She said: ‘This is foreign territory for me, David. Essentially I am still a Russian – and very much a European. I feel quite at home in Paris or London. But New York – what is this food we are eating?’
‘Long Island clams. Thought you might fancy them.’
‘Well, I do not. They are revolting. And those districts we drove through from the airport; they remind me of Moscow!’
I looked round the plush restaurant. ‘And this is the Lubyanka?’
‘Do not joke about that,’ she said. ‘I once went to see my father in the Lubyanka, before he was sent away to a corrective camp.’
‘What was his error – your father’s error? The reason why he was sent away?’
‘He became friendly with an English girl secretary at the embassy. In Stalin’s day it was considered treason.’
‘Well, there’s no treason involved in becoming friendly with your secretary here. That makes a refreshing change.’
She did not take me up on this. ‘You will make the necessary speech, David?’
‘I’ll say a word. But it’s your big night. Above everyone else, you are Shona. Even if you make it quite short, you’ll have to give it to them.’
‘I will speak. But briefly. You will draft something for me and I will amend it as I think necessary.’
‘I’ve made one or two notes.’
‘Good. We will discuss them after lunch.’
We finished the meal. She had picked at a few pieces of undercooked lamb, an elaborate iced sweet, sipped two vodkas and shared a half-bottle of Chablis.
‘Now I am going to rest for an hour,’ she said. ‘The aeroplane has made my ears deaf.’
I wondered how she’d dress for the evening, whether her cool dignity would fit well with the Americans, who were so used to a more free and easy way and had their own ideas – put over by other ladies of far greater flamboyance – of how a leading woman perfumer ought to court their attention.
I needn’t have had a second thought. They seemed to see her as a friend at once. Her few words went well; she contrived to answer some rather bitchy questions, and answer them in a good-humoured way which kept everyone in the right mood. It was I who splotched my copybook.
But this was later. The speeches were long over, the perfumes and beauty products had been displayed and samples pushed around. Then there was a move, downstairs. Grogam had cunningly arranged that our party should begin at 5.30, because on the same evening at the Pierre the Fragrance Foundation was holding its annual awards dinner, where presentations were being made for the best perfume of the year, the best advertising, etc. Tickets for this were highly sought after, and those of our guests who didn’t have tickets could at least say they were at the Pierre that evening; those who did could join this other and more prestigious party where all the great names of the perfumery business were in attendance.
Now there was this tall blonde called Kathy Schwarzheim, with lots of obvious attractions in the right places. She was on behalf of some insignificant rag in Philadelphia, but she’d somehow scraped an invitation for the Foundation dinner. She’d been around me ever since I landed last Friday, making rather a nuisance of herself.
When we were circulating at the gathering downstairs I found her next to me.
‘Tell me, Mr Abden,’ she said, ‘ is it true that Mme Shona is a ballet dancer?’ I hesitated a moment, and she added: ‘ Or was,’ and laughed.
I said: ‘ She studied ballet.’
‘Where?’
‘At the Bolshoi.’
She whistled. ‘ Wow! Isn’t that something! And she’s a concert pianist too?’
‘Hardly. She plays Brubeck.’
‘What talent! … Tell me, how does it feel to be the Prince Consort?’
I looked across at Shona’s lanky, distinguished figure. Then I looked at this Kathy Schwarzheim. ‘That implies a lot.’
‘Oh, surely not that much!’
‘Well, since you ask, I think she makes a good queen.’
There was a laugh. Having tossed off her drink, Kathy Schwarzheim turned towards a waiter with a tray of full glasses and took another quick one before we were called for dinner. No doubt she would have come back to me for more sly questions, but her face annoyed me and I edged away. As I did so I heard a black-bearded, heavy, middle-aged character called Marini growl to her in an amiable overtone: ‘ I guess it’s one queen to another.’
Kathy Schwarzheim giggled so much she spilt champagne on her fingers, and I moved out of hearing. But not for long. Two minutes later I saw Marini without a companion and sidled up to him. I clutched his velvet jacket by the lapel and gave it a violent wrench downwards. There was the sound of threads breaking and Marini was nearly pulled over, dropped his glass with a clatter.
‘You goddam fool! What d’you mean –’
I said: ‘Sorry, dear. The trouble with us queens is that we can’t keep our hands off other men.’
I suppose I must have looked ugly, because Marini slowly unclenched the fists he had raised.
A breaking glass always briefly stops talk, and people around cut off what they were saying and stared. Grogam came steering across, anxiety writ large. A waiter brought another glass while a second disappeared in search of a brush and tray. It was maybe a minute before the noise decibel in the room reached its previous level, like water rising in a cistern after someone has pulled the plug.
Marini laughed and moved away, examining his torn lapel with fat nicotined fingers. Eventually he left the room, presumably for another jacket or a quick stitch. I could see Grogam looking daggers at me. Somebody spoke to him and he made a gesture towards me and shrugged. Then dinner was called. I sat next to a pretty young female who was the buyer for Tracey’s of Fifth Avenue, and a not so pretty one high up in the Arden hierarchy. The dinner and the presentations seemed to go on for ever; and it was not until we met in the lobby much later that Grogam: launched into a diatribe. Marini, it seemed, was the chief executive of de Luxembourg, one of the most powerful and successful of the newer perfumery giants.
‘It just happened that the hairy slob made a remark I didn’t like,’ I said shortly. ‘ He was lucky he didn’t get his teeth knocked in.’
‘Maybe you’ll be lucky if you don’t,’ said Grogam.
‘What’s that supposed to mean? The fellow’s a competitor. Teach him to mind his manners.’
Grogam looked at me in a peculiar way. ‘You don’t know about de Luxembourg, then.’
‘What about them?’
‘They’re financed by the Mafia.’
II
Shona said: ‘I will write a letter to Francesco, explaining that you are new to the United States and do not understand their ways. You must write too. A letter of apology will not hurt you.’
‘Yes, it will.’
‘Only your pride, isn’t it? What else? Tell me what else?’
I grunted. ‘He sweats.’
‘Fat men can’t help it. Thin men too sometimes.’ We were in her suite. She had asked me to come in, and I had gone preparing for battle. But so far she had been calm.
‘Tell me again,’ she said, ‘exactly what happened.’
I told her. She sat back in a large divan chair and prodded her hands through her hair, loosening it from its severe fastenings. Then she laughed, harshly, unmelodiously, irritably.
I said: ‘ I’m glad it amuses you.’
‘It does. In a way. It amuses and it annoys. It was all so trivial, so unnecessary.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Why should it worry you that you should be mistaken for one of them?’
‘D’you think I often am mistaken?’
‘By a few. It is not always easy to be sure about these things. I asked if it worried you?’
‘Not worried, no. Riled.’
‘Clearly. To the extent that you allow yourself the luxury of incurring the enmity of a man like that?’
‘I told you, I didn’t know the rat slug was important at all.’
/>
‘You must have known him to be important to be at such a dinner.’
‘Oh, well, I just felt like it.’
‘Were you given to violence before you joined us? Am I harbouring a dangerous psychopath?’
‘Yes, you can rely on me to shake the collar of any overweight Italian gangster who thinks he can call me a queer in his spare time.’
She sighed. ‘You must become more civilized. Over such a little thing!’
‘I have this aversion.’
‘So it seems.’
‘Some people can’t stand cats. Others come out in spots if they eat lobster. You don’t explain an allergy.’
The sigh turned into a yawn – as cavernous as that of one of the cats some people could not stand. ‘Dear boy, you are not being so honest with me – or with yourself, is it? You know you get on very well with Jimmy and Fred … and even Bruce with all his tantrums. And also did you not share a flat with one? You do not have an allergy for queers, your allergy is for being thought one yourself.’
‘So what?’
‘It is an occupational hazard in this business.’
‘Maybe.’
There was a pause.
‘Where is your room?’ she asked.
‘Five floors up. Why?’
‘And cheaper than this?’
‘Oh, much.’
‘This is too extravagant. I will stay until the publicity is over and then move.’
I said: ‘When we first met – d’you recall you asked me which side of the road I was on.’
‘I did not. You volunteered the information – possibly to dispel any doubts in my mind.’
I thought round this remark. I hadn’t remembered it that way. ‘And were there?’
‘What?’
‘Doubts in your mind?’
‘By then, no. But David, for all your petulance about this, you must remember you are a good-looking man … Sometimes you remind me of a handsome drawing by Delacroix in the Louvre.’
‘Don’t know him. He a friend of yours?’
‘At others you look like Lord Byron on one of his less agreeable days.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘Always you dress well. And that carnation you so often wear in your buttonhole … Even when I first met you and you had little money, you dressed well. I do not at all mind if I am attractive to women. Why should you resent it when it is the other way round?’
‘Another drink?’
She hesitated. ‘Thank you. Scotch, please. I suppose one has to call it that here. The champagne at our party was good, though I drank very little of it.’
She put a finger in the heel of her shoe and eased it. Her elegant silk legs were much to be seen.
‘It was Spanish,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘The champagne. Half the price of the real thing.’
‘It is not always a good thing to economize on what may be noticed.’
‘The first six bottles were Moët, and when that was done the empty bottles were left at the back of the serving table. The waiters were told to keep the other bottles covered with their napkins.’
She laughed. I carried her drink over.
‘Take one yourself.’
‘Thanks, no. I have a skinful already.’
‘Is that one of your distasteful Scottish sayings?’
‘Fu’ as a lord. That’s Scottish. Fu’ as a tick, is another. I’m not sure about skinful … Incidentally, if you gave me the necessary alibi I should, no doubt, be far less sensitive about misunderstandings.’
She looked up at me. ‘I am not quite sure I follow you.’
‘I hoped you would.’
‘Alibi? It is a word now often misused. It does not mean an excuse, you know.’
‘Do I need an excuse,’ I asked, ‘for wanting you?’
She sipped her drink, eyelids lowered.
‘Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. We have spoken of this once before. Leave me now, David. I am tired.’
‘Whatever you say, madame. But I may come back to the subject.’
‘Pray do not.’
‘What time d’you wish to see me in the morning?’
‘You say our first appointment is ten?’
‘Yes, at the General Motors building, that’s Fifth Avenue at 51st, so it won’t be far from here.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I do not think I like cities that have addresses which sound like crossword puzzles.’
‘Take it from me, it’s much easier when you know how.’
‘So many things are … Nine thirty in the lobby, then.’
‘Very good, madame.’
‘Don’t be silly, David,’ she said.
‘Psychopaths,’ I said, ‘often are.’
I bent and kissed her, near the corner of her imperious mouth.
She made no move and no comment.
I went out.
III
The next day was a madhouse, and I had no chance to speak to her alone until after dinner, when once again I whirred up to her suite and was joined there by Grogam and Barton for a last drink. After his dudgeon last night Grogam had said nothing more to me about the Marini affair. Everything had gone like a bomb today, and Barton had brought in cuttings about us from the New York papers, and also clippings of the ads that had gone in. We were away to a good start. She rang John Carreros and read him the favourable bits. Presently Phil Grogam left, and then Jack Barton.
As soon as they had gone I said: ‘I haven’t written to Marini.’
‘No … I have. So has Grogam.’
‘Is that enough?’
‘Well, what can you say, personally? That you made a fool of yourself and happen to be unduly sensitive about your sex life?’
‘I reckon.’
She hesitated, thought it out, finger on lip. ‘Then do it tomorrow. Perhaps it is just worth doing as an over-insurance.’
‘Over-insurance against what?’
‘Enmity where it will do you no good.’
‘I can look after myself.’
‘You think so? Well, maybe. Let us say, then, enmity where it will do us no good.’
‘Right. I’ll make the necessary grovel. Shona …’
‘Yes?’
‘This pitch that Phil gave me about de Luxembourg. Is it true?’
‘Being financed in the way he said? Oh yes.’
‘By the Mafia?’
‘Oh, yes. That and more.’
‘In what way more?’
She said: ‘Man Dieu, these American meals! How do they make everything taste like sawdust?’
‘I’ll ask around tomorrow, try to find somewhere quieter, with wooden seats, where they’ll serve you black bread and borsch.’
She fingered her hair but did not let it loose tonight. ‘Have you a cigarette?’
I took her one. She fitted it into her black ivory cigarette holder, and I struck my lighter, held it to the cigarette. Her hand was rock steady.
She said: ‘ It is strange to think – how many years ago? – I was with my mother and my brother in our rooms in Moscow, and we were eating just that, just what you said, when the music on the wireless stopped and an announcer came on and said in harsh tones – he said that ‘‘In crude and uncivilized violation of the non-aggression pact which exists between our two countries, the German army has this afternoon invaded the sacred frontiers of our Russian fatherland.’’ I think it was June. I know the evenings were long. Over twenty-five years ago! I can hardly believe so much time has passed!’
Nearer thirty, I thought, but didn’t correct her. ‘We’d been at war two years then,’ I said. ‘Though I wasn’t quite yet alive.’
She looked at me broodingly. ‘Are you that young? … Well, it had been a false peace for Russia all along. Ribbentrop and his posturings … I do not know what the Politburo thought, but the ordinary Russian had no faith in Nazi promises … The same night – the night the war began for us – Stalin came on, uttered a stirring message. He was like a for
eigner, you know, Stalin – a Georgian – he spoke Russian with such an ugly accent. But we rallied behind him. He spoke then for us all.’
I took the chair beside her, patted her hand. ‘Let us talk of happier things. The Mafia, for instance.’
There was a long silence, ‘You have never heard how the de Luxembourg firm began?’
‘I’m ready for a Bible story.’
‘Well, a Bible story indeed … Some people must still remember … Though now they pretend it never was like that, that it is all just stupid calumny … Fifteen years ago they began. You recall the famous de Luxembourg lipstick? The eau de toilette? The first perfume – I have forgotten its name. To begin they did not catch on, any of them. Sometimes the trade has to be wooed, is more difficult than the public. We don’t want anymore, the trade said. Our shelves are full. Folk don’t want your stuff. Sorry and all that. At the end of a year there was a meeting of the de Luxembourg directors and they agreed on a change of policy. The representative would go into a shop: ‘‘Good morning, I represent de Luxembourg. Can I interest you in our range?’’ ‘‘No thanks. Nothing doing. We have shelves full of all the best perfumes. We don’t want any more.’’ The representative would be polite and sad: ‘‘Very sorry to hear it. I’ll call in a few weeks.’’ An hour later a car will draw up outside the shop, two bullies go in, walk up to the shelves of perfumes and lipsticks and upset them all, smash them with sticks, crush them underfoot, then go out, drive away, leaving a pyramid of ruined scents and lipsticks, and a terrified proprietor is dialling the police. The next week the polite representative comes in to the shop: ‘‘Good. morning, I represent de Luxembourg. Can I interest you in our range?’’ ’