The Suitors - By Cecile David-Weill Page 0,80
vases of cacti and weathered wood very New Age, in a Sedona, Arizona, sort of way, and he rather liked them. What he really didn’t understand, however, was why our animated conversation took place mostly after the butlers had left the room, like those secret confabs in children’s camps and boarding schools after lights-out, when the volume of noise varies according to the proximity of adult supervision.
As for my mother, she made an effort not to take offense over Alvin’s worries about the menu, because although he had obviously decided to eat what was put in front of him without making a fuss, he was finally compelled to ask, “Are the eggs organic?”
Finding his question absurd, since—organic or not—the chef always bought the best products at the market, my mother bluffed without blinking an eye: “Absolutely.”
She almost lost patience, however, when Alvin asked her if he might have an egg-white omelet instead of the delicate marvel of eggs, butter, béchamel, and Gruyère on abase of impeccably soft-boiled eggs soon to be placed before us and which never failed to elicit cries of admiration from the most hard to please of our guests, such was the skill required to bring a soufflé Mornay to perfection. Then, rallying to her initial open-mindedness toward this new guest, my mother rose to the occasion: “Why not!”
“So, these air rights?” asked Laszlo brightly, to lighten the atmosphere.
Alvin explained that after making his fortune in toys, he had moved onto real estate and dealt a great deal in the rights to use and develop the empty space over buildings in New York.
“I don’t understand. Who would be interested in them?”
“Well, developers intending to put up buildings taller than the limit anticipated by the local zoning map. Because all a developer needs to do is buy the air rights over adjacent buildings and turn their space into extra stories for the building he wishes to construct.”
“You mean that the lower the neighboring buildings are, if they’re small houses, for example, then the more air they have to sell, and the higher the developer can build?”
“Exactly.”
“Unbelievable … and how much does the open airspace cost?” asked Laszlo.
“Between 213 and 430 dollars a square foot, let’s say 50 to 60 percent of the sale price of a plot.”
Frédéric was electrified. “But that’s a gold mine, your angle! Because I figure that, if they have the choice among several adjacent properties whose airspace they can buy, the developers must set all the neighbors against one another and force them to accept an offer that is nonnegotiable.”
“Yes,” continued Alvin, “unless on the contrary the potential seller finds himself in a solid position as the key to the developer’s entire project, which requires that he purchase not only his air rights but those of all his neighbors.”
“Ah! Because that can go on ad infinitum?”
“No, only within the framework of one city block.”
“Fascinating …”
“Oh, wonderful, filet of sole Murat, I love that!” exclaimed Jean-Claude, taking a generous helping of fish, potatoes, and artichokes from the proffered serving dish.
“Do you eat like this every day?” asked Alvin, in the mixture of surprise and indignation adopted by an American citizen who sees someone throwing something on the ground or cutting in line.
“Yes, why?” replied my mother, honestly surprised.
“But it’s such a rich diet, I don’t see how you can stand it …”
Alvin then delivered a minutely detailed rundown of the calorie counts in our dinner, followed by a dietetic sermon on one’s ideal weight, a screed that entailed deep discussion of proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, vegetarian diets, omega-3 benefits, oils from fish, argan, and borage, flaxseed oil supplements, and iron pills—or better yet, iron in liquid form, to avoid constipation—and that brought us to the salad and cheese course.
My mother leaned toward Jean-Claude to tell him just what she thought of this nonsensical chemical babbling. “Rich! Rich! In the first place, we eat chicken, fish, or pasta, not proteins or hydrates of carbon, whatever that means!”
My mother was about to explode, while the rest of us were succumbing to boredom like a congregation benumbed by a Sunday sermon. And since it was easier and more courteous to change the subject instead of trying to shut him up …
“Alvin, I fear you are talking to a brick wall. Why don’t you talk to us about your interest in yoga?” I asked.
Alas, we realized that we were in for another dose of pontification when he announced that “diet and yoga are linked, because digestion requires a level of