Garden of Venus. Eva Stachniak

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      ‘Is that what you really want, child,’ the internuncio asks. He has lifted her chin up. His finger is soft and warm. Dry like a handful of sand. His eyes are blue, like the sky over Bursa, the whites reddened by last night’s excitement. Can she really make these eyes see nothing but her?

      She doesn’t say anything. Her chin rests heavily on his finger. Her hands clutch at the shawl that covers her breasts.

      His lips are thin and pale, but there is a smile on them. A smile of pleasure.

      He touches her lips, slowly, lingering over their shape. He parts them gently with his finger and touches her teeth. There is a taste to his skin, bitter, pungent but not unpleasant.

      ‘Leave her then,’ the internuncio sighs. He is so close to her that she catches a sour whiff penetrating his shield of musk and snuff.

      ‘Not now, My Illustrious Lord. Not yet,’ Mana says. ‘The girl is suffering from her menses and our Lord forbids a woman to lie with a man at a time like that. Wait a few days and I’ll bring her back to you, clean and scrubbed.’

      Her mother is not leaving anything to chance. There will be a deposit of 1500 piastrs made with Kosta Lemoni in Phanar, the spice merchant who will keep the money in trust for Sophie, her daughter’s dowry to be paid to her on the day she stands at the altar beside her groom. There will be assurances for the rides in a carriage, and the new dresses, and shawls Dou-Dou likes so much. She could keep all the gifts he might give her: the dresses, the rings, the pendants.

      ‘Do you want my soul too, woman,’ the internuncio laughs, but Sophie can tell he is not angered by her mother’s shrewdness. He is a man of honour, he assures Mana. He will do what is right.

      ‘If she pleases me though,’ he says, his finger raised in the air as if he were warning her that not all is settled yet.

      ‘A virgin,’ Mana answers boldly, ‘needs a good teacher. Then she will learn how to please.’

      He likes that. His laughter rings out, shaking his belly up and down, bringing moisture to his eyes.

      He takes a small ring from his finger and slips it into Mana’s hand. They examine it later, carefully. Note the thickness of gold, and the shine of the small sapphire. The colour, Mana would tell her later as if Sophie hadn’t noticed it herself, of his eyes.

      The crimson robe is wrapped tightly around him. Crimson, he will tell her later, is the colour of the Polish nobles.

      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 СКАЧАТЬ