Read Audrey Hepburn: An Intimate Portrait Online
Authors: Diana Maychick
Audrey Hepburn: An Intimate Portrait (4 page)
Despite the bitterness of her parents’ split, they still were aware
enough of reality to recognize that their daughter was the true casualty of the
episode. Guilty about the effect of their failure on their little daughter,
certain that she was being torn apart because she loved them both, they agreed
that a
decision about which parent Audrey would live with the majority of the time,
and remove her from the endemic family depression which often accompanies
divorce.
Against all predictions, Audrey thrived away from home, at least on the
surface. She developed a ruddy complexion from joining in outdoor team sports
with her classmates and began to catch on a little to the steps required in
making friends. By now fluent in English and French, Audrey appeared to be the
model child of an upper-class, European upbringing. In fact, she began
suffering severe migraine headaches at this time, most probably a result of her
inability to acknowledge the pain of her family life. Still, what she learned
in those few short years would stay with her for the rest of her life: You
could keep your unhappiness a secret, and nobody would be the wiser. You could
hide your feelings to keep them under control.
Then, in the autumn of 1939, the world started spinning out of control.
Chapter 4
Life was about to change dramatically and irrevocably, but as in those
moments before every cataclysm, people in the maelstrom remember best the
mundane.
“What pains me the most is the way the students made fun of me
when I returned to the
Audrey said. “I really didn’t know much Dutch even before I left, having
spoken English at home, but by the time I got back, there was nothing. And even
when I tried, my accent was awful. Children can be mean and hurtful. I felt
completely alone.”
In September 1939, the Baroness insisted that Audrey leave her father
in
immediately come back home to
and Audrey’s mother was certain that Hitler would attempt to invade the
husband’s pro-Nazi stance, and feared that his politics would adversely affect
her daughter if she were allowed to remain in
the world. She had the assurances of Queen Wilhelmina herself, who often
exchanged confidences with the Baroness’s sister. Despite the fact that
fifteen miles from the German border, the Baroness brought Audrey back home to
live with her half brothers Alexander and Jan.
For a child still distraught by the breakup of her parents, the
sundering of the world around her was just a footnote to her internal pain.
“I was crying a lot of the time when I first got home,” she
recalled. “I would sit and whimper and eat chocolate and try my best to
learn Dutch. There weren’t too many distractions. I learned the language by
default. There was nothing else to do.”
The Baroness tried to cultivate diversions for her sad little girl, but
the tensions of the war inhibited fun. Instead of outings, Audrey spent most of
her days poring over books about ballet stars Pavlova and Nijinsky in the
wainscoted library of the family estate.
She became an avid balletomane, immersing herself in the rituals and
lore of the dance world. The magical transformation of a body into an
instrument for art helped distract Audrey from the pressing concerns of food,
clothing, shelter, and safety.
Safety had become an important issue almost overnight. In the spring of
1940, Hitler was massing his troops for an assault on the
this time, the Baroness had become the unofficial leader of the Dutch
Resistance movement in her hometown. Her ex-husband’s reprehensible beliefs in
Nazism initially encouraged her in this opposite direction, but soon the
Baroness herself became enamored of the Underground, and devoted countless
hours in planning strategies.
The estate of
informal parties which helped to swell the ranks of the opposition. Royalty
mixed with commoners at these afternoon and evening affairs, and everyone
shared ideas. For perhaps the first time in her life, the Baroness realized
that beliefs were more important than class distinctions. A romantic air washed
over each ordinary occurrence. People spoke in codes. Life was tinged with a
do-or-die excitement. Commonplace conversations resonated with deeper meanings.
“I don’t remember what all the things stood for,” Audrey
said, “but I do know that if someone mentioned rijsttafel [the Dutch
national dish of fish, meat, vegetables, and subtle spices], that meant there
were lots of ears around and listening! You were supposed to be careful of what
you were saying; somebody in the room could be a Nazi sympathizer. We all had
to be very secretive until it was clear whose side our neighbors were on. And
since the Dutch are known to be rather close to the vest anyway, we often were
surprised when we discovered other resisters. Some of the most laconic people
worked the hardest for the cause.”
For the Baroness, fighting the Nazis also functioned as a subtle way of
getting back at her ex-husband. Although she didn’t encourage Audrey to
bad-mouth her father, she did press her young daughter into becoming a zealot
against Hitler. Audrey’s father’s support of Oswald and Diana Mosley and the
reactionary Fascists only grew more intense as the years passed. Whereas in his
early days he quietly offered financial and moral support to the infamous Black
Shirts, he now marched with them in public parades. “My loyalties were
divided,” Audrey recalled. “Even at age eleven, I knew Hitler was
evil. But my father supported him. And I loved my father. I prayed that my
father would change his mind, and then maybe the family could get back
together. I think for the rest of my life I prayed that my family could get
back together.”
During a period of extreme political tension, on the night of
decided to take Audrey to the ballet to see one of her idols, Margot Fonteyn,
who was visiting
the tutelage of choreographer Ninette de Valois and musical director Constance
Lambert, also featured dancers Robert Helpmann and Frederick Ashton in a
repertoire which included Ashton’s own “Horoscope,” the story of
young lovers ruled by their astrological signs. During the performance, the
dancers got word that Hitler’s troops were nearby. They realized that they
should leave
Performing a truncated version of “Facade,” which was danced
before a set featuring the outside of a beautiful, stately Victorian mansion,
the troupe rushed through the various components, skipping a waltz altogether
in the hopes of saving time.
But the Baroness had other ideas. As the president of the British
Netherlands Society, she used the visit by the Sadler’s Wells Ballet to shore
up her image in the Resistance movement.
Knowing there were more than a few Nazi sympathizers in the audience,
and knowing, too, that they were beginning to doubt her cover as a pro-German
aristocrat, she wanted to make it appear she was trying to detain the troupe
long enough for the Nazis to arrive. That would help create an aura around her
as being on the side of
She needed such an ironclad alibi to continue her secret work in the Resistance
movement.
In order to prolong the evening, she got on the stage and thanked the
ballet troupe in English and Dutch. As the dancers were becoming more and more
nervous and uncomfortable, the Baroness began to review the history of Sadler’s
Wells, recalling nearly every one of its triumphs, including the minor ones.
Desperation began to color the faces of the dancers. Fonteyn was said to turn
ashen. Helpmann swooned as if about to faint.
The troupe was becoming even more anxious. The Baroness feared they
would leave while she was still talking. That’s when she publicly initiated
Audrey into the Resistance movement. She motioned her daughter to bring to the
stage elaborate bouquets for both Fonteyn and de Valois. Audrey walked slowly
and regally up the carpeted aisle, curtsied flawlessly for each woman, and
whispered to them that she herself wanted to become a dancer. “It’s what I
dream about every night,” she told them, clutching a dogeared program in
her sweaty palms. The dancers were so touched by her wide-eyed charm and quiet
poise that they persuaded their fellow dancers to stop by at the reception the
Baroness had arranged in their honor.
A half hour after the troupe got onto its bus and left, the Germans
noisily blasted the streets of
Air-raid alarms screeched warnings of danger. The sound of gunfire punctured
the quiet night. Parachutes filled the sky. Audrey and her mother returned home
and slept in the basement, where Alexander and Jan and their nanny had already
found refuge.
“It was for me a most amazing night,” Audrey said. “I
was too exhilarated about meeting Fonteyn to be as frightened as I should have
been about the war. It was almost as if the bombing started and the shooting
became constant because I had screwed up my courage and told my idol that I
wanted to be a dancer just like she was! The sounds were like fireworks to me,
an affirmation that I had desires and I finally voiced them. Oddly enough, I
think my depression began to lift that night. It wasn’t until morning that I
realized it was damp in the basement, that there were mice and even rats, that
I was shivering. All those things were true, and I began to feel them, and the
fear of death, but everything was also finally all right. I had discovered a
purpose in life. I was to become a dancer.”
The invasion changed daily life dramatically and quickly for Audrey and
her family. Radio reports urged civilians to stay inside and lock their
shutters and doors. “My brothers and I peeked out the windows and saw the
German soldiers, a sea of gray really, in their uniforms and with their guns.
It was a menacing sight, but somehow I felt we could beat them. It was a
child’s boldness, I suppose, a naiveté. It became like a game. But when the
Queen left [Wilhelmina and her family went to
felt abandoned. The leader had decided not to play with us anymore.”
In the week that followed, bullhorns blared the news that
the Third Reich. The city’s radio station and its newspaper were under the
control of the Germans. The Baroness helped to organize a strike against the
railway system to slow down the German invasion. Some Resistance members were
caught and executed by the Germans as an example of what would happen to those
who resisted.
Audrey’s family was financially decimated. The aristocracy, of which
they were leading members, had suffered great losses. All their gold was
confiscated, and their silver money was replaced by zinc. The van Heemstras
lost all their wealth and property. The Germans commandeered their
headquarters. Although they were permitted to remain there, they became
unwelcome boarders in their own home.
But by far the most devastating event for Audrey was the arrest and
execution of her mother’s brother, Willem. “It is still hard for me to
talk about my uncle,” she remembered. “I didn’t see him every day,
maybe no more than twice a month, but he was an anchor in my young life. He
wasn’t a substitute father, but he was an adult male who loved me, who loved my
mother.”
