Max called the other day and left me a message that he was in Paris and staying at the George V hotel and could we catch up over drinks then maybe a bite to eat at Chez Andre around the corner? I always enjoyed seeing Max, he was one of the great raconteurs and his stories from around the world were told with such theater. The thing with Max is that you never really knew if they were just stories or perhaps more. He was difficult to figure out and I guess I liked that about him. Max was allegedly of Austrian aristocracy on his father’s side and his mother was American with roots in Philadelphia’s Main Line. In many ways he remind me of a Prussian – I guess maybe it was his hair which he wore very short. He was not someone you could say was the very definition of fit and trim, but he moved with remarkable ease, almost cat-like. Yes, I think Max was quite sold on himself and he took great pleasure and care in grooming his sartorial presence. He once told me if it were not for his Savile Row tailor on London’s East End, he would be simply be beside himself and would have to succumb to French tailors or worse Americans.
I first met Max in Africa many years ago. I was part of a safari group staying at a hunting lodge on Lake Nakuraan in one of Kenya’s East African game parks. We were returning to camp not having had any success but still quite flush with excitement perhaps from not having been killed ourselves. That’s when I met Max who was there dressed in full safari regalia giving a certain Ernest Hemingway look about himself- which he cultivated of course. He had to let our hunting party know about his kill earlier in the day. At the Rattan Club and Bar, after a few gin and tonics, Max told me about his first wife Marta, who had been Austrian, from Saltzburg, and a championship skier. Tragically Marta died in a freak skiing accident in Kitzbühel. They had been married for only two years. I remember that story vividly even to this day. A big man like Max struggling with his emotions was tough to take even for an old crust like me. After some years of trying to forget Marta, travelling around the world and meeting “interesting” people- he always liked to emphasize interesting; I always wondered but never asked for a clearer explanation knowing I would hear a long story about perhaps nothing or not. I met up again with Max some years later at a Casino in Le Touquet, an elegant holiday resort in northern France, once referred to as the playground of rich Parisians, particularly so in the Roaring Twenties and the Thirties. And now making a comeback.
I had decided to take a little personal expedition to Le Touquet. I was curious because my father as a young boy along with his sister and parents would spend their summers at Le Touquet (we would “summer” as he liked to say). I stopped in at the Casino on a whim and there was Max in the company of an extremely attractive willowy blond, flawless -as far as I could tell- from head to toe. She had that perpetual sporty look as if she had just finished three sets on the clay courts or was simply itching for a match. Max introduced her as his fiancée “Bobbie” -short for Roberta she added. Bobbie had a wonderful gift of making you feel like the two of you were old friends and very quickly I could see how madly in love they were with each other. Ca se voit! as the French say. In other words, you can tell. It was always like that with Max and me. Best of friends to be sure but he would disappear somewhere in the world. I would always get a lovely note at Christmas from Bobbie with a little scrawled p.s. Max sends you his best, he’s on business in Luanda, or Sao Paulo or Lagos or wherever.
I made my way across the Pont d’Alma and strolled up the Avenue George V pausing a moment in front of the American Cathedral thinking back how more than just a few years ago, Dean Riddle held me in his arms and baptised me. Less than a block up was Max’s hotel, the George V. I have always enjoyed coming here and have met many friends from out of town. The bar which is magnificent, at least I think it is. Everything is presented with grand style. The bar has a history too. Now long gone is the man who made the George V Bar such an event, the legendary Rudolf Slavik, head barman, and holder of both the French and American highest civilian awards for his work with the Resistance in WWII. One can’t help but sense history when walking in to a places like this. If walls could only talk.
There was Max with a couple of daily’s at his feet and nursing an Old Fashion – a drink he picked up from his wife Bobbie. Dressed ever perfectly in well tailored double breasted chalk striped suit complete with pocket scarf. We exchanged warm hello’s caught up on history. I worked on a Single Malt as Max took the stage. Indeed his tailors were touring Europe and they were in Paris and so was he for a second fitting. We talked about my business and how things were going for me in Paris. Old friends were remembered and Max inquired about Raymond and Sylvie. I told him that Raymond who had been in the hospital at Neuilly was now a Partner at a prominent French law firm and one that had received some recent publicity regarding their taking on the representation of a client. As I remembered, it involved the client having sold highly sophisticated computer chip technology with both commercial and military use to an Algerian company with alleged ties to the Chinese government. Again, that’s all I knew from having read the Herald Tribune. Max shrugged his shoulders. It’s always something with the French, he said. It was time for lunch.