Mission to Paris (6 page)

Stahl smiled and said, ‘Far from it.’ In his imagination he could hear Buzzy Mehlman’s voice:
Just do the movie, Fredric, let me worry about what goes on behind the scenes
.

Deschelles looked relieved – Stahl’s delivery of the
far from it
line had been persuasive. ‘You’re aware,’ he said, ‘that a French production is often chosen, by the American award committees, as the best foreign film of the year – since 1931 that’s been true. Perhaps Warners sees it from that angle; success in France, followed by success in America, and then in the international markets. Which will make you more valuable, in future productions.’

Stahl nodded in agreement, but this was courtesy.
Somebody
wasn’t telling the truth and, if he understood what Deschelles had said, that somebody was Walter Perry. Buzz Mehlman had a very wry touch when it came to the mechanics, and the ethics, of the film business and Stahl could imagine him saying, ‘What? A movie studio
lied
? Oh no!’ Nonetheless, here he was, in Paris with a contract and a movie to be made: this was his
career
, but he had no idea how to protect himself. In fact, he’d been put in a position where he had to do as the studio wished. Once again, in Stahl’s imagination, a dark grin from his agent. As the silence in the office grew, Deschelles finally said, ‘Shall we go out and have something to eat?’

They left the office, walking towards the river on the sunny, windy afternoon, Deschelles chatting about the other people who would be working on the film, Stahl responding now and again, the script and the novel firmly beneath his arm. Eventually they arrived at a Lebanese restaurant and settled in at a table. ‘I hope you like Lebanese cuisine,’ Deschelles said.

Stahl said he did.

As he looked over the menu, Deschelles said, ‘I always order the mezze, but the portions are generous so, if you don’t mind, I’ll get one order we can share.’

‘I don’t mind at all.’ This wasn’t true, Stahl very much liked the little appetizers served as mezze, but producers as a class, spending a lot of money every day, could be stingy in small matters. When Deschelles excused himself to go to the WC, Stahl opened the script and paged through it, stopping to look at some of his character’s lines. COLONEL VADIC, as the script had it, is at a castle in Hungary, and explains how he, as a Slav, rose to command – normally reserved for French officers. Wounded in battle, he was declared ‘
Français par le sang versé
’ – French by spilled blood – which in the Foreign Legion qualified him to become an officer.

Deschelles returned, a delicious mezze arrived soon after – stuffed grape leaves, salty white cheese, falafel – Stahl’s favourite, mashed chickpeas fried up in little pancakes – and hummus, Stahl’s other favourite. As the main course was served, ground lamb and pine nuts baked in layers, Deschelles nodded his head towards a nearby table and spoke in a confidential voice, ‘I think you’ve been spotted.’

As Stahl followed Deschelles’s eyes, a man sitting alone at the table became interested in his newspaper. ‘He knows who you are and he wants to stare,’ Deschelles said, ‘but that’s very rude here. He’s avoiding us now, because he’s been caught at it.’ Stahl had been stared at many times in public, but some sort of intuition suggested that this man wasn’t a movie fan, he was something else.

For dessert, they shared three small squares of baklava.

Back at the Claridge, Stahl was headed for the elevator when the manager called out to him, ‘Oh Monsieur Stahl.’ Stahl went over to the desk. ‘A letter for you, sir, delivered by hand. The messenger asked that it be given to you in person.’

Stahl thanked him and went up to his suite. Inside a manila envelope, a formal envelope held a folded note card: on the front, printed in some elaborate form of italic:
The Baroness Cornelia Maria von Reschke und Altenburg
. When he opened the card he found the message: French written in careful, spidery script: ‘My dear Monsieur Stahl, I can only hope you will forgive an invitation on such short notice but I’ve just now learned that you are in Paris and I am a most devoted admirer of your films. I am having a cocktail party at six tomorrow evening and would be so very pleased if you would join us. Please telephone my secretary, Mlle Jeanette, at INV 46-63 if you would like further information.’ The signature,
Maria von Reschke
, was a thing of beauty, as was the address, a street in the Seventh he had never heard of.

He read the note a second time – who was this? German nobility in Paris? Expatriate German nobility? Well, he thought, why not. Artists didn’t own the rights to expatriate life. And he liked the idea of
le cocktail
, as the French called such a gathering; with a dinner you were good and stuck, but you could leave a cocktail party. He knew that sooner or later he would have to find a social existence in Paris and here was a good place to begin. But, for no reason he could define, he thought he’d better call Mme Boulanger at Warner France. A young woman answered, then Zolly Louis picked up an extension phone. ‘How’s it being?’ Zolly said in English. ‘Everything okay?’

Stahl assured him all was well. Had he ever heard of a certain Baroness von Reschke? ‘Of course!’ Zolly said. ‘She’s famous, she’s got one of the three important
salons
in Paris. You’re invited over there?’ He was. ‘You should go, Mister Stahl. You’ll meet the crème de la crème,
chez
the baroness – bankers, fashionable women,
ambassadors
. And then, the other two will invite you to their
salons
. They
hate
each other, these hostesses!’

So that was decided, he would go. He hunted around in his closet to see where the maid had put the shoes he wanted to wear, found them, and set them out in the hall to be polished. As he closed the door he realized it was very quiet in the suite, and the evening stretched out ahead of him. He undressed, put on a bathrobe, and settled himself lengthwise on a sofa with his copy of
Après la Guerre
. But not for long. Just turning the cover and reading the stage directions for the first scene produced in him a sharp little pang of familiar anxiety that meant
work
.

But he didn’t want to work – the fading light outside the window, the gathering dusk, had reached him. It was
l’heure bleue
– time to be meeting a lover, or looking for one. Well, he had nowhere to go. He put the script aside, went to the desk, found Hotel Claridge stationery, and began to write a letter to Betsy Belle in Hollywood.

Betsy Belle (born Myra Harzie in Ottumwa, Iowa) was his official fiancée;
fiancée
being Hollywood code for lover, for the woman who accompanied you to parties, and a convenient euphemism for studio publicists and gossip columnists. She’d been discovered by a talent scout at an Iowa high school pageant, where she’d played the role of a corn, and when she’d arrived in Hollywood she’d quickly become a successful starlet. Blessed with a cupid’s-bow mouth that revealed two white teeth, a snub nose, and bright blonde hair that she wore like a teenager, Betsy had appeared in a number of movies, but had also grown older every year, until available parts were rare. Betsy also happened to be smart, and not at all the innocent she played on the screen. Of the cupid’s-bow shape of her upper lip she would say, ‘It makes me look like a fucking rabbit.’

He and Betsy didn’t precisely live together, truer to say that she stayed with him at his house some of the time, then, wanting to be by herself, would retreat to her apartment. ‘In this town,’ she explained, ‘getting people to like you is what takes up most of your time, so it’s my luxury to hide from the world.’ What Betsy Belle really liked was muggles, marijuana, and on nights when they were together she’d put on one of her Django Reinhardt records – ‘I’se a Muggin’ ’ her favourite – and smoke away, first becoming very entertaining, then highly aroused, eventually heading for Stahl’s lap. This wasn’t now and then, this was always, and at first Stahl had thought it was something about him. But, on reflection, he realized it was her nature, her own internal catnip – desire simply wouldn’t leave her alone. The wolves of Hollywood wouldn’t leave her alone either, so being Stahl’s ‘fiancée’ was at least some protection. Certainly she didn’t expect fidelity in Paris, and Stahl knew she’d find herself somebody else soon enough. Still, despite all the practical sentiments, he really liked her and she was, no matter what else went on, a true friend.

It was, by the third draft, a sweet letter. He loved Paris, he missed her. Not original but from the heart. And how many letters like this, he wondered, would be in that morning’s mail?

25 September. When Stahl came out of the hotel, Zolly Louis’s nephew Jimmy, in grey chauffeur’s uniform and cap, leapt smartly from the driver’s seat, opened the door of the silver Panhard, and said, ‘Good evening, sir.’ Stahl gave him the Baroness von Reschke’s address, and the car swung out into a slow line of traffic. For the occasion, Stahl had worn his best suit: double-breasted in thin, midnight-blue wool with natural shoulders, a handsome fit, perfectly cut by the custom tailor Isidor Klein in downtown Los Angeles. Mr Klein did not advertise, his telephone number was passed from successful producer to powerful agent to prominent actor, and his services required time, several fittings, and a lot of money. To the suit, Stahl had added a custom-made shirt, a shade or two off white, and a dove-grey and Renaissance-red tie from Sulka.

It didn’t take long enough to drive to the baroness’s house, so Stahl got a tour of the royal Seventh until 6.45, then Jimmy turned off the rue du Bac and into a street of private mansions built in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. ‘You inherit these,’ Jimmy said as Stahl stared out the window. ‘Or they are
very
expensive.’ He pulled into a porte cochere, a man in a suit opened the door and asked for Stahl’s name. Parked beyond the entry were a few glossy black automobiles and two silver Panhard Dynamics, glowing softly in the light of the streetlamps.

The cocktail party was in the drawing room, where splendid old paintings in elaborate gold frames – lords and ladies and cherubs and a few bare breasts – hung on the boiserie; walnut panelling that covered the walls. It was a stiff, formal room, with draperies of forest-green velvet, maroon taffeta upholstery, spindly chairs from royal times – chanting in chorus
don’t dare sit on me
– and a mirror-polished eighteenth-century parquet floor. Against one wall, a huge marble-topped hunting table with gilt legs, a place to toss your pheasants when you came in from the field, and flanking the sofas, end tables held silver
objets
, marble hounds, crystal lamps with butter-coloured silk shades, and heavy vases of white gladioli. If this room didn’t intimidate you, Stahl thought, nothing would.

The party was in full swing – the sound of thirty conversations in a haze of cigarette smoke and perfume – and Stahl, standing at the ten-foot-high doors, had the impression that the guests went with the room: a few stunning women, some imposing, white-haired dowagers, a balding gent with a pipe – the pet intellectual? – a sculpted beard or two, even a couple of ceremonial sashes; an exotic species of royalty, perhaps the Margrave of Moldavia or something like that. And now, here came what must be the baroness, face lit with delight and a grand hostess smile. ‘Monsieur Stahl! We’re
honoured
. Oh thank you
so
much for coming.’ She was, Stahl thought as he took her claw, a very formidable woman: perhaps fifty, with stylishly set straw hair and a white face, skin drawn tight as a drum with the bone in the centre of her forehead faintly evident, a blue vein at one temple, and uncomfortably penetrating greenish eyes. For the early-evening party, she wore a powder-pink cocktail dress.

‘You’re staying at the Claridge?’ she said. ‘I just love that hotel, so much quieter than the Ritz.’

A glass of champagne was put in his hand, a silver tray of caviar blini flew past. ‘They certainly make you comfortable,’ Stahl said. ‘But I’ll be there for, three months? Four?’

‘Months in a hotel …’ she said.

‘I’m thinking about an apartment.’

At that she brightened. ‘Then you must let me help you, dear, I
know
people.’

Stahl’s gracious nod meant that he appreciated the offer.

‘I have a friend who writes about film for the newspapers, according to him you’re Viennese, is that correct?’

Over her shoulder, Stahl faced a vast painting, and found himself looking into the shining eyes of a King Charles spaniel on a courtesan’s lap. ‘Yes, I was born and raised in Vienna.’

‘I was there a month ago, it’s a very vibrant city nowadays, after some difficult years.’

‘It’s been a long time since I visited,’ Stahl said.

‘Do go, dear, when you have a chance, I think you’ll be pleased.’

Very pleased, swastikas everywhere
.

The baroness sensed what his silence meant. ‘Well, Europe is changing, isn’t it,’ she said. ‘For the better, I’d say – perhaps it’s been destroyed for the last time. My most fervent hope, anyhow, and surely yours.’

‘It is.’

The baroness’s lips curved upwards at the corners and her eyes narrowed, the smile of a huntress. ‘Then we must do what we can to make sure of that, don’t you agree?’

‘I don’t think I can do very much,’ Stahl said. ‘I’m no politician.’

‘But you never know, dear, do you, about these things. Sometimes an opportunity presents itself, and then …’

Stahl had gone as far as he wanted with this and said, ‘And do you enjoy living in Paris?’

‘Enjoy? I’m passionate for it, completely passionate.’

‘I am as well.’

‘Then how lucky we are! I bought this house five years ago, though I worried that as a German I might not be welcome here. Fortunately, that’s not the case – Parisians, bless their souls, take you as you are, they care more about style, about character, than they do about nationality. So, I thought, perhaps we
can
live together, and there’s hope for poor old Europe after all. And, you know, there are some very well-regarded people, very
accomplished
people, in Paris who’ve discovered Berlin, the new Berlin, at last recovered after the war, after the financial crisis. They go for a weekend and when they return they say, “To hell with 1914, we had the warmest welcome in that city.” I must tell you the mood there is extraordinary; confident, forward-looking. Say what you will about Herr Hitler, perhaps not one’s favourite politician – yes, yes, I know, he’s the most awful little man, but the results! Prosperity, dignity restored, that you must see for yourself!’