The Suitors (22 page)

Georgina was describing to Frédéric the marvelous moment when a city became familiar to her, when the mystery of its language was resolved and expressions, turns of phrase, grammatical rules and correct intonations would appear in her mind like revelations: the “far or near corner” indispensable for getting around New York in a taxi, as were
lado montaña
and
lado mar
in Barcelona (the mountain side, the sea side), or “
Gung hay fat choy!
” so essential in China for the New Year.

In spite of my efforts to follow Georgina, however, staring intently at Polyséna led me to pay attention to what she was saying.

“I mean, Vasari was a marketing genius. He gathers a team to renovate the site with what we would now describe as installation art. Hirst does the same thing today with his 160 employees. And Vasari thus became the artist of the decision makers of his day …”

Getting a grip on myself, I then strained to hear Georgina’s voice without taking my eyes off Polyséna.

“So now I gain confidence, I try out the local specialties, the foul-smelling durians of Asia, American cupcakes, crumpets, British Marmite, Spanish 5J ham. And soon the streets are filled not with strangers but with neighbors and acquaintances …”

The discussion of art now shifted without warning from a guarded tone of civil conversation and took on a more vehement turn that caught my attention.

“But it’s sheer nonsense!” my father exclaimed abruptly. “The way those people who dabble shadily in contemporary art say, ‘One must live with one’s times, risk the adventure of discovering artists, open oneself to what is new, dare to leave the beaten paths,’ when contemporary art is the rendezvous of every cliché in the book!”

“Meaning what?” replied Mathias, who was clearly responsible for this angry outburst.

“Well, retorted my father, it really takes some nerve to drape oneself in virtue, courage, and intellectual audacity—only to do exactly what the rest of the herd does! Because collecting today’s art is in reality the surest way of broadcasting the fact that one has money.
And
it’s a way to pose as a person of taste without having to possess the slightest artistic education, simply getting by on only the thinnest veneer of culture. Which is a lot easier than studying the history of art! In any case, there are very few people in the field—as in any field, by the way—who know what they’re talking about. Which explains the supercilious and pedantic airs of the others who tackle
the subject, meaning the ninety-five percent of people who are simply afraid of betraying their ignorance.”

“You’re not being fair,” Mathias protested. “For these collectors, it’s often a real commitment.”

“A commitment!” sputtered my father, whom I’d never seen so agitated. “When the calendar of events in contemporary art, with its fairs, salons, openings, biennales, and atelier visits, provides them with a social whirl in an international playground to which they would never have access on their own!”

Unruffled, Georgina continued the tale of her adventures. “… And then one day, I have the feeling I’ve gained the advantage over the unknown, as if I’d managed to outrace the wind. I take the plunge, give a dinner party, because I feel familiar enough with the customs of the country to avoid making any gaffes. For example, in China I never dress in white, or invite four people to a bistro (since four’s the number of death), and I don’t open the gifts I’m offered in front of others, so as not to make any of my friends lose face.”

“But then, explain to me,” asked Frédéric, “why you don’t stay in the city where you’ve done so much to feel at home!”

“Because as soon as I begin to feel comfortable, the anguish returns. So I give myself a few months until I
move again. I’m well aware that I’m in headlong flight, but I console myself with the thought that the need to have some kind of project is part of human nature, and that by moving from city to city, I’m behaving no differently from a film director or a playwright.…”

“… It’s not that complicated, after all! Everyone loves contemporary art, they all find it fascinating!” my father exclaimed. “That’s suspicious right there! Do you know of any other subject as popular? No, and here’s why. Simply because all these idiots who want to pass for what they are not—discerning, cultivated, intellectually curious, wise, and (of course) original—are drawn to contemporary art, which makes for quite a crowd!”

“You can’t say a thing like that!” Mathias interjected.

“I’m going to lose my temper!” said my father. “But hold on a minute, don’t have me saying what I haven’t said: I’m not claiming that
everyone
who takes an interest in today’s art is an imbecile …”

Like a brief gust of wind, the conversation about art suddenly subsided, and Mathias kept a low profile for the rest of the dinner. Unlike Lou, who had only just realized who Frédéric was and the profit she might find in the company of this celebrated playwright. She seized the chance to sell herself with a certain aplomb and a flurry of mannerisms, confiding that she’d recently
spent a week workshopping with Andréas Voutsinas at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris in the company of Nathalie Baye and Fanny Ardant, just to get back up to speed before a casting call for an important American director who’d bought the rights to the latest Dan Brown best seller.

“But who is Andréas Voutsinas?” Charles asked Frédéric.

“An Actors Studio guru who makes you return to the ‘essentials’ with improvs like ‘Dig down into yourself to find your first cry at birth,’ ” Frédéric whispered back with a straight face, before sidling up to me as we left the table to say, “She is one tough cookie, that girl!”

I hadn’t had time to see Marie before dinner, still less to tell her about the arrival of the real estate agent, and I was counting on talking with her privately after dinner. Had she finally forgotten her dog in Rio? She seemed so entranced by Béno, who was questioning her eagerly about her profession, that I left her alone and took up a post in a corner of the loggia where I hoped to pass unnoticed until bedtime.

“So tell me, how does it work when the Élysée Palace or the Quai d’Orsay needs your services?”

“Well, the first thing I do is find out if it’s a ‘little chair’ job, in which case I always decline the offer.”

“A little chair? What do you mean?”

“It means the interpreter sits slightly in the background between two guests at a banquet to translate their conversation. I’ve been at this too long to be treated casually by my employers. Luckily, I can afford to be choosy, because I’m rather in demand.”

Never one to pass up an opportunity, our mother spoke right up. “ Béno, you cannot imagine how sought after she is! For example, the president asks for her for all his official trips. It’s no secret, after all, and if you look at the pictures of his travels, you’ll see Marie constantly at his side. Naturally! She’s both lovely
and
discreet, and she has mastered the art of wearing an evening gown!”

“Mummy, please stop the sales pitch, it’s embarrassing! And besides, you know quite well that I can be dismissed at any moment, at the slightest ministerial reshuffling …”

Turning toward Béno, Marie added, “Anyway, long story short, I mostly do consecutive and whispered translation. Although I am sometimes called upon for simultaneous work, as at the G8 or Davos summits.”

“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, but I’d love you to do some whispered work for me. That said, I wouldn’t say no to some of the consecutive or simultaneous kind, either.”

When Marie let out a throaty laugh, I sprang to attention, as it were: it was a signal that those two weren’t making small talk anymore but playing with seduction.

“No, no—here, I’ll explain it to you. Consecutive means that when a CEO is speaking at a podium, he will periodically pause while I translate what he has just said. I therefore take notes while he speaks, but I’m lucky, I have a good memory, and I can hold on for up to thirty minutes if he doesn’t trot out too many numbers. For the whispered work, I sit next to my client, who doesn’t speak the language being used by whoever’s at the podium, and I whisper my translation in his or her ear. This whispered kind is often followed by the consecutive one, because usually the person to whom I’m translating sotto voce will then step back to the podium in turn.”

“Then that’s the kind I like the best, the one where you press up against me to whisper in my ear!”

Marie was done for. I could see that from the way she ran one hand through her hair in a sweeping theatrical gesture that always meant she was attracted to a
man, a mannerism that had one day suddenly replaced her childhood habit of twisting a lock of hair around her index finger to give herself a silky mustache, which comforted her when she was sad and helped her to fall asleep.

And Marie had good reason to be done for. Béno wasn’t one of those antiheros tossed at us by today’s romantic comedies, those Don Juans in their fifties with their erectile troubles and their fears of growing old, the balding Jack Nicholsons, grumpy and swathed in bling, or the bitter, egotistical university professors whom women half their age—beautiful, sensitive, accomplished, independent, generous women—had endless trouble turning into acceptable suitors. In short, emotional cripples, with whom such women had to content themselves (if Hollywood was to be believed) after agonies of self-persuasion. Were men therefore in such bad shape that they had to be repaired like old cars before they could be used?

Well, Béno was not only handsome, young, ambitious, dazzling, and openly courting Marie, he also knew a few moves to set even the most sophisticated women dreaming. He began evoking the unusual places where he would have liked to take her: the pine-and-maple bowling alley (circa 1914) in the basement of the Frick
mansion in New York; the Rocca di Papa slope near the pope’s summer residence at the Castel Gandolfo, where through an optical illusion, gravity seems to reverse itself and objects slowly roll uphill; the underground railroad station at the Waldorf-Astoria where an armored car concealed the special vehicle that allowed President Roosevelt to be driven around without revealing that he was in a wheelchair.

Then, like an entertainer warming up a room, Béno gradually lightened the mood of our little gathering. And he had his work cut out for him, because he had not only to elude Henri Démazure’s deadly questions about international finance but also to put the brakes on Odon, who was in full swing.

“… The French have
always
detested free-trade policies! I mean, they’re devoted fans of Louis XIV—and Napoleon, whose life makes for best sellers at bookstores, whereas Napoleon III and Louis Philippe don’t earn diddly. Anyway, the French take themselves for the aristocrats they decapitated! They think they’re living in a society of rights untrammeled by responsibilities, a leisure-oriented civilization of thirty-five-hour workweeks, the safety of which inspires them to travel around as boldly as if they were the titled adventurers of yore, off to discover Turkey! No, it’s true! You’ll notice
that it’s always the French who set out on the most absurdly daunting challenges, walking across Guyana or the Frozen North, sailing around the Atlantic in a nutshell. Now in
that
department, they’re the champs.”

As Odon paused to take a deep breath, Béno turned to Frédéric.

“I hear you’ve composed a song about the Giraults, and you know, I’d be willing to grovel to hear it …”

“Aha!” exclaimed Frédéric who, like all good writers, preferred to play hard to get, to heighten the dramatic tension, even though he knew exactly what Béno was up to—namely, having some fun, and Frédéric was delighted to help him out.

“A song about what?” asked Lou.

“The Giraults, some friends of our parents who’ll be coming next weekend,” explained Marie.

“So, well, the song?” insisted Béno.

Then, as Frédéric vacillated, Gay, Laszlo, Charles, Marie, and I all shouted in concert, “The song! The song!”

“You’re very kind,” said Frédéric, “but just because I write songs in my idle moments doesn’t mean I want to sing them around a campfire in the evening.”

“What if I sang first to put you at ease?” asked Béno, who then launched immediately into a bit of opera,
arousing our enthusiasm with a nerve and dash that we applauded vigorously, leaving Frédéric with no choice.

Riotous applause, stamping, the works.

“Once more, all together now!” cried Béno, playing to perfection the choirmaster revving up the parish faithful.

Once we had complied, and he had pulled off the feat of uniting us all in that surprising moment of good fellowship, we found ourselves happy but already unsure, hoping for a new suggestion from our emcee, which he in fact provided by proposing that we play some party games, thus relieving my mother from the onerous duty of entertaining us.

As I watched Béno emceeing, though, it occurred to me that my parents must have gotten older without my
noticing, for it had been some time since L’Agapanthe had welcomed guests mischievous enough to think of playing games and even practical jokes, like short sheeting beds, and having a good time that way.

On the lawn sloping down toward the water, the automatic sprinkler came on, drawing our attention to the navigation lights of the boats and their reflections in the inky black sea.

Béno suggested a hidden words game, in which a guest would be sent out of the room while the rest of us chose a three-syllable word; we would then slip this word into all our answers when questioned by the designated word detective. Frédéric was asked to leave for a moment, and we chose the word “favorite.” When he returned, Frédéric sat in the center of the circle we formed around him and reviewed the rules.