The Suitors

by Cecile David-Weill

  Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime,” then “Soul Bossa Nova” by Quincy Jones—the quarter-hour of languorous music seemed to have come to an end. And our companions suddenly realized that it would be polite to join us. So, in a hearty voice intended to gloss over the nasty things they’d just been saying about us, Bernard cried, “Wait for us, girls!”

  But Marie and I were already swimming toward the festivities, spreading our fingers slightly in the water to create streams of starry reflections.

  “Great,” I thought, “now he’s trying to be the life of the party!”

  And my worst fears were realized: diving showily from the board to attract the attention of the group watching us from the Russians’ dock, Bernard quickly caught up with us in a fast crawl.

  “A little passé their little soirée!” he announced loudly.

  “In any case, their orchestra is incredible,” I replied, but he was shouting to the people on the dock.

  “Having fun?”

  “Leave them alone!” Marie told him. “Anyway, they don’t speak French.”

  At this, he yelled in English, “Are you having a good time?”

  “Yes,” answered a man in a calm voice that contrasted strongly with Bernard’s blustering.

  “Would you please stop?” I begged Bernard, horribly mortified, and I started nervously side-stroking in little circles.

  But Bernard, who’d been joined by Laetitia and Jean-Michel, was all keyed up, as if he’d found a way to act out in revenge for a weekend during which he’d felt confined to playing a bit part.

  “You should come visit us! We have a better beach, better food, and better company!”

  “Have you gone crazy?” I hissed at him. I was furious.

  “Totally insane!” agreed Marie, who swam over to Bernard and told him firmly in a low voice, “Didn’t it ever occur to you that we might want to avoid our Mafia neighbors?”

  “Why don’t you come over here?” asked the mystery voice.

  “We weren’t invited, that’s why. But have a wonderful evening, sir!” replied Marie, hoping thereby to put an end to the scene and prompt everyone to begin swimming back to our beach.

  But Bernard, spurred on by the giggling of Jean-Michel and Laetitia at his side, simply upped the ante.

  “You should listen to me! You seem like an adventurous guy, and you’d be a fool to miss out on meeting my girlfriends here, who happen to be the best-looking women I ever met!”

  “Wait a minute here, hold on!” Marie said with a laugh. “That’s like putting a price tag on us!”

  “She’s right, you’ve got some nerve!” I huffed and turned to Laetitia, but she didn’t think Bernard’s joke was funny anymore.

  “Oh, shit!” she cried. “He’s taking his clothes off!”

  “What?” I craned to see where she was looking and saw our mystery man on the Russians’ beach doing a striptease to Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross.”

  “Oh, God.” I sighed, and we all raced back to our beach.

  The figure dressed in black slowly grew lighter. First the white shirt appeared from under the dinner jacket, then the bare skin. Laetitia, Marie, and I watched with sinking hearts, while Bernard acted nonchalant to hide his surprise and perhaps even his dismay at thus having the spotlight stolen from him by a stranger whom he’d never imagined might take him up on his invitation.

  “Wait a minute,” he asked suddenly. “Do we at least have something to offer him to drink, now that I’ve boasted about our wonderful hospitality?”

  “Not to mention the beauty of your female company!” added Laetitia, frankly worried about disappointing our unknown guest in that department.

  “Well, thanks!” I said haughtily, to ease the tension, and headed for the shower in the grotto to rinse off the salt.

  Marie had joined me there, and as we toweled off walking back toward the others, we looked over at the stranger who was about to dive into the water.

  “Do you think he’ll be handsome?” she asked.

  “That would surprise me, but it doesn’t that you’re fantasizing already!”

  “Why? You’re not?”

  “Well, sure, actually I am. You’re right! I hope he’s divine.”

  “Aha,” Bernard said acidly, eyeing his studiously indifferent wife. “So that’s how it is!”

  Riveted, Marie and I followed the progress of the stranger swimming toward us to the strains of a Nino Ferrer hit single, La maison près de la fontaine, while we sang along at the top of our lungs.

  Jean-Michel, however, standing silently by, seemed suddenly to have realized from our excitement that we’d never shown that kind of feminine interest in him. And he had realized as well that although he hadn’t wanted to arouse such interest, he now felt disappointed and irritated at being left out.

  The mystery man emerged from the waves to the accompaniment of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang,” climbed the steps to where Marie and I were standing, bowed smartly from the waist to kiss our hands, and introduced himself.

  “Rajiv Kapour, how do you do?”

  Marie quickly handed him a towel, and then we took a closer look at him. Young, about thirty, he was amazingly relaxed and graceful for someone standing in sopping wet underpants in front of perfect strangers. Self-possessed, I thought. And I found his serenity immediately seductive. As were his black eyes with their long, silky lashes.

  Bernard, who had unearthed some vodka in the freezer of the bar in the little cave, handed around the drinks while we pulled up some beach chairs.

  When we were all settled, Marie did the honors. “I’m afraid my friend Bernard has enticed you here under false pretenses, but we’re very happy to meet you.”

  What was it about her behavior that gave me a jolt? Something lordly, imperious, something both irreproachable and robotic, something I felt so strongly that it seemed to exclude me and deny our affectionate intimacy. Then I realized what it was: she was playing mistress of the manor, putting herself forward as the spokesperson for us all, a queen surrounded by her favorites. My resentment at that dominant, arrogant note in her voice was something I hadn’t felt since childhood, and it stabbed me to the heart. Everything in her attitude was reclaiming her rights as the elder sister, the pretty girl who condescendingly dominates her younger and in every way less favored sister.

  With a sudden pang of dreadful sadness, I felt alone and troubled by a sense of not loving Marie at that moment, of feeling neither tenderness nor admiration for her. Was I jealous of my sister? Did I want to attract this young man’s attention away from her? Judging from the glances he’d been giving me since his arrival I thought that was already a fait accompli. Because he was actually studying me intently while simply replying cordially to Marie.

  Faced with this situation—which I couldn’t explain, since I thought Marie much the lovelier of us two—I reflected that I had never yet witnessed the beginning of any of her love affairs, and had never placed myself in competition with her, because not only would I have felt condemned at the outset to failure but I could never have handled a triumph, either. I probably had some confused intuition that Marie, more fragile than I was, would have taken defeat very hard, since she was used to winning contests of beauty and seductiveness, whereas I was used to walking away.

  Meanwhile, lost in her performance as a perfect hostess, Marie did not pay attention to the fact that Rajiv and I were engaged in conversation. I quickly found out that Rajiv was an economist close to Amartya Sen, the Nobel Prize winner whose ideas on human development I was familiar with, and that he was a microcredit specialist. Finally somebody interesting! I said to myself, not quite realizing that the Indian man had done more to me than simply capture my attention. Because, in spite of my sadness over Marie there was a definite current of desire flowing between us, invisible perhaps, but palpable, and I felt it sweep over me in unwelcome waves whenever he looked at me. The ache deep in my belly was so violent that I would really have flinched if I hadn’t sp
ent my life learning how to keep even my strongest feelings hidden behind a diplomatically impassive facade.

  As “Tears and Rain” by James Blunt, Otis Redding’s “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” and Lenny Kravitz’s “Stand by My Woman” were played, we learned that Rajiv was from Bombay and was a friend of Tatiana’s, the daughter of the owners next door, who had studied with him at the London School of Economics.

  “I’m starting to feel cold,” remarked Jean-Michel.

  “Me, too,” admitted Laetitia.

  “Well then, I’d better be going,” Rajiv observed, giving me a long, lingering look that seemed to suggest he was trying to figure out a way of maneuvering himself into being alone with me.

  Since all five of us saw him off, to the accompaniment of Janis Joplin’s “Cry Baby,” there wasn’t much he could do, however, except declare that he’d be delighted to return our hospitality one day if any of us ever happened to be in London.

  The party next door found its second wind as we trooped back to the house; I even found myself humming along to David Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes” as I was going to bed. But what really preoccupied me before I fell asleep, aside from my fresh anxiety over what I now saw as the considerable risk involved in Marie’s and my plan to seduce a possible future husband, were the spasms of desire I was still feeling for Rajiv. And as I dropped off I wondered if I would ever see him again, or if he would join the list of what I called my “might haves,” as in, “It might have worked between us,” those men who had courted me or whom I had desired, with whom I would have liked to have an adventure if things had turned out otherwise—if they had dared, if they hadn’t been married and faithful, if I had given in when it might have been possible, if only …

  Sunday

  The next day saw the departure before lunch of Jean-Michel and the Braissants, who left for Aix in Jean-Michel’s car (the usefulness of which I now finally grasped) to attend some festival or other they needed to get to before the end of the day. Another highlight was my realization of the effect I was having on men ever since Rajiv had set my sensuality on fire. I must have had bedroom eyes, because I proved indecently popular with men at luncheon that day—a development I instinctively took care to conceal from my mother and Marie. Our male guests seemed to grow shy, blush, or make sheep’s eyes at me upon approaching, when they weren’t simply proposing a quickie in the bathroom, like the ruddy-complexioned fellow with hairy nostrils and ears, a curator from some provincial museum, who seriously thought he might carry that off by murmuring to me that I made the other women present look like goats.

  Luncheon, Sunday, July 16

  MENU

  Onion and Tomato Tart Niçoise

  Corsican Charcuterie

  Crudités

  Rabbit Terrine with Prunes

  Lobster Fricassee

  Saffron Rice

  Zucchini Flowers

  Cheeses

  Melon Surprise

  Even if I found it impossible to suppress my sensual awakening, which sprang from something too primitive to be denied, I could resolve to forget the thoughts and feelings about Marie that had so pained me the previous evening. And this I tried to do all during that last day before our return to Paris. Because there was no question of my allowing the slightest distance to grow between us, still less when we were already committed to our project, even if it was absurd.

  1 In French, “Enchanté” may be tackier than “Delighted” is in English.

  2 Adnan Khashoggi is a famous Saudi Arabian arms dealer.

  3 French stock market index.

  Weekend of July 21

  THE FAMILY

  Marie Ettinguer Laure Ettinguer

  Flokie Ettinguer Edmond Ettinguer

  THE PILLARS

  Gay Wallingford Frédéric Hottin

  THE LITTLE BAND

  Odon Viel Henri Démazure

  Polyséna Démazure Laszlo Schwartz

  THE ODDBALLS

  Georgina de Marien Charles Ramsbotham

  THE NEWCOMERS

  Béno Grunwald Mathias Cavoye

  Lou Léva

  SECRETARY’S NAME BOARD

  M. and Mme. Edmond Ettinguer Master Bedroom

  Mme. Laure Ettinguer Flora’s Room

  (Arrival from Paris Air France Friday 5:00 p.m.)

  Mlle. Marie Ettinguer Ada’s Room

  (Arrival from Rio de Janeiro Friday 6:00 p.m.)

  Lady Gay Wallingford Peony Room

  M. Frédéric Hottin Chinese Room

  M. Odon Viel Turquoise Room

  Count and Countess Henri DémazureM. Laszlo Schwartz Annex: Coral RoomLilac Room

  Viscountess de Marien Annex: Peach Room

  Earl of Stafford (Charles Ramsbotham) Annex: Lime Room

  M. Béno Grunwald Yellow Room

  (Arrival helicopter?)

  M. Mathias Cavoye and Mlle. Lou Léva Sasha’s Room

  (Arrival EasyJet Friday 7:00 p.m.)

  The plot thickened the following weekend, when some friends of my father, Georgina de Marien and Charles Ramsbotham, arrived at L’Agapanthe. My mother called them the Oddballs and found them so tiresome that she regretted not having argued more firmly, at the moment of sending out her invitations, against their coming. She’d been particularly set against Charles Ramsbotham, who, although tremendously rich and upper-crust (being a lord, the seventh Earl of Stafford) did not “play the game” with the culture and refinement she had expected of him.

  Charles was, it’s true, surprising in every way, beginning with his looks. Through a laudable desire to take care of himself, this middle-aged man had concentrated all his attention on his face, but since he had no taste whatsoever, he’d had his hair dyed as black as shoe polish. More or less insensitive to pain, he’d gone the whole hog: botched eyelid surgery had left his eyes in a permanent state of astonishment, while his skin—no doubt pockmarked even before his several face-lifts—had the texture of sandpaper and the color of a pear way past its prime. Through an inexplicable paradox, however, he had completely neglected to keep physically fit. He was fat. Quite fat. Which didn’t seem to bother him, but my mother couldn’t get over it, as if he’d meant his waistline to be a personal affront to her. Why else did he merrily stuff himself at every meal instead of being ashamed of his girth and trying to slim down?

  The other game Charles seemed unable to play was the art of dressing stylishly. His own codes and predilections, for example, allowed the wearing of polyester shorts and a leopard-print short-sleeved shirt with an elastic bottom hem that puffed out over his paunch. And taking my mother’s suggestion of “casual” attire too literally, he could turn up for breakfast in a canary-yellow tracksuit he’d personally ordered from an Italian couturier shortly before the man was assassinated. In other words, Charles was the client for men’s ready-to-wear, of the kind one would have thought had long since vanished from this earth.

  So he stuck out like a very sore thumb at L’Agapanthe, a temple of graceful conversation, and adding insult to injury, he was utterly indifferent to the charms of the mature women who formed the core of the feminine contingent there. The only women who interested Charles were breathtakingly beautiful prostitutes—or fighter pilots! And he made no effort to speak to my mother or her women friends at meals, except when he interrupted their noble attempts to entertain him by asking them to pass the salt, tell him the time, or inform him what make of car they drove. Because Charles really cared about only two things: automobiles, about which (delighted to be an expert at last on at least one subject) he loved to know and understand everything, and gorillas, which he truly worshipped. To the point of building more than a dozen supersophisticated cages for them at his home in Gloucestershire.

  All this made it hard for my mother to put up with this boor whom she considered shallow and uncultivated and who did not blend in with her “little band,” like a gladiolus stuck in among orchids. And aside from her displeasure at being invisible to him, she found fault with Charles for
the admiration he aroused in the imbeciles who, eager to appropriate some of his originality, made much of the funny stories he told about his gorillas. My mother therefore felt within her rights to expect that her faithful friends should openly share her disdain for Charles, whose shortcomings she pointed out at every opportunity.

  Frédéric was always the first to oblige, with brief remarks that both soothed and enchanted his hostess, quips along the lines of, “So when may we expect him, our Goat’s Butt?” For nothing amused him more than to indulge his passion for nicknames, which he invented by translating or deforming the real name of his victim. “And George?” he added, meaning Georgina de Marien.

  Georgina was my father’s acknowledged “platonic girlfriend,” and my mother had nothing nice to say about her, either. For at least ten years now, my mother had been in the habit of inviting a woman who would prove an amusing companion for her husband, since she had little time to pay attention to him herself, given that L’Agapanthe was as difficult to run as a busy hotel. The ideal woman for this task had to please my father, which implied gaiety on her part, good looks, and the ability to accompany him on his long swims in the bay. This lady friend should also, however, suit my mother, by not harboring any desire to flirt with my father for real or play at being mistress of the house—so she had to be astute enough to understand any such obvious prerequisites. Well, such a pearl doesn’t turn up every day. So once my mother had assured herself that Georgina was not an adventuress, she assigned her the part.