The Suitors (20 page)

“Sure, but I also think you have love to give and nowhere to give it. Me, I’m lucky, I have Félix. Perhaps it’s time for you to deal with this. Maybe that’s what your dog is telling you.”

I was uneasy about imposing Mathias Cavoye on my parents, but my success in managing to bring Béno Grunwald to the house made up for that, because before suggesting Béno to my sister as a “blind date,” I’d done all the requisite research into his background. And he was so divine, according to
Who’s Who
, Google, and
Fortune
, that he seemed almost like a jackpot just waiting to be won.

Béno Grunwald was a self-made man from a family of means. Perfect, I’d thought, catching myself starting to hope that he would have both the good manners and sex appeal of a self-made man. No one had helped him in any way, neither his father, who had never wanted to see him, nor his mother, a worldly and uncaring woman.

Dyslexia had made studying difficult, so Béno started out by enjoying himself, but since he was charismatic,
trusted his instincts, and had good business sense, he opted to make his fortune instead of self-destructing in trendy night clubs. He began by selling bonds and soon did fabulously well. Sniffing out good deals, he never stopped speculating, investing, even when on vacation. Quick off the mark, he would visit a house for sale in the Bahamas, then buy it and snap up all the surrounding properties as well, selling them off later, one by one, for huge profits. He knew how to plan far ahead, too, and in anticipation of the death of Castro, he had gone to Cuba to buy up all the photos of the Cuban revolution he could find, just as he had explored Panama in the expectation of an imminent economic boom, acquiring a forest there as big as a French
département
.

He lived large in London, with pieds-à-terre in Paris and New York, yet he also understood the real value of money, because he had already found out what it was like to go bankrupt. Down practically to the change in his pockets, he’d bought a Basquiat just before the graffiti artist took off, which allowed him to bounce back so high that he now managed a hedge fund worth more than twenty billion dollars.

At forty-five, twice divorced (first from an Anglo-Iranian beauty, then from one of the five highest-paid models in the world), he was single again. He was filthy
rich, generous, ran an enormous charity he’d put together from scratch to support girls’ education in Africa, and he knew how to have fun. Plus he knew everyone, from Mick Jagger to Bill Clinton to Nelson Mandela. The
New York Post
’s Page Six even claimed that the letter
B
in his address book listed, among others, Brad (Pitt), Richard Branson (the fifth-richest person in the United Kingdom), Bono, Bongo (Omar), Lord Balfour, Warren Buffett, while the letter
K
included Kaddafi, Kravis (Henry), Kravitz (Lenny) …

In fact,
that
might actually prove to be the sticking point—the fact that he frequented only the rich and famous, with a weakness for people whose family names are those of countries, like the Greeces, the Yugoslavias, Rania of Jordan, or Felipe of Spain.

He never stayed long in one place, and went only where it was in his interest to go, so why then was he coming to L’Agapanthe when the world was full of luminaries who were only too eager to welcome him?

Had he heard about the view, the cuisine, his hosts, or their guests? Was he expecting to find old friends or make new ones here? In that case, he risked being let down, because we were too low-key for him, and he wasn’t going to find anyone of transcendent interest among my parents’ Old Faithfuls. Unless he was coming
to check out Marie and me … which might also prove a disappointment, because lovely and rich though we might be (as Frédéric never tired of telling us), we surely weren’t lovely and rich enough for Béno Grunwald, who deigned to look only at spectacular women.

So upon reflection, I’d decided that I should give up any idea of seduction where he was concerned. One, simply because I was no raving beauty, and two, such a competition depressed me from the get-go, leaving me without any desire to enter the lists. So I was counting on Marie—more gorgeous, feisty, and attracted to the glamour of her conquests—to meet the challenge and try her chances with him.

Instead of being insufferable, as I had feared, Béno turned out to be truly charming. Indeed, he became our hero as soon as he arrived, thanks to the grace and good humor with which he reacted to the incredible cock-up that greeted him at L’Agapanthe.

No doubt eager to downplay the bad impression produced by his arrival via helicopter, Béno countermanded the driver my mother had arranged for him in Cannes and drove up casually in a Mini Moke at 7:00 p.m. He had to ring several times at the front gate before gaining entrance to the property, because the servants were at dinner and the bell rarely managed to make itself heard
on the first ring over their animated table talk. But to his surprise, greeted at last by Marcel, he was asked to park his car at the service entrance before being taken on a tour of the house!

Nevertheless, Béno complied, thinking that perhaps this was some peculiar family custom. He began to suspect a mix-up when Marcel, beginning with the garages, explained that we had originally had our own gas pump but now fueled our vehicles like everyone else at the local gas station, where we did not even maintain an account because the attendants there no longer knew what such a thing was and required payment via Carte Bleue with each transaction. Old Marcel’s indignation seemed genuine, but Béno could not understand why this man—the chauffeur? the butler?—had decided to engage him in a conversation that was doubtless urbane but singularly unusual.

As his guide led him off toward the servants’ quarters, Béno decided it was a case of mistaken identity, but he was enjoying the mishap too much to clear matters up just yet. Besides, before introducing himself as a houseguest, he was curious to discover for whom he’d been mistaken!

“There are ten bedrooms along this hall,” Marcel informed him, “but they are all essentially alike and I
think you will have a good idea of them all if I show you just one.”

Was he supposed to be an architect? Were the Ettinguers contemplating some remodeling? But the other shoe didn’t drop until Marcel added, “I’ll show you the beaches; Madame advised me explicitly to take you along the service path so as not to attract the notice of the guests or the rest of the family, because not everyone in the house is happy with this idea, you understand.” A real estate agent! The Ettinguers were putting their house on the market, and trying to do it discreetly.

What kind of a hornets’ nest had he gotten himself into? Thinking quickly, Béno felt it was time to wrap up the joke before the butler said something more explicit he might later deeply regret. Since it was better to seem like a simpleton than to humiliate this man and upset the Ettinguers, Béno came up with something to save face all around.

“Ah, now I understand why you showed me the garages and servants’ quarters! But I must tell you, I’m not the architect you were clearly expecting. My name is Béno Grunwald, and Monsieur and Madame Ettinguer have very kindly invited me here for the weekend.”

When Marcel went pale at the thought of the gaffe he’d just committed, Béno gently reassured him.

“I’ll tell Madame Ettinguer how much I envy her, having someone like you in her employ, trustworthy enough to handle things as demanding as important renovation projects. And allow me to thank you, because I must be the only guest ever invited to such a house tour!”

Meanwhile, I was having a mirror-image misadventure, since my sister was still suffering from jet lag and had assigned me to welcome Béno. Up in my bedroom, it was impossible for me to distinguish among the different bells ringing through the house, so I’d been waiting with a book in the loggia to be certain of hearing his car arrive.

The pantry was in fact the only place where one could hear all the sounds of L’Agapanthe, a kind of acoustic pilot’s cabin allowing the staff to interpret such signals and respond accordingly. Hanging on the wall over the house telephone exchange was a bell board, an old-fashioned apparatus we used more frequently than the household phones that rang in jangling anarchy here and there and, for the most part, in vain.

In every bedroom were a pear-shaped wooden bell-pull by the bed and a push button near the bathtub, so that the occupant could summon help in case of need or ask for breakfast to be sent up. Each call bell had its
distinctive tone; my mother’s sonic signature, for example, comprised two re notes in succession, whereas a short
do
and a long re meant Flora’s Room, where I was.

If there were the slightest doubt about two call bells with similar notes, the servants could consult an auxiliary panel on which the name of the room in question would light up.

The pantry was also equipped with the most modern technology, to wit: monitors for the security cameras around the house and grounds, in particular the one at the entrance gate, where the electronic chime had a hard time cutting through the summons of our good old bell rung at mealtime for the staff, a ringing that echoed easily all over the property.

I’d barely had time to watch a few lizards stroll out onto the veranda when Gérard appeared to announce Béno’s arrival.

“Monsieur Grunwald has just driven up, Madame. In a Bentley Continental GT coupé.” Probably taking my astonishment for curiosity, he added, “a model halfway between the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and the Aston Martin DB9. I mention this simply for Madame’s information.”

I was just struggling to keep a straight face while thanking Gérard when a nattily dressed man strode into the loggia. Although I’d never met Béno, I had seen
several photographs of him (half hidden behind his supermodel wife, to whom he was wisely ceding the spotlight), but I had the strange feeling that I’d never seen this dapper man before. Given the circumstances, I proceeded with caution.

Instead of introducing himself, he announced, “I’m so thrilled to find myself here. You cannot imagine how impressed I am!”

“Well, good, how nice,” I replied, playing for time in the hope he would soon say something easier to interpret.

The man’s age and corpulence seemed to match my image of Béno, but something still wasn’t right. He was too
rich
looking, too flashy to be the real thing, I finally decided, remembering the lesson I’d learned the first time I’d seen Laszlo Schwartz. He and I had landed in Nice at the same time and my mother had asked me to bring him in the car she’d sent to pick us up at the airport. The only description she’d given me, however, was, “I’m sure you’ll manage to find him somehow. He’ll be accompanied by a graphic artist whom you’ll drop off in Antibes on your way here.” Which I had done, except that I had mistaken that artist for Laszlo, and all because he’d seemed the spit and image of a painter, with his longish hair and a shirt with a ruffle at the neck,
whereas the real Laszlo, having nothing to prove in the creativity department, had been dressed like a banker in a three-piece pin-striped suit. And it wasn’t until I saw the graphic artist leave the car in Antibes that I’d realized my mistake.

Well, this guy in the loggia was gleaming, impeccable. And his watch was too showy, his city shoes too polished for him to be Béno Grunwald, who was certainly going to show up in linen slacks and espadrilles with a plastic watch on his wrist.

“And what,” I ventured to ask, “may I do for you?”

After explaining who he was and what real estate company he represented, the fellow recapitulated the phone conversations he’d had with my parents prior to this visit and finally assured me he was quite aware of the discretion he should show regarding the houseguests and other family members, who had not been informed of this appointment. Obviously taking me for the secretary, he asked me a touch nervously if we shouldn’t leave this rather exposed veranda to begin viewing the house more “behind the scenes,” as it were.

“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed, ushering him into the pantry, where I asked him to await a colleague who would conduct him around the premises.

Then I summoned up enough courage to barge in on the staff in their dining room, causing a pall of silence to fall around the table. When I interrupted the secretary at her meal, she was so taken aback to discover that I’d found out about the hush-hush visit from the realtor that she seemed relieved to take charge of it, in return for my silence about this unfortunate incident.

Hardly had I placed the real estate agent in her hands, however, than I had to dash to my room for a good cry, because at their first mention of habitable square foot-age and exceptional luxury property, I’d thought I was going to throw up.

I realized that I had not for an instant believed my parents would actually put L’Agapanthe up for sale. I’d found it perfectly understandable that they might feel the need to play around with the idea, but I’d never doubted that they’d reject it. And
that
had left me feeling carefree enough to launch into husband hunting—an undertaking made appealing doubtless because it had little actual connection to its supposed raison d’être.