No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [107]
Piaf’s comeback began on November 20 in Melun, when she introduced two new songs, “Ouragan” and “C’est l’amour.” Marlene Dietrich, who had just arrived in France, came to see her sing; her friend’s presence seemed like a good omen. Piaf toured the north of France for two weeks without incident until Maubeuge, where she left the stage after forgetting the words to two songs. The doctor who was summoned advised her to cancel. She objected, “If I can’t keep singing, … I’ll never be able to believe in myself.” Barrier let her continue, against his better judgment. Despite the tonic effect of the next song, “Milord,” her voice failed before she reached the end. The press was told that her malaise had been caused by an overdose of barbiturates; no one let on that she was again relying on a cocktail of different drugs in large doses.
Accounts of what was now called Piaf’s “suicide tour” appeared in the popular press, accompanied by photographs of her swollen face. Pierre Desgraupes, the host of a popular television program, came to Dieppe to interview her on December 11 amid rumors of her impending death. He began by asking if she could imagine not singing. “No,” she replied. It was the only thing that made her happy: without it she would kill herself. She had to keep performing to get well. To the extent of disobeying doctors’ orders? Desgraupes asked. “That’s all I do,” Piaf replied. “I disobey everyone.” Changing the subject, the host asked why she could not bear to be alone. Because of ghosts from the past who came to haunt her, she murmured; asked who they were, she declined to give their names.
Two days later, at Dreux, her face was even more swollen, her hands knotted with arthritis, and she could barely talk. Lucien Vaimber, a doctor of chiropractic known for his success with extreme cases, was called in. Although he too advised her to cancel, Piaf insisted on appearing that night. Gripping the microphone for support, she sang eight songs and collapsed. As the star was carried from the theater, many in the audience burst into tears, certain that they would never see her again.
Piaf was again hospitalized in Paris—her treatment a sleep cure and vitamin injections. The staff refused all visitors until December 19, her forty-fourth birthday. She went home on Christmas Eve but returned a week later with severe jaundice, then spent January 1960 in the American Hospital. Although she insisted that she would recover in time for her Olympia engagement that spring, Paris Match began publishing illustrated chapters in “the novel of a life”—her own. “The subject of her songs is her life,” the editors wrote. “Interpreting the world of suffering and romance, she bears witness to it, like a Victor Hugo heroine.”
During the time Edith remained in hospital, the growing malaise over the government’s handling of the civil war in Algeria (technically part of France) had assumed crisis proportions. Since 1958, when De Gaulle returned as the head of the Fifth Republic after a group of officers led a coup in Algiers in support of “Algérie française” (Algeria under French rule), civil unrest over the conduct of the war had dominated public awareness. Debates over what it meant to be French given the demise of the country’s former rule in Indochina and perhaps in North Africa were carried on daily. Cultural events, including songs, were seen in relation to their political implications, or the views of their performers.
In the hospital, Piaf may have been unaware of De Gaulle’s January 29 address to the nation in support of his policy—Algerian self-rule following the restoration of order, a plan that would meet with violent resistance. For the next six months, she spent most of her time recuperating in the country with Rivgauche, Léveillée, the Bonels, and the few members of her entourage who