“Ludivine, I’m not sure if you can hear me, but you’re breaking up. I’m on a gondola in the middle of a canal right now, and the connection is very weak. Please text me and I’ll call you back as soon as I get off this boat.” Astrid put her phone away and smiled apologetically at her friend, Contessa Domiella Finzi-Contini. She was there for the Venice Biennale, and they were being rowed to the Palazzo Brandolini for a dinner party honoring Anish Kapoor.
“This is Venezia—there is never a signal anywhere, much less in the middle of Canal Grande.” Domiella laughed as she tried to stop her pashmina from flapping away in the evening breeze. “Now, finish telling me the story of your amazing find.”
“Well, I always thought Fortuny only worked with heavier silks and velvets, so when I came across this voile dress in an antique shop in Jakarta, of all places, I didn’t know what to think. I thought at first it was some kind of Peranakan wedding gown from the 1920s, but the distinctive pleating caught my eye. And the pattern—”
“It’s his classic Delphos pattern, of course, but this fabric—my God, so light!” Domiella said as she fondled the hem of Astrid’s long diaphanous skirt. “And the color—I’ve never seen this shade of violet before. Obviously hand-painted, probably by Fortuny himself or his wife, Henriette. How is it that you are always finding these remarkable treasures?”
“Domiella, I swear to God, they just find me. I paid about three hundred thousand rupiahs for it—that’s about twenty-five U.S. dollars.”
“Cazzo! I am going to vomit with jealousy! I’m sure any museum would love to have it. Be careful, Dodie will probably want to buy it off your body the minute she sees you tonight!”
The grand entrance of the Palazzo Brandolini was jammed oar to oar with guests arriving in gondolas, launches, and vaporettos, allowing Astrid to check her phone again. This time, there was an e-mail that read:
Madame,
I write to you with grave concerns about recent actions taken in regards to Cassian while you are away. I arrived home after my day off and found that Cassian was locked up in the upstairs hall closet, and Padma was sitting on a stool outside looking at her iPad. I asked her what was happening, and she said, “Sir told me not to let Cassian out.” I asked her how long Cassian had been inside the closet and she said four hours. Your husband was out at a business dinner. When I let Cassian out, the boy was very distressed.
Apparently Michael was punishing Cassian for his latest infraction—the boy was playing with his lightsaber this afternoon and accidentally made a small scratch on the door of the vintage Porsche 550 Spyder in the great hall. Two nights ago, Michael sent Cassian to bed without any supper because the boy used a Chinese swear term. Apparently it is the bad word of the week at Far Eastern Kindergarten, and every boy has been using it, even though they have no idea what they are saying. Ah Lian explained to me what it meant. I assure you a five-year-old cannot even begin to comprehend such an act between a father and a daughter.
In my view, such disciplinary measures toward Cassian are counterproductive. They do not address the underlying issues and will only cause him to develop new phobias and resentment toward his father. It is past 1:00 a.m. now and Cassian still cannot sleep. For the first time since he was three, he is afraid of the dark again.
Ludivine
Astrid read the e-mail with increasing frustration and sadness. She sent a quick text message to her husband, and then allowed herself to be helped out of the gondola after the contessa. They entered the front hall of the palazzo, which was dominated by an enormous metallic-gold concave sculpture suspended from the ceiling.
“Bellissima! I wonder, is it one of Anish’s new installations?” Domiella turned to gauge Astrid’s reaction, and found that she hadn’t even noticed the sculpture hovering above her. “Is everything okay?”
Astrid sighed. “Every time I go away, there seems to be a new problem with Cassian.”
“He misses his mama.”
“No, that’s not it. I mean, I’m sure he misses me, but I intentionally make these short trips so that Cassian might bond with his father. He’s too much of a mama’s boy, and I’m trying to change that—I see what that’s done to my brother. But every time I go away, there’s always a problem. Michael and he just seem to always be at loggerheads.”
“What is loggerheads?”
“They fight. Michael doesn’t have any tolerance for anything other than perfect behavior from his son. He treats him as if he were in the military. Tell me, when Luchino and Pier Paolo were Cassian’s age, if they broke something valuable, what would you do to them?”
“My God, my sons tore up everything in the house! Furniture, rugs, everything! They put an elbow through a Bronzino one day when they were fighting with each other. Thankfully, it was a portrait of a very ugly woman. Some inbred ancestor of my husband’s.”
“And what did you do? Did you punish them?”
“For what? They are boys.”
“Exactly!” Astrid sighed.
“Oh dear, here comes that odious art dealer who keeps trying to sell me a Gursky. I keep telling him that if I had to look at a huge photo of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport all day, I’d hang myself. Let’s go upstairs.”
Despite their best efforts, the dealer caught up to them in the Grand Ballroom on the second floor. “Contessa—how good to see you,” he said in an extremely affected accent, attempting to give her a double-cheek kiss. She only allowed one cheek. “How are your parents these days?”
“Still alive,” Domiella said wistfully.
The man paused for a split second, before letting out a guffaw. “Oh, har har!”
“This is my friend Astrid Leong Teo.”
“Howdoyoudo,” he said, pushing up his obnoxiously thick hornrimmed spectacles. He had memorized dossiers on every high-net-worth Asian collector who might attend the Biennale this year, but as he did not recognize Astrid, he continued to zero in on the contessa. “Contessa, I do hope you will give me a chance to walk you through the German Pavilion sometime.”
“Excuse me, I have to make a brief phone call,” Astrid said, as she moved toward the outdoor balcony.
Domiella looked at the art dealer and shook her head pitifully. “You just missed the chance of a lifetime. Do you know who my friend was? Her family are the Medicis of Asia, and she’s on a buying binge for a museum in Singapore.”
“I assumed she was just some model,” the dealer sputtered.
“Oh look—Larry’s talking to her. He’s obviously done his homework. Too late for you now,” Domiella tut-tutted.
? ? ?
After assuring the art dealer who cornered her on the terrace that she truly had no interest in seeing his big shiny Koons, Astrid placed a call to her husband.
Michael picked up his cell phone after four rings, sounding sleepy. “Hey. Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“You know it’s one thirty in the morning here, right?”
“I do. But I think you’re the only one in the house who’s able to sleep. Ludivine just texted me that Cassian is still up. He’s terrified of the dark now. Locking him in the closet…really?”
Michael let out a sigh of frustration. “You don’t understand. He’s been a little pest all week. Whenever I come home, he goes berserk.”
“He’s acting out to get your attention. He wants to play.”
“The great hall is not a playroom. My cars are not toys. He has to learn to control himself—at his age, I was not jumping around like an orangutan all day.”
“He is an active, high-spirited kid. Like his father was.”
“Hnnh!” Michael snorted. “If I had acted the way he does, I would have been whipped by my pa. Ten strokes on my ass with his rotan.”*
“Well, thank God you’re not your father then.”
“Cassian is a wild child, and this is the time for him to learn some discipline.”
“He is disciplined. Do you see how much calmer he is when I am there? I think you would get much farther if you would give him more of your attention. And I don’t mean sitting by the pool with your laptop while he plays. Take him to the zoo, take him to Gardens by the Bay. He just wants to be with his father.”