The Last Time I Saw Paris - Lynn Sheene [44]
Madame Palain couldn’t argue if Claire sold her ring to pay for marriage papers. A soldier fallen in battle, his family needed money. And she, Claire would say, needed to work over the table. Le system D. A done deal. Claire pulled the ring from her finger. A lie, not a life, but this would be her sacrifice for La Vie en Fleurs.
Claire glanced up at the theater marquee and smiled. Le Voyageur sans bagage. A traveler without luggage. Rather fitting.
Chapter 5
THE NEW BADEAU
Paris Ritz, 15 Place Vendôme. December 31, 1940.
The truck’s headlights reflected off billowing white flakes and illuminated the snowdrifts growing against the buildings. Worn tires spun and the heavy engine protested as the truck shifted down, crawling around the tight corner off rue Cambon into the guarded delivery entrance of the Hôtel Ritz. Claire watched from her perch in the passenger seat as the driver, Monsieur Bison, pulled the brake and reached for a wad of papers in his overcoat pocket, passing them to a waiting soldier in feldgrau.
The guard marked a list and waved them through a line of soldiers. Bison let out a shaky breath as he threw a tight grin to Claire. The truck crept into the hotel’s snow-blanketed courtyard. Dark twin trails left by truck tires that had already come and gone that evening traced up to the loading dock.
Claire could only afford a glance at the graceful lines of the building, the stately high windows and the slivers of golden lit rooms visible through half-closed curtains, before the engine rumbled to silence in front of the dock. She slid out the passenger door. Bison met her at the back. With the flick of a lever, the door swung open with a clang.
A dim bulb lit the center of the truck, leaving the rest in shadows. Claire quickly scanned the interior, barely able to make out the wooden crates that butted against each other. Exploding out of each crate like firecrackers were pink hellebores, dried roses, burgundy lilies and winding branches gilded in silver and gold. The porcelain and silver vase rims that jutted from the crates reflected orange in the bulb’s light. Nearly a month of preparation by Madame and Claire for tonight’s fête.
She nodded at Bison. Everything looked to be the same as when they left the shop. He returned the gesture, apparently as nervous as she was about getting the flowers to Madame Palain in perfect condition. Craning her neck, Claire peered through the swirling snowflakes at the rows of windows that faced rue Cambon and what looked to be a garden. Feeling like a thief huddled in the darkness, she shivered down to her core in the bitter cold and slapped gloved hands against her body. The sound echoed off the walls and made her jump. Bison snickered around the cigarette in his mouth.
Double doors swung open and lights shone from a bright hallway. Attendants in white jackets pushed carts past the soldiers guarding the corridor and up to the truck. While the guards watched, Bison handed out boxes from the truck bed.
Madame waited inside the Ritz, preparing for the flowers’ arrival. Claire’s job tonight was getting the flowers, fresh, unbruised and unbroken, to Madame in the hotel’s salon. A Herculean task that would have been impossible, except for the experience of Bison. With his stained overalls and cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth, he didn’t seem like Madame’s first choice. But he was good and steady, and he worked with a delicacy that belied his calloused, meaty hands.
He told Claire during the drive over this was the first job he’d had all winter. His other two trucks had been requisitioned long before; it was impossible to get permission to make deliveries at all. He hoped tonight was a sign things were going back to normal. This cannot last, he said, shaking his head as he ran his thick fingers over the steering wheel. He could not last, Claire knew he meant.
A boyish attendant pushed his cart against the truck bed and reached for a crate with one hand.
“You there, be