I met Mike Palmer at a luncheon given by the French consulate to help hotel managers along the French Riviera and Monaco get acquainted with some Americans in the news media.
He was the only one at the table whose name I thought I could pronounce. His name tag said ”Michel Palmer” and that he was the general manager of one of the world`s most famous hotels, the Negresco in Nice.
He asked if I`d ever been to Nice. When I said yes, that my wife and I had, he asked if we`d ever stayed at the Negresco.
It told that we had visited the Riviera in 1980 on a Globus motorcoach tour.
”Oh, my,” said Palmer. ”Then you have never stayed at any of our great hotels? You should. It can be a memorable experience.”
In the interest of courtesy I agreed with him, but it was lip service. To me a hotel is a hotel, a place where you can stay warm, out of the rain and have a little peace and quiet.
Back, 60 years later
”If I may tell you a little story, I can illustrate what I mean,”
Palmer said.
Palmer related how his secretary had come to him one day to tell him there was an old man in the lobby ”who had been a guest of the hotel more than 60 years earlier.”
Palmer got excited about that.
”Wonderful,” he said, ”invite him to join me for lunch. I want to hear about those old days.”
The man, an American in his 80s, introduced himself as Russell Jones and thanked his host.
”This is the first time I have been inside your lovely hotel.”
”Oh,” Palmer said, ”I understood you had been a guest.”
”No, no,” Jones said. ”A guest here? Something so grand could never happen to someone like me. In fact, only once have I set foot on the grounds.”
The old man then said that when he was young, perhaps no more than 20, he had been walking along the promenade when he had seen something extraordinary ahead.
Parked in front of the Negresco was the most wonderful machine he had ever seen, a motorcar of such profound beauty the young man could not look away.
He had approached it, even stepping onto the hotel grounds to walk around it. A man in uniform, standing next to it, smiled and asked him if he had any questions. Jones said that he didn`t know enough about such things to ask an intelligent question, except what it was like to ride in such a wonderful machine? The uniformed man told him it was very nice.
A dark stranger
As Jones was trying to peek through the slots in the hood to catch a glimpse of the engine, another man, dark and very thin, came out of the hotel and approached the man in uniform. They talked for a few moments.
”You may sit in it if you like,” the newcomer said.
Sit in it? Jones pointed to his own chest and looked at the speaker. The young man smiled, ”Yes, you.”
Jones looked to the man in uniform to see if it was all right. The man smiled, nodded and opened the door for him. Jones felt the rich leather of the seats, the smoothness of the hardwood steering wheel, then he got out very carefully and stepped back to take in the whole picture again.
”Would you like to ride in it?” the dark young man asked. Jones was too astonished to do more than nod.
”Well, it`s mine and I won`t be needing it or my driver for the rest of the day.”
He turned to the man in uniform: ”Why don`t you show our young friend the Riviera?”
Jones and the driver spent the whole afternoon driving along the Cote d`Azur. They went to Monte Carlo, where they saw the palace of the Prince of Monaco, then to Beaulieu-sur-Mer, back to Nice and to Cannes. At dusk they drove through the hills and then back again to the Negresco.
”I must thank him,” Jones told the driver. ”Do you think I could go inside to the desk?” The driver said he could.
”Who should I ask for?” Jones asked.
The driver was surprised.
”You mean you don`t know?” he asked. ”Ask for Mr. Valentino. Rudolph Valentino.”
Courage evaporates
”Jones never went in,” said Mike Palmer. ”He told me he couldn`t find the courage. Then, when he said it had been one of the most wonderful things that had happened to him in all his life, a thought occurred to me.”
I asked what it was. Palmer poured cream in his coffee.
”Well,” he said, ”I asked the old man how much he was paying where he was staying. He said $50 a night. So I asked if, just for old times` sake, he would like to move from where he was staying to the Negresco, for the same price. It seemed to me if we had been a part of bringing such joy to his youth, perhaps we could brighten his old age a bit.”
”He did, of course,” I said.
”For a week,” Palmer said. ”He had his meals in our restaurants, and he would spend most of his time in the lobby. He would smile at the guests, and when one would smile back or stop to exchange pleasantries he would tell his story again about the car and Rudolph Valentino-and about how the Hotel Negresco had seen fit to invite him to be a guest.
”Only one part of his story did he change.”
”What was that?” I asked.
”That the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him was when the Hotel Negresco `for old times` sake` had invited him to rom some of the guests with whom he spoke. They all thought it was a nice thing for us to do.”
I told him I thought so, too.
