EVA STACHNIAK
The Garden of Venus
For Zbyszek
Contents
From Mes amours intimes avec la belle Phanariote
Bursa—where our story so humbly begins—a town spreading at the feet of Moundagnà or Mount Olympus is but a day’s journey from Istanbul. Mars, Neptune, and Venus had once been worshipped there, and they could still lay their claims to this land on account of the valiant warriors hailing from the Greek Empire and Byzantium, on account of sailors recruited here, and on account of modern Lais and Phrynes whose presence adorns the cafes and bawdyhouses of Istanbul. The worshippers of the Love goddess, I hasten to add, are of both sexes, for the boys ministering to the desires of the Byzantines are as beautiful here as the girls.
Beholding the multitude of beautiful faces in this mountainous and healthy region, one is tempted to say that, for such delightful fruit to be so plentiful, Aphrodite, sailing in her conch from Cytera to Paphos, must have unloaded in this land some of her precious cargo, her aphros, that essence of pleasure and beauty, the source of our very existence. For this region has always supplied the world with superior talents from the realm of Venus, natural talents capable, with little effort, of conquering the hearts of courtiers and kings. Is this a wonder that, in Istanbul, the terms ‘a girl from Moundagnà’ and ‘a prosperous girl providing fanciful pleasure’ have become synonymous?
In this town of Bursa, la belle Phanariote was born in the year of 1760, and very ordinary blood flows in her veins for she is the daughter of a cattle trader and among her relatives are many a ferryman, craftsman, and a shopkeeper.* Her childhood was spent in the fields and meadows surrounding her native town where she led that free and naïve existence so much praised by some philosophers of yesterday.
* So much for the rumours of her descent from Pantalis Maurocordato, her kinship with the former rulers of Byzantium!
Rosalia
In the end it fell to Rosalia to make sure that the imminent departure of Countess Sophie Potocka (accompanied by her daughter, Countess Olga Potocka, and companion Mademoiselle Rosalia Romanowicz) via Paris to the town of Spa for her prescribed water cure—had been announced three times in the Petersburg Gazette. Only then the passports could be collected and the padrogna—the permission to hire horses on the way—be signed by the Governor General.
The countess left St Petersburg on 12th July, 1822, (July 1st in the Russian style). ‘On Paris, I insist with utmost gravity,’ Dr Horn said—his voice raised, as if defending himself and not offering medical advice—‘French surgeons are far superior, even to the English.’ Before departure, everyone, including the servants, sat around the breakfast table to pray for a safe journey. They had already been to confession, asked forgiveness for their sins from everyone in the household, and exchanged parting gifts with those who would be left behind, sashes with sweet-smelling lavender, ribbons, holy pictures, and boxes lined with birch bark.
The morning was cold and wet, but, thankfully, the thunderstorm had ended and there was no more talk of omens, in spite of Marusya’s dream about her teeth falling out and making a clunking sound as they scattered on the marble floor of the hall. (‘Why didn’t you stop this foolish talk,’ Olga snapped, as if Rosalia could have.)
The kitchen carriage left first, with provisions, cooking utensils and a collapsible table, since the inns en route with their smutty ceilings and walls grown shiny from the rubbings of customers’ backs were not to be trusted. Two more carriages were packed with luggage, one carrying a trunk that opened to convert into a bedstead with pillows, so that the countess could rest during the journey.
Rosalia may have come to St Petersburg as the countess’s companion, but it wasn’t long before the timely administration of compresses and salves became more important than keeping up with the daily correspondence, greeting guests, or reading aloud after dinner. Which, as Aunt Antonia triumphantly pointed out in one of her many letters was not that hard to foresee.
Aunt Antonia, who liked to remind Rosalia that she was her only living relative and, therefore, entitled to such straightforward expressions of concern, might have forgiven Jakub Romanowicz for marrying a penniless Jewess only to die and leave his wife and child on her doorstep, but she could not forgive Maria Romanowicz for writing to Countess Potocka and begging her to take care of her only child. In Zierniki, the family estate near Poznań, a room was waiting for Rosalia. A room overlooking the orchard, with an iron bed the maids washed with scalding water each spring. A room where her mother’s old dresser still stood, its drawers smelling of dried rosemary and mint to keep the mice away.
There had been many times on this long journey when Rosalia pleaded with the countess to stop. The sick needed peace to regain strength and how was she to assure these precious moments of peace with all the packing, unpacking, and constant ordering of vats of boiling water (the grime of the inns had to be washed before the beds could be brought in). She too had her limits, and her nerves were strained to the utmost with this constant migration of coffers, crates, and trunks, the nicks and bruises of carelessness and neglect, futile searches for what should have been there and wasn’t. (The embroidered scarves and votive lights for the holy icon of St Nicholas had been left behind three times in a row and a servant on horseback had to be sent back to retrieve them.) Through August and September they had travelled for not more than a few hours daily, usually from four until ten in the morning, to avoid the heat, and