Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

  ‘Why not? You can afford the cost of the telephone call.’

  ‘It just doesn’t seem particularly practical. And I do have some good men around me. Look at Raymond and Philippe. They’re great guys. They’re on the ball. Our interests coincide on many levels. They’re even Jewish.’

  ‘I would especially warn you against Raymond and Philippe. Yes, they’re charming. Yes, they’re capable. Yes, they’ve done well with the Banco Mahfud Mexico and even better with the Banco Imperiale, but I want you to remember that they owe most of their success to our funding. But for our backing, the Banco Imperiale would not exist. While their interests coincide with ours in a limited way, in other respects their interests clash with ours.’

  ‘Let me remind you that you’re the one who encouraged us to start up Banco Imperiale.’

  ‘I know. I know. Undeniably the Mahfud boys are brilliant and energetic, and they’ve served our purpose well in giving us footholds in other countries. We were uncomfortably focused on Mexico for awhile, and though I have nothing but thanks for the welcome Mexico has given us, we as a family must never forget that one day in the future Mexico might also turn against us, as Romania would have done had we stayed there - and as it did with all our relations who did stay there. We’re lucky that Calorblanco is a family concern and all our interests coincide, but with the banks, that is not the case. You must never forget that today’s partner can become tomorrow’s adversary. Our money is what is propping up the Mahfud brothers, Ferdie. Without us, Banco Imperiale would not exist and Banco Mahfud Mexico would fold, or at the very least, struggle to survive. Either way, don’t rely too much on the Mahfuds. See them for what they are. Lean only on your sister. I know you’re selfwilled and don’t like to be curbed, but in this, I am begging you, listen to me. If you do not, the potential for disaster is too horrific to contemplate.’

  ‘Papa, I appreciate what you’re saying and why you’re saying it, but you mustn’t worry. The business will be in good hands, I promise. I’ll take care of it for you and for Mama and for Clara.’

  Later, a tearful Ferdie and Amanda left Anna with Manny and headed back to downtown Manhattan. Between 168th Street and 59th Street, they discussed adopting a son, and by the time they reached 48th Street, they had agreed that Amanda would telephone Begonia Mahfud, the only person they knew who had adopted children, to see how she and Raymond had obtained their children.

  ‘Raoul Goldman in New York,’ Begonia said. ‘He’s one of the top “baby” lawyers. He finds Jewish babies for Jews; Arab babies for Arabs. Chicano? Japanese? A mixture of Serbo-Croat and Thai? No problem. Raoul Goldman always finds your baby.’

  ‘I don’t mean to sound crass, but what are his charges like?’ asked Amanda, who hated speaking about money.

  ‘He bills according to the time he spends on your case, and - be warned - according to what he perceives the depth of the prospective parents’ pockets to be. His fees range from $5,000 to $15,000, which is frankly exorbitant, and there’s also no way of checking to see whether he has really spent the time he says he does on any particular case. To people like Raymond and me, however, the price is well worth paying. Raoul Goldman’s babies are always healthy, intelligent and good-looking. Truth be told Amanda, if I’d had my children myself, I couldn’t have done better.’

  Armed with that information, Amanda and Ferdie deliberated over who should make the call to Raoul Goldman. ‘Better an English accent on the end of the line than a South American one,’ Ferdie said, shrewdly factoring in the advantage his wife would have over him.

  First thing the following morning, Amanda made the call. The receptionist put her through to someone with a slight Bronx accent who answered in a way Amanda found both amusing and unusual.

  ‘Raoul Goldman.’

  ‘Hello, Mr Goldman,’ she started, sucking in her breath. ‘I am a friend of Begonia Mahfud, and she has recommended you, as my husband and I are interested in adopting a baby. Is it possible to have an early appointment with you?’

  ‘I can see you a week on Thursday at five-thirty,’ Raoul Goldman said. ‘Will that be you on your own or you and your husband?’

  ‘Don’t you have an earlier appointment?’ Amanda said, plainly disappointed.

  ‘Afraid not. But if something comes up and I have a vacancy, I’ll give you a call.’

  ‘It’s just that my father-in-law is dying and we want him to see his grandson before he goes,’ Amanda said, thinking that she sounded like a nutcase or a liar.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Raoul Goldman said, making a note of Amanda’s telephone number.

  As soon as she rang off, Ferdie said, ‘He’ll ring back later today or on Monday with a cancellation. Mark my words. It’s the oldest trick in the book. Keep ‘em hungry and anxious, and they’ll be keener. It’s the guiding motto of all hucksters and hookers. The guy sounds like a real operator.’

  ‘What do we care, so long as he provides us with a healthy baby boy?’

  ‘True,’ Ferdie said.

  Raoul Goldman did not call later that day or the next, or even the day after that. He did not ring on the following Monday or on the Tuesday thereafter. On the Wednesday his secretary telephoned at eight-thirty in the morning to say that a vacancy had arisen for five-forty five that afternoon.

  Amanda jumped at the opportunity, but Ferdie, still distrustful, remarked: ‘What sort of operation does this man run, that he has his secretary working at such an early hour of the morning?’

  Ferdie had the opportunity to find out just what sort of operation Raoul Goldman ran later that afternoon when he stepped out from beneath the canopied awning of the Waldorf Towers into the black Lincoln Continental limousine that he invariably hired whenever he was in New York. Within ten minutes, the driver had pulled up at Raoul Goldman’s office on nearby 44th and Broadway and leaped out, opening the door to a tight-lipped Amanda and a less visibly nervous - indeed, almost pugnaciously curious - Ferdie.

  The lobby of the building was functional rather than elegant, as was the waiting room in Goldman’s office on the twelfth floor. Whatever the lawyer did with the money he made, Ferdie decided, he certainly wasn’t spending it on lavish offices: that was for sure. Even the receptionist seemed drab and mousy in a world where the beauty and charm of receptionists were often yardsticks by which companies and men of the world indicated the measure of their success to the incoming visitor.

  No sooner did Ferdie and Amanda announce themselves to the mouse than she pointed to two plastic chairs against the wall facing her and said in a graceless voice that could have come straight out of a Jimmy Cagney gangster movie: ‘Have a seat. Mr Goldman will see you in a few minutes, but first you need to fill out these forms.’ With that, she shoved two eightpage documents towards them.

  While the mouse was running furious fingers over the typewriter and fielding telephone calls in a hive of simultaneous activity, Ferdie and Amanda filled out the forms, which covered everything about them from their ethnic origin, through their religion and the state of their marriage, to their annual income.

  ‘I must say, these questions are pretty intrusive, aren’t they?’ Ferdie whispered to Amanda. ‘Don’t answer anything about money.’

  The forms completed, the mouse rose from her swivel seat and, walking round the desk, stuck out her hand for Ferdie and Amanda to hand them over. Without a word, she spun on her heel and took them into her boss’s office. Within seconds, she returned to find Ferdie rummaging through the pile of magazines for something to read. The most tempting seemed to be the new issue of Time magazine, which he began flipping through, impatience crackling in the air with every flick of the page. Amanda, meanwhile, was serenely working her way through a battered August copy of Vogue while smiling at her husband, the mouse noted, every few minutes.

  Eighteen minutes to the second after they had taken their seats, a stylishly dressed woman, whom Amanda recognized as Amaryllis Goudanaris, the third wife of the Greek shipping tycoon Stavros Goudana
ris, stepped out of Raoul Goldman’s office. Swathed though she was in sable, the brightest thing about her was her smile as she bade goodbye to first Mr Goldman and then the mouse. ‘Thank you so much, Miss O’Brien. Have a nice weekend. And God bless you.’

  ‘You too,’ Miss O’Brien said, sounding as if they were old friends.

  Just then the buzzer rang twice, and Miss O’Brien leaned forward and said to Ferdie and Amanda: ‘Mr Goldman will see you now, if you please.’

  With that, Amanda and Ferdie stood up and headed into Raoul Goldman’s office. If such a thing were possible, it was even more dingy and depressing than the reception room, but the baby-man Goldman seemed oblivious to that as he waved them in the direction of two chairs in front of his desk, while he continued the telephone conversation he was having.

  Although Ferdie tried to glean something of what the conversation was about, it was difficult to discern what he was discussing, for his comments were uniformly monosyllabic. After about ninety seconds he rang off then turned his gaze to Ferdie and Amanda and said, in a manner that was so straightforward as to be brusque: ‘So what can I do for you?’

  Amanda blushed. Ferdie, taking an instant liking to the lawyer, said equally to the point: ‘We want a baby boy.’

  ‘I see that you’ve been to Harvey Mickleman and Sir Godfrey Pennington,’ Raoul Goldman said, holding up the forms. ‘Fine doctors, both of them. Decent men too.’

  ‘You know Sir Godfrey?’ Amanda said, unable to erase the trace of surprise from her voice.

  ‘I sure do. He was adopted, you know. Does all he can to assist in placing babies. But you’re not here to talk about that sort of thing. If we can cut to the chase, I take it you want a baby that reflects your own ethnic backgrounds?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ferdie said, his words overlapping with Amanda’s. ‘If that’s at all possible.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘As soon as possible,’ Ferdie said.

  ‘You mean, like tomorrow, if a baby is available?’ Raoul Goldman said.

  ‘Well, maybe not quite tomorrow, but in a few weeks or months.’

  ‘You’ll need to have a Home Study. A Home Study is a social worker’s report that delves into all your circumstances. Your home life. The state of your marriage. The reasons why you want to adopt. A description of the home the child will be placed in. It’s really a social worker’s picture of your life. It’s a way of seeing that you’re suitable. Without it, you can’t adopt.’

  ‘We live in Mexico, though we do have rooms here,’ Ferdie said.

  ‘Rooms?’ Raoul Goldman said with some surprise.

  ‘My husband means, we have an apartment here.’

  ‘Oh. I thought for a second you were renting rooms in a boarding house.’

  Amanda and Ferdie laughed. ‘Our apartment is in the Waldorf Towers,’ Ferdie replied, ‘one floor down from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s.’

  Raoul Goldman laughed too. ‘Those must be some rooms.’

  Looking through the completed forms some more, he said, ‘If you have an apartment in the city, we can process the adoption as if you’re American residents. That will make things easier. Quicker too.’

  ‘You don’t have a baby for us already, do you?’ Amanda said.

  ‘No. But we have the possibility of two at the moment that might be suitable as long as they’re boys. You’re lucky. One of the commonest ethnic combinations is Jewish and British. All those horny teenagers in Westchester and Connecticut… They never seem to learn. We still don’t have abortion on demand in New York, and - judging by the way things are heading - I don’t think we ever will. It’s a tragedy for those teenagers and their parents, but the answer to an adoptive parent’s prayers.’

  ‘You mean two girls are pregnant with babies that might suit us?’ Amanda said hopefully.

  ‘The two babies are a combination of English and Irish and Jewish,’ Raoul Goldman continued. Both sets of parents are teenagers from nice professional families upstate. All nice looking kids. One of the girls is a raving beauty. A dead ringer for the teenage Elizabeth Taylor. The other girl is more the Grace Kelly type. Elizabeth Taylor is due in January, Grace Kelly in February. Interested?’

  Ferdie looked at Amanda, who nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘Sure,’ he said, locking eyes with Amanda.

  ‘Will you still want the baby if it’s a girl?’

  ‘No,’ Ferdie said without referring to Amanda.

  ‘Ferdie,’ Amanda said, her tone an unreadable mixture of several different emotions.

  ‘Just a boy. That’s all we want,’ Ferdie said. ‘A boy,’

  ‘At least for now,’ Amanda said. ‘My husband’s father is dying, you see, and he wants to hold his grandson in his arms before he dies.’

  ‘My father lost all his relations during the Holocaust,’ Ferdie said apologetically, ‘and his one unfulfilled ambition is to have a grandson. He says he doesn’t care about blood. All he wants is someone who can carry the banner of our heritage into another generation.’

  ‘That’s as noble a sentiment as I’ve ever heard,’ Raoul Goldman said.

  ‘You know, Mr and Mrs Piedraplata, we hear many different reasons for why people want to have children. Most of them are good. Many are touching. But I’ve never heard anyone describe the desire for a child in quite those terms. Your father must be quite a man.’

  ‘He is,’ Ferdie said quietly.

  ‘I’ll do what I can, but you must have your Home Study ready, and you must be approved by one of the adoption agencies on our approved list before we can turn a baby over to you. I don’t mean to sound discourteous, but we have to protect the babies as much as the prospective parents, so we have to satisfy ourselves that those little mites are going to people who will take good care of them.’

  Raoul Goldman rose from his desk for the first time since Ferdie and Amanda had entered his office. ‘Marie will give you the details of the social worker and the agency on your way out.’

  ‘Is that all there is?’ Amanda said, rising to her feet.

  ‘It’s simple, but it’s also difficult,’ Raoul Goldman said. ‘I always warn my parents: birth is arduous. It doesn’t come without pain. Adoption is another form of birth. Prepare yourself for the unexpected, for the unexpected is what will happen.’

  Raoul Goldman was wrong. The entry into the world of the baby who would become Manuel Piedraplata Junior was smooth for both his birth mother and his adoptive parents. He was born at the Windlesham, a private hospital on East 54th Street between Third and Lexington Avenues, on the Friday January 14 1966 at nine forty-six in the morning. As soon as the baby, who weighed eight pounds four ounces, was born, he was whisked to an adjoining room, where he was cleaned up and put in the nursery. His birth mother was not even given the opportunity to hold him.

  Raoul Goldman was having breakfast at his apartment on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn with his wife and their two daughters when he received the telephone call to say that the baby had arrived and that he was healthy. He thanked the obstetrician for the call, went back to the table to finish his breakfast then called Ferdie and Amanda at the Waldorf Towers. Ferdie answered.

  ‘You have a son. Eight pounds four ounces. Black hair. Possibly light eyes, though they’re all born with light eyes, so he might end up with brown eyes. He’s a little beauty, the doctor tells me.’

  ‘When can we see him?’

  ‘You can pick him up tomorrow, if you want,’ Raoul Goldman said, telling him where the baby was. ‘At about two-thirty.’

  The following afternoon, a nervous Ferdie and Amanda showed up on the Nursery Floor of the Windlesham Hospital to be handed a tiny sleeping bundle swaddled in white and swamped by a shock of long black hair. ‘He looks like you,’ Amanda said to Ferdie as the nursing sister handed the baby to her. ‘I don’t believe it. He has your hair, your mouth and your chin.’ Amanda felt her heart leap.

  ‘Here, let me,’ Ferdie said, extending his arms for the baby. The sister looked vaguely
disapproving but nevertheless placed the baby in his arms.

  ‘Hiya, son,’ he said, his face awash with delight. ‘How’s my little champ? What a cute little guy you are. Come on, give your Papa a smile.’

  ‘He’s a bit young for that, Ferdie,’ Amanda laughed. ‘Babies don’t smile for the first few months.’

  The sister’s response was to hand Amanda two sheets of paper, densely typewritten. ‘This is his recommended feeding schedule. Please follow it carefully.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Amanda said, refraining from mentioning that she and Ferdie had already hired a maternity nurse. She took the papers and put them away in her handbag, while Ferdie paced up and down with the baby, talking to him as if this were his closest companion.

  From that moment onwards, Manolito - as the baby would thereafter be called within the family - became more Ferdie’s son than Amanda’s. It was Ferdie, already totally besotted with his son, who took little Manolito in his arms to the car, and it was Ferdie who cooed over him all the way uptown to the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, where Manny had been taken theWednesday before when he started passing blood. When they reached the hospital it was Ferdie who stepped out of the car with the baby in his arms, and when they reached his father’s room it was Ferdie who handed him the baby with the words: ‘We brought you your grandson, Papa.’

  Manny, his last wish granted, cradled the baby in his arms, wiping away a tear with the back of his hand. ‘You’ve made my life complete,’ he said, looking from father to son. Six weeks later Manuel Piedraplata, formerly Emanuel Silverstein, was dead.

  Chapter Seven

  Bianca had not intended the affair to take the course it had, nor had she intended it to last as long as it did. Her aim had been pure and simple: to bind herself more closely to the Piedraplatas. With that objective in mind, she had pursued every avenue open to her. First, she had tried befriending Begonia. That had worked for about three weeks, but by the fourth week, Begonia began making excuses for why she could not come for coffee or for a swim or for tennis. By the eighth week, Begonia would take and return only one in five of her telephone calls, and by the tenth week, when she dropped in unexpectedly to see Begonia, Bianca suspected that the other woman was lurking in her bedroom and was not out, as the maid had claimed.