
e said, as though reminding Stahl about the nature of the world. ‘Politicians in power have to run for re-election, so what are they handing their opponents? They’ll be accused of being against peace, against negotiations; they’ll be called warmongers. And they’ll lose the election, which means leaving Paris, and going back to some town in the Auvergne. But that’s only one part of it, the other part is worse. The French know they were finished in 1917, and they were, until American troops showed up. So they’re scared to death they’ll push Hitler too far, scared to death of war – they lost a million and a half men the last time, and more than twice that wounded. And they know they’ll lose again if the Wehrmacht crosses the border.’

  ‘But, the Maginot Line …’

  Wilkinson sighed, burdened by knowing more than was good for him. ‘The Maginot Line is a political tactic of the French right. Supposedly it protects the nation, which believes in it as though it were magic, which means the French won’t fully mobilize, won’t spend enough money on armament, and won’t invade Germany. It virtually pleads for Hitler’s mercy, and it won’t work. It’s meant to delay, as the French wait for the British to show up, and then they both wait for America. Meanwhile Hitler builds offensive weapons, tanks and warplanes.’ He moved a marble pen stand to the centre of his desk, picked up a stapler and circled it above the marble stand, then pressed the top and a staple popped out and clicked against the stand. ‘I could make an airplane noise, but you get the idea. That used to be the Maginot Line.’

  ‘So what can they do?’

  Wilkinson shrugged.

  Stahl was silent for a moment, trying to sort out what Wilkinson had told him. If his statements about the baroness and LaMotte were true, then some very rich and powerful people in Paris were working for the enemy. Finally he said, ‘What do they want with me, these people?’

  ‘You’re an important person, Mr Stahl, well known, respected, from a powerful part of the world. People will listen to what you say, they may even change their minds. I recall you once played a doctor, is that right?’