Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

  Unusually for a woman who was so attractive to men, Bianca also got along well with other women. They never found her a threat, not even when she had their husbands drooling over her. Partly, this was because Bianca was careful to reserve her most pungently sexual conduct for the moments when no woman could overhear her, but partly it was also because she courted women as much as she courted men. Flattery - or, as she would put it, ‘displaying appreciation’ - laid on with a trowel was the secret of her success and always had been. She had learned the art as a little girl sitting on her father’s lap and had used it lavishly thereafter, safe in the knowledge that the one thing no one wants to rectify is another’s splendid opinion of oneself.

  Lavishness had actually become an increasingly pronounced feature of Bianca’s personality in recent years. In the social world as in so many other areas of her life, once she hit upon a mode of behaviour that elicited the responses she required of it, she repeated and refined it. In the case of her lavish demeanour, this worked so well socially that she had already begun to acquire quite a reputation in Mexico City for being a hostess. This, she knew, was her passport, visa and residency papers for the upper reaches of Mexican society, where nothing, save money and lineage, counted more than entertaining. In the absence of a great fortune, the Calmans were providing the only other means for acquiring an enviable social position: superb hospitality. Twice a year, therefore, at the end of April and the beginning of September, the Calmans hosted a large cocktail party for two hundred, during which they served every drink known to humanity and food that was always a combination of Lebanese and Mexican. The mix was both exotic and unusual, and the hospitality truly Middle Eastern in its splendour.

  To establish herself further, Bianca had started two years previously to throw a dinner dance that she hoped would become one of the fixtures of the Mexico City social calendar. She had already originated the format she intended to perpetuate - the latest ‘in’ band until six o’clock in the morning, at which time Kedgeree, scrambled eggs and bacon, fried sliced mushrooms, fried sausages and kippers - a full English breakfast - were served. Bianca had started to play up her Britishness in a way her father never did, wisely using it to provide her with a distinction and a distinctiveness that she would otherwise have difficulty laying claim to.

  She therefore made it known to all her friends that she invariably sent out engraved invitations that she had printed in London by Smythson of Bond Street, who, she claimed, were the English Royal Family’s stationers. Lest anyone miss where their invitations came from, each envelope had that firm’s name embossed on the flap, and Bianca was assiduous in letting everyone know that her family had always used the Queen’s stationers, thereby reinforcing the Barnett family’s reputation for aristocratic connections - a reputation she was cultivating - while at the same time standing out from the crowd of Mexico City socialites by sending out invitations unlike anyone else’s.

  For all her efforts, Bianca was only too aware that she had not yet reached the pinnacle of society to which she aspired. For all her achievements, she was not yet even properly on the periphery of the upper reaches of Mexican society, dominated as it was by no other female than Amanda Piedraplata, for Mr and Ferdie Piedraplata were the couple to know. Theirs was indisputably the most eminent social position in Mexico, before even the President and his family, who were viewed as transients while the Piedraplatas were regarded as holders of positions whose permanence transcended the changes in political climate.

  Ferdie and Amanda lived like a latter-day imperial couple in a recently completed Frank Lloyd Wright palace in Lomas not far from the Chapultapec Palace where the Mexican Emperor Maximilien and his Belgian Empress Carlotta had briefly lived while he reigned in the nineteenth century.

  For sheer, up to the minute splendour, their maze of concrete, glass and flat roofs was unsurpassable. Architectural Digest said so. House and Garden said so. Harper’s Bazaar said so. Everyone said so. Their country house, situated on a man-made island in Cuernavaca, a two-hour drive from Casa Piedraplata in Mexico City, was a nineteenth-century palace built by Emperor Maximilien during his reign. Rumour had it in Federal District drawing rooms that Ferdie Piedraplata had instructed I.M. Pei, the celebrated architect who practised in the United States, to design another modern palace on the site and to tear down the ill-fated Emperor’s palace to make room for it.

  Whenever Bianca thought of Ferdie and Amanda Piedraplata, life’s injustices bore down upon her slender shoulders. Why did they have to clutter up their circle with presidents, government ministers and foreigners? Why couldn’t Ferdie be more patriotic? More Mexican? Why couldn’t he and Amanda choose their friends from the same circles that she and her friends did? Nice, well-off, social Mexicans. Every time the Piedraplata parties were covered in the society pages of the newspapers, the only Mexicans present were the boring old president, his boring old wife, his boring old ministers and their boring old wives as well as a sprinkling of Oligarchs who featured in the red-velvet bound Families of Mexico. Or the wretched International Set. Super-rich and super-beautiful people like the Fiat king Gianni Agnelli, the Queen of England’s cousin David, Marquess of Milford Haven, Chase Manhattan Bank’s David Rockefeller, or Aristotle Onassis with Maria Callas.

  One of the more charming features of Bianca’s personality was the complete lack of envy she possessed. She was not upset because they had what she wanted. She merely wanted an invitation to the party. She was therefore perfectly sincere when she asked herself why they couldn’t give fellow Mexicans like herself and her peer group a chance to meet them, when all she wanted to do was bask in the glorious light that their luminous presence cast. Life was just too unfair: Bianca was convinced of it, still puzzling over how best to engineer a meeting with Ferdie Piedraplata and his wife Amanda.

  ‘You would think,’ Bianca said to herself for what must have been the thousandth time, ‘that it would be easy enough to meet people who live in the same city. It’s not as if I want to become friends with them. I don’t. I merely want them to attend one of my parties each year, and for Bernardo and myself to be asked to one of theirs in return. That’s hardly a lot to ask.’

  With the gift of clarity that would hold her in good stead throughout her life, Bianca knew precisely what she wanted from the Piedraplatas. She was equally clear about what she did not want. She did not want a close friendship, for Bianca knew from the newspapers and gossip on the social scene, that Amanda was the niece of an English lord, and while Bianca never let on to anyone - not even to Bernardo or her children - that she was fully aware of her father’s humble antecedents, over the years she had come to realize that there was a good reason why her father avoided speaking English or being with the British. She was not about to blow his cover - and incidentally her own - by befriending an Englishwoman who would be ideally placed to unmask her father for being the commoner he was. No, her ambition, so far as the Piedraplatas were concerned, had nothing to do with friendship. She simply wanted the kudos of being recognized by her peers as a member of the Piedraplata social set. Nothing more, nothing less.

  Since Sara had told her that Ferdie and Amanda were attending the party, Bianca had resolved that, even if she had to move heaven or earth to create the opportunity, tonight was the night she was going to set her foot on the first rung of the Piedraplata ladder. Intent on looking her best as well as her richest, Bianca put on the emerald and diamond parure that Bernardo had given her for her thirtieth birthday. ‘Proper grownup jewels,’ her father had called them. They were dazzling. And they had dazzled her friends. But, she had no doubt, they would be very secondrate compared to Amanda Piedraplata’s fabled jewels. ‘Still,’ she consoled herself, ‘at least they show I’m not penniless.’

  Sure enough, when Bianca walked onto the Cohen veranda in Lomas, there was Amanda Piedraplata ‘holding court’ with two other women dressed in midnight-blue taffeta, in what looked suspiciously like a Balenciaga cocktail dress. On her bodice she was wearing
the most obscene amount of sapphires Bianca had ever seen in her life. Rather than being envious, however, she was bedazzled. One of those stones alone was worth twice the whole of her parure, and she knew it. Amanda Pedraprata would also know it. ‘What a display,’ Bianca said to Bernardo. ‘If you owned jewellery shops like the Piedraplatas, I would also drape myself in every jewel I could. Have you ever seen a more fantastic sight in your life?’

  No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she heard someone behind her call her name. ‘Bianca? Long time no see. How are you, you fabulous thing, you?’

  ‘Begonia?’ Bianca asked, almost disbelievingly. ‘Can it really be you?

  After all these years?’ Begonia was the Panamanian girl who had sat behind her at the Academy in Panama City and who was responsible for introducing her to her unrecognised first husband Hugo del Rio, whom not even Bernardo knew about. Although they had never been close friends, they had been friendly enough: on the periphery of one another’s circles. Bianca hoped that Begonia was equally ignorant of that secret from her youth. ‘Can you believe it?’ Begonia replied, providing her with the welcome clue. ‘Nineteen years! The last time I saw you, you were barely a teenager. Now you’re a knockout.’

  ‘It’s sweet of you to say so. You’re looking great yourself. So soignée. As if you had just stepped off a plane from Paris.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, I did. I married someone called Raymond Mahfud. Although his family are originally from Baghdad we’ve been living in Beirut, which is called the Paris of the Middle East, and in its own way it’s very Parisian. I don’t mind telling you, though, it’s great to be back in Latin America.’

  ‘Will you be staying, or are you just visiting?’

  ‘No. We’re here to stay. Raymond is opening a branch of the Banque Mahfud here.’

  ‘So you married a banker?’

  ‘I sure did,’ Begonia said with the merest hint of resignation.

  ‘But how exciting! It is exciting, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not if you don’t like parties eight nights a week and dinners with all sorts of people about whom you really couldn’t care less but have to be nice to. I believe they call it being a Corporate Wife.’

  ‘But you must meet the most fascinating people.’

  ‘It depends what you mean by “fascinating”. Even people who are genuinely fascinating, because of what they do, are pretty mundane around a dinner table. Unless you’re actually working with them, they’re really very ordinary.’

  ‘People like who?’

  ‘People, I suppose, like King Hussein of Jordan and Nubar Gulbenkian.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure I’d find King Hussein or Nubar Gulbenkian interesting, even if it were only over a dinner table.’

  Begonia laughed. ‘Oh, Bianca, it’s so good to see you. You haven’t changed a bit. Not really. You’re the same wonderful, funny, enthusiastic Bianca we all knew and loved.’

  ‘Life was made to be relished, no?’ Bianca said, laughing.

  ‘Come,’ Begonia said, taking her former classmate by the hand. ‘I want to introduce you to my husband and his brother Philippe. They’re going to be working together in partnership with Ferdie Piedraplata.’

  Light at the end of the tunnel. Finally. Begonia was offering on a plate what Bianca had expected to have to acquire through her own resources. Clearly Begonia was someone she should add to her circle of friends and not only because she liked her, although she did. If she developed a friendship with Begonia, Bianca was aware that she would in the ordinary course of events meet Ferdie and Amanda Piedraplata at the house of Begonia and her husband on a regular enough basis to develop a solid social acquaintanceship. Mexico City social life followed an established pattern whereby people who were in business together fraternized outside business hours at each other’s houses and clubs. ‘It’s wonderful to see you, Begonia,’ Bianca said, light-headed with anticipation, as Begonia walked her across the veranda onto the lawn. ‘We must swear not to lose touch again. There are so few kindred spirits in Mexico.’

  ‘We’ll have a lot of fun.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah, here’s my guy,’ Begonia said, stopping in front of a short, squat, podgy, balding man in his late thirties. ‘Isn’t he the sweetest, most loveable man you’ve ever seen? Darling, I want you to meet an old school friend: Bianca Barnett. Bianca, my beloved Raymond Mahfud.’

  ‘It’s actually Bianca Calman now,’ she said, stretching out her right hand for him to kiss. He took it and shook it.

  ‘Did the Academy churn out only beauties, or am I mistaken?’ Raymond said with a glint, more of humour than anything else, in his eye. ‘You’re almost as beautiful as my wife.’

  ‘Almost,’ Bianca laughed good-naturedly, knowing very well that she was much better looking than Begonia. ‘And she was named after a flower, while I have to make do with merely being the colour of one.’

  ‘I can see that my husband likes you,’ Begonia said, wagging her finger playfully at Raymond, who started flirting mildly with Bianca.

  ‘“Like” is not the word. If I were not married, I would throw down my cloak for you to walk upon. Fortunately, Begonia knows she can trust me. My eye is the only thing that roves.’

  ‘You’re funny,’ Bianca said, laughing appreciatively.

  ‘Your country is beautiful and exciting,’ Raymond continued, changing tack. ‘It reminds me of home. Have you ever been to Baghdad?’

  ‘No,’ Bianca replied, ‘but I want to one day. My mother’s from that part of the world. She’s Palestinian.’

  ‘Ah, then we share a common bond,’ Raymond laughed. ‘We both shook off the yoke of the Ottoman oppressor.’

  ‘But we’re Jewish.’

  ‘So are we.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were Jewish,’ Bianca said to Begonia.

  ‘I wasn’t. But I am now.’

  Another short, squat, podgy, balding man walked up to them at that point. Before Begonia even introduced them, Bianca knew it was Raymond’s brother. ‘Philippe, I want you to meet my old school friend, Bianca Calman. But you’re not allowed to flirt. She’s safely married.’

  ‘But I’m not,’ Philippe Mahfud replied. ‘Though it’s not for the want of Begonia trying. You’re the first friend of hers I’ve met in ages who isn’t marriage material. And what a pleasure it is to meet you.’

  Tempted though she was to riposte, Bianca limited herself to a throaty laugh, sexy and appreciative. It wouldn’t do to flirt too outrageously with a strange man in front of his sister-in-law. Not when she hoped the sister-in- law would assist her in reaching the pinnacle of her ambition: admission into the social circle of Ferdie and Amanda Piedraplata.

  ‘There’s my husband,’ Bianca said, catching sight of Bernardo in the distance and signalling him over. ‘You must meet him. He’s the most darling man in the world if I say so myself, present company excepted, of course. Do you remember him? Bernardo Calman?’

  ‘I didn’t know him, Begonia said. ‘You must remember that our time together was spent in Panama, not here.’

  ‘Of course, silly me. I met Bernardo when we moved here from Panama.’

  Just as Bernardo was approaching from the left, Amanda and Ferdie Piedraplata came into view on the right. Torn, Bianca could not decide whether she was glad that she would have the distraction of introducing her husband at the same time as Begonia was introducing her to the Piedraplatas - thereby distracting her and reducing the rush of adrenaline which might overcome her - or whether she was rattled because one of the decisive moments of her life was being adulterated. Fortunately for Bianca, Ferdie and Amanda came up to their group just before Bernardo reached them. The alternative, that Ferdie and Amanda might shy away rather than break up an introduction, was a distinct possibility, although Bianca could see the likelihood of Bernardo arriving after introductions were underway. This, indeed, was what he did, slipping in beside his wife and taking her hand in his.

  Bianca was careful to say ‘How do
you do?’ as demurely as possible, while Begonia made the introduction to Ferdie. She purposely saved the full force of her charm and her warmth for Amanda. This was a wise move on her part. In the eyes of a good many people, the wife of a rich man comes a very poor second to her partner. Bianca was wily and she understood the power of womanhood.

  Moreover, she was no rebel. On the contrary. She had respect, almost reverence, for the code governing feminine conduct. She functioned by the rule that no sane sensible woman ever undermined another woman who was not a direct competitor for the hand of a man. No sane sensible woman ever trampled on the toes of another woman - unless, of course, she was after her man. That objective aside, a woman always respected the feminine code and functioned through other women, not through their men. To function through a man when he had a wife was to call the whole principle of feminine solidarity into question. It was to declare yourself a traitor to the feminine cause - and the feminine cause was a woman’s cause - every woman’s cause. Bianca’s cause.

  Bianca’s one ambition in life, after being happy, was to climb to the rung on the social ladder where she would be acknowledged as one of Mexico’s elite socialites. Bianca therefore grasped the initiative of this special moment and stepped back just enough so that she, Begonia and Amanda formed a triangle. The men, they all knew, usually preferred speaking among themselves, and now that Bianca had subtly broken up the group into two segments, she set about working the magic of her charm upon Begonia and Amanda in varying but deliberate degrees.