Читать книгу Woman in Battle Dress - Antonio Benítez-Rojo - Страница 12
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JUST HALF AN HOUR AGO, while Milly and I were turning the plants toward the light and picking dead leaves from their stems, the memory of Aunt Margot felt so vivid that I was compelled to sit down and write about her, and also about my family.
I must begin by saying that I have almost no memory of my parents. Whenever I try to evoke them, their faces appear blurry and incomplete, like fragments of worn daguerreotypes that someone’s left under my pillow. Mama sitting before a mirror, her back to me, combing her long, copper-colored hair, or a faint smile in her blue eyes as she let me take a sip from her cup of hot chocolate. My father’s vigorous hand, pointing out my first rainbow, or tying, too tightly, the laces on my little white booties. Neither do I remember Lausanne, nor the house in which I was born. Sometimes, in the deepest recesses of my memory and at the end of a long hallway, I think I can see a dog; at others, hanging from an invisible wall, as though floating in the nothingness, a bird in a cage and a cuckoo clock, that, come to think of it, could have been the same thing; perhaps a full-length mirror and a big bed with two giant white pillows, and yes, also my tiny chamber pot. All told, nothing too terribly precious.
My years in Foix passed happily among my Aunt’s conservative ideas and the clandestine revolutionary rumors spread by the servants at the château. Despite my Aunt’s best efforts to educate me in accordance with her values—instruction in piano, voice, dance, sewing, Italian and Spanish, flower arrangement, and etiquette were entrusted to a long-nosed woman named Madame Montiel; grammar, Latin, Greek, mathematics, logic, geography, and didactic lectures were dutifully imparted by abbé Lachouque; riding lessons and fencing were the province of the good Captain Laguerre—my contact with the gardener’s clever daughters, with whom I carried out make-believe decapitations next to a dead tree that we called The Guillotine, Pierre’s Jacobean diatribes that he delivered, undaunted by my curiosity, to the other servants in the kitchen while my Aunt napped, and my intense conversations with Françoise, a secret admirer of Rousseau and of the Philosophes, had marked me with a vague sense of anti-monarchical patriotism that, though I never dared to express it, had grown within me as spontaneously and disorderly as a flowering vine, ideals that I continue to hold to this day with the same lack of political discipline. In any case, my childhood and adolescence belong to Aunt Margot, as does the sum total of my filial love. In truth, I couldn’t have asked for a better mother. And if, at the time of her death, I did not share some of her convictions, I nevertheless owe to her example my only three virtues: perseverance, physical stamina, and the capacity to make decisions in difficult moments. Of all of my belongings, the one I value most is a tiny portrait of her that I wear, to this day, on a chain around my neck. It has been no easy task to keep it all these years. On three separate occasions I have lost the gold chains that it hung upon: the first was in 1812, during the terrible retreat from Moscow to the Niemen; then in Spain, when I fell prisoner in the Battle of Vitoria; and finally, in jail in Santiago de Cuba, when I was stripped of everything of value I’d had with me. I have just opened the stubborn little door of the locket to say hello to Aunt Margot, an Aunt Margot at age nineteen, a newlywed, surprisingly thin, but already wearing her customarily resolute expression, a portrait painted by one of those miniaturists who found fame in the Court of Versailles.
The Cavents, enterprising people from the Languedoc, had sought refuge in Geneva, fleeing religious persecution. There they had prospered as manufacturers of knives and scissors. My maternal grandfather, Antoine-Marie Cavent, had embraced the Roman Catholic faith—a creed loathed in the city—in order to marry the heiress to a great textile empire. From this union were born, in consecutive years, my mother, baptized Suzanne, Aunt Louise, Aunt Margot, and Uncle Charles. Widowed and suffering from an ailing heart, my grandfather ended up bankrupt due to competition from British manufacturers. All that remained of his considerable fortune was the house in which he lived. Since the profitable marriages he had expected for his daughters were no longer possible, he married them off the best he could, to men of various professions: Paul Faber, my father, the owner of a modest printing press in Lausanne; Guillaume Curchet, of Geneva, an employee of a bank owned by the Necker brothers, proved worthy of Aunt Margot, and a certain Brunet, a lawyer in Lausanne, obtained a “yes” from Aunt Louise, the eldest and most beautiful of the three sisters. Each of these marriages was born purely of love, since none of my grandfather’s daughters had any dowry to offer other than a solid conservative education. As for Uncle Charles, my grandfather dissuaded him from following his true inclination toward a military career, convincing him, instead, to go to Paris to study medicine.
With his daughters’ domestic situations arranged, my grandfather sold his house, complete with all of the furniture inside it. The following day he went to see his son-in-law, Curchet, in his office at the bank, and deposited all of the money in an account to be managed by Curchet himself. From that sum, Uncle Charles was to receive a modest allowance for thirty-six months, provided that he continue with his medical studies; the remainder would go toward a dowry for the first marriageable granddaughter, or, in the case that there were no granddaughters, it would be given to the first grandson when he came of age. After making these farsighted provisions, he went to the best hotel in Geneva, ordered a Pantagruelian dinner, and died that same night, in his sleep, from his second heart attack.
A few weeks later, Curchet and Aunt Margot’s social life took an unexpected turn. Upon being named Finance Minister in France, Jacques Necker asked his brother Louis to send him two or three trusted employees from his bank in Geneva, requesting Curchet in particular, as he was his wife’s cousin. From one day to the next, the young couple found themselves living in a house in Paris. Owing to Curchet’s loyalty and intelligence, very soon they were living a life of ease. From then on, Curchet’s destiny would advance in tandem with Necker’s, whose turbulent career in politics and finance is well known. In any case, following his protector’s second term as Finance Minister, whose unpopular dismissal sparked the storming of the Bastille, Curchet withdrew from public life and consolidated all of the wealth he had amassed though his lucrative speculations. He intended to return to Geneva, but Aunt Margot, fearing political excesses, categorically refused. Geneva was nearly as tumultuous as Paris, and she was of the opinion that it was not conducive to a comfortable, carefree life. Her ancestral instinct drew her to the Languedoc. They settled first in Toulouse, but, during an excursion to Ariège, Aunt Margot was captivated by an old château that was for sale on the outskirts of Foix, on the banks of the river. Curchet, who indulged her in everything, bought it for her without a second thought, heedless of the cost. Further, in the following years, he dedicated himself to renovating it and beautifying the gardens. He also acquired three neighboring farms and two vineyards, joining them to the estate. (It would become our habit to call the château and estate “Foix,” although the actual village was downstream and, except for its proximity, had nothing whatsoever to do with the property.) Meanwhile, Uncle Charles, having graduated from medical school, joined the cause of the Republic, inspired by his friend Larrey, whom he had met at the School of Anatomy at the University. After the medical schools, considered “institutions of privilege,” had been shut down, Uncle Charles served for a few months as a surgeon in the Hôtel Dieu. His military vocation revived by the war, he joined the Army of the Rhine, distinguishing himself in the Battle of Wissembourg, in which he was wounded in one arm. He went on to pursue a distinguished career as a military surgeon—almost always alongside Larrey—that would take him to Spain, Italy, and Egypt.
Aunt Margot was not pleased with Uncle Charles’ political conversion, although she did approve of his defending France’s borders. While she had always detested the Jacobins, whom she called “those regicidal charlatans,” she was obstinately disdainful of the non-Latin world, and of England and Austria in particular. To her way of thinking, Marie Antoinette, of whom she held a very poor opinion, was to blame for the blood-drenched anarchy that had befallen France. She never would become accustomed to being called citoyenne, nor to the new names for the calendar months that the National Convention had adopted. Had she lived long enough, it’s possible that she would have come to tolerate—though certainly not to support—Napoleon’s government after his reconciliation with the Church and the victory at Austerlitz.
As Aunt Margot told it, no serious disagreements ever arose between her and her husband. With all hope lost for a parliamentary monarchy, which Curchet considered the only viable solution for France, he disengaged from politics and dedicated himself to protecting his lands from local threats, which ranged from outright confiscation to the reduction of his property lines. The fortunate fact that he had never defended the monarchists, his generous donations of grain “for the people’s bread,” as well as his flexible attitude and the tricolor cockade he wore everyday in his hat, were sufficient to hold the community counsel members’ radicalism in check. Around the time of Robespierre and Saint-Just’s executions, his health began to decline. The southern climate never had agreed with him, and, as Aunt Margot told it, “the poor man never stopped coughing.” It was then that my Aunt received a devastating letter from her sister Louise: my parents had died, burned to death in the fire that had consumed our house in Lausanne, and her husband was opposed to me—a nearly silent girl, with an ugly burn on my left foot—living with them any longer. Aunt Margot, infuriated by Brunet’s insensitivity and by Aunt Louise’s weakness, arranged to travel to Lausanne immediately. Thinking that perhaps his lungs would benefit from some time in a cooler climate, she assented to Curchet’s wish to accompany her on the trip.
Many times I heard Aunt Margot recount the details of that calamitous journey across France, full of mired coach-wheels, broken axles, and bolting horses. Worse still, she and Curchet, suspected of being aristocrats on the run, had very nearly been thrown in jail on two separate occasions. Unfortunately, the privations of the journey would prove fatal for Curchet. Upon their arrival in Lausanne, the dear man began coughing up blood, and died in the hospital a few days later, Aunt Margot holding fast to his hand. After the funeral, my aunt returned with me to Foix. According to her, it was there that I learned to laugh and began to show interest in the world again. She never spoke to Louise again, nor did she respond to her letters. Seven years later, upon receiving word that her sister had died of a heart attack, I heard her sobbing softly behind her closed bedroom door.
Dejected and hollow-eyed, dressed in mourning and seated in the dining room of the guesthouse in front of a bowl of porridge, I reread, for the tenth time, the wax-sealed card that an orderly had delivered to the innkeeper, on which Robert had written, in a clear hand, the letters tall and straight like little soldiers at attention: “I have been informed of Madame Curchet’s death. I must leave shortly and greatly regret that I will not be able to express my condolences in person.”
Once again I asked myself what I was doing there, waiting passively while Uncle Charles decided my fate, while he weighed whether I was to return to Foix with Pierre and Françoise or else be allowed to follow him to the front, as did many daughters, wives and even lovers of high-ranking officials. Why did I not put on my black hat, follow my own heart’s desire, and march straight down the three blocks that separated me from Robert’s barracks, speak his name to the guard at the gate, wait until I saw him coming toward me, and say: “I came to thank you for your note, Monsieur Renaud,” or better: “This is my address. I would very much like to hear from you again”? But what address was I to give him, when I didn’t even know where I was going to be?
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Uncle Charles. “Henriette, my dear child. I have reached a decision,” he said, sitting down next to me. “It pains me not to be able to grant your request, but it would be foolish for me to allow you to stay with me. As was your Aunt’s wish, I am your guardian now, and I must see to your safety and financial well-being, although the latter doesn’t much concern me. Your dowry is in a bank in Toulouse, and Monsieur Lebrun, the executor of your Aunt’s estate, will see to the administration of the Foix lands, which will be yours when the time comes. What truly concerns me is the thought of your coming with me to the war. Life in the rearguard is not easy. We’re in a different place every day. Everything is provisional. One rarely finds decent lodging. You are not accustomed to suffering hardship and, further, one must always think of the worst. Suppose something were to happen to me.”
I begged, I cried, I pleaded, I said everything I could think of to convince him not to send me back to Foix. And it wasn’t only because of Robert, because I longed to see him, to touch him again. In truth, I was then at a passive age, an age of daydreams and elaborate fantasies in which my body was more inclined to imagination than to action. I did it for my own sake as well. It terrified me to think of myself all alone in that enormous empty house, hearing Aunt Margot’s unforgettable laugh echoing through the rooms, her beautiful contralto voice calling me down to breakfast. I feared I might look out the window and see her sturdy figure dismounting from her horse with surprising agility, or raising a bow and letting fly an arrow that would find its precise mark in the red center of the target, or that I might behold her coming out of the river some oppressive summer afternoon, her shirt glued to her skin, her powerful thighs advancing with each step, her voluminous belly, the wide rosettes of her breasts, her prematurely gray hair dripping about her face like a garland.
“Oh, Uncle Charles, I could never, never ever, live there all alone!” I implored him, this time on my knees, taking his hand and bathing it in tears. “Don’t you understand that you are the only family I have left? That you are that only person in the whole world who cares about me? I would die of loneliness and grief. I’m begging you, Uncle. You’ll see, I won’t be any trouble to you. I promise!”
What good-hearted man could refuse such arguments?
After laying a wreath of flowers on Aunt Margot’s grave, we left Boulogne immediately. The marching orders received by the bulk of the army coincided with a sudden summer thunderstorm that frayed my nerves and put Uncle Charles in a foul mood. The city’s streets seethed with soldiers and horses, and our carriage, laden with trunks and bundles of clothing, seemed to irritate everyone, infuriating the musicians in a military band on one corner, and blocking the passage of some transport wagons carrying provisions across a bridge. I couldn’t understand the angry impatience of those men who shook their fists and glared at us with fire in their eyes each time our carriage interrupted their forward progress.
“They are fed-up with waiting. Fed-up with everything,” grumbled Uncle Charles. “It’s been two years since we received the order to invade England, and we still haven’t crossed the canal. And now the Emperor has changed his plans. If he hadn’t, you’d be on your way to Foix right now, even if you’d cried your eyes dry. I would never have taken you to England. The truth is that neither you nor your Aunt should ever have left Foix,” he muttered, looking at the empty seat where Aunt Margot had always sat. “It’s true that I needed money, but she could have sent it to me through her lawyer. And as for my promotion, she barely had the chance to celebrate it.” I realized that Uncle Charles wasn’t really talking to me, but rather, to himself. “It was that stupid engraving that made her want to come. I’m sure of it. The first thing she asked me when we arrived was if they had finished constructing the tunnel.” (My Uncle was referring to a popular illustration showing the Grand Armée invading England by sea, by air, in a flotilla of hot-air balloons, and by land, through a tunnel that ran underneath the canal.) “She didn’t want to miss that absurd spectacle, dreamed up by some infernal artist just to dupe romantics like her. And then that shameless way she was eating, and of course you see what happened. . . . ” On and on he went, talking aloud to himself, trying to unburden his guilty conscience. I understood completely, because I felt guilty too. It tormented him to think that while he was wooing Madame Polidor to the strains of gypsy violins, Aunt Margot’s heart was slowly ceasing, never to start up again.
What can I say of that inexorable march that would take us to Strasbourg by summer’s end? To begin with, Uncle Charles had to return to his traveling hospital and I almost never saw him anymore—in accordance with the new regulations, the only women authorized to travel with the troops were the sutlers and washerwomen. In those four weeks I never once slept in a bed, and considered myself lucky to find a straw pallet in some barn or another to sleep on, in public, fully clothed and surrounded by strangers. Usually though, I spent the night in Aunt Margot’s carriage, Françoise and I making do on the seats, and Pierre on the roof, in the open air, wedged among our luggage. On the occasional afternoon, if we came to a river—we crossed the Oise, the Mosa, the Mosela—we would clean the crust of sweat and dust that covered us and wash our laundry in the muddy water, though no matter how we scrubbed our sheets and blouses they always came out a dingy earth color that was impossible to remove. The peasants rarely sold us anything other than bread, cheese, and fodder for the horses, and even these items came at extremely high prices. Fortunately, we were positioned between the carriage of a grenadier colonel’s wife and that of the jovial Italian family of a fortifications engineer, assigned to the General Staff of the Imperial Guard—it was from those women that I learned that the section of the column we were traveling in was especially for officials with the Imperial Guard. Sometimes, to distract ourselves, we would visit one another and gossip happily over the false rumors that were circulating. It was said that, upon invading Bavaria, the Austrians serving under General Mack had discovered that the inhabitants, in a show of collective disgust, would not speak to them or answer their questions; we were assured that Villenueve had toppled an English squadron in Spanish waters and that, due to some murky event in Poland, a serious problem had erupted between the Russians and the Poles. Also, while we took turns reading chapters aloud from Paul et Virginie, or Delphine, we would share the few sweets we still had left: a delicious chocolate confit, half-melted from the heat, a lump of sugar, a licorice candy, the very rare cup of tea, a piece of biscuit soaked in wine. It was not easy to find fresh water and milk, and as a result we all suffered from stomach ailments, especially Françoise and Silvana, Signora Grimaldi’s younger sister.
From time to time my uncle would appear and offer a glum report, lowering his head to speak with me through the carriage window without dismounting his horse: “Our wagons are overflowing with febrile soldiers. If things go on like this, six to eight thousand men will arrive ill at the Danube.” He’d leave us a few bites of beef or ham for supper, then set off again for his wagons, which were traveling half a league ahead of us. I don’t know exactly where our carriage was positioned within the column. We must not have been too far to the rear though, because once, when our carriage paused on the crest of a hill, I climbed up to Pierre’s coachbox and looked behind us. A veritable army of women extended as far as I could see; they traveled by coach, carriage, wagon, cart, horse, mule, donkey and their own two feet. Many of them left the road to take care of their personal necessities, and their colorful dresses and hats dotted the recently harvested, straw-colored countryside, like flowers in full summer bloom.
One night, while we roasted a miraculous chicken that Pierre had bought at a nearby farmstead, Uncle Charles arrived, glowing with contentment. He had come from Strasbourg, where the troops were setting up camp on the outskirts of the city. They would wait there until the Emperor arrived from Saint-Cloud to resume the march. There were to be two days of tributes and festivities. Thanks to Doctor Larrey’s generosity, he had been able to secure lodging in a local clockmaker’s home.
“I’ll sleep in the workshop and you’ll take the upstairs bedroom. The carriage won’t make it,” he said, gesturing at the overcrowded road. “You’ll go on my horse. I’ll come for you at dawn. Right now, I’m off to say hello to a friend.” As he was leaving, he added: “What coincidences do occur in this life! Can you guess with whom you’ll be sharing the room? No less than Madame Polidor! I assume you won’t object. She’s a refined and intelligent woman and you can trust her. I’m told she was a famous opera singer.”
Naturally, coincidence had nothing to do with it. As I was soon to discover, during his nocturnal rides to and from our carriage, Charles had come across Madame Polidor’s coach, and an intimate friendship had sprung up between them.
The clockmaker—an old man named Simon Lévi who welcomed me in a high-pitched, singsong voice—had a modest house that seemed, to me, more sumptuous than a palace. After devouring an enormous salad with hard-boiled eggs and vegetables, I washed myself from head to toe with soap and hot water, put on a clean shift—with the inevitable earth-colored tinge—and collapsed on the bed. I was so exhausted that, no matter how I tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position, I couldn’t manage to fall asleep. Suddenly, a strange song, barely audible over the street noise below, curled its way up the spiral staircase that connected the workshop to the upper floor. I couldn’t understand the words, but I recognized the clockmaker’s inimitable voice. I imagined that he sang as he repaired the mechanism of one of the many clocks that I had seen downstairs. I pictured him bent over, with the magnifying lens affixed to his forehead, his black silk cap half-covering his white hair, his voice issuing through his whiskers like an irrepressible flock of swallows. Mesmerized by the song, I fell, little by little, into a dream in which Aunt Margot and I were floating high above the towers of Strasbourg, surrounded by flotillas of hot-air balloons, angels with enormous feathered wings, and flying carriages.
I awoke the next day, startled by the sound of cannon-fire and the ringing of bells. “Napoleon has entered the city,” said a voice from the floor, just next to the bed. It was Madame Polidor, stretched out on a pallet, completely naked, a bundle of clothing under her head as a pillow. “When I came in last night, you were sleeping so deliciously that I didn’t want to wake you,” she added with a smile, speaking to me familiarly, as though we were already dear friends. “But now we should get dressed and fix ourselves up as quickly as possible. Your uncle is coming for us this evening, but first, I want to confirm the whereabouts of some friends, Robert among them. I know that he’s in Strasbourg.”
Any shred of reservation that I’d had about her disappeared instantaneously. Her personality was enchanting, lively and warm, and a powerful aura emanated from her still beautiful body, disarming the rigid mores that usually defended my timidity. It didn’t seem to concern her one bit to be naked in front of me. Sitting up in bed, I watched her open her valise, take out an iron and a blue muslin dress. I had never seen anyone move her arms and hands with such natural elegance. While she lit the coals in the brazier, I asked her if she knew Robert well.
“I met him last year. I appreciate him a great deal. He’s a gentleman, which is hard to come by these days. A man who protects his honor.”
“Does he have a lover?” I dared to ask her.
“What Hussar doesn’t? Her name is Corinne. They were living together when Claudette and I arrived at the encampment in Boulogne. I visited them once. A modest, two-room flat near the cavalry’s barracks. Things must not be easy for them, though. They have very different tastes,” she said, spreading the dress out across the bed.
“If I’d known . . . ” I murmured, utterly crestfallen.
“Darling, single men almost always have a lover or an affectionate friend they like to sleep with. If you’re worried about Corinne, I’ll tell you that you are younger and more beautiful than she is. And anyway, things must not be going well between them recently. Remember that he went alone to the dance in Boulogne. But above all, remember that you are here and she, as far as I know, has not accompanied him. Not all women are willing to follow their men to war.”
I was silent a moment, savoring Maryse’s last words: “Follow their men to war.” It was the use of the possessive their that had struck me; I had never heard it used for a woman about a man, only the inverse. I started laughing, at the thought that Robert could be my man.
“What are you laughing at?” Maryse asked, surprised. “A minute ago, you seemed on the verge of tears.”
“Don’t pay me any mind. I’m a silly girl.”
All it had taken for me to feel as happy as I had a month before was a good bath, twenty hours of sleep, the news that Robert was alone in the city, and the conviction that I had followed my man to war. Thinking about the calendar, it occurred to me that my birthday might have already passed.
“What’s today’s date?” I asked Maryse (it’s become impossible for me to go on calling her Madame Polidor).
“The fourth of Vendémiaire,” she replied, flicking water on the iron to see if it was sufficiently hot.
“Yesterday was my birthday. Aunt Margot had promised me a grand ball at her château. Who would have thought that I’d spend it asleep?”
“We shall celebrate it today. The entire city’s a party.”
“You’re forgetting that I’m in mourning,” I said, indicating my tattered black dress.
“And what of it? I’m not going to take you to a dance, but I’d wager that it would make your aunt happy to see you enjoying yourself after being cooped up in that carriage for four weeks. You know,” she said, gesturing in irritation, “it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to have left Claudette behind. But someone had to drive the carriage. Poor girl. By the way,” she added, “how old are you now? Seventeen, eighteen?”
“Do I really look that old,” I said, flattered that she’d thought me nearly a woman. “I turned fifteen.”
Maryse lifted the iron and stared at me. The corners of her lips, slightly downturned, descended even further, and her face became that mask usually used to depict Tragedy. Her eyes filled with tears and a drop rolled down her cheek.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, nothing. I burned my finger,” she said, her voice breaking, and raising her index finger to her mouth. “Hand me your dress,” she added. “I’ll iron it while you do your hair. We should hurry.”
While I got ready, I asked myself what painful memory had clouded her mood. But the time had not yet come for me to know the reason for her tears that afternoon.
In any event, I’ll never forget the expression on Robert’s face when, an hour later, we ran into each other in front of a café along the canal. Serious and indecisive, he looked at me over the rim of his mug of beer as if he couldn’t quite place the girl dressed in the too shabby black dress—the journey had robbed me of the better part of my hips as well—smiling stupidly in the doorway. It was only when he saw Maryse that he was able to react, which he did so clumsily that, in standing up, he toppled his chair and soaked his uniform in beer.
It was a perfect evening. The dinner in the packed hotel dining room. Maryse and Uncle Charles, arm in arm, walking ahead of us along the brightly lit streets. The cathedral’s spire, laden with torches, reaching up to the heavens like a pointed flame. And Robert, ever didactic, pointing out the place where, it was said, Rouget de Lisle had composed La Marseillaise. Later, while we strolled along the canal, we began to share some of the details of our lives. I told him about my grandfather, about the fire that killed my parents, and about being adopted by Aunt Margot. I spoke of Foix, of the beauty of the Garonne River and the valleys of Ariège, of the majesty of the Pyrenees. Robert, obviously, said nothing to me of Corinne. He focused entirely on recounting the motivating forces behind a duel he had fought, six months prior, with a certain Captain Varga. “He accused me, publically, of cheating at cards. What else could I have done, Henriette, but rebuff him? A man must guard his honor as a gentleman, don’t you think? And it’s not that I’m a great fan of duels, or of cards, for that matter. They are things that happen, things one simply falls into, despite oneself.” In any case, Varga had been obliged to withdraw from the fight due to a wounded shoulder, and the matter had been satisfactorily resolved between the respective seconds. Did I approve of his behavior?
“Of course, monsieur. You behavior was . . . Homeric,” I said, smitten, imagining him brandishing a sword, the walls of Troy in the background. Then he charmed me with a description of his fur collection, of how he carried them, rolled into bundles, everywhere he went.
“One day we’ll invade Russia, Henriette. If you’ll allow me, I’ll bring you a souvenir. What would you prefer, a cap made of ermine or of sable? And if one day we were to make it all the way to the jungles of Africa! Just imagine it! Panthers, leopards, tigers, lions . . . all at your feet, Henriette. Even rhinoceros horns and elephant tusks,” he added, laughing at his own mania for exotic animals. Hearing our laughter, Uncle Charles and Maryse turned around. I could see by their smiles that they approved of our budding relationship, and I was filled with joy.
At the strike of ten, Napoleon appeared in one of the windows of the city’s palace. It was the first time I’d ever seen him. He wore a sash across his chest. It was difficult to make out his facial features in the light from the candelabra held aloft by one of his attendants, but, by the way he gestured with his hat, he seemed in good spirits. I was amazed at his popularity; the moment the crowds of soldiers and civilians walking by the palace recognized him, a collective cry of “Vive l’Empereur” went up. “Vive l’Empereur!” shouted Robert, with the most sincere enthusiasm. “Vive l’Empereur!” I cried, caught up in the moment, though more out of imitation than conviction. The crowd began to envelop us and we were suddenly pushed toward the palace gates. The cries were deafening, and continued on long after the darling of France had withdrawn from the window. Separated from Uncle Charles and Maryse, we stayed right where we were, not speaking, surrounded by the clamor and the multitudes. At that moment, I felt his hand against my derrière. But when I saw his arms reaching to encircle my waist, I realized that it wasn’t his hand pressing against me. Faint with pleasure, I half-turned my head and allowed myself to be kissed luxuriously.
Thinking back on that night, I realize that it wasn’t only to Robert that I opened my body. In truth, my virginity—like that of so many thousands of French, Austrian, and Russian women—was one of the first casualties of that campaign; mild casualties, I must admit, and even desirable, in many cases, but casualties nonetheless, as recorded in the private registers of virgins who, across the villages and cities of my era, carried the voices of priests and nuns, fathers and mothers about in their consciences. And in the same way that nature regulates the times of estrus in animals, the survival instinct that drives the human species generates carnal desire during wartime. A deficit of so many thousands of deaths, countered by a credit of so many thousands of births. These are God’s calculations, and I was but a number in that simple equation.
I should explain myself better. The last thing I want is to diminish Robert’s importance in these pages. I am not saying that it was the war that made me love him. I think I would have fallen in love with him in times of peace or under any other circumstance. Nonetheless, I will say that if we had met before the war, I would not, that night in Strasbourg, have followed him docilely to the door of his barracks, nor would I have sat astride his horse, high in the saddle, nor allowed myself to be thrown, like a sack of potatoes, on a pile of foul-smelling hay, nor would I have allowed him to deflower me, dressed in mourning, in the open air, in the middle of the night on the outskirts of the city. And it’s not that I regret having done it. Quite the contrary. It was the culminating moment of an unforgettable day, my first day as a fifteen-year-old, my first taste of love. I only mean that, because I’d already begun to live a bit like a soldier during that journey to Strasbourg, I had felt the imminence of battle. Truth be told, I made love not only with Robert that night, but also with the war.
When we returned to the clockmaker’s house, Uncle Charles and Maryse were still out looking for us. Our moment of passion had occurred so quickly that the streets were still full of people and ablaze with light, and even dear old Simon Lévi was still up, leaning in the doorway of his workshop, talking with a neighbor, a woman holding a sleeping gray cat in her arms. After the requisite introductions, Robert took my arm and led me a few steps away from them.
“I am very sorry about what happened, Henriette. I must have lost my head,” he said in a low voice, arranging his face into an expression appropriate to the circumstances. He looked ridiculous, like a bad stage actor. To top it off, the drooping tips of his mustache, mussed by my kisses, lent him a pitiful air.
“Me too,” I said, to say something. In truth, the only thing that I wanted at that moment was for him to take his leave. I felt terribly confused, in a sort of limbo, suspended from reality. I was also exhausted and sore. All I wanted was to go up to my room, undress, and confirm that the sticky wetness I felt between my thighs was blood. “Good night, monsieur,” I said, turning to go.
“I return to my regiment tomorrow. Please, let me hear from you. Remember: 5th Battalion, Gazan Division, 9th Hussar Regiment. We must see each other again,” I heard him say, hastily.
The clockmaker had put fresh water in the washbasin. Just as I was squatting down to wash myself, Maryse appeared, ascending the spiral staircase, holding a candlestick aloft to light her step. “Well, well, the missing girl,” she said happily. “Your uncle and I have been all over Strasbourg looking for you. Thank God we decided to come by here again. The clockmaker told us that you’d arrived just a few minutes ago and. . . . What happened to you?” she asked, concerned, seeing the pinkish water running down my legs.
“It’s nothing. . . . You know. . . . Women’s concerns,” I stuttered, trying to cover myself with my hands. “Please, leave me for just a moment.”
But as she was leaving, Maryse spotted my dress, thrown over the back of a chair. One by one, she plucked up half a dozen straws of hay that had gotten caught in the cloth. “I see,” she said, perplexed. “I see,” she said again, this time with a sigh, crumbling the straw between her fingers, letting the golden dust fall through her hands. “Your uncle is waiting for me downstairs,” she said, not looking at me. “I’ll be out for a while. Sleep well. We’ll talk tomorrow.” And, lifting the hem of her dress, she disappeared down the dark mouth of the staircase.
I awoke late the next morning. The sun was hitting me full in the face, making me blink. I heard the clamor of horses and carriages from the street below, and I guessed that the troops were already leaving the city. Maryse, already dressed, was reading a book in the chair where I’d left my incriminating clothing. I closed my eyes again, pretending to still be asleep. More than ashamed, I felt completely incapable of withstanding reprimands and laments. “What time is it?” I asked at last.
“Late,” Maryse replied, without raising her eyes from her book. “It just struck eleven. While I finish this chapter, read the letter over there, by the washbasin.”
“Is it from Robert?” I asked, leaping out of bed.
“Is there someone else you’ve not told me about?” she teased from behind her book.
“But it’s addressed to my uncle,” I said, reading Uncle Charles’ name.
“You have his permission to read it. Robert left it here at dawn, before going off with his regiment. Read it. Its subject matter concerns you.”
I have received some good news in my lifetime, but as hard as I search through my memories, I cannot find a single letter that has brought me such happiness as that one, despite its brevity.
“Robert is asking for my hand!” I cried. “He wants to marry me! Can you believe it? Isn’t it a miracle?” I said, jumping up and down. Mad with joy, I fell on the bed to read the letter again.
“A miracle? Why? Who better than you could he possibly marry? You’re young. You’re tall and pretty. You have it all. And if that weren’t enough, you have properties and money. Your uncle told me. You kept it quite a secret, you little imp. Don’t think one comes across many young women like you out here on the road.”
Listening to Maryse talk, a bit too spontaneously, it seemed to me, I began to suspect that she had played an active role in the matter at hand.
“You spoke with him, didn’t you?”
Maryse looked down at her book without answering.
“You spoke with him last night. Why would you do that?” I reproached her.
“Very well, yes,” she said, closing the book.
“You begged him to marry me. No,” I said, correcting myself, “you waved my dowry in front of his nose. That was it. Am I right? Why did you play matchmaker behind my back? I would have so much preferred for him to want to marry me of his own accord,” I said, incensed, and buried my face in the pillow.
“Robert is my friend,” I heard her say, coolly. “We met under what were very painful circumstances for me. I owe him a great deal. I went to look for him at the café and we spoke as friends. That is all.”
Surprised by what I was hearing, I rolled over on the bed to look at her.
“You owe him a great deal?” I said, incredulous. “He’s told me nothing.”
“Last year, when I arrived in Boulogne, he was of great service to me,” she continued. “One day I will tell you all about it. But not today.”
“Then—”
“When I say that he is my friend, I mean only that: my friend,” she interrupted. “Yes, we talked for a while. Not long. He had to be ready to leave at dawn. I merely advised him that, if he had ever considered getting married, he shouldn’t miss the opportunity that you so beautifully embody. Of course we spoke of money. Dowries and inheritances are not State secrets. And don’t think that I had only his well-being in mind, my friend. After your adventure last night, which I do not judge, your life is no longer the same. Yesterday it was Robert, later it could be another dashing officer, and then another and another, and so on. And along that chain of sabers and mustaches, the risk of finding yourself enmeshed in duels, in gambling, in coarse dealings, in betrayals and humiliations. What can I tell you? I know what I’m saying. It’s something that, unfortunately, I know all too well. The society in which you’ve chosen to become a woman is the army, my dear. And, I must add, the army in time of war. You’ll see when the battles begin, when they start to count the dead and wounded, the heroes and cowards. Right now, we’re all rational beings. But just wait until the smell of gunpowder hits. Then you’ll see. People change. They live in the moment. You must see for yourself to understand.”
Maryse stood up abruptly and, turning her back to me, leaned against the windowsill. Her words had stunned me. Little by little, I began to feel afraid. I turned over on the bed again and pressed my face into the pillow. I closed my eyes and wished I had stayed in Foix. My uncle had been right. I had no business living this kind of life: discomfort, little privacy, constantly moving from one place to the next. Battles. Death. Blood. I began to cry. I could feel the hot dampness of my tears on the pillowcase. And it would be so easy to return. All I had to do was wait for Pierre and Françoise to come with the carriage. They wouldn’t be long now. But in thinking of the carriage, of the leagues that separated me from the Ariège, I understood that life was not a clock whose hands could be moved backwards with the nudge of a finger. Foix would never again be what it had once been. The carriage had rolled across many days and many roads. Along the way I had lost Aunt Margot and my girlhood; I had also found Uncle Charles, Maryse, and Robert. For better or for worse, time had marched on, and it was now no longer possible to return, if, by return, I meant a reencounter with my bucolic early life. There was nothing to be done. At the end of the day, I had people here. In Foix, I had no one. Resigned to moving forward, I raised my head, wiped my tears away with the back of my hand, and asked Maryse: “What does Uncle Charles think of all of this? Do you think he’ll give his consent?”
“Robert has a good reputation,” she replied, turning toward me. I could see by her tender expression that she had guessed at my feelings instantly. “He fought in a duel. I don’t know if you knew. A personal matter with a Captain of the Cazadores regiment, a sinister man, a duelist of ill-repute who relished humiliating any woman unfortunate enough to be within his reach. But in Robert, he met his match.”
“So he fought over a woman. Was it Corinne?” I asked, curious.
“No,” Maryse replied, sharply. “Or, perhaps. . . . I don’t know,” she wavered. “If you ask him, he’ll tell you it was for a different reason. As I’ve said, your suitor is a gentleman. In any case, the duel was much talked about in the encampment at Boulogne. These sorts of things matter a great deal in an army, my dear.”
“Well, so much the better. I suppose that Uncle Charles won’t object to our getting married,” I said, relieved, though I had the distinct impression that Maryse knew much more about that duel than she cared to say.
“He will not oppose it. Before returning to his ambulances, he told me that it was for you to decide if you wanted to marry or not, that he would defer to your wishes. The truth is, quite apart from the positive opinion he has of Robert, I think that your uncle is none too comfortable having you under his guardianship. It’s not that he’s said as much to me. But if he has chosen not to have a family of his own, it must be to avoid responsibilities other than those occasioned by his military service. But come now, my friend,” she said, changing her tone of voice in an attempt to direct my attention to the day’s affairs. “Napoleon is already on the march. I can’t imagine how you could have slept through all this noise. I expect our carriages will be arriving shortly. It’s been two days since I’ve seen Claudette and I’m worried about her. If you only knew how fragile she is.”
“I’d like to go with you. One carriage would be sufficient for us. Pierre and Françoise would be thrilled to return to Foix. It would also be much more economical for us. Maintaining two horses is much different than four. Don’t you think? We could share expenses.”
“Never relinquish a carriage, my dear. That’s a piece of advice I’ll offer you. A carriage means freedom of movement. Suppose you wanted to return to your château. How would you get there? And anyway, my carriage is full to overflowing. So full, in fact, that Claudette and I generally ride in the coach-box. I’m traveling with everything you saw in my tower in Boulogne. I take my little world of illusions with me. My scenery. In the tower, I used it as a backdrop for the gypsies; next week, or the week after, I’ll use it to present an Italian tenor or a string quartet, or even Claudette, who performs the Dance of Salomé like no other. I’ll have you know that I play guitar and piano quite passably and that I can sing a Mozart aria as readily as a Creole melody from the islands. I made my living this way in Paris and in Saint-Domingue, my pet. And that’s what I plan to do here as well. I’ll open my salon wherever Napoleon takes it. My audience, at twenty francs a seat, is now the Grand Armée.”
“And Uncle Charles? I’m certain he’s interested in you.”
Maryse came over to the bed and sat down next to me. Looking me in the eye, she said: “Oh, Henriette, you have much to learn about your uncle. He’s happy in his profession, but I can’t imagine him working in some provincial hospital, much less in an office on the main thoroughfare, his name engraved on a bronze plaque. His true vocation is the war. War intoxicates certain men, my darling. You’ll soon see what I mean. Letting blood from a businessman in his underclothes is simply not the same as amputating an arm or stitching up a saber-wound on the battlefield. He was born to do these things in the same way that I was born for the life I lead. To each his own. Don’t fool yourself. Charles and I will never be anything, or, I should say, anything serious. It’s just not in our nature. We are both too independent. You must accept us both for who we are: Charles with his ailing soldiers, me with my traveling salon, and you with Robert. That way we’ll all be just fine.”
“I understand,” I sighed. Changing the conversation, I added: “As I said, I would very much have liked to travel with you. I would have learned so much from you. I’m just a foolish girl. I don’t even know how to find Robert.”
“Oh, don’t worry, my pet,” Maryse replied, getting up from the bed and returning to the window. “I’ll wait for your carriage to arrive.
I’ll go in front and you’ll follow me. If you really think about it, we will be traveling together. We’ll visit one another. But, chop chop! It’s getting late and we still need to eat something. God only knows when we’ll have the good fortune to sit at a proper table again!”
“Where is my dress?” I asked her, looking around the room. “I left it on that chair last night. Did you put it in my trunk?”
“Who’s ever heard of a fiancée dressed in black?” she said, and, with a languid gesture, indicated a dress with a daring décolletage hanging in the armoire. “It will be a touch short on you, and a bit loose, but I’ve scarcely worn it. In the next city, we’ll go shopping.”
“Which city will that be?” I asked,
“Whichever one strikes Napoleon’s fancy, my dear.”
