The Chameleon

by Sugar Rautbord

  “Cyrus says you're to call Mr. Harrison at this number right away.”

  “Harry?” parroted Wren. “Is there a chance you two children might patch things up?”

  “Merde!” Slim was furious. “Not Harry—Cyrus says he's going to marry Minnie Mortimer and Ophelia's going to give them Claire's children as a wedding present.”

  Claire started to swoon.

  “Steady, now. Here's the number you're supposed to call for the elder Mr. Harrison.”

  The concerned ladies moved into the kitchen but not completely out of earshot. They strained to pick up bits and pieces of Claire's conversation with her father-in-law.

  Claire, shaking with rage, nonetheless spoke into the phone with the voice of a gentle sparrow.

  “How could you? Why would you? Why not just take a knife and cut out my heart?”

  And then there was a very long silence. Auntie Wren peeked through the crack of the swinging doors, hushing the others behind her. Claire's mouth was a perfectly straight line—not a natural shape for a mouth.

  “I don't understand…

  “It sounds cold-hearted.

  “Arrangements like that can't be ordered. Isn't something like that an affair of the heart?

  “Why would he possibly want to help? What's in it for him?”

  Everyone in the kitchen held her breath as the next minutes passed without Claire uttering a single word.

  “Oh, I see.

  “Yes, of course. It would put an ocean between us. And the lawyers couldn't touch us there?

  “I see. Of course. Speed. I understand.”

  And then the Aunties heard a quivering contralto in Claire's voice they had never heard before.

  “And will you make it over?”

  And then an icy response. “Of course. I'll be sufficiently grateful. I won't give him cause to be sorry.

  “I've never quite understood your negotiating skills before. You really are the master. Don't worry.” Her voice dropped away like fallen rose petals. “I'm in. The deal is sealed in rubber and cement.”

  She stood there, cradling the phone in her hands, listening to the dead signal. Finally she put the receiver to rest and turned stony-faced to the expectant Aunties.

  “I need to get passports for the children. I'm taking them on holiday to Italy.”

  Never had there been so much hysteria over scrambled eggs and bacon at staid Charlotte Hall. The family that handled every crisis with icy calm was now wiping spilled milk and orange juice off the morning pages of the New York Herald and the Times. There, not on the society pages but in the international news section of both papers, was the announcement, accompanied by separate pictures of the principals, of the surprise nuptials of society matron Mrs. William Henry Harrison V to Fulco Duccio, Italy's playboy businessman whose fortune was estimated in the hundreds of millions.

  Both Cholly Knickerbocker and Walter Winchell reminded their readers that the dashing Duccio was a regular figure in Europe's fast night life. The Post reported that he had recently caused a ruckus at Maxim's in Paris, breaking glasses and chairs when the French ballerina he was dating danced with another man. Mr. Duccio had reimbursed the French restaurant for its expenses and was still a regular at its best table. Mrs. Harrison, attended only by Anna Roosevelt and the bride's children from her first marriage, wore a blue Balenciaga and carried violets. She is best known here for her generous charity work and in particular for founding Eleanor House, a children's refugee center.

  Harry read aloud to the rest of the family, a long-faced Minnie at his elbow, while Ophelia noisily rearranged her Lowestoft china with the back of her hand, and Harrison reached into his pocket to light an early morning cigar.

  Across the sea, Claire Harrison Duccio was learning Italian and busily reinventing herself.

  Chapter Twelve

  Social Climbing

  Out of all the social climbers in Europe, Pamela Harriman was the most athletic.

  —The London Times

  Near the alpine peak of their summer climb in Gstaad, Claire heaved a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, Claire. Claiirre,” Pamela Churchill yodeled to Fulco Duccio's glamorous wife. They were all a little breathless. But climbing the switchbacks at a leisurely pace had been more social exercise than sport, as they still had enough oxygen at eight thousand feet to carry on a conversation.

  Everyone in the climbing party was in prime physical shape: No one got to the heights this merry band had attained without stamina and a good set of lungs. Not to mention a fierce competitive drive.

  “Are we going to picnic here, or go on to the summit?” The pink-cheeked divorcée and European party girl wanted to eat.

  “I say let's go to the top and plant our flag.” Léonide Massine, famed choreographer and dancer of the Ballets Russes, assumed the classical second position, planting his feet near the narrow foot trail at a level where snow patches circled clusters of alpine roses and tall spruces.

  “Which flag, darling? I don't think there's three people in our group from the same country.”

  “How colorful. Let us plant a new flag. Ve could use my coat of arms.” Gunilla Von Hapsburg wore lederhosen, a smart cap over her blond braids, and very red lips over her wide smile.

  “I want to hear Pam yodel again. My money says that the chamois antelope ignore her and some Italian playboy comes out from under his rock,” Léonide said.

  “Look. A skylark.” Claire pulled the field glasses to her eyes and pointed out the bird to the others.

  “Claire. Ma Clare di luna is finding birds, inedible birds for us to admire.” Duccio's shadow fell over his wife. The financial titan didn't find any animal in nature attractive unless he could devour it or deal it.

  He leaned his short, sturdy frame against a walking stick that was very expensive but completely unnecessary. As a boy in Calabria he had been nicknamed II Capro, the goat, for his agility. Duro was how even his own mother, a fishmonger, had described him. Tough twice over. Every day he had scrambled over the mirthless rocks of his boyhood home and leaned fearlessly over their sheer drops, better able to scout which big freighters on the ink-blue sea would soon be pulling into port. Then he'd scurry down the cliffs, beating out the merchants in both speed and price, in his highly successful campaigns to sell sea-weary sailors meat, goat cheese, fresh pasta, and eggs. By the age of eleven, Irpino Duccio, still unschooled and illiterate, had saved enough to make his way to Naples. There he became an apprentice to a gambling card sharp, and then to a thief who worked the rich villas on Capri. Later he sailed off on a German freighter as the captain's second cabin boy, where he studied languages and kept the supply books—as well as some supplies for himself, to sell later. By the time he arrived in Rome at the age of fifteen, his pockets jiggling with lira, he had assumed the name Fulco (after a noted Roman jeweler he had once robbed), abandoning the unsavory-sounding “Irpino” forever. He became an owner of a few rundown fishing boats, then a salvaged freighter, and then another purchased with borrowed Mafia money. Because he was small, he learned to use his hands as weapons, perfecting a single devastating chop to the clavicle that could knock out a larger man. His temper was so hot and his arms so strong that lesser men simply capitulated to avoid confronting him.

  But it was during the first years of the war that he had become rich. He bought Swiss citizenship for the duration of the war, and while his right hand did legal business with the Americans, his left conducted black-market deals with the Germans. Everyone needed sugar and rubber, reasoned Duccio—who was he to judge? And when he had been able to restore some stolen treasures taken from St. Peter's by Nazi vandals, he earned Holy Communion and lifelong gratitude from the fine cardinal in charge of the papal treasury. As a result, his growing fleet flew the neutral Vatican flag and his boats could dock safely at every port. Duccio was very good at keeping important men in his debt.

  Duccio's fortunes were truly bolstered, however, when he acquired a Harrison. For the favor of marrying the Amer
ican beauty, William Henry Harrison IV rewarded him with a continuing column of shipping freight and construction contracts. Once he had those, the business of other rich Americans fell in his lap. While a good French public-relations firm had wiped away any Mafia taint, it was only the addition of a pale American society wife that allowed Duccio to rise to the highest levels of wealth and social acceptance.

  At the high meadow just shy of the summit, Claire Harrison Duccio unwrapped the snack that she carried for her husband in her knapsack: quartered apples, olives, soft cheese, and finally his folding saddle seat so that he could bend his short-legged form into a generalissimo position.

  Claire saw to his needs like the attentive wife she had taught herself to be. It was in these public gestures that she made up for their lack of private intimacy and the fact that husband and wife slept in separate bedrooms.

  “Come closer, my dear. Vicino a me. S'accomodi.” He patted the ankle-high patch of grass by his stool.

  “Of course, dear.”

  “Che meglio.”

  “Si caro. I was staying up front with our more athletic guests.”

  “Always the perfect American hostess. You help me in so many ways.” He took her pale hand in his. His hand was the same shade as the bald alpine rock but with a thick pate of black hair clumped across the back.

  “I try to be.” She lowered her eyes.

  “You are the most hostess without even trying.”

  When she laughed, she displayed perfect teeth. The sight made Duccio cover his own bad gums and brownish teeth with one of his paws. Early malnutrition and untended tooth decay had left his mouth a dental disaster zone.

  “Oh, come now, Duccio.” She gently pulled his hirsute hand away from his lips. “If it embarrasses you so much, let me take you to a good dentist in London.”

  “There are no good dentists there. Even the English aristocracy have rotten teeth. Only in America. Let my good aristocratic American wife take me there.”

  She frowned. Ophelia's lawyers were in America, ready to take her children away. Claire hadn't been back since that night she'd packed up their belongings almost a year ago and arrived on Duccio's doorstep like a mail-order bride.

  Tutti, the gun-toting manservant, had opened the door, an impatient Duccio at his elbow.

  “Welcome to Villa Duccio.” Duccio bowed.

  “Grazie.” If she was astonished to realize she was reintroducing herself to the man she would marry just as soon as she had showered and changed, she was bowled over by the lavish rococo villa that would be her weekend home. Her violet eyes crossed as they swept over a panoply of arches, niches, medallions, balustrades, and statues of dwarves and maidens unlike any she had seen in a museum. Her host took her wonder for admiration. He was obviously hoping she'd be impressed with both his taste and his undeniable wealth.

  “‘You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.’ I read that in your American Mark Twain.” He stood back with an awkward arm gesture, pulling an imaginary curtain aside so that the twenty-seven-year-old beauty would focus on the rooms instead of his less than statuesque fifty-year-old physique. His gesture had just the opposite effect, however. Pretending to study the enormous Vincenzo Dandini paintings behind him, each rococo fresco taller than its owner, Claire instead appraised her mysterious husband-to-be. He stood as erect as a cypress. His Mediterranean-blue eyes were set deep in his head, the hooded lids impenetrable. Nonetheless the cold, dark eyes radiated a strange intimacy, inviting like the waters they brought to mind. Blue, gray, green, the irises changed as the light fluctuated in the vast room. His feet seemed to grow out of the floor of varnished red bricks from Impruneta, and from above, an eighteenth-century Murano glass chandelier rained colored crystal upon his slicked-back hair. He was certainly dramatic looking, but hardly a man she'd even consider having an affair with, let alone choose for a husband. For a moment she wavered. Duccio caught her with a look. Even though he was shorter than she, he had positioned himself so that he could look down upon her. His tie was too long, his collar too wide, his gestures too effusive, but somehow he made her feel as if he would throw all his considerable power into keeping her and her children away from harm. A very frightened Claire realized that if anyone could beat Ophelia and her hired guns, it was Duccio, who had both the weapons and the ruthlessness to use them.

  He motioned her over to a red-and-white-striped silk sofa that seemed long enough for a dozen Claires but seated himself on a thronelike gilded chair backed with cut green velvet. He pushed a vase of roses in her direction so that she would understand that they were for her. Rough and refined artifacts comingled in this drawing room; the surroundings were not unlike their owner. She noticed how soft, almost feminine, his mouth was, contradicting his other features, which were as rocky as the Calabrian coast.

  He was solicitous to an extreme. Would she like a mineral water? With gas or sine gas? Or perhaps a fresh-squeezed orange juice? The glass of juice was already sitting on the sideboard, the same bright color as the rare Persian rug at his feet. What she had mistaken at first for a sneer was really his crooked smile.

  If she were here on a guided tour of Tuscany, this might be a perfectly pleasant idle afternoon. Duccio was obviously a charming host, although neither the decor nor the man were to Claire's taste. What was unreal was that she was sitting on a fourteen-foot sofa with a total stranger whom the man she loved had decided she should marry. All to keep her and her children out of the way of Ophelia's expensive lawyers and the malicious allegations. Claire was no longer foolish enough to think she could beat her foe. If Harrison couldn't stand up to Ophelia's machinations, how could she? Ophelia was too clever an enemy; the accusations they were hurling at Claire were too numerous to be counted. She was accused of everything from Communist activities to lesbianism, anything that would portray her as a woman unworthy to raise her own children. Which was precisely the point. Ophelia was prepared to do whatever it took to send the war-wife away so that her grandchildren could be raised in the house she had built for Harry and grow up according to the agenda she had planned. She would stop at nothing; Claire was an incidental enemy to be rolled over by Ophelia's lia's battalion of legal tanks. So if Claire had to sleep alongside a pirate with more power and fewer scruples than Ophelia, she would adjust. She had to. But for now, she was still so stunned by the frightening turn of events, her throat so constricted with terror, that she wasn't even able to swallow the cool drink Duccio had placed in her perspiring hand. He noticed her hesitation and awkwardly tried to put her at ease.

  “So you are wanting to start a new chapter in your life, my little pale one?”

  “Circumstances dictate that I must.”

  “You have such a nice soft voice.” He pulled his throne closer. As he drew nearer, she could see his eyes more clearly. They were mesmerizing. Behind commanding eyes like these loomed either a madman or a genius. When she looked only at his eyes, she could almost feel the pull of his attraction.

  “Unless you are very tired, I would like to walk you through my garden. It is one of the most beautiful in Tuscany. I have a question there to ask you.”

  Claire knew what the question was. She was almost touched that this gruff man was trying to make their business arrangement romantic. She stood, clutching her handbag in front of her with both hands. She had steeled to the parameters of the deal that Harrison had set, but found she was nervous nonetheless.

  ‘To the garden, then.”

  A path crossed a little bridge then led directly to Villa Duccio's voluptuous garden. They ambled down the wide allée bordered with high hedges of bay trees before they entered the main parterre, every bit as green and big as Chicago's Lincoln Park. Claire caught her breath. It was as if nature had developed a sense of humor. Everywhere she looked there were evergreen animals, griffins, doves, a Noah's Ark of manicured topiary protected by battlemented walls of box hedges. Some of the tension started to fall from her shoulders. Following Duccio, she stepped
carefully around two lily-filled basins that spurted water twenty feet into the air, splashing her along with the giant stone hooves of satyrs that permanently leered at marble female statues. Red, green, purple, yellow, and orange flowers surrounded the imaginative centerpiece of this garden, a floral coat of arms with Duccio scripted in geraniums. Surely this was the place where he would pop his question. She was mistaken.

  “There is a lovers’ grotto at the end of this path. For three centuries men nobler than I have asked for the hand of their lady there.”

  Claire blushed and a bead of sweat formed at that spot on the back of her neck. Surely Harrison had told him this was a business deal for which he would be well compensated. Financially.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Duccio.”

  “Fulco, per favore, please.” He touched her shoulder.

  “Fulco …”

  He put his hand up to stop her. “Right here in the grotto it is said you can see the ghost of a beautiful young woman who sold her soul to the devil to preserve her youth. She thought it would please her lover. A tragedy, don't you think?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “What foolish women won't do for love. It is the wise woman who realizes marriage is just another contract, one that benefits both parties. It's quite the better way, don't you think? Only practical expectations. Then nobody has to sell their soul to the devil.”

  Suddenly Claire felt that Duccio, obviously so much smarter than the barbarian she had assumed he was, might turn out to be a bearable companion.

  Between the backdrop of undulating rocaille arches and a figure of the goddess Diana surprised in her bath, Fulco Duccio promised to protect Claire and her children if she would preside over his table and entertain his associates. So beneath Villa Duccio's eighteenth-century clock tower and under the shade of ripe espaliered fruit trees, in full sight of an ivy-covered Cupid and a stone goddess of love, where so many young couples had pledged their eternal vows, Claire Harrison and Fulco Duccio agreed to share a public facade.

  “We will fly one another's flag, my dear.”