Empress Bianca (14 page)

Philippe could not have planned his campaign of matrimonial seduction better. By now he recognized that capturing a prize like Bianca was going to be a long and exacting enterprise. He would have to bring to bear all the artistry that he used to ensnare clients into believing that only he, Philippe Mahfud, could provide the key that would unlock the door to their desires. The world of Mainbocher was only one of the many enticements he proposed to set before Bianca, until she realized that he, Philippe Mahfud, could give her a richer, broader, fuller, more interesting and fascinating life than Bernardo Calman.

In furtherance of his long-term objective, on their third trip to New York, Philippe said to Bianca on the day of their arrival, ‘After lunch at The Colony, I have somewhere I’d like to take you.’

‘Where?’ she asked eagerly.

For Philippe, part of the pleasure of giving was the undisguised relish with which Bianca received. Like many other genuinely generous people, she understood the need not to spoil a giver’s pleasure by receiving with anything less than wholehearted appreciation.

‘Indulge me in my little mystery. Suffice it to say, it’s an oyster awaiting its pearl.’

After lunch, the chauffeur drove them to the Frick Museum. The car pulled up, the driver leaped to open the kerbside door, and Bianca stepped out, wondering what was up. Philippe took her arm and escorted her inside. ‘This is the setting you should have,’ he said. ‘This house contains one of the finest collections of furniture and art in the world. I want you to take it all in. This is the sort of thing you deserve. We could have the
most fantastic life together, if only you’d leave Bernardo and marry me. We could have a house like this in Switzerland. Filled with museum pieces. A palace in the South of France. One of those pre-war co-ops on Fifth Avenue, again filled with furniture and paintings like these, for our trips to New York. The banks in Geneva and New York are doing fantastic business and are just crying out for me to spend more time in those cities. I shouldn’t be spending as much time as I do in Mexico City. You’re the only reason I do. I don’t want to rush you into a precipitate decision, but I do want you to see, with your own two eyes, the sort of life I’m offering you.’

Not since childhood, when her father taught her that she was his little princess, had anyone so baldly indicated to Bianca that she was worth the absolute best of what life had to offer and that anything less was cheating her of her true worth.

Bianca melted. ‘Philippe, I do love you,’ she said, ‘and what you’re offering is tempting. Very tempting. But I can’t just leave Bernardo as simply as that. He’s been a good and loving husband. My parents adore him. His parents adore me… and his father has ultimate control over the purse strings. The kids love him and have a happy family life. I’ll destroy my standing within the family unless I leave Bernardo very, very carefully.’

‘But will you leave him?’

‘Yes. But I need to lay the ground first.’

‘How?’

‘Well, if I could catch him out in some infidelity, that would be a good reason for seeking a divorce.’

‘How can you do that when, by your own account, he never cheats?’

‘That’s my problem, not yours. He’s my husband and the father of my children, and I must wrap up the marriage in such a way that I don’t get the blame. Otherwise my life won’t be worth living.’

Despite her reassuring words, Bianca was not about to make a precipitate or irrevocable move without first checking that she would be getting precisely what Philippe promised. When she returned to Mexico she therefore made discreet inquiries among their friends to ascertain whether Philippe Mahfud was worth as much money as he had indicated he was. She discovered he was worth even more.

With that discovery, Bianca became torn between staying with a man she loved passionately and whose world was limited and leaving him for
a man she did not love passionately but whose world seemed limitless.

Sleeping with Bernardo was always such a joy. It was like being swept up in the arms of a god. ‘What a difficult choice,’ she said to herself. ‘A man who has everything or a man who is everything.’

Unsure of what to do, Bianca was pulled in two separate directions.

One day she would avidly make love with Bernardo and ask herself how she could possibly give up such fulfilment. The next day, she would try to pull away, to loosen the bonds that tied her so firmly to him, only to bounce back when her desire for Bernardo, and his for her, proved too powerful an attraction.

‘What’s got into you?’ Bernardo asked one afternoon after yet another day of Bianca being withdrawn for no reason. ‘Since you returned from New York, you’ve been blowing hot and cold. Is something the matter with you?’

‘No,’ she said, seizing the opportunity he had unwittingly presented her with. ‘But something’s the matter with you.’

‘With me?’ he said incredulously. ‘What have I done?’

‘I’ve been told you’re having an affair.’

‘Me? An affair? You’ve got to be joking. Who told you that?’

‘One doesn’t reveal one’s sources. You know that only too well,’ Bianca said, assuming a haughty English manner.

‘Come off it, Bianca. It’s me you’re talking to: Bernardo. Who told you that lie? I want to know. I demand to know.’

Bianca, surprised at how relieved and happy she was by his reaction, walked off, saying placidly: ‘OK, Bernardo. You’re not having an affair. I believe you. Shall we forget it?’

For the next month, they fell back into their established pattern of marital satisfaction. It is, of course, difficult to leave a man you love, so Bianca simply shelved the idea of withdrawing for the foreseeable future while enjoying the attentions of both her husband and Philippe, who still danced constant attendance upon the Calman family in general and upon his beloved Bianca in particular. She would have loved to keep her husband while availing herself of everything her lover had to offer, but she knew that life is not like that, and sooner or later she would have to make a choice which would terminate her relationship with one or the other of them.

The next stage came when Bernardo was out of the country on a
business trip to Boston. ‘Amanda and Ferdie are having a cocktail party the day after tomorrow for Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis. He’s a German banker and does business with us. Would you like to come as my guest, and we can go out and have a quiet dinner afterwards at the Jewish Club?’ he asked.

‘What a good idea,’ Bianca said, concealing her delight at finally receiving an invitation to the Piedraplatas, even if it was only a second-hand invitation. The tussle between love and personal ambition was now beginning in earnest.

The invitation not only caused Bianca to see Philippe in a favourable light but also made her ask herself whether she would ever achieve her ambitions as Bernardo Calman’s wife. Obviously, Mr and Mrs Bernardo Calman were not big enough for the Piedraplatas. But since Bianca on her own was acceptable, maybe Bernardo was the dead weight that was preventing her from reaching her natural heights.

Bianca had never been so torn. So out of control with her own destiny, her own desires. Philippe was proving, for all his protestations of love, to be a tougher nut to crack than Bernardo had ever been. On the one hand, he offered more than she had ever wanted, with the result that even her ambitions and objectives had perceptibly altered since their affair began. On the other hand, he was the cause of her torment because she could not occupy his world without relinquishing the most intense pleasures that life with Bernardo afforded her. The real issue, she could see, was that she was being forced to choose between two sides of her own self. No matter which one she chose, she would have to give up something of great value.

Choice would mean pain. And she couldn’t choose.

Realizing that an orderly withdrawal from her present way of life would never happen, if only because she really didn’t want to leave a happy marriage - although she didn’t want to give up the prospect of a richer life either - Bianca resolved to trust her instincts to make the choice for her, rationalizing that they would take her where she truly wanted to go.

She then unthinkingly followed them to the extent of greeting Bernardo, upon his return from Boston, with ardour. For the first two days, they spent as much of their time in bed as they could, making love as if they were newlyweds. On the third day, however, after Bernardo had
gone to work, on an impulse Bianca pulled one of his shirts from the laundry basket and smeared the back of it with lipstick.

When Bernardo came home that evening he was confronted by a wife who was so convincingly furious that she took even her own breath away.

‘What’s this?’ Bianca bellowed, waving the shirt back and forth. ‘What is this? You tell me what this is!’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ was all that Bernardo, nonplussed, could lamely reply. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘This is what’s wrong,’ she said as she continued to wave the shirt around and then slapped him on the shoulder with it.

‘What’s got into you? Stop that. You’re hurting me.’

‘Not as much as you’ve hurt me,’ Bianca retorted, rolling the shirt into a ball and presenting her husband with the visible evidence of lipstick traces. ‘Don’t play the innocent with me. How could you, Bernardo? Who is she?’

‘What in God’s name is that?’ Bernardo said, genuine panic in his voice.

‘Lipstick. That’s what that is. Lipstick, Bernardo. You know, the thing women wear. Women and whores. Who is she? That’s what I want to know.’

‘Bianca, I swear I don’t know how that lipstick got onto that shirt. Are you sure it’s my shirt?’

‘Of course it’s your shirt. Unless you now have a friend who his shirts made at the same place as yours and has the same initials as yours embroidered on them too.’

‘As God is my witness, Bianca, I don’t know how it got there.’

‘God is always the last resort of the guilty, Bernardo,’ she retorted chillingly. ‘Who is she?’

‘There is no one else. There’s never been. You know that.’

‘I’m going to New York either next week or the week after at the latest. I need some time to think. And don’t you dare touch me in the meantime. I want you out of the bedroom and sleeping in the guest bedroom. I can see the way things are headed. The next thing you’ll be bringing home is a dose of the clap. And, after you’ve infected me, you’ll swear that you’ve never been unfaithful, and that I must have picked it up off a toilet seat,’ she said witheringly, sweeping out of the room and slamming their bedroom door with such force that it reverberated
through the rest of the house.

Three weeks later Bianca flew to New York. She checked into the Pierre and waited for Philippe’s call. His plane had been due in from Paris earlier that afternoon, but it was delayed. She toyed with the orchids he always ordered for her room and idly ate one of the Lebanese dates in pastry which were his favourite sweet while looking at the television. On an impulse, she grabbed the sable coat he had bought her from Maximilien and headed downstairs to buy a packet of chestnuts from the vendor who was customarily positioned on the corner of the Plaza Hotel and Central Park. As she was taking the packet, she turned and there was Amanda Piedraplata at the top of the steps, having just left the Palm Court where she was having tea.

‘I don’t believe it,’ Amanda said in her clipped, almost unfriendly tones. ‘What a small world! How are you?’

‘I’m well thank you. And you?’ Bianca replied, careful to meet reserve with charming reserve.

‘Never better,’ Amanda said, her cheeks flushing. ‘I’ve just been to see my baby daughter in the hospital. Tomorrow I bring her home.’

‘That’s wonderful. Congratulations. What’s the baby’s name going to be?’

‘Anna, after my mother-in-law, and Clara, after my sister-in-law.’

‘I’m delighted for you. I’m here for another five days. If I can be of any assistance to you, please don’t hesitate to ring me. I’m staying across the road, at the Pierre.’

‘You have sons and a daughter, if I remember correctly. They say the relationship between girls and their mothers is different from that between boys and their mothers. Has it been like that for you?’

‘If you have the time,’ said Bianca, seeing that Amanda was more accessible than she had ever been, ‘why don’t you join me at my hotel for a glass of champagne to celebrate? Then I can tell you all I know about sons and daughters.’

‘Why, Bianca, that’s very kind of you,’ Amanda said in that slightly stiff, formal and surprisingly modest way of hers. ‘I think I’d like that very much.’

‘Would you prefer the bar or my suite?’ Bianca asked as they entered the lobby.

‘Whichever is the easiest.’

‘At least, in my suite we won’t have to shout over other people’s conversations, and no one will be able to overhear us,’ Bianca said.

With that the two women headed upstairs.

As soon as Bianca opened the door to her suite, she could tell that the other woman was surprised she was staying in such a lavish suite. ‘How splendid,’ Amanda said without side, sucking in her breath. ‘And those orchids are to die for.’

‘You know what we Latin American girls are like,’ Bianca responded conspiratorially. ‘We can’t live without our orchids.’

She crossed to the telephone and asked room service to bring up a bottle of Louis Roederer Crystal Brut. ‘Or would you prefer Dom Perignon?’ she mouthed to her guest, cupping the mouthpiece with her hand.

‘Whichever you prefer.’

‘This is such exciting news,’ Bianca said when she had hung up. ‘Your own little girl. What does she look like?’

‘She’s gorgeous. Cute little nose. Pretty little mouth. A chin rather like mine, funnily enough, and I wouldn’t be surprised if her colouring is also like mine. Her ancestors all have blue eyes and blonde hair.’

Bianca shrewdly and correctly marked down the extent to which Amanda was uncharacteristically forthcoming as excitement at the impending arrival. Hopeful though she was that this exchange might be the harbinger of a closer friendship, she did not delude herself that it would necessarily be anything but an isolated instance, and one, moreover, that Amanda might come to regret, if only because she was giving away more of herself than she might be comfortable with in more normal circumstances. And life in Mexico City for both Amanda and herself was an amalgam of normal circumstances, no matter how abnormal or extraordinary those circumstances might be to outsiders. Alert to the danger, Bianca nevertheless could not resist the pleasure of empathizing with someone so overflowing with joy and recklessly decided that, irrespective of the consequences, she would go along with the flow.