No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [123]
Two weeks later, her condition worsened when a local doctor, unaware of her medical history, prescribed a diuretic that sent her into another coma. The star was rushed to a nearby clinic, where she remained for ten days, gradually regaining consciousness on a regimen of liver extracts, vital serums, and rest. For the next month, she was taken there twice a week to receive the implant treatments that kept her alive. At this point, the distrust between the two camps of her entourage—the Bonels, who had cared for her at home and abroad for many years, and Margantin, Vassal, and Noli, who saw themselves as better qualified to understand her—became open hostility after Vassal photographed her in a comatose state, a scoop for France Dimanche. Though no longer welcome at La Gatounière, the journalists kept in touch with Simone Margantin, who told them of the household’s next move, to a village near Grasse where Edith would be in peace.
Piaf’s entourage moved to Plascassier, in the wooded hills high above the Riviera, on September 1. The house, which mingled different architectural styles—Baroque, Provençal, and Norman—would have been enjoyable under happier circumstances. It had a neglected garden full of leaves, an unkempt swimming pool, and the quiet that came from being set back from the road. Edith said that its gentle atmosphere suited her. Strolling in the garden, she seemed absent, as if in a dream. To a journalist who called one day she said that Théo was now the family breadwinner. “It doesn’t keep him from phoning three times a day and spending weekends with me,” she continued, putting his absence in the best light, though in private she said that she was tired of him.
During the week, Edith spent mornings in bed and afternoons in the garden, knitting and chatting with Simone, who became her confidante as well as her nurse. Together they read a weighty tome on French history. Soon the star began supervising the education of her new protégée, Clarine, a teenager from the village who helped in the household. The girl, she insisted, must make something of herself. Her parents, the village grocers, may have sensed that their famous client saw Clarine as a substitute daughter—or a version of her young self. “I suffered too much from the lack of an education,” Edith said. “We must help her.” Once Simone, who wrote poetry, began to impart her feeling for literature to the girl, and Edith made her practice English for hours each day, Clarine rarely picked up a broom.
Few people came to Plascassier. One day Dumont phoned from a bar in Marseille; he and Jacques Brel had just written a song for Edith, “Je m’en remets à toi” (“I Defer to You”) and wanted to show it to her. They could not see her in her current state, she said: Dumont should sing their composition over the phone. He did so. She approved of Brel’s lyric—“Pour ce qui est d’aimer / Pour une part de chance / Pour ce qui est d’espérer / Ou de désespérance, / Je m’en remets à toi.” (“When it comes to love / When it comes to luck / When it comes to hope / Or to despair / I defer to you.”) She asked Dumont to bring her the song when she returned to Paris. “I was happy to be in touch with her,” he said years later, “but I wish I had gone up there anyway.”
Despite their bad behavior in August, Vassal and Noli were welcomed when they drove to Plascassier on October 5. Edith received them in the garden. Did Noli know the Rosicrucians’ philosophy? she asked. One could be both a Christian and a member of their order, she explained. “They believe in reincarnation, and I do too. For a long time I’ve wondered what becomes of us. It can’t be true that once we’re dead we’re nothing but dust.” As for herself, she would have liked to spend more time on earth while awaiting the Last Judgment. When Edith fell asleep in her chair, Noli asked Margantin for a prognosis. “She goes from exaggerated gaiety to dark despair,” the nurse replied. “When she’s depressed, she keeps saying, ‘I paid a great price for my stupidity.