Katya & The Prince of Siam

This domineering side of her character may well have come to the fore in her second marriage as, being no longer surrounded by high-ranking royalty in Siam, to whom deference was obligatory, she may have felt that though uncrowned, she was now queen and her word was law. Whether or not this was so, she ruled Hin with an iron rod and, though outwardly her devoted subject, referring to her lightest wish as though it was an ‘ukase’, he was at times driven to subterfuge and evasion by her tyranny. He literally crouched behind her when a scene blew up, which was not infrequent, since Katya had come to believe it her duty to tell the truth as she saw it – regardless of consequences which socially, understandably, were often dire.

Hin always referred to her as ‘mother’, with the rolled American ‘R’, and sometimes was heard to wail despairingly: ‘No one can stop mother doing whatever she likes’. His attitude to their finances was penny-pinching, and he often resorted to petty meanness, as when Chula bought first-class tickets for him and Katya to go on holiday, and he exchanged them for second-class and pocketed the difference. On another occasion, when Katya was given a generous cheque by Chula to buy a brand-new car, Hin adopted similar tactics, bought a car not only second- but third-hand, which became clearly evident when on a first outing, one of the doors fell off.

In 1927 Chula went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where Abhas followed him a year later, Chula reading History and Abhas, Architecture. At Cambridge, Chula made many friends, from time to time coxed the First Trinity Boat, and was elected a member of the Leander Club. He sat for the Historical Tripos Examination, parts one and two, in 1929 and 1930, achieving second-class honours in both. Afterwards he stayed on at Cambridge till 1932 to do research on eighteenth century history.

In 1929 Abhas’s younger brother, Prince Birabongse, who was also Chula’s cousin, entered Eton where Chula and Abhas often visited him, and where they taught him to drive on Chula’s Voisin – Bira proving an apt pupil. Spending his Christmas holiday that year with the Siamese Minister in Paris, the friendship and driving lessons continued, and he and Abhas were often dropping in to see Katya and Hin. Chula indeed came to regard Bira as a younger brother and later on, as is well known, under his management and guidance Bira blossomed into the famous racing driver B. Bira.

 

Prince Chula and his cousin Prince Abhas.

 

To begin with, Katya was well disposed towards Bira and Abhas, but occasionally she could be extremely jealous of her son’s attachment to them, and the flat to which she and Hin had moved in the Rue Parmentier was often the scene of hot dispute and hurt feelings, echoes of which sound in Katya’s lengthy letters: ‘I am used to the idea that you make your life where there is no place for me’, and begging Chula ‘not to come and see me for just a few days, it will only upset me’, and telling him ‘unless you come at least for a fortnight, don’t come at all’.

‘I wish I could write a short letter’, she exclaims on the twelfth page of one of these missives. ‘And I’m too tired to write to you in English or French’. This is touching and reminds one that the set phrases she sometimes employed were due to difficulties in using a foreign tongue.

She was a very knowledgeable cook, and when she prepared food herself it was delicious. She had a large repertoire of dishes, being particularly partial to those she had learned in Siam. ‘I like Siamese food best in the world’ she wrote to Chula. But she also delighted her Russian relatives and friends by making traditional Russian specialities for them at Easter and other festivals. She would, for instance, go to infinite pains at the Russian New Year to prepare dish after Russian dish starting with ‘zakuska’. All day she would labour, supervising whatever servant she employed at that time.

By early evening, the table would be beautifully arranged, the hostess impeccably dressed, her hair freshly set; drinks, including excellent vodka, perfectly presented and well iced, candles lit, all in readiness, and then the murmur of voices, the gradual entry of a large concourse of guests, happy to be invited, delighted with the display of delicacies, all prepared in true Russian style. Greetings, hand-kissing, presentation of flowers in crisp paper cornets, drawn-up chairs, the atmosphere every party-giver hopes for – genial, relaxed, in anticipation of a convivial evening. Often, alas, somehow, someone inadvertently would strike a wrong note and shatter the harmonious ambience, and the hostess, exhausted by her preparations for the feast, would declare the evening at an end.