Nine

Paule and Veelee returned to the flat in high spirits just before one in the morning. They had left Hansel dancing and drinking and eating with Gretel as though he had never had an uncomfortable moment. Veelee was whistling as he opened the door. “I wouldn’t have given Hitler credit for having such taste,” he said.

“Well, my God, Veelee, the man isn’t blind.”

He closed the door and walked past her toward the kitchen. “How about a little wine?” he said.

“Bring the Moët,” she called after him.

He stuck his head out of the kitchen door. “I’ll bring the Schaumwein.”

“Bring the Moët! French champagne is the only champagne and you know it and you just tease me.”

“Oh, yes. The French champagne.”

“And don’t change the subject,” she shouted. “We were talking about me and Hitler.” She dropped her wrap on the chair, she unhooked her dress and let it fall to the floor around her feet. She wriggled out of her brassiere and stepped out of her shoes as she heard a fine, popping sound from the kitchen and Veelee emerged with a bottle of Moët and two glasses.

“Great God in heaven, you are a gorgeous woman,” he said huskily.

“That awful Goebbels woman came over to me later and told me how much her Fuehrer had liked me. She wanted to know how she might reach me so that I could come to dinner and maybe lay him before the sorbet.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her I was a Jew.”

“Ha!” He poured two glasses of wine and chuckled with delight.

“You should have seen her face.”

“Once was enough, thank you. I saw it in 1930.”

“She called me a bitch.”

“Ach! And what did you do?”

“I kicked her in the ankle. We were standing close in the crowd and I let her have a real bone-cutter.”

He rolled back onto the sofa in laughter and she plopped down beside him. “Now you’ll never get invited to one of her dinner parties,” he said.

Paule pushed him over and stretched out on top of him and kissed him lingeringly. “How I love you, Veelee,” she said. “My God, how I love you.”

“I love you more.”

“Couldn’t be.”

“I am twice as big as you. My heart holds more.” He rolled out from under her and took her in his arms.

“You know, I thought of Papa tonight,” Paule said. “When that murderer kissed my hand and I felt so ashamed that I didn’t say—”

“Didn’t say what, sweetheart?”

“Didn’t say to Herr Hitler that he was kissing the hand of a Jew.”

“But he would have loved you for it.”

“What?”

“Of course—it’s a known fact. They make bets on it. Whenever Hitler is attracted to a women she is always racially impossible. That’s why he’s such a confirmed bachelor—he’s afraid he’ll go and get himself engaged to a Jew.”

“Veelee, you devil—”

“No, really. If you had told him he probably would have said, ‘Well, don’t tell me I did it again?’ I mean it.” Paule grabbed him again and kissed him, then dropped the shoulder straps of her slip. Her beautiful body contracted and expanded, and her great purple eyes grew dimmer and dimmer as she stared at him. “Oh, Veelee,” she moaned. “How I love you, how I love you.”

Veelee was asleep on the broad double bed wearing the white silk pajamas which Paule had had made for him at Lanvin. She sat beside the open window wearing his heavy blue robe. She decided that there was nothing she could have done in that ballroom and that her father would have agreed that there was nothing she could have done. But his kiss still burned into the back of her hand like an infection, and more than ever before she felt her Jewishness. She knew that it was time that her husband knew what she had known for many weeks. Shivering in her dread, yet warmed and exultant because of it, she walked to the bed and touched Veelee’s shoulder. He stirred and mumbled and his eyes flickered. “I am going to have a baby,” she said. He sat up bolt upright, still partly asleep.

“How can you tell so soon?” he asked thickly.

Her eyes widened with mirth, and she pointed her long finger at him and began to giggle helplessly. She tottered and staggered in circles around the room, wailing with laughter and holding her sides. Veelee began to laugh. As she reeled near the bed he grabbed her and pulled her quaking body to the bed. “By God,” he said, “if that’s how it works I’m going to try for twins.”

Veelee returned to Wuensdorf the next morning, leaving Paule in the sun-bathed bed, happy and at peace. Whatever had happened to turn everything around and to rearrange the sliding furniture within her mind was wonderful. She understood clearly now that it made no difference if she did not like most of her exterior life. She had Veelee and he loved her. No harm could reach her or her baby because of Veelee and his mighty German Army. She dressed slowly, then rode to the Zoological Gardens. She walked with the lively crowds to browse through Wertheim’s and Tietz’s, buying a large jar of calf’s-foot jelly, then took a cab to the Vierjahritzheiten Theatre. It was matinee day and Dame Ellie Lewis, the great English character actress who had been her father’s favorite from the time she had helped him to get started in the French theatre, was appearing. Paule’s only connection with the old carelessness was with such touring players. She studied the newspapers to know if any foreign companies had been booked. Sometimes they would be French actors and old friends. Sometimes they would be English or Italian. All of the stars knew her father. All of them were a link with Paris and with the cheer of the past. She knew that such visits kept her young for Veelee. They reported frivolity and bubbling meaninglessness, and that was what she needed in her life in Germany.

Dame Ellie Lewis was said to be eighty-seven years old. She had a remarkable memory for the distant past. Whenever she played Berlin Paule arrived at her dressing room with a jar of calf’s-foot jelly before the first matinee performance, and the old lady would repay her with a new reminiscence about the splendor of Paul-Alain Bernheim.

“You know, Paule,” the great lady said, “for years I have been meaning to ask you something very important. My husband is ninety-four now, the poor man, and he dotes upon unraveling secrets.”

What a joy it was to hear French spoken again. How could she have forgotten? She must insist that Veelee speak French to her every weekend.

“It was 1921, I think,” the old woman said, “and my question is: What was the name of the restaurant because of which your father won the quarter of a minion francs from Benoit Lesrois?”

“Restaurant?” Paule’s memory wasn’t as sharp as Dame Ellie’s. “Oh, no! I remember what you mean. It wasn’t a restaurant at all.”

“Fascinating! Oh, dear me, my husband will be thrilled. We were in at the very beginning of that wager, you see. It started at our restaurant, the old Hotel du Golf. Benoit Lesrois was a gourmet of such caste that he employed two writers to turn out his bon mots about food and wine. Restaurant proprietors were delighted to have him dine at their establishments—absolutely free, of course, because of the glory his approval could bring.”

“Monsieur Lesrois still is a most formidable man,” Paule said.

“He was the greatest causist for fine food in all the world. He invented the congressional system of feeding, you know. He organized thirty-nine seemingly not connected feeding and drinking societies, which he designed principally for North Americans who cannot bear to eat well alone. He became an uncommonly rich man because of this.”

“He became so pale when he drank.”

“He became as white as chalk only when he drank the red wine of Pauillac, Château du Colombier-Monpelou”

“His third wife was called Josette Monpelou.”

“Ah.”

“Papa admired her.”

“Of course. Well, one evening in the Restaurant du Golf your papa had ordered ortolans under white truffles. When they arrived he opened a small tin of something called condensed milk which he poured over the ortolans and truffles, ate it with gusto, then washed it all down with a Montrachet ’o6—a wonderfully rewarding wine and a long keeper—which he mixed before everyone’s eyes with some American soft drink he had brought with him in a grotesquely shaped bottle.”

“They sent it to Papa from America.”

“My dear, Benoit Lesrois left his chair like a wounded water buffalo and knocked your father off his chair. Your father took up his cane and beat Lesrois out of the restaurant while Smadja, the old sommelier, struck feebly at your father with a long, white napkin. There was total chaos in the restaurant, and four soufflés which my husband was cultivating were ruined. Lesrois rushed to his newspaper and at white heat wrote his famous column “J’accuse!” and attacked your father, calling him a disgrace to France. Your Papa answered with a full-page advertisement which carried only the name Benoit Lesrois followed by three words: Liberté? Egalité? Fraternité? Monsieur Lesrois was hissed wherever he went, but your father was hissed wherever he went, too, and it was of far more consequence in his case, because he was an actor.

“A solution had to be found. Your father sent Monsieur Lesrois a letter which said Lesrois was too fat to be challenged to a duel. And he was a huge man—he looked like Sir Toby Belch, as Jupp played him. Instead of dueling, your father offered to bet Monsieur Lesrois a quarter of a million francs that he could take him to a restaurant that Lesrois would not be able to identify but which he would have to agree was the finest restaurant he had ever patronized. He was so clever, your papa. He returned the quarrel to the stomach and removed it from the area of patriotism which was causing the hissing so disturbing to his performances.”

“He never told me they hissed him in the theatre,” Paule said in a shocked voice.

“Well, naturally. He was an actor. The very idea of the wager so amused Lesrois that he accepted at once and spread the word all over Paris. He kept laughing heartily right up to the second forkful of food.”

“I was there!” Paule said with excitement. “I ate with them! I was the official witness!”

“How delicious of your father to provide a ten-year-old witness.”

“Oh, no, madame. It was Papa’s analysis that Monsieur Lesrois could not defile my innocence by denying what had happened.”

“But what did happen, child? What was the name of the restaurant?”

Paule giggled with delight. “There was no restaurant. You see, first Papa had had a recording made at Foyot’s which reproduced all the sounds in a restaurant at the height of the dinner hour.”

“Why?”

“Aha! You will see. Papa fetched Monsieur Lesrois in the big Hispano-Suiza and blindfolded him. The car drove to Cours Albert I. As they got out of the car I was in the main hall with the gramophone and I played the special recording of Foyot’s—and do you know what?”

“What?”

“As Monsieur Lesrois, led by Papa, crossed the main hall, he said, ‘Sounds Lice Foyot’s to me.’”

“Excellent.”

“Papa told Monsieur Lesrois that they would eat in a private dining room where they would be joined by his daughter as a witness. When he took the blindfold off we were in our small dining room where the windows had been masked. Clotilde served the meal wearing only a black leotard, a white lace apron, a black mask and a white lace cap, and Monsieur Lesrois actually sniffed his disapproval.”

“He must have thought he was in a bordello.”

“I think so too, because he wanted to say something but my being there seemed to stop him. Well, the food began to appear. Monsieur Lesrois just wept quietly while he wolfed the caviar. It was the roe of the yellow-bellied sterlet.”

“How in the world did your father ever get it?”

“A Russian Grand Duchess.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Few foreigners, indeed few people anywhere, have ever tasted it; it had always been reserved for the Russian Imperial Court before the revolution. Monsieur Lesrois kept wolfing it and weeping and saying, ‘Where did they get it, Bernheim?’ Papa answered, ‘The late Tsar liked this little place—he came here a great deal incognito. I suppose he left them a barrel or two of the stuff.’”

“Oh, the poor man. But then, he did go beyond his depth when he offended your papa.”

“The bourride du Midi came next, with a good Tavel served—inside a ripe watermelon—you know, la pastèque de la Provençe. Monsieur Lesrois began to mumble a prayer of thanksgiving at his first taste of the Salmis de palombe d’Etchalar. Those were the only words he spoke for the remainder of the meal. He kept his beady little eyes fixed on the kitchen door when his plate was empty. Concentrating utterly, he just ate and wept and wept and ate. After the gras-double au safran à l’Albigeoise came the contrast of a gratin de ris de veau truffé, and at this, Monsieur Lesrois began to whimper pitiably.”

“But who was this great chef, my dear? The knowledge of such food grayed Lesrois overnight you know, and the lines in his face became absolutely harrowing.”

“That was the cruel part of Papa’s revenge,” Paule said sadly. “When the last ice disappeared, Monsieur Lesrois pleaded for the name of the restaurant and the name of the chef, but Papa refused, smiling. Monsieur Lesrois bullied and cajoled, saying he could make the chef the most famous man in France. Papa just smiled, and Clotilde served a ripened meringue layer cake. By the time Monsieur Lesrois was sipping Papa’s epic Calvados his face had taken on a desperate, lost expression which I shall never be able to forget. I could see in Monsieur Lesrois’ face the knowledge that he would have to fill the time until his death knowing that within Paris there was food such as he had just eaten, but that he would never enjoy again.”

Tears filled Dame Ellie’s eyes and she dabbed at them with a handkerchief. A boy banged on the dressing-room door and called, “Fifteen minutes.”

“And the name of the chef?” she asked. “I will never tell. I won’t even tell Alan.”

“The chef was Miss Willmott, who had been Papa’s English nanny. She is one of the geniuses of our epoch.”

“What contours doth justice have,” Dame Ellie intoned. “Perhaps it is better, at that, that Monsieur Lesrois never know that the cook of the greatest meal of his life was an Englishwoman. But justice did not halt right there, you know, my dear. Your wicked Papa was repaid for his cruelty. Years later he told me that he had spent the entire wager on flowers for an auto magnate’s wife who, in what your father considered to be one of the best-kept secrets of all Paris, he discovered to his bitterness to be a devout Lesbian.”

The old woman kissed her goodbye, and Paule picked her way across the debris of the backstage and left the theatre feeling as euphoric as though she were accompanied by her father himself. Gisele was waiting for her at the Adlon, and they had lunch and a refreshing hour of gossip. Gisele had to leave early for a fitting and so she scurried out the Wilhelmstrasse exit. Paule strolled on the Unter den Linden. A parade was making its way down the Charlottenburg Chaussée toward the Brandenburg Gate. Every sort of Berliner was at the curbside as the marching, brown-shirted men came abreast. They were singing lustily, and the drums and brass of a band rang out behind them:

“Zum letzen Mal wird zum Apell geblasen,

zum Kampfe steh’n wir alle schon bereit,

Bald flattern Hitler-Fahnen über alien Strassen,

die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit;

Bald flattern Hitler-Fahnen über alien Strassen

die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit.”

Paule asked the woman next to her what the occasion was. A storm trooper in front of her turned around. He had very small eyes that seemed to have been pasted to either side of his nose. His mouth was twisted into a sneer. “What kind of a German are you?” he said to Paule. “Horst Wessel died for this country two years ago today.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” The storm trooper turned away. The elation that she had always felt during a parade began to fade. A mass of party flags went by, dozens of black swastikas in white circles laid upon fields of blood. Paule felt someone grab her arm roughly; the storm trooper was shouting at her. “You are too good to salute the flag? Are you a German or are you some kind of filthy Jew?”

Paule felt herself tremble with outrage. She stared into his tiny eyes with flat distaste. “Franz! Set to!” she said and spat into his face. He punched her heavily and instinctively, knocking her backward into the crowd. She lay on her back and saw him rushing to her, his thin lips drawn back from his teeth, his heavy boot raised to kick her face. But miraculously the crowd closed around her, eager hands pulled her to her feet and spun her back and back, hiding her with their bodies. “You filthy Jew! Filthy Jew bitch!” the choked voice screamed after her as she stumbled toward the stone columns and the large lanterns at the doorway to the Adlon.