The Other Side of Silence

FIVE

Approached along a narrow, winding road bordered by pine trees, the Villa Mauresque stood on the very summit of the Cap and behind a large wrought-iron gate with white plaster posts on one of which was carved the name of the house and what I took to be a sign against the evil eye, in red. It didn’t slow me down and I drove through the gates in Robin Maugham’s dust as if I had the nicest baby blue eyes in France. The place couldn’t have looked more private if King Leopold II of Belgium had been living there with his pet pygmy and his three mistresses and his private zoo, not to mention the many millions he’d managed to steal from the Congo. By all accounts he had quite a collection of human hands, too, lopped off the arms of natives to encourage the others to go into the jungle and collect rubber, and I think the king could have taught the Nazis a few things about cruelty and running an empire. Unlike Hitler, he’d died in bed at the age of seventy-four. Once, he had owned the whole of Cap Ferrat, and the Villa Mauresque had been built for one of his confidants, a man named Charmeton, whose Algerian background had left him with a taste for Moorish architecture. I knew this because it’s the sort of detail a concierge at the Grand Hôtel is supposed to know.

According to Robin Maugham, his uncle had owned the villa for more than thirty years. It was the type of place you could easily imagine a novelist writing about except that no one would have believed it, for the house seemed even more elaborate—inside and out—than I could have expected. Anne French was renting a nice villa. This one was magnificent and underlined Maugham’s international fame, his enormous wealth, and his impeccable taste. It was painted white, with green shutters and tall green double doors, horseshoe windows, a Moorish archway entrance, and a large cupola on the roof. There was a tennis court, a huge swimming pool, and a beautiful garden full of hibiscus, bougainvillea, and lemon trees that lent the evening air the sharp citrus scent of a barber’s shop. Inside were ebony wood floors, high ceilings, heavy Spanish furniture, gilded wooden chandeliers, blackamoor figures, Savonnerie carpets, and, among many others, a painting by Gauguin—one of those heavy-limbed, broad-nosed, Tahitian women that looks like she must have gone three rounds with Jersey Joe Walcott. Over the fireplace was a golden eagle with wings outspread, which reminded me of my former employers in Berlin, while all the books on a round Louis XVI table were new and sent from a shop in London called Heywood Hill. The soap I used to wash my hands in the ground-floor lavatory was still in its Floris wrapper, and the towels were as thick as the silk cushions on the Directoire armchairs. The Grand Hôtel felt like a cheaper version of what there was to be enjoyed at the Villa Mauresque. It was the sort of place where time and the outside world were not welcome; the sort of place it was hard to imagine could still exist in a ration-book economy that was recovering from a terrible war; the sort of place that was probably like the mind of the man who owned it, an elderly man in a double-breasted blue blazer that looked as if it had been made by the same London tailor as Robin’s, with a face like a Komodo dragon lizard. He stood and came to shake my hand as his nephew made the introduction, and when he licked the lips of his thin, broad, drooping pink mouth, I would not have been surprised to have seen a tongue that was forked.

“Where have you been, Robin? We’ve delayed dinner for you, and you know I hate that. It’s most inconsiderate to Annette.”

“I dropped into the Voile for a drink and met a friend of mine. Walter Wolf. He’s German and he’s a keen bridge player and he was at a loose end so I thought I’d better bring him along.”

“Is he indeed? I’m so glad.” Maugham placed a monocle in his eye, looked directly at me, and smiled a rictus smile. “We d-don’t see n-nearly enough G-Germans. It’s a good sign that you’re returning to the Riviera. It augurs well for the future that Germans can afford to come here again.”

“I’m afraid you’ve got me wrong, sir. I’m not here for the season. I work at the Grand Hôtel. I’m the concierge.”

“You’re very welcome all the same. So, you play bridge. The most entertaining game that the art of man has devised, is it not?”

“Yes, sir. I certainly think so.”

“Robin, you’d better tell Annette that we have an extra guest for dinner.”

“There’s always plenty of food, Uncle.”

“That’s not the point.”

“I thought we could make a four with Alan, later.”

“Excellent,” said Maugham.

While Robin went to speak to the cook, Maugham himself took me by the arm and into the dark green Baroque drawing room, where a butler wearing a white linen jacket materialized as if from thin air and proceeded to make me a gimlet to my exact instructions and then a martini for the old man, with a dash of absinthe.

“I dislike a man who’s not precise about what he wants to drink,” said Maugham. “You can’t rely on a fellow who’s vague about his favorite tipple. If he’s not precise about something he’s going to drink then it’s clear he’s not going to be precise about anything.”

We sat down and Maugham offered me a cigarette from the box on the table. I shook my head and lit one of my own, which drew yet more of his approval, only now he spoke German—albeit with a slight stammer, the way he spoke English—probably just to show that he could do it, but given it was probably a while since he’d done it, I was still impressed.

“I also like a man who prefers to smoke his own cigarettes rather than mine. Smoking is something you have to take seriously. It’s not a matter for experiment. I myself could no more smoke another brand of cigarette than I could take up marathon running. Tell me, Herr Wolf, do you like being the concierge at the Grand Hôtel?”

“Like?” I grinned. “That’s a luxury I simply can’t afford, Herr Maugham. It’s a job, that’s all. After the war, jobs in Germany weren’t so easy to come by. The hours are regular and the hotel’s a nice place. But the only reason I’m doing it is for the money. The day they stop paying me is the day I check out.”

“I agree. I have no time for a man who says he’s not interested in money. It means he has no self-respect. I myself only write for money these days. Certainly not for the pleasure of it.” A tear appeared in his eye. “No, that went out of it a long time ago. Mostly I write because I’ve always done it. Because I can’t think what the hell else to do. Unfortunately, I have never been able to persuade myself that anything else mattered. I’m eighty-two years old, Herr Wolf. Writing has become a habit, a discipline, and, to some extent, a compulsion, but I certainly wouldn’t give what I write to anyone for free.”

“Are you working on anything at the moment, sir?”

“A book of essays, which is to say, nothing at all of any consequence. Essays are like politicians. They want to change things and I’m not much interested in any change at my age.”

A large and lumpish man with bad psoriasis and wearing a garishly colored shirt appeared and went straight to the drinks tray, where he mixed himself a drink as if too impatient to wait for the butler to fix one for him.

“This is my friend Alan,” said Maugham, reverting to English. “Alan, do come and say hello to a friend of Robin’s. Walter Wolf. He’s German and we’re hoping he’s going to play a couple of rubbers with us after dinner.”

The lumpish man came and shook hands just as Robin Maugham reappeared and announced that dinner was ready.

“Thank God,” said Maugham.

“Ronnie Neame rang when you were in the bath,” the lumpish man told Maugham. “It seems that MGM are going to make Painted Veil but want a different title. They want to call it The Seventh Sin.”

“Ugh.” Maugham grimaced. “That’s a fucking awful title.”

“It’s the seventh commandment,” said Robin.

“I don’t care if it’s in the Treaty of Versailles. No one’s shocked by adultery these days. Not since the war. Adultery’s common. After Auschwitz, adultery’s a minor misdemeanor. You mark my words: The film will make a loss.”

We went into dinner.

Robin Maugham had not exaggerated; his uncle kept an excellent table. Dinner was eggs in aspic jelly, chicken Maryland, tiny wild strawberries, avocado ice cream—which I didn’t care for—all washed down with an excellent Puligny and then an even better Sauternes. Afterward, Maugham lit a pipe, fixed a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles onto his nose, and led the way to the card table, where I partnered Robin and we played and lost two rubbers. The old man was a bridge demon.

“You’re not a bad player, Herr Wolf. If I might give you a tip it’s this: Never take a card out of your hand before your partner has declared. It preempts his play. Don’t overreach for a card until it’s your turn to play.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

When we’d finished playing cards Maugham sat next to me on the sofa with his legs tucked underneath him, revealing silk socks and sock suspenders, and asked me all sorts of personal questions.

“Are you married?”

“Three times. I’ve not had the best of luck with women, sir. The ones I married least of all. They’re odd creatures who don’t know what they want right up until the moment they decide on exactly what they do want, and when you don’t give it to them right away, they’re apt to get sore with you. The rest of the time, with the rest of the women I’ve known, it was my fault. My most recent wife left me because she didn’t love me anymore. At least that’s what she told me when she walked out with most of my money. But I think she was trying to let me down gently.”

Maugham smiled. “You’re bitter. I like that. Tra la la. Would you like another drink?”

“No, sir. I’ve had enough.”

We talked a while longer until, at exactly eleven o’clock, W. Somerset Maugham declared that it was his bedtime.

“I like you, Herr Wolf,” he said before he went upstairs. “Do come again. Come again soon.”