No Regrets - Carolyn Burke [48]
Similarly, Paris-Midi praised the star’s ability to imbue old material with a new nobility—“a purity of intention, breadth, and sobriety.” The A.B.C. program showed “her perfect command of the ‘Piaf style,’ ” now more moving than ever. One wonders what Edith made of the “Piaf style,” whether she laughed at the idea or took it as a tribute to her professionalism. “She no longer looks like a child,” another critic wrote. Her program showed “an intelligence that no longer owes everything to ‘nature,’ that from now on knows exactly what it wants.” At a time when singers rarely wrote their own songs, Piaf’s creative zeal was exceptional. Yet few understood the extent to which the maturity evident in her programming had been shaped by her collaboration with her composers—Asso, Monnot, and Glanzberg, who was still in hiding in the zone libre.
Edith soon concocted an unlikely plan for her Nono—to bring him back to Paris, where he could hide in Monnot’s apartment. In November, when the Germans occupied all of France, she told him, “I’m terribly afraid after what’s happened. I can’t come because I can’t get a laissez-passer.… I beg of you, don’t make mistakes that could have dire consequences.” He was her “seul amour,” she assured him, but, as Glanzberg knew, “seul” was an elastic term in her vocabulary. What he did not know was that she had resumed her affair with Contet.
Buoyed by her success at the A.B.C., and with fourteen of her own songs in her portfolio, Piaf applied to the SACEM for professional status as a lyricist but failed the test—a composition on a set theme, “the train station.” Contet tried to make up for this setback by writing the lyrics for “C’était une histoire d’amour,” a slow, swingy tune that declared his affections. Admitting that love stories like theirs were not likely to last, the song ended on a resigned note: “Il faut toujours que quelqu’un pleure / Pour faire une histoire d’amour.” (“Someone always has to cry / To make a love story.”) Piaf recorded the song with a male singer echoing her acceptance of this proverbial sentiment at the end. Over the next few years, Contet would write a number of songs that gave a more complex dimension to the “Piaf style.” Because his lyrics explored their stories’ undercurrents, they were more ambiguous than the réaliste classics with which she was identified, and for this reason did not always find favor with the critics.
When Piaf’s A.B.C. engagement ended in November, her next concern was to arrange for housing. Contet loved her but would not leave his wife; Piaf could not bear to be alone. Her decision to rent an apartment near the Place de l’Etoile where discreet afternoon visits could be arranged offered a solution that was not without charm, since it was on the third floor of a high-class brothel. The proprietor, Madame Billy, was on excellent terms with the occupiers. In addition to being well supplied with food and drink, her establishment had heat, a luxury in the harsh winter of 1942–43. Life there would reinvent the conviviality of Maman Tine’s on a grand scale.
Piaf invited Momone, who resurfaced whenever the star was alone, to join her. Momone introduced herself to Madam Billy as Piaf’s “guide fish,” but the madam formed the opinion that she was “more of a piranha”—an impression confirmed when Momone stole five pairs of her alligator pumps to sell in Pigalle. Momone and the madam maintained a wary truce once the two friends moved in; Billy was relieved when Dédée Bigard joined them. Edith’s well-brought-up young secretary—“the anti-Momone”—was a good influence, the madam thought, gently showing Edith how to behave.
Since Billy’s kitchen served meals at all hours, Edith often had lunch there—nearly always the same dish, steak covered with garlic. She drank little except for peppermint sodas and spent much of her time practicing at the grand piano in the salon. When neighbors complained about after-hours concerts, the German patrol knocked on the door but backed down on hearing the singer’s name. “They all knew