Garden of Venus (7 page)

‘Don’t be shy, my precious,’ the Princess says.

Sophie raises her eyes. There is a flash of defiance, though she is trying to disguise it.

‘My name is Sophie,’ she says. ‘It means wisdom.’

She watches how, with one gesture of dismissal, her mother is made to leave the room, the purse of gold cekins in her hands. How she takes one more look at her daughter, a look of such pain and despair that Sophie wants to run toward her and throw her hands around her neck. ‘I’ve failed you after all,’ Mana’s eyes say. ‘I have not kept you from danger. Forgive me.’

The doors close after her, silently, like the doors of a tomb.

Only a week had passed, even if the memory of the journey seemed already faded and oddly remote, as if whole weeks separated them from the grimy inns and the jostling carriage.

In the first days of October, morning took a long time to arrive. With curtains drawn, the only light in the grand salon was a votive lamp underneath the icon of St Nicholas. In the twilight, the red reflections on the Saint’s bearded face made the holy image waver and float.

The countess was awake already. She tried to lift herself up, but the task was too strenuous and she fell back on the pillow.

‘Don’t look at me, Rosalia,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to remember me like that.’

Blood stained her clothes, seeped through the sheets, the blankets. They should be soaked in cold water right away. The mattress would have to be burned. The maids have to stop gossiping in the kitchen and clean more carefully. Rosalia could see the patches missed by the duster, the trails of neglect.
One cannot rejoice at this constant lowering of your station in life
, Aunt Antonia had written, hinting once again at the
disastrous but perhaps foreseeable consequences
of her father’s Jacobin dreams, the true cause of all her misfortunes. She herself was far from supporting tyranny or injustice, but all this talk of freeing the serfs or making Poland a republic frightened her. Like everything else in life, equality too had its limits.
Your place is here
, her letters to Rosalia invariably ended,
at my side
.

An operation would take place right in this room. A mattress could go on a table. She did warn Frau Kohl that one might be needed at short notice. A fairly big one, with sturdy legs.

Since their arrival in Berlin, breakfast meant a few
morsels of bread dipped in red wine to strengthen blood and on a better morning a few sips of consommé the cook prepared fresh every day. Dr Bolecki always came around ten o’clock and, after a short examination of the countess, insisted that Rosalia escorted him downstairs. This was the only time, he said, they could exchange their observations about the patient, only they never did.

On the first day Dr Bolecki told her that his father had fought in the Kosciuszko Insurrection; that he, Dr Bolecki, trained in Paris, thanks to Napoleon’s insatiable need for army surgeons; and that the French doctor who was coming from Paris could amputate a limb in under two minutes. On the following day she learned that Dr Bolecki’s beloved wife died of consumption and his only daughter was a Carmelite nun, in Rome. He had to take her there himself, in January last year. On a day so cold that he couldn’t stop thinking of Napoleon’s Russian campaign. ‘Was it really that terrible?’ Rosalia asked, out of politeness. ‘I mean the campaign,’ she added quickly lest he thought she was prying into his life. He hesitated for a moment, and said that the most eerie was the silence before the Moscow fires started. ‘A void,’ he said, ‘awaiting human screams.’ Of the march back he refused to speak at all. ‘It’s better for you not to know,’ he said. But then, even though Rosalia did not insist on returning to the subject, he added that death from cold was kind. ‘The worst,’ he said, ‘always comes from a human hand.’

‘I think him very pleasant,’ Rosalia said when the countess asked how she liked Dr Bolecki. She meant ‘reliable’, but ‘pleasant’ seemed a safer word to use. Olga had complained, on two occasions, that Rosalia was putting on airs. ‘As if
she
were a doctor here,’ were Olga’s words.

Today, as the examination followed its usual route – pulse, signs of fever, the usual questions about appetite, bleeding, and acuteness of pain – a lock of grey hair kept
falling over Doctor Bolecki’s left eye. This, Rosalia thought, might be responsible for his air of restlessness. The countess suffered these ministrations without a sign of impatience, but let Rosalia answer all the questions. Only Dr Bolecki’s assurance that he would bring the French surgeon the next day, restored some alertness to her face. ‘As soon as possible,’ he kept saying. He kept looking at her too, Rosalia noted, as if something managed to change about her since the day before. Her nursing skills, he said, were most impressive. Not every patient was thus blessed. ‘I trust you, Mademoiselle, completely.’ This he repeated three times in a row, adding that he was sure his high regard would be shared by Doctor Lafleur.

There was a sound of footsteps outside the grand salon, then silence. The door opened and Marusya appeared, balancing a tray with letters and a pot of coffee with some difficulty. It was one of the countess’s whims, a pot of freshly brewed coffee at her bedside. The smell of it, she said, was enough. She could not drink any of it, but that shouldn’t stop Rosalia from having some. The maid put the tray on the table. Her eyes were fixed on the tray and her chore, as if any distraction could cause her to lose control. The tray wobbled and Rosalia half expected to hear the crash of china falling to the floor, but this did not happen.

‘Your son has written, just as he has promised,’ she said, spotting Bobiche’s handwriting on one of the letters. The countess’s youngest son had managed to write two whole pages instead of his usual one. L’abbé Chalenton was making progress.

Nothing, yet, from Odessa, from the countess’s elder daughter, Madame Kisielev. As soon as the news of her safe delivery reached them, Rosalia insisted that Madame Kisielev should be told the truth. The baby would no longer be affected by the mother’s agitation. Besides what daughter would want to be away from her mother in her time of need.

And so, in her last letter, the countess asked her daughter to come to Berlin.
Please hurry, my dear Sophie
, she wrote,
if
you want to see your mother alive
. Enclosed with that letter was a bank order for 50,000 roubles. Madame Kisielev could well be on her way.

That night, the silent servant with an unsmiling face takes Sophie to her bath. Her body is scrubbed and scraped clean with a sharp end of a seashell dabbed with precious drops of perfume. The dress that touches her skin is light as gossamer, soft like the skin of a newborn baby.

When her nail snags the soft fabric, the servant clucks
her tongue. She is shaking her head, mouth twisted in a grimace. Without a veil, she is no longer mysterious. A woman with crooked teeth and nose too big for her face who pinches Sophie with impatience reserved for those whose position is not yet established. Reserved for a Greek slave girl with uncertain future who might not please the Princess after all.

‘Her Highness is waiting,’ the servant whispers. ‘Hurry up, girl.’

The Princess has her own apartments in the Harem. There is a tiled fireplace in her bedroom for nights cooler than this one. The walls are wainscoted with mother of pearl, ivory and olive wood, more beautiful than the lid of the best jewellery box in Aunt Helena’s home. The carpet on the floor is soft and thick. On the bed a golden throw glitters in the candlelight.

‘Come on, my sweet wisdom,’ the Princess says and pats the spot beside her. She is not wearing her pantaloons, but a loose dress. Through the slit of the dress Sophie can see her leg. White, smooth skin that she does not want to touch.

The Princess removes the smallest of her rings and extends her hand. ‘Take it,’ she says. ‘I want you to wear it.’

The ring is too big. It will have to be resized. The jeweller will be summoned first thing in the morning. For now, Sophie can wear the ring on a string around her neck.

Sophie casts her eyes down. Thoughts abandon her. Her body shudders, each movement is an effort.

‘Lean on me, my child. I want to feel your warmth.’

It is not cold, she wants to say but doesn’t. On her way here the silent servant ushered her into a latticed room and opened a large coffer. Inside there was nothing but a silk belt. The servant gave her a curious look and mimed strangling her own throat.

Sophie closes her eyes when the Princess’s hand caresses
her cheek, her neck, her breasts. A hot, heavy hand, burrowing its way into her body. Is this what Mana knew would happen to her?

What a fool she was to dream of the Sultan’s love.

Someone walks by the Princess’s chamber, something rustles, something falls to the floor with a thud. The hand that touches her freezes, but only for a moment.

In this moment Sophie closes her eyes and tries to imagine this is the hand of a rich foreign diplomat, the man of the world who will teach her to dance and tell her stories of foreign lands. Stories in which women have carriages and beautiful jewels. Where their hair is piled up and adorned with flowers and birds and strings of pearls. Where men whisper sweet words into the women’s ears.

‘How soft your skin is, my sweet wisdom.’

‘Come closer. You are not afraid of me, are you?’

Is this what fear does? Freezes the heart? Stops the mind from dreaming?

She lets the Princess hold her hand. Mana has taught her how to give pleasure. Each body has its own desires. She knows how to press a muscle, gently first, then harder, and harder, until the pressure inside it is released. She knows how to dissolve the knots of tension, to bring relief.

A smile is pasted to her lips, a contortion of flesh. It makes her mouth quiver. The Princess calls her an angel, a sweet, beautiful child. A temptress. Sophie will lack for nothing. Ever. Sophie will be like a queen.

‘Kiss me,’ the Princess says, pointing at her lips.

‘Not like this. Harder.’

There are bruises on her thighs and arms, but she has not felt pain. Her own body feels as if it belongs to someone else, to another woman she can see from above. A woman whose face is covered with kisses, whose body
is pinned to the bed. Whose clothes are prised away from her and whose hands clutch to her naked breasts. This other woman has stopped fighting her fate. She is lying motionless in the soft bed, with her eyes closed. She is trying to sink so deep that no one would find her. She is trying to close herself to the touch that yanks her from her dreamlike state. Nothing is happening, she repeats to herself. This is nothing. Nothing.

‘What is done once,’ the Princess whispers, ‘cannot be undone. What is felt once, will never be forgotten. You are mine, now,’ she whispers. ‘My own little wisdom.’

In the darkness Sophie prays for time to hurry, to go faster. Her lips are sore where the Princess has bitten them.

‘I am making you happy. You cannot hide your own pleasure from me.’

‘Say it!’

‘You are making me happy. I cannot hide my own pleasure from you.’

‘I am your mistress. There is no one else but me.’

‘You are my mistress. There is no one else but you.’

‘Ever.’

‘Ever.’

The bed is crumpled and moist with sweat; pillows have fallen off, to the floor. Silk-covered pillows, soft and smooth. The Princess is still holding her arm, making her lie there. There are other kinds of wisdom, she says. Many crave it, but few are chosen. Only to the few it shall be revealed. Wisdom that speaks of the true delights of love, of secrets common women are not meant to know.

‘Listen, my little wisdom. With me you will know it all.’

These stories speak of mysterious journeys across parched deserts; of abandoned inns where, in spite of the worst
fears, sumptuous meals await an exhausted traveller; of crossroads where the hanged long for the mercy of the burial; of old hermits who know the way. It is enough to close her eyes to see the deep dungeons where hatred and envy rule and the fragrant gardens where beauty and love meet in secret. In search of their fate, the travellers of those tales fight hunger and thirst, battle false desires – the phantoms that drive the soul away from its dream.

‘Such are the stories of the night,’ the Sultana whispers. ‘They are all for you, my sweet wisdom.’

For there are more stories. Stories wrenched away from the possessed. Stories from forbidden books, stories of women who know as much as the men, but who guard their secret knowledge with their lives.

‘I know them all, my sweet wisdom,’ the Sultana says. ‘And soon, you too will know them.’

But then, a moment later, she is snoring, her arm heavy on Sophie’s shoulder. For a long while Sophie tries to wriggle out from under this arm. To stand up, gasp for breath. Her stomach churns and the coffee she has drunk rises up her throat. For a brief moment of despair she considers standing on the edge of the window and throwing herself down, into the paved courtyard underneath, but she doesn’t want to die.

She lets the tears flow, silently, until sleep comes. In the morning, she will think of something. Luck will not abandon her like that. Without warning, without giving her another chance. Luck may have played a mean trick on her, but Sophie has not lost her faith.