Authors: Roberta Latow
Eighteen months later she gave birth to a son. Jay’s son.
Fortunately the Steindlers had the money to maintain a large staff to keep their lives ticking over which removed the mundane chores of motherhood and fatherhood. Mimi was happier than she had ever been. She had the children she wanted and her extended family and a husband who adored her more than ever. Her father and Sophia. Predictably, Sophia adored Mimi’s babies. But if there was one thing that surprised and disappointed, although Mimi kept it very much to herself, it was that, though Karel behaved like a doting grandparent when he saw the children, away from them it was as if they hardly existed at all. After several months Mimi realized that, when she was with her father, unless the children were present, she rarely spoke about them. It was a shock at first to see how Karel could just cut them out of his life while he got on with his own. It niggled at first, until she could accept that that was what he had also done with her.
For the first three months after the twins and then after Robert were born she stayed at home, away from the hat salon and art dealership. But, when she returned to her work, it was with a new kind of interest and vigour that did not go unnoticed. It seemed that success brought success. The media took her up and made much of Mimi Steindler, her work and her famous husband, her large family, and fabulous life-style. Mimi maintained her fascination as she grew older. Her life flourished and there was, more so every year, a stronger sensual freedom about her that made her, not unlike Karel, amazingly attractive. There was no doubt that Mimi like her father and her still good friend Barbara had that special sensual seductiveness that is irresistible to the opposite sex. Mimi had matured into something special, and there was hardly anyone who could resist her charm.
From birth to five years, before school and lessons, the endless after-school activities that fill children’s lives, and parties – never a birthday without a party. – Mimi took her children with her everywhere she possibly could. She left
them with Jay and the nannies and the rest of the family only occasionally in those five years – to take a holiday with her father. When the children were old enough, they too were included on those journeys to fascinating places.
The extended family worked. They were an unusual family, solid and lovely and together. And Milos and Angelica and Robert under the influence of Jay whom they adored as they did Mimi, and Rick whom they experienced as he drifted in and out of their lives as their frivolous godfather, were happy, bright and charming children. They were close with Barney, and the four much older sons of Jay’s, who spoiled them and spent as much time with them in the Steindler house on East Sixty-Third Street as they could.
One day when Mimi’s three children, who were eight and nearly six years old, were sitting with her in the kitchen of the Stefanik house having lunch, Milos asked, ‘Mummy, do you remember my friend Jimmy?’
‘A blond boy with big sad eyes?’
‘I don’t know about sad. They’re just eyes. He was at my party.’
‘He sat next to me,’ interjected Angelica.
Mimi did remember him. ‘Oh, yes. What about him?’
Mimi could not miss the looks that passed between the three children. They were in cahoots about something, that was for certain. They were very close, told each other everything. Sophia, hovering around the table refilling plates, suddenly sat down, a platter in her hand. Now Mimi knew something was really on. Her children adored Sophia and confided everything in her. She was in on whatever they were about to spring on her.
‘Can he come and live with us?’ It was left to Milos to pop the question, but Mimi could see it posed in the eyes of all the children.
‘What’s this about, Milos?’ she asked.
‘He likes it at our house. He lives with a cousin. He’s got
no mother or father or sisters or brothers like we do. Nobody really to play with and take care of him.’
‘What about his cousin?’
‘She’s very neurotic. She forgets about him most of the time,’ said Angelica.
‘Who said she’s neurotic?’
‘I heard my teacher at school tell that to the head master,’ said Milos.
‘Do you know what neurotic means?’ asked Mimi.
‘No,’ all three chimed in at the same time.
‘But it can’t be good,’ announced Robert.
‘Why do you say that, Robby?’
‘Because if it was, he wouldn’t want to come and live with us.’ All three were looking at their mother as if she was really rather stupid.
Mimi turned to Sophia, feeling somewhat outsmarted by her children. ‘What do you know about this?’
‘Only that every time I see that child he reminds me of you that first day you were brought to me at Beechtrees. He has the same lost, alone look in his eyes.’
Mimi had come such a long way since that day, her fortunes had changed so drastically, that such memories, though still there, were difficult to square with her life now. But her children – so sweet and innocent, secure in themselves and with their family, pleading for a little friend – and Sophia’s words made her feel pain for a child she hardly knew. She thought of the kindness of all the strangers who had come to her aid. Then she thought of Barbara, who had befriended her and given her the greatest and most consistent support.
She called her children to her side. Mimi kissed Angelica. She was such a beautiful, calm and clever child, with a seductive charm that by now Mimi could recognize as a Stefanik trait. No one could resist Angelica, any more than they had been able to resist Mimi when she had been a child. She kissed her daughter, who leaned in against her
mother. Robert pulled his chair close to Mimi’s and the two boys sat on it. Milos on the seat, Robert balanced on the back. ‘What will happen if Jimmy doesn’t come to live with us?’
‘He’ll be sent to boarding school next term.’
‘And he doesn’t want to go?’
‘No.’
‘And what if he comes to live with us, and then one day something should happen and we’re unable to keep him? Think how desperate he would feel to be left behind.’
‘But that wouldn’t happen. You wouldn’t let it happen, Mummy.’ That was Milos.
‘Well, you’re right about that. I won’t let that happen. That’s why he cannot come to live with us.’
‘You won’t help him? But we told him you would help. And Dad would too,’ a dejected-looking Angelica told Mimi.
‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t help, Angelica. I said he couldn’t come and live with us.’
‘OK, Mummy. How?’
‘Well, first of all, why don’t I go and see the neurotic cousin?’ They all began to giggle at that idea.
‘Why?’ asked Sophia.
‘To ask her if we may invite Jimmy to come and stay with us for the summer in the house in Martha’s Vineyard.’ Mimi saw just a vestige of approval in the faces sitting around her. ‘What do you think of that idea?’ Grudging nods of assent.
‘That’s nice, Mummy, but it doesn’t much solve the problem of school and sleeping over at our house.’
‘Well, it might if I was to suggest to his cousin that we would be pleased to have Jimmy at our house any time that it’s convenient for his cousin. Week-ends as well, during the school term. And, you guys, if that’s not a good solution for all concerned, then we’ll rethink Jimmy’s problem.’
‘Why is that better than just living with us?’
‘Because he will have the best of friends and a second home to come to, and he won’t feel left out. More a welcome visitor, with a home and family of his own. Trust me on this. I know what I’m talking about.’
Sophia rose from the far end of the table and went to Mimi. She took her face in her hands. There were tears in her eyes when she kissed Mimi on the forehead. Sophia understood in her the deep emotional sources of such reasoning. The children read that as a seal of approval. The boys jumped off the chair with a clatter and dramatically shook each other’s hands.
‘Tomorrow?’ Robert demanded.
‘As soon as the cousin can see me.’
‘That’ll do,’ declared Milos.
‘But!’
‘Oh, there’s always a but.’ Angelica looked very annoyed. Buts didn’t suit her temperament.
‘Dad has to approve.’
‘No problem,’ said Milos. The children knew that Mimi would have no problem with Jay about Jimmy. They had learned that it is the woman who decides what happens at home. Each of them in turn declared Mimi a wonderful mother, and begged to be taken to tea at Rumpelmayer’s.
What made this large family work was their devotion to a family life. The successful careers of both Mimi and Jay financed it. Jay’s fascinating work in publishing, the power he held in that mercurial world, furnished the entire family with interesting people and events. Life felt expansive. Their house was filled with people, love and good times. The wide range in the ages of the children ensured a constant stream of young adults. The youngest children, with all their friends and trends, their projects and interests, made a hectic fiesta of their lives. The ex-wives and the ex-lovers, Rick and Claire, wove themselves into the fabric of Mimi’s and Jay’s life, as friends, leaving their intimate
relationships to rest in peace in the past.
Rick did pick up the mantle that Dr Quinn threw down and worked his practice out of California, but never altered his life-style. His reputation in the States was that of ‘finest brain surgeon’, but ‘an eccentric man’. To the third world he was ‘the eminent Dr Walters, surgeon, healer, guru’. He remained the same free spirit. The surfer seeking the perfect wave. The handsome, sun-tanned charmer. Young beauties came and went from his life. Everyone in the family loved him for the same reasons Mimi did. She, of course, though they rarely got together, still loved him sexually.
After the birth of the twins they remained sexually apart. Although neither of them ever discussed the subject, that was the way it evolved. But after many years, one day when he was in New York, they were having lunch together at his favourite Japanese restaurant. The conversation took a turn where neither of them could ignore the inevitable. They had been talking about a family dinner at the house the night before. It was a spectacular event with all the children and adults and Barbara and Karel and Sophia. A very amusing occasion. Now, having hashed over the events of the evening, Rick was saying, ‘You’re even more beautiful and happy than that first time I saw you in Patmos. You and Jay have made a wonder-family. Almost a dynasty, actually. I can understand, I always did, why you like being married to him. He makes you feel good.’
Mimi smiled. ‘That’s true. Jay knows how to make you consistently feel good. The only thing is, he never makes you feel great. Now you, on the other hand, make me feel great. Oops, Freudian slip. What I meant was, people – you make people feel great.’
She was smiling. It was one of Mimi’s more seductive and sensual smiles that he had not picked up on for years. He made no comment, simply called for the bill. And then, it was there in his eyes, an understanding of her sexual
hunger, her desire for sexual oblivion, greatness rather than good.
‘This is a frivolous thing to do.’
‘If that’s the way you want to think of it, fine.’
In bed at the Plaza, Rick was overwhelmed by her passion, her hunger for all things erotic between them. He was moved by the many times she told him how much he was missed sexually, the bliss she experienced because he set her free. Later, after they had dressed and were having a glass of champagne in the sitting room of his suite, it prompted him to say, ‘Mimi, I assumed you had with Jay what we have just had. I never asked you. I don’t actually feel I should now, but I need to know that you are happy with him and in your marriage. Because if …’
‘Stop. You have to know I am very happy. I passed up great sex and feeding my libido for good sex. If you call having an orgasm every time your husband fucks you, and he fucks you every day, good sex. That’s what I chose because I wanted a great marriage and the family I have more. I have no regrets. Please don’t say anything. I wouldn’t have missed the experience of my marriage and family for anything. And especially the twins and Robert and your being a part of my life. I have a household with a buzz. It keeps Jay and me young in heart and spirit. It’s our life. Now let’s go home to Jay and the children, they’ll be waiting for us.’
Gossip wove envious tales around the Steindlers and their life-style. Mimi’s life looked set: husband, children, success, the American dream in New York City.
It was not a difficult decision to make. This, the opulent eighties, was a time when the Western world had gone mad with extravagance. There were more millionaires and billionaires than avarice could have imagined. Karel went first to the bank and drew out of the safe-deposit box the red leather envelope. He had not looked inside it for more than thirty years. He placed it in a brown envelope, tucked it under his arm and set out for Christie’s, the auction house.
Mimi was now Karel’s only surviving child. A road accident in France had killed Laslo, his only son. Much as he loved Mimi’s three children they didn’t seem to come into it any more than Mimi did. She was a wealthy woman in her own right, and Jay was a very wealthy man. They had no need of the contents of the red leather envelope. When Karel died, Mimi and her children would inherit a tidy sum, more than sufficient. Selfish to rob her of the vast wealth these gems would bring? Maybe so. He gave it hardly a thought. He ruled his life, his family, he always had. He saw no need to ask Mimi, or in fact even to tell her what he was doing. The estimate was in excess of ten million dollars. Christie’s needed three months for cataloguing and hyping. The contents of the case would go into their most prestigious Jewellery and Gems sale of the year in Geneva. Karel never thought twice about it, but assigned the jewels to the sale.
Several months later he went to Paris with the proceeds of the Christie’s sale. They went into a savings account.
Astonishingly he had received twenty-four million dollars. With lawyers and two Czech dissidents, intellectuals who made more political sense than he had heard in the last thirty years, documents were drawn up releasing the funds as soon as the country had extricated itself from Soviet puppet rule. They were to be used specifically for a free Czechoslovakia, unencumbered by any foreign power. On one condition: everything there that was legally his should be returned to his daughter, the Countess Mimi Alexandra Stefanik. That all other private property confiscated since the Second World War should be returned to its rightful owners.
Then he flew home to his house and his books, to New York that he now loved as he once loved Prague, to the women who could satisfy his lust, and to Barbara, the enchantress who still held him as no other woman had. This was his world now. With this final gift he felt that he had done all that he could for his country.
Mimi sensed a subtle change in Karel. She knew nothing about the sale in Geneva or the account opened in Paris. She simply sensed change, a light-heartedness (not that he had ever been exactly heavy-hearted). It was an extra lift of spirits in him. The most outward sign of change was his reluctance to see any of the Czech exiles and refugees to whom his door had always been open since his arrival in New York. He seemed to have less patience with the endless political talk that had been so much a part of their lives and that Mimi had rebelled against for the last twenty years. She felt great relief: his loyalty and passion for his country had burned itself out at last. Mimi had her father all to herself. His real mistress, the one who had stolen him from her – his country and its politics – had at last been ousted. Why, she wondered, had it taken so long?
She sat on the end of the bed watching her father pack. ‘I wish you would let me take you to the airport, Poppa.’
‘Not necessary, Angel.’
‘How long will you be away, Poppa?’
‘I’m leaving it open-ended. But I think about a month.’
Mimi never questioned too closely her father’s travel plans, but she was certain he was not travelling alone. And if she were wrong, and he was, then most likely there would be a lovely young thing waiting at an airport somewhere for him. Karel remained, even as he grew older, the same charismatic figure that women had always been drawn to.
His houseman-chauffeur arrived for Karel’s travelling bag, bearing a silver ice-bucket. Buried up to its neck in shaved ice was a bottle of vintage Bollinger, with two champagne flutes.
‘Here or downstairs?’ Karel asked her.
‘Here, I think. I do so love this room. I think it’s the handsomest and most interesting in the house. Except for the library, of course. This bedroom could never belong to anyone but you, Poppa. It’s such a perfect reflection of you.’
‘You always did like it, ever since the first day we moved into this house. Remember how you used to climb into bed with me and we would have breakfast together? And now the twins, whenever they’re here in the house staying over, do exactly the same.’
They were served their flutes of champagne and together sat on the end of the four-poster bed and drank. They watched the chauffeur gather up the things: suitcase, coat over the arm, several books. Then he left the room, announcing, ‘Twenty minutes, Count.’
‘He still calls you “Count”, even after all these years. He sees you as the hero-Count,’ Mimi teased.
‘He will never change. He has worn me down, can call me whatever he likes. Remember, Mimi, if you need anything, he’s here for you as he has always been for me.’
‘You make it sound as if you are going away forever.’
‘Well, I’m not.’ Father and daughter were gazing into each other’s eyes. He reached out and touched her golden
hair. ‘Mimi, I don’t think I tell you often enough what a splendid woman you have turned out to be. I love you as a daughter, Mimi, but I think I love you even more as a woman. You have it all. No wonder Jay never let you go.’
She was stunned. That was not like Karel. He had always been a flatterer, but never one to express his deeper feelings. In order to cover her own emotional response, she teased her father, ‘Are you saying, you wouldn’t either?’
He hesitated for only a second, then drained his glass. Placing it on the occasional table in front of him, he turned back to face her. ‘Well, I haven’t, have I, my Mimi?’
Then taking her face in his hands he kissed her gently on the lips. He took her hand and said, ‘Let’s go, there’s a plane I have to catch.’ He touched the tip of her nose with the tip of his finger and added, ‘I’ll bring you back a surprise.’
Barbara Dunmellyn had the best kind of fame and fortune, the kind that allows you privacy. A condition where your work is more photographed than yourself, where gossip circulates only narrowly, among those involved in the art world and the private life of one of their stars. Where the work you create demands solitude, the luxury of spending great slices of the day alone in the world of your imagination. That marvellous, selfish place that confers complete control of what you do with it. Barbara understood why men found those aspects of her life attractive. They added a frisson, a bonus, when you had the looks of an ageing movie star, a provocative female sensuality, and a lust for men that drew them like bees to a flower. If men adored her, which they did, and she could still draw, as she did, men of all ages to her, who yearned only to be loved by her, she was bound to excite the curiosity of other women. Those men’s women, the wives, girl-friends, lovers, were confounded by the power and control Barbara had over her suitors.
She had always enjoyed the company of men. She had never put them aside from her life, only from her work. And only during that long period of time while she was married to Brandon had she confined them to the fringes of her life. Marriage and painting had come first. Those years were crucial in the development of her work. Barbara had never fooled herself, even during that time, that men were as crucial to her life as her painting was.
No one was more surprised than she herself that her marriage to Brandon had lasted as long as it had. Their work, the demands of the New York art world, the busy creative minds working on overdrive, virtually precluded domesticity. The marriage demanded sacrifice. But sacrifice only works when it is offered naturally, when it is not an obligation. Intelligence and a mutual love and admiration for each other had kept the marriage together. Those same qualities sustained the friendship between Brandon and her even after their divorce.
Several times Barbara had come close to undertaking marriage again. There had been several men whom she knew could have added to her life; interesting, successful men, intelligent enough to know how they might make a marriage with her work. But always Barbara had stopped just short of the commitment. Finally, only one man interested her beyond all others: Count Karel Stefanik.
Even now, after all these years, he had only to appear across the room and she was his. He could still thrill her with the honeyed sound of his voice. She could still give herself up to him sexually as to no other man. Never, since that first day at the Stork Club, had she missed a shiver of delight at seeing him, or not felt immediate desire, wanting him. They had been lovers for a very long time. Sometimes they thought of themselves as tragic lovers, the playthings of fate that predated their own first meeting. For several years now Barbara had realized that she would marry no one: she was emotionally pledged to Karel. Not once had
she ever revealed that to him. It was her secret, for her alone to live with. She saw no reason to lay on him the burden of her commitment to him. They were happy enough the way they were. Nothing ever changed for them. When they were together, erotic desire overcame words, they were wholly together.
Barbara’s special kind of fame was suited perfectly for a long-time affair with Karel. Except for their attachment to Mimi, they lived in worlds that never overlapped. That was a blessing for a secret love affair. It gave them the freedom to travel together unafraid of bumping into a friend or colleague. And Karel did like to take Barbara away to romantic places around the world at least once a year. Only Ching Lee knew about the affair, because in New York it was conducted in Barbara’s flat or in her studio.
She opened her eyes to the warmth of his breath on her shoulder, to the feel of his lips and their gentle kiss on the nape of her neck. She sighed and rolled over to face him.
‘Is it morning already?’
‘Not quite, that’s why I woke you. Almost. It will be soon. I want us to see the dawn break over this mountain before we leave.’
In the dark she couldn’t make out his features, but she traced them with her fingers and kissed them with hungry lips. They were naked, on a large bed. It was hot, very hot, even at that hour, even in the darkness with the stars still visible. They were in a love-pavilion that he had created just for them, a place of stone and glass, little more than a great square room with a bed, and a glass roof that slid back. A love-pavilion on top of a small mountain of cypress, olive and pine trees running wild, left to nature for years, of scrubby bush and wild flowers that plunged all the way down the small rocky island into the Aegean Sea. He had built it for her, for them, and would take no other woman there. It was their special place in the world, a place where they made love, with extravagant, unbridled sexual ardour,
where they could call in their ecstasy of sexual bliss upon the Greek gods, where assuredly no one else would hear the violence of their passion, shared only with the mountain. This was their private world where they indulged themselves in their passion for each other.
She felt his lips on her nipples, his hands caressing her breasts, the touch of his skin on her fingertips. The night was fading, the sky turning from black to dawn grey. He pulled her into his arms and they lay on their sides together, hands caressing, lips making love, as they sensed the light break over the sea, over their island haven. A morning mist was lingering low all around them. It was a magical place he had found, as others before him had in ancient times. Once the sun burned away the mist, from their bed they could look down through the scrub and trees to see a near-perfect small Greek temple. Its roof was gone, but the marble columns and pediments stood intact after many hundreds of years. Further below it and off to the right, another smaller temple, round, of similar white marble, an aesthetically perfect jewel. In that light one could see no more than dark forms, and barely discern the water under a moon and stars not yet vanished from the sky. Karel had discovered this tiny island, so like a limb of heaven cast upon the sea by one of the mythical Greek gods. It was several miles from a larger island with villages and people, but a remote, not obviously alluring place, off the tourist maps. He had bought the drop in the sea, which is what he called it, with its one deep cove, its grotto and miniature temples. There he had built a modest house of several rooms, and there too lived a caretaker and cook. Nearby he kept a small boat. These people never ventured up the mountain when Karel was there with Barbara. They allowed them their private world.
A streak of light pierced what was left of the night. The dawn light and the heat of the sun began burning off the mist. It was like the dawn of creation, up there on their
mountain. The sun, like a bright pink spotlight, illuminated the round temple and inched its way up from there, meeting the trees and at last the rectangular building of ancient columns. Light crept towards their own pavilion.
Barbara slipped from his arms and on to her knees, the better to look down the mountain. On his knees behind her he took his position and grasped her waist. He was stirred by the dawn of another day, and distracted by the sensuous, seductive movement of her bottom back and forth against him. His fingers opened a place for him, and he plunged in. She marvelled that she could after all these years, after all the sex there had been between them, still feel as if he were taking her for the first time. They fucked, he withdrawing and plunging in slowly and deliberately, again and again taking possession of her cunt, making her his own. And Barbara used her cunt muscles to caress him, to entice him, to excite him with her own fuckings.
The sunlight was moving fast now across the stone floor, and poured over them from the open roof above. She pulled his hand away from her waist over her shoulder, until she was able to reach it, and bit hard into his flesh. She came, and called out. He loved it, to hear her voice echo with ecstasy in that deserted romantic island of the gods. And now he fucked her harder, with greater passion.