At that instant Murat realized a decision was at hand. He could reach out, and the bishop would be rescued. Or he could just watch, and trust in the Lord to save His faithful servant.
“Help me!” cried the bishop again, and the heavy clouds poured and the lightning flashed once more over the terrified face and its river of blood. To Murat he looked grotesque, a pathetic old fool who could not swim. He was choking, and when he opened his mouth he took in more water. Murat looked around. There was no sign of the ferryman or the other passenger. There was no one at all. Murat’s heart raced as fast as his thoughts. Then his brain took control, and he calmed himself.
He knew what to do.
“Hail, holy queen, mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness, our hope. To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve…”
The bishop went under, his outstretched hand inches from Murat, who could have reached out to him easily. He came up once more, a desperate, beseeching look on his face. Murat caught hold of a piece of wood floating on the surface. It was sodden and heavy. He raised it up over his head. A terrible flicker of recognition dawned in the bishop’s eyes as he realized what was happening. With all his strength Murat brought the club down. He felt a dull thunk. He raised the club again, and again he struck. The bishop went limp and sank.
“…to you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears…”
Murat felt something bump against his legs underwater. It frightened him. He kicked viciously, to push it down and away toward the bottom. It was soft and yielded to his blows. For a long moment of dread he waited for it to bump him again. But it didn’t. It was gone, swallowed by the current.
The storm raged and rain ran down his face and Father Murat clung to the side of the ferry. On the shore he could see men waving lanterns and shouting for other boats, and he knew help was on the way. As he waited the automatic litany took over. He repeated the words, and the words became the truth: It was the hand of God that tipped the ferry. It was the will of God that he struck his head when he fell.
God’s will be done. God rest his soul.
* * *
The body of the old bishop was never found. Within a fortnight word came directly from the Tuileries Palace: by the grace of the Emperor Napoléon III, the see of Boulogne-Billancourt had a new bishop. Marius Murat, the son of a poor merchant, humble servant of God, loyal friend of the empire, had arrived at last at the threshold of his dream. The first time someone kissed his ring a delicious shock ran down his spine, and he savored it, like a sexual sensation. Later, in the privacy of his palace – his palace! – he was giddy, it was grand! – the smile he permitted himself was a real one. He was overlord of thirty parishes, forty-one curacies, and two hundred eighty-five subcuracies. The trappings of office were exquisite. He had private apartments and reception rooms with crystal chandeliers, and a vast courtyard with a garden that had a fountain in the center. A greenhouse made of cast iron was stocked with exotic plants from all over the world. There were velvet cushions and quilted cloaks and violet robes and coachmen to transport him in eight different carriages. Cooks prepared pheasant shot by his own huntsmen. His wine cellar was superb. Legions of curés and sous-curés surrounded him and busied themselves doing his bidding. He no longer had to hide the transactions he made on behalf of the diocese, for after all, the bishop was the diocese, and the diocese was the bishop. For Marius Murat, the arrangement was splendid.
He had been bishop nearly a year when word came to his palace that Count Henri deVries had returned from Africa with a heathen woman at his side. The bishop had solidified his hold over many aspects of his diocese, taking a direct interest in its more notable people and their affairs. He sought influence and control at every level. Count deVries was a prominent resident of the diocese, if an independent and not particularly religious one. His landholdings were vast, his estate among the largest in France. Both his father and grandfather had been deeply religious men and quite generous to the Church. They had given land and money for the construction of schools and chapels. Henri might be expected to do the same, and now he had chosen a wife. It was, therefore, natural that the bishop came to call, and perhaps inevitable that a woman of Serena’s strong will and independence would arouse the bishop’s ire.
The first time she did so it was over a matter of conscience and form, something of less import to the bishop than his daily menu, but something to which he must attend. It was her position concerning baptism and conversion to Catholicism, requirements for a Church-sanctioned wedding. Henri himself was not particularly helpful.
“She must convert, Count. Of course you will insist.”
“It is not for me to insist, Monseigneur. It is not a thing I will force. She is a free woman of another culture.”
“It is not I who wish it, Count. It is the command of the Lord God that the sacrament of marriage be kept holy. She is a pagan. Without baptism there is no conversion. Without conversion she is lost, and your marriage will lack the sanction of the Church. In the eyes of God, you will be unwedded sinners. It is not for you to question. She must do this thing.”
“Whatever she chooses, she will be my wife. And she will make this decision herself.”
“And then what of children? You would forfeit their souls for the sake of a woman’s choice? You would let her condemn souls yet unborn?”
“Nothing is forfeit, Bishop. But she will help make that decision when there are children.”
“I find your attitude careless, Count deVries. It is not fitting for a man of your station.”
“My station has nothing to do with it. It is my belief.”
“The Church will not countenance this!”
Henri sighed and shrugged. “You have my permission to speak with Serena. There will be no coercion. If it is her desire not to convert, Monseigneur, then so be it. In that event we will have a civil ceremony.” His tone was final and clear.
The bishop had no desire to alienate the count and accepted his requirements. It was a time of great spiritual independence in France, and of hypocrisy. Many were anti-religious, but followed the forms: They had their children baptized, and married in the Church, and were desperate to receive the last rites from a priest. It was spiritual insurance they sought – the comfort of tradition without restraints on their behavior. It was the sort of transaction the bishop understood perfectly and exploited for his treasury. If the count wanted to keep a pagan woman but remain in the Church and give it money, then the bishop would certainly not deny him his wish. But he must try for the woman’s conversion. It was the proper form.
The first meeting did not go well. Serena disliked the bishop immediately. “God has sent me for your soul,” he announced imperiously. He extended his hand for her to kiss the ring, but she did not. It was plain to her that his mouth said one thing, his eyes another. He spoke polite words, yet regarded her with a look of scorn that fairly shouted “heathen.” He uttered pieties while staring openly at her breasts, at her body.
She found him repulsive, but she put up with it. She had come to live in Henri’s society. He had told her that they could isolate themselves in the château for a year or two until she felt more comfortable, and thus keep her contact with outsiders to a minimum. But that was not her way. “If I live here it must be with your people, not apart from them,” she said. She was determined to deal with the traditions and customs of France, and that included its marabouts. She was nervous and uncertain, but kept the feelings to herself, determined to be strong; yet she was overwhelmed by the new sights and sounds of Paris, everything coming so fast, the world moving so swiftly after the gentle rhythms of her desert. Paris was so light and bright, the only real city she’d ever seen. Algiers was a mere shadow next to this city with its gaslights and cancan and the carriages and the noise. She wanted desperately to do well for Henri, to fit in, and her first real test was with this fat pompous man who reeked of wine and told her she must obey or face the wrath of his God.
S
he was not intimidated by the bishop or his God, and determined not to let her dislike of him interfere with a hearing of his position. So she tolerated him, and listened. Like many Tuareg, she was not Muslim and had an uncomplicated belief in God. Had it been anyone other than the bishop who tried to convert her, he might have succeeded, for she wanted to make things as easy as possible on the difficult path she had chosen. But she would not be bullied. There had never been about Serena any soft compliant edges, and she was not about to start with Marius Murat.
The bishop’s sessions with Serena went off and on for days. He talked for hours of the religion, but in his words she heard only darkness and fear. He offered visions that were terrible, visions that frightened, visions that left her with a sense of dread rather than comfort. Nothing he said felt right.
In her darkest moments of doubt she wondered if she was making a mistake. Maybe her uncle had been right, and the gulf between European and African was too great. Maybe they shouldn’t have children at all. But at the end of each meeting, when the bishop had finished, her head was still high and there was Henri, gentle and solicitous, and he kissed the back of her hand. She loved him to distraction and knew it would be all right.
The bishop tried to wear her down, to let fatigue or resignation forge the victory he could not win with threats. But she was stubborn. He had never reckoned with such a strong woman. She was insolent and impertinent, and he told her that her soul suffered from the mortal illness of sin and that the only cure lay in conversion.
“You must do it for the sake of your soul.”
“My soul is not chattel for your Church.”
“Then you must do it to preserve the holy sacrament of marriage.”
“My marriage does not require your sacrament.”
“The count’s marriage does. You must do it for him.”
“The count expects nothing of me in this matter. It is for me to decide.”
“Then you must do it for your children.”
“Why must I? They will do it for themselves, when they are ready.”
“You must do it because otherwise you will burn in hell, and they will follow you there.”
“But I have done nothing to earn entry to your hell and the children are unborn.” Serena shook her head. “I knew a White Father in the desert. He spoke without threats. He spoke of beauty. You speak of terror, yet you both profess the same religion. How can this be?”
“God has many faces.”
“As does his priest, I think.”
“Insulting me will not change the point. You must do it because it is the law of God.”
“You say it is. I say it is your own law, and I will not follow you. The God I know is within me. I do not require your blessing to keep Him there.”
“He is a false God!”
“He is mine.”
He led her in circles for days, through every conceivable argument. She gave him no satisfaction, and their dislike for one another deepened. Their final session was acrimonious.
“The difference between you and a scorpion, Priest, is that a scorpion has no artifice. You see the tail, and you have seen the scorpion. I see the cross around your neck, yet I have not seen you. Your tail is well hidden.”
Had anyone else been in the room to hear the insult, the bishop would have reacted differently. Now, he simply gave up. He needed the count. “I wash my hands of you, woman,” he said darkly. “You have turned from Christ in your descent toward hell. May God have mercy on your soul.”
Henri and Serena were married in a civil ceremony.
The bishop told himself she was but a mosquito to his thick skin: irritating, perhaps, and she drew a little blood, but she was more an annoyance than anything else. Underneath, however, he was seething. The bitch had mocked and insulted him. By refusing to keep the forms she had committed a sin against his authority. If she was a mosquito, one day he would swat her.
It was Serena’s second sin against the bishop that aroused his permanent ire, for it was no mere spiritual matter. It was a matter of property.
The city of Paris had undergone a metamorphosis under Louis Napoléon. The emperor had commissioned Baron Eugène Haussmann to transform the city, and transform it he did. Like a great couturier, Haussmann ripped off the city’s medieval cloak of dust and neglect, and exchanged it for a magnificent gown of brilliance and glamour and gloss. Massive public works projects turned the city upside down.
Haussmann began with the slums. From the Middle Ages they had festered all over Paris, insidious cancers that grew everywhere without proper regard for her dignity, from the doors of the Hôtel de Ville to the shadow of Montmartre, slums that troubled the emperor and blemished the empire. So Haussmann tore them down and swept them away, until the old ones were memories and the new ones were concealed. In their place rose a grand geometry of circles and squares and triangles, drawn with new boulevards and bridges and parks and public places, and dotted with public buildings and private mansions protected by wrought-iron gates. Glorious places, fitting jewels to outshine Vienna and Berlin and Prague, adornments to which the emperor could point with pride.
If it was all simply a facade, it was a damned fine one, for the unpleasantness was now out of sight. The four-fifths of the city living in misery now had to be miserable somewhere other than the city’s center. Paris could not look truly great while children competed with dogs for the garbage on the main thoroughfares.
Nothing stood in the way of progress. If the poor suffered in the process, if their meager possessions were ripped from them without compensation, if their mud-colored hovels were knocked down around them, it was a price the city would tolerate. This was Paris, and Baron Haussmann’s broom was progress.
Paris needed everything, and in an affirmation of self-regard, Paris got everything. For the living, new churches. For the dead, new cemeteries. For the hungry, new markets. For the bored, new theaters and an opera and a racetrack at Longchamps. For the traveler, new railway stations and roads to link Paris with the rest of France, and France with the world. It was change on a monumental scale. Aqueducts brought fresh water from the provinces; sewers carried the effluent back. Notre Dame was renovated, and after seven centuries, the Louvre was finally completed. Thousands of trees were planted, hundreds of fountains added. Five streets converging on the Arc de Triomphe were not enough, so more houses were torn down and the five became the twelve streets of the Place de l’Étoile. Thousands of new gas lamps lit dozens of new parks and thoroughfares until at night the city glowed like a field of diamonds.
The bishop was everywhere in the transformation. Information about neighborhoods to be demolished and new buildings to come was traded secretly and carefully. It was information that made men wealthy. The bishop and the baron knew each other well. Where there was the baron, there was the bishop. Where there was the bishop, there was the baron. Never in public, of course, and never in ways that might later prove troublesome. But throughout it all the bishop was engaged in an orgy of buying and selling and trading.
Through his normal channels on the baron’s staff he learned one day of an immense opportunity, the creation of an outer boulevard in the southeastern quarter that would join others encircling the city. It would be a massive undertaking, underwritten with a separate bond issue, so large that he confirmed the location and timing with the baron himself. Yes, the baron agreed, this was what the emperor had conceived, and this is what the emperor would have. The new boulevard would be imposing and wide, with parks and shops and housing. The bishop immediately set his cures to the business of acquiring land: a parcel here, a section there, a row of houses, a farm, a factory. The scope of the project was overwhelming, the largest scheme the diocese had ever attempted. It required the investment of huge resources, resources that first emptied the accounts of the see and then tapped the bishop’s private reserves. Still it was not enough. He borrowed money from friends at the Crédit Foncier, where funds were supposed to be restricted to departments and comm
unes, but where his influence ran deep. He persuaded investors to join him as minority partners. He drained money from the parishes of the diocese and demanded more. He was obsessed with the project. He would make a fortune the instant the new route was announced.
Then the unexpected happened; He received an urgent summons from Monsieur Portier, his liaison on the baron’s staff: he must come at once. Monsieur Portier was a mousy little man with a pince-nez. He was highly agitated when the bishop entered his bureau.
“The project has changed, Eminence! The boulevard has been moved!”
“Moved!” roared the bishop. “How can it be? The baron himself assured me!”
“Oui, and so he intended, Your Grace! And so it was to be until three days ago. It was the emperor himself who changed the route! He took a ride in his carriage and decided he did not like the lines of the boulevard! They were not straight enough! When the baron heard of it he was granted an audience with the emperor. He even argued the point. Argued! But it was no use. The emperor’s mind was made up.”
Portier was frantic. He had put his own pension into the project. He saw everything crumbling because of an emperor’s whim. Voilà: a sweep of the hand, a turn of the great mustache; and suddenly instead of here, the new rue would be there, and fortunes would be lost. Sudden, unbelievable. The lines, indeed!
“You fool!” said the bishop.
“Alas, I cannot read the mind of the emperor, Your Grace!”
“Merde,” the bishop said, forgetting himself.
“Your Grace?” Even in his panic the clerk was startled to hear such an utterance from the bishop. Portier hadn’t known whether to cry or to throw himself off a bridge before he summoned him. He was afraid of the man, of his bulk, his temper, his power and vengeance. He was ruined, he was sure. But the bishop said nothing more. He was pacing, lost in thought.
Portier turned to a large wooden bunk of drawers in which detailed maps of each arrondissement of Paris were kept. He drew out a map and spread it on a table. As the bishop was preoccupied, Portier studied. He raised his eyebrows when he saw it. It was just the slimmest possibility, but he called out.
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