His second marriage barely lasted longer than the first. Héloïse ran off with her drawing professor a year after Basile was born and took the infant with her to live in Italy. Olivier traveled frequently to Puglia, the small town where they were living, and did his best to stay present in Basile’s life. But eventually, once he started his business, the trips became less frequent, and eventually stopped entirely. As he grew up, Basile became a talented artist himself, and when he was eighteen he returned to Paris to continue his studies at the Beaux-Arts. He was curious about his father and looked him up, and Olivier really got to know him then. And with time and evenings spent together, they became good friends. Basile made it rewarding and enjoyable for Olivier to be a father. Olivier got him a small studio apartment near where he lived, and they saw each other often.
Olivier’s two sons were three years apart. Basile had eventually left the Beaux-Arts to become a street artist, starting with graffiti, and now, at twenty-seven, his work had matured and evolved, and he was becoming successful. He had the rare combination of his mother’s artistic talent and his father’s head for business. Olivier went to his shows whenever he had them and was impressed at how strong and whimsical and appealing Basile’s art was. The two half brothers had met several times and didn’t like each other, part jealousy and part just too different. Olivier got along brilliantly with Basile, and they never lacked for things to talk about on subjects that fascinated them. They were surprisingly alike and admired each other, whereas Max was jealous of both of them. He had an envious, greedy nature. And even though Olivier and his older son worked together, they still had little in common. Their perception of the world and philosophies of life were total opposites. Max was always on the lookout for situations that would benefit him, no matter how shady they appeared, and Olivier’s efforts to lead him to the straight and narrow were fruitless most of the time. In contrast, Basile was full of humor and charm, and had the same generous, honorable, honest, warm heart as his father. Basile was easy to love, and Max an eternal challenge.
Olivier had seen recent photographs of Héloïse, Basile’s mother, his great love, and had been shocked to see that she had aged badly, and looked nothing like the beautiful girl he had fallen in love with in his youth. She was still with her former art teacher, who was now in his seventies and looked like an old man, and she was unattractive and looked ten years older than her age at fifty-one. She always told their son that she still had warm memories of Olivier and that he had been a lovely man, but the art instructor she had left him for, and never married but still lived with, was the love of her life. Her union with Olivier had served to produce Basile and nothing more. Basile wasn’t resentful of any of them. He had enjoyed a happy childhood in Italy, and loved living in Paris now and seeing his father for dinner at a neighborhood bistro from time to time. Basile wanted nothing from Olivier and was doing well on his own. Olivier marveled at times at how different the two boys were. He got along with Basile and truly enjoyed him, but seeing Max at work every day was never a pleasure. Their relationship had been tense and awkward for all of Max’s life.
Max wanted to start his own company but was waiting for his father to pay for it, which Olivier wasn’t inclined to do. In his opinion, Max was always looking for an easy ride and wasn’t a hard worker. He took too many risks, and his gambling habit worried Olivier. Olivier had no desire to set him up in business and considered him a poor risk. He had terrible judgment. So Max was riding his father’s coattails until he got a better deal. He had no desire to do the heavy work himself. Unlike Basile, who worked hard and was starting to sell his street art for high prices, which impressed Olivier. Just talking to him, one could sense that Basile was destined for success.
After Olivier’s second unsuccessful marriage, he came to the conclusion that long-term commitment wasn’t for him. He was twenty-three when Héloïse ran off with her art professor, and although he’d had relationships later which had lasted for a few years, particularly one that had lasted for seven years with a married woman when he was in his thirties, he had no desire to marry or have more children. He had been single now for more than twenty-five years and was content.
He had an apartment he loved in the 7th Arrondissement, along the quais overlooking the Seine. He went to Italy frequently to visit their factories there, he went to Asia twice a year, and enjoyed a small amount of exotic travel. He did extensive business in the States and had friends there. His life seemed perfectly balanced to him, and he could think of nothing he was lacking, or he would have changed if he had the chance. He still shuddered at the early memories of how unhappy both of his marriages had made him, and with the vantage point of age, he could easily see how he would have been even more miserable if those unions had lasted. Monique had turned out to be a nightmare. Her parents had died, so he didn’t have to deal with them, and Héloïse had no family to speak of and Olivier had never met them. She had turned into a blowzy, unattractive housewife who had lost her looks at a young age. She had been a good mother to their son, so he was grateful for that. His own parents had died when he was relatively young, and he was an only child, so he had no family now except his two sons, and as far as he was concerned, they were enough. He saw enough of each of them, so he was satisfied and not hungering for more contact. Basile had never wanted anything from him, he wasn’t greedy or grasping, his art sold well, and he was self-supporting. But Max was a frequent headache even now, when they clashed over the business, which happened often. Olivier had long since accepted that he and Max were never going to see life the same way. And neither of his sons seemed to have any inclination to get married. He felt an obligation to give Max a role in his business, but he kept a close eye on him to make sure he didn’t do any serious damage.
Max chased anything in a skirt indiscriminately, if she was good-looking. He had a weakness for Russian models. They used him and were even greedier than he was. Basile always seemed to have a girlfriend of the moment, and appeared to be serially monogamous, but the faces changed every few months. At twenty-seven, he was enjoying being young and single and had no urge to settle down. He said he had no desire to even think about it until he was at least thirty-five, which was eight years away. The timing sounded about right to his father too, much better than fatherhood at nineteen and twenty-two, and responsibilities he couldn’t handle at the time. Olivier thought that if he had been smart enough to wait too, and had chosen more carefully, he might have ended up with a partner who would have lasted and not cheated on him almost immediately. They had all been too young for marriage and children. His parents had said it at the time, but he hadn’t listened. Monique’s father probably would have killed him, or done him some serious bodily harm, if he hadn’t married her when she got pregnant, so Olivier had complied, much to his parents’ chagrin.
Max appeared to have the same short fuse as his maternal grandfather and wasn’t shy about landing a good punch now and then too. Olivier still remembered vividly Monique’s father punching him squarely in the face when she told him she was pregnant. Her father had grown up in a rough neighborhood and what he’d learned there had stayed with him for a lifetime. At the time, Olivier had never met anyone like him, or like her. In his more genteel family, punching someone wasn’t an option. Monique had hit him a few times too, and he had let her because she was a woman. He was sorry when she died, but he never missed her once they parted, and Max was a great deal like Monique and her family despite the education and advantages Olivier had given him. He had never become a nicer person, or a gentleman. And he was drawn to the lowest element of society among his friends.