Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 (34 page)

Back in Paris!

December 1, 1940

Dear parents,

As you know, you and I have now become official allies, or unofficial enemies, depending on whether one thinks that Hungary's being forced to join the Axis puts us on the same side, or in opposing camps. What if this letter were read by the censors in France or in our homeland? Would they come after me, or—my hand trembles—would they hunt you down? My fear of that is so profound that this letter will never be mailed but will join the growing pile of aerograms I put aside to send when we can again communicate safely. Before my courage failed, I sent you a few letters. But they were returned, and I have stopped trying.

You must know many Hungarian boys who have been drafted to fight for the Nazis or to work in German factories. For the moment I am, believe it or not, above the age of conscription. But every day the parameters are widened to fill the need for cannon fodder and free labor. I know you would not want that for me, though I suspect there are times when you think, At least a soldier's parents get letters home from the front!

I am keeping these unsent letters in the box in which I have saved our correspondence. That box was among the things that drew me back to Paris from the south. I couldn't bear to imagine your letters falling into the hands of the vandals who might invade my studio and help themselves to my prints.

Everyone knew that I worried about my work. But I could tell no one, not even Suzanne, how I feared for a box of letters. Leaving them behind was one of the foolish choices that I, like so many Parisians, made in panic and haste.

A blazing poker pierces my chest when I open the box and Mama's potpourri rises from the blue paper strudel. I would give
anything
to wake up tomorrow and find a letter fretting about my insomnia, which is worse than ever since the curfew was reimposed. Now, as we move from shadow to shadow, we can be shot at by drunken soldiers.

I cannot describe the longing I feel to see you. Only with you can I recall certain incidents from my childhood. Only you will understand that I am telling you the
real
truth about what life is like now. The incident of the caterpillar. The incident of the landlady's goose. The incident of the algebra teacher. The incident of the butcher boy and the broken bottle. The incident of the hotel maid. The incident of the beehive. Especially the beehive.

I have forgotten how to pray, but I entrust us all to Mama's prayers, if prayers are permitted under the new dispensation. Papa, you would know the name of the poet who said,
“
Shorter are the prayers in bed, but more heartfelt.” A poem about a medieval knight on the eve of a battle. I think you'd translated it from German, but I am not even sure of that.

I should throw this letter in the fire. But though I am a coward, I will keep it with the others and give it to you when the war is over and I can deliver it in person.

Till then, from your son who thinks of you always,
Gabor

From
The Devil Drives: The Life of Lou Villars

BY
NATHALIE DUNOIS

Chapter Twelve: A City at War

 

LOU VILLARS HAD
mixed feelings when Germany invaded France. As a patriotic Frenchwoman, she was naturally less than delighted to see a giant swastika hanging from the Arc de Triomphe, German soldiers goose-stepping down the Champs-Élysées, and signposts in German measuring the distance to Berlin from the Bastille. But she understood that this was a temporary situation. A temporary
inconvenience,
like leaving one's car in the shop for repairs.

The Germans weren't annexing France but
fixing
it. Their ministers and soldiers were visionary mechanics. In a reasonably short time they would leave her country—tuned up, restored, cleansed of grime and grease, strong and efficient enough to function as an essential component of the engine propelling a Nazified Europe into the future. As she told the customers who brought their vehicles into her garage, These things can't be rushed.

Lou and Inge and doubtless quite a few Germans were the only people who knew what Lou had done to help bring this about. Lou's opinion was that she deserved neither blame nor credit. Well, maybe a little credit.

Sooner or later, the Germans would have found a way to breach the French defenses. More soldiers might have been killed. She had done France a favor, even if others might not see it that way. Eventually, they would find out—and thank her. She would be a heroine, the Joan of Arc of the Franco-German peace détente.

Meanwhile, she and Inge would resume their glamorous prewar life in France and Berlin. There would be invitations to parties, delicious food, champagne, a generous travel budget in return for the occasional item of local gossip.

When she heard that the Führer had paid a surprise visit to Paris, Lou felt as if a close relative had come to town without letting her know. It consoled her that he'd arrived at dawn and stayed only a few hours, just long enough for a whirlwind tour of the high spots. Most likely the thoughtful Führer didn't want to wake her.

When the clocks in Paris were set ahead an hour to run on the same time as Berlin, Lou thought it would be easier to call Inge, who was getting harder to reach. Often Inge's maid said that she was out and would call back. She was busy.

Lou checked the mail several times daily, but the invitations to the diplomatic parties never arrived, a mystery that she had more (too much!) spare time in which to contemplate. Because of the gasoline shortage, many of her former customers kept their cars garaged.

Now her clients were mostly Vichy officials and high-ranking Germans. Lou knew that some of her neighbors disapproved. Let them turn up their noses! A carburetor had no politics. Who cared whose engines needed work, as long as their owners paid? If Lou were making more money, she could afford to be choosy.

Inge still came for long weekends of road trips, espionage, and increasingly rushed, tepid sex. Lou and Inge had documents that allowed them free passage, but being stopped at the checkpoints and roadblocks made travel slower and more stressful.

Everyone was wary, even Lou and Inge's friends. The most trusting souls in the sports clubs were suddenly curious: why did Lou and Inge want to know? Fortunately, alcohol—even the homemade wine and beer, which was frequently all they could get—still worked magic. Two glasses of wine, a few mugs of beer, and everyone remembered the good times, the confidences they'd shared.

Now the gossip typically involved someone harboring a British soldier or a Jew, or distributing an anti-German pamphlet.

“Boring,” said Inge. “Why should I care?”

Why? Because the outcome of the war might turn on the information they provided. Because they were saving innocent French and German lives. More than ever, the future of France depended on the alertness, the courage, the steadfastness of its citizens.

Just as she had with Arlette, Lou responded to her lover's growing coolness by inventing unlikely scenarios on the theme of her own importance, tall tales meant to remind Inge of how lucky she was to be with her. Did Inge know that Heydrich had sent Lou a message expressing his personal gratitude and the Führer's best wishes? No, Inge did not know.

Partly thanks to the shortages of laundry soap and fuel for heating water, the country inns that had once seemed so charming now seemed merely unclean. Lou tried not to think about those first balmy nights in Berlin, when she and Inge had longed to stay awake forever. Now Inge seemed sleepy and impatient for the sex to end. Afterward she rolled to the far edge of the bed while Lou stared into the darkness, resolving to drink less and earn more—enough money to buy the gifts that might show Inge how much she was loved.

In Paris Inge did nothing but complain. It was dull compared to Berlin. Didn't Lou know one amusing person in the entire city? Lou heard from a customer, a German general's wife, that Inge's racing career was not what it had been when the party came to power. What did Inge expect? There was a war going on. Though the Führer had promised that German drivers would beat the rest of world, even loyal racing fans had turned their attention elsewhere. Whenever Lou felt overwhelmed by worries about the garage, or depressed by the widening distance between herself and Inge, she recalled her dinner with the Führer and vowed to remain the person he'd entrusted with a sacred mission.

One rainy weekend Lou and Inge went to Rouen, where Lou was scheduled to speak to women who had stayed focused on physical fitness even as rationing made it a challenge to eat well. The hall was chilly, the lecture underattended. Just as Lou was talking about the honor of being invited to the city where Joan of Arc died for France, someone's stomach grumbled. More intestinal noises chorused around the drafty room, as if the women's digestive systems were having a parallel conversation.

Lou ended her speech to a scatter of relieved applause. She and Inge dined on greasy sausage and overcooked peas in a café where the lighting made its customers look like victims of liver disease. Having drunk more than they should, they returned to their hotel room. Dressed in a bulky sweater and a stained lime green slip, Inge sat on the edge of the bed, paring her toenails and cursing when her manicure scissors nicked her toe and blood dripped onto the sheets.

It depressed Lou to remember the time when so many of Inge's sentences had ended with exclamation points. Now they were bursts of anger or ellipses of vague complaint.

Later Lou would try to recall how the argument had started. What had possessed her to suggest that Inge had never loved her, that she'd only been with Lou because of . . . because of their work. She couldn't bring herself to say what exactly their work was. If Inge left her, she would never again find someone with whom to share the guilt and the pride.

Their next trip was to Angers to check out a tip about a Resistance group infiltrating a factory that manufactured parts for tanks. They waited for hours in a smoky café, but the women—their friends and informants—never showed up. Inge took it personally. Not even ignorant peasant gymnasts wanted to waste an evening with them, though Inge would have bought the drinks.

The weather was bad, the road slippery, the drive back to Paris slow. Inge missed the last train to Berlin and had to stay until Monday.

On Monday morning Inge slept late. Lou went down to the garage. That afternoon, when Inge came downstairs to say good-bye and tell Lou that she would be busy for the next few weeks and not to bother calling, Lou was occupied with a regular customer, a man by the name of Jean-Claude Bonnet.

 

Several books have been written about the career of Jean-Claude Bonnet, focusing on his activities during the Occupation. Though each author argues for a slightly different view of his role in the most despicable crimes committed against the French, they all agree that he excelled at maintaining a false identity, staying behind the scenes, and serving (at least nominally) as the deputy minister of information in the Paris office of the Reich. He was an excellent recruiter and an exacting boss. His photos show a tall, thin, dapper aristocrat dressed in tailored suits and paisley silk cravats, always wearing sunglasses, which along with his pallor and his white-blond hair, fed the (in my opinion, false) rumor that he was an albino.

During intense conversations, Bonnet would remove his glasses, revealing two ordinary (if rather small) blue eyes, perpetually pink rimmed, like the eyes of those ghostly marsupials that lumber onto the highway at night. Soft-spoken and impeccably polite, he had many eccentricities, among them an obsession with cleanliness and germs, so that he was unable to shake someone's hand without interposing a handkerchief between his palm and theirs. He was sensitive to cigarette smoke; no one could smoke in his presence. Though in public places, Bonnet made an exception.

Despite these oddities, Bonnet was known for his personal charm. During the interrogations at the French Gestapo headquarters in the rue Lauriston, he would knock politely, enter the cell, and try to persuade the prisoners to tell him what they knew. Bonnet knew that he wouldn't succeed. It was a form of theater.

He would mime disappointment before he left the cell and sent in the torturers to try another approach. So one might say that his theater of charm was the first act of torture. That was what the courts ruled, though it had little effect, since by then Bonnet was gone, some said to Paraguay, others said to Argentina, where he was later hired, by Stroessner, or Perón, once again demonstrating that the truly evil never stay unemployed for long.

During his time in France, Bonnet modestly acknowledged that he was the grandnephew of the late Eduard Bonnet, a decorated veteran of World War I and the founder of several influential right-wing organizations. Eventually it would come out that he was neither a nephew of
the
Bonnet, nor was his real name Jean-Claude Bonnet.

In fact he was a German, Fritz Schreiber, a name under which, after the war, he was found guilty of crimes against the citizenry of France and sentenced to ten years in prison, a judgment never carried out, his escape to South America having been facilitated by the Church.

What had brought Bonnet to Lou's garage was his 1939 black 540K Mercedes-Benz Cabriolet B: a gorgeous vehicle, very rare. Hermann Göring drove one. Considering how expensive Bonnet's car was, Lou was appalled to discover that it suffered from more problems than she would have expected to find under the hood of a cheap Citroën. In peacetime Bonnet could have sent it back to the manufacturer, but thanks to the war, the company had other things to do besides fine-tune a custom-made roadster.

Bonnet soon became Lou's best client, if such a thing could be said about the owner of a car on which, as soon as something was fixed, something else broke down. He never once complained about the cost or the inconvenience.

Whenever he had to leave his car in Lou's garage, he was driven away in a sedan with windows so dark that Lou couldn't tell if the driver was military or police. Lou never asked what Bonnet did, and he never said.

On the afternoon Inge stopped by the garage to tell Lou that she'd be unreachable for the next few weeks, Lou and Bonnet were watching the Mercedes emit ominous curls of black smoke. Bonnet held a handkerchief soaked in cologne over his nose and mouth.

When Inge appeared, she and Bonnet regarded each other with such avid interest that it would have seemed rude not to introduce them. When Bonnet shook Inge's hand, he pretended he'd absentmindedly forgotten to put his handkerchief away.

Bonnet said, “
The
Inge Wallser? The famous auto racer?”

Inge flashed him her public smile, perfected in the glare of flashbulbs. “
The
Bonnet?”

Bonnet said, “His unworthy nephew.” Then he asked Inge a question in surprisingly good German. Inge glared at Lou, as if she should know the answer. Bonnet chuckled and said something else. This time Inge smiled. What was Lou supposed to do? Break up the intimate German tête-à-tête between her customer and her girlfriend?

She said, “Friday evening at six, you can collect your car.”

Bonnet thanked her and told Inge, in French, that it had been a pleasure to meet her.

Bonnet's sedan had barely left the curb when Inge exploded.

Lou didn't understand why
she
was behaving like the injured victim. Inge had been the one flirting with Bonnet.

It was unbearable, Inge shouted, she simply couldn't endure it! Apparently Bonnet had said he couldn't understand why he hadn't run into Inge at any of the fabulous parties that Ambassador Abetz was giving on the rue de Lille, or the Luftwaffe General Hanesse's marvelous soirees in the former Rothschild mansion. Inge was too ashamed to say she hadn't been invited. She'd let him think she was too busy. But she wasn't busy! She never went anywhere or did anything. And all because of Lou!

No wonder they had no social life! Who would want to spend time with a not very bright, not very pretty, alcoholic mechanic in filthy coveralls? A bore with only one story, which she told over and over, about how she was almost a champion until her racing career crashed and burned because of her gender and how she dressed. Who wanted to hear
that
? Whenever Lou got really drunk, she'd maunder on about the dead crazy brother. Had no one informed her about the Führer's views on the insane and feebleminded? These vampire parasites could not be allowed to continue sucking vital energy from the healthy population. Hadn't Lou heard Hitler's plan? After the Olympics were permanently relocated to Berlin, only German athletes would be allowed to compete, and only after they'd passed a blood test establishing the Aryan purity of every drop of blood in their veins.

Inge lit a cigarette and flipped the match onto the floor.

Lou said, “Darling, be careful, please, don't smoke in the garage.”