The Suitors (14 page)

We’d been conditioned from childhood to temperance and the good manners de rigueur before servants, so their presence seemed nowhere near as oppressive to us as it did to novices. Still, after the butlers had served the liqueurs and wished us good night, there was a subtle relaxation in the atmosphere all around, as if we’d been aware of suddenly recovering a liberty all the more precious for being rare.

And so at midnight, we found ourselves at the head of the stairs leading to the kitchen and pantry, ready to “do the fridge.”

“That’s an invitation to rape, your little shorty pajama set,” I joked. “I hope we don’t run into anyone!”

“Look who’s talking—your peignoir’s
totally
transparent.”

That was enough to set off our first fit of giggles: a Pavlovian reflex, fueled by the delight we always took in this ritual expedition. Down in the kitchen area, feeling around in the shadows for the light switches, we experienced the same thrill of fear we’d felt when playing
hide-and-seek in the dark and sparked our second giggling fit by trying to frighten each other.

“Don’t these huge deserted kitchen rooms sort of remind you of Kubrick’s
The Shining
?” I asked Marie.

“Oh, stop, you’re really making me nervous! And
you’d
better be careful you don’t lose a finger on the ham slicer.”

Once we’d found the light switches, located in the most improbable places (inside cupboards or behind glass doors), the ambiance changed completely, but we pretended to still be afraid just to prolong our pleasure.

“What was that noise?” I asked sharply. “Did you hear it?”

“No, I didn’t hear a thing, cut it out.”

“Look, there’s nothing but consommé in this fridge! I can’t believe it! The consommé consumption in this house must be e-nor-mous!”

“You mean you’ve really never noticed that almost every luncheon dish is swathed in aspic?”

“Ooo, you’re right: the ever-popular rabbit terrine, cold jellied chicken, what else …”

“Who cares? At the moment, if we want a decent snack, we’re going to have to do better than jellied consommé, veal stock, and some choux pastry!”

When we finally sat down at the pantry table with a cheese plate and some
olives de Nice
, I got straight to the point.

“He’s a total disaster, isn’t he, this Jean-Michel Destret.”

“That’s for sure,” Marie replied morosely, “since I don’t like him any more than you do.”

“Mind you,” I admitted, “the least we can say is that he doesn’t much care for us, either. He only has eyes for our dear mother.”

“Yup, it’s a complete flop! Even a fiasco—he seems scared stiff of you. I was watching him at the table. But I didn’t do too much better after dinner when I tried to thaw him out.”

“Yes, I caught your number as the modest and meritorious interpreter: ‘I get by rather well, although my linguistic repertoire is nothing out of the ordinary, since I grew up speaking French and English, then added Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian as backups …’ ”

“That’s it, dump all over me!”

“No, no, you were right to play the good little girl, seeing as my low-cut-and-liberated shrink persona flipped him right out!”

“Except that I flopped just like you did.”

“Right,” I agreed, “but now let’s think. What do we want? What are we looking for? How far are we willing
to go? We really didn’t consider things properly when we became involved in this whole business.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen, Jean-Michel Destret has done us a huge favor by taking a pass on us instead of making a pass at us. I mean, imagine, a clunker like that! We’re not really going to turn into high-class anything-goes whores just to bag a total
sucker
! We have to like the guy a
little
bit, right?”

“Yes, okay, but what is it you’re expecting from this guy? Give me just one or two vital qualities, no more, because the whole Prince Charming thing is really useless here.”

“Hold on. We are
not
going to sacrifice our romantic dreams in order to save the house!”

“Oh, enough already. But you’re right. So?”

“He has to be nice,” I began.

“Wait: that’s your prime requirement?”

“Precisely. Nice, and intelligent.”

“Even if he’s crummy looking? I couldn’t handle that.”

“Even if he’s crummy looking, absolutely. I’ve got nothing against ugly people. I even think they’re in at the moment—look at all those glamorous actresses with homely guys. Plus, remember, I already did my bit when I married a real looker. That was enough for me.”

“Well, okay, I’ve already had
serious
exposure to gorgeous lovers and I’m still eager for more, I can tell you!”

“That, we can talk about later. Oh, one last quality,” I added. “He has to be entertaining.”

“Entertaining? You mean funny?”

“No, more like lighthearted, open to imagination and gaiety.”

“It’s my turn, said Marie eagerly. “Me, I’d like him to be handsome, fantasmic, and prefer me above all other women.”

“Fantasmic? Meaning?”

“Seductive, charismatic.”

“In other words, that he’s a fabulous success, like a movie star or a business whiz, or that he’s magnetic in a sexy way?”

“Why not the best of both worlds?” Marie asked brightly.

“Ah, I see. Well, I have to tell you, we’re not there yet, not by a long shot. So now what do we do?”

“About what?”

“We’re not going to overexert ourselves, are we? Either we fall in love, at least a teensy bit, or it’s no go?”

“That works for me.”

My sister and I had obviously only skimmed the surface of the problem. The deeper truth was that I had
been avoiding tackling the thorny subject of men ever since my divorce. I agreed with all my single friends who had looked around without finding anyone seriously desirable, and I had taken up their mantra: “Where are all the men?” As far as I was concerned, the answer was “Wyoming!”—and only half in jest, because on a trip there I’d seen lots of men who seemed completely well-adjusted, perfectly happy with their horses, their cowboy duds, and their outdoor life
right where they were—so
that was the end of that.

I used to say that I loved men but not unconditionally. I wanted them to be, in descending order of importance: nice, intelligent, ready to be happy, forgiving of themselves and others, generous, and wise. They had to have no fear of women, be virile, fond of making love but at the same time past the frolicking-with-bimbos stage. I’m demanding, I know. Especially since they had to be successful in their careers; otherwise they were bitter or limited in their outlook on life. They couldn’t be hungry for power and honors, however, because too many of such men feel empty inside, buffeted by anxiety, and seek to fill that void with the trappings of greatness. And they often bring home the habits of their workplace, namely, their bullying mistreatment of others. No matter how seductive and successful they appear, they are
hollow promises, because they are immature, lacking in humanity, and care only for themselves.

It was also true that I had buried my romantic aspirations in the absolute love I devoted to my son. And I was so fulfilled by him, so involved in the care I took of him, so captivated by the act of nourishing him, watching over him, loving him, that my sexual desire had largely disappeared and I no longer wanted to find someone else. I had had a few affairs, of course, but had even let go of the idea of romantic love, which now seemed like an illusion, a preoccupation for those who had no children, no one close to them to cherish and love. In short, I was no longer available.

The next morning, my son sounded sad on the telephone. He missed me, found time hanging heavily without me. How I longed to take him in my arms! But I could only murmur words I hoped would comfort him, and pause to listen, gauging their effect on his mood. When his unhappiness crashed over me like a wave, I would hold my breath and bite my lips to keep silent, waiting for the moment when I could regain the upper hand before he
got too carried away with sobbing. Then I would speak confidently to him, with growing intensity, as if I were turning up the volume on a radio. I’d lighten my tone with a hint of playfulness before affecting a gruff severity intended to induce him eventually to laugh. Only then could I manage to breathe normally, wiping away the tears I’d held back until that moment. And we’d joke around a little, to my relief, before I hung up, completely drained.

Then my reflexes as hostess kicked in, and I took charge of the “sports program” for our guests, who seemed to need distractions, like children at a summer camp. I reserved a tennis court at the Hôtel du Cap to keep them occupied until eleven o’clock, when a boat would pick them up at our beach to take them waterskiing.

Relieved of the obligation to be seductive, Marie seemed more relaxed. And I reflected wryly that it hadn’t taken us long to disqualify Jean-Michel Destret. I couldn’t feel bad, though, about anything that allowed us to renew our bond as sisters, because our complicity was worth all the lovers in the world. Besides, we still had two weekends left in which to catch up.

Marie had invited Alain Gandouin for lunch. He was an accomplished technocrat, a graduate of some of the
finest institutions of the Republic, and universally acknowledged to be brilliant. He had become the power behind the throne in France, an unofficial and redoubtable adviser to business moguls and the many politicians who valued his counsel. And this in spite of the abysmal failure of several business ventures he had run into the ground. His detractors had nicknamed him “Monkey Say, Monkey Don’t Do.” France is the only country in the world where a reverence for words confers so much authority on those who call themselves intellectuals—and express themselves with brio and erudition—that they are
excused from everything else
, including thinking straight, and allowed to intervene and say any old thing in public debates, which are dominated in the United States by pragmatic corporate chieftains and in Italy by art historians.

Marie was constantly running into Gandouin in the corridors of power, whereas my father, who did not think much of him, kept him at a distance through courteous formalities. Although I had never met him, I knew something about him thanks to one of my patients, who worked for him and considered him a nightmare, against whom he defended himself with the help of his sessions with me, during which we sometimes wound up laughing maniacally. We’d wept tears of hilarity, for
example, over Alain Gandouin’s description of the ideal consultant.

“The secret lies in telling the client what he wants to hear,” he’d explained to my patient. “But to do that, you must know how to listen, watch, and talk, all at the same time, so as to observe the effect of your words on your interlocutor. For example, you begin, ‘My friend, your company is too small to survive in the face of the competition out there. You are thus at a strategic crossroads. You must make a choice. Either you face the music and decide, in spite of the years of effort and energy you’ve put into your firm, to sell …’ And now, while still emitting sounds that can pass for words, you study your client carefully, scrutinizing the slightest quiver of his body and face. And if you detect a tiny tightening of the jaw, a sign of protest, you segue immediately into ‘… and that’s the solution most of my colleagues would doubtless recommend to you.’ There you pause, to make your slowness seem solemn and thoughtful, before continuing: ‘The way I see it, such a solution takes the easy way out, and I do not advise you to embrace it. You have the mettle and ambitions of a major player: give yourself the opportunity to show what you can do in a bigger arena. And let me remind you that I already have in place, twenty-four/seven, research groups that ferret
out the kind of acquisitions that will raise you to the level of the market leaders.’
If
, however, your client welcomes your initial allusion to the sale of his firm with a hint of a smile, or reveals a furtive flicker of relief, your pitch should be: ‘And although most of my colleagues, taking the usual tack in such situations, would advise you not to sell, evoking the years of effort and energy you’ve devoted to this company, my personal opinion is that on the contrary, the solution is to sell. A courageous, I would even say ambitious choice …’ ”

So we’d thought it hardly surprising both that this high-flying power player was so popular and that at the same time, since he’d never had any business ideas or even any idea what business is, he nevertheless gave bad and sometimes even catastrophic advice. Besides, the stories about him were legion. A particular favorite, set in a company where everybody relished their anecdotes about his sliminess, was the tale of how he had somehow extorted obedience from a lackey forced to alert him every time the big boss went to the bathroom, so that Gandouin could pretend to run into him there by chance. And there was the time when he finally decided to unveil the results of weeks of five-hours-a-day private English lessons, and showed off with an American client.

“Yes, I understand you perfectly,” he’d said. “You want to focus on the business, you want to focus on the contract.”

A reasonable statement, except that his accent was so bad that what he’d really said was, “Yes, I understand you perfectly. You want to fuck us on the business, you want to fuck us on the contract,” and
that
had created a diplomatic incident of no small consequence.

But I couldn’t share all these delights with my sister, unfortunately; my profession was indeed a weird one, obliging me as it did to keep quiet outside my office about what went on inside it. Sometimes I even ran into patients out in the “real world” whom I scrupulously pretended not to recognize, leaving them free to react as they wished. At the same time, I met strangers about whom I sometimes knew every detail of their lives, character, or sexual proclivities, information revealed to me by their spouses, children, colleagues, employers, or competitors.