29

C?te d’Azur, France

It was not true that Madame Sophie and Monsieur Antonov had plans that weekend. But somehow, with the help of a hidden hand, or perhaps by magic, plans materialized. Indeed, no sooner had the sun set on a perfect Friday afternoon than an unclasped diamond necklace of car headlights lay along the shore of the Baie de Cavalaire, flowing toward the gates of Villa Soleil, which blazed and sparkled and pulsed to the beat of music so loud it could be heard across the water, which was the point. The guests traveled from far and wide. There were actors and writers and faded aristocrats and thieves. There was the son of an Italian automaker who arrived amid a school of seminude women, and a pop star who had not had a hit record since music went digital. Half the London art world was there, along with a contingent from New York, which, it was rumored, had flown privately across the Atlantic at the host’s expense. And there were many others who would later admit to having received no invitation at all. These lesser souls had heard about the affair through the usual channels—the Rivieran gossip mill, social media—and had beaten a path to Monsieur Antonov’s gold-plated door.

If he was actually present that night, there was no sign of him. In fact, not a single guest would be able to offer reliable firsthand evidence of having seen him. Even Julian Isherwood, his art adviser, was at a loss to explain his whereabouts. Isherwood conducted a private tour of the villa’s impressive collection of Old Master paintings for the handful of guests who displayed any interest in seeing it. Then, like everyone else, he became roaring drunk. By midnight the buffet had been devoured and women were swimming naked in the pool and the fountains. There was a fistfight, and the very public commission of a sexual act, and the threat of a lawsuit. Old rivalries flared, marriages collapsed, and many fine automobiles suffered damage. Everyone agreed a good time was had by all.

But the party did not end that night, it merely went into brief remission. By late morning, cars once again choked the roads, and a flotilla of white motor yachts lay anchored in the waters off Villa Soleil’s dock, tended by Monsieur Antonov’s shore craft. The second night’s festivities were worse than the first, owing to the fact that most of the guests arrived drunk or were still drunk from the night before. Monsieur Antonov’s large staff of security guards kept careful watch over the paintings, and several of the unruliest guests were ejected from the premises with quiet efficiency. Still, there was not one who actually shook hands with the host or even laid eyes on him. Oh, there was the middle-aged American divorcée the color of saddle leather who claimed to have spotted him observing the party, Gatsbylike, from a private terrace in the upper reaches of his palace, but she was quite inebriated at the time and her account was roundly dismissed. Mortified, she made a clumsy pass at a handsome young Formula One driver and had to console herself with the company of Oliver Dimbleby. They were last seen teetering into the night, with Oliver’s hand on her backside.

There was a champagne brunch on Sunday, after which the last of the guests dispersed. The walking wounded saw themselves to the door, the comatose and nonresponsive departed by other means. Then an army of workmen arrived and erased all evidence of the weekend’s destruction. And on Monday morning Monsieur Antonov and Madame Sophie were in their usual place on the terrace overlooking the pool, Monsieur Antonov lost in his tablet computer, Madame Sophie in her thoughts. At midday she went into the village, accompanied by Roland Girard, and had lunch with Monsieur Carnot at a restaurant in the Old Port owned by Jean-Luc Martel. Olivia Watson dined with a friend, a woman of nearly equal beauty, a few tables away. Leaving, she passed Madame Sophie’s table without a word or glance, though Monsieur Carnot was quite certain he overheard an anatomical vulgarity that even he, a man of disrepute, never dared to utter.

There was another party the following weekend, smaller but no less felonious, and a blowout the next week that set a C?te d’Azur record for complaints to the gendarmes. At which point the Antonovs declared a cease-fire and life on the Baie de Cavalaire returned to something like normal. For the most part they remained prisoners of Villa Soleil, though several times each week Madame Sophie, after her morning run on the treadmill, traveled to Saint-Tropez in her Maybach limousine to shop or have lunch. Usually, she dined with Roland Girard or Monsieur Carnot, though on two occasions she was seen with a tall sunburned Englishman who had taken a villa for the summer near the hill town of Ramatuelle. He had a curvy, sarcastic wife whom Madame Sophie adored.

The couple were not the only ones staying at the villa. There was a small woman with dark hair who moved with a slight limp and carried herself with an air of early widowhood. And an elusive man of late middle age who never seemed to wear the same clothing twice. And a hard-looking man with a pockmarked face who seemed always to be contemplating an act of violence. And a Frenchman of professorial bearing who fouled the rooms of the villa with his ever-present pipe. And a man with gray temples and green eyes who was forever pleading with the Frenchman to find another habit, one that didn’t endanger the health of those around him.

The occupants of the villa made no show of recreation or leisure; they had come to Provence on deadly serious business. The professorial Frenchman and the green-eyed man were ostensibly equal partners, but in practice the Frenchman deferred to his associate in nearly all matters. Both men spent significant time outside the villa. The Frenchman, for example, shuttled back and forth between Provence and Paris while the green-eyed man made several clandestine trips to Tel Aviv. He also traveled to London, where he negotiated the terms of the next phase of his endeavor, and to Washington, where he was berated for its slow pace. He was forgiving of his American partner’s foul mood. The Americans had grown used to solving problems with the push of a button. Patience was not an American virtue.