And D Golden: he had brought Riya with him and the two of them were wrapped up in each other and kept themselves largely to themselves. And the servitors served—the entourage entouraged—Ms. Fuss fussed and her younger sidekick Ms. Blather blathered—and the Goldens’ stay went smoothly enough. I, their tame Tintin, was happy enough also. And on New Year’s Eve the island threw a well-heeled party for its well-heeled residents, the usual expensive fireworks, top-of-the-line lobsters and high-maintenance dancing, and Nero Golden announced his intention to take the floor.
The old man was quite the dancer, I discovered. “You should have seen him a few years back on his seventieth birthday,” Apu told me. “All the pretty girls lining up to take their turns, and he waltzing, tangoing, polkaing, jiving, dipping and twirling them all. Joined-up dancing, not the disco-jigging, strap-hanging and pogo-ing of our degraded time.” Now that I know the family secrets, I can in my mind’s eye set him down on the great terrace above the sea of the family home in Walkeshwar Colony, and envision the elite beauties of Bombay society happy in his arms. While his put-upon wallflower wife—“Poppaea Sabina,” I’ll continue to call her, going along with the family’s Julio-Claudian preferences—watched disapproving but silent from the sidelines. He was older now, past seventy-four, but he had lost neither his balance nor his skill. Once again there were young women waiting to be twirled and dipped. One of them was Vasilisa Arsenyeva, whose motto in life was taken from Jesus Christ, the gospel according to Saint Matthew, chapter four, verse nineteen. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” She had excellent timing. As the new year struck, in the midnight or witching hour, she cast her fateful hook. And once she started dancing with him, nobody else could do so. She was the end of the line.
This is Vasilisa. She is dancing with her Tsar. She has her arm around him and this is what her face is saying: I’m never letting go. Taller than he is, she bends down slightly so that her mouth is close to his ear. His ear leans into her mouth, to understand what it is telling him. This is Vasilisa. She puts her tongue in his ear. It speaks a wordless language all men can understand.
The Vanderbilt House is the heart of the island. Rewind: here is William Kissam Vanderbilt II on his two-hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht, making a swap deal with the developer Carl Fisher. The yacht in exchange for the island. Shake hands on that. Here is Bebe Rebozo, accused at the time of Watergate of being “Nixon’s bagman,” joining a group that bought the island from the guy who bought the island from the guy who bought the island from Vanderbilt. The island has a history. It has an observatory. It has, as previously stated, peacocks. It has discretion. It has golf. It has class.
And this cold holiday season at the Vanderbilt House, after the New Year’s Eve dance on the fine parquet outdoor dance floor laid down amid trees festooned with strings of lights, and burning braziers, and live music, and women in their jewels and security guards guarding the jewels and the men who bought the jewels admiring their property, the island also has a much-talked-about winter-and-spring, November-and-April love affair. My money for your beauty. Shake hands on that.
New Year’s is for dancing and when the music stops she commands Nero, go home and sleep, I want you rested for me when we really begin. And he obediently walks back to his bed like a good boy, with his sons looking on in astonishment. This is not really happening, their looks say. He’s not really falling for this. But such is his authority that not one of them speaks. The next night he empties the apartment he has rented for himself and his two assistants, banishing employees and family to the other three rented accommodations, where there are plenty of spare bedrooms. He is alone on the seventh floor looking down at the tops of the palm trees, the small half-moon of beach, and the bright water beyond. Dinner—shrimp cocktails, cold cuts, avocado and kale salads, a fruit basket, tiramisu for dessert—has been delivered by motor launch from a fine dining establishment on the south side of the Miami River and has been set out on the dining table. There is ice and caviar and vodka and wine. At precisely the appointed time, not a minute earlier or later, she comes to his door, gift wrapped in gold, with a bow at the back of her dress so that he can easily unwrap her.
They agree that they do not want to eat.
Here is Vasilisa the Fair giving herself to her Tsar.
The first night and the second night, the first two nights of the new year, she demonstrates her wares, lets him see the quality of what’s on offer, not only physically but emotionally. She…and here I rear back and halt myself, ashamed, prufrocked into a sudden pudeur, for, after all, how should I presume? Shall I say, I have known them all, I have seen her like a yellow fog rubbing her back against, rubbing her muzzle upon, shall I say, licking her tongue into the corners of his evening? Do I dare, and do I dare? And who am I, after all? I am not the prince. An attendant lord, deferential, glad to be of use. Almost, at times, the Fool…But, setting aside poetry, I’m too deeply in to stop now. I am imagining her already. Perhaps kneeling beside him on the bed. Yes, kneeling, I think. Asking, is this what you meant? Or this? Is this what you meant at all?