Letter from Casablanca

HEAVENLY BLISS

To Isabella G., who talked to me in Rome about “Heavenly Bliss”

Until the day I met Madame Huppert, I had never heard of Ikebana. I was very much on the defensive that afternoon. I had prepared myself psychologically to tell a lot of little lies if it seemed to me “promotional.” At that time I considered little lies as a necessary ingredient in order to appear interesting, to escape from mediocrity, and I trained myself to tell them without constraint. All things considered, I found myself quite convincing when I lied, perhaps more so than when I told the truth. But faced with a direct question, without pretext, without even the glimmer of who or what Ikebana was, all my admirable inclinations toward falsehood crumbled inexorably, and I was forced to admit my ignorance.

For the interview, Madame received me on the terrace. She was lying on a very austere, cushionless, reed deck chair, of the yoga-meditation type and was dressed in a delicious pale blue kimono. Up until the last moment I had been undecided whether to wear my blue pleated skirt with my red pullover, the “adolescent-of-good-family-who-belongs-to-the-tennis-club” type, or my nut-brown tweed suit with the beige shin. Then I had decided on the suit, not without certain misgivings over the resolution because the season was not really ideal for a heavy tweed like mine. That year a dazzling October seemed untiringly to prolong a summer that had been magnificent, and the last tourists were still going around the lake shore in shorts, as if they wanted to absorb the sunshine.

But for heavens sake! After all, that suit had cost me almost all my salary, in spite of the fact that I’d bought it on sale at the end of the previous winter, and then I hadn’t had a chance to wear it yet. It was a Saint Laurent divided skirt, Forties-type squared shoulders with stiff padding, and wide lapels with two buttons like a man’s. A super chic item: in Vogue Deborah Kerr wore an identical one, leaning on the veranda of her ranch. But in that stupid school whoever would have appreciated a Saint Laurent like mine? My colleagues arrived in the morning dolled up in an appalling way. Only their aprons and hair curlers were missing. I might as well put on the Saint Laurent for the interview with Madame. At least someone would be able to appreciate it. At least I presumed so, and I thought I knew why. I say, a villa like Madame’s was not in keeping with those stupid creatures, the rich grocers’ wives type who had infested the hills around the lake with villas in taste that could compete with Disneyland and who swooped down on the gallery at the end of the season when the owner organized AN AUCTION WITHOUT PRECEDENT and carried away some daubs of paint that would make a horse faint in order to hang them on the walls of their small-town mansions. Furthermore, it was enough to look at the wrought-iron gate from which led two straight rows of cypresses, the arabesque towers in early twentieth-century style, each with its own lightning rod, the Italian garden, the terrace flooded with bougainvillea. And then I thought that even a simple announcement in the newspaper could be enough for a shrewd person to understand something about the class of a lady. The job offers, which I looked through avidly on Saturday, were full of rude and insinuating, or at best dull and predictable, proposals, where “the possibility of a brilliant career” masked the squalor of selling encyclopedias for deficient children door to door. An announcement like this one requiring a secretary: “Intelligence, discretion, culture. French indispensable,” didn’t happen very often.

I considered that these were four qualities which I possessed unequivocally. It’s a pity that the principal of the school, terrorized because I talked to the boys about the Nude Maja, and the owner of the gallery, who thought only of fleecing the ladies from Varese, didn’t agree. Too bad for them.

To say that Madame was charmante may seem trifling, but serves to convey the idea. If she was fifty years old, she carried her age in an excellent manner; if she was forty, she carried it with dignity. But I was inclined toward the first hypothesis. She had hair of a blonde so unnatural that one ended up by accepting it immediately, because blatant deceit is much more acceptable than pretended deceit. (At that time I had a whole theory based on the scale of deceit.) And, thank heaven, she didn’t have a permanent. On principle I had nothing against permanents, for goodness sake, but the fact is that my colleagues came to school with such painful permanents that I’d ended up detesting them.

Madame began a very lengthy conversation in French. Evidently she used French to verify my knowledge of the language, as was requested in the advertisement, but in that regard I felt myself impregnable, thanks to Charleroi, even though I was careful not to say so. However, I did nothing to disguise my strong Belgian accent, even though it wasn’t difficult for me to do so: it was only a question of tonics and gutturals.

We began with literature. Very discreetly Madame informed herself of my tastes, not without letting me know hers, in order to put me at ease, which were Montherlant of La reine morte (“so human and all-consuming,” she said) and the enchanting melancholy of Alain-Fournier. Pierre Loti, however, was not to be disregarded. He was redeemed, especially by his Rarnuntcho. She was sure that sooner or later someone would have done it, perhaps even an American critic: the Americans had an unquestionable flair for the rêpechages. To tell the truth, Loti brought back to me the memory of the stuffy smell of the classrooms in the Sacred Heart School in Charleroi, where Pécheurs d’lslande was one of the few reading books allowed, but I tried to agree. I had spent eight years erasing the school in Charleroi from my existence and it would not have been to Madame’s liking to bring those memories back to me. I could have aimed at the intellectual, risking Sartre, one of whose stories I had read (it was horrible, however) but I preferred to proceed cautiously and said Françoise Sagan who, after all, had something to do with existentialism. And then I mentioned Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro (I’d seen the film with Ava Gardner) and Louis Bromfield’s Rain. Madame asked me if I knew the tropics. I said no, “unfortunately,” but that sooner or later I must; I had always lacked the opportunity. And then we went on to painting.

Here I went on at great length because it was my field, and if I told some falsehoods it wasn’t entirely for “promotional” motives but only to embellish a little. I said that I’d graduated from the state institute of art two years before (which was true) but that Italy was intolerably narrow-minded. What was offered to a young artist in Italy? Substitute teaching in a middle school.

Fortunately in the summer I could cultivate my interests by working in a local art gallery (I ardently hoped, while I said it, that she had never gone there); only that at the end of the tourist season the gallery closed and the town plummeted again into a cultureless void. And so, me voilà.

I thought that the moment for more precise questions had arrived. In particular I feared that Madame would question me about my ability to type, an ability which I considered indispensable for every secretary. Mine was nonexistent. The rare times when I had to write a letter, down at the gallery, it took me all afternoon (I typed only with my right index finger) and even after much application the results were not very impressive. Instead, Madame didn’t seem in the least disposed to ask me “technical” questions. She seemed to have her mind very much occupied with painting, and it didn’t seem right to discourage her.

At first we talked about Bonnard’s yellows — I don’t remember why, probably because of the autumn light and the golden spot of chestnuts that we could see on the side of the mountain across the lake. Then I grew crafty and went for the fauves, the “big game.” Matisse was out of the question, of course. I took that for granted. But personally I felt Dufy more, the Dufy of the seascapes, the geraniums, the palm trees of Cannes. — With Dufy — I said — the happiness of the Mediterranean sings on the canvas. — On the wall next to the desk in the salon of the “Palette of the Lake,” the owner kept a calendar which had a Dufy reproduction for each month. I was a veteran of thirty consecutive afternoons from five to nine (thirty-one for July and August) for every reproduction. In the summer months the “Palette of the Lake” never closed. Let’s say, to be more precise, that Dufy even came out of my ears. But in the gallery the view varied between the Dufy reproductions and the idiotic faces of the women who admired the daubs hung on the walls, and to whom, according to the owner, I had to direct welcoming smiles into the bargain. It’s logical that I preferred Dufy. I knew him from memory.

I asked Madame what she thought of Bal à Antibes (it was the reproduction for June) with those splashes of blue and white for the sailors in the foreground in the midst of the turmoil of colors. And the light blue enchantment of La mer (July) with those sails (I really said this) like little bursts of laughter. And the harmony of the pastels in Plage de Sainte-Adresse, the 1921 one, I thought, (August) didn’t it make her think of a little symphony? Madame agreed. However, I said preemptorily, I thought Jardins publiques à Hyères (September) was unsurpassable. I found it “definitive.” For me, after that picture, Dufy did not exist any longer. (And this was the absolute truth.)

The calendar had a certain effect, on Madame, who was not sparing of her compliments to me. And then — oh, well — I said with all the ease that the act seemed to merit that in order to study the fauves I had gone “on purpose” to Paris. Naturally, I refrained from saying that I knew Paris well, because all my knowledge resulted from a school field trip with the nuns when Papa was working in the mine at Charleroi. It had been a four-day bus trip, with brief stops for bread and bathroom, then on board again and another round of En passant par la Lorraine under the inflexible joy of Sister Marianne who, fearing long conversations and long silences, both messengers of mischief, resolved the dilemma with the jollity of a healthy song. Of Paris I retained the dreadful memory of the Musée de I’Histoire de France, of the Pantheon, of my feet swollen like hot water bottles, and of my first menstrual period, which had started after a memorable walk the second night of our stay. The last day Sister Marianne had piloted us to the Louvre for a fifteen-minute visit, just long enough to put our noses in front of Corot and Millet, and at the booth at the exit each one of us had had to chip in to buy a reproduction of The Angelus, which during the trip home Sister Marianne had then stuck up on the rear window of the bus. I was thirteen years old, I felt ugly, unhappy, and misunderstood, and for the entire trip I dreamed of a cruel vendetta: One day I would become a great painter with a grand studio in the Latin Quarter. Sister Marianne would come to beg me on bended knee to go and fresco the refectory of the school in Charleroi where the great artist had done her first work. But I would answer haughtily that it was just, not possible, I had to prepare for my triumphal exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris rendered me homage, the whole world claimed my paintings, and even the President of the Republic would be present.

— And Ikebana? — said Madame. — Do you like Ikebana? — I answered that “decidedly” I did not know him. (I felt stuck, and chose to be dry and definitive.)

— A pity, — said Madame, — but it’s not important. I’m sure you will learn to love it. Please put the bottle of gin nearer to me and call to Constance to bring me another tonic water.—

While she waited for the tonic water, Madame asked me absent-mindedly about my hobbies, if by chance I had a passion for oenology. Ah, yes? Splendid. She did not, she preferred cocktails. But the engineer, yes, her husband, had a passion for wines as a good Italian — an adoptive Italian, but Italian nevertheless — oh, for rare wines, of course. She would have liked to learn something more about them, too, but she certainly couldn’t insist that the engineer give her lessons, he was always traveling, always so consumed by his business, poor dear. But, by the way, my French was excellent.

I answered that yes, it was indeed true, my poor papa had taken my education very much to heart, in spite of not ever having a free minute in his life — he was in mining. The governess had required French, obviously, old, dear, austere Francine (I was slightly moved by her memory) who had been practically a mother to me. She was a Walloon. This unequivocal Belgian acccent that once I detested and that today I found delightful I owed to her. Oh, no, no, my mother didn’t leave me an orphan. It was only that Mama was so fragile, so delicate, and then her piano gave her no rest.

Madame pushed the cart with the aperitifs toward my armchair and invited me to help myself.

— And so school does not interest you? It is not your vocation?—

I said that as far as a vocation was concerned, I might even have followed it, but I had been graduated for two years already, and it still fell to me to do substitute teaching. And, dear God, I was almost twenty years old. I explained the concept of substituting, which Madame appeared to totally ignore, and to be concise said that the following week, when the teacher I was substituting for had finished her maternity leave, the principal would tell me that the school was very grateful for my most valuable assistance, good day and goodbye. And while at one time the pregnant ladies to be substituted for had sprouted like mushrooms, nowadays people think twice before having children, what with the cost of living, just imagine. I don’t know if she kept abreast of the statistics relative to births in Italy.

Dusk was falling over the lake, and from our position it really was a painting, anything but Dufy. The terrace overlooked the garden, full of lemon trees and cypresses, furrowed by the geometry of the boxwood hedges which outlined the pebbled avenues. The town, on the spur that jutted into the lake, was already in shadow, and on its roofs lingered vague streaks of pale blue light. The last light of day was for the landing stage opposite the gale and for the towers of the villa, which were warm yellow, toasted by time. The swallows made a marvelous uproar, going crazy low in the sky. Madaine was explaining to me that she was very much afraid of being bored during the winter, used as she was to Paris. She couldn’t say she exactly needed a secretary, let’s say rather a companion. Yes, some letters now and then to certain Swiss galleries from which she bought, and things of that kind. But fundamentally she was looking for a person of good taste with whom to exchange impressions, with whom to talk about intelligent matters. “Naturally,” she did not insist that I decide on the spot, I could give my answer tomorrow. But “naturally,” food and lodging. Would I like to have a look at my eventual bedroom? She called Constance.

For all the rest of October Madame was very busy in planning a non-realistic Ikebana, an extremely delicate balance of autumn shades. The base was an antique gold-colored Belle Epoque vase, a 1906 glass, with a long, slender neck.

Madame left the responsibility of naming the composition up to me. All the fanciful compositions were titled, because one of the purposes of Ikebana was just to solicit names, to make concrete in words the sensation that the composition had excited in our souls. What struck me the most in that composition was “its heart of light,” I said, and Madame affirmed that she couldn’t have found a better name herself. To tell the truth, I began to possess a certain competence in this area. I had literally devoured Ikebana: I’art des fleurs, Les fleurs et Vantique tradition japonaise, Ikebana et Hai-Kai, and finally La peinture japonaise, a magnificent volume on glossy paper, all reproductions. At night, on the advice of Madame, I read Kawabata, who was “so Zen from the first to the last page.” It bored me to death, with all those idiotic women gazing sadly at winter landscapes, but I refrained from saying so in order not to appear materialistic. Madame detested materialism, and Kawabata was “un petit souffle who caressed the plains of the soul.”

With my October salary, which Madame insisted on paying in full even though I had not begun work at the beginning of the month, I bought myself a jacket of dark green buckskin, which I felt much in need of, and accessories in very red tortoise: powder box, comb, and cigar lighter combined. With advanced money I purchased a most elegant writing case, which seemed to me to be indispensable for a secretary of a certain level, and which contained a tiny silver papercutter, a lacquered fountain pen, a bottle of very blue ink, and a little packet of writing paper in splendid light yellow-colored rice paper with matching envelopes. I found that my room acquired a more intellectual aspect. I made some small changes in the arrangement of the objects. I moved the lamp made from the jade vase from the chest of drawers to the table near the window, I arranged next to it the objects I had bought, and I got a real desk. To finish it off, I arranged in broad view the Poésie complète by Vittoria Aganoor Pompilj and La vie des abeilles by Maeterlinck, which I had bought at a stall.

At the beginning of November Madame entrusted to me two tasks which perfectly justified my acquisition of stationery. A catalogue had arrived from a gallery in Zurich in which two prints by Utamaro were mentioned without any specifications. I had to ask for information, dimensions, prices, possibly photographs. And then I had to go to a shop in Sanremo so that it would send us by its usual method the bulbs for transplanting indicated by such-and-such abbreviations in its catalogue.

To the gallery in Zurich I wrote a stiff, polite letter, in elegant handwriting, on my rice paper. I begged them to be very detailed in their answer, to indicate the price in Swiss francs, to send at least two colored photographs measuring 16 by 24. Finally I let drop the possibility of an immediate purchase depending upon the quality of the works, and I carefully signed myself Lisabetta Rossi-Fini, secretary to Madame Huppert. I thought that for my signature I could quite rightly begin to use Mama’s last name and Papa’s, joined by a hyphen. After all, I was the daughter of them both; I did not use names that did not belong to me.

At the shop in Sanremo, in addition to the bulbs, I ordered a dozen blue carnations which I’d seen in the catalogue and which had fascinated me. The carnation is a simple, popular flower which signifies frankness and sympathy. But that greenhouse variety of intense blue that faded into violet on its curly edges was truly unusual. They seemed exotic, mysterious flowers, something like orchids without possessing their cold vulgarity.

In those days Madame was valiantly occupied in the realization of a Gashu, a traditional moribana, for which is necessary, more than the gifts of sensitivity and creativity, exact knowledge of the ancient Japanese painting which inspired the moribana. The moribana is a type of Ikebana created in a large, flat vase, usually rectangular or round. My collaboration on the moribana, to tell the truth, was limited to the search for the primary materials, given that I had to take a rather boring walk in the hills around the lake to search for walnut trees and juniper shoots. It had rained recently and the ground was not exactly ideal for sylvan strolls. Perhaps because of the pollen and the decaying leaves, I developed an annoying irritation of the ankles which caused me to scratch for a week.

The gallery in Zurich answered by return mail. It sent the photographs of the Utamaros, regretting that the colors were not very true and that the shape was not what I had requested, but they were all that it had in its file. They showed two small water colors: one rather obvious female figure and one insect on a water lily pad, all in tones of green and brown, over which Madame enthused. The information from the gallery, in addition to the dimensions and prices, was as follows: “Utamaro, 1754–1806. Num. 148/a: Femme de Yedo, 1802 environ, gouache sur papier de Chine, etat de conservation parfait. Num. 148/b: Libellule sur nenuphar, 1790 environ, gouache sur papier de Chine, quelque legere tache d’humidite sur le dos.”

It was pure chance that evening that, before going to bed, I glanced at the chapter in Peinture japonaise dedicated to the work and school of Utamaro. The first discrepancy with the Swiss catalogue to arouse my attention was the date of death, 1797, which I confirmed in Madame’s Larousse. I found it most peculiar that such a reliable gallery could make such a foolish mistake, and I set out to search further. Decidedly the gallery was not in luck. My book devoted ample space to a follower of Utamaro, a certain Torii Kiyomine (nineteenth century), rich in talent and in mellow drawing, but without the melancholy grace of the master, who had dedicated his painting to the life of the courtesans. I understood immediately that the Swiss had made an even graver blunder, and it did not seem opportune to drop the matter.

That same evening at my desk I composed a masterpiece of a letter which the next day underwent Madame’s approval. Stating beforehand that the person for whom it was my duty to write was an international expert on Japanese painting and that the humble signer of the letter did everything possible to assist her in her research, I politely begged to observe the following: 1)I found it truly odd that Utamaro’s date of death, accepted by common consent, of the most authoritative contemporary scholars as 1797, had been arbitrarily shifted a good nine years. 2) Such an inaccuracy, which was evidently not a typographical misprint, provoked an even more lamentable error: the Maestro would have to have painted a work even though he was already deceased. 3) The female figure of No. 148/a in the catalogue, indicated as Femme de Yedo by Utamaro, was in reality a courtesan by Torii Kiyomine, as was attested (even for those unable to read the ideograms to the left of the figure) not only by the volute hem of the dress and the obviously nineteenth-century position of the figure, but the unequivocal high, black, wooden-soled sandals which emerged from beneath the kimono. I let it be understood rather wickedly that the clients of the gallery would certainly be alarmed about the guarantee of the works in their possession if they were by chance to become acquainted with such a deplorable blunder. I permitted myself to suggest, therefore, a prompt errata corrigé in the catalogue, which would reassure “all of us.” And finally I proposed the purchase, in addition to the authentic Utamaro, for which I was prepared to pay the fair price, of the courtesan by Kiyomine also, for half the requested price. I signed myself, with cordial regards, Lisabetta Rossi-Fini, secretary to Madame Huppert.

At the beginning of December, Monsieur Huppert returned from a long trip on the Ivory Coast with a precious gift for Madame. It was a stone statuette that represented a man squatting and holding a curious old-fashioned rifle. He explained that stone sculpture is extremely rare in Africa because it requires an artisan organization possible only in certain civilizations with a fairly well-developed social structure. For example, that piece came from the Mintadi people in the Upper Congo and decorated the ancient necropolis. It was a reliquary image of great antiquity, as the 1514 chronicles of Alfonso the First, King of the Congo, already attested. But the greatest value, at least for me, was the bracelet that the statue was wearing on its wrist, a very thin strip of gold with a row of tiny diamonds, simply splendid. — This, however, is a modern piece — smiled the engineer as he slipped it on Madame’s wrist. I thought it very delicate.

Monsieur Huppert was a polite man, exquisitely kind, a little shy, and looked happy that Madame had found some agreeable company “who would make her convalescence less oppressive,” as he said. Excluding the day of Monsieur Huppert’s arrival, I always had supper with the Hupperts. It was a custom begun when I had first come to the villa, and to Madame it seemed inopportune to interrupt it. Besides, I busied myself with the table, the flowers (every evening I composed a tiny Ikebana, simple and graceful), the wine. That stupid Constance had no gift of delicacy, even though she was a delight as a cook, and certainly in matters of taste one couldn’t count on her. As for Giuseppe, well, it was really a miracle to get him to work in a striped jacket and white gloves. He held the tray as if he were handling a pair of pruning shears. But you had to be indulgent with him: after all, he’d been hired as a gardener.

The conversation usually concerned Monsieur Huppert’s passion, that is, the Dark Continent, for which he nurtured a love that bordered on idolatry. His work of importing the best materials on behalf of important European firms had allowed him, in ten years of travel, to consider Africa as his chosen land. And to hear his stories, Africa still seemed the continent of Livingstone, of Stanley, and of Savorgnan di Brazza, so well did Monsieur Huppert understand its most secret heart, its most mysterious witchcraft, its less touristy itineraries. Listening to him talk I seemed to delve again into my schoolbooks or into the dreams of my childhood, into the tales of Tarzan, the adventures of Cino and Franco, the films of Ava Gardner and Humphrey Bogart. He knew all the trails off the beaten track, for instance, which safaris to choose among those which left from Fort Lamy and Fort Achambault, which seasons to avoid in order not to fall into the bedlam of rich Americans seeking thrills. He knew the best guides in Nairobi, the paleolithic dwellings of Olor-Gesalie, the rock paintings of Cheke, the mysterious ruins of Zimbabwé, which some believed were the mythical King Solomon’s Mines. But he also knew the fascination of the Victoria Falls, the luxury of the N’gor Hotel at Dakar, the picturesque cottages on the slopes of Kilimanjaro where the rich Rhodesians spent their vacations, the emerald golf courses of South Africa. During supper I remained silent listening to him tell stories. What else could I do, after all? And once in my room I took down muddled notes in a notebook that I’d entitled Voyage en Afrique. I created an ideal tourist itinerary for a trip on which I was certain sooner or later the Hupperts would invite me to accompany them. I was aware, with perfect objectivity, that my prestige was clearly in ascent. Among other things, the victory over the gallery in Zurich, which had responded congratulating me and accepting my conditions, scored an indisputable point in my favor.

When the telephone call came from Monsieur Delatour, I was alone in the house. The Hupperts had gone shopping in town (Madame had to buy some Christmas decorations) and had entrusted the villa to me, as by this time they did when they went out. In such cases I answered the telephone, signed receipts for possible registered mail, paid the tradesmen, gave instructions to Constance for supper.

More than surprised, Madame became greatly agitated when she learned of Monsieur Delatour’s arrival the next day. She said that it was a catastrophe, my God, we had nothing in the house, we were out of everything, and then, was he coming alone or with Madame Delatour? I didn’t know? But, holy heaven, it was jondamentale, it was so embarrassing to receive guests uncivilly, and then the Delatours! Oh, how foolish not to have bought flowers in town, there wasn’t even material for a decent Ikebana.

The next day was a feverish one; in the morning Madame tried to compose a Shinsei with pine and magnolia leaves, but she thought it turned out poor and clumsy, and she took it apart. I suggested a good-omened Jushoku to her, with chrysanthemums, fern, and a branch of kaki, Japanese persimmon. It had the advantage of being a simple composition, and then the kaki from the garden, with its shiny red fruit, was really splendid. For a base we used a modern, very elegant Turkish blue vase from Venini. The composition came out satisfactorily, although as a centerpiece it was really nothing to rave about. At best, it might go well on the chest of drawers in the dining room, or rather on the buffet. Flanked by the fruit, it looked picturesque, but nothing more.

The blue carnations which I had ordered from the shop in Sanremo arrived unexpectedly to save us. I’d almost forgotten them; they had slipped my mind. A small delivery van from the shop came to bring them, along with the bulbs. That they were not a natural color an expert eye noted at once. I’ve never understood if the coloring substance was absorbed through the ground or if the flowers were sprayed. In any case, they arrived in perfect condition, very fresh, truly providential. Madame and I made our excuses to the engineer, we hoped he understood, that day we really couldn’t keep him company at dinner. We had a very quick snack of sandwiches and grapefruit juice and proceeded immediately to the Ikebana. We aimed for grandeur. To tell the truth, the composition wasn’t very orthodox, but probably Monsieur Delatour wasn’t an expert in this area, and we allowed ourselves some liberty. Our moribana provoked a little épater with its milk-white Celadon tray, the ferns, and the blue spot of the six carnations in the middle. But as a centerpiece it had a very strong personality, so much so that it set the tone for all the rest. The rest I had to hurriedly deal with all by myself, because Madame retired to her room for her maquillage, and I succumbed to dreadful doubt over the choices. I decided on a very elegant, unpretentious theme: a very simple while linen tablecloth, nineteenth-century Dutch porcelain, crystal stemware. I finished at seven o’clock, exactly when I heard a car screech on the gravel driveway. From the window I saw that it was a dark blue Bentley with a driver, but I didn’t have time to see how many persons there were in the back seat. In any case, I had no time to waste. I had just barely an hour left to rush to my room and make myself presentable. The responsibility of the flambé at supper had been entrusted to me as had Madame’s evening gown. I hadn’t had time to try it yet, but I was sure that it would age me greatly. And I was worn out.

Madame was a treasure to introduce me as her “artistic secretary, Mademoiselle Rossi-Fini.” It helped me to find the self-composure I’d needed. Not that I felt embarrassed, let’s be quite clear about this, but I don’t deny being a little excited, yes. And then the Delatours weren’t exactly the kind of people who put you at your ease, especially Madame Delatour. As a young girl, she must have been gorgeous. Now she cultivated a kind of austere beauty, à la Grace Kelly, but more haughty and cold: very thin eyebrows, ash-blonde hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, the stretched face of women who go to Swiss clinics. On the other hand, the years gave Monsieur Delatour a touch of charm, as happens sometimes to men who aren’t very good-looking: silvery temples, lines and crow’s-feet around his eyes, a light tan, blue eyes. He was a Von Karajan type, but more solid, less esthetic.

Giuseppe entered bringing the avocado cocktails. In their silver cups the pistachio green of the avocado cubes sprinkled with a very light coating of shaved ice and with a drop of ketchup looked magnificent. Oh, a trifle (I pretended to be evasive, emphasizing that I was pretending to be evasive), old Francine had taught me to make it. Papa was so fond of avocados, actually he adored all exotic fruit, perhaps for esthetic reasons, who knows? (He had a terrible esthetic sense, Papa did.) An artist? No, no, he was in mining. (Ah, yes, really a terrible esthetic sense.) Actually, a certain exotic fruit is an authentic pleasure for the eyes, no? Don’t a pineapple, a papaya, a guava, an avocado put together make in their own way an Ikebana? An Ikebana without a title, that’s all.

— And what is this one called?—

Madame Delatour’s question caught us by surprise, an authentic cold shower. In the haste to prepare it, in the agitation of the unexpected arrival, Madame and I had certainly not thought to give it a name. I was silent, waiting for Madame’s answer. Instead, Madame elegantly extricated herself with an inviting gesture toward me. — Please, dear, you tell her, — it meant. — I don’t want to deprive you of this pleasure.—

I groped desperately in the search for a title worthy of the occasion. Madame Delatour’s eyes pierced me like two pins, searching and skeptical. — Bliss … Heavenly Bliss, — I said. — It’s a traditional moribana, — I continued in one breath. — It means the enchantment that is born in the soul of the masters of the house upon the arrival of welcome guests.—

Madame Delatour finally let her glacial expression melt. Her drawn face relaxed (it seemed to me to be uglier, I must say) and opened in an affable smile. She was about to surrender. I left it to Giuseppe, who was coming in with the cart, to conquer her once and for all. The roast pheasant, gently laid on the flambé tray, was superb. Before entrusting me with the cart, Giuseppe drew out the tail feathers which ornamented the tray, uncorked the champagne, and opened the cognac with impressive calm, and only then did he say — Monsieur Delatour, there’s a telephone call for you from Paris. — He had some unexpected talents, the good Giuseppe, perhaps I had underestimated him. In the meantime the ladies had united against Monsieur Huppert in regard to hunting. Proceeding from the pheasant the conversation had come to hunting in general, and Monsieur Huppert, somewhat rashly, had confessed his passion for safaris.

— What! — (Madame Delatour spoke in her detached tone of voice but was visibly scandalized.) To shoot down a gazelle, that mass of élan vital contained in the gracefulness of a slender body, to kill that marvel of creation, was not this a crime against nature?

Monsieur Huppert tried to explain, without too much enthusiasm, that on safaris not only gazelles were killed, or at least not exclusively. He appealed to the thrill of danger, of man pitted against the animal, he even cited Hemingway. But he was clearly at a disadvantage. And then he was isolated. I refrained from getting into the situation. It seemed risky to me.

Monsieur Delatour returned with a rather worried expression, sat down distractedly, seemed to be far away. The conversation resumed with a certain weariness. It was just the moment to flamber. It would revive the atmosphere a little. — Oops, — I said, carrying the match from the fireplace like a torch. — The infidel is condemned to the funeral pyre. Justice is served! — It seemed an appreciable witticism to me, but nobody laughed. I made a fiasco.

— At Dakar didn’t you make the contacts we had decided on? — Monsieur Delatour suddenly asked, staring at Monsieur Huppert.

Monsieur Huppert started slightly, was silent for a moment as if uncomfortable, drank a sip of champagne. — I’ll explain later, — he said. — It wasn’t very easy this time.—

— I don’t believe it’s necessary, — continued Monsieur Delatour. — I have received some very confidential information from Paris, and you know from which source. — He spoke in a dry, neutral tone, without a shade of courtesy, as if he had never seen Monsieur Huppert. — The Germans settled the deal, as was foreseeable. Now we can leave everything in the warehouse to age.—

The cognac on the pheasant was burning merrily, with a sizzling blue flame full of promise. The recipe called for at least one minute of flame, but probably it didn’t last that long; I hadn’t put on much cognac. On the other hand, it was better this way. I felt it was just the moment to come to the point: the eye had had its share, now it was the stomach’s turn. I carved hurriedly and called Giuseppe to serve. Madame Delatour took a morsel of breast hidden under a truffle. She was on a strict diet, the embalmed beauty. Damn! Madame Huppert, perhaps not to embarrass her guest, followed her example. When Giuseppe offered me the tray, I remained undecided whether to do the same. There was an upper thigh with two threads of meat of much reduced dimensions that might do well enough, inasmuch as after supper I’d always be able to pay a little visit to Constance. Then it struck me that Giuseppe and that greedy Constance would have made a clean sweep of the leftovers, happy as clams that the gentry had such small appetites, and I served myself a generous slice of breast. As I said, I’d eaten practically nothing since morning, the sandwich for dinner had only tickled my stomach, the day had been stressful … and, after all, I deserved that pheasant.

— I don’t know if you’re aware of the problems that your lack of timeliness is causing us, — Monsieur Delatour said in the same tone as before.

Monsieur Huppert said that he was aware of them.

— Good, — continued Monsieur Delatour. — Now try to translate these problems into dollars.—

Probably Monsieur Huppert did the translation mentally, because he grew pale; the fork with the truffle remained in mid-air. His forehead was beaded with a veil of perspiration.

— Monsieur Huppert, — said Monsieur Delatour in a cutting tone — are you aware that we pay you to sell? You cease to sell, we cease to pay.—

I blessed Giuseppe, who came in with dessert. It was a frozen pineapple mousse garnished with candied cherries, Constance’s masterpiece, which I knew from memory: I was crazy about it. When Giuseppe served me, I whispered to him to bring more champagne. (I had providentially put two more bottles in the fridge an hour before.) And to do it at once. Then I got up to light the fire, not without remarking that that evening I felt exactly like a vestal. Vestal or pyromaniac, the choice was up to them. Madame Huppert had a good laugh, and Monsieur Delatour joined her. The atmosphere was frankly brightening. I thought that there was nothing better than a good fire in the fireplace to relax the nerves. And then Giuseppe came in with the bucket of ice and the Dom Perignon wrapped in a snow-white napkin (impeccable, the old Giuseppe — he was behaving like a maître d), drew the cork from the bottle with a pop, and refilled the glasses.

— You are aware, — said Monsieur Delatour again to Monsieur Huppert (but now his voice was more relaxed, more conciliatory) — you are aware, I hope, that if you want to regain the lost territory at this point, the only remaining choice is X-21. Moreover, if you had followed my advice, you’d have settled the terms last year.—

Monsieur Huppert did not yet seem completely restored from the slight dispute. He was still pale; I noticed that his lips trembled imperceptibly. He talked with his eyes lowered, on the defensive, that fool Monsieur Huppert. It seemed he was going to purposely ruin the whole evening, which until this moment had been very precariously restored.

— But it’s not possible … — he mumbled. — You understand, Monsieur Delatour … it’s not a question of it being a whim of mine … I mean it’s a thing …—

As I anticipated, Monsieur Delatour lost his patience once and for all, blood surged to his face, his neck muscles tensed. Monsieur Huppert’s obstinacy had succeeded in ruining the evening.

— It’s a thing…? — he said, trying to control himself. — It’s what kind of thing?—

— Let’s say that it leads to imprisonable falsifications, — said Monsieur Huppert.

— Oh! — murmured Monsieur Delatour sadly. — Progress has its own risks, dear Monsieur Huppert, don’t you think so? Civilization is always paid in some way. One doesn’t pass with impunity from caves to refrigerators.—

Monsieur Huppert was silent, staring stubbornly at the pineapple mousse which he’d left on his plate. There was a very long moment of silence. The only sound was the crackling of the fire in the fireplace.

Monsieur Delatour assumed a conciliatory, almost good-natured tone. He spoke as if to a child who had committed some unintentional foolishness. — Never mind what I told you about not conquering the market with your methods. I don’t want to teach you your job, for God’s sake, but after all you can’t claim to sell certain products accompanied by certificates of guarantee. How many other times have you brought those poor people the refined products of our civilization without writing treatises of ethics on them? …. You need good manners … you understand … delicacy…. Find a name that’s a little innocuous and … conventional, that’s it, and possibly attractive. They’re primitives, believe me. Monsieur Huppert, the primitives love poetic names, mythical names. Don’t consider leaving any signed documents, it’s always better to leave … how do you say? … a pseudonym.—

His eyes wandered around. His gaze rested on the fireplace, on Madame Huppert who was watching the fire, on me who was staring at him, on the champagne, on the Ikebana in the middle of the table.

— For example, — he whispered insinuatingly, in the tone of someone who has had an excellent idea — for example, begin by selling them a million dollars’ worth of “Heavenly Bliss.’’—

Just at that moment Giuseppe appeared to ask if he should serve the coffee.

— In a few minutes, — said Madame. — We’ll have it by the fire.—