Rosetta (10 page)

THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, 1910

On a dark, tempestuous night somewhere between Port Said and Marseille, Zeno the Magnificent is lost at sea.

Rosetta insists it is necessary.

‘The circus tricks, the conjuring and fortune telling must end,' she says to her husband. Rosetta has a firmness about her jaw and the dark gold in her eyes flashes as she looks at him, hard, in the dim light. It is the expression that customarily comes upon her whenever she has arrived at a decision of significance; she is by nature determined and her unconventional life of the past four years has, if anything, made her more resolute. ‘At least, they must appear to do so,' she continues. ‘This is our new opportunity. We will be respectable. We start again.'

It is early spring, a cool time of the year even in the balmy Mediterranean. Rosetta and Zeno – recorded in the ship's registry as Mr and Mrs William Norman – are making their way, with
some difficulty, along the narrow internal corridor that leads to the wood-panelled dining room of the SS
Omrah
. They are sailing for London.

Progress is slow, for a remorseless wind whips the Mediterranean into great watery cliffs that break repeatedly against the ship's steel hull. In response, the
Omrah
pitches and rolls in a way that proves challenging to even the most sure-footed passengers. There is no rhythm to the ship's movements. A sudden, squally gust forces its bow to dip abruptly between the towering waves, renders what a moment before was a dependably horizontal deck suddenly untrustworthy, oblique.

Due to the weather, the Captain is on the bridge struggling at the wheel of his vessel instead of at his regular table entertaining his favoured guests. His absence has been explained by way of a note, personally signed by him and hand-delivered by a nervous junior steward to the first-class cabins of his usual privileged dinner companions. Sincere regrets are expressed; the Captain hopes that on this occasion all will understand his duties prevent him from joining them.

Most are too indisposed to care, even fewer bother to attend the evening meal. Nevertheless, the elderly Egyptian-born magnate Farouk El Fadez braves the unpleasant conditions and assumes his place, accompanied by his attentive secretaries. The two young Arabs are very much alike. They have Oxbridge accents, wear immaculate dinner suits and, on their chiselled features, expressions of faint contempt. Also at the table sits a scrupulously elegant silver-haired older woman, as always dressed in black, who is referred to only as Madame: it will take more than a storm at sea to deter her. Accompanying Madame, albeit on this occasion reluctantly, is her young, sweet-faced companion Mademoiselle Elise.

Despite the scarcity of other passengers in the dining room it is as sumptuously appointed as usual. The pristine linen cloths resting lightly on the thirty round tables are of such extreme
whiteness that they resemble drifts of snow. Polished silver, crystal tumblers and goblets wait, unused, beside arrangements of fragrant tangerine roses, acquired by the purser after spirited haggling in the steamy markets of Port Said.

On this difficult night such things as roses and linen, artfully arrayed though they might be, are largely ignored. Many of the passengers who have managed to make their way to the dining room look perturbed. With each new gust of wind the ship judders and several half rise, as if preparing to flee. Most think better of it and resume their seats, in the knowledge that the confines of their cabins promise an even less agreeable alternative.

Rosetta and Zeno also exhibit a lack of enthusiasm for their repast, though neither is bothered by the wild night. The couple have discovered that they are excellent sailors, unaffected by the ship's unpredictable motion. Perhaps it is because both are familiar with uncertainty. They are at ease in the grand dining room, occupying a table at which they are the only guests. The fact that they speak little and that their meals – a roast guinea fowl for Zeno and for Rosetta, a grilled trout – sit neglected before them, cooling on gold-edged monogrammed plates, has nothing to do with the inclement conditions outside. Zeno's and Rosetta's appetites, like their conversation, are limited only because each is deep in thought.

It is afterwards, in the more intimate surroundings of the saloon lounge, that the two begin to speak in earnest. They arrange themselves in the comfort of maroon leather chairs by the flickering light of brass lamps. Rosetta, in a simple black gown embroidered with gleaming jet, wraps her coral cashmere stole a little closer in the coolness of the night. Zeno lights a Cuban cigar; it is a habit he has recently acquired. Then, as the wind's roar drops from its former thunderous pitch and the sea begins to calm, they set about their clandestine task; devising Zeno's new persona.

It is essential that they succeed if they are to have any hope of achieving their hearts' desires.

I open my folder of fading photographs frequently. Then I pick up the images and scrutinise each one, searching avidly for revealing details. There is handsome Zeno with all his poise, and Rosetta, so confident and self-possessed. I wonder if these expressions were assumed for the benefit of the camera, but I rather think that they were not. There is nothing forced or inauthentic that I can detect.

The problem is, the photographs cannot speak. No matter what insights they provide and as precious as they are, they're not helping me progress. It is in this uncertain state that I contemplate the demoralising possibility that, after travelling this far in my quest, my journey may have come to an end. I need to discover what happened to Rosetta and Zeno during that glittering period I have come to think of as ‘The Great London Adventure', which spanned the years 1910 to 1914. Suddenly, I feel adrift.

There was another folder I had not bothered with. I'd given it only cursory attention, assuming it contained merely photocopies of the same pictures that so fascinated me, but in this I was deceived. The first page was the only photocopy there. In fact, tucked safely behind that single sheet, lay hidden treasure.

A simple, lined piece of paper constitutes the first breakthrough. Yellowed and with a jagged edge, it appears to have been torn from an accounts book of some kind. At the top of the long, rectangular sheet are written the words
List of Patrons
. Not clients, or patients, but
Patrons
: a word with very particular connotations. It suggests a distinguished form of protection, encompassing both advocacy and reward. Beneath this heading are noted, in no particular order, thirty-one names. To my astonishment, they include:

Lady Archibald Campbell

The Princess of Pless

Lord Victor Paget

Prince Min of Korea

Lady Lilian Bagot

Her Grace the Duchess of Rutland

Lady Diana Manners

The Hon Diana Lister

The Duchess of Westminster

Lady Juliet Duff

The Right Honourable the Countess of Glasgow.

The list continues in this vein. It is not only comprised of titled members of the aristocracy. There are other luminaries: the eminent physicist Sir Oliver Lodge, the celebrated actress Miss Gertie Miller (who later became the Countess of Dudley), Mrs Marconi (‘wife of the inventor' is added helpfully in parentheses) and the renowned conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham. It is an extraordinary cast.

If my great-grandparents were both to make their fortune and live the life they dreamt of, it was necessary to win the confidence, indeed, devotion of some of the greatest men and women of the age. The list tells me that they succeeded, perhaps beyond even their own improbable fantasies.

What intrigues me most is the way in which this feat was achieved. In 1910 Edwardian society was dominated by the Court.
Class and position were everything unless, and then usually grudgingly, one had vast wealth. There can have been few individuals less likely than Rosetta and Zeno to attain acceptance, let alone wild success.

Rosetta was a highly attractive woman, but her dark-eyed looks were strong and striking; she was not by any means endowed with the doll-faced prettiness of the typical Edwardian beauty. Even had Rosetta the appearance of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed goddess, acceptance by Edwardian society was an impossibility. Rosetta was Australian. She was not rich. She had no particular talent nor, save for Lilian Pakenham, whom she had not set eyes on for a decade, did she have a single aristocratic connection. Then there was the matter of her religion. Amid the upper classes Jews – even if one were a Rothschild – were frequently tolerated at best. And worst of all by far, Rosetta was the granddaughter of a convict. These deficiencies alone should have proven disastrous.

Poor as Rosetta's prospects were, my step-great-grandfather Zeno's were even worse. Looked at coolly, with all the romance stripped aside, he was nothing but a trickster, a sideshow performer who'd fled a failing enterprise. Then there was the additional burden that he carried. This could never be ignored. At least Rosetta was a Caucasian. She could hide both her religion and her penal origins. But Zeno, son of a goldfields Celestial, was Chinese. How could he possibly obscure that fact?

The truth was, he could not. But then, truth was of little use to Zeno or Rosetta. It is likely that, on the storm-tossed seas of the Mediterranean, they devised a perfect solution to their dilemma. In future, Carl Zeno would be Japanese. As for Rosetta, she had always thought it would be amusing to be an American.

I learn of these ingenious fabrications by way of a document entitled ‘Census of England and Wales, 1911'. It is a facsimile of the very card that my great-grandmother and her husband filled out, by hand, while living in the United Kingdom. Under ‘Birthplace' Zeno makes the blithe declaration that he comes from
Japan. Rosetta writes that ‘America' is her own country of origin, then adds that she is a ‘British subject by parentage'. She is also no longer thirty-one years of age but, instead, just twenty-eight. Entirely unintimidated by the official nature of the government's enquiries, all these outrageous lies are written down and there, for posterity, they remain.

Zeno's reinvention showed a particular flair. After beginning slowly in the middle of the nineteenth century, a mania for Japan swept through the cultured circles of Paris and London. This unfathomable land had remained isolated until the American Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into its waters in 1853. Perry's delegation, in their frock coats and military uniforms, entered into long negotiations with the Shogun's stern, purple-robed men. Eventually, it was agreed. Japan's 216-year-old Policy of Seclusion was at an end.

Though trade started hesitantly, it was not long before a reckless desire for all things Japanese came to exist. To jaded Europeans, the unfamiliar items that reached their shores held the promise of escape from the banal, the everyday. The acquisition of these exotic objects was as addictive as a drug.

In Paris and in London seductive exchanges were conducted behind trembling apricot and cherry blossom painted fans. Enthusiasts drank fragrant jasmine tea from fragile blue and white ceramic cups while indulging in the secret pleasure of a silk kimono gliding against bare skin. They bought black lacquer boxes and cloisonné enamels depicting cerise water lilies and golden chrysanthemums.

The fascination continued for decades, unchecked. The striking wood-block prints spoke a particularly vivid language to artists such as van Gogh. He collected hundreds of these images, embracing their surprising viewpoints, bold outlines and pure colours of emerald, vermilion and cobalt. Van Gogh was not alone; the most daring painters including Monet, Degas, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Matisse, together with
a host of others – poets, authors, connoisseurs and
bon vivants
– succumbed.

Well, perhaps not all. ‘There is no such country, there are no such people,' wrote Oscar Wilde. Following his own initial infatuation, it seems that Wilde alone perceived this oriental utopia of refinement and nuance was but a European's fantasy. ‘The whole of Japan is pure invention,' he said, definitively.

‘Pure invention': it really is a perfect description for what Zeno and Rosetta carried off with such élan. I wonder if they ever read Wilde's views.

Zeno needed a country, and not any country would do. He required a land so remote and so little known that almost any assertion as to his origins could be made with impunity. Given his appearance, it had to be somewhere in Asia and, preferably, a place shrouded in irresistible mystique. In all these respects, The Land of the Rising Sun provided an ideal fit.

 

The fabrication did not, could not, end there. Something more was needed if Zeno was to earn a handsome living doing what he knew best: spinning tales, stealing souls, soothing troubled hearts and minds. An additional invention, the more audacious the better, was required.

In the end, it was as easy as bewitchment. Magically, Zeno attained the distinguished qualifications that a former wizard was unlikely to possess. They are all there, printed on the front page of my next, unexpected discovery, one that can only be described as fantastic in the truest sense. Nestled next to the
List of Patrons
I find a small, two-page black and white pamphlet with, on the front cover, a series of entirely fraudulent claims of breathtaking magnitude.

 

The Master Science – Radium – Therapeutics.
PROFESSOR CARL ZENO
(Erstwhile of the Ku-Mari Hospital and Medical Schools, Japan)

 

The title of Professor was a marvellously useful affectation, one that had the power to endow its bearer with instant gravitas. Presumably, the honorific was inspired by the three ‘professors' Zeno worked with at Wonderland. If Mr Anderson could confer academic credentials upon the director of a dog and monkey circus, a man who threw himself into small tanks and another whose sole claim to fame was walking on steep planks, then the former William Norman would follow suit. In any case, it was Wonderland City, with all its magic and its madness, that had provided him with his most important higher education. The beachside pleasure palace was where, over four thrilling years, he learnt the value of true showmanship, grandness of vision and the importance of absolute self-belief.

That Zeno, son of a Chinese immigrant and an illiterate mother, had barely been to school did not bother him at all. The fact that he never graduated from a university, nor was on the staff of a hospital in Japan or anywhere else, was an irrelevant detail. Zeno would now not merely look into the future. He would heal the sick and make them well again.

There is a photograph of Zeno on the front of the pamphlet. His hair is thick, as black as onyx and carefully brushed to one side. Light falls on his high cheekbones and smooth forehead, heightening the expression of intense concentration on his face. His almond eyes look down: he is conducting an experiment. Zeno pours liquid from a silver cup into a transparent beaker he grasps in his left hand. I can see that his fingers are supple and elegant. Behind him is a small square table on which stand dark-coloured bottles, various lenses and a gleaming microscope. Zeno is beautifully dressed in a white high-collared shirt, cutaway jacket, striped trousers, a discreet patterned tie and pearl cufflinks. He still looks like a sorcerer to me, even though there is neither a black robe nor red dragon in sight.

 

Once Rosetta had convinced her husband that the creation of a new identity was essential, he embraced the process with so much enthusiasm that it was she who began to have some doubts. Would London's great and good really be so easily duped?

The two had been talking for some time when she exclaimed, ‘Honestly, William!' Rosetta smoothed her coral stole with a tense movement of her hand. ‘A Japanese medical professor – that can't be wise.'

‘Why, whatever is the matter, dearest?' Zeno responded, while drawing back eagerly on one more cigar. ‘You don't think that people will believe?

‘Let me tell you, if there is one thing I have learnt during my years of fortune telling it is that what people really want, indeed yearn for, is another reality.'

‘Yes, but don't you think that this time you have gone too far?' Rosetta asked.

Zeno smiled, shook his head. ‘That is the beauty of it. It is well known by every showman. The greater, the more far-fetched the artifice, the higher one's credibility will soar! It is really rather like the story of the emperor's new clothes. A small lapse of truth and people will be merciless. But an enormous illusion? Nobody wants to let that go.

‘Professor Zeno will be regarded as an expert in his field by the highest in the land. Why, I will be a man beyond reproach. Do not make the mistake of underestimating me, my dear.'

Despite all she now knew of him, once more Rosetta found herself falling under Zeno's spell.

‘Now, as soon as we leave the ship in Southampton, you must start to call me Carl. William Norman no longer exists. And as for Zeno the Magnificent? You are quite right. There can be no hint of vaudeville. From now on, we will be legitimate.'

Zeno laughed heartily and, a moment later, Rosetta, too, joined in.