Chateau Reynaud
Colleen Flannigan had always dreamed of becoming an actress, yet after five years of living in New York City, she hadn't even managed to get a walk-on role in an off-Broadway show. Although the struggle was hard, she had no intention of giving up her dream.
Meanwhile, the cost of living in New York was high, and the money Colleen brought with her from Taunton had just about run out. To make ends meet, she took a job working for a physicians' answering service. The pay was far from adequate, but the nighttime hours left her days open so she could continue to go on auditions.
"If I don't find something soon," the frustrated young woman told her roommate, "I'll have to go back to Massachusetts."
Goldie Morton, with whom Colleen shared a small studio apartment, understood her roommate's dilemma. Just as Colleen hoped to be an actress, she had aspirations of being a dancer.
"Don't worry," Goldie said cheerfully. "I was able to get auditions for both of us doing dinner theater. It's not Broadway, but it's in the entertainment field, and it pays better than answering telephones."
Colleen passed the audition and was hired on the spot. Melrose Slattery, owner of the restaurant, was impressed not only with her talent but also with her physical appearance.
"You're just the kind of girl I'm looking for," he declared. "Someone with class."
Colleen had been working at the restaurant for only a few weeks when she got her first pay raise. Shortly thereafter, Slattery asked her out to dinner. When it became clear that the owner was interested in her as more than an employee, she gave serious consideration to quitting. She wasn't attracted to the middle-aged, overweight, balding man. In fact, she didn't even like him. He was loud and abrasive, and Colleen felt there was a cruel streak beneath his polished exterior.
After several sleepless nights spent battling with her conscience, Colleen came to the conclusion that, given the number of unemployed performers in New York competing for the few available roles, she would need well-placed connections if she hoped to succeed. The dinner theater productions at Melrose's restaurants would provide her with experience, and his alleged ties to the mob just might lead to a high-placed connection.
No sooner did she begin dating the restaurateur than Colleen moved from supporting to starring roles. With a dark wig covering her blond tresses, she took on the role of Maria in West Side Story, with a feigned Southern accent she became Magnolia Hawks in Show Boat and with the help of a voice coach she made the transition from rags to riches as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.
It was following her third successful starring performance that Colleen was faced with another difficult decision. Melrose had proposed to her and was waiting for a reply.
"I'm wealthy," he boasted. "I promise you'll never want for anything. You'll have a fine house on Long Island, a new car, jewels, furs, designer clothes and shoes, vacations to exotic places—you just name it, baby."
While the rewards Melrose offered were tempting, they weren't what Colleen wanted most out of life. More than anything else, she longed to be a star. Money was something she'd hoped to earn on her own, the result of hard work and talent, yet here it was being offered to her in return for marriage.
Goldie thought her friend was crazy to even consider turning down the offer.
"Don't you dare let him get away! Melrose Slattery is loaded. Besides, you don't have to stay married. In a year or so, you can leave him. Just make sure you have a lawyer read the prenup before you sign it. You want to make sure you get a large settlement in the divorce."
"And what if I should meet someone in the meantime?"
"You really ought to get rid of those small-town notions you have. If you find someone, keep him on the back burner until you've got your freedom and a good share of Slattery's money. Just be careful not to get caught. You don't want your divorce to get too messy."
"And what about my career?"
"What better way to open doors than with money? Don't forget your husband-to-be has friends in high places. Surely one of them must know a producer or a director."
In the end, expediency won out. Hoping to advance her career from dinner theater to the Broadway stage, Colleen Flannigan married her boss in a small ceremony in City Hall. After honeymooning in the most expensive hotel in Hawaii, the couple returned to New York, and Colleen began her life as Mrs. Melrose Slattery.
* * *
On the evening of her third wedding anniversary, Colleen assessed her reflection in the full-length mirror of her large walk-in closet. Modesty aside, she had to admit she looked stunning in her Vera Wang cocktail dress and with her hair styled by one of New York's most illustrious salons. The emerald and diamond necklace Melrose gave her as an anniversary gift matched the earrings he'd given her on their first anniversary and the ring he'd given her on their second.
To his credit, Melrose had kept his part of the bargain. He bought his wife a house in the Hamptons, a new Mercedes and enough expensive clothing, shoes, handbags and jewelry to satisfy the greediest gold digger. Yet none of his overpriced gifts made Colleen happy. Ironically, her marriage had not given her what she wanted most. Not only did her husband refuse to assist her along the path to Broadway, but he also insisted she give up her previous career in dinner theater.
"No wife of mine is going to work," he declared. "I'm the man of the family, the breadwinner. There's no need for you to pursue a career."
At first, Colleen wouldn't abide by her husband's old-world ideas, but she quickly learned that although Melrose would not use his influence to help her career, he was more than willing to use it to crush all her attempts to strike out on her own. Once Colleen discovered that the situation was hopeless, she reluctantly resigned herself to leading the pampered life of a trophy wife.
"You look beautiful, my dear," Melrose announced with pride. "As always, I'll be the envy of every man there."
Dinner that evening was to be a mix of business and pleasure. Melrose had just acquired a new restaurant and had scheduled a small party to celebrate the opening. Colleen was not particularly curious about either the party or the new place. Her husband owned more than a dozen restaurants in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut tri-state area, most of which offered the same mediocre fare at exorbitant prices. His new venture, Chateau Reynaud, however, was quite different. Unlike her husband's other establishments, Chateau Reynaud was a themed restaurant. Outside and in, the building resembled a French chateau that had suffered the ravages of the Second World War.
"Well, the place certainly has atmosphere," Colleen admitted after being given a brief tour of the new eatery.
"And what do you think of the music?" Melrose asked.
Piped throughout Chateau Reynaud were vintage World War II-era songs sung in French. It sounded as though the place was receiving seventy-year-old radio broadcasts.
"It adds a nice touch."
One of the guests that evening was an attractive food critic who had been sent by his magazine to review Chateau Reynaud, although he seemed more interested in Melrose's pretty wife than in the food being served. While Colleen in no way encouraged the man, her husband was nevertheless upset. He was by nature an insecure, jealous man, and had it been another time or place, Melrose would have called the man out. Instead, he sulked and drank a bit more than usual.
Colleen, hoping to avoid an ugly confrontation, politely excused herself, got up from the table and walked toward the ladies' room. As she neared the lounge, she noticed a thick cloud of acrid smoke hanging in the air.
Is something on fire? she wondered. All that smoke couldn't possibly be from cigarettes.
Her eyes tearing, she put her hand over her nose and mouth and ran into the women's bathroom where the air was clearer.
As Colleen leaned over the sink and splashed cool water on her burning eyes, the French chanteuse's maudlin ballad came to an end, and a historic news bulletin by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt began: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."
"I've got to hand it to the manager of this place. He thought of everything."
Colleen straightened up, dried her face with a paper towel and surveyed the damage to her makeup. As she touched up her eye shadow and mascara, she heard the former president's words grow louder in volume. Soon sound effects were added to Roosevelt's words: the loud hum of airplane engines, bombs exploding and, worst of all, the shrill cry of an air raid siren.
What began as a slight headache in the smoke-filled lounge quickly escalated into a throbbing migraine. After swallowing two Advil tablets, Colleen ran out of the bathroom and out into the cool, fresh night air. She closed her eyes and leaned against the outer wall of the Chateau Reynaud, savoring the peaceful silence. When she opened her eyes again, she thought she was in the midst of a power outage. All was black around her. Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, however, she could see from the light of the moon that she was no longer in the restaurant's parking lot.
Colleen turned and went back inside the chateau, but as she entered what should have been the coat room, she was stunned to find herself in a private home.
"There you are, Madame," a young woman said to Colleen in French. "Your husband has been asking about you. He is waiting in the dining room with his guests."
The servant, dressed in 1940s apparel, spoke the last word with extreme distaste. It was clear to Colleen that the maid didn't care for her husband's dinner guests.
Colleen's headache, which had vanished as suddenly as it had begun, must have left her disoriented. With no recollection of how to get back to the restaurant's main dining area, she walked toward the sound of men's voices and found herself in a large, formal dining room, elegantly decorated as befitted a wealthy French nobleman. Melrose, who, like the young maid, was dressed in vintage clothing, was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of him sat high-ranking Nazi officers.
Melrose, apparently a man known as the Comte de Reynaud, signaled the butler.
"The comtesse is here at last. You may begin serving now."
As though suffering from shellshock, Colleen walked in dazed silence toward the empty chair opposite the one where her husband sat. Although the comte spoke to the butler in French, the conversation at the table was conducted in German—a language Colleen didn't understand. Yet to her surprise, Melrose, who had never finished high school, seemed to speak both languages fluently.
Colleen's head was spinning.
What's going on?
The first course of the meal was brought out, but she didn't touch her food. She was far too perplexed by her curious surroundings to eat.
The comte interrupted his conversation with his guests and asked her, in French, "Are you feeling ill, mon cher?"
Colleen nodded, unable to speak. The comte excused himself, took his wife by the arm and steered her out of the room. He led her down the hall to a small library and shut the door behind them.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he growled in a low, angry voice. "How dare you snub the Germans like that?"
"I didn't mean to ...."
"Have you been listening to those stupid fools who risk their lives in the resistance movement? Whether we like it or not, the Nazis are in power, and we can either keep what's ours by cooperating with them or lose everything, possibly even our lives, by resisting them."
"You needn't worry. I won't say or do anything to offend the Nazis," Colleen promised.
"No. You are going to go upstairs to bed, and you're to stay there until I tell you otherwise. Meanwhile, I'll make your excuses to our guests," the comte insisted as he turned and headed back toward the dining room.
* * *
Rather than wander through the chateau in search of her bedroom, Colleen snuck outside, eager for time alone to think.
I don't believe I'm dreaming. Everything is far too real to be a dream.
There were several other explanations—all of which were equally unpleasant. Someone could have accidentally or deliberately slipped her a form of hallucinogenic drug. The journey back to war-torn France might be the result of a "bad trip" as people called it in the Sixties. Another possibility was that she was the victim of an elaborate practical joke. But after further consideration, Colleen ruled out that theory. It would have been impossible for someone to transform the chateau from restaurant to private residence in such a short period of time. The same reasoning made her discard the idea that someone—most likely her husband—was trying to drive her crazy by making her believe she had traveled more than seventy years back in time. That left only one other alternative to be considered: that she had already crossed over into the realm of madness.
Of all the explanations, Colleen preferred the hallucinogenic drug theory most.
"If this is some psychedelic trip I'm on, all I have to do is wait, and it will come to an end."
Colleen didn't return to the chateau. She had no desire to stay in a place crowded with Nazis—real or imagined. Instead, she walked around the grounds, carefully making her way in the moonlight. A sudden movement near one of the chateau's outer buildings startled her.
"Who's there?" she called.
"It's me, Madame, Jean-Claude. I'm just checking to see that everything is all right. One can't be too careful these days."
Jean-Claude seemed nervous, and his eyes kept darting to the large wooden door of the stables.
"Forgive me for saying so, Madame, but I don't believe it is safe for you to be out here at night. The comte will be displeased."
"I was taking a walk, but I was just about to go back inside."
Colleen began heading toward the chateau. The man sighed with relief and headed toward his quarters. Once he was gone, however, Colleen turned and went back toward the stable, anxious to see if Jean-Claude had been up to anything. Inside, next to the door, there was a battery-powered lantern. She turned on the flashlight and shone the beam around the large room. Several of the horses whinnied and danced in their stalls.
Suddenly she heard a sound, a low moan. Had one of the maids sneaked out of the chateau for a secret assignation with a beau? If so, Colleen certainly had no wish to disturb them. She was about to leave when she heard the moan again. It was clearly a sound of pain, not pleasure. Summoning her courage, she walked down the aisle between the two rows of stalls to investigate.
When the lantern's beam illuminated the straw-littered floor, Colleen saw several dark splotches. On closer examination, she discovered it was blood. Her courage wavered. Should she get her husband? Surely he would be more useful in an emergency. Her instincts, however, prevented her from running back to the house. Instead, she bravely followed the moaning sounds to the last stall on the right, where she found an injured man lying on a pile of hay. He was covered in several old blankets, and a linen bandage, stained with blood, was wrapped around his head.
"Who are you?" Colleen asked in a voice that quivered with fear.
The only response she received was another low moan. She shone the flashlight down on the wounded man. Beads of perspiration blended with dark smudges of smoke and dirt on his handsome face. Once again, he moaned and grimaced with pain. Compassion welled in Colleen's heart, and she knelt beside him and put her hand on his forehead. His skin felt hot to her touch.
"You're burning up. I've got to find something to take your fever down."
She was on her way back to the chateau to search for medicine when she crossed paths with Jean-Claude again.
"Madame, you're still out here," the servant said fearfully.
"Yes. I went into the stable. I know what you're hiding in the last stall."
Jean-Claude's face was ashen.
"I ... I ...," he stammered.
"Don't bother with explanations now. Besides, I imagine he's a British or American soldier, wounded behind enemy lines. You found him and brought him here."
Jean-Claude nodded guiltily.
"Well, he's not going to make it if we don't get him help. Is there a doctor nearby, one who can be trusted to keep silent?"
Again Jean-Claude nodded.
"Then go quickly and bring him here. Wait. Do you need money?"
"No, madame, le docteur will gladly help out of patriotism, not greed."
There was a distinct note of accusation in Jean-Claude's voice.
"I'm not my husband," Colleen declared defensively, "and I don't share his fondness for Germans."
Jean-Claude nodded his head in apology and ran off to the village to summon the doctor.
* * *
For several days Colleen forgot about her own problems as she nursed the injured RAF pilot back to health. She ceased to wonder whether she had been drugged, had gone insane or perhaps a combination of the two. She was far more concerned with saving the life of Captain Sheldon Cavendish than with her own bizarre predicament.
Initially, there had been the threat of infection, but once his fever broke, Sheldon's wounds quickly healed, thanks to Colleen's careful ministrations. When the captain regained his health, he was faced with the more dangerous problem of getting safely out of France.
"My cousin Marcel is a fisherman," Jean-Claude announced. "If we can get Captain Cavendish to Le Havre, Marcel will take him out on a boat and get close enough to England so that the captain can swim to safety."
"Do you have any old clothes that will fit him? Perhaps we could try to pass him off as a farmer," Colleen suggested.
"Do you speak any French?" Jean-Claude asked the young pilot.
"No, but I could learn a few phrases," he replied in his crisp British accent. "After all, the Germans are the ones I've got to fear, not the French."
When Sheldon smiled at Colleen, his personal angel of mercy, her heart sank.
"I don't want you to go," she cried. "It's too dangerous."
Jean-Claude looked at the two young people, saw the emotion in their faces and tactfully left them alone in the stable.
"I have to go," Sheldon insisted as he took Colleen in his arms. "The entire world is at war. What kind of a man would I be if I stayed here while others risked their lives for our freedom?"
Suddenly Colleen hated herself for staying with a husband who collaborated with the enemy, a man who was more concerned with his own comfort and personal possessions than with the lives and freedom of millions.
"I love you," she blurted out.
"The war won't last forever," Sheldon said hopefully as he wiped a tear from Colleen's cheek. "If I am lucky enough to survive, I'm going to come back here for you."
Colleen rested her head on his chest and thought about how beautiful life would be if she were married to a man she loved and respected. All the dreams of her past life paled in comparison to her new-found love.
If I am crazy, she mused, then I welcome this madness.
She no longer had the desire to return to the twenty-first century or to her life in New York. Sheldon's strong arms that held her so tightly were more real to her than her Long Island home or her life with Melrose Slattery.
* * *
The day finally came that Colleen dreaded: Sheldon and Jean-Claude were about to set off for Le Havre.
"God willing, in three days I'll be in London," Sheldon said with forced good cheer.
Silent tears were Colleen's only response.
While the downed British pilot was in the stable, putting on a pair of old, torn work pants and a soiled linen shirt, Jean-Claude hitched the horses to the wagon.
"Aren't you going to put anything in the wagon?" Colleen asked.
"No. We are going to travel under the pretext that we're getting supplies from Le Havre."
"Do you think ...?"
Colleen's question was cut short when she saw her husband walking toward them.
"Jean-Claude," Melrose called, "I want you to go to the village. I'll be entertaining friends tonight, and we'll need some supplies."
The Comte de Reynaud noticed his wife standing nearby, and his eyebrows rose with curiosity.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked with suspicion.
Colleen's years of preparing for the stage finally paid off. She was able to fool her husband with a convincing lie.
"I was out riding yesterday, and my horse went lame. I wanted to find out from Jean-Claude if the poor animal had recovered."
"And has it?"
"Oui, monsieur," Jean-Claude said. "It was only a stone wedged in its hoof."
"Good."
As the comte handed the list of supplies to Jean-Claude, he held his arm out for his wife. Colleen readily took his hand, eager to get him back inside the chateau so Jean-Claude and Sheldon could make a safe exit.
But just as she and her husband rounded the corner of the stable, Colleen heard the large wooden door open and Sheldon ask, "How do I look?"
The comte froze at the sound of the question spoken in perfect English. He stormed back to the stable, his face purple with rage, and he withdrew the small pistol he had kept in his breast pocket since the invasion of France.
"Harboring the enemy, are you?" he screamed at Jean-Claude.
Colleen angrily confronted her husband.
"This man is not the enemy. The British and Americans are fighting with French patriots to rid us of the Nazis who are occupying our country. If you don't want to help because it might endanger your life or cost you your lands and fortune, then fine. Bury your head here at Chateau Reynaud while others fight, but let Jean-Claude see the captain to safety."
"Don't you see? If these men are captured, the Germans will naturally assume I aided and abetted the enemy."
"You have no need to fear. I will tell the Germans otherwise," his wife pleaded. "I will confess to them that I am solely responsible and that you knew nothing."
The comte's jealousy flared.
"You would risk your life for this Englishman? Why? What is he to you?"
"He is nothing more than a brave man who needs my help."
Although Colleen's words were spoken with passionate conviction, her eyes betrayed the love she felt for Captain Cavendish.
The comte looked at his wife with disgust.
"I should have left you in the gutters of Paris where I found you," he spat.
"I don't care what you say about me, but let these men go."
The comte ignored his wife's pleas, raised his pistol and fired a shot into the air. Men and women came running from the fields and from inside the chateau.
The comte called to his trusted valet, "Phone Wolfgang Mannheim. Tell him I've found a downed English pilot on my property."
* * *
Colleen sat in the cold, damp wine cellar of Chateau Reynaud. Two German soldiers stood guard over her with orders to shoot if she tried to escape. But the comtesse had no wish to run; there was no place for her to go. She was trapped in a world and time that were not her own. All that had mattered to her in France was Sheldon Cavendish, and now he was gone. The Nazis had tortured him for three days before finally hanging him from one of the rafters in the stable.
How the comte had gloated when he cruelly informed his wife of the handsome captain's death. He was truly loathsome! Colleen idly wondered what would happen to him or, more accurately, what had happened to him when France was liberated. What did the French do with collaborators once the Nazis were expelled?
An hour later, while Colleen sat in her dank, musty prison, trying not to think about Sheldon or wonder what might have been had he not been captured, the wine cellar door was flung open with a bang. In walked two officers from the Gestapo.
"Come with us, Fraulein," one of the men ordered. "We have a few questions to ask you."
As she was led upstairs, Colleen smelled smoke. When she walked down the hall past the dining room, she saw her husband lying dead on the floor. He had taken the coward's way out: a self-inflicted pistol shot to the head.
A Nazi officer ran down the hall, shouting orders in German. The two Gestapo officers rushed their prisoner outside into the courtyard. Colleen turned and saw smoke billowing out of the upstairs window. Then she and her captors stood by and watched as Chateau Reynaud was consumed by flames. The smoke made Colleen's eyes tear, and she found it increasingly difficult to breathe. The cries and shouts of the men and women who had lived and worked at the chateau were deafening. Her head began to ache again, and her knees buckled.
"What is the matter, Fraulein?" one of the Nazis jeered. "Is the heat getting to you?"
As the comtesse lost consciousness, she imagined Sheldon's voice calling to her.
* * *
Colleen tried to open her eyes but couldn't. The burning sensation was unbearable, and the stench of smoke made her gag. Someone placed a cool, damp rag on her face. Surely it was not one of the Nazis; it must be the young maid or one of the other loyal servants from the chateau.
"Colleen, can you hear me?"
There was something familiar about the voice that called her name. Suddenly, she realized the person spoke English, not French. Colleen forced her eyes to open, and through the blur of tears, she saw Goldie Morton staring down at her.
"Where am I?" she managed to ask in a pained, rasping voice.
"You're at the hospital. There was a terrible accident—a fire. Do you have any recollection of it at all?"
Colleen shook her head.
A fire? At the chateau?
Her two worlds began crashing in on each other, and she couldn't remember either one very clearly.
"Try to get some rest now," Goldie suggested. "The doctor wants to keep you here overnight for observation, but you'll probably be able to go home in the morning."
There was sadness in Goldie's voice. Colleen knew there was something her friend wasn't telling her.
"He's dead, isn't he?" Colleen asked, feeling her eyelids grow heavy.
"Yes. You were one of the few survivors. Most of the others were trapped inside, but the firemen found you in the parking lot."
"Sheldon wasn't inside the chateau; he was in the stables. The Germans ...," she mumbled and turned her head away.
A handsome doctor entered the room and stood at the patient's bedside.
"What's this about Germans?" he asked.
"I don't know," Goldie replied. "I'm worried, Doctor. She's not making any sense. I was trying to tell her about her husband ...."
"There's nothing for you to be concerned about," the doctor assured her. "The sedative often produces a dream-like state under which people have been known to say all sorts of things."
Colleen Slattery smiled at the sound of Dr. Sheldon Cavendish's crisp British accent. Perhaps her dreams hadn't been shattered after all, she thought and drifted off to a contented, peaceful sleep.
This story was inspired by one of my favorite restaurants: the 94th Bomb Group, which was adjacent to Essex County Airport in Fairfield, NJ. It was designed to look like an old French manor that was shelled during the war. There was a lot of WWII memorabilia, period music, Roosevelt's day of infamy speech, etc. Since I wrote this story, I was saddened to learn that the restaurant closed and the building has been torn down.
Like Snoopy, Salem likes to pretend he is a flying ass--I mean ace.
