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SECTION 5
WITCHCRAFT
One day Martha’s new friends came on a visit. A puffed-up American couple from Monaco. She was called Julia and had a face held together only by make-up - his name has escaped my memory - he was faceless. They behaved effusively and showed Martha exaggerated attention and the faceless man said:
“How lucky you are to have this wife ...”
So they too were satellites in Martha's orbit, I thought. If only they knew! I was pleased when they finally left.
"They have a penthouse in the METROPOLE in Monaco, the terrace has a direct view onto the track for the Monaco grand prix. We are invited for the May Grand Prix - a lot of prominent folks will be there.”
Martha said with unbounded enthusiasm. Well, May was still a long way off, a lot could happen still - hopefully. Then came a neighbor, a tall dark haired man with a swarthy skin color. His name was Simeon. A south-eastern European by appearance. Elegant and inscrutable. Obviously he had got to know Martha. He introduced himself as the principal agent of Siemens in Rumania, so he was a Rumanian. Roland, the Maitre d’Hotel at the close by luxury resort Mas d’Atigny, where we often went for a meal, gave me the information that the man was very rich. Last autumn he had staged a wedding reception for his daughter in the hotel with a guest list of 200. I could imagine what that had cost. The Mas d’Atigny had at that time a clientele that could throw money about in all directions. One of the regular guests came every year from Belgium with five Ferraris, each with its own driver. The cars were his pets. From behind his hand Roland told I one evening, after we had enjoyed a lot of Calvados from our respective birth years:
“You know, they say he’s a gypsy, one of the top rank men, a gypsy baron.”
That meant little to me, I knew only of the operetta “The Gypsy Baron” by Johann Strauß. And then Roland said,
“There is talk that the goods stolen in nightly robberies are unloaded at his villa. It is said that there is a secret entrance to it.”
It occurred to me that there had been no break-ins at our house, even though every weekend the villas were being robbed - by gypsies, it was said, they pushed their children through metal-grilled windows, and the kids then opened up from inside.
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