Chapter 39 - Gwen in Motion
When Gwen and Roger came down in the morning they found the dining room table set and groaning with food. There were two kinds of fried potatoes, pan-fried sheepshead fillets, eggs scrambled with onions and tomatoes, orange juice, melonballs, and a gallon of coffee. Breakfast was a favorite of Gwen’s, and because it was a favorite of Gwen’s it also was a favorite of Rogers’s. So the spread was well-received. They went to the kitchen where they found Jinny sitting at the counter, issuing orders to Peter and Pater. Evidently Jinny was the chef and Peter and Pater were the sous chefs. This arrangement seemed to fit everyone. Gwen asked where Guignard was, and Jinny said, “She’s in the study on the computer buying cars, cookbooks, cell phones, ocean-front properties, and Russian handguns.” Gwen went into the study and told Guignard to come and eat. Gwen wondered how Jinny could eat so much and look like a block of concrete rather than a fat block of concrete. She said, “Jinny, how can you eat six eggs, two fish, two potatoes, and not get fat.”
He said, “It’s genes. My family on my father’s side were borzoi trainers. Borzois are the royal Russian dogs, and they were bred over many generations for the czars. These original dogs were wolf-hounds, and would run through the forests near the Dachaus, in winter, finding and chasing and running down wolves that were all over Russia. When two or three of the dogs caught the wolf, they would hold it down on the ground until the Czar and his entourage caught up. The dogs had to be taught this, and my family, going way back, were the trainers. And the trainers had to run with the dogs to get them to track and catch the wolves. My grandfather was not as short as me, and he could run for hours through the forests on the logging roads, with the dogs.
I got short from my mother, who was 4 foot 11 inches, but could tear the heads off fish with her bare hands. Her family were fishermen who would row small boats out of the Saint Petersburg harbor into the North Sea. They could row out there for days, eating raw fish and drinking rainwater. When there were no fish and they got bored, they would strip naked, tie the boat’s line around their waists, jump overboard, and have swimming races while towing the boats behind. All of them were short, but very strong, no fat anywhere.” Jinny related this story with a sense of pride. Roger noted certain cultural differences between his recent ancestors and Jinny’s.
Gwen asked Roger for a report, and he said he had to have another assistant who knew about antiques. Their hoard was small in size but large in numbers, and he had to examine and evaluate each one. This was a three person effort. Gwen asked, “You know someone who will not blab this around town which immediately thereafter would find it way around the country, and possibly back to the Hermitage?”
Roger said, “No, all antiques people are naturally blabby, and most are dishonest.”
Gwen absorbed this, and said, “What about Salvador down in Savannah? He owes us. We can pay him well, and tell him if he blabs, we’ll tell the police about the set of Audubon folios he sold to that English guy a few years ago.” Roger said he would think about it.
Roger then said that during lunch the previous day (he looked at Jinny but did not mention that Jinny had taken an hours nap on one of the 19th century sofas that until recently had resided on Russian soil) he made a list of wines he thought would be available from their new French friends right away. IF he could get an assistant to help with the artifacts inventory, he could finalize the list, send it to the winemakers via email, and see what they had to say. Gwen asked if Roger could start training Peter and Pater about French wine with this first list and first order, and Roger said yes, IF he could find an assistant to help with the inventory. Gwen nodded to Peter and Pater that this was a done deal, and they smiled with anticipation.
There was a ring of the door chime and Gale came in. She gave Roger a kiss, and sat down next to Pater. She surveyed the six large plates and the seven platters, and said, “Jesus, what have y’all been eating. It smells like a Philadelphia diner in here.” Peter made a motion to prepare her a plate of food from the kitchen, at which point she said, “Peter my dear, no food for Galey before noon, except on mornings when I haven’t been to bed the night before. That’s the fashionista’s rule number three.”
Peter asked, “What is the fashionista’s rule number two?”
She replied, “Never tell anyone how much you spent on your earrings.”
Naturally, Pater had to ask, “Ms. Gale, what would be the fashionista’s rule number one?”
Gale looked at Gwen for help on this one. Gwen said, “We’re all one big happy family, go ahead and tell them.”
Gale paused, deliberated, considered, and reflected. She shrugged and said, “All great women of fashion, and all women of great fashion, French, Italian, Japanese, or even English, know that no matter what style of clothes the person is wearing, formal or casual, light or dark, wool or silk, it ALWAYS looks better and fits better and hangs better and feels better, sans lingerie. Tu comprends?”
Gwen and Roger found this amusing, and decided not to come to the psychological aid of the four Russians with a direct explanation. They decided to let the Russians work it out between themselves, they who didn’t know sans or lingerie or tu or comprends. They thought this would be a good lesson in acculturation.
Gwen began issuing orders. Roger and Jinny, back to the warehouse, with Roger calling Salvator and telling him to get his ass up here pronto. “Jinny, you’re to figure out if the Gromstovs and Rodstras each want a house on the beach, or if they want a house together. Where’s the list I asked you for of foods you think they would like?”
Jinny said, “It’s in our room,” left the table, and returned with it.
“Gale, take the boys to the Mercedes dealership and buy two cars. You’ve still got my card, right? Guignard, forget telling Roger to tell Jinny to buy the cars, he needs to stay with Roger at the warehouse. Gale, after the cars, call up ‘Legare, Manigault, and Legare’ and tell them Roger wants to form an LLC, and to start with the paperwork. Guignard, forget telling Roger to form the LLC, he needs to stay at the warehouse. Gale, you and Slevov need to start cooking French here asap, buy everything you need. How about dinner tonight? Jinny, clean the guns before you leave this morning, I may need them soon. Guignard, let Gale stop at McCradys and reserve the private dining room; got that Gale? Don’t forget the cookbook at Barnes and Noble, and don’t forget to score some Bolshoi tickets in New York. Jinny, you hunt online for the Brusshev and the Petrova. No, Gale you hunt for the Russian guns. No, I’ll call Dad and have him look online for them. Guignard, call my Dad and tell him to do that. The 45. cal and the 10mm.”
At the end of this barrage the team members looked first at Gwen and then at each other. Okay….so that’s the kind of day it’s going to be. Roger wondered how much money this was going to cost, but decided to focus on his jobs and leave the planning to Gwen. The rest decided to get the hell out of the line of fire while Gwen was catching her breath. They each had three days' worth of work that Gwen expected them to complete by dinnertime, and were thankful for the large breakfasts they’d eaten. Roger and Jinny bailed out the back door, while Gale and the boys headed out the front door. Gwen thought, thank god, now we can get to work.
Gwen and Guignard cleared the table and dumped the dishes into the sink. They figured Gale and Slevov would do the cleanup when they started preparing dinner. Gwen noticed the two cats on the kitchen counter, across the room near the pantry. The Russian blues were sitting in the same places they had occupied the evening before, and Gwen wondered if they had moved at all. They looked regal, she had to give them that. She said to them, “What are your names?” The cat on the left looked at the cat on the right, and the cat on the right looked at the cat on the left; then they both looked back at Gwen and uttered, in unison, a melodious, “Caooh.” Neither Gwen nor Guignard ever had heard this sound before, but it was beautiful. Gwen said, “Make a note, we go
tta name the cats. Roger will have fun with that.” Guignard reminded Gwen that the cats belonged to the ship’s cook, and he was expecting them back the next time his ship came to Savannah or Charleston, at which time he planned on jumping and joining the Russian community in Charleston. Gwen looked at Guignard rather coolly and asked, “Is this the ship’s cook that has no money?”
Guignard slowly answered, “Yeeeessss.” Gwen nodded that this topic of conversation was closed.
Gwen led the way into the downstairs study, and they sat facing each other in leather chairs. She said, “We have to be with them every day.” By “them” Guignard knew she meant the Rodstras and Gromstovs. “We have to learn, and learn fast, what each of them wants here in Charleston, because almost certainly they each want something different. Some things will be common to all, but it will be meeting each individual’s special needs that will make this work. The good news is that understanding Slevov will be easy because she and I have a special understanding. I know something about her, and she knows something about me. We have to do the same thing with the other three. So we have to spend lots of time with them, trying different things until we hit the key for each of them. Capice?”
Guignard figured out capice, and said, “Da” just to make a joke. This was the first joke Gwen had heard Guignard make, and it was a good sign. Guignard then provided another surprise. She said, “I know something about Helstof.” Gwen looked at her with interest. Guinard said, “She reads French romance novels. You know, man woman stuff.”
Gwen decided there was no end to surprises coming from these Russians, whether they are cats, gangsters, or gay ballet dancers.
Gwen thought about this. One of her friends was an amateur writer. He was an historical architect but he wrote romance fiction for fun. Once, at his house during a cocktail party, after he’d had a few gin and tonics, she got him to show her some of his work. Gwen always had been curious about this because Roger dabbled in the same genre. This guy took her into his study and pulled a manuscript out of a drawer. The cover said Adventures in Southern Romance, Charleston Style, by Richard Adams. She thumbed through it and found it was a collection of fifty short pieces he called romantic fantasies. They had titles like “On the Beach” and “Walking the Park” and “Drinking Port on the Couch in the Hotel Bar”. Adams told her he once had tried to get the manuscript published, but editors told him there was no market for this type of product. Gwen had asked him if she could read the manuscript, but he had acted shy. He said he would send her one piece by email, which he had done the next day. This is what he sent:
Fantasy #28 – "The Golden Slippers"
My wife and I have different senses of humor. Mine is forthright, hers is devious. Mine is a proper, dry, English sort of wit; hers is southern Mediterranean joyousness. My sense of humor is intellectual; hers is Chaplinesque, and we love these differences.
It was Sunday afternoon and I was trying to decide who to vote for come November, while my wife was watching Cary Grant and Leslie Caron in the larky film Mother Goose. I’m the serious one, she’s the light-hearted one. I was sitting in the sitting room scanning one political blog after another, looking for that one crucial philosophical point that would tip me towards one candidate and away from another. My wife was living in the living room, within sight of the sitting room, laughing at the way Leslie Caron was driving Cary Grant nuts.
Leslie wasn’t quite effective enough at driving poor Cary up the proverbial palm tree, because my wife decided she wanted the fun of distracting me from my serious political labors, which is easily done.
My wife’s name is Jude. It’s an unusual name, and underscores the prophetic sense her parents had in naming her that in 1952, sixteen years before the boys from Liverpool made that name world-famous. Her parents were saying “Hey Jude” long before darling Paul sang that phrase with the wonderfully mournful tone and inflection that to this day moves me intensely.
Anyway, let’s get back to the dear’s intent to steal me away from politics. She’s done this before, she’ll do it again, there’s nothing I can do about it. While we were rooms apart, we were in sight of each other, through the open French doors. She sat on a cream colored chair outlined in royal blue, watching the TV, dressed in her Sunday around-the-house jeans, and a black cashmere sweater. Letmetellyou, she looks good in jeans….sitting, walking, talking, anyway, anyhow. And I’m a sucker for cashmere, especially black, and especially when I get to experience the insides of the cashmere sweater, if you know what I mean. My serious intent was doomed.
She commenced her mission with a soft humming. She hummed, and hummed again, and I looked up from reading Charles Krauthammers’s blog, which I was reading after reading the opposite point of view on William Pfaff’s blog. I saw her sitting in the chair, watching the TV and humming. I went back to reading. She asked through the French doors if I thought Leslie Caron was sexy. I said yes, much sexier opposite Maurice Chevalier in Gigi than in Father Goose because her French accent was stronger. I went back to politicking.
A few minutes later Jude asked me if I wanted to watch Leslie and Cary, cause they were flirting with each, and I said no, I have political work to do, important work. She let me read a little, then asked if for just a minute would I interrupt my IMPORTANT work to adjust the clasp of her necklace, which was bothering her. Of course. I got up, went into the living room, stood behind her, moved her blond hair aside so I could fiddle with the clasp. She said thank you, that feels better. I hesitated for a minute then, deterred by something subconscious, instinctual, then went back to the sitting room, back to Charles and his neo-con perspective.
I had lost my train of thought, my concentration. Jude didn’t wait for me to reconstitute that frame of mind, she said, “Dear, sorry to bother you, would you come here for a second?” I again went into her room, her space, and looked at her, expectantly. She said, “I have a cramp in my foot.” My gaze traveled from her face framed in blond hair, down to her shoulders framed in black cashmere, down to those hips framed in those blue blue jeans, and finally came to rest on her feet, framed in those golden slippers.
I knelt down on the floor in front of her cream colored chair outlined in dark blue that was set in front of the table with the gold candle holders on it. I didn’t touch her, I just let my mind transform itself from politics and Iran and subprime mortgages and immigration policy, to her feet in the golden slippers, a transformation which took about two point five seconds. I was hers, and that was her intent. She knew the effect the golden slippers had on me, and she wanted to affect that effect. What she wants, she generally gets.
She lifted a foot off the chair, and I took it in my hands. With that touch I looked up to her face, and lost everything in my consciousness except her. I looked down at her foot and absorbed that special sensuality the world knows beautiful women possess there. I, too, became sensual. That’s what happens. I held the slipper in my left hand and gently caressed the top of her foot. Then I felt the slipper itself, made of yellow silk, and then I took hold of her ankle with my right hand and carefully removed the slipper from her foot with my left hand.
I held her foot in my left hand and gently caressed its top. I looked up at her face and saw what I always saw there, the face of grace. Lowering my head, I kissed the instep of her foot. I held her foot in one hand and moved the other hand to her ankle, pushing up the leg of her jeans to reveal the back of her calf. I touch her there with a gentle massage. When I heard the slight sound of a breath suddenly taken in and let out, I drew my hand down her leg again to her slipperless foot, and kissed her there again. I kissed her just on the inside of her foot, near the perfect arch, and again, the intake of her breath, different than normal breathing. The sign.
I placed her foot on my shoulder and again pushed up the leg of her jeans. Again I touched her calf, higher up this time, almost to the back of her knee, leaning my head forward and placing th
e side of my face against her leg. And I kissed her there. Her breathing changed ever so subtlety. I had an idea where she was, but for very sure, I knew I was in heaven.
I leaned back and looked up at her face, seeing the halo of blond hair around it, and her smiling at me. With that wonderful gesture I noticed another one coupled to it. I noticed her knees, in those jeans, moving in opposite directions just ever so slightly. Slightly, yes, but it was a gesture that meant worlds to me.
Gwen loved this piece of Richard’s, and remembered the affect it had on her when she first read it….especially the last part, finding that to be a real turn-on. She remembered wishing Jude was a real person and wishing they could be friends. Jude was her kind of girl. And the title of the piece - "The Golden Slippers" - how sexy was that.
Gwen recognized this was not a bodice-ripping style of romance writing; it was an intellectual style of romance writing. She thought of Helstof, who was forging a new life here in Charleston, or at least a part-time life. Helstof liked romance fiction, and Richard Adams happened to be single and good looking. Voila. Potential connection. Potential fun for Helstof, which led Gwen to add another item onto the growing list of events she was managing. The first event had been the champagne at the Thoroughbred Bar. The second event would be a French dinner tonight at the June's house: all eight Russians, the Junes, and Gale, who was doing the cooking. The third event would be dinner Saturday night in the private dining room at McCrady’s Restaurant, with the restaurant doing the cooking and Roger supplying the wines. So the forth event would be a cocktail party, tomorrow evening, with Richard Adams as an invitee. Gotta get on that right away. Gwen asked Guignard to go to the rolodex and get Richard’s number and dial him up. But where to have the party? Not here at home, no. Somewhere really fun. Got it, the private deck on the top floor of the Aquarium, with its spectacular view of the harbor and the bridge. Guignard called the Aquarium and nodded yes, while Gwen called Richard, who said yes to the invitation. So that event was settled.
Gwen called Gale and told her to call Slevov and see if she wanted to come to the house early, and help Gale cook. If she did, would Gale please pick her up on the way. Now Gwen had to figure out something special for Constantine and Henric, the two big boys who play dangerous games on an international field. What could she offer them?
She closed her eyes and went back to the beginning. Why had Henric and Constantine gotten involved in this affair? What did they expect to get out of it? With all their money, power, and connections, what was it about Roger, herself, and Little Jinny Blistov that had captured their attention? The facts came back to her slowly, one by one. These two couples were not the jet-setting type. They wanted anonymity, not exposure. They wanted a place, not for the entire year, but for the three or four months during the winter. A low key place, with a warm sun, in America. They were fascinated with American culture. But, they were patriots (sort of), and they also loved their Russian culture. They wanted a home away from home. And they were equally fascinated by the food, wine, and historical aspects of French culture. Gwen recited this list to Guignard, still with her eyes closed. Then came the memory of the strange connection to French Huguenots in Charleston, and something about a Czar who loved a French king. Oh yeah, the historic link between Charles the IV of France and Czar Brettany Prentikof, and the fondness that had developed between them based on a mutual love of large hunting dogs. Brettany had sent a borzois to Paris, and in return Charles had sent Normandy spaniels to St Petes. And Charles was a Huguenot that had been kicked out of France and ended up in Ireland, and his descendants eventually crossed the Atlantic and landed in South Carolina.
This came back to Gwen now, the strange connections and intersections, but something was missing from the equation, something important, the catalyst that caused these factors to gel into the reality of today, the reality of eight Russians, $6M, a warehouse full of Russian state property, and a ton of French wine on the way. All of this in little old Charleston by the sea. What was the missing factor?
Slevov Rodstra, the woman upon whom Gwen had practiced Deneuvian tactics; Slevov, the lynchpin of the entire operation, Slevov the cornerstone upon which the new lives would be built. That’s why the wealthy Russians had decided on Charleston rather than a dozen other fabulous places around the world. Slevov wanted Charleston, and the others had followed. And Slevov wanted Charleston because that’s where Gwen lived. Slevov wanted to know what Gwen had learned from The Deneuve.
Gwen opened her eyes. The connections and intersections had crystallized with the memory of her interaction with Slevov in Saint Petersburg. This strange world of eight Russians and two aristocratic Charlestonians, and artifacts from The Hermitage and wine from the estates of Burgundy and Bordeaux, this world orbited around her and Slevov. How wonderful. How interesting. Now she knew she could deliver.