Peter Mayle - The Marseille Caper

Elena had been watching the exchange closely, as though it were a tennis match, her head going back and forth. “Let’s assume your project wins,” she said to Reboul. “Isn’t it going to be a little difficult for you to stay out of it? Where’s the money coming from? I mean, won’t there be all kinds of performance guarantees and disclosures of interest-or are these just quaint old American customs?”

Reboul had been nodding while Elena spoke. “A very good point, my dear. Let me tell you how I intend to take care of it.” He signaled the waiter and ordered coffee and Calvados for the three of them. “I have deposited sufficient funds with Troost amp; Langer-from an account in Dubai, so that nothing is seen to originate in France-to cover the first stages of construction. Once these have been carried out and the project is well under way, there will be an unforeseen and totally unexpected cash-flow problem.” His eyes opened wide, his mouth made an O of shocked surprise. “But fortunately, all will be not lost. Help will be at hand, in the form of a sympathetic local investor. He will step in and, for the greater good of Marseille, he will take over the financial responsibilities of finishing the project.”

“That will be you,” said Elena.

“That will be me.”

“And at that stage, there will be nothing Patrimonio can do.”

“Not a thing.”

“So far, so good. All we need now is the salesman.” Elena turned to Sam. “Over to you, big boy.”

Sam was outnumbered, and he knew it. He knew also that if he turned down the job he risked incurring the disappointment and wrath of Elena, deprived of her first-ever vacation in the South of France. Based on his past experience of Elena with her blood up, this was a most disagreeable prospect. Besides, a presentation such as Reboul had outlined was something he could do standing on his head. And the trip might be fun.

“You win,” he said. He raised his glass first to Elena, then to Reboul. “A toast: here’s to the success of our little venture.”

A beaming Reboul leaped up and darted around the table. “Bravo!” he said. “Bravo!” And promptly kissed the startled Sam on both cheeks.

There are no crowds. There is no waiting in line. There are no surly security guards. There are no bags to juggle, no seating disputes, no neighbors with uncontrollable elbows and contagious ailments, no hysterical infants, no fetid, overworked toilets-in fact, flying by private jet deprives the passengers of all the familiar joys of air travel in the twenty-first century. But there are consolations, as Elena and Sam were discovering.

Reboul’s Gulfstream G550 had been extravagantly reconfigured to carry no more than six passengers, two pilots, and a flight attendant in surroundings that Reboul liked to describe as luxe et volupte . The cabin was decorated in soothing tones of caramel and cream, with armchairs-one couldn’t insult them by calling them mere seats-upholstered in chocolate-brown suede. There was a small dining area. Presiding over the tiny kitchen and bar at the front of the cabin was Mathilde, a handsome woman of a certain age, beautifully turned out in Saint Laurent and alert to the slightest signs of thirst and hunger. Passengers could stay in touch with the world below by phone and Internet; or relax with a library of current American and European films, to be watched on a large, high-definition screen. Cigar smokers could smoke their cigars. It seemed to Elena and Sam, as they accepted chilled flutes of Krug from Mathilde, that Reboul had done everything possible to make flying civilized.

“I could get used to this very, very quickly,” said Elena. She was looking clear-eyed and radiant-her pale-olive complexion glowing, her black hair glossy-and Sam congratulated himself on his decision to take the job.

“Vacations suit you,” he said. “Why don’t we do this more often? You work too hard. How can the insurance business compare with a trip to the glamorous South of France with an adoring, irresistible companion?”

Elena looked at him beneath raised eyebrows. “I’ll let you know,” she said. “First I have to find an irresistible companion.”

“Ah,” said Reboul’s voice behind them, “ les amoureux . Has Mathilde been looking after you?” He had come from the rear of the plane, where he had a miniature office, and he was carrying a bulky file. “You must forgive me,” he said to Elena, “but I need to steal Sam away from you so that we can go over the presentation while we have the chance of some peace and quiet. Once we get to Marseille …” He shook his head. “Busy, busy, busy.”

Elena settled back in her armchair and opened Sam’s old, dog-eared copy of the Cadogan Guide to the South of France, a favorite of his because of its well-informed, comprehensive coverage, its literate prose, and its refreshing sense of humor. She turned to the section on Marseille, wondering if she would find anything to account for Reboul’s claim that Marseille and Paris had been at each other’s throats for hundreds of years. And there it was, in the historical introduction. After explaining that an independently minded Marseille, in search of permanent autonomy, had been infuriating Louis XIV for forty years, the introduction continues: “By 1660, the King had had enough, and opened up a great breach in Marseille’s walls, humiliating the city by turning its own cannons back on itself.” (The cannons had previously pointed out to sea to repel pirates and invaders, but Louis had obviously decided that the city’s residents were a greater threat.) And that wasn’t all. “The central authority installed by Louis was much more lax than the city had previously been about the issues crucial to the running of a good port-like quarantine. The result, in 1720, was a devastating plague that spread throughout Provence.”

So there was Marseille, menaced by its own guns and riddled with disease, all thanks to Parisian interference. Souvenirs like that stay in the memory for a long time, often becoming increasingly bitter from generation to generation. Reboul’s comment, which Elena had at first dismissed as exaggeration, now made more sense.

She let the book slip to her lap, and looked out of the window at the pale-blue infinity of the evening sky, cloudless and calm. The pilot, in the delightfully accented English that he must have learned at pilot’s charm school, had announced that with the help of the steady tail wind from west to east they would be arriving in Marseille in time for a breakfast of croissants and cafe au lait . Elena sank back into her suede cocoon, half listening to the buzz of conversation coming from Reboul and Sam.

He had been quite right; she did work too hard, and quite soon now she would have to make up her mind between her business life and her personal life. Frank Knox, the founder of Knox Insurance, was anxious to retire, and he had told Elena that the job of CEO was hers if she wanted it. But did she really want to spend the next thirty years up to her neck in clients like Danny Roth? How would Sam fit into a life governed by meetings, sales conferences, too much travel, and interminable client lunches? What would she do if she didn’t take the job? With a shift of mental gears, she made herself think about the imminent pleasures of the next two to three weeks-Mediterranean beaches, entire days without schedules, and long, relaxed dinners under the stars. She dozed and dreamed.

Sam woke her by stroking her forehead with the tips of his fingers. “You were smiling,” he said.

“I was on vacation,” she said.

“Sorry to interrupt. But Francis thinks we might like to eat. He’s invited us to what he calls a pique-nique .”