Halcyon days
TaId
St Tropez
My father died on 14 July, 1989, in an obvious if somewhat self-defeating gesture against the 200-year celebration of the French Revolution. I always think of my dad on the infamous day which is France's national holiday, especially when I'm on the Riviera, a once magical place where he first took me as a boy in 1952. Those were great times. Very few people had boats, and even fewer people among the haves had bad manners. Everyone dressed for dinner, and fast women tried desperately to act like ladies, outside the sack, that is. Life was very cheap if one had dollars, a large suite at the Hotel du Cap costing something like 25 bucks per day. Two short Greek men would run around the Sporting casino of Monte Carlo and the summer one in Cannes yelling banco, They were the golden Greeks, Niarchos and Onassis, and the latter would become majority owner of the Societe• des Bains de Mer (which owned the casino and the major hotels of Monte Carlo) the next year.
The halcyon days of the Riviera lasted until the Arab invasion of 1975, exactly one year after the oil-price rise following the Yom Kippur war of 1973. Mind you, like Byzantium, the place had reeked of coming disaster for years. Gianni Agnelli had sold his magnificent villa La Leopolda in 1963; Niarchos kept Château de la Croe, but cruised around Greece during the summer; Onassis was driven out of Monte Carlo by Rainier; the Hotel du Cap was sold by its nice owner to a German company; and the real-estate vultures had begun to circle. By the time the newly rich Arabs arrived the only ones they found still holding the fort were pimps, hookers, gangsters, a few old English ladies too tired to flee, lotsa estate agents ready to deal and the world's most disaffected character, poor little me.
The reason for my dissatisfaction was that I could not believe what had taken place right under my nose. Dick Diver's Riviera had transformed into Sammy Glick's playground overnight. People we used to make fun of behind their backs for their vulgarity and anxiety to please their betters — Robert de Balkany, for example, a Hungarian real-estate developer born Robert Zellinger, who married into the Italian royal family, bought a large boat and played a poor man's Niarchos — had suddenly become the Riviera's old guard, a bit like Lilly Safra lording it over London nowadays. Large stink pots clogged up the marinas, prices skyrocketed as if on Viagra, and the developers even dug up the dead in order to build more high-rises. The obvious move was to the Greek islands, but there was a problem there also. After a while one gets bored with Greek Lotharios cruising dirty beaches in search of h-dropping Shirley Valentines. Back to the drawing-board: Gstaad in summer was the answer. For a while, that is. Summer Gstaad means walking, climbing, tennis, karate, music festivals and watching the cows while discussing the human condition with people one's own age.
The healthy life, however, can get awfully tiresome without young things to admire. Back to the drawing-board once again.
Finally, eureka! A sailing boat, a birth in St Tropez, and instant satisfaction. Well, not so instant. The boat is still being built, as my Italian naval architect, a pussywhipped soul married to an American, has taken his time. Meanwhile, my French crew are working on their tan on full pay by yours truly, the mother of my children is furious with me because I stayed in London partying, my cricket career seems to have hit a snag, and I have returned to my roots on the French Riviera, this time observing from a friend's villa high above how truly disgusting the newly rich have become. And it gets worse.
The Germans and the Italians are not speaking to each other; in fact, my host and I were told in no uncertain terms to choose between wops and krauts, no ifs or buts about it. All this fighting over a few words about the war. Ridiculous. When Marshal Graziani visited Kesselring as the latter was preparing his defence of Italy against the Allied invasion, he was surprised to see the German wearing his redstriped marshal's uniform, Asked why, Kesselring replied, In case I am wounded, I do not want the blood to show and the troops to lose heart.' Why didn't you tell me,' said Graziani, 'I would have worn my brown breeches.' Be that as it may, Berlusconi is the best man in Europe, and he was right to tell that German oaf where to get off. Berlusconi good, Schulz bad. Rommel, Guderian, von Runstedt, von Manteuffel good, Romano Prodi bad.
Debbie Bismarck and Maya Schoenburg sehr gut, Oriana Fallaci very bad. See what I mean? There are good Germans and good Italians whereas the most disgusting person in Europe is a Belgian, Louis Michel, posing as the foreign minister of the most ridiculous of countries. Vive le Quatorze Juillet! A St Tropez!
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