High life
No justice
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The first time Maria Callas sang in the Paris Opera, I was glittering among the glittering audience. It was in November 1958. I sat next to a pleasant black man who turned out to be Houphouet Boigny, the President of the Ivory Coast, and behind Aly Khan, the notorious playboy and father of the present Aga. La Callas was making her debut with Norma, but unfortunately I didn't get to hear her. Just before the curtain went up I was seized with a pain of such intensity that I grabbed the black man and bit him hard on the arm. Naturally, he screamed, and Aly Khan turned to see what was happening. When he saw it was me, he started complaining about 'this intolerable pest and shit'.
The reason he found me intolerable was that two years earlier we both had been guests at a ball in New York. Aly knew everyone, I knew the host and hostess, c'est tout. Latching on to a pretty girl, I sat out the dances pretending to know everybody and waving to people vho weren't watching. That is when the Portly, balding, and incredibly conceited Aly came over and asked the third person I knew to dance. She jumped up eagerly, but just as eagerly did I. Having spotted Bettina, Aly's constant companion at the time, I went over, introduced myself as Prince Taki, and asked her to dance. Bettina is a friend of many years now, but even back then, when she was very beautiful and very much in love with that lecher, she treated someone who was obviously unsophisticated with kindness. She got up and we began to dance. We had hardly managed to negotiate one quick two-step, however, when the awful Aly was back again. He told her to sit down while he continued to dance with 'my' girl. When I protested at his double standards I was told in no uncertain terms by the hostess that I was out of line. Americans have this awful habit of automatically siding with the person who appears the most in gossip col umns, so I didn't stand much of a chance.
I had to retreat to my table and eat humble pie. But I didn't forget, and from then on, whenever possible, I would try to dance with his various companions, although not very successfully. But it did rub him up the wrong way, with the result that when he saw me trying to eat the black president's arm, he made sure that everyone in the opera house became aware that for the first time in history a white man was trying to eat a black man. Well, I wasn't really, I was simply in agony because of an appendicitis attack. My friend Leonida Goulandris rushed me to the hospital, and the next thing I knew I looked up and saw, a very severe English nurse saying to me that she hadn't heard so many four-letter words since she had helped in a field hospital two days after the landing in Normandy at D-Day. To recuperate I naturally headed for Gstaad the moment I Was discharged. That is when I had my next encounter with the Khan clan.
Throughout the month of December I couldn't ski, so I spent my days lounging around the Eagle Club chatting up members of the weaker sex. One girl in particular struck my fancy, a Mexican dead ringer for Rita Hayworth in her prime, by the name of Sylvia Casabiancas. Sylvia was not only very beautiful and extremely sexy, she was also very available. No one would go near her, a fact that I attributed, wrongly as usual, to her strict father. After a while I discovered the real reason. She was the betrothed of the Aga Khan, who the year before had inherited the title from his turtle-like grandfather, who was also Aly's father. Karim was at that time studying tax avoidance at Harvard; we all know what mice do when while the cat's away. Sylvia enjoyed my company almost as much as I did hers, but soon things came to a head. Karim arrived in Gstaad and screamed bloody murder. Sylvia, however, showed guts. She wanted to be Begum one day, but she also wanted to have fun. Being with Karim, she told me at the time, was as exciting as watching grass grow. In a matter of days she and I became social pariahs, with the Aga's entourage heaping scorn on me whenever they saw me. When the snows melted, Sylvia went to Geneva and again became a dutiful companion, while I went to Paris in further pursuit of the good life. But Karim's memory was longer than his stock portfolio. Like his father he continued to complain about my presence whenever our paths crossed. Except for once. This was when he was trying to get rich Italians to invest in his Sardinian paradise for people With more than two hundred million Pounds, and came on board Gianni Agnel li's boat to talk business. After a brief chat he asked Gianni and David Somerset to come on board his yacht for lunch. Also to meet Princess Margaret. Gianni said that I was on board, but Karim did not bat an eyelid, He even introduced me to the Princess and told her that I was a great athlete. Business, after all, is business.
After the lunch was over, and we again went our separate ways, the cold war resumed with its old intensity. When I began writing journalism, I made sure that the English-speaking world became aware that he was not only the first living God paid by his followers to ski, swim and fly around in the style to which he is accustomed; I also pointed out that he was one of the greatest tax-exiles and dodgers of all time. Despite the prestige of this column and its influence on governments, I have yet to force the Aga to move back and live among his flock in Tanzania, Kenya, and the Ivory Coast. This failure has brought me at times to the point of nervous breakdown. Last week, of course, was the worst. I saw him earn something like ten million pounds when his horse won the Derby, and his most fawning courtier, Charles Benson, win ten thousand pounds by betting on it. There is no justice in this cruel world.
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