The Suitors

by Cecile David-Weill

  “I don’t believe it!”

  “It’s the truth! And then she started talking about something else as if it were no big deal. So if you’re worried about her possible inner suffering, I think you’re on the wrong track, because she takes that stuff as if it were cod liver oil.”

  “But what about Papa, who I thought was so clueless when he told me she was as solid as a rock?”

  “But he’s right! She’s a bulldozer!”

  “So you’re not going to do anything?”

  “No! I mean, what would you want to do? Just forget about it!”

  “But it’s not good for her; she’s having nosebleeds!”

  “And so what? When that starts bothering her, she’ll go to a doctor and she’ll stop. Just drop it, really!”

  “I can’t get my head around this … I’m speechless!”

  I must have looked so flabbergasted that she stopped swimming to laugh.

  “Ah! I’m so happy to be with you!” she crowed. “You know, I never feel good like this except with you.”

  “Me, too.”

  Luncheon, Sunday, July 23

  MENU

  Tomato and Mozzarella Salad

  Miniquiches, Minipizzas

  Eggplant Caviar

  Grilled Shrimp and Sardines

  Polenta

  Spinach Salad

  Figs à la Crème

  Famished, Marie and I headed for the buffet table, and when our mother cautioned us as usual in a low voice to “wait until the guests have been served,” Marie and I chimed in spontaneously to complete her sentence: “… I’m afraid there won’t be enough!”

  “Too bad,” I added, “because we’re dying of hunger!”

  Then we laughed like crazy. I was actually shaking and wondered if it was with relief to see my sister happy again or with joy at renewing our old complicity. I brushed away tears while our mother placed Marie in charge of one table and assigned me to my father’s, where he was so openly glad to see me arrive that it probably meant boredom was in sight. I soon understood why, sitting next to a Swiss banker who began to inform me all about Belgium and the fractious relationship between the Flemish and the Walloons.

  “I’ve often wondered why no one takes an interest in the Swiss as a model for democracy. We are nevertheless quite good at concocting a federation out of people who have nothing in common …”

  I pretended to be vaguely interested and turned to my father in the hope that something better was in the works.

  “Can anyone explain to me,” he asked, “this mania people now have for always walking around with a bottle of water? This is quite a recent development, you know. It’s as if, out in the fresh air, they had the limited autonomy of fish …”

  It was the kind of reflection that amused me. But my father’s originality seemed lost on our tablemates; pearls before swine, I thought, while the woman next to him attempted to reorient the conversation toward more familiar terrain.

  “Who is your favorite painter?”

  “What do you mean by that?” he replied. “It depends. Of which century and country do you wish to speak?”

  I almost smiled with pride. The woman, who wore a tank top barely covering huge veined breasts that spread out over her big belly like a pair of goatskin-covered gourds, was definitely not in my father’s league and seemed unable to discern the degree of knowledge implied in such a response. How, therefore, could she have understood that even beyond his culture and education, my father was above all civilized? Nor could she ever appreciate the refined modesty with which he refused to show off anything at all, save incidentally, as when he might say, “Yes, that’s pretty, isn’t it; that vase belonged to Marie Antoinette. It was one of a pair, but the other is at the Petit Trianon …”

  In short, there was no joy to be had from the gang of nitwits on our hands, and indeed I wondered who had saddled us with them. Opting to limit the damage, I decided to please my father: “Oh, Papa, I saw a documentary the other evening about bears …”

  “Ah! I adore bears! You know, they don’t lose any muscle mass or proteins during the winter, because their fat reserves recycle wastes into energy. Discovering the secrets of their hibernation could therefore have phenomenal applications, such as speeding up the healing of wounds for athletes, or prolonging the viability of organs for transplants, by putting them into a state of clinical hibernation. Just imagine!”

  “We’ll talk later?” asked Marie before she left for the airport.

  “Of course, but will you be all right?”

  “Yes, don’t worry. You know, what you said is true: I had a close call with Béno, he’s the sort to be avoided at all costs, even if it’s rather flattering to have slept with him. But I’ve thought things over and what really puzzles me is what we can possibly think we’re doing with our flop of a plan to find a husband. Anyway, in that department I feel I’ve done my bit. Share and share alike! So it’s your turn next weekend, don’t you agree?”

  Weekend of July 28

  THE FAMILY

  Marie Ettinguer Laure Ettinguer

  Flokie Ettinguer Edmond Ettinguer

  THE PILLARS

  Gay Wallingford Frédéric Hottin

  THE REMAINDER OF THE LITTLE BAND

  Odon Viel Laszlo Schwartz

  THE ODDBALLS

  Georgina de Marien Charles Ramsbotham

  THE END-OF-JULY REGULARS

  Jean-Claude Girault Astrid Girault

  THE NEWCOMERS

  Alvin Fishbein Vanessa Courtry

  Nicolas Courtry Barry Sullivan, aka Anagan

  SECRETARY’S NAME BOARD

  M. and Mme. Edmond Ettinguer Master Bedroom

  Mme. Laure Ettinguer Flora’s Room

  (Arrival from Paris Air France Friday 5:00 p.m.)

  Mlle. Marie Ettinguer Ada’s Room

  (Arrival from Paris Air France Friday 5:00 p.m.)

  Lady Gay Wallingford Peony Room

  M. Frédéric Hottin Chinese Room

  M. Odon Viel Turquoise Room

  M. Laszlo Schwartz Lilac Room

  Count and Countess Henri Démazure

  (Departure 5:00 p.m. for the flight to Florence)

  Viscountess de Marien Annex: Peach Room

  Earl of Stafford (Charles Ramsbotham) Annex: Lime Room

  M. and Mme. Jean-Claude Girault Annex: Coral Room

  (Arrival via rental car approx. 5:00 p.m.)

  M. Alvin Fishbein Yellow Room

  (Arrival 6:00 p.m. by their own means with M. and Mme. Courtry)

  M. and Mme. Courtry Sasha’s Room

  On Fridays the house hummed with a kind of industrious tension like the buzzing of a beehive. It was flower day. And if our head butler hadn’t been chafing in a rest home, he would have been as busy as a bee. Roberto, a florist by training, customarily returned from the market with a van full of flowers of different scents and sizes intended for the various rooms in the house. He usually selected dahlias, thistles, lavender, cosmos, or amaranths for the loggia; branches of mulberry, wild angelica, or hawthorn for the entrance hall; and a selection of sweet peas and heirloom roses mixed with lady’s mantle, snowball bush, or astrantia for the table centerpieces. As for the room bouquets, they tended to include hydrangeas, dahlias, poppies, or phalaenopsis orchids. After unloading the van, Roberto would swiftly closet himself in a room equipped with copper sinks, next to the pantry, where he spent a good part of the morning creating bouquets he then placed throughout the house.

  Fridays were also filled with the comings and goings of departing guests and new arrivals, so that day saw the Démazures leave for Italy as the Giraults arrived for a stay at L’Agapanthe, as they always did toward the end of July. Well-bred without being pedants or socialites, the Giraults were considered dream guests by their friends, who invited them for visits the length and breadth of France all summer long. Jean-Claude was known as a man of “exquisite” taste—a vague but pertinent term for his many qualities of refinement. To begin with, he was s
oigné, elegant in the English style but without ostentation, a personable man who always made a good impression. Judiciously modest and discreet with regard to his success in the field of furnishing fabrics, he was a good sport and a man of fair play in hunting, tennis, golf, and cards who appealed to men as well as to women, whom he charmed with seductive but lighthearted compliments. Astrid, on the other hand, was usually described as “a good sort,” for she was a touch provincial and completely maladroit, quite capable of saying to me, for example, “You see, Laure, you and me, we’re alike: frumpy in our youth, we get better as we get older.”

  But she liked to be of service, was very practical, knew the addresses of such places as a good lampshade shop, and had pull at the most sought after schools in Paris. None of us would ever have held her gaffes against her, since it warmed our hearts to forgive her so benevolently.

  Friday, 6:00 p.m.

  Hearing the enthusiastic level of decibels resounding from the loggia as we rang the front doorbell at L’Agapanthe, Marie and I knew right away that the Giraults had arrived. Every year, the opening of their present was a welcome ritual: “Is it what I hope, what I think it is?” my father would cry, gazing at a wicker tray wrapped in opaque cellophane, which he would feverishly tear open to make sure that he really would find candied fruit. Then, after asking a butler to bring him a dessert knife and fork, he would make their silver gilt gleam against the flesh of the fruit as he sliced it in delight, while comparing its colors to the ochers of the Nabis and the vermilions of still lifes painted by Chardin or Zurbarán.

  “Right, shall we go on in?” I asked Marie, in a voice tinged with stage fright, like an acrobat about to go before an audience.

  It was clear that this weekend would be decisive for our future and that it was my turn to play the lead part. I owed it to Marie, who hadn’t completely recovered from her heartrending disappointment of the previous week. And I’d have only myself to blame if I got nowhere, because I was the one who’d chosen our last guests—well, Nicolas Courtry, in any case, who’d been my first love. I still spoke to him regularly on the phone, even though I hadn’t seen him since three years earlier, when he’d moved to New York. And when I asked him for help, he had suggested Alvin Fishbein, a professional acquaintance.

  “But I’m not sure if he’s your type.”

  “Doesn’t matter!”

  “Even if I don’t know him well enough to guarantee that he likes women?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “His plane … is pink.”

  “Aha! That is interesting!”

  “Listen, you want a rich guy, single, and available for the last weekend of July, you can’t be picky, come on! Anyway, the pink plane might well be explained by the fact that he’s a toy manufacturer …”

  “You’re right, he’ll be just perfect,” I’d said that day.

  For I’d expected that the sale of L’Aganpanthe would no longer be a problem by the time I met Alvin, about whom I’d completely forgotten in the meantime.

  “Well, don’t get your knickers in a twist!” said Marie, slipping her arm through mine as she warbled “Frédéric’s song,” which we hummed together as we headed for the loggia.

  Foie de veau with the Giraults

  What could be more rigolo

  Than to sip sublime porto

  In the evening chez Girault?

  Jean-Claude and his fine bon mots

  Fresh from that day’s Figaro

  It was oh so comme il faut

  This evening spent with the Giraults …

  Flanked by Gay, Frédéric, Odon, Laszlo, and the Giraults, my parents formed a picture that I recognized as soon as I entered the room, because it hung permanently in the museum of my memory, with landscapes and scenes of domestic life at L’Agapanthe.

  It was a group portrait.

  And yet, like all the tableaux in that imaginary gallery, the portrait was composed by the superposition of my memories, in this case those of my parents and their guests, seated year after year in the same room, on the same sofas, around the same tea service. Until that moment, I had thought that L’Agapanthe was the frame and sometimes the subject of these images, but I suddenly understood that the house was closer to a material base (like a painting under glass) on which the images were made and without which they would not exist. Would they vanish with the sale of L’Agapanthe? I wondered, and I felt a cold wave of anguish, because I could not imagine myself without such moments, such touchstones, such landmarks, for they gave my life a permanence and continuity on which my equilibrium depended. I was thus particularly attached to the immutable character of the house and quite attentive to every detail susceptible to change.

  Trop bien élevé

  [Too well brought up], 2007, by Jean-Denis Bredin*

  … Bourgeoisie, wretched bourgeoisie, dear bourgeoisie! On my mother’s side, good taste reigned supreme. One loved fine furniture, rare books, great writers, music, pretty women: not from pleasure, but to satisfy the requirement for refinement. Virtue, intelligence, and social success were prized, of course, but these were secondary values when compared to good manners. Only distinguished people with “elegant” occupations mattered. Neither things nor animals escaped this rigorous selection. As a child, I didn’t dare bring home my little comrades for fear they would be judged inferior. Money revealed many things: this family claimed to use it with distinction and to good ends, while others, with stinginess or ostentation, put their money to mediocre use. And it was in order to behave “with distinction” under all circumstances that the adults in my mother’s family always smiled and, even at funerals, concealed the slightest sign of emotion. It was vulgar to cry, plebeian to complain, banal to laugh out loud. And so I have kept the memory of impassive faces, barely touched by chilly smiles, that all look alike. Few gestures. An almost uniform tone of voice. Neither imagination nor disorder ever disturbed that harmony. Everything was sacrificed to appearances. I knew this. And suffered, envisioning what might happen when they closed the doors of their bedrooms, removed their masks and, in the darkness, took off their clothes.

  … On my father’s side, it was only virtue that counted: work, loyalty, seriousness. Refinement was suspect, a sign of frivolousness, a pretext for expense and licentiousness. This bourgeoisie wanted to ignore the fact that it was wealthy, spent only what was strictly necessary, loathed luxury, stayed mostly at home, and knew no other distractions besides family and friends. “Respectable people” were those who worked a lot, led regular lives, fulfilled all their duties. Doubtless they were bored. But boredom was like the furniture or the servants: unnoticed. The reasons for living and dying were obvious and eternal. Amusements were undertaken only in moderation. Any suffering was borne with discretion. Even death provoked no revolt, as long as one died with dignity.

  … These two bourgeoisies ignored each other, and probably despised each other. The one claimed to be virtue incarnate, and the other, the embodiment of elegance. Each accused the other of being narrow-minded and annoying, or flighty and perverted. They never saw how similar they were, attentive only to appearances, so distrustful of life!

  “What are those dreadful things?” I exclaimed, pointing to two tall glass cylinders of cloudy water, placed at either side of the couch on the veranda, in which bundles of lilies stood leaning like brooms in a closet.

  My mother sighed. “Oh, spare me. It’s the new head butler. He finds this more elegant than our bouquets …”

  “Ha! Well, he’s done quite a job on us!” Marie said sarcastically, noticing that our coffee tables now held plates of gravel bearing square vases filled with cacti and sticks of dark wood.

  “You did say something to him, I hope?” I asked.

  “Yes, but … the time it takes to fill a new order … He won’t be able to change the vases until Monday.”

  “My poor Flokie,” Gay said cheerily, feeding a morsel of cake to Popsicle, “at least it’s a change from Roberto, who sprays all your bouquets
with Visine!”

  “With eyewash?” marveled Astrid Girault. “Whatever for?”

  “Really, dear: to make them look dewy fresh!” Gay laughed.

  “Gracious, I never would have thought of it!”

  “And on top of that,” added my mother, “speaking of domestic problems, just imagine: the chef is marrying off his daughter tomorrow and has found us a replacement for the day.”

  The Giraults then launched into the story of how they’d just bought a house in the hinterlands of Nice, but I was listening only distractedly to their tale, musing nervously about the imminent arrival of my guests as I watched squirrels clambering through the parasol pines, when my father startled me with a sudden question.

  “So, girls, who are your clients?”

  “Well, Nicolas Courtry is the only one I actually know,” I replied. “There will also be his wife Vanessa, and a friend of his, Alvin Fishbein, whom I’ve never met.”

  “And speak of the devil!” announced Frédéric, who had detected the crunch of gravel out in the courtyard.

  I soon heard a faint exchange between my guests and the butler who directed them to their rooms, so I thought I still had a little time before the new arrivals would join us in the loggia. And then a sublime creature materialized in the doorway! Hypnotized by her beauty, Laszlo missed his cup and poured tea into his saucer, while Frédéric cried gaily, “My gosh, Penelope Cruz! What a good idea to invite her!”

  And it was true that the young woman standing before us and looking faintly embarrassed closely resembled that Spanish actress. But she was even more beautiful.