It was 13 years later before I would visit Thailand again. Chakrabongse House remained much as I remembered it though Narisa’s vital personality had imposed itself and made the rooms less formal, introducing delightful alterations in the previously rather austere bedrooms. A curious aspect of my stay which still haunts me was that, although Lisba had died in England, I had never felt so aware of her after her death as I now felt in Thailand. The strange form this awareness took was that, in the way Narisa moved, in the cadence of her voice, I often saw and heard Lisba to the point of almost calling her daughter by her name; and once or twice, hearing Narisa’s young decisive footsteps approach the room where I was, I expected to see my sister enter through the door when she opened it.
A memorable visit was to Vimanmek, ‘Residence in the Clouds’ which has a singular history. Planned by one of King Chulalongkorn’s brothers, Prince Narisarasuwaitiwong, who was also architect of the most superb temple in Bangkok, Wat Benjamabopitr. Vimarnmek, constructed of a rare golden teak, was an enchanting palace of exquisite design, started in 1893 on Koh Si Chang Island in the Gulf of Thailand. But, owing to a blockade by French gunboats in 1894, the building was abandoned, still incomplete, until, in 1901, Chulalongkorn, impressed by its deserted beauty, ordered its removal to the vast gardens of Suan Dusit, another of his many palaces, where it was rebuilt as the main royal residence in a mere seven weeks! Chulalongkorn lived there for six years, delighting in its airy serenity and spacious gardens reflected in four canals to north, south, east and west. But eventually, he moved to another palace just across the park where he died in 1910.
Once more Vimanmek was forsaken and forgotten until, in 1982, Thailand’s present Queen Sirikit, aided by one of her daughters, Princess Sirindhorn, lovingly restored it, arranging with unerring taste the treasures of furniture, paintings, porcelain and sculpture collected not only by Chulalongkorn, but by his royal predecessors. Here, in this magical ambience, Narisa and I wandered for the length of a golden afternoon, so enfolded in a gentle calm that memory returns to it gratefully long afterwards.
On another occasion after I had gone, Narisa was once again at Vimanmek, this time conducted by a female guide who repeatedly and ingratiatingly expressed her amazement at her fluent command of Thai. ‘How is it that you speak our language so well?’ she asked once too often, whereupon Narisa, pointing to a full length portrait of Chakrabongse, replied rather shortly, ‘Because that’s my grandfather!’
One morning we were admitted as a special favour to the Chapel only opened for a royal lying-in-state where, within the golden urn, glimmering with diamonds in the soft effulgent light was the body of Queen Rambai (whom I met more than once with Lisba in 1969) guarded by two officers, motionless and uniformed in white. On an easel her portrait, wreathed in flowers, smiled in the bloom of youth and the calm beauty of the scene seemed to breathe both acceptance of the young woman in the prime of life and the acquiescence in the end.
It was not without difficulty that Narisa arranged for me and Bisdar – who knew it well as a boy – to accompany her to Paruskavan, as it is now a top-security Government Department, and we were therefore prepared to find it greatly changed – and greatly changed it was. The magnificent gardens, so beloved by Katya, had long since disappeared beneath modern administrative buildings and only a solitary waterfall and the strange ugly ‘folly’, built by Chakrabongse, remained. Within, the house has suffered the inevitable neutering of its character by conversion to official use.
The original shallow marble stairs lead not to lofty palatial rooms but to rooms small and cramped in size, filled with office desks, filing cabinets and clacking typewriters. Only the dark teak, carved and fretted fanlights remain from the past, as do a profusion of art-nouveau light fittings, in one of which Narisa noticed a birds nest-lending an informal touch – but which would certainly have been swept away by industrious servants in Chakrabongse and Katya’s day. We found it difficult to identify, even with the help of Bisdar and the faded snapshots taken by Katya almost eighty years ago with such enthusiasm. But we did recognise her sitting-room where she had her piano and where the lamp burned before her icon, and also the window from where, alas, poor Cham fell to her death.
Before we left, saddened in spite of the kindness with which we had been received, we were taken to a large room on the ground floor arranged as a shrine where, before a garlanded statue of Chakrabongse, we knelt and burned josssticks in his memory. The fact that this shrine exists in a high-powered Government department is characteristic of the respect for the past which is a way of life in Thailand, for there is no wish to obliterate the time when Chakrabongse and Katya lived there, but to honour and remember it.
As for me, my mind retreated from reality to recreate Paruskavan as I had long imagined it, when Chakrabongse, Katya and Chula, who ‘loved it more than words can say’ were happy there; before Katya went abroad; before Chavalit, appeared.
The house is full and humming with life. There is bustle in the kitchens. Fountains play and waterfalls splash and sparkle in the gardens brilliant with exotic blooms and flowering shrubs. The slow-paced baby-elephant waits for Katya’s visit with his favourite fruit. The horses stamp and whinny in the stables where perhaps Ramushka is being groomed and the sun has risen, shining on another day, bright with the promise of felicity.
SIMPLIFIED FAMILY TREE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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