Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  When the buzzer went off on his new chrome and ash desk, he jumped. Calm down, he said to himself. He began to recite a litany of his own successes to himself as he passed down the quiet, thickly carpeted corridors to the executive elevator that went up to the eighteenth floor: a new apartment in the smart suburb of Beauséjour; a smaller apartment, in Montparnasse, with a most accommodating young mistress; two cars, one of the largest and latest registration Citroën Familiale; a generous expense account, which was not queried too closely—he hoped was not queried too closely. He had a degree in fine arts from the Sorbonne; he had further training from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Beaux Arts in Paris; he knew more about the history of the design of jewelry in general, and of the de Chavigny company in particular, than anyone else except the man he was going to see now. He sighed and mopped his brow. He was indispensable. He hoped.

  It was his first visit to Edouard de Chavigny’s offices in the penthouse suite on the eighteenth floor. When he stepped out of the high-speed elevator, his eyes widened. The break with tradition was complete. The outer reception area was vast, an ocean of pale beige and white, glass and chrome. Three huge natural leather couches surrounded a Corbusier table; two extremely beautiful receptionists sat at Corbusier desks. They both wore plain silk blouses, pearls, and Hermès scarves knotted loosely around their throats. Gérard Gravellier looked at them sideways. Both were highly desirable, the one on the left especially; both looked as if they wouldn’t get on their backs for anyone less than Edouard de Chavigny himself; both had the kind of accent that made his toes curl, and wish he’d opted for the more costly tailor. Bon genre. It was a type he detested.

  “You’ll have to wait just a little while, Monsieur Gravellier,” one had said. No apology; no explanation; no offer of coffee; nothing. He sat there sweating for forty-five minutes.

  Then the inner office, even more discreetly sumptuous, and two more smooth bitches, secretaries this time, both looking as if they had starch in their well-bred pants. Jesus! Then the inner sanctum; precisely one hour after he’d first been called; he was sure it was deliberate.

  He went in through the plain mahogany door, and stopped. The office was very large and startlingly austere. He had expected antiques, flowers, the portraits of past Barons de Chavigny, which had always hung in the old Baron’s offices. There were none. The walls were hung with abstracts; his jaw dropped slightly as he took them in: one Picasso, from his Cubist period; two superb Braques; an early Kandinsky; a Mondrian; one of Rothko’s red series; a vast and tormented Jackson Pollock. On the black bookcase behind the desk were three exquisite bronzes: a Brancusi, a Henry Moore, a Giacometti. He swallowed. It was a long walk to the chair in front of the desk.

  He made it hesitantly. Edouard de Chavigny looked up. Gravellier looked at him curiously. He was thirty now, he knew, but he looked slightly older. Tall, well over six feet, with wide shoulders, and the same magnetic good looks as his father. Tanned skin, strong features; that striking combination of very black hair and dark blue eyes. Gravellier felt as if the eyes looked straight into his head and out the other side. He glanced enviously at the suit: plain black, with a vest, four buttons at the cuff, whereas his had only three. He swore silently to himself. The difference between a two-hundred-guinea suit and a five-hundred-guinea one was only too obvious at close hand. A white shirt; a black knitted silk tie. The man looked as if he were in mourning.

  “Do sit down.”

  Gravellier sat. The huge black desk was flanked by a complicated system of telephones and intercoms; on the top of it was one platinum de Chavigny pen and one plain white folder. Nothing else—and this man knew what was happening in Rome, Tokyo, or Johannesburg about two months before the men on the spot found out about it. How did he do it? He eased his collar away from his neck. There was silence. He knew these silences, they were famous. They were designed to unnerve you, to make you start jabbering indiscreetly. He swallowed, and started jabbering.

  “I am filled with admiration for the new headquarters, Monsieur de Chavigny. I just wanted to say that. It will make a great difference to our—er—corporate image, I feel sure. To have the privilege of working in such modern, such advanced offices. Already I hear that—”

  “I did not call you here to discuss the offices.”

  Gravellier coughed. The voice was incisive, and cold, and he knew he ought to relax, to keep calm, above all to shut up, but somehow he couldn’t.

  “No, of course, Monsieur de Chavigny. If you are concerned about the transfer of the archive, I just wanted to assure you that it is right on schedule. I brought some papers with me in case you…I have the details here. Layout. The new staffing arrangements…”

  “Monsieur Gravellier. How long have you worked for de Chavigny?”

  “Twenty-one years, Monsieur de Chavigny.”

  “Twenty-one years, two months and three weeks.” He flicked open the white file in front of him. Gravellier tried desperately to read it upside down.

  “I have here the report of the head of our security division.”

  There was another of those silences. Gravellier went white.

  “I don’t think we need to itemize the details, do you? You began passing details of archive designs fourteen months ago. Comparatively trivial details to begin with, which was why you were allowed to continue. I wanted to see how far you would go.” Another silence.

  “Last month you were given access to highly confidential details regarding our plans for designs for 1956 and 1957. You recall them, I am sure. They were coded ‘white ice,’ and involved the extensive use of platinum, white gold, and diamonds. It makes no difference, in fact, whether you recall them or not, since they were invented for your benefit, and the benefit of the rival company to whom you passed those confidential details yesterday afternoon.” He gave a wintry smile. “Our actual details for 1956 and 1957 designs are, needless to say, quite different, and you will not be receiving them. You are fired.”

  Gravellier stood up, blood washing over his face, sickness rising in his stomach. You bastard, he thought incoherently. You cold-blooded bastard. Eighteen months. You gave me enough rope for eighteen months, and now…He gripped the back of the chair in front of him.

  Edouard de Chavigny looked up. His face betrayed no emotion.

  “Your company mortgage is canceled. Unless you can make private arrangements, the company will foreclose. Your company car was impounded this morning. The company has informed your two banks, where you have substantial overdrafts, I understand, that your employment with us has ceased, and we cannot be regarded as guarantors. Your pension plan with this company is void. Our solicitors filed action for breach of trust, fraud, and embezzlement this morning. Is there anything else?”

  “Monsieur de Chavigny. Please…” Gravellier clasped his sweating palms together. “I’m a married man. I have four children. They’re still in school. The eldest is only eleven, and…”

  There was another silence. For one moment, the most glorious moment in the world, Gravellier thought he had got through to him. At the mention of his children, the eyes of the man behind the desk flickered. Then he closed the white file in front of him with a snap.

  “There are two officers outside. One is from the Inspecteurs des Finances. The other is from the Préfecture Île de la Cité. You will find you are under arrest. Good morning.”

  Gravellier made it as far as the door. Then he looked back, anger and fear and loathing rising in him like bile. He looked at that perfect suit, that perfectly inexpressive face, those cold eyes.

  “Goddamn you.” His voice choked. “Twenty-two years. I hope you rot in hell.”

  When the door closed on him, Edouard de Chavigny sat very still. He looked into the turbulence, the red and the black at the heart of the Jackson Pollock painting. He smiled a small bitter smile and pushed the white folder aside. He was already in hell. It didn’t take the curse of a man like Gérard Gravellier to take him there.

  He ha
d always had a capacity for ruthlessness. Before, he had curbed it; now he gave it rein. Disloyalty, subterfuge, inefficiency: these he had once rectified; now he punished. What he wanted done, he wanted done exactly, and by yesterday. Those who could stand the pace flourished; those who could not went to the wall. Those who crossed him, and there were fewer and fewer of those, quickly had cause to regret it.

  A small jeweler in Switzerland who for years had made good profits by flagrantly copying de Chavigny designs, using inferior stones, low-carat metals, and cheap workmanship, and then passing them off as de Chavigny originals through an impenetrable network of shady dealers and retailers, found its bank was suddenly very glad to extend credit for new workshops and an expansion program. The jeweler was overjoyed; he began spending heavily. When he was at his most extended, his bank, a subsidiary of a larger group headed by Crédit Suisse, one of the de Chavigny company’s Swiss bankers, suddenly called in his loans. He was unable to repay, and asked for an extension. The extension was refused at the head office; the jeweler went bankrupt.

  The advertising company in London handling the de Chavigny accounts, and responsible for the image of de Chavigny jewelry and wine in Great Britain, was twelve hours late with its new presentation, not an uncommon occurrence. They lost the account the same day. Within six weeks their most aggressive rivals had a new de Chavigny campaign under way—and not on the drawing boards, on the pages of every major magazine in the country.

  “How did he do it? How did that sonuvabitch do it so quickly?” The art director stared at the glossy double-page spread in Harper’s Bazaar enviously; he knew, just knew, that it was going to sweep every goddamn award.

  “I don’t know,” said the marketing director. “But you better get your arse on the deck. We’ve just had another six major cancellations.”

  Six months later, the advertising agency was taken over by its successful rivals; two months after that they were both incorporated into de Chavigny (advertising), a new company with offices in London, Paris, Zurich, Milan, and New York, registered in the Balearic Islands, and with sole responsibility for the marketing of all de Chavigny products and investments, from steel through hotels and property, worldwide. The president of the company, its executive director, and the man holding the controlling interest in its shares was Edouard de Chavigny.

  Both his mother and brother found that this new ruthlessness in Edouard’s character did not spare members of his own family. In January 1956, Jean-Paul made one of his rare visits to Paris. His object was to persuade Edouard—not persuade, he kept reminding himself, tell! Who was the Baron de Chavigny after all?—to invest in further acreage of vineyards in Algeria, as well as timber and olive plantations there. Jean-Paul was in no doubt that he was on to a good deal.

  “That cretin Olivier de Courseulles is selling up. Lock, stock, and barrel. He’s nervous. Got the wind up. The first sign of unrest and he’s running for his life. Edouard: there’re twenty-five thousand hectares of olives. They produce some of the best oil in the region. Thirty thousand of timber. Just under a thousand of vines—but it’s some of the best land there is. And he’s letting it go for a song. Because he’s in a hurry. And we’re friends. I told him there’d be no problem.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that.” His brother tapped the surface of his black desk with his platinum pen.

  “Why not?” Jean-Paul stared at him blankly. “You mean there’s some difficulty? There can’t be. I looked at those last reports you sent me, the financial returns. Well, I know I’m no financial expert, but even I can see the money’s there.”

  “It’s not a question of that. Why do you think he is selling? At such a remarkably charitable price?”

  “Well, as I say, he’s nervous. Obviously, the political situation being what it is out there at the moment, things are a bit unstable.”

  “Highly unstable.”

  “But that won’t last, for God’s sake. The French government won’t stand for it, we won’t stand for it, damn it. Any more trouble, and they’ll send in troops. Clean it up in no time. I know the Arabs, you don’t. They couldn’t organize a strike, let alone a revolution. All that talk is just alarmist rubbish.”

  “If you were wrong, and they did somehow manage to organize a revolution…” Edouard’s voice was coldly sarcastic. “Have you any idea what would happen to French-owned land afterward?”

  “Well, it would be repossessed, I suppose.” Jean-Paul’s voice took on a belligerent note. “But that’s irrelevant. I’m telling you, it can’t happen, and it won’t happen. Algeria is a French colony, for God’s sake. Perhaps you’ve forgotten that.”

  “Have you observed recent events in Indochina?”

  “Of course I damn well have. It’s totally different.”

  “The answer is no.”

  Jean-Paul, his face flushed and perplexed, stared at his brother. He hardly knew him, he realized suddenly. This cool, dark-suited man was a stranger.

  “Look, little brother”—he leaned across the desk—“I didn’t expect this. I don’t understand it. You sit there, looking like God. You just say no—you don’t deign to give me any reasons.”

  “I can give you plenty of reasons. Most of them are contained in the report I had drawn up which is in front of you now.” Edouard looked at his watch. “It’s a high-risk investment, on which, if the political situation worsens, we stand to make a total loss. I am not always against high-risk investments. I am against this one.”

  Jean-Paul’s mouth set. “Perhaps you’re forgetting something. I am the Baron de Chavigny. Not you. In the final analysis, what I say goes. I can overrule you on this.”

  “Fine. You can have my resignation in the morning.” Edouard stood up; his eyes were dark with anger. Jean-Paul began to feel seriously alarmed.

  “Wait a minute, now. Don’t get on your high horse with me. God—your temper, Edouard. You know I don’t want that. You know I always let myself be advised by you, and of course I’ll bow to your judgment on this if I have to…” He hesitated, a cunning look suddenly coming into his eyes. “The thing is, just occasionally, you might listen to me. In this case I know what I’m talking about. And after all—you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. That’s what business is about, they tell me. You wanted me to talk to Mother about her investments, about making money over to de Chavigny. Well, I’m happy to do that; in fact, I’m seeing her this afternoon, and I’ll mention it. But I don’t see why I should when you’re being so mulish about this. Can’t you see, Edouard? I practically promised Olivier de Courseulles. I shall look like an absolute fool if I change my mind now.”

  Edouard sat down again with a tight smile.

  “By all means discuss that with Maman. Whether you do or not, I am not going to change my mind.”

  Jean-Paul flung out. The same afternoon he took tea with Louise de Chavigny in the pale gray and rose-pink salon of her house in the Faubourg St. Germain. He sipped China tea from eighteenth-century Limoges cups, and his plump bottom squirmed on the silk-upholstered bergère armchair—made for beauty, not comfort. Louise, as beautiful as ever, the lines of her face almost invisible since her most recent face-lift, wearing the latest sheath from Dior, its narrow shape flattering her slender figure, sat opposite him, calmly and charmingly talking about nothing at all. Jean-Paul eyed the Limoges plate of patisserie, provided for his benefit. Perhaps just one more éclair—they were minute enough in all conscience. He reached out a large pink hand and conveyed the marvelous confection of light pastry, chocolate, and cream to his mouth. Louise watched him fastidiously.

  “Jean-Paul, you have put on a lot of weight since I last saw you. You should go on a diet. Exercise more. Edouard rides every morning, you know, in the Bois de Boulogne.”

  Jean-Paul frowned. He decided to come to the point. Not very subtly, he raised the question of Louise’s investment portfolio. Louise’s eyebrows rose.

  “Oh, but darling, I thought you saw Edouard this morning? Then surely you know,
it’s all taken care of—though it’s very sweet of you to ask.” She paused to light a cigarette with her platinum de Chavigny lighter. “Really, it’s all so complicated, but it seems I was being rather badly advised. And by such a reputable firm too. Papa always trusted them implicitly. I trusted them too. So, of course, I’m all the more grateful to Edouard.” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “He really is very clever, you know. Far cleverer than I realized.” Jean-Paul glowered. This was not a song he had heard her sing before.

  “You see, there were all these land holdings.” Louise waved her cigarette vaguely. “They were advising me to sell, and it seemed they had a taker who was offering a very generous price. Some of it was ranch land; most of it was semi-desert, I believe. And I’d seen a most delightful villa…Have you heard of St. Tropez, Jean? The most charming place—so peaceful—just a tiny fishing village really. The house was perfect—well, it would have been perfect, it needed a complete overhaul, of course, redecorating from top to bottom, and then I’d thought of building some guest houses, and it seemed a little silly to have a villa with perfect anchorage unless I used it, so I’d thought of a yacht…” Her voice trailed away. “So, all in all, last year I was quite ready to liquidate some of my American assets, and I would have done so, had it not been for Edouard.”

  “He advised against it?”

  “Darling, it turned out there was oil there. A great deal, simply waiting to be pumped to the surface. So, of course, it was worth considerably more than I’d been offered, and there were the most unpleasant suggestions flying around. That my advisors had been bribed…Well, I transferred my portfolio, naturally, as soon as Edouard explained. They’ve gone out of business anyway now. The most dreadful scandal. It was on the front page of The New York Times—surely you must recall, Jean-Paul?”

  “I don’t read The New York Times in Algiers.”

  “Darling, you should.” Louise’s dark eyes warmed. “I never did, or not the financial pages anyway. But I do now. And The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times and—”