Destiny (30 page)

Edouard demurred, but Jean-Paul was adamant. It was there or nowhere. He spent all his leaves there now; he liked Algeria; besides, Edouard should see for himself the vineyards and plantations there. They were doing well, Jean-Paul said proudly. He had taken a personal interest in them; there, he said a little pettishly, Edouard would find room for no complaints.

Edouard had never been to North Africa; he was unprepared for the beauty of Algiers itself and the magnificence of the surrounding country, with its rugged sun-burned hills, its narrow winding roads which would suddenly open up on views of a vivid blue Mediterranean Sea. From the start it fascinated him: a country and a city at once so French and so Arab, in which two cultures very different from each other seemed to him at first to blend triumphantly. He could sit on a terrace in the French quarter, sipping wine, and feel he was in France. The wide formal boulevards of Algiers, the plane trees with their trunks painted white, the tall graceful white-painted houses with their balconies and shutters, the shade of the squares reserved for Europeans—all these reminded him of the France he had loved so much as a child: the towns of the South—Aries, or Nimes or Avignon; some of the small towns of the Loire. Here was a city relatively unscarred by war, with signs of growing prosperity. He could

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drink good wine; eat French food superiatively cooked and apparently available in abundance; be waited upon as he had been waited upon in the old days before the war, by a succession of pohte, quiet, efficient, well-trained servants, all of whom were Arab, all of whom spoke perfect French.

But there was another Algiers, of which he caught, in the first couple of days, heady glimpses. There was the Algiers of the Arabs themselves: the old Casbah, the Arab quarter of the city, was built on a hill. A fascinating warren of steep narrow alleyways, of flat-roofed tenement housing, it was visible from the French quarter, visible almost throughout the city; that teeming place filled with barefooted children, with women shrouded from head to foot in black, who clasped their headdresses across their faces and between their teeth, and never raised their eyes.

In that zone of the city that lay between the French quarter and the Casbah, Edouard caught glimpses of the Arabic world. The scents of North African cooking, of couscous, of saffron and cumin and turmeric; street markets, where they sold powdered dyes and spices, sticks of sandalwood for burning, little piles of henna powder and ground indigo. He smelled the scents eagerly, gazed, fascinated, at the henna-stained feet and palms of the women and children, hstened to the cries of the muezzin and the harsh guttural shouts in a language he could not understand—and he saw, he thought, why Jean-Paul was so drawn to Algeria.

He announced his intention of visiting the Casbah. Jean-Paul yawned. If he wanted. It could be arranged. He must take a servant with him, naturally—they knew how to get rid of the beggars. And besides, it was not entirely safe to go alone.

"Go if you must." He shrugged. "But watch your wallet. And stay well clear of the women."

So, for the first few days of his visit, Edouard explored the city alone, except for the servant. In the evenings Jean-Paul made an effort to entertain him, and held a number of elaborate dinner parties. They ate outdoors, under a vine pergola on a wide terrace overlooking the sea. The elaborate French dishes were cooked to perfection by the Arab cook and served gracefully by Arab boys in white uniforms, the eldest of whom seemed about fifteen years old. All the guests were French. The majority owned vineyards. Several, like Jean-Paul, had military experience or backgrounds. Their wives were chic, exquisitely dressed—far better than the majority of women in postwar Paris. Their jewels sparkled, and their talk palled. Edouard found them stiflingly boring, and curiously closed.

The women could discuss with animation the latest novel to take Paris by storm, the politics of the Comedie Fran9aise, the reputations of actors, writers, musicians, politicians, painters. They regarded them from afar,

DESTINY • 189

with a delicate patronage. The consensus was clear: France was finished; Europe was finished; they were better off here. Edouard listened to them and disliked what he heard. He had been naive, he saw that now. He returned to the Arab quarter, and saw the poverty, no longer as picturesque, but as a by-product of French colonial prosperity. It made him angry; Jean-Paul's smugness, and that of his friends, made him angrier still. He said nothing; it would be useless to discuss the politics of the country with Jean-Paul. Instead, when a week had passed, during which time he and Jean-Paul had made one cursory visit to the Baron's vineyards and had inspected perhaps one eighth of that vast acreage, Edouard decided to return to the purpose of his visit. He bearded Jean-Paul when his brother finally got up at about eleven in the morning.

"Jean-Paul—please. Could we not look at these company figures? Discuss my plans?"

Jean-Paul sighed and stretched back in his wicker armchair. "Oh, very well, httle brother. But I'll think better over sl pastis.'"

So, for the next two hours, they sat on the terrace, and Edouard talked. He produced sheafs of paper; he rounded off figures to make his calculations simpler; he kept them all in francs, because Jean-Paul became hopelessly confused by rates of exchange. Jean-Paul drank three pastis and smoked kif.

"You're sure you wouldn't like some?" He passed Edouard a silver box in which cigarettes of A://mixed with tobacco were ready rolled.

"No, thank you."

"It's very relaxing."

"Jean-Paul ..."

"Oh, all right, all right. I follow you so far, I think. Go on."

Edouard continued his dissertation over lunch. He could see that the pastis, the wine, and the A://had taken effect. Jean-Paul's eyes were pinkish and glazed; his color had risen; his immaculate white clothes already looked crumpled. Edouard knew he was wasting his time, but he couldn't stop. This was so important, he had done so much work—he had to make Jean-Paul understand.

After lunch they took coffee, thick Arabic coffee. Jean-Paul lay back on the silken divan and closed his eyes.

"Jean-Paul." Edouard's voice was hoarse with desperation. "Surely— can't you see? For our father's sake. He built all this up. Oh, it was big before he started, but he made it great. There are so many possibihties. We could build on what he did—Jean-Paul. It was his Ufe's work. We can't just let it disintegrate into the dust."

Jean-Paul opened his eyes, and Edouard looked up. While he had been

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talking an Arab serving woman had silently entered the room. She stood now, head bowed, just inside the door.

"Time for my siesta." Jean-Paul heaved himself to his feet. They looked at each other, Jean-Paul focusing his eyes with difficulty, and Edouard saw the coarsening in his brother which he had been trying to ignore for days. He was overweight, thickening around the waist; his face was perpetually flushed; he was still handsome, but his features were heavy now, and the once strong jawUne was jowled. Edouard looked at him and felt a sickening dismay.

"I have to rest in the afternoons." Jean-Paul's voice was defiant. "It's the climate here. It's so damn hot. I'll be able to think more clearly this evening. When it's cooler . . ."

He glanced across the room to the silent figure of the Arab woman, who still stood waiting, head bowed. He grinned at Edouard, winked.

"A sleep and a fuck." He spoke in English, presumably so the woman would not understand, and Edouard suddenly felt furiously angry. "Then I'll be all right. We'll talk again. This evening. Really. I'm grateful to you, Edouard. I can see how much work you've done. ..."

They did talk again that evening. Edouard forced his brother. He pushed him into an upright chair.

*'Nopastis. No wine. No kif."' He slammed a pile of papers down on the table. "You hsten, Jean-Paul, and you listen properly. I've sweated over all this for six months, and I'm not going to see that work wasted. So you listen, damn it, or I'll get the next plane out and leave you to cope with the whole damn lot."

"All right. All right." Jean-Paul lifted his hands amiably. "There's no need to get so hot under the collar. You were always hot-tempered, impatient. I'm just slower than you, that's all. Now explain again, and explain slowly."

Edouard explained. At the end of his impassioned arguments, Jean-Paul stood up. "All right. Fine. Okay."

"What do you mean, all right, okay?"

"I mean, do it." Jean-Paul put his hand on his shoulder. "I can't—you must know that. I wouldn't know where to begin. You do it. All the things you said. I trust your judgment. I'm sure you're right. You were always the clever one. Just let me know what I have to sign—make as much of it as possible over to yourself, and get on with it. All right, httle brother? Now can I have that pastisT'

Edouard looked at his brother. At the eyes which shd away from his own in embarrassment. His mouth tightened, and he stood up. "Very well, I'll do as you say. And by all means ring for your pastis.''

And so it was, in 1950, that Edouard effectively became the Baron de

DESTINY • 191

Chavigny. Jean-Paul signed over power of attorney to his brother in all the financial affairs of his companies, and Edouard, Baron in all but name, returned to Paris and began work.

Initially both brothers found they were delighted with the arrangement.

Edouard defined his work to himself in two stages: first he would restore, then he would build and expand.

All the furniture, silver, paintings, and the private jewelry collection stored in Switzerland by his father were returned to France. The huge house at Deauville, with its gardens and private beach, was sold to one of the newly oil-rich Americans beginning to invest in European property. It had, in any case, rarely been used. Edouard used the capital to buy a smaller house near the Normandy coast, telling himself that—one day— his children, or Jean-Paul's, might like to stay there. The rest of the capital was used to defray the very great costs of restoring the house at St. Cloud and the Chateau de Chavigny in the Loire. When the structural work on the houses was completed, the furniture, tapestries, paintings, carpets, and hangings were restored and replaced. This, and the restoration of the celebrated gardens of both houses, took two years. Even Louise de Chavigny, whom he took to St. Cloud for a triumphant tour when the work was finished, was impressed.

"It's quite lovely, Edouard. As lovely as it ever was. And you've made some additions. . . ." Her eyes flicked over the Louis XIV furniture of the formal salon. "You have my eye. You've chosen well."

"You can return here now, Maman. Your rooms are ready for you. Just as they were. Only the curtains aren't yet complete; the identical silk could not be found. But they're being rewoven now, in England. They'll be ready very soon. The same design, the same dye even—I've had them copied exactly. ..."

"No, Edouard. I shall stay in Paris. I'm used to it now." She gave a little gesture out toward the windows, to the formal parterre which had taken twenty men as many months to relay and replant. "Too many memories, Edouard. I told you."

Edouard moved into the house at St. Cloud alone.

With his father's employees he was generous but firm. The elderly among the servants were asked to retrain the new staff" to their old exacting standards; they were then retired, with pensions of a size that made Edouard's Parisian friends complain. Word gets around, they said; for God's sake stop—or they'll all be demanding de Chavigny-style settlements. Edouard shrugged.

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"They stayed with my father right through the war. They deserve that and more."

The vineyards in the Loire were plowed up and replanted, using vine stock free from disease. A new regisseur, trained on the estates of Baron Philippe de Rothschild, was brought in. Edouard toyed with the idea of having the de Chavigny wine labels redesigned, and ornamented, with each vintage, by a leading artist, as Rothschild had. But he abandoned the plan: to learn from Baron Philippe's expertise was sensible, to copy him too flagrantly was not. It was what was in the bottle that finally counted. Within five years, wine production had doubled prewar levels, and the quality was consistently improving. The first year that they obtained a vintage of acceptable quality, he sent a dozen cases to his old regisseur to lay down, and invited him for a tasting. He watched the old man as he carefully sniffed the wine, sipped it, rolled it around his palate. He waited.

"It's not perfect. ..." The old man frowned.

"Is any wine perfect?"

"Four years from now, yes, by then . . ." The old man's face broke into a grin. "But I could drink this. Monsieur de Chavigny. Oh, yes. Without difficuhy."

Edouard embraced him. "Et voild. Je suis content."

With the central part of his father's empire, Edouard moved cautiously. De Chavigny still had an unrivaled reputation for the quality of stones used in its jewelry designs and for the perfection and artistry with which they were cut and set.

He had inherited four major outlets: in New York, Paris, London, and Rome, all of which had come through the war intact, all of which were in prime locations, and all of which had suffered from neglect. Proceeding much as he had done with his houses, Edouard first refurbished them. He brought in a new interior designer, Ghislaine Belmont-Laon; her work on these showrooms made her name. Cleverly, Mme. Belmont-Laon retained the formality of the nineteenth-century rooms, with their mahogany showcases and cabinets, and yet, by her use of color and light, contrived to give them a modem elegance. She introduced soft blues, and a color that came to be known as de Chavigny gray: the rooms, understated and severe, were the perfect backdrop for the jewelry and the silver. At the sumptuous party held to celebrate the reopening of the showrooms in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore, Edouard looked around him with pride, but he knew his work had scarcely begun. He had provided one essential, a glittering showcase for the de Chavigny merchandise. Now he was eager to expand, to diversify into other luxury products, as his rivals Cartier and Asprey were already doing very successfully. The world had changed: de Chavigny could no longer cater just to the needs of those who had arrived;