Frédéric, as usual, made bawdy jokes.
“Tolerance? Not for nothing do we French call a brothel a maison de tolérance,” he sniffed to Héloise Sallois, the banker’s wife, a Sunday painter whose cloying goody-goody personality had finally ticked Frédéric off.
Yet at first impression, she seemed an advantage to her husband, whom one would have expected to come equipped with a more spectacular companion, a trophy wife, as the Americans say. Short, slender, with limpid eyes, she seemed unaffectedly gentle. There was something moving and poetic in her way of wearing her age well and not striving to be beautiful. Yet in spite of her subtle, tart sense of humor, it wasn’t long before she blindsided us by steering the conversation, with a contrite air, to her hiking holidays of backpacking and roughing it in mountain shelters, the significance of which became clear when she quizzed us about the meaning of our frivolous vacations. She gave the bizarre impression of conducting a catechism class polished by the practice of worldliness, and exuded a pious but petty austerity. Delighted with herself and with the way she imagined having avoided the perils of proselytism, she still came across as a self-righteous prig lecturing, out of pure generosity, on tolerance.
“Oh, well!” exclaimed her husband, with an attempt at humor that baffled the rest of us. “Entrust your wife to a Jesuit and your savings to a Dominican, but never the reverse!”
The talk at our table, turning to the CAC 40,3 became so stodgy and off-putting that Frédéric kept stage-whispering remarks to me, hoping for a smile.
“Have you been elevated to the empyrean heights of the CAC 40?”
“Go to your CAC 40 immediately and stay there!”
“Well if that’s the way you’re going to be, I’m going home to the CAC 40!”
But for most of the luncheon, our table watched Alain Gandouin and Jean-Michel Destret seducing each other. Jean-Michel, who hoped to demonstrate his status as a captain of industry to the prestigious consultant, with whom he’d had little contact until then, used the occasion to reveal his talent for running the gamut of emotions. As cunningly as an old gypsy violinist bringing tears to a crowd’s eyes, he played his listeners like a baby grand, shamelessly.
Which now lent credence to all those press cuttings hailing him as a showman who could galvanize his audience at the shareholders’ meetings of his firm. Still, his vocabulary struck me as ridiculous and as conventionally pretentious as the feel-good emotions he was trying to tap into at every turn. He claimed to have been not “changed” but “tempered” by success. He “spent time with” ideas, including the rather obscure one of “corporeity,” and trotting out some cheap poetry, he confessed that he had “too much living” behind him and sometimes had to pull himself together “by fighting through fits of the blues,” followed by “splashes of sunshine” in his soul. I was aghast.
As for Alain Gandouin, he went all out to dazzle Jean-Michel on the hot-button topics of the moment, not just because he was an exhibitionist and enjoyed demonstrating his gifts at analysis but also because he wouldn’t have minded picking Jean-Michel up as a client, either. He seemed to have his technique down pat. Once he’d established the superiority of his intellect, he tossed out two or three anecdotes intended to prove that he had no qualms about taking on powerful people.
It was Gay who had the last word. Primed by a few glasses of vodka, she amused us with sallies along the lines of, “I was so lovely you could hear silverware clattering onto plates whenever I entered a restaurant.” And her coup de grâce took the cake. Noticing that the banker’s wife, Héloise, had a scar on one leg, she asked impertinently, “Shouldn’t someone tell her she has a run in her stocking?”
As often happened, we had a world of trouble getting rid of our luncheon clients, who were enjoying themselves so much that they would willingly have stayed all afternoon to take advantage of our beach, whereas the rest of us could think only of quietly retreating to our rooms with a book, or of diving headlong, without them, into the sea.
Laetitia wanted to visit the Fondation Maeght but didn’t feel like going there by herself, so I came loudly to her rescue by suggesting various departure routes to our guests and asking if anyone needed a ride home. Jean-Michel offered his chauffeur around, for which I thanked him effusively, and it was past five o’clock when Bernard and Laetitia took their seats in the back of Jean-Michel’s Safrane to go to Saint-Paul-de-Vence, followed down our drive by a Hummer, a Maserati, a Bentley, a Twingo, and a Ferrari.
“Oof! It’s about time,” we all exclaimed and headed for our rooms.
Saturday, 6:30 p.m.
I wasn’t tired. But I was curious: someone somewhere was running sound checks on an orchestra tuning up. I could hear the noise in my bedroom, along with the throaty rumble of outboard motors and the harangues of ice-cream vendors crisscrossing the bay in little boats, hawking their wares to the pleasure boaters. I went down to the beach.
The beach in winter
January 2000
I am twenty-three years old.
The olive trees seem clothed in their Sunday best, tucked into their ermine muffs of snow. I walk across the lawn, crackling with frost, and pause at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach. The mistral has already swept away the scumbled fog of winter. The contours of the bay are now clear, the colors crisp and gleaming. I descend the staircase carved into the rock with the sensation that I will enter and be embraced by the blue of the sky, but the sky retreats as I advance, as if content simply to cover the landscape with a sheet of blue. Squinting, I look at the ruffled sea, frosted over by the wind.
Solid patches, flecked with foam or wrinkled with streaks of dull white, rise up to lick the rocks and then submerge them. I take off my clothes, place them on a tumble of rocks the color of raw silk. Compact and frothy, the edging of foam fades into lacy lines around me before pulling itself together and rejoining its race with the waves, as mighty as a waterfall.
It’s cold.
Since Marie was taking a nap, I had to stroll around outside on my own, which entailed certain risks, in particular that of bumping into Destret, whom I could definitely have done without for a few hours. I might also be waylaid by Odon Viel (who was always ready to tell me about particle physics or the density, luminosity, temperature, and chemical composition of the stars, planets, and galaxies), or even worse, by the Démazures. Especially since I knew that Polyséna wanted to talk to me about her precocious daughter. I was fairly sure, however, that all she wanted was to sing her child’s praises under the pretext of asking my advice. And so I spent the afternoon, or what was left of it, trying to avoid everyone, treated all the while to the noise of the orchestra set up on the Russians’ beach, where preparations seemed to be under way for a truly hellish party.
“One … two, one … two,” a man kept repeating into the mike.
By zigzagging between the beach and the swimming pool while carefully avoiding the loggia (which was too dangerous, especially at teatime), I almost succeeded in my evasive maneuvers. Then, while coming up from the beach, I let myself get trapped like a rat when Polyséna pounced on me from the guests’ shower tucked under the steps leading from the lawn up to the house.
“Come down to the beach with me,” she said. “Everyone’s inside, so we can talk privately.”
It must have been seven o’clock, meaning that if I wasn’t careful, I could get stuck with her until dinnertime. Things took an unexpected turn, though, because in fact Polyséna had real questions on her mind, and as usual when someone speaks frankly to me, I was touched and eager to help. Her problem was not very serious after all, and after twenty minutes of discussion she announced that thanks to me, she understood things ever so much better now. She was beaming, and her palpable relief cheered me, gratifying my deep need to be of some use and assistance in this world, which is, along with my son, the only thing that gives meaning to my life. I was happy. We were about to return to the house when we froze, startled and intrigued by the sound of a propeller
.
A helicopter was circling over the Russians’ beach, now awash in tuxedos and evening gowns! Absorbed in our conversation, Polyséna and I had not even noticed how these guests, competing with the crickets’ chirping, had gradually replaced the background noise of the orchestra’s sound testing with their lively chatter. There looked to be about fifty of them, neither young nor old, but more stocky than not and somewhat provincial in appearance, judging from the slightly outdated style of the dresses and awkward cut of the dinner jackets. They squinted against the blast blowing their hair in every direction as the helicopter came in for a landing, its propeller blades so menacing that even Polyséna and I ducked instinctively.
As soon as the craft had landed on the beach, however, the guests crowded together into an audience that raised their glasses as one to salute the three disembarking passengers. Was it the raincoats they wore, the attaché cases they carried, or the zeal of the welcoming delegation that rushed forward to greet them with a toast? Something about the scene was definitely disquieting.
While Polyséna and I were wondering whether the new arrivals were Russian, Georgian, or Albanian, one of them stepped forward with the composure of a movie Mafia don. He said a few words and was vigorously applauded by the throng, into which he plunged as if diving into the sea, clapping a few men on the back and greeting others with a manly embrace, before leading his two acolytes back aboard the helicopter, which immediately took off.
“Did you see that? I don’t believe it!” we kept repeating in a daze, while Frédéric and Marie, attracted by the commotion, came rushing down the steps.
“Are we too late? What happened!”
For a few minutes Polyséna and I had their full attention.
“What did he look like? Was he handsome?” Marie asked eagerly.
“Oh, please! You’re such a nympho! No, he was completely blah,” I told her.
“Meaning? Tall, short, fat, skinny? Come on! Details!”
“He was completely bland, that’s the best I can do. Polyséna, you tell her.”
But having just realized that Frédéric and Marie were dressed for dinner whereas she was still in her bathing suit with wet hair a half hour before dinnertime, Polyséna was in a flap.
“Hurry back to the house and change, while I deal with these two scatterbrains!” Frédéric urged her, then whispered to me, “Stay, I’ve got a serious scoop.”
“What’s up? Tell me,” I said as soon as Polyséna had gone.
Now Frédéric had the spotlight, but he wasn’t a playwright for nothing and he knew how to pace his effects to keep an audience on tenterhooks. His bedroom happened to overlook the servants’ dining area, and when he’d heard them howling with laughter at the table, earlier in the afternoon, he’d listened in, finally piecing together what was so funny.
After knocking on the door of the Yellow Room, for which she was responsible, Colette, the chambermaid, had not heard any reply. Upon entering she had found Jean-Michel lying on the floor, up against the baseboard, with his head wedged in a corner of the room and his ear glued to a cell phone connected to a charger with a cord so short he had to stay right by the wall socket into which it was plugged. Rolling his eyes in embarrassment at being surprised in such a posture, he nevertheless continued his business conversation while making gesture of helplessness in Colette’s direction.
“I don’t get it,” I admitted. “What was it he was doing down by the baseboard?”
So Marie explained it to me again, while Frédéric delivered the chambermaid’s imitation of Jean-Michel for the staff, all convulsed with laughter: “You have certainly been following recent developments in the business sector and seen that Femo has launched a hostile takeover of Ymex. I can’t really speak to you as frankly as I would like because I’m in a meeting, but I can say that I am concerned. So much so that, to tell you the truth, this morning I put together a team in Paris to study the question, devise a suitable strategy, and allow us to go forward with the appropriate action …”
“No!” I gasped, torn between laughter and pity. “The poor guy, can you imagine! It must have been a nightmare!”
I could tell they were disappointed with my reaction and thought I hadn’t truly appreciated the importance of the hot news flash they’d just delivered, but it was already ten minutes to nine and I had just time enough to dash back and slip into a dress, a marvel of Parma violet chiffon that had cost me a tidy fortune, and tuck my hair into a low chignon like my mother’s before going down to dinner.
Jean-Michel didn’t deserve so much consideration, however, because he behaved disgracefully when he discovered that Frédéric knew all about his misadventure.
“What room are you in?” Jean-Michel had asked him with studied casualness.
“The Chinese Room, which, like yours, overlooks the staff dining room,” Frédéric had replied, to allow him to tell his story himself and put all those laughing on his side.
Instead of which, Jean-Michel, who was trying to bamboozle him and assure himself of Frédéric’s discretion as quickly as possible, clumsily attempted to establish a relationship of complicity with him that was based on some very ill-advised remarks.
“Don’t you think it’s strange, how we’re all obliged to live cheek by jowl here, in a villa of this size?”
Then, assiduously mongering his little scandal, he explained in a confidential tone that he’d been disappointed in this house, which he’d imagined was quite grand, having heard so much about it, because an invitation to L’Agapanthe was a social coup much prized by regular visitors to the house as well as by any fortunate occasional guests. But, well, he’d been forced to admit that it really wasn’t much to write home about. He, for example, wouldn’t have hesitated one second to enclose the loggia with glass walls.
“It would help with the mosquitoes and allow the area to be used year-round, as a kind of winter garden. Don’t you agree?”
“An excellent idea! You should just have a word or two with Flokie about that,” Frédéric replied treacherously before turning his back.
MENU
Consommé
Seven-Hour Leg of Lamb
Salad and Cheeses
Red Currant Pie with Custard Sauce
Jean-Michel was truly hopeless, since he seemed to disapprove of his dinner as well, so much so that my mother, sitting next to him, felt obliged to explain that the lamb, far from having been overcooked, had been caramelized for seven hours to become so delectably tender that we could have eaten it with a spoon, had the rules of etiquette so permitted. In the same way, he downed his Cheval Blanc 1961 without a thought, while the other guests were in raptures over its charms.
At our table, Odon Viel had us in stitches with the description of his train trip from Paris and his discomfort at the behavior of a group of young people, in particular some lovebirds sitting across from him in his compartment, who had spent the entire trip in energetic liplock.
“But that’s all they did, the whole time! Like those endless train picnics in earlier days, with pâté de campagne and orange peels flying everywhere.”
Polyséna talked some more about her book on portraits, and about the game of matching up “twins” from among the subjects in great portraits and the celebrities of today. Which led Odon to bring up Proust.
From there the conversation drifted onto art and the “repudiation of realism” offered by René Huyghe, the way that painting, which once strove to “transcribe physical or psychic reality,” has “purified” itself ever since Mondrian, throwing off the weight of “everything that is not strictly within its nature” to eliminate all traces of tradition and the past, and to embrace “a new enlightenment.”
“Ain’t No Sunshine” by Bill Withers; “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor; “Strong Enough” by Cher; the Beatles’ “From Me to You”—the orchestra at the Russians’ party was playing one golden oldie after another, making me just itch to jump up and dance, so when dinner was over I suggested going down t
o the beach for a musical midnight swim. Marie had been so excruciatingly bored, sitting between Henri Démazure and Jean-Michel (who was still refusing to lighten up), that she leaped at the opportunity.
“Oh, absolutely! I’m going to go change.”
“Good idea,” chimed the Braissants in unison.
Which forced Jean-Michel, who had no desire to be grilled on his knowledge of art history, to go with the flow.
Down at the beach, the moon glowed russet red, throwing a veil of mist over a gleaming jet-black sea. It was beautiful, but spooky, and pausing at the water’s edge, in fact, all I could think of was sea monsters, giant octopuses bristling with tentacles, and marauding sharks. My brave smile quickly began to fade.
“Don’t worry, shivering is part of the exercise!” exclaimed my sister. “I’ll go in with you.”
We were standing in our bathrobes at the foot of the ladder, while near the grotto, a little farther up, our guests were chatting with a conspiratorial air that left no doubt they were slamming us, or running down our parents, the house, or the way we lived. We couldn’t have cared less: “Black and White Eyes” by Syd Matters had put us in a deliciously nostalgic and sentimental mood.
“Can you tell me what the fuck we’re doing with jerks like them,” I asked Marie, “when we could be with perfectly wonderful guys?”
“Have you been drinking, or is it James Blunt?”
And she was right: “One of the Brightest Stars,” which the orchestra was now playing, was having a romantic effect. As were the shouts and laughter coming from the neighbors’ place, despite the fact that the seriously unhip Russians and mafiosi were taking time out from dancing to grope one another like Odon’s amorous fellow train passengers.
The Suitors Page 11
