by Kevin Kwan
After they had enjoyed a classic Indian breakfast of akuri-spiced scrambled eggs on laccha paratha, chicken samosas, and fresh mango pudding on their private balcony, Charlie and Astrid walked to the front entrance to the palace. As they waited for the maharaja’s Rolls-Royce Phantom II to pull up to the front steps, the guards started showering compliments on Astrid. “Ma’am, we’ve never seen anyone look so beautiful in jodhpurs,” they praised. Astrid smiled bashfully—she was wearing a white linen tunic tucked into the new pair of white jodhpurs that had just been tailored for her. But instead of a belt, she had wound a long hand-beaded Scott Diffrient turquoise necklace through the belt loops.
They were driven in the vintage convertible to the Mehrangarh Fort, an imposing red sandstone fortress perched on a dramatic cliff four hundred feet above the skyline of Jodhpur. At the foot of the hill, they transferred into a small jeep that sped them up the steep road to the main entrance, a beautiful arched gateway flanked by ancient frescos known as Jai Pol, the Gate of Victory. Soon they were strolling hand in hand through the interconnected network of palaces and museums that made up the fort complex, marveling at the intricately carved walls and expansive courtyards that afforded commanding views of the city.
“This is incredible,” Astrid said in a hushed voice as they entered an elaborate chamber where the walls and ceilings were made entirely of mirrored glass mosaic tiles.
“Well, they don’t call this the most beautiful fort in Rajasthan for nothing,” Charlie said.
As they strolled through a reception hall where every surface—from the walls to the ceilings to the floors—was painted in dizzyingly colorful floral patterns, Astrid couldn’t help but comment, “It’s so empty. Where are all the tourists?”
“The fort’s actually closed today, but Shivraj had the place opened just for us.”
“How sweet of him. So this fort belongs to his family?”
“Since the fifteenth century. It’s one of the only forts in India that’s still controlled by the original ruling family that built it.”
“Am I going to get the chance to thank Shivraj in person?”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you—we’ve been invited to the private residence at Umaid Bhawan for dinner tonight with his family.”
“Great. I wonder if they are related to the Singhs—you know, Gayatri Singh, our family friend who throws those fabulous parties where she displays all her jewels? Her father was a maharaja of one of the Indian states…though I can’t recall which one at the moment.”
“Maybe. I think many of the royal families of India intermarried,” Charlie replied a little distractedly.
“Are you okay?” Astrid asked, noticing his change of mood.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. There’s this amazing room that I’m trying to find for you—I know you’ll love it. I think it’s up these stairs.” Charlie led her up a steep staircase that wound around in a teardrop shape, and at the top of the stairwell they arrived at a long narrow room flanked by arched windows along every wall. In the middle of the room was a collection of golden baby cradles, each more ornate than the other.
“Is this the nursery?” Astrid asked.
“No, this is actually part of the zenana, where the ladies of the palace were cloistered. This building is called the Peeping Palace, because the ladies would come here and peep down on the activities of the courtyard below.”
“Oh, that’s right. The royal wives and concubines could never be seen by the public, could they?” Astrid leaned out a window framed by a distinctive Bengali-style eave, peeking through the little star-patterned holes in the screened window. Then she opened the shutters completely, taking in the view below of the grand marbled courtyard surrounded on three sides by palace balconies.
“Hey, do you want to get your hands painted with henna?” Charlie asked.
“Ooh. I’d love to!”
“The concierge at the hotel told me there’s a henna artist here who does the most incredible work. I think she’s in the museum gift shop. Let me go get her.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No, no, stay here and enjoy the incredible view. I’ll get her and be right back.”
“Oh, okay,” Astrid said, a little puzzled as Charlie rushed off. She sat on a bench in the room, contemplating what it would have been like to be married to a maharaja back in the time when they were absolute rulers of their kingdoms. It would have been a life of unfathomable luxury, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to be part of a harem with dozens of queens and concubines. How could she ever share the man she loved with someone else? And were the women ever allowed to wander beyond the palace walls, or even to step onto the elegant courtyard below?
Astrid heard some laughter in the distance, and she spied several women emerging through an arched doorway in the courtyard. How pretty they looked in their red-and-white lehenga cholis. They were followed by another row of women in the same tightly cropped blouses and flowing embroidered skirts, and soon there were about a dozen of them in the courtyard. The women walked single file in a circle as the sound of drumming began to emanate from deep within the fort. Suddenly the women formed a straight line right below where Astrid was standing. They flung their hands in the air, jerked their heads up at her, and began stomping their feet in rhythm to the drumming.
From the archways on the lower floor beneath where Astrid was standing, a dozen men in white came running out between the women to the far side of the courtyard. A Hindi pop song began blasting through the air, and the men and women danced opposite each other in a seductive face-off. They were soon joined by another dozen female dancers in vibrant blue-and-purple saris, streaming in from the north and south gates of the courtyard, as the music got louder and louder.
Suddenly the song stopped abruptly, and the window shutters on the opposite side of the courtyard flung open, revealing a man in a gold embroidered sherwani. He extended his arms toward Astrid, singing a cappella in Hindi. Then the music resumed as the dancers continued to stomp and twirl. Astrid burst out laughing, delighted at the Bollywood spectacle unfolding before her. Charlie must be behind all this! No wonder he’s been acting weird ever since we got here, she thought.
The man disappeared from the turret, only to appear moments later in the courtyard leading a band of musicians. The entire troupe danced to the beat of the music, moving in perfect formation. She looked down at the handsome lead singer outfitted in gold, realizing with a shock that it was none other than Shah Rukh Khan, one of India’s biggest stars. Before she could even react properly, the sound of trumpets filled the air, followed by a strange roaring sound. Turning to the main archway into the courtyard, Astrid’s eyes widened in surprise.
Coming through the gate was an elephant festooned with gemstones and vibrant pink-and-yellow patterns painted onto its head, being led by two mahouts dressed in the full regalia of the royal court of Jodhpur. On the elephant’s back was an ornate silver howdah, and perched majestically on one of its seats, dressed in a midnight blue paisley sherwani with matching trousers and turban, was Charlie. Astrid’s jaw dropped, and she ran out of the room onto the open veranda. “Charlie! What’s all this?”
The elephant strode over to her veranda, and she was almost at eye level with Charlie as he sat on top of the elephant. The mahouts guided the elephant so that it stood alongside the balcony, and Charlie leapt off the howdah onto the terrace where Astrid stood.
“I wanted this to be a surprise. I haven’t wanted to tell you until now, but Isabel signed our divorce papers last week.”
Astrid let out a little gasp.
“Yes, I am a free man. Completely free! And I realized that in all the craziness of the past few years, we’ve just talked about getting married as though it was a done deal, but you know, I never properly proposed to you.” Charlie suddenly got down on one knee and stared up at her. “Astrid, you are and have always been the love of my life—my angel, my savior. I don’t know what I’d do without you. My dearest sweet love, will y
ou marry me?”
Before she could answer, the elephant let out another roar, and then curled his trunk upward to grab something from Charlie’s hand. The animal then extended its trunk toward Astrid, waving a red leather box in front of her face. Astrid took the box gingerly and opened it. Sparkling inside was a five-carat canary diamond solitaire, encircled in a delicate floral scrollwork of white gold. It was an unusual setting, unlike anything that a contemporary jeweler might design.
“Wait a minute…this…this looks like my grandmother’s engagement ring!”
“It is your grandmother’s engagement ring.”
“But how?” Astrid asked, utterly confused.
“I flew down to Singapore last month and had a secret date with your grandmother. I know how important she is to you, so I wanted to be sure we had her blessing.”
Astrid shook her head in disbelief as she stared at the precious heirloom ring, covering her mouth with her right hand as tears began streaming down her face.
“So how about it? Are you going to marry me?” Charlie looked at her plaintively.
“Yes! Yes! Oh my God, yes!” Astrid cried. Charlie got up and embraced her tightly, as the crowd of dancers and musicians cheered.
The two of them walked downstairs into the courtyard, and Shah Rukh Khan bounded toward them to be the first to offer his congratulations. “Were you surprised?” he asked.
“My goodness, I’m still in shock. I didn’t think I could still be surprised at this point in my life, but Charlie really pulled it off!”
In the euphoria of the moment, no one noticed the series of bright flashes coming from the highest turret on the southern end of the fort. It came from the sunlight glinting off the telephoto lens of a Canon EOS 7D, the camera favored by paparazzi and private detectives.
And it was pointed straight at Astrid and Charlie.
PART TWO
I made my money the old-fashioned way. I was very nice to a wealthy relative right before he died.
—MALCOLM FORBES
CHAPTER ONE
LONDON, ENGLAND
Wandi Meggaharto Widjawa was in London with her mother, Adeline Salim Meggaharto, supposedly to watch her nephew Kristian compete in a fencing tournament, but secretly they were both there for their triannual visits to the clinic of Dr. Ben Stork on Harley Street, who was considered by the most discerning filler addicts to be the Michelangelo of Botox. So deft were his hands at plunging needles into fine lines, fragile cheekbones, and delicate nasolabial folds, even his patients with the thinnest skins never bruised, and so subtle was his artistry that every patient visiting his clinic departed with the guarantee that they would be able to close both eyelids completely should they ever choose to blink.*1
As Wandi sat in the elegant Hollywood Regency–style waiting room of the clinic in her floral embroidered Simone Rocha dress, waiting for her mother to get her usual combo of Botox®, Juvéderm Voluma®, Belotero Balance®, Restylane Lyft®, and Juvéderm Volbella® injections, she paged through the latest issue of British Tattle. She always flipped to the back of the magazine first to look at the Spectator section, which featured party pictures from the only parties that mattered throughout the realm. She loved scrutinizing all the English socialites from head to toe—the women looked like either chic swans or unmade beds (there was no middle ground).
This month’s Spectator section was quite disappointing—nothing but photos from the twenty-first birthday bash of yet another kid named Hugo, the launch party for yet another Simon Sebag Montefiore book, and some boring country wedding. She could never understand why all these aristocrats loved getting married in decrepit little English country churches when they could have the most lavish nuptials at Westminster Abbey or St. Paul’s Cathedral.*2 Suddenly Wandi’s eyes zeroed in on the obligatory photo of the bride and groom. As was the custom with all the wedding shots in British Tattle, the couple was pictured posing underneath the stone archway of the modest rectory festooned with a few anemic sprigs of roses, sporting painful grins as rice was being pelted at them. But the thing that stood out to Wandi was that the bride was Asian, and this immediately triggered an alert.
Wandi was part of a particular breed of Chindocrat*3 that had been raised in a very specific manner—the only daughter of an Indonesian Chinese oligarch, she was a typical third-culture kid who had grown up all over the world. Born in Honolulu (for the American passport), her early childhood was divided between her family’s hospital-wing-size house in Singapore and the historic family joglo in Jakarta, where she attended kindergarten at the exclusive Jakarta International School (JIS). In the second grade, she was sent to the elite Singapore American School (SAS) before an unfortunate fake-Prada-backpack-trafficking incident in eighth grade led to her expulsion and swift enrollment into Aiglon, the boarding school of choice for privileged rebels in Chesières-Villars, Switzerland. After Aiglon, Wandi spent two years majoring in marketing at the University of California at Santa Barbara before dropping out and marrying the son of another Indonesian Chinese oligarch, shuttling between homes in Singapore and Jakarta, having her baby at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu, and going through the existential crisis of trying to decide whether to send her firstborn son to JIS, SAS, or ACS.*4
Like most of the women who made up Asia’s jet set, Wandi had an innate radar for OAWS—Other Asians in Western Settings. Whenever she was traveling outside of Asia and happened to be, say, lunching at Tetsuya’s in Sydney, attending the International Red Cross Ball in Monaco, or hanging out at 5 Hertford Street in London, and another person of Asian descent happened to enter the room, Wandi would notice that Asian well before any non-Asian did, and their face would immediately be run through the ten-point social-placement scanner in her brain:
1. What kind of Asian is this? In descending order of importance: Chindo, Singaporean, Hong Konger, Malaysian Chinese, Eurasian, Asian American living in New York or Los Angeles, Asian American working in private equity in Connecticut, Canadian Asian from Vancouver or Toronto, Australian Chinese from Sydney or Melbourne, Thai, Filipino from Forbes Park, American-Born Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Mainland Chinese, common Indonesian.*5
2. Do I know this OAWS? Specifically, is this a famous actor/pop singer/politician/social figure/social media star/doctor/celebrity without portfolio/billionaire/magazine editor. Add 50 points if royalty or Joe Taslim. If Joe Taslim, have bodyguard slip him my room key.
3. Do I know any members of this OAWS’s family? Have I met/attended school/socialized/shopped/co-chaired a gala/blown/backstabbed anyone related to this person?
4. How much is this OAWS or his/her family worth? Evaluate actual net worth against published net worth. Add 25 points if they have a family office, 50 points if they have a family foundation, 75 points if they have a family museum.
5. Have there been any juicy scandals in this OAWS or their family’s past? Add 100 points if it involved bringing down an elected official, political party, or BFF at the Olivier Café in the Grand Indonesia Mall.
6. Does this OAWS or their family happen to own some fabulous hotel/airline/spa resort/luxury brand/restaurant/bar/nightclub that I could potentially benefit from? Add 25 points if family owns a private island, 500 points for a major movie studio.
7. How attractive and stylish is this OAWS in relation to me? Body-scan assessment in this order:
For Ladies: face, skin whiteness, physique, jewelry, watch, handbag, shoes, outfit, hairstyle, makeup. Subtract 50 points if any gauche brands are visible, or for an obvious cosmetic procedure.
For Gentlemen: hair density, watch, shoes, physique, rest of outfit. Subtract 100 points if wearing an Hermès “H” buckle belt, which only looks good on French or Italian men with deep tans and/or titles.
8. How attractive, well-dressed, important, or famous are the white people that this OAWS is with? Subtract 20 points if it’s a business occasion with Americans in corporate attire, add 25 points if European, add 50 points if French or Italian with deep tans and/or titles.
9. How many bodyguards in this OAWS security detail? Evaluate intimidation level of bodyguards, factoring in muscle mass, uniforms, any visible weaponry, quality of earpieces, type of sunglasses, and how noticeable they are in the current space. The more they look like trigger-happy brick shithouses ready to unleash their Sig Sauers on the dinner crowd at Nobu Malibu, the better.
10. When was this OAWS or their family last profiled in their local edition of Tattle, Pinnacle, or Town & Country? Add 100 points if they’ve never appeared in any magazines but you still recognize them.
At this point in her life, Wandi’s social-placement test was so finely calibrated, it could evaluate a new Asian face in a matter of nanoseconds, thus determining to what degree Wandi felt prettier, richer, or more important than this OAWS, and what appropriate overture she felt comfortable making—whether it be stealth eye contact, a nod of recognition, the slight smile, or actually greeting the person in close physical proximity.
Of course at the present moment the OAWS in question only appeared in a rectangular two-by-three-inch photograph, but it was so highly unusual for an Asian face to appear in this setting—an English country wedding worthy of being featured in the Spectator section of British Tattle—that Wandi couldn’t help but take notice. The text block in the middle of the page simply read:
WINTER WEDDING WONDERLAND
The unexpected snowfall didn’t deter England’s grandest from dusting off their furs and braving the icy roads for the wedding of Lucien Montagu-Scott at St Mary’s, Chipping Norton. Naturally, the Glencoras were out in full force along with the Devonshires, the Buccleuches, and a smattering of Rothschilds and Rochambords from both sides of the channel. Many a girl mourned that Lucien aka #TallDrinkofWater was off the market, but no one could fault the bride, Colette Bing, whose porcelain-doll complexion and ravishing smile could warm all the frigid chapels in the Home Counties put together.
