Dancing with Kings. Eva Stachniak

ten in the morning, to avoid the heat, and then, perhaps, for two more hours in the afternoon. Often, in spite of the hot-water compresses Dr Horn had prescribed for the journey, the countess was in too much pain to travel at all.

      It was already the beginning of October when they reached Berlin where Graf Alfred von Haefen put a stop to the nonsense of further travel. The Graf met the countess at the city gates and did not even try to hide his horror at the sight of her. ‘I forbid you to spend another hour in this,’ he said, pointing at the Potocki’s carriage. ‘My ears shall remain deaf to all objections. You’ll have to submit to a man’s judgement. This is the price of friendship.’ His Berlin palace would be at their disposal and so would be his own personal physician, Doctor Ignacy Bolecki. Bolecki, one of the best doctors in Berlin, was a Pole but had been trained in Paris. After assuring himself that the drivers understood his directions and would not attempt to take the wrong turn at the first junction – on moonlit nights oil lamps were put out to conserve fuel and that made the sign of Under the Golden Goose tavern where the right turn had to be taken barely visible – the Graf said to no one in particular that if an operation were truly necessary, a French surgeon would be sent for immediately.

      By the time their carriage rolled into Graf von Haefen’s courtyard, the party was greatly reduced in numbers. Five servants with the kitchen carriage were sent back to the countess’s Ukrainian palace at Uman, leaving Rosalia with only two maids, Olena and Marusya, Agaphya, the cook, and Pietka, the groom. Mademoiselle Collard, the French lady’s maid had left in Poznań without as much as giving notice. ‘I have to look after myself,’ she said to Rosalia before leaving. ‘If I don’t, who else will?’ Always eager to question the refinement of Countess Potocka’s tastes, she did not fail to remind Rosalia that the white Utrecht velvet upholstery and green morocco-leather seats of the Potocki carriage had been chosen by Countess Josephine, the Count’s previous wife.

      ‘You are my prisoner, mon ange,’ Graf von Haefen said, opening the carriage door to help the countess step out into the chair that was waiting already, kissing her hand twice and holding it to his heart, ‘and there is nothing you can do about it.’

      To Rosalia’s relief, her mistress did not protest. By the time the countess was resting upstairs, awaiting the final arrangements of her sick room, their journey, she calculated, had lasted three months, three days, and five hours.

       Sophie

      The heat has abated. It is September, the month of the smallpox. Her time now, Mana says. She is old enough and she will not be alone. Six of her cousins will have it too.

      ‘Help yourself so God can help you,’ Mana says. In her hand Sophie is holding her mati, a blue stone, one of her birth presents. It has a black eye in its centre, and – like the red ribbon in Mana’s hair – it wards off the evil eye, human malice and the power of jealousy. Every time Maria Glavani hears that her daughter is growing up to be a beauty, she spits three times on the ground.

      ‘My precious Dou-Dou.’

      Dou-Dou means a small parrot. A pleasing chirping bird everyone likes, everyone wants to touch and pet. Her true name is Sophie, or Sophitza. It means wisdom.

      Mana cooks for three days so that there is enough food for the party: roasts slices of eggplant and marinates them in oil and lemon juice; cooks her best lamb ragout spiced with coriander. The meat will be tender enough to melt even in toothless mouths, and simmering for a long time, it absorbs the fragrance of spices. There is a big pot of soup with lentils and cardamom, pilaf sprinkled with cinnamon. And in the earthenware pot that is rarely used, chunks of feta cheese marinate in the best olive oil Mana can afford. Big jugs of country wine stand in the corner, by the window, like fat dwarfs. Strings of quinces and pomegranates, sage, mint, rosemary and savory hang from the beams. The water in the pitcher that greets the visitors at the front door has been drawn fresh from the well and is still cool. The hens are locked in the chicken coop and the goat is tied to the fence.

      ‘We are not beggars yet,’ Mana says. Maria Glavani’s daughter is not going to go wanting. There will be four kinds of sweet pastry, and baklava soaked with honey is already laid out on the plate with a yellow rooster in it.

      Even the thought of such delicacies is a temptation. Dou-Dou has touched just the rim of the plate, but when she wants to lick the tips of her fingers, to savour even the smallest traces of sweetness, Mana stops her. ‘You are not an orphan,’ she says. ‘You have a mother who has taught you how to eat properly.’

      The Glavani smallpox party will be remembered in Bursa for the food and the laughter. And for the singing too.

      Rain, rain, dear Virgin, Send snow and waters, To moisten our vineyards And our gardens…

      The old woman who has the smallpox brings it in a nutshell. Her name is Agalia and she smells of soap and dried mint. Her own children have long left the house, but every one of her daughters sent for her when the grandchildren were old enough.

      ‘The best smallpox there is,’ Agalia assures the mothers and guests with a serious nod of her head and a smile of satisfaction. ‘Fresh as the morning bloom.’ There is a murmur of consent in the room, followed by sighs of relief. Maria Glavani has chosen well.

      Dou-Dou giggles. Diamandi, most favourite of all her cousins, has poked her ribs, having pointed at Agalia’s grey hair. She’s so thin that her plait looks like a rat’s tail.

      ‘You are a happy one,’ Agalia says. ‘Good. Laughter is like sunshine. It makes everything grow. It makes people love you.’

      The children are asked to present their veins. An ancient custom calls for four openings: on the forehead, on each arm and on the breast to mark the sign of the cross. Point to your thigh, Dou-Dou, Mana instructed her, up here. You don’t want a scar on your forehead. You don’t want anything to spoil your face.

      Her cousins will all have the sign of the cross, but Sophie does as her mother had said. She turns around and points to the inside of her left thigh. Agalia hesitates for a split second. Then she rips the vein open and puts as much venom inside as she can fit on the head of her needle. ‘It won’t hurt,’ she mutters, but it does.

      Sophie watches Agalia’s hands as the old woman takes an empty shell and places it on the wound. Bony hands with freckles, the skin paper thin. Watches as she binds it carefully with a clean strip of cloth.

      One by one the children’s veins are opened and the venom is put inside while the mothers and the neighbours watch. Sophie saw a few frowns when she did not present her forehead and her arms to be pierced, but her mother’s laughter and the plates she fills with her best stew have lightened the mood. The women eat with delight, praising the softness of the lamb, the fragrance of the sauce. Maria Glavani is an excellent cook.

      There will be singing and dancing, and secrets will be whispered in low voices so that the children would not hear them. In the courtyard, under the olive tree, the women will drink the young wine and laugh until their throats are hoarse. Mana will sing for them and they will dance, bodies swooning to the rhythm of the clapping hands.

      The children will play together for the rest of the day, play hide and seek, and tag, chase each other until their mothers tell them to stop. Too much running around could upset the bindings. Seven days will pass and nothing will happen. On the eighth they’ll all come down with a fever.

      

      ‘Diamandi is sick already,’ Mana whispers. ‘And Costa and Attis.’

      For two days Sophie stays in bed, like all the other children, her fever rising and falling, her head pounding. Mana, smelling of lemon blossom and laurel oil, wipes her forehead with a wet cloth. Cool and dripping with water which flows down her forehead and sinks into her pillow.

      Mana sings to her, funny songs in which goats wish to become camels and flies envy the eagles in the sky. Mana’s cool hand on her forehead is an invitation to sleep. A tiny dab of the balm of Mecca on her finger, she rubs around the smallpox wound. It will keep her Dou-Dou beautiful,