Empress Bianca (2 page)

‘I love Granny,’ declares Yasmine’s elder sister, Little Leila, standing up for Bianca. ‘She takes me to Gucci and Ferragamo and buys me anything I want.’

‘It’s OK for grannies to spoil their grandchildren, darling,’ Leila Barnett says. ‘That’s what grannies are for. But good mummies do not spoil their children. If they did, how would the children learn right from wrong?’

‘You don’t spoil us,’ Yasmine says, looking at Antonia.

‘That’s because she’s a good mummy, and she loves you.’

‘Do you love Granny?’ Yasmine asks Leila of her daughter Bianca.

‘Yes, I do, darling. Just because a mother sees her daughter’s faults doesn’t mean she loves her any the less. It simply makes loving her that much more painful. But you’re too young to understand these things. Now, since you’ve finished your breakfast, why don’t you run next door and get yourselves ready for a day of serious shopping?’ Leila says.

The five children, although none of them is strictly speaking a child any longer, sidle off into their bedrooms to get ready.

Antonia sips from a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice that is only marginally inferior to that served at the Hotel Nacional in Havana. ‘You know I’ve always loved Mama and would never do anything to harm her,’ she says, stepping into forbidden territory. ‘But I’m worried about her. You know… all those stories going the rounds suggesting that she killed Uncle
Philippe.’

Leila nods sagely, her expression unreadable, at least to her granddaughter Antonia.

‘What do you make of them?’

Leila shrugs in a way that conveys everything and nothing at the same time.

‘I need to know, Granny. You have answers that I need to know.’

‘Let me put it this way,’ Leila replies affectionately. ‘I hope you never have to live with the knowledge that any child of yours has the blood of not one, but two, people on her hands. Now, do be a dear and pass me the toast. And never let on to your mother that you believe she’s anything but the most wonderful person on earth. She’s not like other people. It’s not so much that she doesn’t have feelings as that she can turn hers on and off in a way ordinary people cannot. She is, I have to say, an extraordinary woman in every sense of the word. That’s both her blessing and her curse… and ours too.’

‘So you think she really had a hand in…’

Leila cuts off her granddaughter in mid-sentence. ‘There are some truths that are best left unsaid. All that matters is that you know in own your mind what the truth is.’

T
he infant who would grow up to become Bianca Mahfud was born Bianca Hilda Barnett in Jaffa, Palestine, in 1930. Her background was as incongruous and exotic as she herself would turn out to be. Her father Harold Barnett was a Welsh surveyor who arrived in Palestine with the British Army after the Great War, when the British Mandate came into effect. Her mother was Leila Milade, a Palestinian whose paternal family owned orange groves in Jaffa and whose mother was from a Jewish mercantile background.

But for the Great War, Leila would never have met, much less married, an Englishman. There were already enough suitable families in Palestine from which to select a husband; and, in the ordinary course of events, her father Joseph Milade would have spoken to one or two fathers with sons of a suitable age and arranged for them to call upon the Milade family with a view to arranging a marriage when Leila had turned seventeen.

That was how things were done in those days. The fact that Leila was Jewish by religion would have made no difference whatsoever to her desirability, for Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in harmony, having done so for over a thousand years and to such a degree that intermarriage between the religions was an accepted feature of national life.

Bianca Mahfud’s parents met one afternoon in 1920. Leila Milade was being driven home from school in the family buggy when the sound of a motorized vehicle backfiring frightened the horse, causing it to bolt. But for the quick reaction of Harold Barnett, then an army sergeant stationed in Allenby Square, Leila might have been killed as the horse tore towards
the main thoroughfare. Harold, however, grabbed the horse’s stirrup and brought it to a halt without even considering the danger to himself. Only afterwards, when Leila was thanking him in French, a language he knew slightly from his time in France during the Great War, did he notice how extraordinarily beautiful was this blonde-haired, green-eyed creature with the high cheekbones and lush lips. Taking her to be French, Harold’s commanding officer ordered him to see her home.

So began the friendship, then courtship, of Leila and Harold, which ended four years later in their marriage. This was a period when the unthinkable was becoming acceptable. Like many other parts of the world, the old order in Palestine was giving way to a new one, and in Joseph Milade’s household, a Britisher - any Britisher - was desirable by virtue of his nationality alone. Moreover, Harold Barnett behaved towards the Milades with respect, and once Bianca’s father established that his ‘intentions were honourable’, he was happy to give his blessing for the marriage between Leila and the handsome Welshman who had now left the British Army and gone to work as an apprentice surveyor with the Palestinian Railway in Jaffa.

Harold Barnett was an ambitious man - a trait his daughter would inherit from him. He had no intention of spending his whole life as a railway surveyor, and within two years of his marriage to Leila Milade, while she was producing first one, then another stillborn baby, he studied at night to become a qualified surveyor. By the time Bianca came on the scene, eight years later, her father was a qualified surveyor with his own practice, employing an assistant, a clerk and an office boy.

It was into this prosperous but solidly middle-class and respectable world that Bianca Hilda Barnett was born in 1930. Because her mother was Jewish, she too was Jewish, and while she, and indeed her mother, shared Harold’s British nationality; from the moment she could remember she considered herself to be more Middle Eastern than English.

Harold and Leila would never have left their home in Jaffa had it not been for the political situation in Europe after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Harold was worried because Palestine, as a former part of the Ottoman Empire, had been allied to Germany in the Great War, and he was only too aware that the Palestinian people resented the presence of the British who were occupying that country, having reneged upon their promise to the Arabs that they would be given their
freedom in return for helping get rid of the Germans. Having watched the Pathé newsreels and seen Germany invading the Sudetenland, dismantling Czechoslovakia and, in March 1938, occupying Austria, he said to his wife Leila and his father-in-law Joseph Milade: ‘No Jew or Britisher is safe in Palestine. We must emigrate.’

To Leila and Joseph, emigration was not an alien concept. The Milades had cousins who had done well in Jamaica and Tanganyika.

However, Harold opted for Panama, a country where they knew no one, and no one knew them; but it had at least the merit of being totally independent of either Britain or Germany. Moreover, it had the Atlantic Ocean between it and Europe, where Harold was convinced a conflagration was imminent.

Harold, Leila and eight-year-old Bianca boarded the SS
Sao Paulo
in Lisbon, Portugal just after England and France declared war on Germany, following its invasion of Poland. They landed in Panama on Saturday, September 23 1939.

Within two weeks, Harold had rented a comfortable three-bedroom apartment in the South District with a view of the Caribbean Sea in the distance.

While Harold went from surveyor to surveyor, looking for work, Leila hired a housekeeper who had once worked as a lady’s maid with the Honorary Syrian Consul and so spoke kitchen Arabic. Harold found a job four weeks after his arrival, and they were on their way to duplicating the solidly respectable life they had enjoyed in Palestine. Harold’s energy and initiative were such that it was not long before he was cultivating clients with a view to setting himself up in business on his own: something he did within twenty-one months of landing in Panama.

Like most eight-year-olds, Bianca was blithely unaware of the pressures governing adult life. Being Palestinian, Leila was inclined to follow the Middle Eastern tradition of letting her daughter know the realities of their lives, of allowing the child to see behind the worries of having to change country. Of having to find an apartment. A car. A school for Bianca. Harold, however, being English and the man of the house, held sway in the British manner. ‘Not in front of Bianca,’ was his guiding motto. As he scurried around town from their room at the Don Pedro Hotel to find the apartment which he did with that treasured glimpse of the Caribbean Sea; as he looked for a job; as he went down to the docks to arrange for the
delivery of the furnishings they had shipped with them; as he and Leila discussed Bianca’s schooling, Bianca remained oblivious of everything but the final result. To her child’s eye, it all seemed so seamless, so effortless. She would, as a consequence, spend the rest of her life moving home and country without a glimmer of anxiety.

Although Harold and Leila had radically different views on how much information to provide a child, on the issue of Bianca’s education, they were in perfect accord. ‘It’s crucial that she mixes with nice girls,’ Harold said. ‘The friends she makes in childhood might stand her in good stead for the remainder of her life.’ Ever practical, Harold solved the problem of finding out where to educate his daughter in an unfamiliar country by resorting to the simple expedient of getting the British Consulate to inform him where the diplomats sent their daughters. And so it was that Bianca Barnett was enrolled at the Catholic Mercy Academy in Panama City as Bianca Barnett Milade. She was seated, in Latin alphabetic fashion, in front of Begonia Cantero Gonzalez: something that seemed to be without any importance whatsoever at the time, although it was the first step along Bianca’s route to success and murder.

At the very moment Harold, Leila and Bianca were walking down the gangplank of the SS
Sao Paulo
in Panama’s harbour, halfway across the world, in Bucharest, a motor vehicle was pulling into the courtyard of Palatul Cotroceni, the official residence of the King of Romania. Emanuel Silverstein had been one of King Carol II’s jewellers since that monarch had returned from exile in 1930. Before that, he had enjoyed the patronage of his father, the late King Ferdinand, after whom

Emanuel named his only son, and Queen Marie, who was then one of the most famous women in the world. Emmanuel Silverstein was used to coming to Palatul Cotroceni. At least three or four times a year, His Majesty’s Equerry would telephone his shop on the Boulevard Regina Maria with the suggestion that ‘Mr Silverstein might care to call at the palace.’ The Equerry always indicated what to bring with a comment such as: ‘His Majesty would appreciate it if you could provide him with some examples of your more important earrings in coloured stones.’ Courtiers, Emanuel Silverstein had learned, are so cultivated, so well mannered, so used to having their own way that their every command was couched as a request, their every direction as a suggestion. Their world, the royal
world, was truly one where velvet and satin reigned, where the occupants were not merely rich but were bred to a mode of behaviour, a standard of cultivation and pedigree that separated them from other beings.

This time, however, when the Equerry telephoned, his direction, while delivered as smoothly as ever, took Emanuel Silverstein’s breath away. ‘His Majesty wants to cast a wide net this time and would like you to bring whatever stock you have available for purchase.’

This could mean only one thing, Emanuel Silverstein realized. The King was preparing to flee. ‘Remember every detail of this visit,’ he had cautioned his son as they rode together to the Palatul Cotroceni. ‘It may well be your only one.’

As Emanuel’s motor vehicle came to a stop, four sentries who were obviously watching out for their arrival stepped forward. ‘Mr Silverstein,’ the most senior officer, a major, said, ‘May we assist you with your boxes?’

‘Thank you, Major,’ Emanuel Silverstein replied, indicating the back seat and the boot, which were packed to capacity with black velvet boxes in various shapes and sizes.

Emanuel Silverstein barely had time to adjust to the glare of the sun before an elderly gentleman stepped forward from beneath the portals leading into the palace’s trade entrance. ‘Mr Silverstein,’ said this tall, elegant, silver-haired gentleman with military bearing as he extended a hand, ‘it is indeed a pleasure to see you again. In times like these, one does treasure one’s old friends.’

‘Hospodar Malinescu, this is a surprise. May I have the honour of presenting my son, Ferdinand? Ferdie, this is Hospodar Major Malinescu, His Majesty’s Equerry.’

‘How do you do, young man?’ replied Hospodar Ion Malinescu, one of the King’s oldest equerries. ‘Welcome to Palatul Cotroceni. We hope we will have the pleasure of seeing you over the years, the way we have seen your father and your grandfather before him.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ replied Ferdie, intent on remembering every detail, as the old gentleman extended his hand in greeting.

‘Times really are as bad as I fear,’ Emanuel decided, utilizing one tiny but significant scrap of information to intuit the reality of his - and Romania’s - predicament. In the sixty years that he and his father before him had been ‘attending at’ Palatul Cotroceni, not once had any member of the Royal Household ever shaken their hand. According to the rules of
the day, ‘gentlemen’ - that is, courtiers, landowners, the gentry and nobility - shook hands with other ‘gentlemen’. It was no more thinkable for a Court official to shake the hand of a tradesman than for Mr Emanuel Silverstein, to shake the hand of a shop assistant or a waiter or the man who delivered his coal. Yet here was Hospodar Ion Malinescu, late of Her Majesty Queen Marie’s Dragoons, shaking his hand, and, as if that were not enough, young Ferdie’s as well.

‘Yes, young man, we expect to see a great deal of you in the future,’ Malinescu said as he led father and son down a series of magnificently furnished corridors, his tone of voice convincing neither Emanuel nor Ferdie. ‘He’s trying to be brave,’ thought Ferdie. ‘But he’s frightened and in despair.’

‘Everyone I have spoken to supports His Majesty’s decisive actions in these difficult times,’ Emanuel Silverstein said, picking up the political thread of Malinescu’s comments in the hope of gleaning some useful information.

‘As well they might. It’s either the King or the Iron Guard, and we all know they want Corporal Hitler,’ Malinescu said, as he led them into an antechamber whose splendour defied anything young Ferdie had ever seen - even in the motion pictures.

‘Do have a seat,’ Malinescu continued, indicating a pair of Louis XVI sofas with newspapers spread on a table between them. ‘His Majesty will only be a moment.’

Malinescu withdrew while Emanuel and Ferdie settled themselves on the sofa facing the French window. The newspapers, father and son could see, were full of the assassination two days before of Prime Minister Armand Calinescu and of the attempt ten minutes later by seven members of the Iron Guard, the Romanian fascist organization, to seize the radio station. They had interrupted a broadcast of waltz music to announce that the death sentence passed upon the prime minister had been executed, but not before the radio announcer had cried out: ‘They are killing us - a band of Guardists!’

The newspapers all recounted how the conspirators were arrested before they could escape, and their accounts differed little from the account King Carol wrote later that day in his diary, ‘The eight assassins were executed at the scene of the crime, the two or three Iron Guard leaders first.’ Before Ferdie had a chance to finish reading, Hospodar Ion
Malinescu ushered him and his father Emanuel into the King’s presence. Surrounding Carol, who was standing in front of his desk, were several piles of Emanuel Silverstein’s velvet boxes, containing his shop’s entire stock.

‘Mr Silverstein,’ Carol said as soon as the formalities of receiving Emanuel Silvestein and Ferdie had been dispensed with, and Hospodar Malinescu had withdrawn from the room. ‘You have an interesting selection of jewels here. One might almost say something for every taste, certainly something for every occasion.’

‘Your Majesty knows that my family has a tradition of trying to satisfy our clients.’

‘That’s true enough, Mr Silverstein,’ King Carol said, opening one of the larger boxes and removing a diamond and ruby tiara, which he held up towards the open window. ‘Half Bucharest can attest to that. Even my late mother swore by your workmanship and the quality of your stones.’