Rosetta (17 page)

I cannot go to Torre Clementina.

This is not because the villa has been destroyed – it remains intact, perched above the azure waters of the Mediterranean at Cap Martin, just as it was a century ago when Rosetta went there with Zeno and exchanged confidences with Baroness Stern, Princess Charlotte and Empress Eugenie. Unfortunately, unlike a number of other, nearby Belle Époque villas, such as the great flamingo-pink mansion at Cap Ferrat that Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild donated to the French nation, Torre Clementina is privately owned. Members of the public are not welcome.

Worse, for me at least, the proprietor, Frederick Robinson Koch, is a man described by
Vanity Fair
magazine as ‘notoriously private'. Like his three younger brothers, Frederick Koch is an American billionaire. Unlike them, he is not known to be enamoured with conservative political causes – two have famously pledged a billion dollars to support the Republican candidate in  the 2016 US presidential election. Frederick seems
not to be politically inclined, nor does he seek publicity. Rather, he ‘conducts his life as if striving for obscurity'.

Despite this passionate discretion, however, Frederick has a reputation for philanthropy. He is the man who, it was much later revealed, underwrote the multimillion-dollar reconstruction of the Swan Theatre at Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon in 1986. He has endowed the Frick Museum in New York, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh and libraries at Yale and Harvard universities with priceless historic documents. Among them are handwritten scores by Mozart and Schubert, letters by Baudelaire and Proust, poems by Cocteau and Victor Hugo, the drafts of manuscripts by Henry Miller and Oscar Wilde.

Frederick Koch is also known to have extraordinary objects that remain in his possession. There are pictures by Fragonard, fine wood panelling from the palace of Versailles, a bed that the Mayor of Paris gave to Marie Antoinette when she married Louis XVI, a marble head of Antinous that once belonged to his lover, the Emperor Hadrian. Frederick is a discerning, avid collector of stained glass and mosaics, of bronze statuary, of carpets, paintings and tapestries and, most relevant to my preoccupations, of historic properties. He bought Sutton Place in England, the legendary seven-hundred-acre estate where Henry VIII met Anne Boleyn (though now it is in the possession of an oligarch from Russia). He owns an enormous royal hunting lodge in Austria, and the Woolworth mansion in Manhattan. And, since purchasing it from the granddaughter of Ernesta Stern three decades ago, among his stellar accumulation is Torre Clementina.

Discovering who owns the villa has not been difficult. Gaining entry is quite a different matter. Mr Koch has many faithful retainers in his employ. They protect him and his interests with zeal. Layers of security surround him, ensuring the maintenance of not only his personal safety, but his privacy.
Esquire
magazine says that he is ‘impossible to contact'. Mr Koch is unreachable.

This is a great disappointment to me. I become possessed with the thought of seeing Torre Clementina, this place which,
arguably, represents the pinnacle of my great-grandmother's conquest of a near-Olympian world. For me, it has an almost mythic quality. I desire to inhabit the same rooms, walk in the gardens, stand as Rosetta did when, flanked by a princess and an empress, she sipped Turkish coffee and looked out upon a foreign sea. I can read about the villa's appearance in various accounts, and of course I have the letters, but it is not enough. I dream of being where she has been.

 

I sit in my garden on a sultry Sydney day and share my discouragement with a dear childhood friend who is visiting from his home in the United States. We are catching up, exchanging the details of our lives, our families. Martin is remarkable. A former Australian academic, he moved to Washington many years ago and became a US citizen. Martin's unique skills and exceptional intellect saw him become Deputy Secretary of State and an American ambassador – the only one, as has often been remarked, with an Australian accent. Martin is on familiar terms with presidents and prime ministers and the princes who rule Middle Eastern kingdoms. Nevertheless, I am surprised when, as we sip lime juice and bite into ripe strawberries, he laughs and says, ‘Frederick Koch? I know him.'

It takes a moment or two to absorb this piece of news. Here I am in Sydney, with my old friend who lives in America, and he is telling me that I just might be able to go to this particular, impossible-to-visit French villa. I realise it is a foolish notion but, still, I cannot help believing that, once more, unseen forces may be intervening.

Martin advises me that Frederick Koch is ‘old school'. I will have to supply credentials, provide information about myself, my family. There will be an assessment. Naturally, I comply as best I can. Emails are sent. Correspondence flies across the globe. I wait impatiently.

Then Mr Koch writes back and I discover that the margins of possibility have once more been erased. Just like my great-grandmother before me, I, too, have been invited to Torre Clementina. Call it happenstance, coincidence, good fortune – it seems like alchemy.

 

The villa's permanent staff keep it in a state of perfect readiness. Should its owner make one of his rare visits, he will see trees laden with tangerines and lemons. Rare pink Japanese wisteria and creamy rhododendrons will be in bloom and the bougainvillea, heavy with cerise blossoms, will be flourishing. Mr Koch will find that the pillows on the sun-beds by the swimming pool are plumped, the limestone terraces are swept, the brass taps and handrails and doorknobs gleam. The villa waits for him. Yet, as I walk through its rustic brick and stone portals, I have the distinct feeling that it also waits for me.

Here, at last, I stand in that soaring, central room, the same place in which Rosetta met Empress Eugenie, where she gossiped with Princess Charlotte and nibbled fragrant pastries alongside Baroness Stern. There is now barely a trace of Ernesta's eccentric collection of religious artefacts. They have been replaced by Frederick's exquisite possessions. To divulge the details of these priceless works would be to violate the trust of my absent host. It is enough to say that they are marvellous and of rare quality; I am surrounded by sculpture and furniture and paintings, an array of
objets d'art
that any number of museums would be eager to possess.

As I wander from one object to another, marvelling at these things, I hear an exclamation. It comes from Mark Ryan, the urbane man whom Mr Koch entrusts with the principal care of this unique property and who is accompanying me.

‘I have been here for fifteen years and I have never seen that before,' Mark says, excitedly. I follow his gaze, look to see what,
among all these treasures, could possibly have attracted his attention.

A single magnificent pheasant has alighted on the vivid green lawn outside. I leave the artfully arranged objects behind and follow Mark out onto the limestone terrace in order to observe it more closely. Beneath the Mediterranean sun the creature's iridescent plumage shines like bronze. Its glossy head, small and elegant, is held at a slight angle; there is a faint movement, a barely palpable pulse, beating in its throat. Its long tail feathers flicker, one wing is unfurled. In this place of memories and spirits, it casts its yellow eyes on me.

LONDON, APRIL 1914

Zeno has not been his usual self of late. He is restless, highly strung. There is a certain wildness in his eyes. Rosetta thinks that, if she had to put a date on it, it would be ever since their return from Cap Martin. But the more she considers, the more she begins to believe that the changes started earlier. Rosetta reflects on the feverish excitement that consumed him on the day he discovered he would be meeting the Empress Eugenie. It was out of character for this most self-contained of men. Now there is the repeated talk of war, the blood-soaked visions that come to him at night. Perhaps it is all the time spent in his laboratory, she thinks, inhaling God knows what poisonous substances shipped in from the East.

His practice is busier than ever. Zeno is at the beck and call of a dozen famous men. And the women; it seems they cannot get enough of him, of his predictions and his medicines, his massages and special treatments. She frowns. The fact is, beneath
his carefully groomed exterior, his calm facade, Zeno is a man of restless, burning appetites. As the pressures in his life begin to mount, it has become more difficult to keep his needs confined. More than ever, she worries that he is entangled with a titled woman, a viscount's wife or, worse, a duke's – several possible candidates come to mind – who, if disappointed by his fecklessness, will not hesitate to strike.

It is too much; it is frenetic. The work, the intimate encounters, the dinners and the entertaining and, always, the constant need to ensure that their true identities remain buried, the ever-present requirement to sustain this new, distinguished life. Zeno has reached so high and yet he seems to want to soar higher still. Like Icarus, he tempts fate. His wings may singe and burn.

Rosetta knows that if Zeno falls she will plummet with him. She must prevent this catastrophe from happening at any cost. Retribution will be swift and bitter. She does not shrink from divine judgement; the kind that humans pass is terrible enough. Rosetta is well aware that she is vulnerable. She carries with her the awful sin, desertion of her flesh and blood, hidden in her heart.

She shakes herself. The iron shutter that has allowed her to come this far is put back in its place. She will not dwell on what is over, past. Her mind turns instead to the only person in England, apart from her husband, for whom she cares deeply. Now that Helena Rubinstein is spending so much time building her cosmetic empire in other parts of the world, there is just one soul with whom Rosetta and Zeno can relax their guard, who knows both who they really are and from where they come: Lilian Pakenham. But Rosetta is troubled about her, too, her deep unhappiness. Lilian has a loveless marriage to a soldier politician from whom she dreams only of escape.

Not quite an idea, but the merest whisper of a notion begins to spin a web of possibility. Rosetta is secure. Her husband worships her. But she knows he likes … variety. Perhaps, perhaps, why not? Lilian and Zeno are already very close. He talks with her in a way
he does no other woman. Strangely, despite Lilian's blonde beauty, the rounded figure Rosetta has noticed other men admire, she has never detected in her husband the smallest sign of attraction for her friend. She supposes Zeno must have lines that even he will not cross. He knows that Lilian and Rosetta share a passionate friendship: he will not wound his wife. But if Rosetta were to give such a liaison her blessing – no, what is she thinking?

She busies herself with orders and accounts. But her attention wanders. She makes small arithmetical mistakes. Distracted, Rosetta lets her pencil drop. She decides instead to walk in Hyde Park. The early spring has brought a haze of new green leaves to trees whose branches were bare a week ago, and jonquil buds push through fresh grass. As she walks, her light coat wrapped about her, Rosetta finds herself returning to her earlier thoughts. Somehow, the idea does not seem so very shocking now. Zeno could make Lilian happy. She knows her friend has always found her husband to be attractive; what woman does not?

Rosetta is struck by how simple, indeed, how useful a suitable arrangement between the three of them would be. Her friend would receive the attention she deserves and the risks attached to Zeno's aristocratic dalliances might be reduced. And Lilian will keep their secrets. They will be safe with her.

 

While Rosetta starts her journey homeward, still pondering this unconventional strategy, Zeno, at his desk in New Bond Street, is opening yet another letter. Princess Charlotte is in near constant contact; she has one matter that dominates her thoughts. When will her father-in-law, the Grand Duke, die? It is an issue that consumes her day and night.

At seventeen, on an unusually mild Berlin day in February 1878, Charlotte married her brother's scholarly friend, the Hereditary Prince his Highness, Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. Soon after, she became the leader of Berlin society, or at least that part of it regarded as smart, dissolute. Widely celebrated for her
style and wit, she bought clothes only from Paris, smoked and drank, spread gossip and made outrageous comments. There were intrigues; scandalous rumours of wild promiscuity began to circulate. Although in the words of her cousin, Queen Marie of Romania, Charlotte ‘could have disarmed an ogre', and each of her cat-like movements resembled ‘a caress', these attributes failed to impress her brother, Kaiser Wilhelm. Instead, with Charlotte under something of a cloud, in 1892 he insisted that she and Bernhard vacate Berlin.

The couple have remained more or less in exile in the dreary German town of Breslau ever since. It is little wonder that in 1898 Charlotte built her Cannes villa, La Fôret. But life on the Riviera provides only diversion: it cannot satisfy Charlotte's ambition.

The strained relations with her Emperor brother mean that, although as a Princess of Prussia she receives an income, it is insufficient, at least in her opinion. Until Bernhard can succeed his father, Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen, the royal couple must endure relative impoverishment and, what is worse, a status that is annoyingly inconsequential.

To Charlotte's regret, and despite her long-felt anticipation, Georg II has declined to pass away. Exasperated, she is of the opinion that, due to her royal father-in-law's stubborn determination to remain alive, her husband has been denied his rightful inheritance. It is, then, with a sense of some desperation, that she has turned to the only man she feels certain is able to expedite the matter, who can bring it to a rapid, ardently wished for, irrevocable conclusion.

Professor Zeno advises Charlotte to be calm. He holds her hand and says in his most soothing tone, ‘Patience, my dear Princess. I see his death. It is not far away.'

It is too distant for Charlotte. That the principality of Saxe-Meiningen is one of the smallest of the states that make up the confederation of the German Empire is unimportant. She has been a princess long enough. Now she desires a throne.