Читать книгу The Resistance Girl - Jina Bacarr - Страница 18

Paris

1935

Hitler became German Chancellor two years ago, my country is in a political crisis, but the people of France love me.

My foray into talkies is an astounding success.

Emil builds a brilliant marketing campaign around my pictures that reflects the desperate decisions Parisians face every day. Not as Ninette. He showcases me as a woman struggling to make a living for herself in these hard times. I become every shop girl, every laundress, and every office matron working hard to bring home her own bacon. I make films about floozies fleecing men, good girls turning to sin, socialites on the run. That doesn’t change the fact I’m still a piece of property to be exploited by Emil and the studio.

And I’d better look good doing it.

If I gain a few pounds, they give me pills to kill my appetite.

They shave my eyebrows and draw on skinny ones.

If my roots show too much – my hair darkens as I enter my twenties – the crew takes a break while I get a quick bleach touchup.

I’m whisked off to every film opening on a major publicity campaign, always in a long, sexy gown with a fur stole slung over my shoulder or fluffy feather boa with a handsome actor or producer at my side (Emil hovers in the background, making sure the press shoots plenty of pictures with me in the forefront). Silents are passé, yes, I tell them, and I embrace the chance to continue my career in speaking roles. Thanks to Miss Brimwell and her strict voice lessons, I’ve developed a rich mezzo soprano voice which adapts well to talkies.

All this partying is in addition to my nights carousing at my secret haunts. I develop not only a taste for champagne, but the white powder offered to me by musicians and artists I meet, eager to share illicit drugs sneaked into Paris from Berlin.

Sniffing the drug off my long nails, I head out for a night with a handsome gigolo hired by the studio to escort me on a junket down to Cannes. Rich celebrities can’t wait to be seen with me, drink and do drugs with me. When I do press interviews, I sober up quickly. I can’t forget I started out in this business as Ninette.

I feel like I’m losing myself, what I am.

And it frightens the hell out of me.

Emil wants to control my sex life.

He’s not pleased with my nocturnal jaunts, saying it’s bad for my image.

I should fire the purveyor of the gossip on set – a script girl I barely know – but it’s my own fault for not being more careful. A jealous fille de joie saw me dancing and cavorting with several men in a seedy club and told her friend who told the script girl. She couldn’t wait to spread the story.

It didn’t take long for word to reach Emil.

He insists on soliciting my partners, but I reject the men Emil chooses for me, preferring instead to find my lovers among the artists I meet in Montmartre and the university students in the Latin Quarter. Tall, muscular men with deep, sexy voices and stubble beards who aren’t afraid to find a woman’s secret places with their kisses, who take me in their arms and capture my soul with their fire, who don’t care or don’t know I’m Sylvie Martone.

Emil finds another way to make me do his bidding.

I’m dropped from a film for allegedly violating an obscure morals clause in my studio contract nobody ever pays attention to or there’d be no one making films. I realize if I want to stay on top, I have no choice but to acquiesce to his wishes. A sour moment in our relationship that makes me feel young and raw again – that I have no say in my own life no matter how much money I make or how many box office hits I have. No doubt Emil was the ‘unknown source’ making the accusation that was never proven, but it was enough to ‘suspend’ me. I hate how he uses his dominance over me to make me date the producers and studio moneymen who pay my salary. I’ll bed them, if I must. But it’s a cold bed. Not hot and passionate like the straw pallet in an artist loft in Montmartre, or the book-filled garret of the dashing young philosophy student.

Do I fall in love?

No, Sylvie Martone cannot fall in love. It’s against Emil’s rules.

God knows, my heart is fragile. I have no one to share everything I’ve worked so hard for.

On a whim, I drive out to the convent in my new, Italian, red Bugatti roadster to show Sister Vincent and ask her advice on how to nourish my wandering spirit. She blesses herself numerous times when she sees the expensive vehicle and asks if we can go for a ride with the top down. She never stops oohing and aahing the fancy car and I never get around to telling her the real reason I sneaked out of Paris. I’m lonely. I don’t make friends easily – a byproduct of fame. The irony is I’ve built a golden cage for myself and even when I fly away, I must return to that cage alone. No man could ever understand my passion to make films, the sacrifices I’ve endured, that I’m not made to bear children and make a home.

The truth is, I can’t bear a child.

Or so it seems. More than once I’ve fallen madly in love with a man and find such passion in his arms he can’t stop and I don’t want him to, hoping a child will be born of that passion, knowing I can give that child everything, love her, and adore her.

And pray the man of my passion will marry me.

Then I wait… and again I’m disappointed. My monthlies flow and I nurse an empty heart instead of a baby.

So I’ve embraced my fans as my children, my films are my legacy to them. I make sure the bouncy schoolchildren in my neighborhood behind the carriage gate of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine have shoes, the mothers have milk, and their husbands and brothers the tools they need to ply their trades.

To do so, I must work.

I have no choice but to fall in line, do what Emil wishes.

I never want to go hungry. I’ve seen the destitute humiliation of the people who live in the northern parts of Paris, men with their backs broken from arduous labor, children begging for sous, women selling their hair to buy bread.

That thought is on my mind a lot. The world is in a Great Depression, though France is hit later than the rest of Europe. What else can I do but act? I never learnt to make lace in the convent, I have no trade. I’ve gotten used to an extravagant lifestyle with an expensive haute couture wardrobe, jewels. Then Emil insists I take an expensive apartment in the Trocadéro in the 16e arrondissement where I can entertain film industry notables.

But I’m still that girl who had the brashness to act out her dream at the Durand movie theater, except now I’m a star. And those kids who threw tomatoes and cabbages at me, made fun of me, have to pay to see me up there on the silver screen.

Just like I promised on that day… so long ago.

I have a string of big hits over the next few years. Unfortunately, I start believing my own publicity, the worst thing that can happen to an actor. I get cocky… sometimes arrogant if I don’t get what I want. It’s my way of lashing out at Emil for his mental abuse and demands, for his insistence I do his bidding with the men he chooses, men who can keep my career on top and his coffers full. It doesn’t help I’m spoiled by my fans who follow my every move, embrace every story in Ciné-Miroir about my escapades and who my latest lover is… and every time I’m photographed in a new frock or fancy hat, a knockoff shows up on the racks of Le Bon Marché and Aux Trois Quartiers department stores. The public adores me and I adore them. I’m at the height of my success and I’m only twenty-five. My figure is svelte and my platinum hair glows bright and shiny under the spotlight of the public.

But there’s another side to me.

My heart is dark… and the more I’m forced to do Emil’s bidding to gain favors from the studio, the darker my life becomes. A life filled with alcohol and wild parties, men who love me, use me, then leave me. Then I start showing up late on set, forgetting my lines, missing my cues because I’m drinking too much.

‘You’re on a downward spiral, Sylvie. If you don’t watch it, you’ll end up like your mother,’ Emil blurts out when he finds me in a drunken stupor in my Trocadéro apartment, empty bottles tossed about on the Berber carpet. ‘Lying on your back for a few sous.’

I open one eye, curious. What’s he talking about?

‘Your mother wasn’t an aristocrat seduced by a stable hand,’ he continues, knowing I hear every word, his harsh words rattling my brain and sobering me up. ‘But a prostitute who haunted the cabarets on the Butte.’

No, no, I insist, crying. It can’t be true.

Emil goes on a rant, reminding me the public adores me and believes what he calls the phony biography put out by the studio publicity department. If the truth ever gets out, he threatens, and my fans find out I’m illegitimate, it will destroy their nostalgia for Ninette along with my good girl trying to get a break image the fans love.

And my career.

I calm down, slow my breathing. ‘You’re wrong, Emil. The fans believe in me, sending me stacks of mail every week, pouring out their stories to me, their hopes, and their dreams.’ I bury my head in my hands, knowing losing them is my greatest fear. I’d die if the people of France hated me. Just die… they’re my true family and I’d be lost without them.

Again, I’m caught in Emil’s spider web, his cruel words digging in my spine like sharp claws, tearing away at my flesh.

‘Think about what I said, Sylvie. And don’t come back to the studio until you’re sober.’

He slams the door, leaving me to stew in my vodka… or whiskey… whatever I gulped down after Marcel left… or was it Henri? It’s not important. I can’t forget the director’s words. Is this why God is punishing me? Why I can’t have a child of my own? Because I’ve chosen this life in pictures instead of taking the veil? Because I abandoned Him and everything Sister Vincent taught me?

I have to know if what Emil said about my mother is true because he doesn’t make threats lightly. He never leaves a stone unturned when it comes to controlling me. I wouldn’t put it past him to hire a detective agency to dig into my past. I always suspected there’s more to the story than Sister Vincent let on, but I chose to ignore it. Not anymore.

I sleep off my binge, throw cold water on my face, then pick up my brassiere, stockings, and garters strewn about on the white carpet. I pull on panties and jump into a pair of tailored, grey-pleated trousers, white blouse, and houndstooth jacket. Then, as a misty dawn breaks over Paris, revealing blue and slate rooftops like stepping stones back to my past, I head west outside the city and cover the distance to the convent in Ville Canfort-Terre, pushing my fancy motorcar to go the limit.

I came back here soon after I had my hair bobbed and my film flopped to ask Sister Vincent for guidance, then again when I bought the car, revealing as much about my life as I had to, leaving out the compromising details. Guilt washes over me. I continue to write to her, though not as much as I should. (As long as I toe the line, Emil has given up trying to stop me.)

I have a raging hangover, my head is splitting, and confusion rules my brain. I’m so damn tired I can’t keep my eyes open—

My head droops and I don’t know why, but I jam my foot down on the gas pedal and accelerate through the wooded area outside the convent. The motorcar bounces over the road, hits a rock, bounces back and in an instant I’m wide awake.

My God… where did that tree come from?

I swerve, gripping the steering wheel hard and twisting it to the right, putting my shoulder into the awkward movement and ripping my jacket sleeve. Panting hard, I screech to a halt and, in a moment of self-deprecation, I bang my head on the steering wheel. Cursing… hurting inside. What insanity induced me to drive in this condition? I could have been killed if I’d slammed into that tall chestnut tree.

I push any idea of my mortality out of my mind. I’ve got bigger issues at stake.

Like, who is my birth mother?

I park the motorcar outside the gate and find Sister Vincent in the chapel, praying. In a pew. First row. On her knees. Her back is to me as my high heels echo on the stone floor, announcing my arrival. She continues mumbling in a voice as soft as a celestial cloud. As if she knows I’m coming and she’s asking God to give her strength.

I stop.

She turns. Smiles at me. She looks as calm and serene as she always does. A vibrant joy in her grey eyes shines through the glass of her spectacles with such intensity I wonder if the lenses will crack. The fine lines around her mouth have deepened. I like to think that’s because she smiles a lot, not because she worries about me.

‘Sylvie, ma petite, I’m blessed to see you,’ she says without breaking eye contact with me, which does nothing to dim my focused determination in my soul to say what’s on my mind. Now. Without a fancy prelude. I can’t wait any longer.

‘Who was my mother, Sister Vincent?’ I don’t kneel down in the pew, but remain standing. ‘I want the truth.’

She doesn’t back away. Her eyes pierce my heart. Their greyness turns dark. Very dark.

‘She was a prostitute from Paris…’ she begins without making excuses, remaining on her knees as if doing penance for keeping her silence. I see her twisting her beads, gripping the wooden orbs, rubbing her sweat on them till they shine. ‘A beautiful woman dying of consumption when she brought you here.’

‘A tragic heroine, n’est-ce pas?’ I snicker. ‘It sounds like a scene from one of my films. How do I know that’s the truth?’ I can’t stop looking at her, disbelieving what I’m hearing. I admire her courage to look me in the eye. I’m still reeling from knowing the fanciful story she told me as a child. How my mother was a wild and beautiful aristocrat who had a secret affair with a roguish stable hand. How she was forced to give me up lest harm come to me from her enemies. How she died in a suspicious fire rather than reveal my whereabouts. She made it sound so fascinating, I wanted to believe it.

‘Because I would never tell a falsehood in front of Him.’

Her eyes drift upward toward the crucifix with Jesus Christ hanging above the altar. An eerie pause grips me, as if I expect a bolt of thunder to shake the rafters to disavow her words. A pungent scent of leftover incense mixes with the coriander of my perfume spiking from the heat of my body and fills my nostrils.

Still, I wait.

When nothing happens, the nun heaves out a sigh and rustles her black woolen skirts, then continues.

‘I beg you to understand, ma petite. I made up the story because I didn’t want to hurt you. Didn’t want you to carry the stigma of being the illegitimate daughter of a prostitute upon your shoulders.’ She stands and holds my hands in hers, hands with aging, wrinkled skin, veins popping, but the deep sadness in her grey eyes behind the wire rim spectacles doesn’t move me.

‘I can’t believe you lied to me about my mother, Sister Vincent. How you concocted a tale that would make a young girl’s heart swell with such romantic notions she’d cling to them like they were sacred prayers.’ I make it clear how angry I am with her, this dutiful creature who was the only good thing about my childhood and now I find that was a lie, too. She didn’t trust me enough to let me handle the truth. I could have, couldn’t I?

You’re not doing such a good a job now, are you?

‘I made a fool out of myself with that phony story all these years,’ I continue, raising my voice and not caring if God disapproves. He knows what I’ve done and I’m living my punishment. What more can He do to me? ‘Emil knows the truth and I’m more under his control than ever. I have no choice but to do his bidding if I don’t want to end up in the gutter because I will never return here. I’m done… done with you… done with your pious teachings. Lies, all lies. I’ll never believe in you or hold anything you say sacred again.’

‘Please, mon enfant, I beg you to forgive me—’

‘Forgive you? I don’t know if I ever can.’

Bitter words that prick my brain to rethink what I’ve said, but I’ve gone too far. I’ve set myself up for a painful isolation from the one person in my life always there for me. Yes, I’m not thinking straight… I do that a lot these days. But I don’t need Sister Vincent’s preaching to me about my ‘habits’. It’s better this way.

Then, without turning back even when I hear a loud sob behind me and the swish of holy skirts slumping to the stone floor, I race back to Paris, anger and frustration pumping through me. Adrenaline surges through my veins and primes my juices like a glass of Pernod. I need to be with someone, someone to hold me, tell me what I want to hear. That I’m wanted… loved. My sensual urges are on fire, burning like an eternal flame.

There’s no turning back and no one to stop me.

I head up the cobbled Rue Norvins toward a familiar apartment with red velvet walls and a big, soft four poster bed at the top of Montmartre, a place where I can forget how lonely I am. No lies… no promises. Just sex with a beautiful man who doesn’t care who my mother was.

Montmartre

The heady warmth of smooth brandy quiets my fears and calms me.

I lie nude on the rich, cherry-red velvet coverlet, listening to the sound of my own breathing, the minutes ticking by on the grandfather clock in the study. Like droplets of water falling on my forehead.

Tick… tock.

Drip… drop.

Then a cool breeze tickles me between the legs as the rugged artist tantalizes my bare skin with his long paintbrush.

‘Bastien, again… please, mon amour.’

‘You’re drunk, Sylvie… sloppy drunk, but you’re beautiful.’

I wiggle my hips. ‘Hand me my pills. And the brandy.’

I need it, crave it… I can’t turn off the painful thirst for the alcohol circulating in my brain. My mouth is dry. I’m heaving up gulps of air. My eyelids are heavy as a profound weariness descends upon me. Weighing me down as if I’m bound by restraints, my feelings and emotions wrapped up in a realm of fantasy, knowing what comes next. Pure ecstasy.

‘Where did you get these pills?’ he asks. ‘They’re a powerful sedative.’ He rattles the glass bottle of sleeping pills I sweet talked the studio doctor into giving me.

‘I have my ways… give me the pills.’

‘What if Hélène shows up and finds you here?’

‘Who the hell is she?’

‘My patroness…’

‘You mean your posh whore.’ I see him grin wide, his bare chest shiny with sweat.

‘She’s doesn’t trust me.’

‘Neither do I.’ I smirk, then wiggle my hips again to get what I want. Him. And the pills.

‘Zut alors, Sylvie, I can never resist you,’ he says, handing me the pills and then the brandy. ‘You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever made love to.’

‘Until the next one comes along.’ I have no illusions about Bastien and his loyalty, or lack thereof, but the struggling artist is good for my ego… and my needs.

His fingers are cold, colder than I would have imagined when he touches me. I don’t care. I’m all in a fever, wrapped up in darkness and secrecy and—

Desire.

Sending me to a place I both need and fear.

I hear the crisp snap of a matchstick hitting the iron bedframe and the scent of that fear mixes with the pungent odor of a familiar smell filling the outrageously red bedroom. A cool, damp musky smell that reminds me of rich earth.

Bastien inhales deeply and blows out the smoke before offering me the bud. I shake my head, preferring the lovely dream my pills promise. I down the rest of the pills with the brandy, then gasp when I feel his soft kisses teasing me, and then his curious mouth moving up and down my body, his lips dancing over my skin with a wicked playfulness both intimate and frightening.

My heart beats faster, my breaths frantic.

The room begins spinning around me. A nauseating dizziness takes hold of me. I shouldn’t have taken so many pills. I’m powerless to resist their effect. I refuse to acknowledge I’m on a drunken, drug-induced binge, drowning my sorrows with a man I don’t love but enjoy, except tonight he seems nervous. I assume that’s because I dropped in unexpectedly, enticing him to soothe my lonely soul with his gorgeous body.

A pity, I remember little of what happens afterward except I’m never disappointed. All I recall is waking up with a raging headache and a lovely soreness between my legs and a woman shouting… then Bastien shouting back.

‘She’s a drunk and an addict,’ the woman yells. ‘Get her out of here.’

‘Do you know who she is?’

‘No, and I don’t care. She’s nothing to me. Get rid of her or we’re through.’

‘You don’t mean that, ma chérie.’

‘I’m not paying for this rattrap so you can bring your tart here. We have an agreement. I own you and you service only me. Toss her out now or you can sell your ass to another rich pigeon.’

Then a door banging… the grandfather clock striking three… someone picking me up and carrying me out into the chilly night.

And I pass out. Again.