‘Please,’ said Stahl, standing up and waiting until she was seated. ‘I’m not expecting anybody. What brings you to the neighbourhood?’
‘Ai! Horreur! I had to see my attorney, he has his office up the Champs-Elysees, and I’d finally got done with him and was walking down the hill, upset, close to tears, and hello, there you were! At least I suspected it was you and, honestly, I really hoped it was.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Darling, may I have a cognac? A double?’
‘Ah, Fredric, manners! Yes, of course, forgive me.’ Stahl signalled to the waiter, who made eye contact, meaning yes, I see you, be patient.
‘What’s going on,’ said Kiki, ‘is that a year ago, my lovely old aunt, whom I adored, got sick and died. I used to go and stay with her when things were too awful at home, she had the sweetest little house, down in the Sologne, do you know it? It’s where the Parisian aristocrats hunt wild boar, and anything else they can shoot at. There are hunting lodges down there but she just had a country cottage, in a kind of hidden valley, looking out at the river Sauldre. In her will, she left the house for my sister and me to share, which was not a problem at all, but then there was every sort of legal complication that comes with inheritance. Fredric, if you hate somebody and want to ruin their life, die and leave them a house in France. Anyhow, I just spent two hours with the lawyer and, when I said close to tears, I meant tears of frustration. I got so angry I finally said, “Let’s give the damn thing to a charity,” to which the lawyer replied, “Impossible, mademoiselle, it cannot be done until you have taken legal possession of the property.”’
The waiter rushed over, Stahl ordered two double cognacs while in his mind a cartoon version of a steak au poivre grew wings and flew away. He sensed the evening would end with the two of them in bed together, and disliked making love on a full stomach — the stag grows thin during the rutting season and all that. And he’d always preferred sex to food. ‘You have my sympathy,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent hours in lawyers’ offices, my nose shoved in the worst side of humanity.’ He shook his head at the memory. ‘Still, I expect it will all work itself out, in time.’
From Kiki, a glum smile. ‘You really are an American, my dear. Hopeful, optimistic. Some things here, believe me, never work out — lawsuits, property disputes, absurd legal entanglements — these things can go on for generations. I just want it over with.’ She looked rueful for a moment, then said, ‘You would have liked that house, we could have had a very nice weekend there.’
‘I’m sure I would have, though I’d likely leave the boars alone.’ A moment of silence, the waiter appeared with the cognacs, a napkin riding atop each glass. Stahl took a sip, pure fire all the way down, and said, ‘So what have you been doing?’ And then — strange what the mind did when you weren’t watching it — ‘Have you seen the baroness lately?’
Kiki seemed surprised. ‘You know, I actually have seen her, that German witch, I was at her house for an afternoon card party.’
‘You were?’
‘Yes, trapped, you might say. She’d invited my crowd, girls who grew up together in the Seventh Arrondissement, went to the same school, la-la-la. I couldn’t say no.’ Stahl took out his Gauloises, offered one to Kiki, and lit both. ‘That’s just the way it is here. So we gossiped and laughed and tried to play bridge; I’m not very good at it, dreadful really. Anyhow, tell me about yourself.’
What about himself could he tell her? Surely not the truth, for, Gallic to the core, she had no desire to hear about personal problems and, beyond that, in the fogbound land of intrigue, he thought he’d rather not test her loyalties. ‘Oh, life goes on,’ he said, not without charm. ‘I’m spending time out in Joinville, rehearsing. It’s work, but it’s the work I do and I like doing it. Most days.’
Kiki nodded. ‘I hope I didn’t interrupt your dinner, you were planning to eat, weren’t you?’
‘Actually I wasn’t. I got tired of being in my room, thought I’d come down here and have a drink. Hotels are a kind of curse of the movie business, even very nice hotels.’
‘It is a very nice hotel, isn’t it, the Claridge. Or so people say.’
‘You’ve never been there?’
‘No, my dear, I haven’t.’ As she said this, her eyes met his.
‘It’s very, oh, luxurious would be one way to describe it. And quiet, when the traffic dies down at night.’
‘And discreet, I’d imagine. Perfect discretion for all that money, which I imagine appeals to the guests.’
‘Yes, one feels one can do… almost anything, really.’
‘Anything at all, unknown to the prying eyes of the city,’ she said, as though quoting from a certain kind of novel. She picked a shred of tobacco off her tongue with her red fingernails, then said, ‘And do you find that — stimulating?’
‘You know I do, Kiki,’ he said, playing at sincerity, ‘now that you mention it. Once the door closes…’
‘One can only imagine,’ she said. ‘Like the little hotel we found, the night we had a drink at the Ritz.’
He smiled, acknowledging that he’d enjoyed it in the same way she had. ‘Yes, lovers on the run, fleeing to an anonymous room.’
‘But that’s not the Claridge.’
‘No, the fantasy there is quite different,’ he said.
She’d slipped her shoe off, and a soft foot now rested on top of his. ‘Oh yes? Well, I wouldn’t know,’ she said.
‘Because you haven’t been there.’
‘No, I haven’t.’ The foot made its way up his leg, then returned.
The waiter appeared at the table, two menus in hand.
‘We’re just having drinks,’ Stahl said. ‘ L’addition, s’il vous plait.’
At the Claridge, she would, to her ‘surprise’, be seduced; a proper, a time-honoured, hotel fantasy. In all innocence, she accompanied him to his room, but, once there… And she did, somehow, contrive to suggest the demure maiden. ‘It’s so terribly warm in here,’ she said.
‘It’s the warm dress you have on,’ he said. ‘That’s why.’
‘But if I were to take it off…’ Quite worried, Kiki.
‘Oh you needn’t be concerned,’ he said. ‘Not with me.’
‘Well…,’ she said, uncertain, then took her dress off and draped it neatly over the back of a chair. ‘There. That’s better.’
And then, even half-stripped, in high heels and lacy bra and panties, she played the ingenue — explored the suite, room to room, discovering the flowers in a crystal vase, stroking the sleek wood of the escritoire, thrilled to be among such elegant things. Stahl followed her eagerly — she was a pretty woman, prettily made, champagne- cup breasts, derriere the classic inverted ace of hearts, swaying as she roamed about.
Eventually she wandered back to the bedroom, took off her shoes, and stood with feet together, head bowed, arms by her sides, at his mercy. Cautiously, he embraced her, but she was rigid, anxious, moved not an inch. By happenstance the mirror on the bedroom door was directly behind her, so he took the waistband of her panties between delicate fingers and turned down the back, the result especially provocative in the mirror. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘what are you doing to me?’ He knelt before his victim and lowered her panties to her ankles, took them off, moved her legs apart, then, with his thumbs, more parting, and he touched her with his tongue. ‘Oh no,’ she said, not that. She kept her role in play, though it grew difficult, and in time he took her hand and led her to the bed and there ravished her. They both, Kiki and the virgin Kiki, did very much like being ravished, her girlish passion at last released. But by then she acted no longer, and let the guests in the rooms on either side of the suite know about it.
4 November. Fredric Stahl felt light and good that morning, a night of lovemaking an effective antidote to a sea of troubles. He’d come slowly awake at five, discovered a warm Kiki next to him, warmed her a little more, then fell back asleep. His interior go-to-work clock woke him promptly at 8.30, then, following coffee and croissants, he got a taxi, dropped Kiki off at her apartment, and continued out to Joinville. An exquisite autumn day, the sky its darkest blue, the North Sea clouds sharp-edged and white against it, the world would go on, life would get better.
Justine Piro was there when he arrived, as was Pasquin, who was his usual grumpy self but even he felt the sweetness of the day and said so. Jean Avila appeared a few minutes later, accompanied by his cameraman, and Renate Steiner, looking worried and harassed, stopped by, nodded to Stahl, and managed half a smile. She carried a thoroughly grimy straw boater with a crushed top and a torn brim, meant for Piro’s desert scenes. Piro tried the hat
