The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau

Colette Marceau is attending a fundraiser for the Boston Orchestral Education Consortium to steal an 8.07-carat yellow diamond ring worth $90,000 from Linda Clyborn. Colette reflects on her skill and strategy for stealing various types of jewelry, including bracelets, necklaces, and watches. Colette also reflects on the code she follows, and which her mother followed, to never steal from a decent person. Linda Clyborn supports a neo-Nazi group with funds from her late husband’s estate. Colette, who is wearing a wig as a disguise, reflects that “[t]o people like Linda Clyborn, the elderly were invisible” (11). She waits until three men pass near Linda, then pinches her and takes the ring.

Annabel Clement’s family claims to be descended from the original Robin Hood, and they carry on a tradition of becoming thieves. Annabel was raised in West Yorkshire but fell in love with a Frenchman and moved to Paris. Annabel’s husband, Roger, who runs a school, doesn’t approve of Annabel’s thieving. When Colette is six, Annabel explains to her that what they do is take from people who are cruel or unkind and use their riches to make the world a better place, which is heroic, not wrong. Annabel tells Colette the family story about how Robin Hood lived in the village of Wentbridge and stole to help people oppressed by a tyrannical king. She describes Robin’s companion, a white-tailed eagle who had a distinctive cry: “Kyi-kyi-kyi” (15).

Four years later, when Colette is 10 and her sister Liliane is a newborn, her mother reminds Colette to never forget who she is, but also to not tell Roger of their activities. Annabel is certain that what they do is just and not a crime. Colette practices how to unclasp jewelry, and in 1938, she makes her first theft, a Longines pocket watch taken from a Swiss banker who cheats Parisians out of their life savings. Colette goes with her mother to the café the banker frequents. Her mother reminds Colette that this is who she was born to be. Colette jostles the banker and takes the watch. Her mother tells Colette proudly, “You’re going to do so much good in the world, my love” (19).

The morning after the theft, Colette sits in her kitchen, admiring the ring but reflecting that she can’t keep it. She has been stealing for eight decades and estimates she has given more than $30 million to deserving organizations. She’s most proud of the Boston Center for Holocaust Education, which she founded in 1972 with anonymously donated funds, where she still volunteers.

The daughter of the founding director, Aviva Haskell, has become as close as family to Colette, as was her mother, Rachel. Aviva calls and asks Colette about the benefit, since a photograph shows Colette, in her wig, standing close to Linda Clyborn. Aviva is suspicious and to put her off, Colette invites her to dinner that night, promising to make her favorite dish. Her next call is from Marty, whom Colette met when she was 24. Marty asks if she has a delivery for him and invites Colette to lunch.

She dresses for the day, taking care with her appearance. She has lived in the US since 1952 but still dresses like a Parisian. While she tries to look nondescript when stealing jewels, she otherwise wears trademark red lipstick. Colette dresses carefully as she enjoys when Marty looks at her admiringly. She recalls meeting him back in 1952 when she and her Uncle Leo had just moved to the US, and Leo went to Marty to fence a pair of earrings. Marty flirted with Colette, and she was flustered by him. Colette has used Marty as a fence ever since, but she turned down his invitations to date her since she didn’t want to have children. Colette thought at the time, “How on earth could she be trusted to keep anyone safe after everything that had happened in Paris?” (28).

Colette meets Marty, and they have lunch while Marty flirts with her. They discuss their age and whether they’ll ever retire. Colette says she doesn’t want to get him in trouble, but Marty answers that he feels he’s doing some good in the world because of Colette, and that while what she’s doing is illegal, he doesn’t feel it’s wrong.

Colette continues to practice stealing, and one night her mother takes her to the Opéra. She has decided that Colette will steal a diamond choker from the wife of Ernst Balkenhol, who supports Hitler and his propaganda. Her mother points out Ingrid, who is a small woman, and Colette thinks she’ll be used to being jostled. The production is a performance of Tristan and Isolde, and Colette is deeply moved by the story of romantic love and tragedy. Colette asks her mother if love is like that, and her mother says that few people find such love. Colette is nervous but successfully steals the bracelet. Her mother is proud.

Aviva brings a bottle of wine for dinner. Aviva, who is an attorney, again asks Colette if she observed anything while at the gala. A detective from the Boston Police Department comes to the door and asks to speak to Colette. Aviva is protective and identifies herself as Colette’s attorney. The detective shows Colette pictures of three different men, known jewel thieves, and asks if she saw them there last night. After he leaves, Colette confesses to Aviva that she has been a jewel thief since she was a child.

Later that night, Colette looks at herself in the mirror, reflecting on her age and how her mother had been killed by the Nazis at age 36. She regrets that she failed to bring Liliane home and imagines that her mother is still disappointed in her. In her safe, Colette has one half of a diamond bracelet her mother sewed into the hem of Colette’s nightgown just a few nights before she died. Her mother had taken the bracelets because they were stolen from a friend of hers named Hélène Rosman, and Annabel intended to sell the pieces to finance the French Resistance. She sewed the matching bracelet into Liliane’s gown. Colette has asked Marty before to help her find the piece, but it has never been located. The bracelet is all she has left of her mother and sister.

Colette’s family flees Paris briefly when the Germans invade in May 1940, but then returns. Her mother insists that Colette stop stealing. Annabel supports a man called Le Paon, the Peacock, who is part of the French Resistance. When Colette learns that the Germans are rounding up Jewish citizens, she desperately wants to help. She finds her target, Madame Virlogeux, a dressmaker who informs on other Parisians. One day on the street, Colette steals a bracelet from the woman, but a German officer chases her.

When she reaches her street, Colette hides. A boy she has seen in the neighborhood, wearing a yellow star on his coat, stops to tie his shoe and tells the officer he hasn’t seen Colette. After the officer leaves, the boy reveals that Colette dropped the bracelet, and he stepped on the bangle to hide it. The boy leads her to a courtyard with a garden and removes a loose brick, giving Colette a place to hide the bracelet. The boy says the best secrets are meant to be shared.

Colette reflects that the boy she met didn’t survive the war, but she remembers how he said one should always help if one can. Colette is worried about the detective and what Aviva thinks of her now. Marty visits and says he has found the bracelet Colette has been looking for. It’s in a private collection and will be on display at the Diamond Museum. Colette hopes the bracelet might give her information about what happened to Liliane, but she realizes she might be remembered if she asks questions of Lucas O’Mara, who is curating the exhibit. She goes to Aviva’s office to ask for help.

Aviva first refuses to see Colette, but then gives in. She feels that Colette is like a second mother to her. She’s stunned to realize the full scope of Colette’s activities and that the theft funded the Holocaust Center where Aviva also volunteers. She’s equally stunned when Colette describes how her sister Liliane was kidnapped and murdered. Liliane was found floating in the Seine, the hem of her nightgown ripped, the bracelet missing. Colette feels it’s her fault that Liliane was taken. She wants Aviva to talk to the museum director and see what she can find out.

Colette becomes impatient when Liliane pesters her about the boy she met. His name is Tristan, like the character in the poem “Chevrefoil,” and he writes Colette a poem and leaves it wrapped around the bracelet, still hidden in the courtyard. Colette writes back, signing herself “Isolde.” She gives the bangle to her mother, who scolds her, but Colette reminds her that this is who they all are. She and Tristan continue to write back and forth, and Colette imagines she’s falling in love, “a slow opening of the heart like cracking a window on a warm spring day to let the sunshine in” (86). He calls her a heroine, and she wants to be brave for him.