Empress Bianca (36 page)

On Wednesday, July 27 1983, Bianca arrived in Mexico City with Philippe for a six-day stay. She had not been to that city in over three years.

As soon as she arrived at the house, she saw that Pedro had changed the arrangement of the furniture in the family room, the dining-room, the pool house and his own bedroom. As soon as Pedro walked through the
door, Bianca was waiting for him with a face like thunder. ‘What is the meaning of altering the furniture in my house?’ she trilled, her voice ringing out as she emphasized the word ‘my’.

‘I thought you wouldn’t mind since you’re never here and I live here all the time. I only wanted to make things a bit cosier.’

‘Cosy? You and your cottage mentality. God knows where you get it from. It must be the Calman blood coming out…’

‘I’d have thought it far more likely that it’s the Barnett blood,’ Pedro retorted, ‘considering that Grandpa was a working-class bloke made good.’

‘Your grandfather was never working-class,’ Bianca spat, her face contorted with rage. ‘You’re always putting me down and everything to do with me. He was a
gentleman
.’

‘Oh, he was a gentleman all right. But he was a working-class gentleman who made his way up in the world.’

‘How dare you disparage my father to me?’

‘You know, Mama, it’s one thing to go around posing as an aristocrat in public, but do your lies have to take over all our lives and crowd out the truth? Can’t there be room for posturing and for the facts as well?’

‘You snivelling no-good drug addict…you haven’t been in this house more than ten minutes, and you’re already being rude. The problem with all of you druggie types is you have no gratitude. You feel
entitled
…’

Pedro looked at his mother. Despise her as he did, he really did not want to get caught up in another row. ‘You know what’s true, Mama,’ he said. ‘I
don’t
want to argue with you. You’re my mother, and I’d really like to get along with you. The problem is, you’ve never liked me. You’ve always sniped at me and used me as your whipping boy. Well, I’m sick of it. If we can’t get along, why don’t we just call a truce and fill the vacuum with good manners? Don’t you think that would be more constructive?’

Just then Julio and Dolores walked in with little Biancita, who promptly started to cry at the sound of raised voices. ‘Come to Granny, darling,’ Bianca said, stretching out her arms to the little girl who barely knew her. She clung to Dolores’ knees as if she were lashed to a mast.

‘Now see what your brother’s done?’ Bianca said to Julio. ‘Typical. Just typical.’

‘Yes, it’s all my fault,’ Pedro retorted. ‘It’s always my fault.’

Since Dolores, in Bianca’s mind, was not truly a member of her family, she did not behave the way she would have done had she been alone with
her children. ‘I don’t know about you always being at fault,’ Bianca replied. ‘No one’s ever persecuted you, so the very suggestion is indicative of paranoia. Don’t tell me,’ she went on, turning for support to Julio, ‘that I now have to contend with paranoia on top of all your brother’s other mental problems?’

‘You really are the most poisonous viper,’ Pedro retorted scornfully. ‘Slithering everywhere, leaving a trail of venom wherever you go.’

Bianca retaliated by slapping Pedro hard across the face. He glared at her with an expression of absolute loathing. ‘Defiant, are we?’ she said then slapped him again even harder.

Without making a sound, Pedro grabbed his mother by the shoulders and started to shake her like a rag doll, her head going back and forth ‘Get him off me! Get him off me!’ she screamed.

Julio intervened. ‘Come on, Peds, stop it,’ he said, grabbing Pedro in a bear hug from behind. ‘You’ve got to stop it. Control yourself, man. She’s our mother.’

Pedro finally released Bianca by shoving her halfway across the room.

She toppled over a table, in tears. Julio crossed over and put his arms around her. ‘It’s OK, Mama,’ he said. ‘You’re fine. It’s nothing.’

Bianca buried her head in his arms then, stiffening, she turned to Pedro. ‘You beast,’ she said. ‘No one’s ever laid a finger on me before and you will not get away with it.’

‘What’re you gonna do? Call the police?’ Pedro taunted her, knowing very well she would pick up the implication.

Bianca shot him a look of unadulterated ferocity. ‘You think you’re so clever. But you’re not as clever as all that.’ Then she turned to Julio.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘do make Dolores and the baby comfortable. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll just disappear for ten minutes. But before I go, tell me what your plans are for later today and tomorrow.’

‘We thought we’d spend the afternoon and evening here with you. Tomorrow morning, I have an important meeting at the office, and Biancita’s swimming coach is coming at ten-thirty to give her a lesson, but maybe we can go to Sintra and have a late lunch there after we’re through.’

‘That sounds lovely,’ Bianca said, making an effort to appear composed but not succeeding entirely as she headed towards her bedroom, shaking from nervous strain. At the doorway, she said turned to Pedro. ‘And you?’ she demanded. ‘What are your plans for the morning?’

‘I’m going to watch Biancita have her swimming lesson.’

‘And when do you propose to depart from this house?’ she inquired archly.

‘About ten, I suppose,’ he said, his face flushed and not entirely in command of himself yet.

‘I see,’ Bianca said neutrally and stepped out of the room.

Forty minutes later a refreshed Bianca, dressed in a simple but elegant cotton trouser-suit, came back downstairs and rejoined her sons, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. As usually happened after one of Bianca’s and Pedro’s rows, everyone, including the participants, acted as if nothing untoward had happened. The only indication that something was wrong was the fact that not a word was exchanged between mother and second son. This made conversation an intricate exercise, especially in such a small group. On the surface, it might seem to an onlooker as if a slightly odd conversation was taking place, but underneath there was a tolerance of the intolerable, a well-rehearsed play, with each participant knowing his or her part. In fact, only Dolores was uncomfortable, unused as she was to such tension, but Julio whispered reassuringly that everything would be OK and that she was just to ignore the tension and stay with the baby, who was proving to be a welcome distraction.

At eight o’clock the next morning, Bianca, who seldom rose before ten, was up and dressed and sitting by the pool, having her coffee and reading the newspapers, when the butler came in to tell her that there was a Dr Melhado at the front door asking for her. Juan Gilberto Macias was with him.

‘Show them both in,’ she said.

Juan entered ahead of the doctor, and she extended her hand in greeting without bothering to get up. ‘Hello, Juan!’ she announced in a tone of voice that he knew meant business.

‘Good morning, Madame Mahfud,’ he said, addressing her in the French manner as she had instructed him to do since her marriage to Philippe. ‘May I present Dr Melhado?’

Dr Melhado stepped forward and bowed slightly, as if he were in the presence of an august personage.

‘I take it Juan has explained everything to you, and you’ve both made all the arrangements?’ she asked.

‘Yes, Señora,’ he said, bowing again.

‘You brought along assistants?’

‘Four, Señora.’

‘Well, get them in here, and let’s get this over with,’ Bianca said without further ado and rose from her chair.

Dr Melhado withdrew, and she stepped in closer to where Juan was standing.

‘He’s good?’ she inquired. ‘You’re sure?’

‘The best in town,’ Juan replied.

‘This isn’t my province, after all.’

‘He is the very best.’

‘Good, good,’ Bianca said, nodding as Dr Melhado returned with four assistants in white coats. She held up her hand to tell them to stop and crossed over to where they were standing. ‘Follow me,’ she said, ‘Although you’ll understand if I don’t stay to watch.’

With that, Bianca led them to Pedro’s bedroom door. ‘He’s in there,’ she said and walked off as Dr Melhado stooped down and removed a syringe from his medical bag. He attached a needle to syringe, pushed it into a bottle of liquid, pulled it out, held it up and squirted it into the air. He then nodded to his four assistants.

At that signal, they burst into Pedro’s bedroom, where he was still sleeping, and jumped on him, holding him down while Dr Melhado pushed the syringe into one of Pedro’s buttocks.

‘What the fuck…?’ was all Pedro managed to get out as the men in white coats pushed his face sideways onto the pillow. One of them held up his left arm, wrapped a plastic tube around it, making a tourniquet, and extended it for Dr Melhado, who, finding a vein, plunged a second hypodermic full of liquid into Pedro’s arm.

Within seconds, Pedro was out cold. The assistants then ran outside, brought back a stretcher and, placing the young man upon it, carried him out of the house and into the ambulance, parked out of view around the back. The whole exercise had taken less than ten minutes.

At ten-forty five, Dolores telephoned. ‘Biancita is asking where Tio Pedro is.’

‘The sweet darling,’ Bianca responded sweetly. ‘Tell her he’s not well.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing for you to bother your pretty little head with, my dear,’ she said kindly.

‘Will he be well enough for the trip to Sintra?’

‘I shouldn’t think so, but that needn’t stop us from going there and enjoying ourselves.’

‘Can I have a word with him?’

‘That won’t be possible, dear, but I’ll be sure to pass on your best wishes.’

At midday Julio, Dolores and Biancita arrived at the house, expecting to link up with Pedro and Bianca. ‘Hi, Mama,’ said Julio. ‘You’re looking as chic as ever. I’ll only be a second. I’m just going to call in on Peds before we go.’

‘He’s not here,’ Bianca said neutrally.

‘Where is he, then?’ Julio said, plainly perplexed.

‘He’s in hospital.’

‘Hospital?’ Julio asked, as if he were reading from a script he did not understand.

‘Darling, poor Pedro’s finally lost his mind,’ she said, the sweetness trickling off her tongue like sap oozing down the bark of a tree. ‘This morning he went completely crazy. Fortunately, I had Juan Gilberto Macias here with me, and he was able to arrange for a doctor to give him the help he needs.’

To Julio, this was an ominous development. Much as he loved his mother, he also loved his brother. He was not blind to either of their faults, and while he would have been the first to agree that Pedro did sometimes fly off the handle and say things which were injudicious about their mother, he also knew that Bianca had a Machiavellian streak, even if he were loathe to admit it to anyone, even to himself.

Speechless from shock, as well as afraid of what to say, Julio just stood there looking at his mother. ‘I know,’ Bianca said. ‘It’s difficult for you. It’s difficult for me too, darling. Whatever our differences, Pedro is also my son, and I love him. I’m just glad Antonia and Manolito aren’t here for this.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s been taken to Santa Maria Hospital. He’ll be fine. Don’t worry. All he needs is a few weeks’ treatment, then a period of convalescence. I blame the drugs.’

‘Mama, Pedro doesn’t do any more drugs than most people of our generation.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re following in his footsteps now. If you say it, I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it…’

‘Mama, everyone under thirty-five has smoked pot. It’s no big deal. Come on. Loosen up a little. Maybe Pedro and you have issues, but he’s not a drug addict…’

‘If drugs aren’t the problem, then we’re left with a son who tells the most vicious lies about his mother and who assaults her when he’s called to order. I’d say that leaves him in a far worse light than us laying the blame at the doorstep of his drug taking. You weren’t here for what happened this morning…’

‘What happened?’

‘I can’t speak about it. It’s too awful. I’ll never be able to speak about it. Not even to you. And if I can’t speak about it to you…you can imagine how dreadful it was.’

‘I’ll call in and see him this evening, when we get back from Sinitra.’

‘No visitors for a week, the doctor said.’

‘A week?’ Julio said incredulously. ‘I’m afraid I don’t get it. Don’t you think this doctor is blowing things out of proportion?’

‘No. I don’t. In fact, I think his response has been very measured, considering your brother’s conduct and problems.’

To say that Julio was disconcerted by this turn of events would be to underestimate the turmoil he went through over the next few days. His mother, on the other hand, could not have been more serene. She had given her orders and, used as she now was to being obeyed, expected Dr Melhado to follow them to the letter. Indeed, she was so confident of the doctor that she left Mexico with Philippe a couple of days earlier than planned, flying out on the Lear.

No sooner was she airborne, however, than Julio telephoned Dr Melhado. ‘I’m coming to see my brother in an hour,’ he informed him.

‘This afternoon won’t be possible, Señor Calman,’ Dr Melhado said smoothly.

‘Ten o’clock tomorrow morning, then,’ Julio said in a voice that would brook no opposition.

‘Your mother…’ Dr Melhado started to say.

Julio cut him off. ‘My mother is out of the country, but I’m here, Dr Melhado. Until a week ago, she hadn’t been to Mexico for nearly four years. She might not be back for another four years. I’m managing director
of Calorblanco. I live here. Tell me,’ Julio said, his voice hardening, ‘has my brother been legally committed?’

‘Your mother didn’t want a scandal…’ he started to say.

Once more, Julio cut him off. ‘So you’re holding him unlawfully. Look here, Dr Melhado, you don’t have to be caught between a rock and a hard place. You can release my brother tomorrow…send in a bill to Calorblanco for a stay of however long it is you wanted to hold my brother for. I’ll see that it’s paid. You don’t even need to say anything to Juan Gilberto Macias, if you don’t want to. I certainly won’t. This was nothing but a family squabble, and I can’t have my brother held in a hospital because he and my mother had a quarrel. I don’t propose to go into the ins and outs of their relationship with you, but I will say there are at least two sides to every story, and I cannot believe that my brother did anything to warrant being held incommunicado in a psychiatric hospital against his will.’