The internuncio is sitting in a gilded armchair, a glass of wine in hand, legs spread. ‘Come,’ he says and she walks slowly, her eyes cast down. Slowly, holding her legs together, just the way Mana has shown her. Inside her, her mother’s fingers have slid a pessary made from a lamb’s bladder. She is not to upset it by too sudden a movement. A vial of dove’s blood is hidden in a secret pocket in the fold of her shift. When he is asleep beside her, she is to quietly spill the blood on the sheets. She takes small steps, her hips swaying gently.
‘Closer,’ he says. Her feet are bare, the skin tingling at the smoothness and richness of the carpet.
Her head is spinning with her mother’s words. Don’t look him in the eye. Hold your head down. Smile, don’t laugh. There will be time for laughter later. There will be time for dancing and for rejoicing when your future is assured. Not now, not yet.
‘He is a libertine,’ Aunt Helena has said. ‘For such a man there is nothing sweeter than corrupting innocence.’
Now her shift is lying on the floor. Her naked body is covered with a sheet, so white that it shines. Her hair has been beautifully braided and pinned high, revealing the nape of her neck. Her eyes have been kohled, lips reddened. At the hammam her mother has helped her scrape the hair off her legs and made a special nourishing face mask from an egg yolk and honey. Her skin when she touches it is smooth.
‘Closer. You are not afraid, are you?’ he asks, rising from the chair, putting his glass aside. There is another glass of wine on the side table, filled to the brim. It’s for her. She is to drink it with him. To pleasure. To love. To the good times.
‘Life is so short, Dou-Dou, so fleeting. Shouldn’t we suck the pleasure out of each moment?’
Nodding, she takes one more step toward him. She takes the glass in her hand and sips the wine slowly, avoiding his eyes. One small sip after another. The wine smells of oak and berries. It is heavy, with a tinge of sweetness.
‘Is it good?’ he asks.
She nods. She can hardly stop her eyes from darting to the sides. The internuncio’s bed is big. The four posts rise almost to the ceiling. Underneath she can see a white chamber pot, covered with a lid.
The wine dizzies her. She giggles and puts the empty glass back on the table. The room is hot and she feels drops of sweat gather and roll slowly down her back. The internuncio fills the glass again, but he is not asking her to drink, so she doesn’t reach for it.
She closes her eyes, just like Mana told her to do, when he parts the edges of the sheet and stares at her for a long, long time. He is muttering something in a language she doesn’t understand. He sniffs her like a dog might, nose close to her skin, tickling her. There is a grimace of displeasure on his face.
‘Your odour,’ he says. ‘Too strong for my taste.’
She reaches for the second glass of wine and drinks it fast. Then, standing straight, she lets the sheet fall down from her body. It’s her beauty that needs to speak now. The shine in her eyes, their brightness. The purity of her skin. She takes his hand in hers and kisses it. Kisses it again and again.
His hand caresses her breasts, her belly. Then it slides down, touches the mound of Venus. She shivers.
The internuncio calls it Mon Plaisir.
The robe unwraps. He is naked, his belly protruding, over a patch of grey curly hair. He turns his back to her and makes a few steps to lie on his bed. His bottom is sagging. ‘Turn your eyes away,’ Mana has said. ‘Tell him you are afraid. Tell him he is too big for you. That he will break you inside and make you scream.’
But she has no time to say anything for he sits on the edge of the bed and motions to her to come to him. He is smiling, his eyes narrow, like folds of fabric. The vein on his temple has thickened and darkened.
She sits beside him on the bed and waits.
‘Come on, girl,’ he says. ‘Hasn’t your mother taught you what to do? Should I have taken her instead?’
She shakes her head and crosses her arms, as if to cover her breasts. In his voice there is a note of anger, but perhaps she only thinks it is.
‘Do what I tell you then,’ he says.
She is thinking of the pessary inside her. What if it slips out. What if he puts his own hand there and retrieves it, calling her a liar. Sending her back to her mother. The orders are a relief, for at least she knows what to do to please him.
‘Lie down.’
He is a traveller in the land of Venus, he tells her, a true Explorer, for whom the sight of a Foreign Land is always welcome. A Land with all its Harbours, Bays, Rocks, Beacons and Caverns. Especially a Land not Ploughed before. A Land for which Directions have to be established. A Harbour which has to be thoroughly assessed to assure the safety of his precious cargo. Its Waters explored with Proper Instruments that will measure its width and depths.
Just do what he wants you to do, Mana has said. Make him happy.
The candles in the room make the shadows dance on the ceiling. She tries not to look at his sagging skin. His Instrument and his precious Stones are of excellent order, he assures her. She should thank her lucky stars.
She thinks of Diamandi’s smooth olive skin and the strength of his boyish arms. She thinks of their run across the fields, their mad run of desire.
She can smell the wine on his breath, or is it hers. Somewhere in the back of her mind questions hammer. What if she is not pleasing him? What if she is not what he has expected? What if she doesn’t know what a man wants?
He is grunting, crushing her with the weight of his body. He has pushed himself into her, as if he were squeezing in something soft and lifeless. His hands rest upon her breasts, pinching her nipples.
Her scream pleases him.
But it is only when he wakes up in the morning, when he pats her buttocks and tells her that the Fortifications were not very strong after all, not a match for his Vigorous Attack, and when he sees the blood on the sheets that she knows she has not disappointed him at all. He will not send her back to her mother.
Thomas
Outside, in the small vestibule decorated with panels of pale green marble and white Grecian urns, Mademoiselle Rosalia stopped him.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Just a few words.’ Her hazel eyes were bloodshot and the dark circles under her eyes spoke of sleepless nights. A daughter of a Polish hero and a Jewess from Uman. He knew what she would ask before he heard the words.
‘Is there really no hope, Doctor?’
‘None.’
‘I thought so too,’ she said, which killed the note of irritation in his voice. ‘But both Dr Bolecki and Dr Horn before him sounded so sure that an operation could save her.’
Rosalia, for this was how Thomas began thinking of her from that moment on, insisted on reporting the details of Dr Horn’s last treatments. It would be important for him to know, wouldn’t it. She had been taking detailed notes, if he only cared to take a look: purgings with senna and salts; thirty leeches, every two hours to restore the body’s internal harmony; no solid food.
‘Doctor Horn said that cancer always starts in the stomach,’ she said, swallowing hard. ‘Is that what you also believe?’
‘I haven’t seen much evidence to support this theory.’
‘What is it that you believe then?’
‘Nothing I cannot prove. Not much I’m afraid.’
She gave him a quizzical look, but did not ask anything else.
Dr Horn, with whom Thomas had