How to Become Extinct

Western Europe might lie almost defenseless under the shadow of Red guns, but some members of European society, at least, were carrying on bravely. Egypt's King Farouk, for one, moved serenely northward through France's peaceful summer landscape. Traveling incognito as Fuad Pasha Masri (Fuad-the-Egyptian) in a glittering train of seven Cadillacs with motorcycle outriders, while his private plane hopped along beside him from one airfield to the next, he startled hotel managers by arriving unannounced in the middle of the night and demanding 22 rooms for himself and staff. (At Lyons he complained that the beds were too small.) His destination: the Hotel du Golf at Deauville, the fashionable summer resort in Normandy, where business is booming this summer.

For two days, .the Aga Khan had been sitting in the lobby keeping an eye on the door, waiting to greet Farouk. For two days, aging Sacha Guitry, 65, playwright-playboy, in green tam-o'-shanter and Scottish plaid mantle, had been sitting on the opposite side of the lobby, ready with a sophisticated sneer. At last, the King appeared. The Aga Khan greeted him; Guitry sneered. The King smiled vaguely. While he dined hugely (poisson `a la creme, veau `a la creme, champignons `a la creme, framboises `a la creme), a phalanx of reporters and photographers waited in vain for the appearance of the King's current romantic interest, Narriman Sadek. The underground word was that she would not come to Deauville.

Meanwhile newsmen could and did interview Samia Gamal, who bears the official title of "national dancer of Egypt"; she obliged by a few writhes and steps from an "oriental dance" for the assembled press. Wrote one reporter: "Her midriff rolled in a slow rhythm, her jet black eyes shot stars and she flashed the whitest teeth in the Middle East." For Farouk she had a special number, "The Bride of the Nile," which (said the newsman) "has a romantic beginning, a tragic finale and, as Samia does it, a restless middle."

That night the King turned up at the Casino with the Aga and the Begum, the Aga's son, Aly Khan, and his wife, Rita Hayworth. Farouk got into a baccarat game and played on until 5 a.m., winning 20 million francs. The next night he won 15 million, the third night he began to lose. The Casino refused to give out statistics on the losses.

It was almost like old times in Deauville. But things were not equally idyllic elsewhere in 'France. Down in Biarritz business was terrible, and a lot of big-name guests were getting free hotel rooms just to provide publicity. The Duke of Windsor had been heard to murmur, as he escorted his Duchess about town: "Now when my father was here . . ."

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