Читать книгу Woman in Battle Dress - Antonio Benítez-Rojo - Страница 11

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THERE WAS ONCE A SWEET and lost time when the days passed so slowly that each one seemed to contain all four of the seasons. Now that old age has abbreviated my sleep and I tend to awake before dawn, when the street looks like a long black cat stretched out beneath my window, it is not unusual for me to attempt to conjure up the contours of one of those days. At times I try to reproduce the landscape of some extraordinary event, imagining it on a grand scale in which I appear inlaid like a blade of grass. At others, I trace the details of a beloved face, a beloved body—lately they’ve been Robert’s—in order to place them, first still, then in motion, within one of the intimate scenes guarded in my memory: the first waltz at a gala ball, a furtive caress in a box seat at the opera, or simply Robert and me, stretched out on one of his precious animal skins, drinking wine by the fire and talking about nothing in particular. I can spend hours bewitched by these tender reveries, until, still wrapped up in my daydream, I hear the Irish servant boy leaving the breakfast tray and the New York Herald outside my door. Soon after, Milly, my dedicated secretary and traveling companion, appears, with a steaming cup of tea, a slice of rye bread, and an ounce of light rum, forcing me to leave behind that splendid autumn in Vienna, 1805, full of golden leaves and military triumphs, or the sudden kiss that caused us to slip upon the icy cobblestones of a street in Warsaw, leaving us splayed on the ground next to a spur-stone, laughing like idiots until the cold against our backsides obliged us to rise, only to slip all over again. Today, this very morning, I saw him once more on the staircase of our lodging-house in Berlin, his new leopard skin slung over his shoulder, mounting the stairs with his back hunched and his head lowered as though bearing the weight of an actual flesh-and-blood animal, all just to make me laugh, to set the jubilant and celebratory tone occasioned by his promotion to captain. Once again I heard him say, between bites of sausage and swallows of schnapps, that after the next battle Lannes would have to give him a tiger skin, and, who knew, maybe a lion’s or even an elephant’s, and then we’d made love again, taking our time, my tongue traversing the trail of scars that mapped his body, taking in the inexplicable smell of his skin, like moss and fresh bread.

Are these silly vignettes just an old lady’s attempt at solace? Perhaps. But it would be so much worse to await the gray light of dawn counting sheep or the days I might yet have left on this earth. What’s more, how could I write about my life without first reconstructing it, using the dubious glue of memory to piece together the innumerable fragments of my past, scattered like the pieces of a Chinese vase thrown from a bell tower to the street below? In any case, at my age one no longer worries about seeming ridiculous, especially not here in New York where I have come to seek the clamor and tumult found only in the world’s greatest cities. Nowhere else but here, surrounded by masses of immigrants, by energy and hunger, trains, exotic music and violence, could I have rediscovered my youth, a youth spent on the battlefields of Europe. No other city on Earth is so like that which was Napoleon’s Grande Armée, army of armies, legion of nations. It was just a few weeks ago that, riding in a coach through squalid neighborhoods and outdoor kitchens, I smelled the stench of injured flesh mingled with the scent of borscht, and it was as though I were right back in the field hospitals in Dvina, Dnieper, Niemen. . . . This city fits me like a ring on a finger. I knew it from the very first day. It’s here—where one must live in the moment, run always at a gallop, and both love and hate with a soldier’s passion—that I will speak of the horrors wrought by war: blackened rubble, vast, anonymous graves, widows and orphans, cripples and blind men, but also mutilations of the soul. And yet, like certain parts of this roiling city, life on the battlefront has its beautiful side, its own poetry. At times it can be a joyous retreat where the hours stretch out like a clean sheet and one may lie down and rest and dream and sing and laugh, forgetting all about the hiss of shrapnel and the clamor of death. It is this small corner of refuge, a place that belonged to Robert and me, that I wish to speak of now.

How is it possible that I can no longer name the waltz that we, strangers just a moment earlier, danced together, beginning to know one another through the measured glide of our feet and the gentle pressure of our gloved fingers? How could I have forgotten the melody that accompanied my growing fascination with that Hussar lieutenant with the face of a Mameluke who, with no more introduction than a brief nod, had taken me by the arm, led me away from the sofa of timid debutants where Uncle Charles had left me, and planted me, rigid and blushing, among the other couples waiting for the music to begin? At this very moment, as I write by the frozen glass of my windowpane, I try yet again to tease the notes of that waltz from my memory. But, as always, I see myself dancing with Robert encased in the most pitiful silence, twirling like a music box ballerina to the one-two-three, one-two-three rhythm, surrounded by dizzying tulles and epaulets, the great ballroom of the Boulogne Prefecture decorated in full military pomp, with tri-color wall hangings, bronze eagles, regimental flags, drums, crossed swords, the vibrant green of the laurel crowns anticipating the glories of the new campaign. And me, fourteen years old, suddenly enraptured, melting at his strange elegance, at that mix of lofty arrogance and animal grace that I had seen only in engravings of classical marble statues.

I can, however, remember the music of Fidelio, the voices ascending upward toward the opera boxes while Robert, standing behind my seat, sank his fingers into my coiffure and caressed the nape of my neck. (And it’s not that I remember the music because the libretto of that particular opera in some way influenced my decision to pass as a man. The time when, imitating the brave Leonore, I would dress as a young man, was still a long way off. In that Viennese autumn, the rue de Vaugirard, medical school, and the name Enrique Fuenmayor were still far in the future. Back then I was simply Henriette, a girl drunk with love, who gave herself over to be sipped slowly, like a glass of Tokay wine, her sweetness savored until the very last drop had been licked from the rim. If I remember entire passages of that prophetic opera it must be for the same reason that I remember that desolate Russian tune, as monotonous as the steppes, that the Uhlan sergeant with bandaged eyes had hummed while Nadezhda’s hand, tucked inside my cloak, made my nipples swell in a frigid Smolensk hospital. But why I am thinking of Nadezhda here?) Leaving aside the matter of the irretrievable waltz, I have certainly not forgotten the events leading up to that night; events that had to occur in their proper order, like the stages of a long journey, so that I could arrive at last in Robert’s arms.

First was the interminable luncheon at which Doctor Larrey had set out to enlist Uncle Charles and some of his colleagues into service with the Imperial Guard. Seated across from Aunt Margot—as out of town guests, and relatives of Uncle Charles’, we had been invited to join the table—I watched with alarm as she devoured, with the dexterity of a sword-swallower, a steaming bowl of bouillabaisse, half a capon, an enormous plate of stewed wild boar, a salad and a raspberry tart. At five o’clock in the evening, while I was trying to decide which of my soirée gowns to wear, Uncle Charles appeared at my room at the guesthouse, his arms held open in a gesture of helplessness, to inform me that we would not be attending the ball after all because Aunt Margot was ill. Uncle Charles seemed quite concerned, which was unusual for him.

“It’s probably just indigestion, but she is complaining of a sharp pain high in her stomach, and I’ve decided to bleed her. She’s a bit warm and looks rather flushed to me.”

“I could help,” I offered, alarmed. But Uncle Charles flatly refused, taking it for granted that the sight of so much blood would upset me. He would make do with Françoise or one of the servants from the guesthouse, someone who could hold the basin for him. He told me there was no cause for alarm since the Cavents almost always died of heart maladies. He was merely taking precautions. He would keep me informed.

A short while later, when my tears had begun to dry—tears shed, in all sincerity, for Aunt Margot, but also from the disappointment of missing what was to be my first gala ball—Uncle Charles returned, quite content.

“My sister is feeling much better. She refused to let me bleed her. The indigestion has taken its proper course and the pain has vanished. I’m certain it was only gas. I did warn her. She shouldn’t eat so much. One of these days she’s going to give us a real scare.” Françoise, Aunt Margot’s maidservant, poked her red head through the half-opened door.

“Henriette, your Aunt wishes to see you. And you as well, Doctor Cavent.”

Much to my surprise, Aunt Margot was out of bed, holding a candle up to peer at her tongue in the mirror of the armoire. Upon seeing us enter, she straightened her ample dressing gown and turned around.

“My tongue doesn’t look nearly as bad as you said,” she said to Uncle Charles. “Doctors always exaggerate. Just imagine, he wanted to bleed me!”

“You should be in bed.”

“I feel perfectly fine. Nothing hurts anymore. And anyway, I’ve moved my bowels again. You may see for yourself, if you wish,” she said, waving her arm vaguely in the direction of the folding screen that obscured one corner of the room. “Well, Henriette, don’t just stand there like a statue. It’s getting late, my dear. Don’t you think it’s high time you got dressed for the ball? If you arrive too late there’ll be no one left to ask you to dance. As it is, you’re quite tall for your age, which intimidates the young officers. And you, Uncle Charles, you should be quite finished inspecting the fruits of my intestines. Follow Henriette out, and go change your uniform. You’ve got a sauce stain on your sleeve. Or is it shit?” she said, laughing. “You should take a cue from Doctor Larrey, who is always dressed to the nines.”

“So . . . you’re really feeling all better?” I asked her, taking the candle so that Françoise could help her into bed.

“We should stay, Margot,” said Uncle Charles. “We’ll have dinner together here in your room. That way at least I can be sure that you only have a bit of broth.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite, Charles. You’re dying to capture some pretty little heart before marching off to war with that Emperor of yours. I’ve already told you, I feel perfectly fine. And anyway, I have Françoise, who fusses over me as though I were made of whipped cream. She’s reading me my favorite novel. Oh, what a rascal, that Valmont! Ah, those were the days!” she sighed. “Enough! To the dance! It’s getting late.”

And so the night had begun. While Uncle Charles went to the hospital to put on his dress uniform, I kissed Aunt Margot goodbye and went to my room to get dressed. In a flurry, I threw open the armoire door and pulled out the first gown that I saw. I did my hair the best I could, powdered my nose, dashed on a few drops of perfume, covered my shoulders with a shawl, put my fan in my purse and went downstairs to wait for Uncle Charles. I had no inkling that, with the same ease with which a child paints a square, a door, two windows and a smoking chimney, my life was about to open up into a new space, into that place of refuge that I would share with Robert.

By the second waltz I had already sunk irremediably into those Levantine eyes. I was astonished that he stayed by my side, that he hadn’t returned me to the green silk sofa where he’d found me. Drenched in sweat, we took turns fanning ourselves, waiting for the military band to start up again and give us an excuse to draw our bodies near once more. Two or three times I glanced about for Uncle Charles, but, grateful for his promotion to Surgeon General, he had reserved his full attention for Doctor Larrey. I was soon holding my second glass of champagne. Then, Robert grazed my lips with the back of his hand and I lost count. Three? Four? Then he said the name of a certain Madame Polidor, recently arrived from Saint-Domingue, and I found myself looking at a fascinating woman with a languid smile and bronzed shoulders. I noted that she spoke familiarly with Robert and it occurred to me that perhaps she had once been his lover, although she was quite a bit older than him. After complaining of the heat and asking us if we weren’t tired of dancing, she invited us to her house to listen to gypsy music.

“I came with my Uncle, Doctor Cavent. We should be leaving soon,” I said quickly, determined not to shirk my duties as a niece.

But everything happened in such an effortless way that, a short while later, while the musicians played an old-fashioned minuet and Robert was leading me to a chair, it was Uncle Charles himself who, arm in arm with Madame Polidor, said that it was only ten o’clock and we should accept the invitation and enjoy some gypsy songs and violin music, of which he was quite fond.

“In that case, it would be best if Robert went with you,” she said, looking at me with amusement. “My house is not easy to find at night. I am so pleased that you’ll come. I’ve invited only a small group,” she added, and, raising her hand to her temple, she turned toward my uncle. “Please forgive my rudeness, Doctor Cavent. The atrocities I witnessed in Saint-Domingue have left me with no manners whatsoever. Allow me to introduce Lieutenant Robert Renaud, a good friend to whom I owe a great deal. Among other things, he has helped me organize my modest salon.”

“Charles-Henri Cavent, Surgeon General with the Imperial Guard, at your service,” said my uncle. “Do you serve with Field Marshall Lannes, by any chance?”

“Yes, in the 9th Hussar regiment, stationed at Etaples. I am in Boulogne as an official adjunct to the General Staff.”

“Ah, I do believe I’ve heard tell of you,” said Uncle Charles, winking one of his sparkling blue eyes. “Yes. Very good, very good. We’ll give a sound drubbing to the Austrian. We’ll take Vienna, you’ll see. I’d be delighted if you’d accompany us this evening.”

Suddenly I knew that I was set on a new course. All the old things were already behind me: the little town of Foix with its three towers, Aunt Margot’s château on the banks of the Ariège, the works of La Fontaine and Madame de La Fayette, games with the gardener’s daughters, village festivals, embroidery, picnics in the forest glade where I would talk to the fairies, happy trips with Aunt Margot to Toulouse and Carcassonne, studying the classics, piano and geography, taking riding lessons. . . . Upon climbing into the coach, dizzy from the wine, I had the distinct impression that all of that was becoming a distant memory, turning rapidly into the remote past as if a magic wind had transported me to the other side of the earth. Now, all that was left to do was follow the adventure wherever it might lead me.

Madame Polidor’s house was outside the rampart wall, adjacent to a road lined with artillery batteries and field tents that curved along the coast. I don’t know why I had imagined that it would be a castle. It turned out to be a partially ruined tower, no longer of any military use (as Uncle Charles observed), surrounded by piles of rubble. Since the coaches could not make it to the door, it was necessary to walk in the dark among bivouacking soldiers and enormous cannons pointed out to sea. My disenchantment only grew upon seeing the guests’ lack of decorum; some were singing, while others laughed and shouted to one another in greeting. I felt like a fish out of water. I asked myself what I, so timid and quiet, was doing there among such freewheeling sorts. Robert walked in silence. He held me by the arm in an impersonal way, as though still testing his will to seduce me. Suddenly, an insistent, feminine voice called out to him. It came from someone who had been walking behind us. I held my breath. I feared he would leave my side. But he didn’t even turn around and, taking advantage of the fact that Uncle Charles had moved a few steps ahead of us, I showed my gratitude for his gesture by resting my head, briefly, on his shoulder. The poor impression I’d formed of the place disappeared the moment I entered the tower. Now, at this very minute, lost in nostalgia as I recall the exotic look of Madame Polidor’s sitting-room, I suspect that it is the very same room that, years ago, used to appear over and over in my dreams: the bare stone walls, the huge silver candelabra on the mantelpiece, the thick beams supporting the ceiling and, of course, Robert. The only difference was that, in my recurrent dream, there was an enormous bed (a memory, perhaps, from my childhood in Lausanne, when my parents were still alive?) and possibly a mirror. In any case, in my dream there hadn’t been the Egyptian rug or the heaps of red and black pillows that, piled up here and there, served as chairs, and even as divans for the guests; or the small tables, scarcely a hand’s length high, upon which accumulated bottles of wine, glasses and, here and there, a candlestick; or the white silk wall hangings, painted with strange hieroglyphs that contrasted with the worn and blackened stone walls; or the massive trunk upon which rested a Spanish guitar and church censer, burning an aromatic resin. Above all, in my dream, there was no Claudette, the girl with honey-colored skin, dressed as a Turk, who, as soon as we entered, whispered her name and began collecting the furs, shakos, and twenty-franc pieces—the obligatory donation for the gypsies—that the gentlemen held out to her. (I have just remembered that in my dream I was always wearing her Moorish slippers.) Then we arranged ourselves in easy groups of two and three around the tables. There were, perhaps, a dozen of us, fifteen at the most, including Madame Polidor and the enchanting Claudette.

Seated between Uncle Charles and Robert, who began politely filling our glasses, I discovered that I had been mistaken in my impression that the guests were people of low social standing. Sprawled comfortably upon the cushions were five women, all of them covered in jewels and dressed in that summer’s latest fashion, styles inspired by the Empress herself. The rest of the guests were officers, mostly Hussars. Their uniforms, with their great furs, were the only ones I knew how to identify. Madame Polidor reclined in Romanesque fashion, supporting herself on one elbow, her head resting in the palm of her hand. I decided that her irresistible beauty resided in the shape of her lips, voluptuously full, and ever so slightly down-turned at the corners, suggesting just a hint of weariness. (Oh, Maryse, my dear Maryse! Though it’s true that, back then, you were still Madame Polidor to me, in remembering you now, in detailing your mouth, I find it difficult to relegate you to a minor character in the scene, nothing more than an extra in this comic opera that I’m composing, and yet, this is how it must be until your moment arrives and you step onto center stage. We shall proceed then, for the time being, with the name Madame Polidor.) Next to her was a man with a gray mustache and a patrician air about him who, upon entering the tower, had exchanged greetings with my uncle. “Colonel Marnot, a friend from the Egyptian campaign. Were he not serving with the Guard he’d be a General by now,” Uncle Charles had whispered to me. And suddenly, from above and to my right came the sound of violins and tambourines.

I had seen gypsies in Toulouse, but those had been Spanish gypsies who had crossed the Pyrenees with the Saltimbanques from Aragon and Catalonia. These, now making their way downstairs, were dressed completely differently, especially the men, who wore long hair, wide shirts, leather doublets and colorful scarves tied around their necks. Since I hadn’t noticed a staircase behind the wall hangings, their sudden arrival surprised me so much that, for a while, I didn’t even notice the music they were playing. “I’ll wager they’re Transylvanian airs,” said my uncle, revealing himself somewhat a connoisseur of those plaintive ballads, a bit too slow for my taste, that melded with the dusky light of the room, evoking a remote and inconsolable sadness.

“Are you familiar with the history of the gypsies, monsieur?” I asked Robert brightly.

“Not with their history, no. But I do know about their lives. Much of what we understand today about horses, their dispositions, quirks, illnesses, good and bad crossbreedings, we learned from them,” he said in a didactic tone, smiling.

“I assume, then, that there are gypsies among the Hussars,” I said, naively.

“Heaven forbid! Gypsies are thieves. Although one must admit that they are also good musicians and coppersmiths.”

“The Hussars are elite troops,” Uncle Charles put in, raising his glass to Robert and offering a toast to his health.

While I was formulating an apology, Uncle Charles looked at his watch, stood up a tad unsteadily, and told me it was time to go. “’Tis a pity, but it’s past midnight already,” he added, shrugging his shoulders in his customary gesture of resignation. And destiny is a tricky thing, for had Madame Polidor not appeared at that very moment and insisted that we stay because the best of the music was yet to come, my relationship with Robert would never had been more than a mere flirtation, at most, one of those fleeting war-time romances fueled by letters filled with plagiarized verses and covered with little drawings of hearts and bordered in flowers, tepid epistolary idylls whose tender words of endearment, burdened by repetition, culminate only in boredom. It did not take much to convince Uncle Charles, who sank back into the cushions, accompanied, this time, by Madame Polidor. “We’ll leave in fifteen minutes. All right with you?” he whispered, turning toward me. And what was I to say? I responded with silence.

Meanwhile, Robert, who had stopped wooing me ever since we left the dance, decided to renew his advance, and I, terrified and unsure what to do, felt his left hand slip between the cushion and my dress. I was about to push him away, but my resolve faltered: the waltzes, the champagne, his eyes, his imperiousness, and yes, his well-rehearsed lines: “Henriette, what does it feel like to be a perfect being, to have everything: beauty, grace, youth, wit? Tell me, what does it feel like to fly above it all, up there with the angels?” Such words, though they seem completely ridiculous to me today, transported me to the heavens that night.

Our hostess had not lied when she’d said that the musical evening had not yet reached its finest moment. Firmly anchored in place by Robert’s hand, which had felt its way to my clothed privates, I joined the others in applauding the raucous gypsy woman who, accompanied by an allegro moment of a tune in a major key, had descended the stairs in a flurry of twirling skirts and bare feet. My eyes hooded with pleasure—no hand other than my own had ever touched me in that way—I allowed myself to be swept away by the woman’s deep, husky voice, to be transported by her hands on her hips and her brazen expression that, a mere hour earlier, would have caused me to blush. As I followed her unabashed movements with my eyes, my gaze met with Colonel Marnot’s. His eyes appeared to burn with indignation, with a deep reproach. Though Robert had allowed his fur to slide down his arm, half-hiding it from view, I knew that the Colonel had discovered our secret game, and my pleasure disappeared instantaneously. Blushing and trembling with shame, I stood up so abruptly that the woman interrupted her song. Everything seemed to be spinning: the wall hangings, my shadow, the gypsies; it all wheeled about me, as though I were dancing a frenetic waltz. I closed my eyes. I felt my legs go weak and I let myself go.

I was scarcely aware that it was Robert who carried me back to the coach. When I came to, we were entering the city again, and Uncle Charles was waving a bottle of ammonia from his medicine kit under my nose.

“You must have had too much to drink,” he affirmed, after taking my pulse. “Don’t worry, I won’t say a word to your Aunt. As far as I’m concerned, you only drank one glass of wine.”

When we arrived at the guesthouse, we saw immediately that something was wrong: Françoise met us with a long wail and ran toward us, her head in her hands. It seemed that Aunt Margot was having chest pain and could scarcely speak. She had sent Françoise for a priest.

We ran to her room. Uncle Charles bled her immediately, assisted by Pierre, the postilion. While the basin filled with blood, I knelt next to her bed and took her hand. I could see that she was suffocating and I tried to cool her with my fan. But nothing seemed to help. Her strong constitution allowed her to hold out until Françoise returned with the priest. As soon as she had received the Last Rights she fell into a sweat-soaked trance. At dawn, her irregular breathing ceased completely.