Here’s #6 on Hausmann’s Top Ten List of
Things to Do – and Not Do – in Paris
CHAMPIONS
IF YOU’RE FEELING weary-dreary and looking for a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the rich and famous in Paris before the War, ride the Paris Metro to the Rue de la Pompe stop. (If you’re not in Paris, the ticket to the virtual Metro is free.) Walk to nearby Avenue Henri Martin. Now close your eyes and imagine you are back in the spring of 1938, when the avenue was lined with private mansions.
At 64 Avenue Henri Martin stands the grand maison of the Kapferers, a prominent Jewish family socializing with the Rothschilds and Citroens. Chez Kapferer is a three-story affair. Marcel Kapferer is head of Royal Dutch Shell of France. His art collection is legendary: Van Gogh, Cezanne, Vuillard. His three beautiful daughters are the talk of Paris society.
Ring the bell and the porter will lead you through the garden. In the entryway, you are greeted by a nude with alabaster breasts, by Malliol. Rushing out the door, Monsieur Kapferer brushes them lightly. A Rodin bust looks on disapprovingly.
The walls are covered with Japanese silk hung with impressionist masterpieces, including Cezanne’s “Lake Annecy,” and Van Gogh’s “Three Pairs of Shoes.” A Buddha by Odilon Redon hovers mysteriously.
But the furniture is old fashioned, the air stuffy, time regimented – no fun for the daughters.
That ringing laughter on the stairs is Yvette, the middle daughter: Daring, athletic, and fiercely independent, she is the reigning French women’s golf champion. Although she grew up surrounded by art, she cares not a whit for Cezanne and his ‘Lake Annecy.’ And Van Gogh’s ‘Old Shoes’ frankly are ugly! She’s passionately in love with golf, and a boy named Alec Weisweiller, the scion of a fabulously wealthy family.
But she’s engaged to an older man, a British golfer and officer, and wants to escape her stuffy home, so she marries him. Alec appears unexpectedly at the wedding pleading stop! Too late.
Flash forward: France has declared war on Germany, but no fighting has broken out — “the phony war.” Yvette’s husband is bivouacked with the British army in France. Yvette and their one year-old boy are living safely in Britain. But she misses her parents in Paris. In late April 1940, she catches the last flight out of London to Paris. Just as Hitler’s tanks are poised to invade France. Blitzkrieg!
The Kapferers pack up and flee. Driving her father’s Citroen, 22 year-old Yvette sets off with her baby, an English nanny, a pregnant dog, 24 suitcases and a bicycle. She crosses the Spanish border. But the Gestapo has given Franco a list of Jews, and Yvette’s parents and sister are on the list.
Meanwhile, the commandant of the Gestapo turns the Kapferer house into his private residence and loots the art.
Yvette miraculously escapes to Scotland, and provides tea and comfort to brave RAF fliers fighting in the Battle of Britain.
Her life races like a thriller. A tale of pluck, amazing escapes, heart-breaking deaths, championship golf, dancing in the London blitz, ghastly nuptial sex at the George V Hotel, and great illicit sex at the Savoy. It’s also about no-good cheating husbands, exiled royalty, show dogs, high jinks, a fairy tale golf hotel, a TB sanitarium… and laughing in the face of death.
Yvette is now 93, looks 75, and remembers it all.
***
By chance, she is visiting Paris! We meet for lunch.
“This is Lally Segard, my best friend – and worst foe – on the French golf team,” Yvette says, introducing us. “She beat me in the final in the Benelux championship!”
“Really, I don’t remember,” Lally replies with feigned humility, deadpan.
They’ve been friends since 1935, as well as rivals and former teammates. Lally’s mother, a golfer in her own right, coached them. In those days, proper lady golfers wore skirts. The French team wore trousers to a tournament in England, shocking the British.
They were stars, swinging clubs on the silver screen in French newsreels. Then came the Nazis. Lally endured the Occupation, a bitter time. After the war, they became teammates again and played championships all over Europe in to the mid 1950s. Their lives went separate ways, but they kept in touch.
“Lally, do you still play golf?” I ask.
“If you want to call it that,” she laughs.
The French cherish their heroes. These pioneering women’s champions must be enshrined in a Hall of Fame? I inquire, presumptively.
Lally sweeps her hand, bitterly. “We’re forgotten. The golf association cares only about this year’s champions.”
I’m shocked. What a loss to French history. To young girls growing up today, who need role models.
Today’s golf champions make beaucoup from commercial sponsorships. Yvette and Lally played for little silver trophies. They did it for the love of the game, not the love of money. Of course Yvette was an heiress, but she lost her fortune.
Yvette has a 1937 photograph of Lally and herself – young, vibrant, bright eyed, and game to play.
“How about me taking your picture in front of the old one?” I suggest, wondering if I’ve gone too far. “Are you game?”
They look at each other, their weathered faces scoured by near ninety winters.
“We’re game!” Playfully, they primp their hair and assume the same pose.
Their skin shows the ravages of time. But the bone structure shows through, strongly, beneath the flesh. They look remarkably like their younger selves… and strikingly like sisters.
Life is a cruel and unfair match between Enduring Youth and the Ravages of Time.
Gazing at the picture, I see two players, game for the next round. Beneath cloudy skies, they see a green fairway beckoning.
And I think I hear them say:
We have known victory and defeat. We endured. We’ve stayed close. We are champions!
***
For more about Lally Segard, in her own words, read “Lally Segard’s British Memories.” Incredible story. You can find it on the web at:
http://www.britgolfcollectors.wyenet.co.uk/TTG%20Scanned%20to%20Dec%202008/76%202006March.pdf
