Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

  ‘No, Sire.’

  ‘Take your whole family. Visit while you can. But do so quickly. The world we live in has become terribly unpredictable, and while I have done my level best to ensure the liberty of my people by toeing a neutral line, the fact remains that Chancellor Hitler cannot be relied upon. We live in very uncertain times, Mr Silverstein.’

  ‘The situation is a worry, there’s no denying that, Sire,’ Emanuel Silverstein said.

  ‘Have a word with Major Malinescu. He will help you with your travel permits.’

  Hospodar Ion Malinescu glided into view, as if from nowhere, and King Carol thanked Emanuel Silverstein and Ferdie for ‘attending upon’ him before retiring to the adjoining room while Hospodar Malinescu escorted them out.

  Emanuel Silverstein’s thoughts reeled as he walked down the familiar corridors to the tradesman’s entrance. So much of what King Carol had said could be taken in two ways. Was Carol suggesting that the time might have come for him to leave Romania? Was the King hinting that he could not protect his Jewish subjects against Hitler, or was Carol merely being pragmatic? Was his main concern that Emanuel Silverstein should restock the shop so that no word would leak out as to where its contents had gone? By the time he reached the shop on Boulevard Regina Maria, Emanuel Silverstein had decided to take advantage of this opportunity to emigrate.

  That night, Emanuel waited until Ferdie and his younger sister Clara were in bed before speaking to his wife. ‘We have to face facts. Romania is not safe. The King’s declaration of neutrality might buy the country time, but if either Hitler or Stalin wants Romania, this country’s done for.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Hannah Silverstein said. ‘Last month’s pact of friendship between Nazis and the Soviets makes it almost inevitable that Hitler or Stalin, or even both of them, are eyeing us up for occupation. There’s not much to choose between them. The Nazis despise the Jews, while the Soviets hate capitalists.’

  ‘Where to go, that’s the question? The King has offered to help with our travel permits, but I’m not inclined to head towards Belgium. He proposed I take you and the children to Antwerp - to restock, he suggested. But I’m nervous in case the Germans overrun Belgium the way they did in the last war. Look at what they’ve just done to Poland.’

  ‘You have to decide where you want us to live and what you intend to do once we get there. It seems to me, once you’ve made up your mind, a lot will fall into place.’

  ‘I’m not sure if any country in Europe is safe for Jews anymore, and, whatever our official religion, we are classified as Jews in the eyes of the Axis Powers. Can England and France really check the might of the Germans? I wonder.’

  ‘Manny, as long as we are together as a family I don’t care where we live. It’s important that you know that.’

  ‘You are the most precious woman, Hannah,’ Emanuel Silverstein said, bending to kiss his wife.

  ‘You remember my cousin Rachel Finkelstein, from Lake Constanza, don’t you, Manny? She married a rabbi’s son, and they moved to Mexico City in Mexico. She’s the one who died in childbirth. He had a dry goods shop and did very well.’

  ‘I didn’t know you still kept in touch with him.’

  ‘I don’t, but her sister does. We write each other twice a year. I even have a snapshot she sent me last year of Rachel just before she died. Would you like to see it?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Manny.

  Hannah walked to her dressing table, opened a drawer and pulled out a large bundle of letters neatly tied with blue satin ribbon. She untied the ribbon carefully, looked through the last few letters then pulled out an exotically stamped one. From it, she withdrew a grainy black and white photograph of her cousin Rachel standing beside a bearded man and a little girl. There was a pyramid behind them. Hannah turned the photograph over, looked at the inscription on the back and said to her husband as she handed it to him: ‘That’s the Mayan Pyramid in the background. Rachel thought it the most beautiful city. Very bustling. Very nice people. And no anti-Jewish feeling whatsoever.’

  ‘Mexico,’ Emanuel Silverstein said, taking the picture and studying it. ‘I’m trying to remember what I’ve read about it. Is it still a Spanish colony?’

  ‘No. It’s been independent for over a hundred years.’

  ‘Is it prosperous?’

  ‘Very. It has oil like us and silver. But it has a much smaller population than ours, though it’s vast in size.’

  ‘You think maybe we could make a go of a jewellery shop in Mexico City?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. At least we’d be safe until the war is over. Then we can always return here if we want to.’

  ‘That’s decided, then. Mexico it is. But we’ll go to Antwerp first to buy new stock. Hopefully the German Army will be too busy occupying Poland to bother about invading Belgium for the next few weeks. I’ll speak to Hospodar Malinescu first thing in the morning about our travel permits and settling the account.’

  Hannah took her husband’s hand and kissed it gently. ‘You’re a good man, Manny, and a wise one too. With God’s help, we’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘We are, Hannah. We are,’ Manny said sombrely. ‘It might be the only chance we have for freedom. We have to take it.’

  Chapter Two

  Five years had elapsed since Manny and Hannah Silverstein arrived in Mexico City with their children Ferdie and Clara. In that time, much had changed for the family, and Manny was convinced that the ease with which he and his family had settled in that Latin American haven was largely due to three things. First, but not necessarily the most important, was the fact that he had landed with total financial liquidity and was therefore in a position to purchase, outright and for cash, a beautiful villa in San Angel, the most gracious part of the city, near the famous San Angel Inn, while at the same time procuring premises on the chic Calle Reforma for what was now one of Mexico’s leading jewellery establishments. Second, Manny and his family made a point of wearing their prosperity lightly. Where others resorted to arrogance or authority, his family convinced with charm, good manners and quiet statements of wealth. Third - and in Manny’s view, of crucial importance - was his decision to show respect for the society he had moved to by changing the family name from the European-sounding ‘Silverstein’ to the Spanish equivalent: Piedraplata.

  Too many émigrés, Manny felt, were so intent on preserving their old ways that they insulted their new hosts by being pointedly foreign. Well, he had no axe to grind against the Mexicans. On the contrary, he considered himself to be in the debt of such a welcoming inclusive nation.

  Mexico had spared him and his family the suffering that many of his European friends and relations had been forced to endure in the Old World since Hitler’s rise to power. This had been especially true for Romanians. Their country entered the war on Germany’s side in 1941, when the resettlement to the East of everyone the Silversteins had known from the Jewish community had begun. Ominously, none of these friends and relations wrote anymore, and, while Manny had heard the rumours circulating in the Jewish community about concentration camps in Germany and Poland, he remained hopeful, marking the silence of his loved ones down to the inevitable breakdown in communications that came in wartime, especially when the tide turned, as it now had against the Axis Powers.

  Manny had done well since arriving in Mexico, and as he walked out of his office into the showroom of the Piedraplata jewellery shop on the famous Reforma, past display cases showing fine jewels, many of whose stones he had bought in Antwerp before setting sail for Central America, he reflected upon how fortunate he was to have had King Carol II as a client.

  As Manny made his way towards the entrance of the shop, he stopped, in the courtly fashion that he had learned in Bucharest from his royalist clients, to greet the mistress of one of his major clients. She explained that she was looking for a birthday present. This particular lady, Manny observed, careful to eradicate all trace of the thought from his expression, either had an unheard-of quan
tity of female friends, all of whom had several birthdays a year, or she was feathering her nest against the day of despatch. ‘One’s friends do so appreciate it when one remembers anniversaries,’ Manny said as respectfully as if he were speaking to his former King and then instructed the attendant to show the Señora the new range of emerald brooches, inspired by the Duchess of Windsor and designed by Fulco, Duca de Verdura. The lady in question could not help noticing the kindliness that emanated from Manny’s eyes as he spoke to her, for, despite his best endeavours to conceal his thought processes, Manny was a compassionate man and did not condemn a beautiful woman who guarded against an uncertain future by gathering her rosebuds while she could.

  Mario, Manny’s driver, was standing directly outside the shop, the motor of the Rolls Royce purring. Before Manny could even cross the pavement, Mario had the back door open, and Manny sank into the well upholstered comfort of the car’s interior. Today was a special day, especially for someone like Manny, who valued education above all else. It was his daughter Clara’s graduation, and he did not want to be late for so important a ceremony. He tapped the dividing glass and instructed Mario, who was just pulling out into the traffic, to drive faster than usual.

  As the Rolls Royce glided through traffic, people stopped to look at it, peering inside to see whose it was. It was at times like these that Manny realized how wise he had been not to leave this car behind when he was departing from Romania. Rolls Royces had been difficult enough to obtain in 1937, when Manny had imported this one from London, and they were a rarity by 1939, when he had fled Romania in it. Now they were almost like talismans: comfortable, reliable, prestigious, providing visible and unspoken proof of their owners’ elite provenance, and impossible to procure in wartime. In Mexico City as much as in Bucharest, London or even Berlin, they were the best calling card for anyone who needed to establish his credentials without words or to assess another’s worth. Doormen, head waiters, maîtres d’hôtel and bank presidents all took notice when Manny pulled up in his Rolls Royce, and they gave the vehicle’s owner the respect such a possession commanded.

  Harold Barnett noticed the Rolls Royce as it pulled into the school. Ever on the lookout for anyone or anything that would advance him, he turned to Rabbi Julius Finkelstein, brother-in-law of his employer in Panama and his host in Mexico City while he, along with his wife Leila and daughter Bianca, explored the possibilities of moving to Mexico to take advantage of the country’s wartime boom.

  ‘Do you know who owns that beauty?’ Harold asked.

  ‘That’s my late wife’s cousin by marriage,’ Julius replied, laughing out loud, ‘Emanuel Silverstein, or Manuel Piedraplata as he’s now known. He’s become the biggest jeweller in Mexico in the space of five years. Would you like to meet him?’

  ‘I’m sure I would,’ Harold said.

  For all Harold Barnett’s hopefulness, the meeting that took place between him and Manny was as flat as the Maracaibo Lowlands, Manny’s attention being focussed solely in the direction of his daughter Clara, who was graduating with honours. In any case, Manny disliked opportunists, and from the moment Julius introduced them, he had Harold Barnett pegged as one.

  From Harold’s point of view, however, the encounter was not entirely unsuccessful. For days afterwards, little realizing what the future held for his daughter Bianca and Ferdie Piedraplata, he kept on joking half-seriously with her that, when they moved from Panama to Mexico, she should ‘set her cap’ at Ferdie. ‘He’s tall, dark and handsome,’ Harold observed. ‘With his wavy, dark-brown hair, tanned complexion and green eyes, he could be mistaken for a South American. Julius says he’s also an unusual young man, in that he loves to work as hard as he likes to play. So you’d be both rich and in compatible company, for we all know how much you like having a good time too.’

  To an extent, Harold’s assessment of Ferdie’s prospects as a husband was accurate. In the five years since the young man’s arrival in Mexico, he had changed from a gangly seventeen-year-old boy into a young man who appeared to be everyone’s dream. Aside from his good looks, he had made the transition from calm and studious teenager to an exceptionally energetic and imaginative young man with an aptitude for business. In this and all other respects, he had turned out even better than his father and mother had hoped. Indeed, in the last year, Manny had noticed that Ferdie’s enthusiasm for business was so pronounced that it had a vocational aspect to it. The very word ‘business’, when used by Ferdie, was filled with an unusual power and passion. It was almost as if he were in love with the whole concept of business, which was, of course, the answer to his rich father’s prayers, for he had produced a son and heir who needed no encouragement to fill the shoes that fate had allotted to him.

  But Harold’s assessment of Ferdie wasn’t based solely on what Julius had told him about the young Piedraplata. He was also using the information he had gleaned from a conversation he went to some lengths to overhear. He was sitting behind the family for the graduation ceremony, and he craned his neck to get within earshot of father and son while they were killing time waiting for the ceremony to begin. Their conversation had begun simply enough. ‘So how are things going, Ferdie?’ Manny had said in a tone that conveyed all the ease and closeness that existed between him and his heir.

  ‘Great, Papa, the walls are up, and the roof will soon be on. The budget’s coming in on target. It’s going to be an attractive premises.’

  ‘Our son’s going to be a great businessman one day,’ Manny’s wife Hannah, now known as Anna, had interjected. ‘Or we’re all going to go bust. Who else but Ferdie could come up with the notion that the shantytowns which have sprung up on the outskirts of this city need an electrical shop?’

  ‘And who else but his Papa has the wisdom to appreciate that our son has an aptitude for spotting gaps in the market that will, if his hunches are right, enlarge our fortune significantly?’ Manny had said to Anna in a manner reminiscent to Harold of the intimacy that he and Leila shared.

  ‘I hope your judgement doesn’t turn out to be misguided faith. This is Ferdie’s third project in the last ten months, and none of them has yet come to fruition.’

  ‘The investment for all of them adds up to less than a three-bedroom apartment in a crummy part of town,’ Manny had said. ‘If they all fail, that - plus Ferdie’s time - will be our total loss. On the other hand, if they succeed, the rewards will be incalculably greater. The risks involved are all reasonable ones, wouldn’t you say so, Ferdie?’

  While Harold Barnett was listening in on this conversation, Bianca was sitting beside Sarita Finkelstein looking over the assembled group that she would soon be joining as a student, unaware that her life was about to change in ways she would never have dreamed possible. It all began innocently enough, with Sarita saying: ‘My best friend’s over there. She’s really nice. I’ll introduce you after the ceremony so you can have another friend before you join our class in September. She’s the one with the long brown hair in the pink bandeau and the pink dress, standing beside that boy in the blue blazer with the black hair. You’ll really, really like her, I promise. Her absolute all-time favourite movie star is Clark Gable, followed by Lana Turner.’

  ‘That girl in the pink dress beside the boy in the blue blazer with the rust-and-aubergine striped tie is your best friend?’ Bianca enquired sweetly, caring not a jot about the girl but smitten by the stunning- looking boy beside her. Even though she was only sixteen, she was already very aware of boys, of her appeal to them and of their attraction for her.

  ‘Yes. That’s Alicia and the dreaded Bernardo. Yuck. All he can ever think about is cars and tennis. But Alicia’s great. Do you think she’s pretty? Mama does, though I can’t say I’m sure. But she really is very, very nice.’

  ‘She looks pretty from here,’ Bianca said, eager to find a way to meet the brother, ‘but I’ll be able to give you a better opinion when I meet her after the prize-giving.’

  ‘I’ll introduce you. I’ve told her all ab
out your coming to live in Caracas, and she’s just dying to meet you.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to meeting her too.’

  As soon as the prize-giving and graduation ceremony came to an end, Bianca jumped up. ‘Come on,’ she announced to Sarita. ‘Let’s go meet Alicia.’

  With that, Bianca linked arms with Sarita and propelled them through the throng of parents and children until they reached the spot where Alicia was standing with her parents and brother. Relief and excitement washed over Bianca in equal measure as she stood in front of Mr and Mrs Calman, with their daughter Alicia on one side and their son Bernardo on the other. ‘Alicia, this is Bianca. You remember me telling you all about her?’

  ‘Hi, Sarita,’ Alicia said. ‘Hi, Bianca.’

  ‘And this is the dreaded Bernardo,’ Sarita added, only half in jest.

  ‘Hello,’ Bernardo said in a deep voice that made Bianca go weak at the knees.

  Never one to miss a trick, even at that tender age, Bianca smiled first at Alicia, said ‘Hi,’ quickly then flashed Bernardo her most dazzling smile.

  ‘Why are you the dreaded Bernardo?’ she asked as she leaned into him with a self-possession and confidence in excess of her years, subtly rocking her hips.

  Bernardo laughed. He had never met a girl quite like Bianca before. Not only was she beautiful but she was also being straightforward, in the way that boys usually were, and girls generally weren’t. ‘Alicia and Sarita say I’m obsessed with cars.’

  ‘All men like cars,’ Bianca said, knowing very well that by calling Bernado a man she was putting him into a category that no one else would have done in the Mexico of that time. But Bianca was already accomplished in the art of making people feel good, of flattering them so openly that they melted. This was something she had learned from - and practised upon - her father ever since she was a little girl, and she now put it into effect with an urgency she had never felt before. Already, she was in love with Bernardo Calman, and she was going to make sure he fell in love with her too. ‘My father loves his Packard as if it were his second daughter,’ she continued. ‘It’s natural for men to like cars. If I were Alicia and Sarita, I’d be worried if I had a brother or a friend who didn’t like cars.’