Page 3 of The Mademoiselle Alliance

2

How Lucky I Am to Be French

Paris, 1936

“Third place!” I cry, bursting into my apartment in a way I never would have dared had I still been in Morocco. It’s taken four years for my body to learn not to check itself. But anger never greets me here. Instead, my children do, and they’re eager to know if I won the Monte Carlo Rally.

“Maybe you’ll do better next time,” my six-year-old son says, and I laugh, as does my mother, who’s been looking after Béatrice and Christian.

“Do you know how many people wish they’d come in third?” I crouch down to my children’s level, hugging them close.

“People with small dreams,” Christian says as Béatrice winds her fingers into my hair.

I look up at my mother, trying to hide the furrowing of my brow. Have I given them great expectations when I should be encouraging a less constellated outlook?

No. That’s why I left Morocco. So my children could grow up believing they could reach not just for the moon, but for universes longed for and unknown.

I grin at Christian. “Next time I won’t come home unless I win.”

I tickle his sister, who looks momentarily worried that I mean it. But these two are the North Star of my existence. I would never abandon them.

“I left before breakfast so I could see you before bedtime,” I tell her.

“Before breakfast?” repeats my four-year-old daughter, eyes like dinner plates. Breakfasts at the Monte Carlo Beach Hotel are her idea of paradise, and only the most unswerving devotion would make someone skip such a feast.

“That’s how much I love you,” I tell her, and she giggles.

When I stand, my eye falls on the headline of the newspaper on the table: Le Chancelier Hitler Dénonce Versailles: Les troupes allemandes sont entrées en Rhénanie .

Yes, Hitler has all but torn up the Treaty of Versailles and occupied the Rhineland, right on the border of France, an act akin to war. “That’s also why I left Monte Carlo early,” I murmur to my mother, exuberance gone.

She squeezes my hand.

Perhaps it was silly not to stay for the awards ceremony because of something happening hundreds of kilometers away. But while my marriage vows might be all but shattered, the one vow I’ll never break is the one I made when I fled Rabat—that my children matter more than anything. I need to be in Paris with them.

“Let’s get ice cream,” I say. “Race you!”

We dash out the door as fast as if the police are chasing us. Christian wins, whooping, and Béatrice and I come in equally last; we both suffer from a congenital hip condition. Mine worries at me like a mistrustful husband if I don’t venerate it enough, and hers has always been worse, making running difficult.

“Really, we came in second,” I tell her, and she beams.

Soon our hands are sticky; Béatrice’s face is pink and Christian’s chocolate-stained. Mine is smeared with love.

—

My sister, Yvonne, hosts an evening salon that attracts artists, journalists like me, military intelligence officers, and men of influence. They’ll all be talking about Hitler and the Rhineland, and if I want to find out what it might mean for my family, then I need to attend. So I pull out a red silk dress, something to lift my spirits, dimmed by France’s and Britain’s responses to Hitler—gutless shrugs. Since when do you allow a bully to keep what he’s stolen?

I’m too familiar with tyrants not to know they never reveal their true ambitions until it’s too late to stop them.

My hip spasms, dampening my mood further, and I know I’m going to have to work hard to hide my limp tonight. But the cure for that is to step into the dress and make up my face with lipstick and a smile.

“ Maman! ” Christian says when I stop to kiss him good night. “You look so pretty.”

His words see me out the door with barely a hitch in my step.

—

Yvonne greets me with kisses before taking my arm, which means I’m not disguising my limp as well as I’d hoped. But it’s a relief to lean on her for a moment. Until she deposits me with a group of women discussing why it’s essential to own a country home so their busy husbands have a place for repose.

“Let’s see how long you last.” She grins before slipping away.

If only it were possible to commit siblicide with a champagne coupe.

Thankfully, after my only having to pretend to listen for a few minutes, my brother-in-law beckons me over to the fireplace. As I slip away from the wives, I hear them whisper, “Separated.”

I wear the scarlet letters of that word like a scar. Edouard does not. He’s a man in the military, whereas I’m just a blonde. Of course our separation must be my fault, meaning some of the women see me as a threat, the men as an invitation. I haven’t helped matters by daring to become a journalist here in Paris in defiance of the view that mothers should be at home with their children. But I love my job at Radio Cité spinning tales about the latest Chanel gowns or interviewing fascinating women I find on the margins of parties like these, women who’d otherwise be ignored by the conservative French newspapers. All of which makes me an excellent party guest: I bring scandal, conflict, and never a dull moment. I have no idea which of these entertainments Georges hopes I’ll add to his group, but judging by the yawn he’s smothering, I’d say all three.

“My sister-in-law, Marie-Madeleine Méric,” he announces. “And the family daredevil. Just returned from a third placing at the Monte Carlo Rally.”

“What do you drive?” the man introduced as Navarre inquires.

I know Navarre by reputation; he’s a military intelligence officer and hero of the Great War. I’m surprised he’s bothering to speak to me at all, let alone about cars. But then, not all military officers are like Edouard.

“Just a Citro?n Traction Avant,” I say.

He almost looks impressed.

There follows a debate about whether I might have won in a Peugeot. All yawns are forgotten as I describe the thrill of the last white-knuckle charge into the town square, where I was, in fact, beaten by a Peugeot, until another man smirks. “You’re welcome to drive my Peugeot any time.”

Ah, he’s hoping for scandal. But I’m good at this; I’ve had to learn to be. “I always find Peugeots disappointingly lackluster,” I say with innocent eyes. “No staying power.”

Georges guffaws, as does Navarre. The flirt takes it on the chin and laughs, too.

Soon the conversation shifts to Hitler and our group expands. Navarre gestures furiously as he explains how much information he’s all but scribbled inside the prime minister’s eyelids over the past few years, outlining Hitler’s unabating preparations for what can only be war. Our government has ignored it all, he says.

My stomach twists. Hitler’s taken the Rhineland. What will he do next?

Tempers flare over that very question.

“It will never work,” Navarre blazes as Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Gaulle, another military man of a similar age to Navarre—about fifteen years older than me—proposes assembling a French strike force to push the Nazis back into Germany. “Hitler’s army is too strong.”

“You want to keep hiding behind the Maginot Line,” De Gaulle shoots back. “It’s time to stop relying on ideas conceived two hundred years ago.”

Navarre nods sharply. “That’s one thing we can agree on—the French military is decades behind. Unless we act quickly, France will be wiped off the map.”

“But is the France we have now worth fighting for?” the flirt from earlier asks with world-weary cynicism, and I say adamantly, “ Bien sur! ”

Everyone turns, faces expressing amusement or condescension. I’m the only woman in the group and I should be over in the delicate chairs discussing my husband’s needs. But Navarre, who looks curious rather than patronizing, indicates that I should mount my defense of France.

A good journalist knows how to spin a story. So spin I do, because my children’s futures depend on everyone’s believing in France like I do.

“I grew up in the French concession in Shanghai,” I begin, “and I’ve lived in Morocco, too.” I keep my voice soft to match the fire-lit air and the cherry-red Beaujolais and the lilting notes of Satie’s “Gymnopédie No.1” drifting from the gramophone. “I’ve spent seventeen of my twenty-six years standing on different ground than that beneath our feet right now. Maybe that should have made me love France less. But…”

I pause. Everyone is listening, perhaps because they’ve never been to such places as I’ve been lucky enough to know. So I continue.

“The expatriates in Shanghai and Rabat all spoke of France as a place of romance and heroes, a country so epic that it meant something. It meant people who’d endured invasion since the beginning of time. People who’d fought off every attack. People whose language is a synonym for poetry, who’ve created a culture admired all over the world, who’ve built cities that everyone longs to visit just once before they die. Living away taught me how lucky I am to be French, and how blessed I am to call this resilient and beautiful land my home.”

My throat is suddenly too tight for speech. I lift my glass to my mouth, trying to swallow down the tears that have come from a strange sense of loss—but what am I losing?

“We are blessed,” Navarre says quietly.

But De Gaulle says, “Blessings don’t win wars.”

—

The next day, the children are at school and I’m making notes for an interview with édith Piaf, but I can’t sit still. It’s not my legs but my soul that’s restless—as if it wants to be let out of the prison of Parisian quotidian life I didn’t know I’d trapped it in. I thought I was keeping myself alive with flying lessons and car rallies and working at a job rather than on my manicure; adventure, but not enough to taint my children. But this morning I can feel—like the night before I met Edouard, the dawn of the day Christian was born—that change is raising a hand to knock on my door. Where once I would have flung it open, now I hesitate.

When did I become so fearful?

Hitler, who at the very least is a liar, a thief, and a murderer, is invading land just over the border. That’s why I’m jumpy. But what can I do about Hitler?

Except—isn’t that what cowards say?

What if Gustave Eiffel had never believed that one man could build a tower so famous the whole world would know of it? What if Coco Chanel had told herself that women preferred wearing cages to letting their bodies move freely? What if Joan of Arc had sat in her salon with her door tightly shut?

But while I love a fine dress, I’m no visionary or saint.

The phone shrills, startling me.

“Allo?”

“Madame Méric,” a voice says. “Navarre. We met last night. There’s something I’d like to speak to you about. Something I’d prefer to keep between the two of us.”

I almost groan aloud. An affair isn’t an adventure. It’s a mess.

At least I can hang up; it’s the propositions at parties that are harder to shake. So many men interpret non to mean oui. I’m now good at finding the tenderest part of a man’s foot with the heel of my shoe.

But something stops me from disconnecting the call. Navarre and my brother-in-law were deep in conversation when I left the party, and I find it hard to believe Georges would have given Navarre encouragement to call me with an indecent proposal. And while Navarre had shown himself to be a passionate man compared to the dour De Gaulle, he was enamored of his country, I’d believed, not me. So even though his words are suspicious, I relent and invite him to visit. But I take the precaution of changing into a plain gray suit, something nobody could mistake for an invitation.

It seems I’ve finally learned to judge a man correctly, because Navarre’s first words are, “This meeting must seem irregular and quite possibly dishonorable. I assure you it’s the first, but not the second.”

I smile. “Well, I’m intrigued now.”

He sits with the air of a king installing himself on a throne. Indeed, his carriage and tone tell me he’s used to having power. But his face is avuncular, rather than handsome or regal.

“If you let me know why you’re here, then I can decide whether to throw you out or offer you a cup of tea,” I say.

He laughs and I relax. Navarre might be an imposing figure, but his laugh comes from his belly. Edouard spat his from his mouth like rancid meat.

As though summoned by my unwanted recollection, Navarre starts talking about my husband. “Georges told me you helped your husband with his intelligence work in Morocco. That you…” He considers his words. “You gathered information from those your husband was less skilled at talking to.”

I hold his gaze but don’t reply. I might have told Yvonne and Georges that I helped Edouard, but I have no idea why it interests Navarre. Then he says, “You paid close attention to the conversation last night,” and I feel change crack open the door.

Now I decide to step through it.

“What’s happening in Europe frightens me,” I tell him. “But when I’m frightened, I prefer to do something about it, rather than hide. In Morocco, I wanted Edouard to understand the other side to the story of brutal tribes who hated one another and the French most of all. But I don’t know what to do about Hitler.”

Navarre’s reply is, “I want to tell the other side to the story of Hitler and the Nazi Party. I want people to join me on a crusade for truth.”

A shiver flickers along my spine. Crusades are both deadly and noble. One takes part only if one believes. But in what?

The other side to the story . It exists somewhere. Everything I’ve witnessed living in colonized countries where power is held on to by force and fear tells me it does.

“The situation in Europe is worse than I could say last night,” Navarre explains. “To force our government into taking action, I need everyone to understand what Hitler is capable of and what he plans to do next.”

He leans toward me, intent and magisterial; if ever anyone could lead a crusade against Hitler, it’s this man.

“I’m starting a newspaper. You’re a journalist and you understand something of the intelligence business. I need those skills. And when I tell you what I need above all else, then you can finally decide”—his smile is brief but contagious—“whether to throw me out or make me that cup of tea.”

My laugh is cut short by his next words.

“A friend of mine has some secret dossiers that prove the intentions of the German high command. I need you to drive to Brussels and collect them. We’ll publish them. And our government will finally have to act against the Nazis.”

On the mantelpiece behind Navarre is a framed photograph of my children. For their sake, I should refuse to collect papers someone has smuggled out of Germany—papers the Nazis could be looking for. But it’s because of my children that I don’t even consider saying no.

When you’ve spent your formative years somewhere like Shanghai, then you grow up fascinated by the world. While other people might think of the danger, I think of standing on the banks of the Whangpoo River, agape at the sampans and junks weaving their way through the freighters, emerging on the other side fast and free, sails filled by the wind. I think of how that moment was the first time I’d felt the immenseness of the world and its inexorability—dynasties might end and kingdoms fall, but the ocean connecting us all endures.

Hitler wants to keep the junks in the harbor, wants to close the oceans and trap the winds, wants to stretch out his arms and crush it all to him so there is no wonder left, only possession.

I refuse to let him.

—

The Jewish journalist I meet in Brussels is more ghost than real. His eyes dart like startled birds and I only know he’s the right person because he’s standing where he said he’d be—outside the antique shop in the Promenade Saint-Hubert with a red umbrella under his arm. We don’t even speak; he just pushes a folder into my hands, then hurries away.

“Wait!” I call.

He looks back and shakes his head furiously. There’s sweat on his brow—and I suddenly understand exactly what it means to flee Nazi Germany with incriminating documents.

He’s spectral because fear has eroded his flesh. He’s learned to slip like a shadow into a crowd because to flee a place implies a chase.

This crusade I’ve embarked on is more than politics, land, and ambition. It’s people running, turned into phantoms.

It’s Nazis hunting for the documents under my arm.

I sit on the folder and speed as if I’m in another rally all the way back to Paris.

A fortnight later, Navarre’s newspaper, L’Ordre National, is published with the information I collected, which shows, chillingly: Hitler is preparing for war. He’s making tanks and guns and warplanes in quantities that suggest Europe will soon be overrun.

Then the man I met with is kidnapped by the Nazis.

At last, people begin to talk. And worry. And send us more information.

One dossier leads to a discussion leads to a movement. I help it swell, certain the government will no longer ignore Hitler, that a crusade has truly begun.

This is the world of intelligence and I am hooked.