Garden of Venus (35 page)

‘We shall drink to that, then,’ Thomas said and motioned to the waitress at the empty table in front of them.

‘Europe, Thomas, is not a monster. We are not all madmen.’

Ignacy was right, chastising him like that. Despite all his caution and his talk of reason, Thomas realised that he was falling into the old trap of the dismissal of what is left behind, the fallacy of all nomads. If what was to come must be better, then what we leave behind must be made hurtful or worthless.

A fat waitress with a ruddy face placing tankards of beer in front of them winked at him and bared her blackened teeth. There was a certain lightness about Ignacy that evening, a playfulness even, in his refusal to pick up a fight, and it was melting Thomas’s resentment. Ignacy patted him on the back.

‘Remember that song we used to sing?’

In Paris, in their student days, they used to walk together at night, arm in arm, singing this song. They called themselves Napoleon’s sons. After all, if it hadn’t been for Napoleon, they reasoned, neither of them would have become a medical student. When was the last time they had sung together like this?

‘Come on, Thomas. You haven’t forgotten, have you?’

No, he had not forgotten. His voice was rasping and off tune at first but soon they were singing in unison:

The small tavern was full of men, gesticulating wildly, Greek volunteers, Ignacy said. It was like fever, spreading through the delirious body. ‘Today it is the baker’s apprentice, Thomas. Tomorrow, the cobbler’s son.’

Lieutenants passed themselves up for colonels. Colonels for generals. Committees had sprung in every German city, it seemed, collecting funds for the descendants of the brave and honourable Greeks, the fathers of European civilisation.

‘Just listen,’ Ignacy said.

One of the men, a short, pimply fellow, had climbed onto the bench. ‘Nature has set limits to the aspirations of other men, but not those of the Greeks.’ The man spoke in a booming voice, surprising in someone of such small stature. ‘The Greeks were not in the past and are not now subject to the laws of nature.’

Another of the group, his mop of curly brown hair like a Cossack hat, was raising a pitcher of beer shaped like a riding boot and intoning a song. One by one his companions joined in, and then he took a deep draught and passed the boot on to his neighbour. The pitcher was so shaped that once half-empty the beer would flow with an unpredictable force, spilling onto beards and faces, causing much amusement and jostling.

‘Small armies of men trek to Marseilles,’ Ignacy said, ‘from whence these committees hire ships to transport them to Greece.’

‘Oh, but this is sheer madness, Ignacy. I bet they are
an absolute nuisance when they actually arrive. The Greeks must think them mad.’

‘Human beings have to dream, Thomas. Without such foolishness we would all remain slaves.’

The group of men burst into laughter. The boot was working.

‘I choose to dream too, Thomas. I too have hopes for my country, for myself. Hopes other men would call foolish.’

Something in Ignacy’s voice warned him not to interrupt.

‘Sometimes not stopping to fight – no matter how hopeless the struggle – is all that matters, Thomas,’ Ignacy concluded. ‘We are doctors. We’ve seen it often enough.’

They sat in silence watching the merriment of their neighbours, sipping their beers until the tankards were empty. Then they rose to leave. The afternoon was cold, but the sky was clear. If there were enough moonlight tonight, the street lamps would not be lit.

‘What do you think, Thomas,’ Ignacy said as they reached the end of the street. ‘Am I too old to marry again? To have another child. Or two.’

‘Not too old for a battalion.’

‘A whole army.’

‘If you only wish.’

‘Mademoiselle Rosalia, Thomas. I have reasons to believe I’ll not be refused.’

Since Thomas could not say that the declaration came as a surprise, he decided that it was the abruptness of Ignacy’s words that he found annoying.

‘So soon?’

‘I’m not that young anymore,’ Ignacy laughed. ‘I don’t think I can wait. There is so much we share. A common struggle. A common dream. Her father gave his life for Poland and she hasn’t forgotten it. Do you think I’m foolish?’

‘No,’ Thomas said. ‘I don’t think you are foolish at all.’

But Ignacy continued as if he hadn’t heard him. There was his loneliness, the empty evenings he longed to fill with simple pleasures. With a good woman at his side, he would still be of use for many years. There could still be children. Past mistakes could be repaired. But most of all they would share the Polish struggle.

Silent, intensely wishing this talk to stop, Thomas counted his own steps, from one to ten, and then back again. He was still doing it when they walked off the Castle Bridge passing an empty carriage, a driver asleep on the dickey. Then, he stopped.

‘This Herr Sertürner, Ignacy, the pharmacist you told me about. Hasn’t he been doing something here with morphine?’

On that matter Ignacy was sceptical. There were rumours of course. Sertürner was not much respected in Germany. He had rubbed too many people the wrong way, he liked to pose as a misunderstood genius. The story was that Sertürner had taken morphine himself. 1.5 grains within forty-five minutes. The results had been disastrous. Reddening of the face and enhancement of the vital forces was soon followed by nausea, dullness in the head, then sharp stomach pains, followed by extreme palpitations. He had had to swallow strong vinegar to induce vomiting. ‘Morphine is more like poison, if you ask me.’

‘But it’s the same thing as Derosne’s salt. Remember that lecture he gave at the Societé de Pharmacie? Or almost the same.’

‘You are not thinking of giving it to the countess, Thomas?’

‘Magendie had some good results with it, using much smaller doses than Sertürner’s though. One of his patients
even called it “divine balsam”. I’ve brought some with me from Paris.’

The sound of hymn-singing reached them from behind the shut doors of the Nicolaikirche.

‘Anyway, my cautious friend,’ Thomas continued, ‘I don’t think I have much choice. I still have opium, but it will not work for longer than a few days.’

Ignacy gave him a quick look, as if he were still checking the soundness of his decision. The hymn-singing had stopped.

Having bid good-afternoon to Ignacy, Thomas continued to the von Haefen’s palace, to check on his patient before the end of the day. He might see Rosalia too, a thought that came before he could stop it. As he was passing its wrought-iron fence, Thomas ran his cane over the spikes until they rang.

‘You are a fool, Thomas Lafleur,’ he said to himself, crossing the courtyard. ‘And you will die a fool.’

He could see her at Ignacy’s side as a bride. Her hands healing the sick, bringing comfort to the young men in hospital beds. The daughter of a hero who would comfort them with the story of her own return from despair, of her doubts assuaged, of her devotion rewarded. For Ignacy would undoubtedly make a good husband. There was tenderness in his friend, that he had often seen. He had gratitude for moments of warmth, for companionship in a common cause. There was a strength in him, that would help her past all doubts.

It was then that he spotted Pietka combing the chestnut mare. The horse stood motionless, waiting for the next stroke of the brush.

‘It’s a warm afternoon,’ Thomas said, stopping. The Cossack must have heard him speaking to himself for he was stifling a laugh.

‘Yes,
varm
.’ Pietka was chewing tobacco, his jaws moving.

‘She like me touch her,’ the groom laughed, pointing at the mare whose ears twitched in anticipation. ‘Like woman.
Nyet
?’

‘How would I know?’ Thomas said, smiling, in spite of himself.

‘You know not? You doctor?’ Pietka was laughing again, showing blackened teeth. ‘She like it. I like it. No true?’

‘Yes,’ Thomas had to concede. ‘Of course,’ he added, as Pietka’s hand patted the mare’s rump.

The note that waits for her in the morning says:
I know the rose that has touched your hair, for once I held it to my lips
.

‘Read your lessons to me,’ she tells Jan and he reads her the story of King Sobieski who – in 1683 – defeated the Turks at the siege of Vienna. A Polish king who saved Europe from annihilation.

‘What’s annihilation?’

‘It’s when someone wants you dead, you and all your children – everyone you know.’

He ponders on the thought for a long time. ‘Your father too?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Your father too.’

‘Is this true?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘This is true. I never lie to you.’

It’s Prince Potemkin’s money that has been paying for the tutor, the French governess, the pony, and the horse. De Witt shrugs whenever she mentions money. ‘What else do you want. I’ve never had half of what this boy has had in his life.’

‘And look at yourself now,’ she answered, regretting it
at once. If he heard them, Jan would frown his forehead and give her a pained look.

‘You don’t really like Papa,’ he asks. He does it often, she thinks. Saying something that makes her think he knows more than he ever lets on.

‘No,’ she says. She does tell him the truth.

‘But why?’

‘I cannot tell you.’

‘Why?’

‘Why don’t you like cauliflower?’

‘Because I don’t like its smell.’

‘Why don’t you like its smell?’

‘I don’t know. I just don’t like it.’

‘See. You cannot tell me.’

‘But Papa doesn’t smell like cauliflower,’ he says, and she laughs and blows him a kiss.

As Jan bends over his lesson, copying King Batory’s story into his notebook, making each letter as even as the previous one, another note arrives.

That rose in your hair knew more happiness than I dare to dream of. You must forgive me for a past wrong, for I cannot forgive myself
.

She writes back.

That rose touched the sorrow of my heart, but it did bring me consolation through its beauty. For that I am grateful
.

‘Come, Madame, please take a look,’ Paulette says.

When she leans out of the window she sees a motionless carriage with the Potockis’ crest, planted in the street like some strange animal, crouching in anticipation.

‘Go and ask his Lordship what it is that he desires.’

Paulette comes back smiling, another bouquet of roses in her hands. And a beautiful English saddle for Jan, a birthday gift.

Just a small token I dare place at your feet without fearing you might reject it
.

The rain had stopped. Outside, the late morning sun illuminated the edges of the grey clouds. For an instant the countess’s younger daughter was tempted to throw the windows open, to feel the cold air penetrate deep into her lungs, chilling them to the point of shivering.

When little she had often prayed to be sick. Illness meant having Maman sit beside her bed and tell her stories of a poor slave girl who found an old oil lamp and rubbed it clean, thus releasing a genie who would fulfil all her wishes. To feel Maman’s cool hand smoothing her forehead. To hear her turn away visitors, tell them she could not receive anyone at a time like that, could not go anywhere. Wake up in the middle of the night to see her mother asleep in the armchair by her bed, as if there were no one but the two of them, no other children, no servants capable of replacing her in her vigil.

‘You cannot die,’ Olga whispered, ‘I won’t let you.’

Her mother opened her eyes. Closed and opened them again.

‘The frills,’ she said. ‘Around your collar, Olga. They look quite vulgar. I so much prefer smooth lace.’

‘Yes, Maman.’

‘And this dress, darling. You have a stain on your cuff.’

Her sister may have been older, but it was Olga who always knew which of her mother’s friends was her lover. Knew it with her whole body, sensed it in her mother’s smell, in the new edge to her voice, the catlike movements swifter than usual, rounded with grace. It was like spotting a false note in a piece she knew by heart; it required no effort. She just knew. She always knew, even when too little
to understand what a man and a woman did when alone together.

She hated knowing it. She wanted to bang her fists against her mother, but all she could do was to hide the turmoil inside and wait. Wait for her mother’s inevitable signs of indifference, her eyes fixed onto the ceiling, her hasty excuses.

Agaphya Ivanovna, the cook, had asked to see Olga, wringing her hands as she spoke. There were things the young mistress needed to be told about. A lot could be done to ease the countess’s sufferings if
some
people around here listened. If
some
people did not think themselves better than they were. She would give her mistress cow’s urine to drink, and mix a spoonful of cow’s dung into it for good measure.

Dried and powdered bat could also be added to her drink, to give her blood more substance. She had known of a woman cured by such a drink, taken daily in the morning and at midnight – a mother of five who went on to have three more.

Goat’s tallow was also good, almost as good as putting the skin of a cat on the hurting part, but the cat had to be skinned alive so it would take the pain away.

‘Come closer, Olga. I want to see your face.’

‘I’m right here, Maman.’

‘There is a letter on the tray, from your sister. She is on her way.’

The letter had been sent a week ago, by a courier.

‘When did it come?’

‘Last night, I think.’

‘You didn’t tell me, why?’

‘Rosalia says she might be here tomorrow. Or the day after. It’s because of the baby. One cannot travel that fast with a baby.’

Her mother’s eyes were closed again, her breathing shallow but even. In the corridor Olga could hear Rosalia’s steps, determined, strong. In a moment the door will open, Olga thought, and she will come in. This Jewess, this stray, who had sneaked her way into her mother’s heart.