Slippers and stockings were also required. Her father watched her try them on. He told Magda and Anusia to leave, and he had her get completely naked. This time he didn’t touch her. He simply watched, and told her to lie down on her stomach and then on her back. She did whatever he wanted. He appraised her with a critical eye, but said nothing. Anusia cut Eva’s toenails and rubbed her feet with oil. Then, according to the Turkish custom, she bathed in scented water, and both her friends rubbed her body with coffee grounds and honey so that her skin would be smoother.
Along with the emperor and his mother, Eva toured the Zeughaus and the gardens. She walked with the emperor when the others stayed behind. She felt dozens of pairs of eyes on her back, as if she were carrying some weight, but when the emperor touched her hand—as if by accident—that weight fell from her shoulders. She had known that this would happen—she just hadn’t been certain of when. It was good to know that this was what it was about. Nothing more.
It happened after a humorous play they all watched from the terrace of the Sch?nbrunn Palace. She can’t remember the comedy’s contents; she didn’t really understand it, in that strange German. But the play had amused the emperor; he was in a good mood. He touched her hand several times. That same evening a lady-in-waiting came for her, Mrs. Stam, or something like that, and told her to put on her best undergarments.
A worried Anusia Paw?owska said, packing up her things:
“How fortunate your period is over.”
She bridled at this, but it was true: it was fortunate that her period was over.
Of the high life
With the help of J?drzej Dembowski, Jacob Frank rented an apartment on the Graben for the season. At the same time, he sent Mateusz Matuszewski to Warsaw for money, with a letter to all the true believers there, the entire machna, in which he informed them that he was in negotiations with the emperor. Mateusz was tasked with telling them everything in order, describing every detail of Brünn and their new court, as well as Eva’s expeditions to see the emperor and Jacob’s being on such familiar terms with him.
The letter read as follows:
Notice that before I entered Poland, all the nobles were just sitting there, minding their business, and the king with them, and yet as soon as I went into Cz?stochowa, I had a vision that Poland would become divided. It is the same now, too—can you all possibly know what is happening between the kings and emperors, and what they’ve been deciding amongst themselves? But I know it! You see yourselves that it has been almost thirty years now that I am with you, and yet none of you knows where I’m going. Where I am headed. You all thought all was lost when I was imprisoned in the Cz?stochowa fortress in those close quarters, sentenced to life. But God chose me, as I am a simpleton and do not chase after honor. If you had stood firmly behind me, if you had not abandoned me back then in Warsaw—where would we be now?
Mateusz comes back in three weeks with money. They have raised more than the Lord requested, thanks to news of an ancient manuscript discovered in Moravia, in which it was written in black and white that during its final days, the Holy Roman Empire would pass into the hands of some foreign person. And apparently it was stated, too, that it would be a person in Turkish attire, but without a turban on his head, wearing instead a high red hat embroidered with a slender lamb, and that he would overthrow the emperor.
They needed to buy so many new things.
First, a coffee service of Meissen porcelain, decorated with little gold leaves, with little pictures of pastoral scenes painted with the tiniest of brushes, similar to the one Eva saw in Prossnitz. Now she will have her own porcelain, even more distinguished than that.
In addition, accessories for bathing, which must be purchased from the most fashionable merchant. Special costumes, towels, folding chairs, cover-ups lined with soft fine linen. When Jacob Frank and Micha? Wo?owski go to bathe in the Danube, they are accompanied by a crowd of Viennese onlookers, and since Jacob swims well, he shows off his vigor in the water like a young man. The townswomen squeak with excitement over this man who is not young, after all, but still so handsome. Some throw flowers into the water. Jacob is always in a good mood until evening after bathing.
Eva’s horse, with its slender gambrels, must also be paid for and brought in from England. It is completely white; in the sun it gleams silverish. Yet Eva is afraid of it, as the horse balks at the clattering carriages, at glimmers of light, at little dogs, and rears up. It costs a fortune.
They also have immediate need of four dozen pairs of satin slippers. They fray if you walk down the street in them for any length of time, which means they are good for exactly one promenade, after which Evunia gives them to Anusia, since Magda’s feet are overly large.
In addition, sugar bowls and porcelain plates. Silver cutlery and platters. Eva considers gold to be too ostentatious. They need a new and improved cook, and a woman to help her. They could also use two more girls to clean—that costs less than the dishes and the silverware, but it still costs quite a bit. Following the death of the little Polish dog Rutka, Eva consoles herself by ordering two greyhounds, also from England.
“What if I were to scratch you and remove what’s on the surface—what would I find underneath?” asks Joseph, by the grace of God the Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Galicia, and Lodomeria; Duke of Brabant, Limburg, Lothier, Luxembourg, and Milan, Count of Flanders, etc.
“What do you think?” answers Eva. “You’ll find Eva.”
“And who is she, this Eva?”
“Your Majesty’s humble servant. A Catholic woman.”
“And what else?”
“Daughter of Joseph Jacob and Josepha Scholastica.”
“And what language did they speak with you at home when you were growing up?”
“Turkish and Polish.”
Eva doesn’t know whether this is the right answer.
“And the language the Jews speak, does Miss Eva know that, too?”
“A little.”
“And how did your mother speak to you?”
Eva doesn’t know what to say. Her lover helps her:
“Say something in that language, please.”
Eva ponders.
“Con esto gif, se vide claro befor essi.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your Majesty must not ask so many questions. I barely remember all that now,” Eva lies.
“You are lying, Miss Eva.”
Eva laughs and turns over on her stomach.
“Is it true your father is a great Kabbalist?”
“It is true. He is a great man.”
“That he can turn lead into gold, and that’s how he has all his money?” her lover teases.
“Perhaps.”
“And you, too, Miss Eva, must be a great Kabbalist. Look at what you do to me.”
The emperor indicates his rising member.