The Adventurers (55 page)

"What did Dax say when you left?"

"Nothing. What was there for him to say?" Her expressive dark eyes studied him. "C'est la fin. But 1 had the feeling it no longer mattered to him. Perhaps that was the hardest of all, that it just didn't matter."

Giselle sipped at her drink. "There he was with all those horrible men. All they talked about was money and oil and ships. I might as well not have been there at all. And then one evening I came into the room, and Dax didn't even look up. He kept on talking to those men. I looked at him and it was as if I were seeing Dax for the first time. And I saw all the children we could have had and hadn't, and the life we might have had and wouldn't. Suddenly I wanted those children and that life we'd never had."

Sergei saw the tears start to come to her eyes. She didn't look at him, and her voice was very low. "Once, when I first met Dax, I felt that after the war, after all the mess was over, we'd make it. And I thought that deep inside he felt as I did. But that night I realized I'd been wrong. That all he had ever wanted from me he had taken, and all he had ever wanted to give had been given."

Giselle was silent for a moment. "It's not too late for me, is it, Sergei? I'm still young enough to love, to have children, and a man?"

Sergei saw her into a taxi and looked down the street. The taxi stand was empty. He hesitated a moment, then decided to walk back to his apartment. It was only a fifteen-minute walk.

The blistering heat of August came up at him from the pavement. For Paris the streets were almost deserted. Any Frenchman worth his salt, from the highest executive to the lowliest clerk, was on vacation. They had gone either to the mountains or to the shore, or simply stayed at home, shutters drawn against the oppressive heat. The small signs on the doors or in the windows of most shops bore eloquent testimony to that. Fermeture Annuelle.

Idly Sergei wondered what he was doing here. But he knew the answer. It was always the same, he was short of money.

Bernstein, the Swiss banker, had put it even more succinctly. "You have no head for business, young man," he'd said. "It wouldn't matter if you had an income of fifty thousand pounds a year instead of fifty thousand dollars. You'd find a way to make it insufficient."

That had been only a few weeks ago. He had already borrowed against his payments from Sue Ann over the next two years.

"What shall I do then?"

The banker's voice was very acid. "The first thing I'd do is get rid of some of your stupid investments. That couturier for example. Ever since you invested in his business you have been furnishing him with an additional twenty thousand dollars a year just to keep him from bankruptcy!"

"I couldn't do that!" Sergei's voice was shocked.

"Why not? Are you in love with the little faggot?"

"Of course not. But he is very talented. Someday he'll break through, you'll see. The trouble is he's far ahead of his time."

'"And by that time you'll be bankrupt!"

"What he needs is a sponsor."

'That's what you said a year ago, so you persuaded Giselle d'Arcy to have him do her wardrobe. It didn't help."

"I mean an American. It is the Americans who really set the styles. What they accept goes, what they reject doesn't."

"Why don't you speak to your ex-wife?" the banker asked.

Sergei looked at him. He had never suspected the banker had a sense of humor. But Bernstein appeared to be quite serious. "Sue Ann a style leader? No, it has to be someone else. Someone the Americans already accept as the height of fashion."

"Get rid of the business," the banker urged with finality, "there is no such person. And if there were, she would already be involved with Dior, Balmain, Balenciaga, Chanel, or Maggy Rouff. Anyway, no one like that would come to an unknown like your friend. There is no prestige in buying clothes from a nobody."

Sergei got to his feet excitedly. "Prince Nikovitch! That should do it."

"Should do what?" the banker had asked.

"The Americans love titles. Perhaps not all of them can marry one but they could be dressed by one."

"Ridiculous," Bernstein said.

"Not really. All we have to do is show that we are accepted by prominent Frenchwomen. Then the Americans will come."

"But how will you attract an important Frenchwoman?"

"Caroline de Coyne—Madame Xenos," Sergei said. "Caroline would do it for me."

"But she is in America."

"She can be persuaded to return."

"But how?" the banker asked. "It is already July. All the showings have been held. No one will come."

"If Caroline comes from America everyone will come, if only to see what brought her. We will have our showing on the first of September. And we will advertise it as the only true fall showing."

"It might just work," Bernstein said. "But what will you use for money?"

Sergei smiled. "You will give it to me."

"Are you out of your mind? I have already told you, you are on the verge of bankruptcy!"

"Madame Bernstein would be most unhappy if she were to discover that she missed an invitation to the premiere of a Paris collection because of your niggardliness."

Bernstein looked at him. A faint hint of a smile began to show in his frosty eyes. "You are a completely unscrupulous scoundrel!"

Sergei laughed. "That is quite beside the point."

"All right, I will lend you the money. On two conditions."

"What are they?"

Bernstein leaned back in his chair. "One, that you show me an acceptance from Madame Xenos. Two, that you remain in Paris at the maison de couture until the showing is completed."

"I accept," Sergei said, and reached for the telephone.

"What are you doing?" the banker asked nervously.

"What quicker way to reach Madame Xenos than by telephone? You don't think I'm going to give you time to change your mind, do you?"

Halfway to his apartment Sergei changed his mind. Instead he went directly to the maison de couture. He paused in front of the small building and studied the brass plates bearing his crest on either side of the entrance. The doorman hastened to open the door. "Your highness," he murmured respectfully.

Sergei glared at him. "The brass is too shiny," he said, pointing to the plaques. "Rub dirt over them, they look too new."

Sergei entered and hurried up the grand staircase that led to the main salon. The painters and decorators had been hard at work. Already his crest appeared everywhere in the building. He walked on through the grand salon into the workroom beyond.

Here was a bedlam of activity. The little midinettes were running back and forth carrying bolts of cloth, and models stood about petulantly, some with gowns already pinned around them, others half nude, their tiny breasts casually displayed. Over all this he could hear Jean-Jacques's voice screaming in the office. Jean-Jacques sounded almost hysterical.

Sergei walked through the workroom and pushed open the door. A model was standing on a small stand. Around her stood two of the assistants and a cutter. Jean-Jacques was behind his desk, the tears streaming down his cheeks. When he saw Sergei he came forward wringing his hands.

"What am I to do?" he shrieked. "They all are so un-talented and stupid! They cannot do even the simple things I ask of them." He clutched his hands dramatically to his forehead. "I'm on the verge of a breakdown. I tell you! A breakdown. I shall go completely out of my mind!"

He pulled at Sergei's arm and dragged him over to the model. "Regardez! Look what they do to my design! Ruined!"

"Calm yourself, Jean-Jacques," Sergei said soothingly, "explain to me what you are trying to accomplish. Then perhaps I can help them to give you what you want."

Jean-Jacques stood in front of the model. "Regardez. A completely new idea for the cocktail hour. I see a series of triangles suspended from milady's shoulders like mobiles, thus providing a freeness at every important point. The bust, the hip, the knee."

Sergei looked at the model. The dress was exactly as Jean-Jacques had described it, exactly like the design he held in his hand. But he could understand the designer's frustration. The dress itself did not do what Jean-Jacques intended it to do. He looked at the design, then back again at the model.

A silence came over the office as everyone waited on his word. Sergei nodded after a moment, and turned to the designer. "Jean-Jacques, you're a genius! I understand your problem completely. And I think I know what is bothering you."

"You do?" Jean-Jacques's voice was a mixture of pride and confusion.

"I do," Sergei said with assurance. "It is this!" Dramatically he pointed to the model's hips. "Here, where the triangle should be wide, as you intended, it is apexed and tight."

Jean-Jacques was utterly confused. "It is?"

Again Sergei nodded positively. "It was your word 'freeness' that gave me the answer. The dress must swing wide at the bottom so that milady can feel the breeze on her cunt as she moves, thereby always reminding herself of her femininity."

Jean-Jacques was silent as he studied the model. Sergei did not give him a chance to answer. "I must hurry to my office, I have an appointment. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to bask in your genius."

Sergei paused in the doorway. He looked at the assistants, then at the designer. "I am sure now that they will be able to give you exactly what you want."

When he was gone from the doorway, Jean-Jacques muttered something almost inaudibly under his breath about having something further to take up with his highness, and ran from the room. The two assistants looked at each other. "Did you understand what his highness said?"

The other shook her head. "No." She turned to the model. "Did you understand?"

"Who the hell understands anyone in this business?" the model said with a bored expression as she stepped down from the stand. "They are all crazy. If I got any more breeze on my cunt than I do now, I would probably come down with pneumonia."

CHAPTER 11

Irma Andersen was a thickset woman in her middle fifties, with a pudgy, rather square face under her heavy, black-rimmed glasses. She held out her hand toward Sergei. "Your highness, so good of you to come!"

Sergei kissed her hand. "Who could resist a summons from so renowned a hostess?"

Irma laughed. Her voice was surprisingly deep but still quite feminine. "Sergei, you phony bastard." She chuckled. "At least you were honest enough not to call me beautiful." She placed a cigarette in a long thin holder ,and waited until he held a light for her. "It's been a long time," she said, letting the smoke come out through her nose like a man.

"Since my wedding."

"You remembered?"

He nodded. "You were doing a column for Cosmo-World."

"I didn't think you'd remember." Irma placed the cigarette holder on the edge of her desk and picked up a sheet of paper. "I suppose you're wondering why I called?"

"I was a little curious."

"I got a cablegram from my New York newspaper. They heard that Caroline Xenos was coming over with a group of friends especially to attend the opening of your new salon. They asked me to look into it."

"Oh?"

"Are you trying especially hard to keep it a secret?" she asked. "Why didn't you get in touch with me right away?"

It had to be like this, he thought, the push had to come from the States. If he had called as she suggested, she would have killed the showing. "I didn't dare," he replied with just the proper amount of modesty. "You're much too important for me to approach without a major reason." "Anything that has to do with fashion and society is important to me, Sergei."

"But this is just another couturier."

"Sergei, you must be an idiot! It isn't every day that a prince opens a maison de couture."

He dared a grin. "You know I'm no prince."

"You are honest!" Irma laughed aloud. "I know it, and you know it. But so far as the folks back home go, you're a prince. Anyone who was once married to Sue Ann Daley would have to be."

"That's because they don't know Sue Ann!"

"Sue Ann has a new one, a good-looking young Mexican boy. She found him in Acapulco diving from the mountain into the ocean. He must be all of seventeen."

Sergei smiled. "Good for her; at least he's young enough."

Irma Andersen stuck the cigarette holder back in her mouth. "You'll invite me to the collection, of course?"

Sergei allowed himself a moment's hesitation. "We weren't planning to ask the press."

"I don't care what you're doing about the others, I'm coming."

He was silent.

"I can be a great help to you," she said, "you know that."

He nodded. "I was on the telephone only this morning to Lady Corrigan in London. I just happened to mention to her that I knew you.

She expressed a great interest in joining me at the showing."

Sergei could almost feel a glow of triumph inside himself. Lady Corrigan was one of the richest heiresses in Great Britain. She had also been on every ten-best-dressed list for the past two years.

"There are several others I could interest in visiting your salon," Irma added quickly, "names that will help you gain a quick acceptance. That is if you have anything worthwhile to show." She looked at him shrewdly. "You're not afraid of such a critical audience, are you?"

"No," he replied hesitantly.

"Well, then?"

He looked at her and suddenly he held open his hands in a gesture of defeat. "All right, you're invited. But you realize this means I shall have to invite the rest of the press?" "I don't care whom you invite. Just make certain I sit in the front row with the customers and not hack with the help!"

"Of course," Sergei replied. "You didn't have to ask."

"I have another idea."

"Yes?"

"Why don't you let me give a dinner for you after the collection? We'll keep it small. No more than fifty or sixty of the right people."

"It's a lovely idea, and I am deeply touched. But there is just one difficulty, if I may be frank."

"You can be very frank with me always."