Chapter 10 – Chapter 10

August 25, 1944, 4:00 p.m.

Paul had been napping. Antoine had told him to stay in his room all day. The Americans and British were set to enter the city from the north and the Free French from the south. The Ritz was holding its collective breath. He was awakened by the bells starting up all across the city. He started to rise from the bed, when the door burst open and what looked like a madman in fatigues, his shirt open to reveal a hairy chest bounded into the room. He was carrying a British submarine gun slung under one arm, and two champagne bottles under the other. A gun holster drooped off a thick black belt around an also thick stomach. He was so rumpled that Paul doubted the man had slept in days.

"This is my room. You got ten minutes to move your shit out of it," the man barked and then he was gone.

Antoine appeared in the doorway in the wake of the wild man.

"Who the hell was that?" Paul asked.

"That was Ernest Hemingway. He's liberating the Ritz. And this is his room. I think I told you that. You'd best clear out as directed. We have other rooms. I hear he's a dangerous shot when he's drunk."

"He's liberated the Ritz?" Paul said. "The Germans all left yesterday and the staff put up the tricolor right after they were gone—and there were British soldiers in here already before this guy showed up."

"True, but men like Hemingway write history," Antoine answered. "Tomorrow's headline will read that the Ritz Paris was liberated by Ernest Hemingway. Now, scrape your clothes together and come on up to my room until—"

He didn't get any further, as crowding around him and into the room were three rough-looking Frenchmen. Resistance fighters. "Paul Stainer?" the one who appeared to be their leader said. "Come with us." He was holding a copy of The Collaborator.

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