Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Genevieve thrust a handful of francs at the driver of the bicycle taxi—she’d been lucky to get one—and rushed from the dark street past the startled guard through the Casino de Paris’s stage door. A line of long black cars parked in front of the theater’s main entrance on the rue de Clichy told her that tonight’s performance came with a full contingent of Nazi VIPs in attendance. The show was always standing room only, with a few hopefuls usually plucked from the walk-ups to prop the wall at the back. That the people queued up in the standby line to the left of the box office were the only ones still waiting told her that the bulk of the audience was already inside.

At least they hadn’t canceled yet. But the decision had to be close.

The panic of possibly missing her own show was just beginning to subside. Her train had been late, the metro had broken down and the line to use the pay telephone had been so long that she’d started walking instead. By the time she’d spotted the bicycle taxi, she was running.

If she was lucky, Max wasn’t here and didn’t know. He’d been especially busy since they’d been in Paris and often missed the opening numbers.

Her head pounded, her nerves had long since unraveled and terrible images of what might be happening to her mother ran on a continuous loop through her mind. The horror of what she had witnessed in Cherbourg was burned indelibly into her memory. Thinking about it did no good, but burying such a powerful impression of unjust tragedy and grief was proving almost impossible. The idea of performing after witnessing that made her sick to her stomach, but the consequences of missing her show were potentially dire. With an audience full of Nazis, news of a cancellation would be widely broadcast and would focus unwanted attention and even suspicion on her and Max and the others, endangering them all. That she could not risk. But she was only now, as she pushed through the door into the bright, noisy, overwarm, perfume-scented backstage area, finally able to force what she had seen from her mind and, in the process, exchange Genevra for Genevieve.

As she struggled into her star persona, the scene that greeted her was so ordinary, so unchanged by the barbarity of what was happening out there in the world beyond this make-believe one, that it felt surreal.

“Genevieve! Oh, Genevieve! We were so worried!” A dozen relieved voices called out to her at once.

“I know. I’m late. Oh, dear, let me through.”

Focus. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.

She hopped over and stepped around and squeezed between knots of her girls, who crowded the narrow hallway outside the female choristes’ too-small dressing room, getting their sparkly eyeliner painted on and their crimson lipstick touched up and their faces fluffed with powder. Those who already had their faces done were being helped into knee-length pale pink feathery capes. Along with itty-bitty brassieres and tiny sparkling panties that left most of their derrieres bare, glittery pink thigh-high boots and tall, face-framing pink bonnets, the capes constituted their costumes for the first song, which was about being young and happy and out and about in Paris. At the beginning of the song, the girls held the capes closed, presenting a picture of demure stylishness as they danced and sang among replicas of Paris’s popular attractions. When they reached the chorus, they dropped their capes and twirled in their scanty remaining costumes across the stage, unfailingly to copious audience applause.

“Monsieur Lafont is about to expire of nerves,” one of the girls said—a tall, slim blonde named Angelique, who was stretching out against the wall, one long, booted leg extended high above her head as she leaned into the movement. Her cape was puddled on the floor at her feet, and she was as casual in her near nudity as only theater people could be.

“We were afraid he would pop like a balloon! Pow!” Red-haired Honore, equally cape-less, looked up from the splits she’d just sunk into with enormous, rainbow-painted eyes as Genevieve stepped over her leg.

“He is so funny, that one,” Cecile said as she finished adjusting her brassiere. “He is like a tomato. But with sweat.”

“Quick, we must finish the toilettes.” Therese Arnault clapped her hands sharply from the top of the hallway as she descended on the girls, who called her “Madame” to her face and “the Warden” behind her back. Bracket faced, gray haired and built on queenly lines, she was in charge of the chorus girls, and she ruled them with a rod of iron. “All of you, get dressed. And try to remember that you are supposed to be ladies.”

Rushing by with an acknowledging nod for Madame, who was making hurry-up gestures with her hands at the girls and looking harassed, Genevieve made it to her own private dressing room. Its wooden door bore a framed sheet of paper with her name printed on it in a semicircle above a large red star.

She burst through the door. Lacquered crimson walls, a green-and-blue patterned carpet, a corner fireplace, currently unlit: the room was large and cluttered.

“Thank the good God.” Berthe stopped wringing her hands as Genevieve entered and sprang up from the green velvet sofa where she’d been sitting. “Even I was starting to worry. In these times, people can be gone in an instant, you know. Alive and then—” she snapped her fingers “—poof. Dead.”

“Quick, help me get dressed.” Genevieve dropped the shopping bag. Shrugging out of Berthe’s coat, she let it fall to the floor, too, as Berthe whipped the scarf from her head. Her costume for the opening song hung from a hook nearby. The lights surrounding the large triple-sided makeup mirror were on, her cosmetics spread out in front of it. “I’m sorry I worried you. I stayed out longer than I intended.”

“I knew you wouldn’t miss your show. Didn’t I tell everyone you would be here? Where did you go? And why did you wear my coat—never mind. You can tell me later. We must get you ready to go on.”

Between the two of them, they had her stripped to the skin, bundled into her white satin dressing gown and seated in front of the triple mirror before Berthe finished talking.

Genevieve slapped cold cream onto her face and started wiping it off as Berthe snatched up the dangling jet earrings that were part of her costume and fitted them into her ears.

“Did you eat?” Berthe asked, and Genevieve’s guilty expression must have given her the answer. “You didn’t—I knew it. Even when there is food, you never eat. Fortunate for you that I set aside something from the mess just in case.”

Ahead of each performance, a mess table with food for the chorus line was set up backstage, to be cleared away before the show began. Its fare wasn’t particularly appetizing, but it was edible, and it had become a nonnegotiable part of her contract with each venue. In this time of shortage, being able to provide for the people who worked for her was one of the things that made performing for the Nazis bearable. She tried to remind herself every day to be grateful for it, just like she reminded herself to be grateful that, even in the cities where food was becoming almost impossible to obtain, she and her people never starved.

She’d had nothing to eat since leaving the Ritz that morning. She wasn’t consciously hungry—the day’s upsets had taken care of that—but the headache and jittery feeling afflicting her would almost certainly be helped by food. And her show was grueling. She knew she needed sustenance before she took the stage.

Berthe darted away from the dressing table while Genevieve finished wiping off the rest of the cream, then returned to smack a plate that held a small mound of reconstituted powdered egg on a slice of whole wheat toast down in front of her, along with a cup of coffee.

“Eat,” Berthe ordered, grabbing the boots that went with her costume while Genevieve wolfed down the food. Berthe dropped to her knees in front of her, opening and positioning the boots, which were thigh high and sparkling but a deep fuchsia pink instead of the baby pink worn by the chorus girls.

Genevieve shoved her feet into them and extended each leg in turn so that Berthe could zip them up. She swallowed the last of the egg and toast, chased it with a gulp of the vinegary ersatz coffee, and started on her face while Berthe attacked her hair.

They were pros. Between them they made quick work of getting her hair and face stage ready. A final twist of a curl, a curve of deep red lipstick, and it was done. Genevieve jumped up, balancing on first one leg in its high-heeled boot and then the other as she stepped into the next piece of her costume, a deep pink waist-cinching strapless bodysuit, shimmering with sequins and strategically placed festoons of beads that moved with her every step.

“This thing has more bones than I do.” Dropping the dressing gown, Genevieve leaned forward, shimmying as she tried to get herself positioned properly in the molded satin cups.

“You want the shape, you get the bones.” Berthe stood behind her, grunting with the effort of trying to align the edges of the long zipper that closed the garment up the back so she could start zipping. She gave the two edges a yank. “Zip first, bosom after. You need to—”

The curtest of knocks interrupted. They had no time to do anything but look toward the door before Max thrust it open and strode into the room.

His eyes went straight to Genevieve, moved swiftly over her. The relief in his expression was impossible to miss.

“Max.” She snapped upright. Momentarily forgetting that her costume remained unzipped, she took an impulsive step toward him, then stopped dead, clapping a hand to her chest to hold the bodysuit in place as the whole slithery pink garment threatened to drop. She was, she realized with surprise, fiercely glad to see him. Just when he had become her anchor in a turbulent world she couldn’t have said, but there it apparently was.

“M’sieur Max!” Berthe planted her fists on her hips and frowned at him. She might adore him, but everything from her scandalized tone to her stance made it clear she thought it was improper of him to barge into Genevieve’s dressing room while she was getting dressed.

“Do you know what time it is?” His voice was perfectly even, but the real story was there in his eyes. They blazed with anger.

“I’m late. I know.” News of her mother’s fate, and what she hoped to have him do about it, trembled on the tip of her tongue, but Berthe’s presence and the possibility of other listening ears close by made her swallow the words.

It would have to wait until she got him alone.

He closed the door with a backward shove and came toward her, lurching slightly on his stick as he dodged through the obstacle course that the bag and clothes she’d discarded had made of the floor.

“Where have you been?” He stopped in front of her.

So much for her hope that he wouldn’t find out about her long absence.

“Out.” For the moment it was the best she could do. Anyway, the idea that he thought she had to account to him for her whereabouts annoyed her. “Don’t tell me you were worried about me.”

“I stopped by the Ritz this morning to drop off your coat and was told you’d gone for a walk. Must have been a hell of one.”

“It was.”

He caught her arm, his hand warm and strong, his long fingers curling around the supple flesh centimeters above her elbow.

“Ow.” Wincing, she looked down in surprise to find that his fingers pressed into her skin almost on top of a set of bruises she hadn’t even suspected were there: four perfect, and tender, print marks where Vartan had dug in his fingers earlier.

Max was looking at them, too, his face tightening.

He must have felt her eyes on him because his lids lifted and he met her gaze. As he recognized the bruises as proof of a man’s—another man’s—ungentle grip, the anger in his eyes transformed into something cold and hard that glinted at her.

He didn’t ask, not with Berthe there. But he stood close enough that she could feel the tension emanating from him like an electrical charge.

To her vexation, her pulse quickened in response.

“Next time you plan to disappear for the day, do me a favor and let somebody know.” He dropped her arm.

His tone, his expression, his whole attitude, aggravated her. She’d had a terrible day, had something hugely important to tell him, and he was acting like she’d run off on some kind of date.

“You’re assuming I planned it.” For the benefit of Berthe, who was watching the exchange round-eyed, she smiled at him. “I ran into some old friends.”

Max shot Berthe a look that had her turning away to busy herself picking up Genevieve’s discarded clothes.

“On your walk.” His eyes were hard.

“That’s right.”

“Must have been a joyous reunion to have lasted all day.”

“It was.”

“Who are these friends?”

“No one you know.”

“Women? Men? Schoolmates? Long-lost childhood companions?”

“A mix.”

He studied her face. Then he leaned close, whispered into her ear, “You should probably know that whenever you tell a lie, your nose twitches. It’s charming. Makes you look like a nervous little rabbit.”

Her head jerked back. A hand automatically flew to her nose. “It does not.”

He smiled at her, and she realized what she had just admitted. She should have remembered that Max was an expert in ferreting out information.

She lowered her hand. “Where did you imagine I was?” In the spirit of revenge, she batted her eyes at him and started walking teasing fingers up his immaculate shirt front. As always on nights when she had a show, he was dressed in a tux. Tonight, grim and cold-eyed, he looked far tougher than her artistically inclined piano playing manager should by rights look. He trapped her hand beneath his right before she reached his bow tie, imprisoning it against his chest. Beneath the smooth cotton of his shirt she could feel the firm muscles of his chest, the warmth of his skin.

Lowering her voice, she went up on tiptoe to whisper for his ears alone, “Surely not—with a man?”

His mouth thinned. His voice was as low as hers. “A girl didn’t cause those bruises.”

“Careful. You’re going to make me think you’re jealous.”

His eyes flared at her. She had struck a nerve. “This isn’t a game we’re playing here.”

“You’re right, it’s not. I—” Genevieve began, when a loud bang on the door made her jump.

“Five minutes, Mademoiselle Dumont.”

That was her call. She needed to leave her dressing room now. Everything else was going to have to wait. Including Max.

“Your cape.” Berthe, catapulted into action by the warning, darted toward where the deep pink cape waited on its hanger. Equally galvanized, Genevieve yanked her hand free of Max’s hold and stepped back. Her bodysuit slipped once more. With a muttered curse she clapped her hand to her chest again, barely in time to keep her decent, and looked up to catch Max’s eyes on the dangerous expanse of skin thus revealed. Seeing that near catastrophe, Berthe abruptly changed course, beelining toward her. “My God, you’re not even zipped.”

“I’ve got it.” Tossing his stick onto the nearby sofa, Max dropped a hand onto Genevieve’s shoulder and whipped her around. She might have argued, but outside the door the muffled thunder of a stampede of footsteps told her that the girls were rushing en masse toward the stage.

“Quick,” Genevieve urged him over her shoulder instead, while Berthe flapped her hands in agitated acceptance and veered back toward the cape.

“Hold still,” he commanded. She realized she’d rocked up onto her toes in her anxiety to get out the door. His hands were inside her zipper, inside her bodysuit, closing on either side of her waist to bring her down. The feel of them, big and warm and strong, gripping her bare skin sent a wholly unwanted shiver down her spine.

“Would you hurry up and zip me?” If her voice was a growl, it was because she was fighting not to sound breathless.

He fumbled as he tried to fit the ends of the zipper together, his fingers brushing the small of her back. “Could they make this thing any smaller?” he muttered, and finally managed to get them connected, sliding the zipper upward. His knuckles grazed the indentation of her waist, slid up her spine...

She noted the quickening of her heartbeat with a combination of alarm and dismay.

Another bang on the door. “Three minutes, Mademoiselle Dumont.”

“Ayeh!” Berthe turned back to the screen, where the glittering pink top hat with the wide black band that completed Genevieve’s outfit hung from the top of a gilded knob.

Max stepped back. Grabbing her cape and gloves from Berthe, Genevieve pulled them on while bending her knees so Berthe could pin her hat in place at the correct jaunty angle.

“Go, go.” Berthe shooed her away with a gesture.

Genevieve ran for the stage. Grabbing his stick, Max stayed right behind her. The hall was deserted. The girls were already in place in the wings. She could hear the master of ceremonies booming the introduction: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Casino de Paris is proud to present the Black Swan, the incomparable Mademoiselle Genevieve Dumont, in Seasons of Love.”

The orchestra started up. Pierre Lafont, red-faced and sweating, came around the corner just as she reached the backstage crossover. Upon seeing her, he lifted his hands and face skyward as if to express thanks to an almighty God and then hurried to join her.

“Mademoiselle, you will make of me an old man.” He mopped his brow with a handkerchief as he rushed with her toward the stairs she had to ascend to reach the second tier of the stage set, from which she would make her grand entrance. The intro swirled around them. “If you could perhaps allow a little bit more time—”

“I’m sorry.” She was genuinely contrite. “I will in future, I promise. I was out, and I couldn’t find a taxi.”

She reached the stairs and started to climb. Glancing down, she happened to get a glimpse of Max’s face. He was looking up at her, frowning, his mouth tight, his eyes speculative.

She made a saucy little moue at him.

His eyes narrowed. Then, unexpectedly, his mouth twisted into a wry smile.

“Break a leg,” he mouthed at her.

That won an answering smile from her.

For a moment, the merest sliver of a moment, it felt like old times.

Then there was no time to think about Max or anything at all except the performance she was about to give. The orchestra swung into the opening bars of the song. She could hear the girls’ light-hearted call-and-response intro as they poured out onto the stage. Reaching the top of the steps, she got into position. Taking deep breaths to calm the butterflies that always afflicted her right before she went on, she waited for her cue.

There it was.

She squared her shoulders, lifted her chin and stepped through the curtain into the blazing spotlight like the star she was. Briefly she paused at the top of the wide ornamental staircase that led down to the stage to let the audience get its first look at her. On either side of the staircase, a line of chorus boys clad in tuxedos and top hats waited to help her descend.

Directing a brilliant smile at the rapturously applauding audience that the bright lights kept her from actually seeing, she took the gloved hands the boys on the top step extended to her and started to sing.

“Elle fréquentait la rue Pigalle...”

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