The Suitors

ORIGINAL MENU



Coquilles Saint-Jacques

with Onions on a Bed of Mâche

Veal Cutlets Pojarski

Salad and Cheeses

Chocolate Profiteroles





REVISED MENU



Blood Orange and Olive Oil Soup with Green Olives

Sheets of Pressed Fish Skin

Melon Caviar

Quinoa Glazed with Duck Foie Gras

Shrimp au Naturel

Iberian Ham Confit with Spider Crab Cantonese Style

Oyster Foam with Smoked Bacon

White Asparagus Eggs

Potato Gnocchi in Consommé

Cheese Popcorn

Parmesan Marshmallow

Fried Lime Thai Ice Cream





VEGETARIAN MENU



Sesame Tofu Tidbits

Avocado Terrine

Creamed Cauliflower Soup

Asparagus Tagliatelle

Chocolate Floating Island





My mother was in such good humor that she had finally decided to seat Charles on her right, and she had indulged my father by placing him between Vanessa and Georgina. As it happened, she needed her good humor, because our dinner had nothing to do with the menu she’d ordered. The chef, an adept of Spanish molecular gastronomy, had decided to dazzle us by serving a few samples of his signature dishes in porcelain spoons, delicacies that were solemnly announced and explained to us by the butler as if we’d been in a gastro restaurant. This made conversation impossible, so none of us managed a peep beyond the occasional vague “how interesting!”—until Georgina burst out with, “Oh, for a nice roast chicken with oven-browned potatoes!”

Her exclamation triggered an avalanche of passionate culinary desires.

“A piping-hot, crusty gratin dauphinois! Or how about a meltingly tender leg of lamb?… Me, I just love boeuf Bourguignon and frogs’ legs … Well, my favorite is a savory pot-au-feu … Oh, no, I prefer a blanquette de veau … And a good old chicken stew?… Don’t all shout, please; I vote for a spicy andouillette sausage!… For me, duck confit, and coq au vin … My personal weakness? Spring lamb casserole … What about poached eggs in red wine sauce? You’re forgetting oeufs en meurette!… Yes, but in that case, why not include a juicy boudin aux pommes? The apples are so perfect in the pork sausage …”

Jean-Claude tried to reconcile us all. “The paradox is that one cannot find such dishes anywhere nowadays, except in restaurants patronized by rich Americans, places like L’Ami Louis or Le Voltaire, which luckily have never changed their décor. ”

“Speaking of rich Americans,” added Alvin, “you know they are often patrons of the arts, philanthropists …”

“Yes, and so generous, I find that impressive,” said my father.

Odon could not help favoring us with some of his encyclopedic knowledge gleaned, in this case, he informed us, from a book by Bill Clinton: “Did you know that in the Jewish tradition, tzedakah, charity, is an obligation that should entail the donation of at least ten percent of one’s income? Islam as well requires zakat, which corresponds to two and a half percent of one’s income, and sadaqah, a voluntary donation from well-to-do Muslims, who are morally obliged to give generously. As for Christians, they are supposed to give ten percent of their income to the church and to love their neighbors as themselves.”

“Without forgetting the Buddhists,” added Alvin. “They believe that giving to others is an essential step on the path to illumination.”

“I find it surprising,” continued Odon, “that no one has thought to write a history of philanthropy in the United States since the Civil War. These donors are, in their way, very Greek, because in ancient Greece, the wealthy citizens would meet to divide up cultural expenses and thus relieve some pressure on their city-states.”

Then he went on to describe the Clark Library in Los Angeles, where William Andrews Clark had commissioned ceilings crowded with naked ephebes without anyone batting an eye. Thus inspired, my father evoked the Sapphic ceilings of the Fondation Singer-Polignac, and the dining room of the French Senate, where diners break bread under some truly imposing asses. He then voiced his amazement that no one ever shows much reaction to the insane eroticism of artworks, as if time or the artistic setting had desensitized any sensual effect.

Alvin returned to the charge, however, emphasizing the Buddhist tenet that the practice of charity is essential, “because whether we’re religious or not, we all live in an interdependent world. And our survival is linked to an understanding that our collective humanity is more important than our differences.”

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but I soon found out.

“I’m involved with a foundation that finances marine expeditions to study the deep ocean and evaluate the condition of the planet. The foundation also builds solar housing and educational programs to make schoolchildren aware of ecological problems …”

I then realized that Alvin had come to L’Agapanthe only for that, to put the bite on us. Which wasn’t surprising. Because everywhere in the world, foundations and organizations draw up lists of potential donors for museums, opera houses, botanic gardens, châteaux, schools, universities, hospitals, or to provide assistance to disadvantaged children, the dying, the victims of war, of AIDS, hunger, sexual crimes, genetic diseases … And they ask all their donors to spread the word, to proselytize creatively to recruit new benefactors. In that way, hunting the rich had become an activity that expands exponentially. And it was only to be expected that any encounter among wealthy individuals might turn into an ambush. In short, the charity business was a reality we had learned to deal with. Which did not mean that my parents, discreet and generous donors, were not occasionally taken by surprise, as when I would see them returning somewhat disappointed from a dinner they had looked forward to with pleasure only to report, “Actually, they just wanted to put the touch on us.”

And was I disappointed as well to see Alvin make such use of an invitation to visit some wealthy strangers? Mind you, I hadn’t invited him just for the hell of it. And the least one could say was that saving the planet was a lot more legitimate cause than my husband hunting. But beyond that, I was not happy at having inadvertently allowed my father to be hit up in his own house, and by one of my guests, for a cause in which he was not particularly interested. So I tried to get him out of this awkward position.

“I don’t believe in humanitarianism,” I announced loudly.

“What?” gasped my father. “That’s preposterous! Whatever do you mean by that?”

“Well, I don’t believe in altruism, in the idea of generosity …”

“How can you say such a thing! So we’re supposed to just throw up our hands?”

“Unless we consider the idea from the angle of egoism …”

“Meaning?”

“Look at it this way: looking after other people, supporting any aid organization at all, is a good way to help oneself, to give meaning to one’s life, or to lick one’s own wounds. It’s a form of egoism, but a more constructive one than shopping or drugs.”

“Then by your reckoning, Bill Gates is a titan of egoism! Because with a fortune estimated at fifty billion dollars, he has become the biggest benefactor in the world, endowing his foundation with almost thirty billion dollars of his own money. But I’m not sure that a fellow who has decided to give away in his lifetime ninety-five percent of his fortune to help the needy should be called an egoist.”

“You’re right,” I admitted.

Not only had I lost the argument, but my provocative remarks produced exactly the opposite effect from what I had intended! For my father then invited Alvin to discuss his cause in private.

“Let’s talk about this in the living room, shall we?” said my father, as we all left the table.

The evening dragged on, and I was feeling morose, because that ill-advised exchange with my father had upset me just as much as had my discovery of Alvin’s hidden agenda. I was watching Georgina recruit Marie for a game of cards when it occurred to me that I hadn’t really seen my sister all weekend. Had she made herself scarce to leave me a free hand with Alvin? Or had she been avoiding me so as not to confess how stupid she thought my plan was? Unless … our connection was fading. It was the first time that I had seriously doubted not only our relationship but the power of L’Agapanthe, too, which until then had so fostered our togetherness that I’d come to believe it was the very source of our bond.

“Come see me in my room before you go to bed,” I told Marie before heading upstairs myself.

I did not want to draw any conclusions about the failure of our husband hunting unless Marie was with me, because I felt that thinking about the future alone in my room would mean risking a future lived without her. Hardly had I climbed into bed, though, when I fell into a sleep so deep that I barely heard Marie gently peek into my room later that night.





I awoke at dawn and found my parents in conference in the loggia.

“We’ve found a buyer for the house,” my father told me straight out.

Was it the effect of his news, or my surprise at hearing it that way? I felt like a sailor on the high seas, hit out of nowhere by a rogue wave.

“Who is it?” I asked, trying to master my reeling emotions.

“A sort of club for the rich.”

“What?”

“A real estate company, organized as a private club, that buys properties it maintains and staffs for its clients, people of means who are no longer content, it seems, to have a house on the seashore, for example. They also want a castle in England, an apartment in New York, a pied-à-terre in Paris, a chalet in Gstaad, an island in the Seychelles, as well as yachts and private planes and—”

I didn’t let him finish. “But why are you selling the house if you’re not in any financial trouble?”

“Because it’s becoming impossible to keep it. It no longer makes sense! It’s terribly expensive to run, and the taxes are horrific. And then, you can see for yourself, everything has changed. We don’t even know who our neighbors are anymore. Their dogs attack us! It’s getting harder to find decent personnel—just look at the new chef. Try to understand: it has become so complicated to manage a monster of a house like this that from now on, the proud owner is likely to be a company!”

He was right. The way we lived there, L’Agapanthe was a memory of times gone by, a dream we were trying to keep alive against all reason, protecting it from time like a dike holding back the ocean, but our house was doomed to disappear.

“But what will you do during the summer holidays?”

“We’ll go on cruises, and I’m looking forward to them.”

The guests were slowly drifting into the loggia. On the horizon, the sea was flecked with whitecaps.

“Oh, no! It’s awful! Did you see what happened?” exclaimed Frédéric, who then read us an article in the Nice-Matin: “ ‘While emergency personnel were preparing to approach the baby fin whale that had wound up just off a beach in Fréjus, the misguided attempts of a crowd of sunbathers prevented the dying animal from being rescued …’ ”

“People are so desperately dumb,” Georgina said, sighing.

“ ‘… Toward the end of a trying day, the marine mammal ended up in the cove of La Galiote, at Saint-Aygulf, where it had been trailed by two inflatable dinghies carrying firemen, Mike Ridell (coordinator of the rescue effort), and Véronique Vienet, the veterinarian of the Alpes-Maritime Fire Brigade. The site had seemed ideal, allowing the rescuers to keep the stricken animal afloat in the shallow water while the veterinarian examined, fed, and cared for the whale until the floating sling arrived. Human stupidity, however, then intervened. A woman suddenly shouted, “We have to push it back out,” and dozens of people approached the young fin whale to move it out to deeper water. The creature fled in a panic toward a breakwater, colliding with it, and mass hysteria ensued. Someone shouted, “I have a bit of its skin,” and others threw a policeman into the water when he tried to keep them from going out on the breakwater. “We’re still in shock,” said a disgusted and discouraged Mike Ridell.’ ”

“Really, that’s unbelievable! I’ve never liked crowds, they scare me,” observed Jean-Claude.

Frédéric continued reading.

“ ‘ “They were out of control. You cannot manage a crowd of over two thousand people, there might have been serious injuries,” added Véronique Vienet, stunned not only by the attitude of the vacationers, who thought they were helping yet made things worse, but also by a glancing blow to her head from the tail of the baby whale, whose chances for survival, now that it has been frightened back out to sea, are almost gone. “He’s weak, and has lost a terrific amount of weight,” the veterinarian observed soberly. “When I first saw him, he weighed between seven and eight tons, but now he’s down to only three or four.” The would-be rescuers, including three injured firemen who’d been manhandled by the crowd, were saddened by what had happened. “They were like hooligans at a soccer match. Everyone wanted to get in on it and bring back a trophy.” The vacationers, in their attempt to help, have probably signed the young whale’s death warrant.’ ”





The departure of Nicolas, Vanessa, and Alvin occupied us for the rest of the morning, since we had to exchange money for them because they had only dollars and wished to leave tips for the staff. This persuaded me that they were the only ones among our guests who had thought to do this and were thus the only ones to show kindness and good manners. Then we had to track down Anagan, who’d gone for a swim in the bay, and one of Vanessa’s dresses, which had accidentally been placed in Astrid’s closet, and watch our three travelers say good-bye to the entire household.

After which, Marie and I finally rendezvoused in my room, where we decided to cheat a little on our departing flight schedule so that we two could have lunch together at the Hôtel du Cap before taking the plane. So we told our parents we had to leave the house slightly earlier than planned, and after saying good-bye to them, Marie and I took a tour of the house. Everything was back to normal in the kitchen, where our own chef had returned and the menu was once more to our taste. Like the rest of L’Agapanthe, which seemed so unchanging. I thought about the end of a love affair, about how we make love with someone without realizing that it’s for the last time, because nothing tells us solemnly that this moment will never come again, a moment we often try in vain to recall later on, when the affair is over.

Frédéric came to find me before I left.

“You know, your idea about chasing after suitors?” I said to him. “Idiotic!”

“I don’t happen to agree,” he replied. “Have you ever heard the story of the goat? A fellow goes to see his rabbi to complain. ‘I live in a one-room apartment with my wife and our two children, we’ve no room to turn around, it’s awful!’ So the rabbi says to him, ‘Get a goat, and come back to see me in a month.’ The guy returns a month later and says, ‘Well, I’m living in sheer hell! Why the devil did you tell me to get a goat?’ And the rabbi replies, ‘Nu, because once you’ve gotten rid of the goat, you’ll be able to enjoy what you have.’ ”

I stared blankly at Frédéric.

“You mean to tell me that’s why you suggested the plan to me? So that it would turn into a fiasco and give me time to get used to the idea that the house was going to be sold? I can’t believe it.”





The road to Eden-Roc



July 20, 1987


I am ten years old. A tedious road, unappealing, paved like a city street. I have to watch my step, be careful not to fall and twist my ankle or skin my knees or elbows, because I’m clumsy and the road is full of bumps and potholes.

In any case, I don’t know how to lift up my head and dream away, just dream myself away from this punishing walk. All I can do is gather up my courage, set out, and get it over with.

But the heady scent wafting from the fig tree arching over the asphalt on my right soon carries me into another world of sweet languor, shady and cool. The moment is too brief and the fragrance too fleeting for me to realize that this is where I would like to stop and linger. Baffled by this new feeling, I have a hard time grasping the idea that simply breathing this soft and syrupy perfume would make me happy. It never occurs to me to dawdle, to stop and savor it. No one has suggested this to me or given me leave to do it. I only know what I’m supposed to do, and I have a long way to go.

So I walk on.

There is no shade anywhere except a narrow band, like a lane of shadow, cast by the low wall behind which lie our neighbors’ modest, even humble homes.

A man is watching me with curiosity. A little nervous, I politely say hello because I don’t want to seem like a stuck-up little girl. The neighbor doesn’t smile or reply. But it doesn’t matter.

I have to get going. Especially since I’m afraid of the dog barking behind the gate. I don’t dare look over there, for fear of offending the man. I wouldn’t want him to think I’m comparing his house with mine, or to feel judged, spied on, stared at, even though that’s what he’s doing with me.

I quicken my pace under the sun beating down on my skin lacquered with sweat. Trying to escape the bite of the sun, which stings like sea salt, I hug the little wall so close I’m almost scraping my side. When the pathway leads to a real road, the only available strip I can walk along becomes as thin as a ribbon. I put my feet one in front of the other like a tightrope walker, afraid of being swept away by the cars zooming past, but I can enjoy the refreshing sense of speed left in their wake. The cars are convertibles, as brightly colored as sourball candies.

Their hair streaming in the wind, the smiling passengers look happy, ready to take mysterious pleasure in what I do out of obligation: I must swim and play tennis every day to become an accomplished young woman. And I arrive at last.

The entrance gate, the front steps, the familiar doorman, and finally the gentle and often breezy slope leading down to the sea and the swimming pool. The winding path to the oppressively hot and dusty clay tennis courts is shady and more protected. The boring lessons drag along. I do as I’m asked. And I watch the other visitors to this palatial hotel, who seem so free, so cheerful. Why? I just don’t understand their happiness. I understand only schedules and obligations.

The hour limps by. Soon I’ll be done.





Sunday, 1:00 p.m.



The Hôtel du Cap seemed completely transformed to us, through the combined efforts of passing time and new management. They take credit cards now but no longer issue free beach passes to a privileged few. Thus Marie and I felt our welcome blow now cold, now hot, between a new protocol, made of rules and prohibitions suited to an impersonal and almost banal establishment, and the familiar charm of a priceless and singular place; between the pool attendant who inquired haughtily if we were guests at the hotel, and Michel, the Eden-Roc doorman who asked for news of the family while kissing us on the cheek.

“What’s the event?” I asked him.

“The grand terrace has been reserved for a conference.”

“Ah, I see! But we can still go there, can’t we?”

“Yes, of course, go right ahead.”

Marie and I toured the gastronomic restaurant, which no longer used the same china as before, and the main dining room, prettily repainted in white. Then we went down to the bar, where the lighting, mixing with that of the swimming pool, kept shifting from blue to green, and from rose to violet.

“It’s really something, that design gadget! It gives the restaurant a fake nightclub atmosphere, don’t you think?” asked Marie.

“Oh, my, that’s quite a problem.”

“But … what is the matter with you?”

And then I told her that there was a buyer for L’Agapanthe, and gave her the gory details of my doings with Alvin, and revealed my sadness at having spoken so little to her that weekend.

“In any case, those suitors? That idea was a farce,” she said dismissively. “God only knows what got into us.”

I remembered what Frédéric had said to me. But when I spoke to her, it was about what might have been the real heart of the matter.

“I think I wanted nothing to change, I wanted to be able to keep the house, to stay together the way we were when we were little, but that’s impossible. Anyway, to stay together, we have to evolve, to become more friends than sisters, and each have a life of our own. Because when we attempt to re-create our childhood, we remain—for life—the children of our parents. Haven’t you ever wondered why we aren’t married?”

“Well, because we haven’t met our husbands yet!”

“No! It’s because we weren’t ready! We could have vetted every single guy on earth and it wouldn’t have worked. First off, because you don’t recruit a lover the way you do an office employee, and all that fancy planning never works, you simply have to fall in love. And second, it was an absurd idea to tie our love life to L’Agapanthe, which is a family home, and therefore our parents’ house.”

“True, and nothing worked in that mix, anyway. None of the suitors liked the house and we didn’t like them in the house.”

“Ah, except for Béno!”

“Oh, thanks a lot!”

“Seriously, how are you with that?”

“Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ve gotten over it, really.”

“And that dog in Rio, are you still upset about that?”

“No, I’m over that, too.”

“So it’s just too bad about L’Agapanthe?”

Marie was about to agree when she looked off suddenly to my left, and I heard a voice I seemed to know, speaking English.

“Laure! You remember me?”

I turned, and there he was, nodding briefly in greeting to Marie.

“Rajiv! What are you doing here?”

“I’m running a conference!”

“Oh?” I said stupidly, unable to say anything more because I was so stunned to see in daylight this man who had such an effect on me.

“It is a discussion on economics as a moral science.”

“And that is …?”

“The idea that economics, unlike physics or chemistry, is not a hard science devoid of ideological bias, but is a discipline that requires ethical scrutiny and a deep understanding of the role political action plays within it.”

“That’s wonderful!” I exclaimed with a joy made real not only by my sincere interest but also by my longing to say something that would please those green eyes set like jewels in lashes as black and silken as velvet.

“You think so?” He was clearly surprised by my enthusiasm.

Embarrassed at having overdone it, I felt myself blush. Just as I was about to stammer something to fill the silence, I saw how moved he was by my emotional reaction.

“Would you like to come in?” he said with a grin, which brought laugh lines out by his eyes and put dimples in his cheeks.

“I …” I hesitated, glancing at Marie in a welter of conflicting feelings. How could I walk out on her in the middle of our important discussion? But how could I pass up this invitation from Rajiv, whose relaxed ease and gentle presence had practically left me in a daze?

“Actually, I was just about to tell Laure that I had to be on my way, I have a plane to catch,” announced Marie with what only a sister would have recognized as a sly smile.

With a grateful glance at Marie, I turned back to Rajiv.

“Then yes, thank you, I’d like that very much.”

The breeze picked up, and standing next to Rajiv, I smelled the delicate but intoxicating aroma of fresh, warm bread he had about him. In that moment, I wondered if it would be there in his wake that I would find my place.





Thank-you letter



To Patrick Ettinguer

September 3, 1967


Dear Patrick,


While we were chatting on the phone the other day, a whole stream of images was flitting through my thoughts, reminding me how much memory has its own seasons. The languid beckoning of summer takes me back each year to L’Agapanthe through one cue or another—blooming plumbago or a lush green lawn—and even as I was speaking, I was following their lead: there was Uncle Jean with his smile and red hair; Aunt Flora emerging from an elevator as from a tabernacle and sweeping down the right-hand steps on her way to the beach.… Why do we always take the stairs on the right, never those on the left? There was the clicking of Montrelay’s clogs and the soft thudding of Pradenne Jacques’s espadrilles. Meyer’s ineffable dive into the sea, like an envelope plunged swiftly into a minister’s portfolio. The fidgety tinkling of ice cubes in Leo’s tomato juice. Edmond’s unforgettable striped sweater, which made me lose all my Ping-Pong matches because I could never keep track of the ball against those stripes. There was Roland, always bowing and scraping, and Guillaume, whose inexorable march out to announce our mealtimes always came to a sudden halt on precisely the same flagstone in the loggia. Ada’s voice on the stairs. And Jean de Bergh, who never failed, before joining any conversation, to cross his left leg over his right and then polish his glasses, so that I wondered no less unfailingly whether he intended to listen with his eyes and see with his ears. I remember Sacha de Courcy’s bedroom eyes, his voice, his hands on the guitar; the large intimidating dinners and the small enchanting ones; the tall Castros and the tiny Blériots. And against this human backdrop, there was the library where I discovered Flaubert, the pink loggia, the indolent water lilies in the basin of the small fountain, the lawn damp with dew, the sea urchins under the diving board, the shoals of mullet, and the water’s transparent depths, murmuring as in a dream. Those small terraces where no one ever lingered (there again, why?), inhabited by flowers that seemed careful not to breathe forth their perfume in full bloom, as if honoring a kind of compromise between delight and decorum, which our parents’ generation observed in their own homes and in all things. Our generation seems to live like a car eternally caught between the accelerator and the brakes, with a mobile perpetuum of noise, like a musical canon, looping from airplanes to lawn mowers. Which reminds me of Jean the gardener’s mower and rake, their sound track tolerated for its regular hours, like a mechanical angelus in the monastic order of lawns …


4 Old Father Fox, who was known to be mean,

Invited Dame Stork in to dinner.

There was nothing but soup that could scarcely be seen:

Soup never was served any thinner.

And the worst of it was, as I’m bound to relate,

Father Fox dished it up on a flat china plate.

Dame Stork, as you know, has a very long beak:

Not a crumb or drop could she gather

Had she pecked at the plate every day in the week.

But as for the Fox—sly old Father:

With his tongue lapping soup at a scandalous rate,

He licked up the last bit and polished the plate.

Pretty soon Mistress Stork spread a feast of her own;

Father Fox was invited to share it.

He came, and he saw, and he gave a great groan:

The stork had known how to prepare it.

She had meant to get even, and now was her turn:

Father Fox was invited to eat from an urn.

The urn’s mouth was small, and it had a long neck;

The food in it smelled most delightful.

Dame Stork, with her beak in, proceeded to peck;

But the Fox found that fasting is frightful.

Home he sneaked. On his way there he felt his ears burn

When he thought of the Stork and her tall, tricky urn.

—Jean de La Fontaine, “The Fox and the Stork”

* Jean-Denis Bredin is a prominent French attorney and a member of the Académie française.