Authors: Roberta Latow
“You had better be careful, stranger. You have just given me enough reason to think about you in the context of marriage.” She sat back and, leaning against him, enjoying him and what she had learned about him. A moment so different than their moment of pure lust but equally as exciting. Neither of them spoke for some time.
They were on the outskirts of Vouligmeni, flashing by more traffic lights now, with more houses scattered among the hills. Soon the intrusive
polykatoia
of the wealthy would be appearing. It was a sign to her that this odyssey was nearly over. She felt strengthened and happy, full of vitality.
It was she who broke the silence. “Haven’t you anything to say about that?”
“What shall I say? Men propose and women do the choosing. That’s the way it is, and that’s all right with me. I proposed. I can wait for you to choose to marry me. It’s just a matter of time, my darling. Nothing but a matter of time.” There was a lilt in his voice.
“Are you playing with me?” she asked, at this point so happy she couldn’t have cared if he was. So she was not taken aback when he answered, “Yes. The game is called courtship. Isn’t it wonderful and exciting? All the arts that have ever existed have been created around this game. It’s a game of love without pressures, and there is nothing wrong in that. A game that offers great sport. And the only game I know where both players can win.”
“You really have it all figured out. But just suppose I turn out to be a Holy Roller, and you happen after all to be a Lubavitch Hasidim Jew?” The possibility provoked their laughter.
“That is too impossible even to contemplate.”
“Okay, what about you are a Buddhist and I am a zealous Muslim?”
“Why look for religious differences? They cannot exist for us,” he answered, still very amused.
“Why not?”
“Because I believe that true religion is simply the absolute expression in our lives of the good. Nothing more, nothing less. A person either embodies that expression in his life, or he doesn’t. Religious affiliation is only the trappings, the decorations.”
“Are you a religious man then?”
“Only on rare occasions. I am more a pagan man.”
“And you are happy with that?”
“Oh, yes, and so will you be. Happy and appreciative.”
“You think you’ve got me on this, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do,” he answered, quietly enjoying himself.
“Relativist,” she countered. “You confine religion to morals, behavior, ethics.”
He faltered for a moment. Then, “I think the expressing of what I call ‘the good’ leaves room for the transcendental …”
For the remainder of their ride into Vouligmeni and to a private yacht club where they were to have dinner, they became embroiled in a semi-philosophical tussle about true religion. Her determination to have her say in the matter amused him at first. Later he was taken aback when she lectured him with, “Man starts yearning, pretty soon after birth, for oblivion. That’s what he seeks in the arms of Eros. The spirit must have something absolute, or it goes crazy. Good needs evil, and evil needs good to bounce off from. They only exist by contrast. Maybe the spirit goes crazy anyway …”
They had finished their conversation within sight of the clubhouse. Now he waited patiently for her while she primped, enjoying every minute of it, and watched her concentrating as she adjusted the twist of black hair at the nape of her neck, and admonished himself. Kurt Walbrook, if you think you have her pinned down to a type, think again. She has sprung neatly away from it more than once today, and left you wondering. No, no typecasting for this lady. And forget pigeonholes to tuck her away into. Yes, labels would sit uneasily on her.
It was an exclusive yacht club near the Astir Palace Hotel. The yachts moored at the club or in the bay, where the water was deep enough for these grandes dames of the sea, gleamed with the aura of wealth, power, and unrelenting beauty. Somehow even more so for the darkness. Their lights shone, white hulks of marine architecture, like foam on the black of night.
They walked on a dimly lit cobblestone path flanked by shrubs. Only the sound of their footsteps broke the immediate stillness of the dark. Close to the entrance of the clubhouse an arched trellis covered with vines, deep in their winter sleep, rose over them. Among odd leaves that were still green and not willing to die, one white flower. They stopped. She raised herself on the tip of her toes and stretched to pick the flower. It was perhaps a trumpet-shaped lily. She couldn’t quite reach it, and so he stood very close to her, almost touching her, and held the branch down so she could pick it. They glanced into each other’s eyes. It felt to each of them like their last intimate moment together.
Neither seemed sad about it. On the contrary, theirs was a feeling of pure pleasure for an interlude to be well remembered. She plucked the flower. It still had a faint scent, and not unlike that of a lily.
“Allow me?” he asked, and took it from her hands. He walked behind her, then carefully placed the brave blossom in the twist of hair at her neck, securing it with one of her hairpins.
“There, it looks lovely.” And arm in arm they walked into the club for dinner. They were greeted by the maître d’, a Frenchman who obviously knew Cheyney’s escort. The two men shook hands, but didn’t exchange names. It was a slight disappointment for Cheyney, if she had thought so easily to gather a revelation about this half-mysterious man. Her disappointment quickly faded. Nothing could spoil this perfect intermezzo.
The elements of romance and sex and danger. And yes, there was something decidedly dangerous about this liaison that had not only diverted and excited her. It had also charmed her. It would have been for Cheyney little more than the satisfying of a curiosity to know who this attractive man was. To know could hardly have embellished an already perfect day.
Entering the restaurant was, after the day they had spent
together, like finding themselves transposed to Monte Carlo, Nice, or Cannes. The reek of chic. Of southern France, the Riviera. The room was perched on a promontory. It overlooked just sea, magnificent yachts, and ocean-going cruisers. The interior of the room, all plate-glass walls and white marble, navy-blue and white glove-leather chairs and banquettes. The curved bar, of white marble, streaked with a rich, blue-black vein, reclined like a piece of sculpture. Standing behind it, a bartender who was serving one man and a woman, languid sculptures of wealth and ease themselves.
“Not very Greek,” she said. “It’s as if you have said, hey presto, flicked a magic finger, and here we are in Monte Carlo or Cap Ferrat.”
“Pleased, then, to be swept away — for an hour or two — from all that moussaka and olive oil?”
She smiled. “Everyone loves a little ‘frightfully chic.’ ”
“I have a confession. Greek food is not one of my passions in life.”
“Somehow or other that doesn’t surprise me.”
So, a sumptuous dinner:
fruits de mer
, an assortment of the delectable crustaceans to be found in the Mediterranean; a bowl of bouillabaisse that might have been sent from France; and a
loup de mer
, the succulent sea bass, served with a light langoustine-and-scallop sauce. A bottle of sublime Montrachet. They talked about the things they liked to do in Paris, Rome, London. He whetted her appetite for Cairo, too.
Their conversation was easy, comfortable. Several times he took her hand in his and kissed it. They had become romantic friends.
Other people drifted into the restaurant, were made a fuss of, and took their tables. They were the Greek tycoons and their friends, another class of people. No one recognized Kurt or Cheyney, no one disturbed them.
A Cussy — a round base of
génoise
, its center filled with a salpicon of fruit bound with a thick apricot sauce and covered with poached apricots, coated with meringue, and browned in the oven — was served with a jug of hot apricot sauce laced with Kirsch and a bowl of whipped cream. A pudding of some sophistication, delectable. They ate it unashamedly, then took their espresso standing at the bar where they went to choose
an Armagnac. And then, quite suddenly, it was over.
He said nothing. Just guided her with a hand under her elbow through the restaurant to the entrance. She noticed that he didn’t pay the check. Outside, a chill October wind had come up. Not one but two cars were waiting with their engines running. Puffs of white exhaust swirled into the night. The chauffeurs were standing at attention by the open rear doors. At first she didn’t understand. She was about to get into the Mercedes, expecting him to follow. He stopped her and they stood gazing into each other’s eyes.
“Forgive me. Our time has run out. I’m sending you in this car. I’m taking the other. A plane to catch at midnight, and not much time to make it. Thank you for the most unexpected, wonderful day. I’ll call you.”
She was taken aback, but knew better than to show it. “I don’t know what to say. Except thank you for everything” was what she managed. She plucked the white flower from her hair and placed it in his hands, then quickly slipped into the backseat and glided across it to the far corner where she could see him, the better to wave good-bye.
He ducked into the car, slipped across the seat to be next to her for a second. He found her hand and kissed it, not without some emotion, she thought. He said, “Remember, fortune favors the brave.
Au revoir, chérie
,” petted a soundly-sleeping Zazou vigorously and was gone. The last she saw of him was through the rear window of the Mercedes. He was walking briskly toward the black Rolls Royce. They waved.
Riding back into Athens, she cuddled Zazou in her lap. She could only wonder if she would ever hear from him again. It had taken them more than three years to meet this second time. She sat bolt upright, at the realization that he had not even asked her name.
Ah, she told herself, he had you at times even believing him. A little flattery got him where he wanted to be. She had to laugh at herself, but only halfheartedly. She had responded to him as the most attractive man she had met for a very long time.
She conjured up her image of him, wanting to remember as much as she could: the distinctive white hair, the mesmerizing blue eyes, the long, silky eyelashes — how seductively he used
them. The way he kissed her hand. What an attractive brute he was, naked, for a man his age. The way he clenched his amber cigarette holder between his teeth, how delicately he held it between his fingers. How he had dunked sugar cubes in his coffee and transferred them to his mouth. The way he closed his eyes while still speaking, when expressing deep emotion. The voice, that seductive, honeyed voice, and the softness of some of his words. He pronounced
charming
as
sharming
. Would he, one day, she wondered, call her “Sheyney”?
She found a small white calling card on her pillow. He had a bold but elegant handwriting. It read:
And so it begins
Kurt.
She sighed, she felt gloriously happy that they were going to see each other again. His name is Kurt. She walked around the room repeating his name aloud. She had never known a Kurt. She turned the card over. Beautifully engraved. She read, “Kurt Walbrook.” The name registered at once. Stunned, she collapsed on the bed. One of the world’s most famous art collectors. For as long as she could remember, there had been traveling exhibitions of the Walbrook Collection.
How tactful he had been not to give his name. He knew she would have been intimidated by it, if not that, then certainly in awe of it. She reached back in her memory, trying to remember where she had read he was international high society’s connoisseur of art — and women. A collector of both on the grand scale. A rush of warmth colored her cheeks. The sex had been no dream.
S
he lay down to go to sleep, but there was no sleep in her. She remained in the dark, waiting for it to come. There was still a hint of his scent on the sheets, a reminder that the hour of sex they had together had been real. How foolish she must have seemed to him. Whatever did he think about the way she lived? She told herself, Forget all that garbage, Cheyney. It was a great time, and that’s what it’s all about. The telephone rang. No time for it to occur to her that it could be him. She picked it up on the second ring.
“Sheyney.”
“Kurt.”
“Ah, my handwriting remains legible, good. Just to say good night, Sheyney, and thank you. Good night, and you were superb in every way.” She knew what he meant. He made it sound so erotic she squirmed in the dark. “I will call you, or write, or something. And we will meet again, soonest.” A click, and the voice was gone.
Cheyney’s life slipped back into its Athenian routine. Perhaps a little livelier than before because she was riding on a high, living off her romantic interlude with Kurt Walbrook.
Della called from New York, and Cheyney told her what a great time she had with a man who claimed that he was going to marry her. Della, ever the realist, said, “Sounds a great line. He’s probably a bum. Don’t get your hopes up. Just wait and see what he does.” What Kurt Walbrook did was nothing. Not a word in any form.
Two weeks after her “thing with Kurt” — that was all it had
come to mean to her now — she received two parcels. She had gone through a minor Greek hell at the post office. All the obligatory pushing and shoving, shouting and begging, turning from a sympathetic human being into a raving bitch. This entitled her to sign a stack of forms and lick a feast of stamps. Her reward: to be allowed to accept a parcel, torn open, manhandled by the censors, and now shoved into her hands, tied with a snapped rubber band. Inside, a bundle of clippings on the Barry Sole story that Della had promised. A prize Cheyney would willingly have done without. She had become just interested enough to label it “The Chocolate-Bar Caper,” but mainly because, even in Athens, everybody was talking and mostly laughing about it. At least in the circles Cheyney frequented.
She was trying to revive herself after her exhausting experience at the post office with a cup of tea, when the second parcel was brought to her door. It seemed that the German embassy was Kurt Walbrook’s post office, the chauffeur his postman. Of course, she knew who had sent him as soon as she opened the door and recognized the man.
The parcel was a large dress box, wrapped in brown paper. It was addressed to her. The dress was long, the color of sand. Made of the finest hand-spun raw silk, an Arab robe discreetly bordered with a single row of seed pearls. It had been laid in the box with great care. A long necklace of Burmese amber, several more strands of seed pearls, and yet another of antique Egyptian gold beads, were intertwined and placed at the neckline. A pair of Phoenician gold-and-ruby earrings, worthy of any museum of antique jewelry, completed his gift to her. She picked up the calling card. It read:
Flowers would not
have sufficed
Kurt
Resumption of flirtation. That was Cheyney’s first reaction. Her second was elation. Not only were the gifts beautiful, but they suited her perfectly. That afternoon she left with Zazou and a group of Greek friends for the island of Hydra where she was to spend the weekend. With her spirits high, the gold-and-amber
beads around her neck, she fought her way through the crowds on the dock in Piraeus and onto the
Nerida
. She was the last to arrive on the ferryboat. She found them all happily ensconced in the overcrowded lounge at the bow of the ship. The
pareia
had as usual swelled from the original five to eleven. It now included a Greek painter and an American art critic who had newly arrived from New York, hot news.
By the time the boat pulled in at Aegina, its first port of call, the
pareia
had quaffed one bottle of brandy and were on to the second. Brandy and sodas, black and green olives, fresh feta cheese, bread, in the afternoon on a teeming ship aswirl with cigarette smoke. A kind of mass hysteria of fun and laughter prevailed.
The inevitable. The painter and the critic had to tell them of the prevailing itch in the world of New York art. Cheyney was so happy she didn’t even mind listening.
“Nothing is news over there if it doesn’t concern the trial. Barry Sole is actually in court. It’s an unbelievable circus. Nobody knows any longer what to think about it. There’s witnesses, examinations, and cross-examinations, objections sustained and overruled. The witnesses are busting to be honest and save the art world or Barry. So they just get themselves, the art world, and Barry into hotter and hotter scandal. The journalists are having a ball.”
The art critic interrupted with, “The TV talk shows are swarming with the Pop famous coming on strong for the Pop famous. That just gives art over here in Europe its chance to hit back at the American art world. You’ve never seen so many scores settled so damn quick.”
“I had a chance to speak to the lawyer, Judd Whyatt. He didn’t want to take on the case. Got roped in just the same. He says, off the record, that the entire trial is a farce. Everything will hang on the summation of the two lawyers to the court. That’s the way he sees it, anyway. Seems to have his head screwed on, too.”
“He dislikes Sole, you can tell that. I was in court one day when he had him on the stand. He’s clever, the way he uses Sole against himself.
“When David Rosewarne examines Sole on the stand under oath, you can tell he’s out to win the case for Barry. But he
likes him no more than Whyatt does. The thing is that Rosewarne has a real humdinger of a job just protecting Sole from Sole. I guess both lawyers think the whole thing ludicrous. A criminal waste of time. But what entertainment!”
When Cheyney heard David’s name mentioned, her ears perked up. So David had actually taken the case on. Her mind flashed back to the dire period when he had been her lawyer. Hadn’t he, in effect, saved her life? The memory stirred her old respect and love for David Rosewarne. But time, the aging healer, had done its bit, and, though she still cherished that short and intense love affair they had, it was as a thing of the past. Nothing was going to rekindle the flame.
Cheyney emptied her glass and handed it up to Yorgos for a refill. She broke off a piece of bread and gave it to Zazou, who was beginning to fuss. She ate a piece of the cheese and an olive, and sat back to listen to the painter tell them, “The day Joe was in court, the judge was threatening to clear the courtroom. There’d been a demonstration in the courtroom by some of the observers. A bunch of freaky artists, pimps, prostitutes, mincing sweet faggots and tough-looking dikes. They’d been waving the tools of their trade and bawling, ‘We demand the right of Sole or any man to self-expression.’ It was interrupted by a well-tailored, articulate man who turned out to be a museum director demanding they be silent in the name of decency and art.
“People in the art world are taking sides. Just about any or all of the Abstract Expressionist painters. Simon North, Acton Pace, Alfredo Eastham, Orwell Brink, Opal Rothchild — key people in that art movement at its peak before Pop Art took over have been asked to appear in court. I suppose to establish for the court the art scene before Pop Art came into existence. Before men like Barry Sole cooked up his work into some kind of movement to follow on the heels of Andy Warhol. Andy was his idol.”
“Why do they think he is a criminal?” asked Eleni, a Greek art student, girlfriend of one of the party.
“Because what he does is take over an idea, exploit it for the fastest and the most dollars. And, meantime, forget the guy who gave it to him, making it his own. He’s always been known for screwing everyone and everything for his own ends. And
his ends are a long way off being art. Art has always been his vehicle for going places. Places being a celebrity art list — that’s all he is interested in. What he wants is to be another Andy Warhol,” someone in the group answered.
The
Nerida
bumped against the quay at Poros. The usual shuffle of chairs, people getting off, new ones coming aboard. Two of the women in Cheyney’s party scrambled through the crowd and down the gangplank to buy freshly roasted pistachios from the vendors standing by. The tables they were sitting around began to look like an open rubbish trough. Cheyney emptied ashtrays. The place was still a trough. More brandy and sodas and the group fell on the pistachios as if they were starved. Before they got back to talking about Barry Sole, Cheyney pulled from her holdall the bundle of clippings Della had sent. She slung them on the picnic table.
“Here, read these, you’ll love them.” She found she had slurred a word, and winced.
A hoot of the ship’s horn and they pulled away from the backdrop of white houses. Cheyney took Zazou out on deck for some air and to watch the island recede into the distance. When she returned, she sat next to her host. People were either reading or gossiping about what they were reading.
“I was lucky,” said the critic. “The day I was there was Barry’s first day on the witness stand. This guy just plots his own downfall. He stated and altered his position on art any number of times. What he thinks, what his work is about. And what ingenuousness! He comes across as really insubstantial, a see-through person. Another way he exploits the art world for himself. I suppose he’s trying to fill in that empty mind of his and disguise the scummy world he likes to live in. From what I can see, he’s not doing a very good job. It’s like a presence all around him, that negative, destructive, sick world he’s so gone on.”
“Does he really live in that sleazy New York world?” a clearly fascinated young French girl addressing the painter, Stavros.
Does he ever, thought Cheyney. She closed her eyes, feigning sleep. She knew very well what Barry’s real life was. She heard the critic gossiping about exactly that. She kept her eyes closed and listened.
“ ‘And he’s the up-side of my life, George. I think you’d better go. You can’t beat that,’ is what he said to George. Then threw him out, without even looking at George’s work. That’s one very self-centered prick, is Barry.”
Everyone started asking questions at once. Andy Warhol and the bizarre people he liked having around him always intrigued. The stories were numerous, but they had never heard anything at firsthand that involved him. It was always about people he was involved with. But the things they were hearing about Barry Sole, to live a life like that, and to command such a position in the art world at the same time. So how did he get away with it? Now the trial. Whatever was going to be the outcome of that? If they had been interested before, they were addicted now to every last salacious detail.
Cheyney was actually quite shocked to hear that things had gone as crazy as they had for Barry Sole. It had been difficult not to hear or see how far Warhol had gone in his Pop career. But until now she had been blanking him and it off. The story she had heard about Barry, combined with that of the trial, only reinforced her belief that Pop Art, Pop people, the art market in America, had changed beyond any recognition. It was no longer the world she had known. A separate planet from that of her childhood fantasies, her adult life in the New York art world.
Several days later Cheyney returned to Athens.
The night that Cheyney and Kurt had parted, the private jet had touched down in Athens airport only long enough for Kurt Walbrook to board. It had on deck four polo-playing friends, twelve polo-ponies, his German mistress, and two French ladies. Saying good night to Cheyney seemed important enough to have kept the jet engines revving, and his friends waiting, that little bit longer.
The plane had been en route to Cairo from Deauville, where the polo team had its permanent home. The other members were already in Cairo making ready for the charity tournament they were to play there.
Once he was on board, Cheyney Fox became for Kurt a thing of the past. Not that he forgot her. He was simply one of those men who did not allow love or passion to inhibit his getting on with the next thing.
Although he wanted Cheyney as a life partner, he had no desire to possess her. He had never felt possessive of any of the women he had loved. He wanted to love and be loved by Cheyney, for them to share a life together. But not to the exclusion of freedom for either of them. That for Kurt Walbrook was part of his definition of real love. The woman he would marry would understand that.
His mind did hark back to the delights of the day. Not the least of which had been his discovery of a lasciviousness in Cheyney he could build on. He was also pleased to have stirred in her the revival of interest in the art world.
Remembering that, he wondered if this — while art wasn’t being traded much, while everyone waited to see what was going to happen as a result of the candy-bar saga — might not be the best time to buy the works of several Abstract Expressionist artists he had for a long time admired. He had always wanted to have their work in his collection. He would also consider buying a Pop Art painting or two. There was no question, without a representation of them, there would be a hole in any real serious collection of American contemporary art.
Cheyney Fox, love of my life, to think that you were once a part of all that, he mused. That gave him an idea. And suddenly he felt a pulse of excitement. Here was a way for Cheyney to test the waters and see if she was ready to step once again back into the stream of life. He would call Roberto in the morning.
It was then that Maria, his German mistress, had laid a long, slender hand on his, and asked, “Is it what you have done in Athens today, or our week ahead in Cairo, that has you so excited?”
“A little bit of both,” he answered diplomatically. Not insensitive to her elegant good looks, he kissed her hand. She whispered something in his ear. He began to laugh and asked her to wait. There was their bedroom in Cairo. She kissed his cheek, fondled his hand. But she could not distract him from thinking about art.