No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [42]
After befriending the couple, Cocteau rewrote an earlier draft of the play, one of his many dramatic works on the theme of unrequited love, to take advantage of Piaf’s reputation. He made the female character a cabaret singer in a little black dress and called for a realistic set, a hotel room of the sort she had inhabited in Pigalle. Her persona inspired the playwright to realize his “dream theater,” he wrote—“a play that disappears behind the actress, … who seems to improvise her role each night.” At first Edith was unsure how to hold the audience for the thirty minutes it took to declaim her monologue. But, though the role was a challenge, Cocteau was delighted: “She executed it with the ease of acrobats who exchange their trapezes in midair.” The play opened on April 20. “Mademoiselle Piaf is excellent!” Marianne exclaimed. “Her acting is both passionate and precise,” Le Figaro noted. Piaf was “magnificent,” according to Les Nouvelles littéraires, whose critic could not resist saying that she came by her tragic air naturally.
Meurisse did not record his feelings about playing opposite his lover, except to say that not speaking for half an hour made him tense. His habitual sangfroid was further tested when he was mobilized after only six performances, and Piaf declared that he was better at acting than at singing.
Le Bel Indifférent ran until May 14 with another actor in the male role. By then the Germans had occupied the Low Countries, and northern France was under assault. Following a Red Cross benefit at the Bobino and a return engagement there, Edith left for two weeks in Provence while Hitler’s troops marched on the capital. Soon a million Parisians were fleeing before their advance. She returned to Paris on June 12—two days before the victorious Germans hung a huge swastika from the Arc de Triomphe and marched in formation down the Champs-Elysées.
After the fall of Paris, all places of entertainment closed. Following the announcement of the armistice on June 17, France was divided into Occupied and Unoccupied zones, with three-fifths of the country under German rule and a pro-German regime in Vichy. Those who could leave Paris did so as soon as possible.
Edith made her way to Toulouse, where Meurisse was stationed. Finding her old friend Jacques Canetti among the horde of refugees, she asked him to find her a gig. Hotel rooms cost a fortune; she needed cash. Soon she was sharing the stage at a movie house with her lover. For the next two months Meurisse accompanied her on a tour of southern France, the first of the many tours of the zone libre (Unoccupied Zone) that Piaf would make during the Occupation. It took them to Perpignan (where they ran into Cocteau), Montpellier, Toulon, Nîmes, Béziers, and Narbonne. By September, she had had enough of touring. Refusing to be intimidated, she declared to her lover, “Krauts or no Krauts, the capital of France is Paris.”
They arrived in Paris on September 17 to find most public buildings draped with swastikas. From their lunch table at Fouquet’s, they watched a German officer on horseback lead a company of soldiers to the Place de la Concorde. “It was a terrible shock,” Meurisse recalled. “We pretended to be indifferent, but although we already knew that we had lost, we understood at this very moment that with defeat comes humiliation.”
It became apparent that Paris was now on German time—one hour earlier than in the past. The next day, when the couple began rehearsing for a joint engagement at L’Aiglon, they learned that all programs had to be submitted to the Propaganda Staffel (censor). To maintain an air of normality, the cabarets, cinemas, and theaters had been reopened by the occupiers, who were astounded by the the Paris audiences’ defiant chic—their way of showing that their spirits would not be cowed.
“At this time, the occupiers had clean hands,” Meurisse wrote. “We would soon see the arrival of the other sort.” In this context, Piaf