Garden of Venus (20 page)

General de Witt is the commander of Kamieniec. ‘A noble, but a bit of a recluse. A miser too,’ Madame Czerkies tells her. ‘At the fortress,’ she whispers with a smile, ‘there are no servants. Prisoners serve the meals, chains rattling as they walk.’ She bangs a fork on the pewter pot as she says it. They both laugh. Laugh so hard that it hurts.

‘It feels so good,’ Madame Czerkies says, ‘to laugh like that. A blessing. They say that if God closes a door, He opens a window somewhere. Isn’t it so very true?’

‘How old is His Grace, the General,’ Sophie asks.

‘An old man with a sick, sick wife.’

‘Lonely?’

‘Yes, but not alone. There is a son. A major in the army, still not married.’

Joseph de Witt. Forty years old, with a mistress he keeps in an apartment in town. A married woman, the
wife of one of his own officers. Not too pretty either, but cheerful and fond of singing.

‘People say many things.’

‘What things?’

‘There was a baby, stillborn. His, people say, though the mistress swears it is not true. A duel that ended in a night of drinking and shooting at pigeons in the market square. Men amusing themselves. The usual.’

‘Why is it that only men are entitled to their pleasures?’

‘This,’ Madame Czerkies sighs, ‘is how the world was created. This is a woman’s fate, a woman’s destiny. It is on our shoulders that the burden of life has been placed.’

‘A party, a soirée,’ Sophie pleads. ‘What is life without good company that would push away such gloomy thoughts?’

‘Monsieur Boscamp,’ Madame Czerkies says, pursing her lips, ‘has been most insistent in his instructions. There should be no visitors. No officers, especially.’ She shakes her head as she says it. ‘I’m a respectable widow. I have a reputation to keep.’

‘What harm would that do to have a few officers drink coffee in this beautiful front parlour?’ Sophie pleads.

Monsieur Boscamp has written letters. Specified what Lady Sophie is entitled to, should she arrive in Kamieniec against his express wishes. Six
zlotys
per day in expenses, including food. Not enough to replace the shawl torn in Moldavia. Not enough to buy a much needed new pair of shoes.

‘I’m afraid, my dear,’ Madame Czerkies says, ‘that Monsieur Boscamp too is a miser.’

Madame Czerkies announces that Major de Witt has asked to come and pay his respects to Lady Sophie from Istanbul. Monsieur Boscamp will be very angry, but how can a poor widow say no to a commander’s son, to a noble.
There is a chuckle in her voice as she says that. A note of defiance. They are two women after all. If they don’t help each other, who will.

Sophie jumps up and throws her arms around Madame Czerkies’s neck. The joy in her eyes spills and melts all uneasiness.

‘Blessed is the man who will call you his wife. Whatever you touch, my dear,’ Madame Czerkies whispers, ‘turns to joy.’

Joseph de Witt, son of the fortress commander is a short, balding man. His face is pleasant enough though, and his eyes are dark and can be soft.

Lady Sophie casts her eyes down when she speaks. She smiles and blushes easily.

‘My fiancé,’ she says. ‘The man chosen for me by my dear Maman. The man I hardly know but whose intentions are honourable, and I cannot afford to listen to my own heart.

‘A pauper like me, brought up by a strict mother whose own life is a sad story of decline. How quickly an illustrious family can find itself in the street! How the wheel of fortune turns!’

She tells him a story:

‘It all began with a beautiful woman.’

‘As beautiful as you are, Mademoiselle Sophie?’

‘More beautiful,’ she whispers. ‘I am but a shadow of her. Her name was Loxandra. She was my grand-grandmother and her father ordered her to marry a rich
Bey
.’

‘So it is a sad story after all, Mademoiselle,’ Joseph de Witt sighs. ‘Love denied, exchanged for mere gold.’

‘But this is not the end,’ she says gently, touching his hand and then withdrawing her own swiftly as if catching herself at a transgression. ‘It is merely a beginning. A proof that true love is worth waiting for.’

Just before the wedding Loxandra fell ill with smallpox and her beautiful face was disfigured. Her father, knowing that her fiancé could not lift her veil before the ceremony was over, forbade anyone to mention the misfortune. When the rich Bey saw the face of his bride, he recoiled. Nothing was left but for him to send her back to her father with enough gold to pay for his betrayal. These sacks of gold, this ransom, allowed Loxandra to marry a man who learned to love her for the beauty of her soul.

‘Prince Lysander Maurocordato,’ she says in a soft, lingering voice. ‘But the story of happiness cannot last forever. There were too many children.’

She gives a stifled sigh at the memory of the family grandeur lost. Lady Maria, her own mother, suffered greatly from her family’s impoverishment, wanting her only daughter to learn the manners that befitted her provenance. Find her a husband who would love and cherish her the way she deserved.

Monsieur Boscamp’s visit was a gift from fate. A man of the world, in need of connections, he called upon Lady Maria asking for her help in meeting some of her illustrious cousins, the Maurocordatos. ‘Alas, my dear Sir,’ Lady Maria was obliged to say. ‘My own family has closed its heart to me and my only child.’ It was a tribute to Monsieur Boscamp’s character that he had not turned his back on them, but, moved by the family’s reduced circumstances he remained a frequent visitor at her mother’s house.

‘This is how I got to know
him
,’ she says, flashing Major de Witt the most beautiful of her smiles. A shy girl, brought up by a strict mother, unable to know her own heart.

‘Monsieur Boscamp was married then, so there was never a question of our future together. Only when he returned to Warsaw and when his own wife succumbed
to her illness and left him a widower, the true nature of his interest revealed itself. He sent for me, to join him in Warsaw as his wife and to be mother to his orphaned sons.’

Major de Witt listens. He holds his breath and listens to her every word. The story is not long, but she makes it meander, slowly, dazzle him with its possibilities. An impoverished aristocrat, a shy virgin. Tempted on her way to Warsaw, tempted by pure love and the solemn sounds of the marriage vows. A chance he should not be prepared to pass by.

‘And so,’ Sophie says, blushing deep crimson, ‘I’m on my way to become the wife of a man with whom I have never exchanged a word in private. A man who could be my father, whose children are as old as I am. But Holy Mary, Mother of God will not forsake me. She will give me strength to be a good wife to this kind and honourable gentleman whose name shall be mine in just a few weeks. Holy Mother shall give me strength to bear the burden my earthly mother wishes me to bear.’

There are tears in Joseph de Witt’s eyes. Tears of compassion. Monsieur Boscamp, he tells her, alas, is not the man she takes him for. Many a door in Warsaw has closed in his face. It often happens that, once abroad, a man passes himself off for someone far grander than he really is. She wouldn’t know that, of course, but . .

‘I cannot listen to this,’ she says. ‘Please don’t hurt me any more. Don’t make it more difficult than it already is.’

‘Is there anything that can stop you?’

‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘All my life I’ve been taught obedience and respect. How could I let my own feelings interfere with my mother’s wishes?’

‘But surely your mother would not object to another proposal of marriage? From a man closer to your age and
unburdened with children? A man whose heart is filled with love for you?’

‘Love? Already?’

She laughs and withdraws from him before he can touch her hand. ‘Can love be that swift?’

‘Love is swift,’ he says. He is not a poet but a soldier. His manners are simple and straightforward. He speaks what he thinks and what’s in his heart.

‘I love you. I want to marry you.’

‘Monsieur Boscamp will not stand for such an affront,’ she gasps. ‘Won’t he do everything to stop us? Your own father, who is his friend, will not allow this, either.’

‘We won’t tell my father,’ he says. ‘We won’t let Monsieur Boscamp know of our plans. We’ll get married in secret. No one will stop us.’

He describes to her the arrangements: a small wooden church in Zienkowice, a village near Kamieniec; an open carriage with six white horses; two of his own officers will act as witnesses.

On June 14, 1779, she is sitting in an open carriage lined with white velvet, drawn by six horses. But they’re grey, not white. Sophie de Witt. Madame Sophie de Witt. Lady Sophie de Witt. The wife of a Polish noble.

The power of wishes, she thinks. The force of desire.

The force of life.

The countess was awake, watching her. Looking at her blue cotton dress, her hair pulled tight. Too tight perhaps, not the way her mistress liked it, with a few ringlets let loose. You look like a wet bird huddling under a raft, the countess said on that first day in St Petersburg.

How lost she felt then, unsure. As the ship entered the
Neva she perceived a slight thickening of the horizon. Soon, it took on irregularities that seemed to her like a drawing made by a child’s shaky hand. A drawing of onion domes, golden cupolas, of cloisters, whitened columns of schools and public buildings. This city, she heard a man say in Polish, right behind her, had emerged from wilderness at the command of one man, but she was not sure if the tone of his voice was one of contempt, respect, or fear.

‘Your mother’s dying wish,’ the countess said that very first day, ‘was to see you here with me.’ A smile warmed her beautiful, oval face and large black eyes. The room was filled with flowers: yellow and scarlet roses, blown open, exposing their golden centres; lilies with creamy funnels crammed into crystal vases.

‘Come closer, child,’ the countess said. ‘Closer.’ Rosalia took a few more steps and felt a hand, warm and light as a feather, run over her face as if the countess were learning to recognize her in the dark. The hand travelled from her forehead, along her cheek, smoothing it as it moved toward her lips.

‘A wet bird waiting for the sun to warm it up.’

‘Blue does nothing for your skin, Rosalia. You should get rid of that dress.’

Doctor Lafleur, Rosalia informed the countess, would be paid 25 louis d’or per day. This, Doctor Bolecki suggested, would be only fair. There had been inquiries from Berlin patients. It was important to ensure that Doctor Lafleur would decline other offers.

Doctor Thomas Lafleur. It pleased her to say his name.

When she showed him to his new room, Rosalia noticed that the skin on his hands was red and chapped. The room would be very satisfactory he assured her, far more comfortable than his previous quarters. He thanked
her for the trouble she had taken to make sure all was in order. And especially for keys to the drawers where he would lock the laudanum, the writing paper, the sander, the quills. For he always took notes of his patients’ treatment: the dozes, their duration, and immediate reactions.

‘In such matters, I trust your judgment,’ the countess said.

Rosalia ran her finger over the wooden mantelpiece to check if it had been dusted. She lifted the eiderdown to see if the soiled sheets had been changed. Properly changed, for the maids were instructed that the fresh linen should always be old, softened by frequent washing. Unlike death, Rosalia had told Marusya, bedsores were avoidable.

‘I want to be of use,’ Rosalia said, noting that the night table should be cleaned again. There was a yellow stain on the doily and crumbs on the floor beside the ottoman.

The laudanum, she would tell Doctor Lafleur as soon as she saw him again, was working as well as could be hoped for. This morning the countess slept until eight thirty, and when she woke managed to swallow a few mouthfuls of strong consommé. Sacks with heated oats, another of Dr Lafleur’s recommendations, were also far superior to the hot-water bottle.

Sometimes it seemed to her that the French doctor followed her with his eyes when she wasn’t looking. ‘Memory is so fickle, isn’t it?’ he asked when telling her he always took notes on his patients. ‘It likes to play its tricks.’

‘Doctor Lafleur says you need to drink more.’

‘I’m not thirsty.’

The countess flinched. Bunched up only an hour before, the pillows had already begun to slip. One was lopsided, hanging over the bed side, threatening to fall to the floor. Far too big and too soft, pillows were quite useless as
support. Perhaps, Rosalia thought as she rose to adjust them, if she rolled one up and then wrapped it in a sheet, it might stay in shape longer.

‘Don’t fuss, Rosalia. Please.’

‘Is the pain gone?’

‘If I don’t think about it.’

‘Would you like me to open the curtains? It is a beautiful day.’

‘No.’

‘Shall I read to you some more?’

‘No. Tell me something instead.’

‘What about?’

‘Anything. Anything you want.’

In the morning, Rosalia saw a pair of crows sitting on the bare branches of the oak tree. Her father always said that crows had long memories. His own father used to poison them, putting arsenic in carcasses he left as bait, but one day the crows stopped eating the poisoned meat. For years afterwards they would never touch carrion until some other bird tried it first. Generation after generation of birds remembered.

‘My father gave me a kite once,’ she said. ‘It was red and yellow and blue. Like a big parrot. I loved to make it fly, but someone broke it.’

‘A boy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you like that boy?’

‘No. He stuck his tongue out and said I didn’t know anything about kites. But I did.’

The countess smiled and closed her eyes. There was a new hue to her skin, another shade of whiteness. Her voice came blurred, unsteady.

‘I think I may be dead already. Sometimes time stops and it feels that I’ll be here forever. Lying in bed, waiting for something that has already passed.’

‘It’s the laudanum. Doctor Lafleur says it is to be expected.’

‘Doctor Lafleur doesn’t know everything.’