Another French gentleman, this one with a lush mustache and fading hairline, passed Auzello and murmured, “Germans will come and go, my friend—but fly-fishing is forever,” in Swiss-accented French. Maggie could only assume he was César Ritz, the legendary hotelier.
At the reception desk, a dapper, fussy, tortoiseshell-bespectacled gentleman looked up to greet her. “Ah, yes, mademoiselle!” he exclaimed, his eyes enormous behind thick glass, when Maggie said she had a reservation and showed her passport. “We’ve been expecting you.”
He entered her information into the ledger with a fountain pen in script, adding, “As I mentioned on the telephone, our suites have been commandeered for high-ranking German officials. And so I’m afraid your room is on the top floor, under the mansard. It was originally intended to accommodate the traveling companions of the wealthy.” As an aside, he whispered, “The German officers find the ceilings too low.”
Maggie smiled as she signed her false name. “I’m sure it’s charming.”
“And, should you need it, our bomb shelter is renowned for its fur rugs and Hermès sleeping bags. France may have fallen, but not the Ritz! We—”
“The Rue Cambon entrance didn’t have anything for me, André,” a woman’s voice interrupted. The newcomer was enveloped in a cloud of jasmine and cigarette smoke. “But I’m expecting an envelope with ballet tickets. Would you be a darling and check for me?”
She waggled bony shoulders in exasperation, glancing at Maggie. “Sometimes things for the Rue Cambon side are left here and vice versa—one really must be careful of that.”
The woman was petite, slender, and somewhere in her fifties, Maggie guessed, although her gamine appearance defied age. Her skin was deeply tanned, her hair dyed black, and her cheeks rouged. She wore a simple black suit, but ropes of pearl and gold necklaces and bracelets rattled as she moved. She regarded Maggie with a basilisk gaze. “Nice dress,” she said finally.
Maggie suddenly realized who the woman was. “Th-thank you, mademoiselle,” she managed, glad she had chosen to wear the Chanel.
Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, known by her nickname Coco, was one of the most famous couturieres and perfumers in the world. She was renowned for taking women out of heavy, frilly hats and fussy corsets, and dressing them instead in boyish toppers and creations of tailored, streamlined jersey. She’d also designed costumes for stage and film, alongside Jean Cocteau, Sergei Diaghilev, and Pablo Picasso, in addition to creating the world’s most famous perfume, Chanel No. 5, named for her lucky number.
“They’ve put you up on the top floor, I suspect?” Chanel asked, her gold chain bracelets jangling as the receptionist looked through cubbyholes for any stray envelopes for her. Maggie nodded. “That’s where I am now as well. I used to have a suite, overlooking the Place Vend?me. However, as you may have noticed,” the couturiere continued, her voice hard, “times have changed.”
“As always, you’re correct, mademoiselle,” André said, handing her an envelope with her name written in beautiful calligraphy.
Chanel took it and opened it, pulling out two tickets. “Excellent,” she said. Then, as she unfolded the accompanying note, her crimson-painted lips pursed.
“Everything all right, mademoiselle?” asked André.
“Fine, fine.” She waved a hand, brushing off his concern. “André here is the best in the business,” she told Maggie. “Whatever you need he’ll procure—an abortionist, a drug dealer, even an assassin. Anything goes at the Ritz.” Maggie looked shocked, which seemed to please the designer. “And what brings you to Paris?” Chanel continued, tucking everything into her quilted lambskin handbag.
Maggie fixed a smile on her face. “I’m pleased to say I’m in town for fashion, mademoiselle. My trousseau, to be specific. And a wedding dress.”
“Aha! And whose ateliers will you be visiting?”
“Nina Ricci,” Maggie answered, glad she had memorized the designers who still had shops open. “Jacques Fath, Germaine Lecomte, Jean Patou, Lanvin…and, of course, Schiaparelli—”
Chanel rolled her black eyes. “L’Italienne.” Maggie could tell it wasn’t a compliment. “Don’t go to that one. Besides, she’s left Paris for New York, the traitor.”
“But I’m going to them only because your atelier is not open, Mademoiselle Chanel.” Maggie had done her homework. Coco Chanel had closed hers in 1940, when the Occupation began, proclaiming it was “no time for fashion.” However, she’d kept her boutique open and had made a wartime fortune selling No. 5 to eager Germans wanting a fragrant souvenir of their Paris sojourn to take home to their wives and sweethearts.
“You speak French well. But you’re not French or else you would be using the Rue Cambon entrance.” She grazed Maggie’s cheek with an immaculately manicured, scarlet-painted fingertip. “And not German, either. Swiss?”
“Irish.”
One tweezed eyebrow rose. “Irish?”
Maggie nodded. “Born there. But raised in America for most of my life, shuttling between the two countries. I’m living in Lisbon at present.”
“Lisbon, yes—I’m thinking of opening a shop there. Madrid, too. Perfume only, of course—at least for now. Yes, Irish,” she said, appraising Maggie, like a jeweler inspecting a diamond under a loupe. “I should have guessed with that red hair…”
“Your room is ready, mademoiselle,” the receptionist said to Maggie, gesturing to a groom in buttoned uniform, white gloves, and cap, waiting with her key.
Maggie smiled. “Thank you.”
“I’ll walk with you,” announced Chanel.
As the two women made their way through the lobby, a cluster of soldiers pushed a brass trolley loaded with large boxes. “So many Germans!” Maggie tried to make small talk. “They do seem busy.”
Chanel glanced up with a gimlet eye. “They’re colonizing.”
“Colonizing?”
“What we did to Algeria, they’re now doing to us. And plundering, too. Art, mostly. Perfume, too. And wine, clothes, foie gras, truffles…Anything and everything. Hitler’s personal art broker, Karl Haberstock, has made the Ritz his home in Paris.” She gestured, bracelets clinking. “That particular crew works for Goering.”
“Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering?” Maggie repressed a shudder. She had met Goering in Berlin, in a different disguise.
“Of course—Herr Goering’s the head of the Luftwaffe. He took over the Imperial Suite and is sending an endless parade of French art back to Carinhall.” Chanel leaned in. “He takes our country—now he takes our paintings…” She tossed her head, shaking golden earrings with interlocking C’s. Maggie was suddenly aware of how much the linking C’s resembled the intersecting S’s of the swastika.
“And your suite as well,” Maggie managed.
They approached the elevator, its doors frosted glass encased in a cylinder of limed oak, and stepped in. As the groom pushed the buttons, the lift groaned, then began to rise.
“Still, the hotel must be making a tidy profit from the”—Maggie wasn’t sure how to phrase it—“new guests?”
Chanel tucked a stray lock of jet-black hair behind her ear. “They’re lodgers ‘on the German plan.’?” Maggie shook her head, not understanding. Chanel explained: “They’re ‘guests of the Führer.’ And so they don’t pay for their rooms. Or their Champagne.”
“Ah.” As they ascended, Maggie was aware Chanel was once again appraising both her body and the drape of her garment. Since the dress wasn’t hers to begin with, the fit was slightly off—snug across the bust, loose in the hips. Only what a practiced eye would see. Maggie felt uncomfortable under the scrutiny, as though spiders were crawling over her. It’s from the ’thirty-eight collection, she thought, trying to remain calm. Anyone’s body might change a bit in three years.
When the elevator jolted to a stop on their floor, Chanel purred, “I do hope you enjoy your stay. Unlike some Parisians, I’m quite fond of neutrals.” And then she was gone.