Katya & The Prince of Siam

To part would be better than torturing each other. Is such a life worth living? If we do divorce I can promise that I won’t embarrass you. Your reputation will not suffer at my hands. You can rest assured on that point. I have my pride. It’s not your fault that you’re bored with me. If you can’t make up your own mind we can go and see Prince Svasti and maybe he can help us come to an understanding if we can no longer work things out between us.

I am staying at the old white house with the maids. The main house makes me feel sad because I decorated it so lovingly and now I feel that I am about to leave it for ever.

I still love you.

From Dusya, whom you don’t understand or don’t wish to understand.’

 

Chakrabongse’s reply no longer exists. The visit of Vanya came and went but nothing could reconcile the feelings of these two strong-willed, determined people. Then in June, to Chula’s astonishment, his mother moved into the so-called Guest House at Paruskavan ‘because she was unwell’. Yet when he saw her there, she was not in bed or attended by their doctor, and he noticed almost unconsciously that she had brought with her none of her favourite ornaments, cushions and photos with which she liked to surround herself, but only her icon, so that her rooms had an oddly temporary air. One day she gave him a beautiful box of Russian crackers, printed with a captivating picture of the little Tsarevitch wearing a fur cap. As she looked at it she suddenly sobbed, ‘Russia is no more!’, and while he felt for her, Chula’s heart lightened as he eagerly seized the chance to think it was the Revolution that distressed her and not anything personal and nearer home.

Rising early a few days later, he was wandering aimlessly in the garden where the paths were being raked and the lawns watered, lending a scent of freshness to the already hot June morning, when he saw his mother’s dog, the German Shepherd L’Or, looking dejected and purposeless. This surprised him as at this time of day, L’Or was usually wherever his mistress was. He turned and followed the dog, who made disconsolately for the Guest House, where they entered his mother’s sitting-room. There, all was neat and orderly and, as he had noted previously, impersonal. The whole place was quiet and he imagined she still slept; something however was missing, he could not at first think what. But as he turned to go it struck him – the icon with its flickering lamp was there no longer.

This indeed was ominous, and followed by the despondent dog, he went slowly back to Paruskavan. Here too, a hush subdued the usual active bustle of the household, and full of foreboding he went in search of his old nurse Chom. He found her in his playroom, not setting things to rights in her customary cheerful fashion, but staring out of the window, her plump cheeks wet with tears. He threw himself into the shelter of her kindly arms, his refuge since early childhood, and very gently she told him that his parents had been divorced and that his mother had left his father, him, and Paruskavan for ever. As he was later to write: ‘I was too dazed to take it in for weeks’.

 

 

Katya and two of her dogs, including the German Shepherd L’Or on the steps of Paruskavan Palace.

 

For the rest of that long wretched day, a day that seemed to prolong itself into eternity, Chakrabongse remained invisible in his study, while his son roamed miserably about the gardens his mother had designed. He visited her little zoo, where he felt even her baby elephant knew that never again would she bring him the ripe bananas to which he was so partial. It was a relief when at last the sun went down, and moving more briskly, he made towards the house, only to be suddenly met by Chom who guided him firmly toward the back of Paruskavan and up to the back stairs, instead of the front, to his room.