Lilac Girls

  I felt like a screen siren myself that night, dressed in a hydrangea-blue Schiaparelli with a flirty little train that dusted the floor as I walked along the tables, performing the last of my decorative duties. I thought I looked pretty good for being on the other side of fifty.

  I set a red rose, dethorned, in a plastic water vial at every female guest’s plate, reading place cards as I went, a Who’s Who of A-list Hollywood stars and political bigwigs: Senator John Kennedy. Jacqueline Kennedy. Mr. Winston Guest. C. Z. Guest. Raymond Bolger. Gwendolyn Bolger.

  Mr. Paul Rodierre.

  A cold splash washed over me. Paul? How could I have not known? It had been ten years since I’d seen him. Next to him, Leena Rodierre. He was remarried? Delightful. What had happened to Rena? I set a rose next to Leena’s place and finished quickly, wanting to distance myself from Paul. I’d seen his name in the news here and there in connection with new acting projects, but I’d never seen his films. What could I possibly say to him?

  Actor Jean Marais and actress Françoise Arnoul, dressed in French military uniform, started off the evening by entering the ballroom in an open carriage drawn by two black horses. As I watched, Betty, radiant in blue organza, found me and handed me a glass of champagne.

  “You should see the gift bags this year, Caroline. All Dior. And good caviar finally…”

  The gift bags at the ball were actually suitcases packed so tight with luxury goods, guests needed porters to carry them to waiting cars.

  “Can you believe all the movie people? You would’ve been big in pictures if you’d stuck with acting.”

  “Right there with Gloria Swanson—”

  “Well, you’re ready for your close-up tonight. You look fabulous, honestly. Wish I could say the same for poor Wallis Simpson. She’s positively fossilized. Saw her in the powder room, and she complimented my dress. ‘Is that Wallis blue?’ she said. Really. It’s always about her.”

  “It’s good she came.”

  “It was no hardship, Caroline. She lives upstairs in the Towers. The staff has to call her ‘Your Royal Highness,’ even though she’s not officially allowed to use that title. And the Duke is here. Looking a bit dazed. I think Wallis has him medicated.”

  “At least it’s good press for the cause.”

  “Really? Try and get the reporters away from Marilyn and Arthur.”

  “I’m going to ask Wallis to support the Polish ladies.”

  “Good luck, Caroline. She’s tight as a tick.”

  “She and the Duke do nothing but charity work.”

  “As long as there are cameras around. Speaking of cameras, I was going to let you find out on your own, but Paul Rodierre is here.”

  I drank half the flute of champagne in one gulp, the bubbles like fizzy fireworks going down.

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw him. With his new wife. Some child actress. He looks good, tan as a Palm Beach matron. They must both be wearing girdles.” Betty waited for my reaction with a sidelong look. “Don’t go running off now.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, my stomach doing somersaults. “I actually saw their place cards. I have nothing to say to him.”

  “Well, if you two do speak, stay away from the knives.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, draining the glass. It had been years since I’d seen the man, and I was hardly carrying a torch.

  Betty went to find her husband, whom she’d spotted winding his way through the crowd with two champagne flutes, and I went in search of Wallis Simpson. Though reviews on her were mixed, she seemed like a compassionate woman. I hoped she’d be sympathetic to the plight of the Polish ladies and lend her support.

  I squeezed through the crush of guests, the train of my gown trod upon by more than one patent leather dress shoe. I found Wallis off to the side of the ballroom with Rosemary Warburton Gaynor, wife of a prominent plastic surgeon, Dr. William C. T. Gaynor, and chair of the ball. Up close it was plain to see why Wallis had been fifteen times on the International Best Dressed List. She stood in a pillar of white Mainbocher lace, her dark hair clenched in a tight chignon. Her husband waited nearby, half-listening to the British ambassador, eyes trained on Wallis, like an aged sporting dog ready for his master’s whistle.

  Wallis and Rosemary stood together—gazelles at a watering hole—a stone’s throw away from where Marilyn Monroe sat with her husband, Arthur Miller. I lingered nearby, waited for Rosemary to notice me, and accepted another glass of champagne to help bolster my courage. It isn’t every day one asks the Duchess of Windsor for money.

  Before long, lovely Rosemary noticed me and reached out, seeming happy for the diversion. “Oh, Caroline, come meet the Duchess.”

  Dressed in a floor-length off-the-shoulder white gown with a ruffled hem, Rosemary drew me closer. “Your Grace, may I introduce my friend Caroline Ferriday? Caroline Ferriday, may I present Her Grace, the Duchess of Windsor.”

  Wallis hesitated and then extended one satin-gloved hand. I shook her hand, wondering what one calls a divorcée married to an abdicated king. I went with Rosemary’s lead and chose “Your Grace.” So much had been written about Wallis Simpson at that time, I felt I already knew her. The press obsessed over every aspect of her life—her French couture, her large hands, the mole on her chin, her dismissive attitude, and above all, her jewelry.

  Rosemary waved in the direction of the dance floor. “Caroline has been awfully busy helping us put all this together.”

  “So nice to meet you,” Wallis said.

  My heart beat faster. How to bring up the Rabbits? Why was I so nervous? I’d once played to an audience of fezzed Shriners in Boston who’d passed a gin bottle down the front row of the theater. That was much scarier than this.

  “Can you believe Marilyn Monroe?” said Wallis to no one in particular. She looked toward the horde of people clustered about Marilyn and her husband. A French television news crew, lights bright, was interviewing Marilyn and Arthur at their table. “Every photographer here is smitten with her.”

  “It’s the dress,” Rosemary said.

  “Not one’s even glanced my way,” Wallis said.

  Mrs. Gaynor turned to me. “Caroline works tirelessly for the downtrodden, Your Grace. She has quite a reputation.”

  “How is that?” Wallis asked, perking up as she accepted a glass of champagne from a tuxedoed waiter, perhaps hoping for scandal. How nice it is, when one’s own reputation is damaged, to hear of others’ misfortunes.

  “A good reputation, of course,” Rosemary said. “She heads up an American arm of a French organization to assist women in need. She’s been awarded both the Cross of Liberation and the French Legion of Honor for her work.”

  “Don’t go near those canapés, dear…too salty,” Wallis called to the Duke, who stood nearby apparently mesmerized by a waiter’s tray of liver mousse canapés.

  “Yes, I head up American Friends of the ADIR, Your Grace,” I said. “We support women who have returned from concentration camps. Help them regain normal lives.”

  “Still?” said Wallis, drifting back into the conversation. “It’s been how many years since the war? Doesn’t their government help?”

  “Some, but they still need assistance. We’re working to get reparations for a group of women from Ravensbrück, a German concentration camp near Fürstenberg.”

  “The Duke and I try our best to avoid any place with ‘berg’ in the name.”

  Since the couple’s prewar trip to Berlin, where they were received by Hitler, the press often revisited the faux pas, even twenty years after the fact.

  “The women are called the Ravensbrück Rabbits, Your Grace,” I said. “Polish women, girls really at the time, experimented upon by doctors there.”

  “Just terrible,” Rosemary said.

  “Poles?” said Wallis, a furrow between her brows. “I thought you worked for the French. It’s all terribly confusing.”

  Wallis’s attention shifted to a fashion show model who settl
ed near us, one hand on her hip, the other held high, a diamond cuff on the wrist. The Duke raised his eyebrows at Wallis as if asking her opinion of the bracelet. Wallis sent him a noncommittal shrug.

  “We help women of any nationality who’ve returned from the camps,” I said. “Conditions are especially difficult in Poland. Many of them are sick—some dying—and still have no reparations, since West Germany doesn’t recognize Communist Poland as a country.”

  Wallis glanced about the room, perhaps looking for the exit. “I’m not in a position to donate to anything these days. We have to bow and scrape for everything we’re given. We’re not even on the Civil List, if you can imagine. Plus, the world has grown weary of all that death and destruction. Those stories even bore the people who went through it all. Who hasn’t written a memoir?”

  Wallis turned to the Duke, smoothed the royal Peter Pan’s hair in place, and fussed with the gold medals and ribbons at his chest. She removed a canapé from his hand, placed it back on the silver tray he’d taken it from, and took the Duke by the hand.

  “Let’s pop up and check on the dogs.” She motioned for the waiter with the silver tray to follow. “Pugs need to eat at least every two hours,” she said with a smile and swept off toward the exit.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Rosemary,” I said. Apparently Wallis was not sympathetic to my cause after all.

  “Good luck with your fundraising, dear,” Rosemary said as I turned to leave. “I’ll certainly be donating. And maybe pop in on Norman Cousins at the Saturday Review. He and his darling wife helped the Hiroshima Maidens after all.”

  “I will, Rosemary. Thank you.”

  I trekked the periphery of the ballroom in search of more champagne, smarting from Wallis’s rebuff. I was careful to play the “If I were Paul Rodierre, where would I be?” game in order to avoid him. He would plant himself as far from the whole fashion show spectacle as possible. Probably near the food.

  Definitely near the bar.

  I circumvented the bar and walked by the Dior models as they twirled and sashayed through the guests. A waiter passed through the crowd, offering microscopic potatoes topped with sour cream and caviar. Was all the food that night to be tiny? I stepped toward the tray but stopped short, my train pinned.

  “Would you mind?” I said, turning.

  Paul.

  And by his side stood a ravishing creature—Leena, no doubt.

  “Nietzsche said a diet predominantly of potatoes leads to the use of liquor,” Paul said, shoe still on my train.

  His voice robbed me of my powers of speech. It didn’t help that his ladylove was almost too beautiful to look at, her eyes thick-lashed, with the kind of perfect face a cigarette lends just the right amount of cruelty to. She was tall, impossibly young, and leggy.

  “I see you’re stalking me,” Paul said.

  The girl wandered off to the fashion show sipping champagne, apparently not threatened if she’d registered me at all.

  “You can remove your foot,” I said.

  “You have a habit of disappearing,” Paul said.

  “Only when provoked.”

  He left his foot there.

  I had expected Paul to have recovered since the time I saw him last, but was not prepared for how good he looked, fit and oddly well tanned for April.

  “Do I need to take off my dress?”

  Paul smiled. “This party is finally getting good.”

  “Really, Paul. It’s Schiaparelli.”

  He released my train. “I have the exits covered.”

  “Don’t concern yourself.”

  “Champagne?” asked a passing waiter, flutes bubbling on his silver tray.

  “No thank you,” I said with massive restraint. “I need to be going.”

  “I thought about calling you last night,” Paul said. “Figured your mother would talk to me at least.”

  “After all these years? It doesn’t matter.”

  “But I got into some cognac. You know how that is.”

  “Not really.”

  “I hoped you’d be here. Among your people.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a good cause.”

  Another waiter came by. “Champagne?”

  Paul took two flutes. “I hoped we could talk about it all.”

  “That isn’t necessary. It’s been almost a decade, Paul.”

  “Have you ever read one of my letters?”

  “I really need to be going—”

  “Aren’t you the least bit curious about my side of it?”

  I took a glass from him with a shaky hand. “Not really.”

  “Don’t you owe it to me? Leaving me flat?”

  “If that’s how you remember it…” I said.

  I watched Paul’s new wife consider a model’s scarlet shift. Had she ever tasted foie gras? How did she stay so fit in a country that frowned upon vigorous exercise?

  A photographer came by. “Can I get a picture, Mr. Rodierre?”

  “Why not?” Paul said.

  He pulled me to him with more force than necessary, one arm around my waist. He still wore Sumare. Did his new wife like it? Impossible not to.

  “Smile, Caroline. Pretend you like me.”

  The flashbulb blinded us both for a second.

  “Thanks, Mr. Rodierre,” the photographer said and wandered off.

  “Last time we were in this room, I was in command of that stage,” Paul said.

  I just nodded and pretended to be recovering my eyesight from the flash, afraid speaking would unleash a few tears.

  “You’ve been tanning,” I said after a moment.

  “Cannes. It was horrible. I hate all that.”

  “I’m sure. So where is Rena?”

  “Who knows? Last seen on the Greek island of Hydra with a young man half her age.”

  “How wonderful for her.” I meant it. Rena deserved her time in the sun.

  “You may have kicked me to the curb, but life did go on, Caroline. I guess I don’t make the best decisions when it comes to women.”

  “Maybe give them up for Lent.”

  Paul smiled. “It’s good to see you again, C. You hungry? I’m taking Leena to meet some film people. I know a little place by the Hudson—”

  “Look, Paul, I obviously never really knew you. Let’s just leave it at that. Maybe remember the good things.” I turned. “I have to go.”

  Paul caught my wrist. “Nothing has ever been as good as our time in New York. You ruined me for love, you know.”

  “Looks like it,” I said, watching his Leena pluck a lobster canapé from a tray.

  “What’s wrong with you? I’ve been through hell. You’re not the only person affected here—”

  “Mon cher,” Leena called to Paul, “I’m famished.”

  I really was invisible to her as she waved Paul to follow.

  “Come here, darling,” Paul called to her.

  Leena worked her way toward us. It had been a long night. Did I have to meet his wife?

  “Oh, please, Paul. I’d rather not—”

  Paul pulled his Leena to him, one arm around her waist. “Leena, I’d like you to meet—”

  “Caroline Ferriday,” Leena said. “How did I not recognize you?” The girl took my hand and pulled me to her. “Of course I know you from photographs. With Helen Hayes. What was it like to be on the same stage with her?”

  “Thank you, but I really must be going.”

  “She runs away, Leena,” Paul said. “You need to hold on to her.”

  Leena held my arm with her other hand. “Oh, please. I’ll do anything to have lunch. In Paris. The next time you’re there.”

  “I’d rather not—”

  “But, Father, you must convince her.”

  A chill ran down my arms.

  Father?

  “Miss Caroline Ferriday, Leena Rodierre,” Paul said, his smile still more dangerous than ever at close range.

  “Pascaline is my stage name, but do call me Leena.”

  How
had I not seen?

  “I too played Balthazar, Miss Ferriday. My first role, just like you. Father’s told me everything about you.”

  “Do call me Caroline, dear,” I said as I stared at her. Leena was a perfect mix of her parents, tall, with her father’s stage presence, no doubt. “You must have been a perfect Balthazar, Leena.”

  The girl circled me in her arms and held me tight to her. The lovely child I’d found at Orphelinat Saint-Philippe. Pascaline. Born on Easter…

  Pascaline released me. “Do say you’ll come to Paris, Caroline. I’m to have my first lead role. It would mean the world to have you there.”

  I nodded. It was all I could do to contain the tears. She was a darling girl with her father’s charm. “Of course, dear,” I said.

  “Well, we must be going,” Paul said.

  “Father’s introducing me to movie people,” Leena said.

  “Au revoir, Caroline.” Paul kissed me on each cheek, the familiar scratch of his beard, my hair shirt. “How about you write me back this time? At some point, even I give up.”

  “You haven’t changed,” I said.

  He smiled. “I guess somewhere in a corner of our hearts, we are always twenty.”

  Paul disappeared into the crowd, and I felt the old rip of him leaving, but this time it was a little easier somehow. Had that just happened? Paul’s daughter had invited me to Paris?

  I escaped into a cab after a bellboy heaved my gift bag into the trunk, its contents already earmarked for charity. As the cab drove off, I caught a glimpse of Paul in the crowd and felt a rush of retrouvailles, another one of those words that do not translate into English, which means “the happiness of meeting someone you love again after a long time.” I hugged myself there in the back of the cab, fine with going home alone.

  Would he write? Maybe. I might even write back if I had time.

  —

  THE FOLLOWING DAY I took Rosemary Gaynor’s advice and called Norman Cousins, famed editor of the Saturday Review, hoping to chat with him for a moment in his office. Perhaps have him mention the Polish women in his magazine. He suggested I come by that afternoon.