by David Lender
Two of the Countess’ staff opened the limousine doors to the pleasant and unseasonably cool summer evening. Sandra saw Christina standing beneath the sparkling chandelier in the center of the entrance hall. She was addressing a child, undoubtedly Sasha, who appeared to be stifling tears. “Don’t deprive yourself of your pain, child. All part of the ecstasy of being alive,” the Countess was saying. The child raised her chin and forced back her tears nonetheless. The three women entered the doorway to a jangle of jewelry. The air smelled faintly of incense.
“Sandra, darling, it’s been so long,” the Countess whispered as they kissed each other on either cheek. “So truly, truly good to see you again.”
Sandra stood back from her and appraised her from arm’s length. She stood in her characteristic pose, her right arm across her stomach, her left holding a cigarette aloft. But there is a light in her eyes. Subtle. But she’s different.
“And you’ve previously met Sasha,” the Countess said, putting either hand on the splendid child’s shoulders. “Sasha, this is my old friend Sandra Chase. She visited us once in India.” It was unquestionably the same child Sandra had seen there, swirling with activity at the ashram. She had fiery black eyes and straight black hair. The corners of her mouth were turned up in a ten-year-old’s mischievous grin.
“Pleased to see you again, Sasha.”
Sasha pursed her lips. “And you.”
Sasha crossed from the dining room into the library, where twenty guests waited for the evening’s post-dessert entertainment: tonight she would act out another story, an encore performance for those who hadn’t already seen this tale.
She saw the Countess standing by in the audience, smiling with pleasure. Her champagne glass was never empty, the rustle of her silk chartreuse evening gown never silent, her throaty voice never resting as she moved through the room, greeting, complimenting and pampering her guests.
As Sasha moved to her position in front of the fireplace, she saw the Countess sit next to Prince Yassar. He was one of Sasha’s favorites, for he always spoke gently and calmly to her. Not like the others. They were always talking down to her like she was a child. But Yassar listened to her, observed what she said, and only offered advice when she wanted it.
Sasha took her position facing her audience. Her eyes met Prince Yassar’s now and she smiled. Christina nodded and Sasha began to act out her story, a single player cast in all roles.
“Parvati, wife of Lord Shiva, became lonely for companionship when she sat in her palace, which was separate from her Lord Shiva’s palace. And she wished for a son after the many years, many centuries that she and Lord Shiva had unsuccessfully attempted to bear a child.
“Parvati went to the bank of the stream near her palace and created the figure of a beautiful boy out of clay. She breathed on the figure, breathed the essence of her life into it and brought him to life. As he grew up, she ran and frolicked with the boy and found him to be an excellent and loving companion.” Sasha acted out the creation of the boy from clay, and then ran back and forth in front of her audience.
She continued her story, relating how Parvati asked the boy to guard her palace while she bathed, then how he refused Lord Shiva entry when he returned from hunting. Then she acted out the great struggle that ensued between the boy and Lord Shiva. She dramatized how Lord Shiva finally shouted “Enough!”, pulled out his sword and cut off the boy’s head.
At this point Sasha looked at her audience. All were giving her their full attention.
She continued her tale, showing and telling how Parvati emerged from her bath and saw the beheaded boy and the blood on Lord Shiva’s sword. She became Parvati: “Why may I not have my privacy while I am bathing? Why did you demand to come in? Why did you kill the boy?”
Then Lord Shiva: “I have the right! I am Lord Shiva, and when I want to visit you to speak to you I will come and go as I please!”
She acted out the great war between Parvati and Lord Shiva that followed, showed the shooting of many arrows, the stabbing with many swords.
Sasha then hung her head and stood with her knees bent and her arms slack at her sides like a defeated warrior, however brave, to show the adults how Lord Shiva accepted his eventual defeat by Parvati’s army.
As Parvati she said, “Now to acknowledge my right to my independence, my right to my solace, bring my son back to life.”
And as Lord Shiva, she said to his attendants, “Go and bring the head of the first creature you find sleeping with his head pointing north.”
Sasha became the attendants on the lookout for this being.
“The attendants went into the forest and found a baby elephant sleeping with his head pointing north, and they brought back his head, which Lord Shiva attached to the torso of the boy, bringing the boy back to life. Lord Shiva made their new son the leader of his Ganas, his semidivine attendants, which is how the boy with the elephant’s head came to be called Ganesha. Eventually it became clear that he was a god himself, the God of Good Luck, the Remover of Obstacles and Difficulties, the God of Wisdom, and the great patron of learning.”
Sasha ended with a grand wave of her arms and bowed.
Her audience applauded. A murmur of appreciative complements and exclamations of delight echoed from the walls in a dozen languages. Sasha twirled, reveling in the adulation and most particularly in the special delight of the Countess.
But as she gazed out upon her audience, she knew her black eyes—so full of animation and life, already so worldly—did not betray the secret ache in her child’s heart.
CHAPTER 10
JULY, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO. VEVEY, Switzerland. Yassar sat enveloped in an overstuffed leather chair in the Countess’ library, chatting with other guests and his cousin, Prince Naser, the Saudi Oil Minister, who sat next to him. They were spending a weekend at the Countess’ chateau following the OPEC Ministers’ meeting in Vienna, before returning home to Saudi Arabia. They had become familiar guests.
Through the open door of the library Yassar watched Countess Del Mira descend the last few stairs into the main entrance hall, pause languidly, as if to allow herself to be admired, and start across the polished marble of the entrance hall toward the library door. Her head was motionless as she walked, as if the trancelike focus of her glance riveted it in place. Yassar detected the sleepy softness at the corners of her eyes, the pinkness in her cheeks, and the general flaccidness of the muscles in her face.
Opium.
The Countess paused in the doorway and raised an unlit cigarette to her mouth. She wore a sleeveless floor-length black silk evening dress that flowed with her, yet her head never moved and her eyes never left Yassar’s. A guest tiptoed to her, some baronial or royal presence, lit her cigarette and tiptoed off.
“Hello, my princes,” she said in a whisper. “Make a few billions today?”
“Hello, Christina,” Yassar said.
Prince Naser smiled, “You’re looking radiant, my darling.”
The Countess glanced at each of them. “You charm me. I swoon.” She moved closer to Prince Naser and pressed her leg against his. “Prince Naser, you’re looking gorgeously full of manhood this evening. You will visit me later?”
“I think I’ll be taking a little more dessert and tea now,” Yassar said. He stood to leave. The Countess turned slowly and met his gaze, her face barely a foot from Yassar’s. He could see that her pupils were dilated and her eyes bloodshot.
“I’ll excuse you if you promise to entertain me presently,” she breathed.
Yassar rose. Sasha stood at the other end of the forty-foot room, her eyes gleaming a hello. She met him halfway in his progress toward the sideboard dessert service. Remarkable, he thought. So beautiful. Would that I were a young man again.
She hooked her arm through his and pulled him down to her, planting a loud kiss on his cheek. “Gotcha.” He felt her breast against his arm. “What’s a girl have to do to get your attention tonight, Yassar? You were playing hard to get all throu
gh dinner. I could barely catch your eye, what with that Miss Ballanchine next to you. The way she monopolized your conversation I wanted to scratch her eyes out. And you were so gracious to her when she became absolutely churlish by the time salad was served. Poor dear. Someone should teach her to handle her wine.”
Yassar laughed. “You’re a very observant young lady.” And very tempting.
“I see I have your attention now,” she smirked. They reached the dessert table. He poured himself a cup of tea and placed two petits fours on his dessert plate. “Very observant and very precocious.” She was only fourteen, he knew, but already possessed the poise and self-confidence of a woman. The adventurous independence and fiery temperament she had displayed as a child were still there, only now they smoldered beneath a more sophisticated exterior. She holds her head a little higher now. She trumpets her independence and defiance.
Sasha’s lithe frame now showed the roundness of a woman’s hips, a sensuous curve into a tiny waist, and fully-formed high breasts, enticing him from beneath her sleeveless silk dress. The curves of her shoulders still showed some traces of tomboyish muscularity, as though she hadn’t grown out of them yet, which somehow made the ache he felt to touch her breasts seem even more forbidden and profane. He was always surrounded by beautiful women, many of whom were available to him, and yet he rarely felt the urge as he did now to dare his heart to get him in trouble. In the last six months since he had seen Sasha, her skin had achieved a glow that indicated some hormonal festival had sprung to life within her. The gleam she now showed in the corner of her eye told Yassar she knew she could carry off the seductiveness her entire being implied. And only fourteen!
She grabbed his arm and ushered him toward the door. Yassar smiled and gave in to her, grabbing his cup of tea. “I get the feeling you can’t make up your mind what to do with me.”
“Oh, I’ve got my mind made up all right, I’m just not sure where to whisk you off to and whether or not I can get away with it.” Then she clutched both hands around his arm. “Actually, I need your advice,” she said, glancing at him with conspiratorial intimacy. “Christina has sold another painting. I believe we’re no longer living on the interest on the interest. Perhaps now we live only on the interest. If this continues, the upstairs bedroom walls will be empty in two years.”
“Not at these prices,” Yassar said. “The last one was a Renoir that fetched one point two million Swiss francs.”
She relaxed her grip. “It won’t hold out.” She let go of his arm, then glided forward to an elderly couple who stood in the corner, exchanging a few sentences with them in Italian and making an arch of her arm pointing to the dessert table.
Yassar observed the light dancing on the muscles on her arms, took in the curves in her well-toned legs, admired her face. The same black hair that’s always swirling. It will be a lucky man who awakens with it draped across his chest. Sasha returned, took his arm again and herded him onto the patio.
“Angry, sad, contemplative—in any mood, really—the beauty of this place always touches me.” She turned to face him, leaning on the limestone railing. Her eyes were soft. “I think I’d die if I couldn’t ever look at this again.”
She advanced abruptly toward him, stopping inches from his face. He saw her look change to one of anxiety. “You’re the only one I can talk to about these things,” she whispered. “You’ve seen how Christina is.”
“Yes.” Indeed. And how sad that she may become unable to maintain a young lady with your extraordinary quality in the style you deserve. And her situation may result in your worst fear—never to look upon this place again.
“If she keeps going like this, well, I just don’t know. She’s become less—discriminating.” Her eyes were doleful. “Do you think you could speak with Naser? You know how much time he spends with her. Do you think you could persuade him to help her out? Take her under his wing, so to speak?”
Very observant, very precocious, very worldly. “I’ll see.”
Prince Yassar lay awake that night in his bedroom in the west wing of the Countess’ chateau. He had always appreciated the Countess’ hospitality, even though he had never availed himself of the pleasures of all her entertainments. A religious man, living by the shari’a code, he had frequently desired the Countess, although out of respect for his four wives at home and his religion he had never given in to the temptation. The Countess’ decline had been gradual and difficult to detect. But Prince Yassar had been one of the first to notice her willingness to make herself available to the wealthier of those who visited with her. He knew that Prince Naser was undoubtedly with the Countess at this moment and that his gifts to her were unquestionably helping her maintain her lifestyle. That was troubling, but he would not acknowledge his unease to his friend, fellow minister, and cousin. And his knowledge must of course be kept a secret from the remainder of their family.
But what was more troubling to Prince Yassar that night was the desire he felt for the young lady less than a third his age, whose body had pressed against him in the dining room and then again on the patio that evening. Remarkable.
CHAPTER 11
AUGUST, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO. VEVEY, Switzerland. Yassar’s black Mercedes limousine drove up the winding drive to the Countess Del Mira’s chateau. He wondered if it was the last time it would do so—regardless of the outcome of his visit. He’d come with a proposal. And although he was accustomed to routinely negotiating life-and-death issues as a member of the Council of Ministers, it was not the Countess’ response that caused the butterflies to churn in his stomach; the spirited Sasha herself was the one whose reaction he feared. He emerged from the car and passed through the curved limestone facade, through the massive arched oak door and into the marble entrance foyer, grateful the splendid young Sasha was nowhere to be seen.
“Dashing as ever,” the Countess said from her pose halfway down the stairs, cigarette poised aloft, smoke wafting from the corners of her mouth.
“Ah, Christina, you flatter me.” Yassar bowed, then held his hand out to her as she descended, deliciously, excruciatingly, every step a photographic moment. She alighted and allowed him to kiss her on each cheek.
“Splendid. Do come in for breakfast, Yassar.” He walked her on his arm into the main breakfast room where the table had been set. She pointed to a chair for him, then disappeared into the pantry, emerging a moment later, a paradox of languor and energy, occupying the enormous space only she could command in a room. “Oh do sit down,” she reprimanded, as Yassar prepared to stand from his seat at the table when she reentered. She assumed her position at the head of the table, waved off the butler who attempted to push in her chair, and took up her napkin before the steward could place it in her lap.
Yassar watched the Countess settle into her chair, survey him and then look expectantly at him in a long pause calculated for maximum dramatic effect. She took a pull on her cigarette and exhaled slowly to allow her pearls to catch up with her. They did. “Well?” she said. “You seemed like it was rather urgent, something about a proposition.”
Yassar grinned. “Never one for subtlety, Christina. It’s one of your most prominent charms.” He allowed the steward to pour his tea, then waited for him to follow the butler into the pantry. Well, only one way to find out. “It’s about Sasha.”
The Countess inclined her head, waved at him to go on.
“She’s become quite a young lady, and you’ve seen to it yourself she’s developed sophistication well beyond her years.”
“True.”
“My son Ibrahim has come of age and I believe that a young lady with Sasha’s cultivated style and intelligence would make a suitable companion for him.”
The Countess laughed in a low, oozing rumble. “You mean you’ve noticed the libidinal firestorm she creates in men whenever she walks into a room.”
“That’s another way of putting it.” He allowed himself to smile, then pressed his eyebrows together and thrust out his lower lip. “So shall
we say she would be an entertaining presence for Ibrahim. If you have no objection, she could leave with me for Saudi Arabia immediately. I would make certain the arrangement was to both your and Sasha’s satisfaction.”
“Go on.” The Countess exhaled, arching her chin backward and spewing a geyser of smoke up at the ceiling. “How interesting are you going to make this for me?”
Just out of sheer curiosity I’m tempted to negotiate to test whether or not you’re totally broke. He abandoned the thought. “One million dollars, via wire transfer.”
The Countess froze for perhaps three seconds, then crushed her cigarette out. A smile crept across her face as she picked up the teapot and poured, first for him then herself. “She went out for a morning ride on her horse. She’ll be back soon. I expect you’ll have better luck convincing her than I. I suggest you take her shopping first.” She picked up the sugar bowl and smiled at him. “I believe you take sugar?”
Later that day, the Countess Del Mira stood at the bedroom window looking out over the expanse of pines and deciduous trees that forested the hill on the front of her grounds. The late-afternoon sun streamed in the window, its rays capturing the lazy smoke from the opium pipe she had just extinguished. She rubbed her face, trying to push away the cobwebs of sleep from her nap, and welcoming the cobwebs from the drug she had just inhaled. It was already caressing away the anguish and self-reproach with which she had awakened.
The Countess crossed the room toward the bathroom door, pausing in front of the mirror. The dark circles under her eyes had become a constant malady and would require at least a half an hour of makeup to mask. She pulled at a wisp of her hair and pushed it back off her forehead, then went into the bathroom to shower, pausing in front of the mirror over the sink. If she cared more, would it be any different? She looked intensely into her eyes reflected back at her. Cared more? She cared enough. But the fear she saw in her eyes was too much. She stared into it, now, fascinated. The fear. Suddenly older, less beautiful? Contemplating being alone? No. Clichés. It was that she’d become bored with it all, something she couldn’t bear. Like George Sanders’ suicide note: “I am leaving because I am bored.” At least she could keep the child from seeing that in her eyes. The boredom or her fear, no, her terror of it. Let the child grow up without ever knowing it. Perhaps if the child knew how she was trying to spare her that she’d forgive her one day. She’d done all she could for Sasha, given her the understanding of what zest meant. She was on her own now. Still…The Countess felt a sob try to rumble up from her soul, then fade, die feebly. She stepped into the shower.