“Your jewelry’s beautiful,” she told Chanel, when the silence felt strained.
“Can you tell if it’s real or faux?” the couturiere challenged, fingering a necklace. Maggie shook her head. “It’s best that way. A woman should mix fake and real, I feel. I adore fakes because I find such jewelry provocative, and I find it disgraceful to walk around with millions adorning your neck simply because you’re rich. The point of jewelry isn’t to make a woman look rich but to enhance her own beauty. It’s not the same thing.”
Maggie had no idea what the designer was talking about, but she smiled and nodded all the same. The streets between the Palais Garnier and Place de la Concorde, lit by moonlight, were nearly empty. A few people hurried by to make it to the Métro before curfew as the occasional vélo-taxi pedaled swiftly along. Maggie could see the anxiety and fear on the faces of those people they did pass. The Germans are clever, she realized. The curfew wasn’t only a security measure; it was a form of psychological control.
As they were helped from the car by the fawning doorman at 3 Rue Royal, Maggie saw the distinctive golden font of Maxim’s on the silk awning by the glow of the headlights, while tacked onto a streetlight was a government poster warning that cat meat was unsafe to use in stews. Across the street, in the shadows, a prostitute with a heavily made-up face and pushed-up décolletage posed against a wall.
Inside, the restaurant was a smoky scene from Franz Léhar’s operetta The Merry Widow. The main dining room was a flamboyant Art Nouveau salon in gold and scarlet and jewel-like stained glass, where all lines curved, and lamps with red silk shades flattered every complexion.
Everywhere were huge and fragrant displays of burgundy roses, creamy carnations, and sheaves of gladioli in every color from mauve to canary. The waiters were dressed for French formal service in white coats, towels over their forearms. And in a dim corner, a balding pianist with half-moon glasses played “C’est mon gigolo.”
“Coco!” came a man’s cry over the chattering of the crowd. He was lean and taut, with striking dark looks and almost feline grace.
“Serge!” Chanel replied as she made her way over, offering both rouged cheeks to be kissed. “This is Mademoiselle Paige Kelly, here from Ireland by way of Lisbon. And this, my dear, is Serge Lifar.” The designer’s smile broadened. “The Serge Lifar.”
“Enchanté, Mademoiselle Kelly,” Lifar purred, bending low to kiss Maggie’s gloved hand. She almost let out a hysterical giggle despite her omnipresent fear; the charismatic premier danseur and choreographer bowed to her so theatrically that she actually felt, for an instant, like a prima ballerina herself. At his table, Maggie recognized famous faces: the artist Jean Cocteau, the actress Arletty, and the playwright Sacha Guitry. Like Boccaccio’s Florentine youths and maidens, who fled to the hills and spent their days playing the lute and telling stories while plague ravaged their city, Maggie thought.
Arletty, a dark-haired beauty and film star was saying, “My heart is French, but my ass is international!” The actress wore a low-cut Chanel design with a black velvet bow and diamonds—real or fake, Maggie couldn’t say—and a flirty birdcage veil.
“My dear!” interjected Guitry, whose good looks and elegant ease gave him the air of a boulevardier. “Naughty, naughty!”
Arletty smiled, her lips moist and scarlet against gleaming teeth. “Well, if you Frenchmen hadn’t let the Germans in…” She pushed a piece of baguette around her empty plate to soak up every last drop of buttery sauce. “I wouldn’t be sleeping with them!” She popped the bite in her mouth with a satisfied look.
Her voice had carried. “Paris welcomed us with her legs open!” crowed a passing Nazi officer, drinking straight from a bottle of beer, despite the horrified looks of some of the French diners. He staggered. “It’s not as if we burned the city, the way Napoleon did to Moscow,” he added by way of an apology.
One of the German officers at the table rose and went to Chanel. “I’m so glad you could come, darling,” he said, kissing her on both cheeks.
“Ah, here he is, our gracious conqueror,” she murmured in reply. Maggie watched their body language and guessed the officer and the designer were lovers. It occurred to her that, for some of the society ladies, the Occupation offered a certain kind of excitement that far exceeded any enjoyments or luxuries from before the war, as the “Nordic heroes” arrived.
Chanel turned to Maggie. “Let me introduce Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage—but feel free to call him Spatz. We all do.”
“How do you do?” they each said in turn. Dincklage was in his mid-to late forties, with blond hair, steady eyes, and a suave manner.
“Mademoiselle Paige Kelly,” the couturiere continued, introducing Maggie with a petulant look at odds with her age. Maggie noticed how Dincklage stroked the small of Chanel’s back and whispered something in her ear that made the older woman smile.
“See, another Frenchwoman who’s taken up with a German,” called Arletty from the table, pointing at Chanel and confirming Maggie’s suspicion.
As the designer peeled off her gloves, revealing nicotine-stained fingers, she quipped, “Really—a woman of my age who has the chance of a lover cannot be expected to review his passport.”
Arletty raised her glass of wine. “War is no time to be alone.”
“Sit, sit!” Lifar urged, as gilt chairs were brought over and more places set. “Any friend of Coco’s is a friend of ours.” The table was already covered with food—caviar on ice with mother-of pearl spoons, paté de foie gras, escargot swimming in butter and fresh parsley, rack of lamb, red lobsters, eel in aspic, roast chicken and crispy skinned duck, coupes of sparkling Champagne. After months of watery soup and hard bread, Maggie was nearly dizzy from hunger.
“Waiter!” Lifar snapped his fingers. “Menus for the ladies!”
The leather-bound menu looked as if it were the one from prewar days, offering oysters, different sorts of fish, bouillabaisse, rabbit, and chicken. Everyone, including the Germans, was speaking in French. A hedgehog-like Nazi officer with beady, dark eyes urged Maggie to try one of his oysters: “In times like these, my dear, to eat well and to eat often gives you a tremendous feeling of power.”
Maggie demurred. Then he offered one to Chanel; she declined as well, but for other reasons: “I only eat oysters during months with the letter r in them.”
“Well then, more for me!” he crowed, slurping one greedily, washing it down with gulps of Champagne. Maggie forced a smile.
“Mademoiselle?” A waiter appeared at Chanel’s elbow, a starched white linen cloth draped over his forearm. “What may I bring you?”
“Soup,” she stated. “Clear. A plate of white asparagus with no butter, if it’s still in season. And a glass of Bordeaux—Chateau Lafite Rothschild, ’twenty-eight, if you have it.”
“And you, mademoiselle?”
Maggie was in no mood to feast when the rest of Paris was getting by on stewed cat. “Nothing for me, thank you.” The waiter bowed and took their menus.
“I eat lightly,” Chanel said by way of explanation. Maggie didn’t respond, as she’d caught a glimpse of Hugh and Sarah arrive arm in arm, with a large, fat German in uniform, his face like marzipan. They didn’t notice her.
“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost, my dear.”
Maggie took a sip of Champagne to cover her distress.
“I recently got a gorgeous fur coat—belonged to a Jew,” Arletty was saying. “Long. Pure sable.”
“I hear many of the Jews have gone into hiding,” added Cocteau, as he lit a cigarette with long, tapering fingers.
“Ah, they may hide,” said the hedgehog-like German, slurping at another oyster, “but we’ll find them. You can count on it.”
“Not many of them made it out of the country before the surrender, so there must be lots of them still around,” Chanel observed.