High life
Picking up the English
Taki
The most humiliating defeat I've suf- fered on a tennis court was in Klosters in August 1956. All defeats are humiliating, but there is also something to be said about the nobility of failure. Not that time. Although seeded number one — because of my Greek ranking — I lost in the first round to an Indian doctor, a tourist who managed to talk his way into the draw by offering his free services to the players dur- ing the tournament. Oh yes, I almost for- got, he was in his early 40s and I was 19.
Preferring the low blow to the bon mot, I shook his hand and said something about bad style overcoming substance, piling bad sportsmanship on to a horrendous perfor- mance. I lost more than the match. There was also Madame P, a tennis groupie who followed the circuit in her chauffered green Bentley. The week before in Gstaad, where I had a good week, she had hinted that Klosters was where it would all take place. She was a beauty, blonde and in her early 30s, so I had talked and thought about her like Russian people during the siege of Stalingrad talked and thought about food.
Being too embarrassed to speak to her, let alone try to sleep with her, I defaulted the doubles and left Klosters never to return. Until last week, 39 years to the day. The beauty of good old Helvetia is that nothing changes much. The casual and rus- tic charm of the Chesa Grischuna was exactly how I remembered it, including the round table next to the window where Madame P and I had a drink just before my Waterloo. The reception area is as tiny as ever, and one still has to ring a bell for the concierge. An added bonus is that few of the locals have picked up English.
Unlike St Moritz, Klosters has stayed small and beautiful. And so has the tennis club. This time it was better, but where, oh where was Madame P? The irony is that I'm playing very well at the moment, but there's not a young woman in sight. Some of the female competitors look as if the Russians Gstaad use them for their yoghurt commercials.
Still, nostalgia reigned throughout, and I added to it by reading Peter Viertel's Dan- gerous Friends, his opus about Papa Hem- ingway, John Huston, Irwin Shaw, Ava Gardner and others. Lots of the action takes place in Klosters, during the 50s, so it was just up my alley. The trouble was the more I read the more I disliked the author. Viertel is a Hollywood screenwriter married to the divine Deborah Kerr. He is a man of the left, which is fine by me, but what is not fine by him is anyone of the right.
Although of the tough guy Papa school, Viertel writes bitchily, like a woman. And takes backhanded swipes at Papa, Huston and the great Ava. He also names the women he beds, which in the Papa school is like a false manufacturer warning people against imitations. Although I was a friend of Irwin Shaw's, who is among the central characters in Dangerous Friends, I never ran into Viertel while in Irwin's company. Perhaps it was just as well. But the book sure brought back memories of my youth.
From Klosters it was back to Gstaad and Master John Talci's entrance exams for Le Rosey, which accepted him, probably the greatest victory ever achieved by the Taki family. My 14 year old is extremely dyslex- ic, but the headmaster of Rosey, Monsieur Gudin, is a hell of a nice man and decided to give him a chance, although he will have to have a private tutor to help him along. Le Rosey is a school with a great history. My favourite Rosey story concerns Victor Emmanuel of Savoy and Roberto Shorto. They blew up the 500-year old fountain of the Chateau de Rosey on graduation day in the 60s. Victor, as son of the King of Italy, was reprimanded; Shorto, as son of the first Brazilian to walk on two legs, was thrown out. Quite right. Vive la difference.
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