Garden of Venus (10 page)

Mana has placed a shawl over Sophie’s head. ‘We won’t let him see you right away,’ she whispers in her daughter’s ears. ‘Stand straight, but don’t look at him. Keep your eyes down.’

But Sophie cannot stop herself from looking. After the Harem, this is the most beautiful room she has ever seen. The walls are painted the blue of the sea and have its luminous shine. The glass in the window sparkles. On the shelves, there are rows of books bound in leather. Has the internuncio read them all? What sort of things are in them? Tales of other worlds, of ships sailing through seas and oceans? The maps on the desk are spread wide, their ends kept from rolling up by two white rocks, studded with white crystals.

She doesn’t even know the names of the lands drawn so beautifully on these maps. Her own ignorance angers her, for she can imagine another woman, a woman who can walk through such rooms with ease, who can talk about the books she has read and journeys she has taken.

‘Look down,’ Mana whispers, pinching her elbow.

The internuncio is not as she imagined him. She thought he would be big, with strong hands, ramrod straight. Instead he is small and sinewy with rouged, wrinkled cheeks. Like an apple stored for the winter. She doesn’t like his stained and crooked teeth either.

His name may be Charles Boscamp, but, even in her mind, she cannot bring herself to call him anything but
the internuncio
.

‘Better be right,’ the internuncio says to Carlo who towers over his master. There is no anger in this voice though. No tension. No, he is not
quite
as she imagined him, but his clothes are rich. A green velvet dressing-gown embroidered with gold, white stockings and silver clasps on his shoes. The powder from the wig has spilled over on his vest. His valet should be told to be more careful. She is trying to keep her eyes down, the way her mother told her to, but cannot stop watching him.

There is an air of importance around the internuncio, in the force of his steps, the upward curve of his spine. In the way he wrings his hands, which are the white perfumed hands of a noble. She can imagine him riding, his legs spurring a horse on to greater effort. She can imagine him touching her.

She likes that thought.

Mana is talking fast, assuring the internuncio of her beloved daughter’s meek nature and good humour. Dou-Dou will not be a burden to a gentleman. There is not a trace of moodiness in her, or anger. She is sweetness itself. She is love and devotion and purity, so unlike these French ladies she hears so much about, brought up to speak their minds and put their wants ahead of anyone else’s. Dou-Dou’s heart is filled with nothing but the desire to please. She knows how to be grateful.

‘She is my daughter,’ Mana says. ‘My beloved Sophie. You will not be sorry.’

The internuncio looks at her sharply, as if doubting all these words. She keeps her eyes down, fixed on the clasps of his brown leather shoes. She crosses her arms across her chest and trembles.

‘Is that what you really want, child,’ the internuncio asks. He has lifted her chin up. His finger is soft and warm. Dry like a handful of sand. His eyes are blue, like the sky over Bursa, the whites reddened by last night’s excitement. Can she really make these eyes see nothing but her?

She doesn’t say anything. Her chin rests heavily on his finger. Her hands clutch at the shawl that covers her breasts.

His lips are thin and pale, but there is a smile on them. A smile of pleasure.

He touches her lips, slowly, lingering over their shape. He parts them gently with his finger and touches her teeth. There is a taste to his skin, bitter, pungent but not unpleasant.

‘Leave her then,’ the internuncio sighs. He is so close to her that she catches a sour whiff penetrating his shield of musk and snuff.

‘Not now, My Illustrious Lord. Not yet,’ Mana says. ‘The girl is suffering from her menses and our Lord forbids a woman to lie with a man at a time like that. Wait a few days and I’ll bring her back to you, clean and scrubbed.’

Her mother is not leaving anything to chance. There will be a deposit of 1500 piastrs made with Kosta Lemoni in Phanar, the spice merchant who will keep the money in trust for Sophie, her daughter’s dowry to be paid to her on the day she stands at the altar beside her groom. There will be assurances for the rides in a carriage, and the new dresses, and shawls Dou-Dou likes so much. She could keep all the gifts he might give her: the dresses, the rings, the pendants.

‘Do you want my soul too, woman,’ the internuncio laughs, but Sophie can tell he is not angered by her mother’s shrewdness. He is a man of honour, he assures Mana. He will do what is right.

‘If she pleases me though,’ he says, his finger raised in the air as if he were warning her that not all is settled yet.

‘A virgin,’ Mana answers boldly, ‘needs a good teacher. Then she will learn how to please.’

He likes that. His laughter rings out, shaking his belly up and down, bringing moisture to his eyes.

He takes a small ring from his finger and slips it into Mana’s hand. They examine it later, carefully. Note the thickness of gold, and the shine of the small sapphire. The colour, Mana would tell her later as if Sophie hadn’t noticed it herself, of his eyes.

The crimson robe is wrapped tightly around him. Crimson, he will tell her later, is the colour of the Polish nobles.

The internuncio is sitting in a gilded armchair, a glass of wine in hand, legs spread. ‘Come,’ he says and she walks slowly, her eyes cast down. Slowly, holding her legs together, just the way Mana has shown her. Inside her, her mother’s fingers have slid a pessary made from a lamb’s bladder. She is not to upset it by too sudden a movement. A vial of dove’s blood is hidden in a secret pocket in the fold of her shift. When he is asleep beside her, she is to quietly spill the blood on the sheets. She takes small steps, her hips swaying gently.

‘Closer,’ he says. Her feet are bare, the skin tingling at the smoothness and richness of the carpet.

Her head is spinning with her mother’s words. Don’t look him in the eye. Hold your head down. Smile, don’t laugh. There will be time for laughter later. There will be time for dancing and for rejoicing when your future is assured. Not now, not yet.

‘He is a libertine,’ Aunt Helena has said. ‘For such a man there is nothing sweeter than corrupting innocence.’

Now her shift is lying on the floor. Her naked body is covered with a sheet, so white that it shines. Her hair has been beautifully braided and pinned high, revealing the nape of her neck. Her eyes have been kohled, lips reddened. At the
hammam
her mother has helped her scrape the hair off her legs and made a special nourishing face mask from an egg yolk and honey. Her skin when she touches it is smooth.

‘Closer. You are not afraid, are you?’ he asks, rising from the chair, putting his glass aside. There is another glass of wine on the side table, filled to the brim. It’s for her. She is to drink it with him. To pleasure. To love. To the good times.

‘Life is so short, Dou-Dou, so fleeting. Shouldn’t we suck the pleasure out of each moment?’

Nodding, she takes one more step toward him. She takes the glass in her hand and sips the wine slowly, avoiding his eyes. One small sip after another. The wine smells of oak and berries. It is heavy, with a tinge of sweetness.

‘Is it good?’ he asks.

She nods. She can hardly stop her eyes from darting to the sides. The internuncio’s bed is big. The four posts rise almost to the ceiling. Underneath she can see a white chamber pot, covered with a lid.

The wine dizzies her. She giggles and puts the empty glass back on the table. The room is hot and she feels drops of sweat gather and roll slowly down her back. The internuncio fills the glass again, but he is not asking her to drink, so she doesn’t reach for it.

She closes her eyes, just like Mana told her to do, when he parts the edges of the sheet and stares at her for a long, long time. He is muttering something in a language she doesn’t understand. He sniffs her like a dog might,
nose close to her skin, tickling her. There is a grimace of displeasure on his face.

‘Your odour,’ he says. ‘Too strong for my taste.’

She reaches for the second glass of wine and drinks it fast. Then, standing straight, she lets the sheet fall down from her body. It’s her beauty that needs to speak now. The shine in her eyes, their brightness. The purity of her skin. She takes his hand in hers and kisses it. Kisses it again and again.

His hand caresses her breasts, her belly. Then it slides down, touches the mound of Venus. She shivers.

The internuncio calls it
Mon Plaisir
.

The robe unwraps. He is naked, his belly protruding, over a patch of grey curly hair. He turns his back to her and makes a few steps to lie on his bed. His bottom is sagging. ‘Turn your eyes away,’ Mana has said. ‘Tell him you are afraid. Tell him he is too big for you. That he will break you inside and make you scream.’

But she has no time to say anything for he sits on the edge of the bed and motions to her to come to him. He is smiling, his eyes narrow, like folds of fabric. The vein on his temple has thickened and darkened.

She sits beside him on the bed and waits.

‘Come on, girl,’ he says. ‘Hasn’t your mother taught you what to do? Should I have taken her instead?’

She shakes her head and crosses her arms, as if to cover her breasts. In his voice there is a note of anger, but perhaps she only thinks it is.

‘Do what I tell you then,’ he says.

She is thinking of the pessary inside her. What if it slips out. What if he puts his own hand there and retrieves it, calling her a liar. Sending her back to her mother. The orders are a relief, for at least she knows what to do to please him.

‘Lie down.’

He is a traveller in the land of Venus, he tells her, a true Explorer, for whom the sight of a Foreign Land is always welcome. A Land with all its Harbours, Bays, Rocks, Beacons and Caverns. Especially a Land not Ploughed before. A Land for which Directions have to be established. A Harbour which has to be thoroughly assessed to assure the safety of his precious cargo. Its Waters explored with Proper Instruments that will measure its width and depths.

Just do what he wants you to do, Mana has said. Make him happy.

The candles in the room make the shadows dance on the ceiling. She tries not to look at his sagging skin.
His Instrument
and his
precious Stones
are of excellent order, he assures her. She should thank her lucky stars.

She thinks of Diamandi’s smooth olive skin and the strength of his boyish arms. She thinks of their run across the fields, their mad run of desire.

She can smell the wine on his breath, or is it hers. Somewhere in the back of her mind questions hammer. What if she is not pleasing him? What if she is not what he has expected? What if she doesn’t know what a man wants?

He is grunting, crushing her with the weight of his body. He has pushed himself into her, as if he were squeezing in something soft and lifeless. His hands rest upon her breasts, pinching her nipples.

Her scream pleases him.

But it is only when he wakes up in the morning, when he pats her buttocks and tells her that the Fortifications were not very strong after all, not a match for his Vigorous Attack, and when he sees the blood on the sheets that she knows she has not disappointed him at all. He will not send her back to her mother.

Outside, in the small vestibule decorated with panels of pale green marble and white Grecian urns, Mademoiselle Rosalia stopped him.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Just a few words.’ Her hazel eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles under her eyes spoke of sleepless nights.
A daughter of a Polish hero and a Jewess from Uman
. He knew what she would ask before he heard the words.

‘Is there really no hope, Doctor?’

‘None.’

‘I thought so too,’ she said, which killed the note of irritation in his voice. ‘But both Dr Bolecki and Dr Horn before him sounded so sure that an operation could save her.’

Rosalia, for this was how Thomas began thinking of her from that moment on, insisted on reporting the details of Dr Horn’s last treatments. It would be important for him to know, wouldn’t it. She had been taking detailed notes, if he only cared to take a look: purgings with senna and salts; thirty leeches, every two hours to restore the body’s internal harmony; no solid food.

‘Doctor Horn said that cancer always starts in the stomach,’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘Is that what you also believe?’

‘I haven’t seen much evidence to support this theory.’

‘What is it that you believe then?’

‘Nothing I cannot prove. Not much I’m afraid.’

She gave him a quizzical look, but did not ask anything else.

Dr Horn, with whom Thomas had less and less sympathy, clearly was an ardent follower of Brossais’s methods. It was his caustic salves that had irritated the stomach area. He scribbled a note for the pharmacist for a lotion that would calm down the skin.

‘For now,’ he said, ‘I would double the dose of laudanum. Then switch to pure opium to dull the pain.’

She took the note from him. ‘I’ll send the maid for it right away.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You must think me cruel.’

‘No,’ she shook her head in protest. ‘Madame la Comtesse wanted the truth. You were right not to lie to her.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I don’t know what else to say.’

Olga Potocka, Mademoiselle la Comtesse, called him a complete fool. She bit her lip and said she insisted on a second opinion. ‘Doctor Bolecki assured me that a skilled surgeon would be able to remove the tumour,’ she said.

‘Of course, by all means, you should consult another doctor,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m not God.’

‘But Thomas,’ Ignacy’s face was red, either with exertion or embarrassment, he couldn’t tell. ‘Are you that sure?’

From the corner of his eye he could see Rosalia lean forward as if she wanted to defend him. A thought flashed through his mind: I wonder why she is not married.

‘Yes,’ Thomas said. ‘I’m that sure.’

He had to repeat the same words a few minutes later when the Potocki coachman drove them through the Berlin streets, swearing at the horses in either Russian or Ukrainian, Thomas couldn’t tell.