rich, generous, ran an enormous charity he’d put together from scratch to support girls’ education in Africa, and he knew how to have fun. Plus he knew everyone, from Mick Jagger to Bill Clinton to Nelson Mandela. The New York Post’s Page Six even claimed that the letter B in his address book listed, among others, Brad (Pitt), Richard Branson (the fifth-richest person in the United Kingdom), Bono, Bongo (Omar), Lord Balfour, Warren Buffett, while the letter K included Kaddafi, Kravis (Henry), Kravitz (Lenny) …
In fact, that might actually prove to be the sticking point—the fact that he frequented only the rich and famous, with a weakness for people whose family names are those of countries, like the Greeces, the Yugoslavias, Rania of Jordan, or Felipe of Spain.
He never stayed long in one place, and went only where it was in his interest to go, so why then was he coming to L’Agapanthe when the world was full of luminaries who were only too eager to welcome him?
Had he heard about the view, the cuisine, his hosts, or their guests? Was he expecting to find old friends or make new ones here? In that case, he risked being let down, because we were too low-key for him, and he wasn’t going to find anyone of transcendent interest among my parents’ Old Faithfuls. Unless he was coming to check out Marie and me … which might also prove a disappointment, because lovely and rich though we might be (as Frédéric never tired of telling us), we surely weren’t lovely and rich enough for Béno Grunwald, who deigned to look only at spectacular women.
So upon reflection, I’d decided that I should give up any idea of seduction where he was concerned. One, simply because I was no raving beauty, and two, such a competition depressed me from the get-go, leaving me without any desire to enter the lists. So I was counting on Marie—more gorgeous, feisty, and attracted to the glamour of her conquests—to meet the challenge and try her chances with him.
Instead of being insufferable, as I had feared, Béno turned out to be truly charming. Indeed, he became our hero as soon as he arrived, thanks to the grace and good humor with which he reacted to the incredible cock-up that greeted him at L’Agapanthe.
No doubt eager to downplay the bad impression produced by his arrival via helicopter, Béno countermanded the driver my mother had arranged for him in Cannes and drove up casually in a Mini Moke at 7:00 p.m. He had to ring several times at the front gate before gaining entrance to the property, because the servants were at dinner and the bell rarely managed to make itself heard on the first ring over their animated table talk. But to his surprise, greeted at last by Marcel, he was asked to park his car at the service entrance before being taken on a tour of the house!
Nevertheless, Béno complied, thinking that perhaps this was some peculiar family custom. He began to suspect a mix-up when Marcel, beginning with the garages, explained that we had originally had our own gas pump but now fueled our vehicles like everyone else at the local gas station, where we did not even maintain an account because the attendants there no longer knew what such a thing was and required payment via Carte Bleue with each transaction. Old Marcel’s indignation seemed genuine, but Béno could not understand why this man—the chauffeur? the butler?—had decided to engage him in a conversation that was doubtless urbane but singularly unusual.
As his guide led him off toward the servants’ quarters, Béno decided it was a case of mistaken identity, but he was enjoying the mishap too much to clear matters up just yet. Besides, before introducing himself as a houseguest, he was curious to discover for whom he’d been mistaken!
“There are ten bedrooms along this hall,” Marcel informed him, “but they are all essentially alike and I think you will have a good idea of them all if I show you just one.”
Was he supposed to be an architect? Were the Ettinguers contemplating some remodeling? But the other shoe didn’t drop until Marcel added, “I’ll show you the beaches; Madame advised me explicitly to take you along the service path so as not to attract the notice of the guests or the rest of the family, because not everyone in the house is happy with this idea, you understand.” A real estate agent! The Ettinguers were