Americans in Paris_ Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation - Charles Glass [148]
The long discussion at El Biar, over days and nights between meals with the MPs, would have tried any father and son–especially two with mutual resentments. But it was leading to an understanding of a kind. Charles Emile enlightened his father about Albert Ramond, his former employee who had taken control of the American Bedaux company in 1937. It seemed that Ramond’s wife had attempted to seduce young Charles in the summer of 1930, while they were together in the Ramonds’ country house in north Michigan. He turned her down, more from youthful panic than moral qualm, because she was nearly ten years older than he was. The spurned woman told her husband that the youth had made a play for her. Enraged, Albert Ramond confronted the boy and swore revenge against his family. The revenge came in 1937, when he seized control of Bedaux’s company.
When Charles Senior’s turn came, he took even longer to regale his son with the adventure that had, until then, been his life. From sandhog to multimillionaire, semi-literate Montmartre street tout to friend of kings and presidents, he had enjoyed a life that was nothing if not eventful. There had been countless lovers, year-long safaris, financial achievements and scandals, his passion for Fern, exploring British Columbia for a safe route to Alaska, all leading to what should have been his greatest accomplishment and adventure: uniting the two halves of Africa with a pipeline across the Sahara. His regret at not having seen more of his son was mitigated by a belief that Blanche had taught the boy to hate him as she did.
On Wednesday evenings at El Biar, Charles Senior withdrew from his son. He said that Fern, a devout Christian Scientist, would be praying then and he wanted to share the moment with her. It was obvious to the son that his father missed her. Towards the end of Charles Senior’s days-long narrative, he told his son that his Austrian friend in Paris, Count Joseph von Ledebur, was part of Germany’s anti-Nazi underground. Charles Junior later told his father’s biographer, Jim Christy, that his father concluded, ‘It is better that you don’t know what I have done to deceive the Germans. Just remember the words Schwarze Kapelle. I shall say no more.’ Schwarze Kapelle, German for Black Orchestra, meant nothing to the son. He told Christy that the exchange of life histories helped him to understand his father. But he still did not like him.
THIRTY-TWO
Sylvia’s War
SYLVIA BEACH’S FRIENDS IN PARIS and Vichy lobbied the Nazis for her liberty. Adrienne wrote to Tudor Wilkinson on 20 January 1943 to remind him of his pledge that Sylvia would be home by Christmas. He responded the next day, ‘After receiving your letter this morning, I telephoned the Authorities and they were like me very surprised that Miss Beach has not been freed. But I have been assured that the order has been given for her liberation.’ The ‘Authorities’, presumably the German police command, blamed red tape in Vittel for the delay. Still, nothing happened.
On the same day that Tudor Wilkinson wrote to Adrienne, Vittel received a fresh contingent of internees. If the American women in the camp were desperate to get out, the arrivals from Poland were grateful to be allowed in. Nominally American citizens, most had never seen the United States. The Nazis had taken them from the Warsaw Ghetto, where they confined and terrorized the city’s Jewish population, because they held US passports by right of birth, marriage or family connection. One of them, Gutta Eizenzweig, wrote of her arrival at Vittel, ‘I stood there in shock, for we had suddenly crossed