William Boyd - Sweet Caress

‘Jay, Amory. Wanna go to a party at the Ritz?’ he said. ‘Lots to drink.’

‘Sure,’ Jay said. ‘And maybe I could take a shower.’ The Ritz was famously the only hotel in Paris with constant hot water in 1944. ‘Coming, Amory?’ he asked.

‘Why not?’ I said, and so we strolled the short distance from the Scribe to the place Vendôme. I had never been in the Ritz, and walking across the wide square with its tall monument towards the hotel entrance — Ritt involved in some harsh denunciation of an American writer I had never heard of — and then stepping into the huge lobby was another of those Paris ’44 time-travelling moments. I was in my uniform — dark brown khaki jacket, pearl-grey skirt, my forage cap in my handbag — but, as we rode up in the elevator to the suite of rooms on the third floor where the party was taking place — I could hear the volume of noise in the elevator by the second floor — I had the sensation of being some ingénue in a 1920s film, a young girl going to a decadent party where bad behaviour would occur.

Ritt led us down the corridor — a dozen people had already spilled out of the rooms as the party spread inexorably. We pushed our way in; the roar of noise was tremendous, as if everybody was shouting instead of talking. The windows on to the place Vendôme had been flung open to try and dispel the fug of cigarette and cigar smoke, most of it rising from two poker tables with eight-man games under way. On a large dresser under an ornate cut-glass mirror with crystal sconces were ranked bottles of bourbon, gin and rum, and ice buckets filled with bottles of champagne.

I lit a cigarette quickly — it’s curious how smoking in a smoky room clears the sting from your eyes. Ritt brought me a glass of champagne — Jay had disappeared, maybe in search of an unoccupied bathroom with a shower.

‘You’re a very attractive woman, Amory,’ he leered. ‘Tell me about you and Charbonneau. What exactly is the situation?’

‘We’re getting engaged,’ I lied.

‘That’s great. Congratulations. So maybe we could have some fun before you’re actually fiancés . .’

‘I don’t think Jean-Baptiste would be very happy about that.’

Ritt put his arms around me.

‘Jean-Baptiste would let me fuck his—’

He never finished because from behind came a great bellow.

‘Get your dirty hands off that young woman, you talentless cunt!’

I turned to see a thickset man with a full beard. He embraced Ritt and then they shadow-boxed each other. Ritt introduced us, out of breath.

‘Amory Clay, the most beautiful photographer in the European theatre. Meet Waldo Fartface.’

More raucous laughter. I said hello, pleased to meet you.

‘Are you English?’ the man asked, looking me up and down. ‘But in an American uniform. I like that.’ He looked at my sleeve badge. ‘Ah, war correspondent, like me. Welcome to the club.’

‘I am indeed English.’

‘Well, listen, my English beauty, if you’re a photographer there’s one man here you have to meet.’ He started shouting in Spanish. ‘ Dónde está Montsicard? ’

A shout in reply came from one of the poker tables and ‘Waldo’ led me over to the table — he was reeling drunk, it was clear by now — where a thin young man in a cheap suit stood up. He had very olive skin and the white of his open-necked shirt seemed to glow against it.

‘Felip Montsicard, meet a beautiful English photographer.’ We shook hands and Waldo turned to me. ‘Felip was the best fucking photographer in the Spanish war.’

Waldo lurched off leaving me with Felip Montsicard himself. I felt I was in some sort of weird parlour game. Who would I meet next? Marlene Dietrich? Maurice Chevalier? Oscar Wilde?

Montsicard offered to refill my glass and off he went leaving me alone again. I lit another cigarette and moved to the window, feeling the density and weight of the heavy gold brocade curtains hanging there, held back in a swag by plaited black velvet bands. Across the room, surrounded by cheering onlookers, Brandon Ritt was breaking up a chair, stamping it to tinder, as if it had attacked him in some way.

Montsicard returned with my champagne.

‘You are photographer? With who?’

‘ Global-Photo. ’

‘Is good.’ He had a thick Spanish accent. ‘I am with Life. ’

‘I know.’

‘So you know who I am. Montsicard, the photographer.’

‘Yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you.’

‘You know Capa? He’s here also.’ He pointed at a poker table, at a small-dark haired man studying his hand.

‘No I don’t know him.’

‘That’s Capa.’

Ritt was now throwing the remains of the chair out of the window on to the place Vendôme.

‘He means well,’ Montsicard said, diplomatically. ‘But Ritt is very unhappy. In love matters, you know.’

I saw Jay Fielding pushing his way across the room towards me, his cropped hair gleaming with water droplets.

‘Where’ve you been?’ I asked.

‘Taking a shower, I told you.’

I looked round and saw Capa sliding out of his seat at the poker table, heading for the drinks. Jay scanned the room.

‘They’re all here tonight. Look, there’s Irwin Shaw. George Stevens, John Steinbeck. .’ he smiled at me. ‘All we need now is Marlene Dietrich.’

And then Marlene Dietrich walked in.

Charbonneau was actually very annoyed when I told him where I’d been. Extremely annoyed.

‘Brandon took you there? To the Ritz?’

‘He just said come to a party. How was I to know?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why no telephone call?’

‘I thought you were in Bordeaux. Ritt asked and I said you were out of town.’

His exasperation made his voice uncharacteristically shrill. He was growing even more annoyed.

‘But I was here — here in my apartment, doing nothing.’

‘How was I to know?’

‘Irwin Shaw was there?’

‘Everyone was there, yes, and Irwin Shaw. Everyone. Even Marlene Dietrich.’

‘ Putain! ’

He paced about his little sitting room, sulking, cross. Just as in his New York apartment the walls were lined with ascending columns of books, heading for the ceiling.

‘I saw Robert Capa and met Felip Montsicard.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Photographers. Famous photographers.’

‘I don’t give one shit for photographers.’

‘Thank you very much.’

‘Did you speak to Shaw?’

‘Yes, for quite a long time.’

‘What about?’

‘I can’t remember. I was shockingly drunk by then.’

‘ Ce n’est pas vrai. Ce. N’est. Pas. Vrai. ’

He calmed down after a while and we went to the Café de Flore across the street and had a plate of carrots and a bottle of very bad Burgundy.

‘I have news,’ I said, as nonchalantly as I could manage, as we finished the wine.

‘You’re going to marry Ernest Hemingway.’

‘I’ve been assigned. Finally. I’m going to the US Seventh Army in the Vosges mountains.’

ALL OF US, the four journalists and two photographers, sat in our folding canvas chairs waiting for Colonel Richard ‘Dick’ Bovelander to arrive. We were sitting in the chilly entrance hall of the small chateau near Villeforte in the foothills of the Vosges mountains, west of Strasbourg, some miles behind the notional front line that the US 7th Army was holding, now in November 1944.

Our mood ranged from very disgruntled to indifferent. Colonel Bovelander, commanding officer of the 631st Parachute Infantry Regiment, to which we were all assigned, did not like the press. He had kept us well away from all combat, far in the rear, corralled in a series of houses — an abbey, maisons de maître , and now a chateau — as the 7th Army advanced remorselessly on the Rhine. We had been taken to see the mayors of liberated villages present bouquets to various American units. We had visited base hospitals and rear-echelon supply dumps. We had witnessed hundred-lorry convoys passing by; had photographed tank transporters debouching their tanks; we had watched squadrons of P-51 Mustang fighters take off from airbases on ground-support missions. And so on. In short, we had witnessed everything that a modern army did in the field, except fight.