“Hello, Bernard,” she sang.
“Welcome, Madame Villon. She’s expecting you.” Bernard’s gaze flicked across the hall to the Little Bar, which didn’t mean that Grandmère awaited her inside—Grandmère would conduct this meeting from the comfort of her suite, of course—but that some German officers had wandered over from the Vendôme side for a drink or two, so watch your step, Madame Villon.
“Thank you, Bernard,” she said.
In contrast to the grandeur of the Place Vendôme building, the wing fronting rue Cambon was built to a more human scale, which Daisy appreciated. Of course, this was human scale according to the Ritz. The staircase wound upward, the black railings gleamed, the lights cast softly upon marble and wood. From the Little Bar came the sound of primitive laughter. Good, let them laugh. Let them laugh and drink and pay no attention to some young woman scurrying across the entrance hall, books gathered to her chest, handbag dangling from her elbow, worn hat shading her face. Daisy had almost reached the staircase when a uniformed chest appeared in front of her.
“Mademoiselle?”
She looked up. The face startled her. Not because it was so typically German, or rather Prussian—those blue eyes, that straw-colored hair, that rigid something about the jaw and cheekbones could be seen everywhere in Paris now, most especially in the lobby of the Ritz—but because he was startled, too. His eyebrows slanted into an expression of stern surprise. She glanced at the stripes on his shoulder.
“Yes, lieutenant colonel?” she said to his nose, which was sharp like the beak of a predatory bird of some kind, she wasn’t sure which one. A large, mottled scar disfigured the skin on the left side of his face, or else he might have been handsome.
“Your name, please.”
He spoke sharply, and Daisy’s palms, turning damp, began to slip against the bindings of the books. Still, she lifted her chin and edged her gaze upward a few centimeters to the space between his eyes. Not for nothing was she a Frenchwoman.
“I am Madame Villon,” she replied, just as sharp. He seemed to be staring at her eyebrows. Daisy hated her eyebrows, which were straight and thick and several shades darker than her blond hair, like a pair of accent marks, grave on the right and aigu on the left. The eyebrows were a gift from her mother, who had died when Daisy was three years old, and there were many times Daisy angrily wondered why her mother couldn’t have left her something useful and beautiful instead, not these two fierce, mannish eyebrows. Anyway, she disliked this German even more for noticing them, and he must have seen the dislike on her face, because his own expression softened a little, insomuch as it was possible for a scarred Prussian mask like that to soften at all.
“Your papers, please,” he said.
“My papers?”
“Yes, please.”
Daisy heaved a little sigh, just to show him how unreasonable he was. “You must wait a moment, lieutenant colonel, while I set down these books.”
“I will hold the books.”
She ignored that and bent to set the books on the floor. She had the feeling that Bernard was staring at them worriedly, that Bernard was in an agony, wondering whether he should sweep in to hold the books—service at the Ritz was a sacred thing, a holy calling, even in war—or whether he could better serve her by staying the hell away from this encounter. She prayed he’d stick to the latter resolution. The less attention, the better. She burrowed inside her pocketbook and produced her identity card and handed it to the German officer with a tiny snap of her wrist, the nearest Daisy had possibly ever come to defiance. As he held the official paper straight before him, squinting a little—he was at that age when a man has begun to require reading glasses and will not admit this truth to himself—Daisy noticed that his fingers shook a little.
“Marguerite,” he said. “This is your given name, Marguerite?”
“Yes.”
“D’Aubigny. This was your family name, before you married?”
Daisy aimed for a note of bored irony. “So it says on my papers, as you see.”
“But is it true?” he demanded.
“True? I don’t understand.”
“Your father’s name was d’Aubigny?”
“Yes, of course.” She opened her mouth to babble out all the details, that her father was a soldier of the Great War who had died at Verdun before she was born, so she had never known him, had spent her entire childhood here at the Ritz with her grandmother, because this German was staring at poor Daisy like she had failed a critical examination at school and must be demoted to the year below, which made her panic. She stopped herself in time. It was Grandmère’s voice in her head—Don’t babble, child!—that saved her. (Also in obedience to Grandmère’s voice, she straightened up, child.)
He spent a moment considering this. His lips were sealed tight, and his nostrils flared a little as he breathed. Finally he nodded. “I see.”
He returned the identity card and she stuffed it back in her pocketbook. He was staring at the parting of her hair, she knew. As she fumbled with the old, worn clasp that wouldn’t properly shut, he spoke again, and this time she noticed that his French was actually excellent, that he didn’t have that usual awkward, guttural way with the delicate vowels. He caressed them almost as a Frenchman would, with reverence. Of course, this only made Daisy dislike him still more, if that were possible. How dare he lay some kind of ownership on her beloved native tongue! At last she forced the clasp shut and went to retrieve her books, but the German had already bent his long body and retrieved them for her, the final straw. She hated him. She snatched the books back and pressed them against her chest.
“If that’s all, lieutenant colonel—”
“One more question, if you please, madame. What is your business here?”
“My business?”
“If you please, madame.”
She wanted to say that she lived here, you German turd, this was her home, that was her business here! But that wasn’t quite true anymore, and besides it would make him suspicious. So she said the truth. “I’m delivering some books to my grandmother.”
“Your grandmother stays here?”
“Yes.” Again, she bit herself off before she could babble out her grandmother’s name and history and state of health.
Against odds, he smiled a little. “Your grandmother likes to read?”
“Yes.”
“Then let us carry the books up to her together.”
“No! That isn’t necessary. I’m perfectly capable of carrying a few books up a few stairs.”
“No doubt, but German chivalry demands that I don’t allow you to.”
Well! Her hatred was now so strong, it gave her actual courage, imagine that. Like a glass of good champagne, swiftly drunk. She gave this obnoxious fellow a look of French defiance such as even her grandmother would approve, one that must communicate through even the thickest German skull what Daisy d’Aubigny Villon thought of German chivalry.
She spoke in a voice that measured about zero degrees centigrade, although her insides shook a little. “I assure you, lieutenant colonel, I don’t need any help.”
“Madame, please. You must allow me—”