Empires of Sand

by Empires of Sand (retail) (epub)

  “Elisabeth, I’m sorry for what has happened to Jules, I truly am. I have no wish to intrude, but Paul needs you.”

  “What I need is for you to leave me. You have suffered nothing. I have suffered it all.”

  “Mon Dieu, your son is in tears and your husband in prison, and all I see in you is wretched self-pity. Stop it!”

  “You don’t understand,” Elisabeth said in a faint bitter voice, shaking her head. “You don’t need to understand. You were a countess before this war. When it is over you will still be a countess. I will be nothing. Nothing at all.” Once again she pulled away. “You simply don’t understand what I have lost.”

  Serena gave up. “I don’t know what to do for her,” she told Henri that night. “She is there, but she does not hear me.”

  “There isn’t anything you can do,” Henri told her, “except to help Paul. I know Elisabeth. She’s a child, and quite vain. She’ll need to have her hair done soon, and then she’ll come out of it.”

  * * *

  General Trochu, the military governor of Paris, gravely announced that no armies remained to stand between the Prussians and the city, and so the city quickly made ready. Paris had been fortified since 1840 with a massive defense system, including a high wall with more than ninety bastions and a moat. Fifteen forts stood outside the walls, guarding the approaches. The forts and bastions had fallen into disrepair. In a blur of activity men brought stones and earth for reinforcement and carpenters repaired heavy wooden doors. Three thousand heavy guns were brought in on wagons and mounted or left in reserve, while workshops in the city became factories for the manufacture of armaments. A tobacco factory made rifle cartridges. At the Louvre the Venus de Milo was moved underground. Sandbags were stacked before the windows, while in the great exhibit halls craftsmen made shells for the big guns. Coats of plaster were applied to paintings and sacks of earth were heaped around the art treasures of France to protect them from artillery. Books and manuscripts were boxed and stored. The Grand Opéra became an observatory and a military store. The Gare de Lyon was pressed into service as a cannon foundry. Barricades were raised at the ends of the grand boulevards, and deep trenches cut. Palaces and public buildings were readied to care for the wounded. A factory for the manufacture of clothes was established in the Gaîté.

  Troops from the countryside poured into the city. Thousands of marines and sailors and regular troops from General Vinoy’s Thirteenth Corps stood alongside two new corps of untrained conscripts – merchants and workmen and farmers who knew nothing of war but accepted their rifles and drank their wine and waited for orders. There were Gardes Mobiles, mostly made up of undisciplined conscripts, and the National Guard, a loose militia. Artillery units bivouacked in the Jardin des Plantes, and the Garden of the Tuileries became a campground for the soldiers.

  The massive preparations were directed by the defense committee, a group of civic leaders who met daily at the War Office. General Trochu was chairman; Dorian, the minister of public works, was the vice-chairman. Among other notables who served was Monseigneur Marius Murat, the bishop of Boulogne-Billancourt. The bishop displayed his usual genius at matters of commerce and supply, which were of critical importance to the city. The range of his acquaintances was vast, the extent of his influence seemingly without bounds. He was able to find goods and materials that others around the table held to be in short supply or impossible to obtain. He located seven tons of saltpeter for the manufacture of armaments. He found blankets, and straw, and wax for candles. His emissaries combed the countryside, collecting vast stores of food and material.

  The bishop thrived, for war was a magnificent trading ground. Fathers seeking to buy military exemptions for their sons had found that the bishop could invariably come up with the necessary document or certificate. Owners of factories seized for defense purposes had found that the bishop could help them obtain compensation. If the fees he collected for his benefactions were extravagant, if the favors he exacted in return were steep – well, it was wartime, and costs were high.

  No transaction was too small for his attention, no prospect of profit overlooked. He sent his managers of the landholdings of the diocese out to visit each of the tenant farmers. There were hundreds of them, some who worked sizable plots of land. The managers produced written orders from the committee confiscating their sheep and cattle and grain for the defense of the republic. Little if any compensation was paid them. The bishop, through his agents, then sold the livestock and grain to the city at exorbitant prices. The Bois de Boulogne became an ocean of wool; droves of cattle spilled beyond the Bois and filled the long slope of the Champs-Élysées; a flour mill was established in the Gare du Nord. Parisians were hoarding preserves and salt and vegetables. Whatever the concerns about the adequacy of the food supply, there was a virtual sea of wine stored in casks and bottles and kegs beneath the city, wine in every cellar and cabinet and bin.

  As quickly as supplies and soldiers and refugees were streaming into the city, some of the wealthier families were streaming out, either going to their summer villas in the Midi, or leaving the country altogether. Henri and Serena talked about it at length. They agreed it was out of the question.

  “I cannot leave Jules in a prison cell,” Henri said. They were walking near the edge of the château grounds along the banks of the Seine, across from the palace of St.-Cloud. It was deserted where they walked, and peaceful. For a blessed moment they were alone, detached from the siege preparations. They sat down by the water’s edge, their backs against a massive chestnut tree. “It might take a long time to get him released. I have already seen three different generals and two ministers. None of them has been able to help, at least not yet. With the Prussians coming no one is paying attention to this. One suggested that I was better to leave things alone for the time being, that the sooner a trial is held the more danger there is in it for Jules. He may be right. I have requested a meeting with General Trochu.”

  “We will stay, of course.” Serena had never doubted it. In the desert, approaching enemies did not announce themselves as the Prussians were doing. Stealth and surprise were the common deceptions of Saharan battle. European war was frontal and direct. If one could see the enemy coming, one could prepare. “Do you think the Prussians will invade the city?”

  “No.” Henri found a stick and used it to make a map in the wet riverbank. He began with the junction of the Marne and Seine Rivers and drew the arc of the Seine as it swept through the city. The river then looped back through the château property and around the Bois de Boulogne as it flowed toward the northeast and the Genevilliers peninsula.

  “The château is here,” he said, making a mark, “and the walls of the city here. You see we are protected by the bend of the river. It provides a natural barrier against invasion. The bridge to St.-Cloud will be destroyed. En plus, we have the guns of the forts of Mont Valérien, here, and Issy, here, to watch over us.” Mont Valérien rose from the Seine. At its summit stood a citadel whose guns commanded a huge area on the western reaches of the city. Henri pointed across the river to St.-Cloud. “The Prussians will stop there,” he said. “They have no need to attack the city. They have already shown their inclinations at Metz. Marshal Bazaine and his army are still trapped there. The same will happen with Paris. They will draw an iron noose around the city and pull it tight. Then they will camp and wait us out.”

  “The city will starve,” she said.

  “Maybe. I think it will end before that.”

  Serena felt completely comfortable and safe sitting next to Henri, as though he were an extension of her, and she of him. It has always been so with us, she thought, and with the thought came a sudden rush of fear, inexplicable fear that washed over her and constricted her chest. She turned to Henri and took his face gently in her hands and held him close. “When I lived in the desert there was a part of me that did not know a husband or son. War never frightened me, or death. But now” – her eyes glistened, and she threw her arms around h
im, and her voice broke – “now I cannot bear the thought of losing you or Moussa. You are my life, Henri deVries. If anything happened to you it would kill me.”

  He held her tightly and stroked her hair and blessed his luck at having found such a woman. He had spent long hours analyzing their situation. Nothing was ever certain, but he was as confident as anyone could be. He had considered sending her away with Elisabeth and the boys but he knew she would never consent to it. So they would stay. They would have food. The stores in his cellars were amply stocked, and there would be small game to hunt. If it became necessary they would find protection from shelling below the thick stone walls of the château, the château that for thirty generations had helped the deVries family withstand wars and sieges and the Revolution. But he had meant what he said – he did not believe shelling would occur. It was a sad thought, but he felt Paris would go with a whimper, not a shout.

  “Nothing will happen to us,” Henri said, and she heard the conviction in his voice. He kissed her on her ears and neck. “We will try to make life as normal as possible for the boys. And there is another reason we must stay. A delegation from the committee for defense came to see me. They have asked for my help.”

  Serena straightened up. “To do what?”

  “To make balloons.”

  “Balloons!”

  “Oui. The city will be cut off from the world. They want to maintain contact with the rest of France. Balloons can carry mail and people.”

  She looked at him with mischief in her eyes, recalling a time long ago in the desert.

  “You did not tell them then,” she said.

  “Tell them what?”

  “That you have no idea which way the wind blows and that your balloons crash.”

  “That was no crash.” Henri laughed. “I told you, it was only a hard landing. Besides, I’m not supposed to fly them. I’m only going to build them.”

  * * *

  Moussa was miserable, stuck in his private hell with Sister Godrick. It was only September, and already it was the longest year he’d ever lived. He guessed the world would have to explode for school to end, since the Prussians didn’t seem to be able to get the job done. But his father was adamant. “If we let the Prussians force us to close our schools, then they’ve won.” Moussa pointed out that other schools had closed, most of the public schools, anyway. The count wasn’t having it. “As long as we can keep the school open, we will,” he said.

  At recess Moussa and Paul wandered to the edge of the schoolyard and climbed to the top of the fence. In vain they looked across the river for signs of the Prussians.

  “They’ll never get here,” Moussa said grumpily. Paul didn’t say anything. He’d been quiet for days, but Moussa didn’t bother him about it. They knew each other’s moods well.

  They came in from recess with all the other boys to face the last hot boring part of the afternoon, which would be devoted to math, and to the inevitable prayers about math, in which Sister Godrick would implore the Lord to ignore their big defects and sharpen their little minds. He opened the top of his desk to get his exercise book out. He frowned. His books were there, but his book bag was gone. It was a leather bag with a shoulder strap. It was a gift from Gascon, and was the only one like it in school. He remembered leaving it there that morning, and hadn’t taken it out since then. He looked around the classroom but didn’t see it anywhere, not up on the hooks at the back of the room or on anyone’s desk. Someone had taken it. Before he could investigate, the imperious shroud of Sister Godrick entered the room. Her habit rustled as she walked to her desk. The chatter of the boys died instantly as she faced the class and began.

  “Merciful Father, through Your perfect grace we have come here to share in the teachings of Your blessed son…”

  Moussa moved his lips, but did not close his eyes or bow his head. He knew that Sister Godrick would see. He knew it would cost him something. Every day it was the same, like a ritual between them. But this time Sister Godrick did not notice. She finished the prayer and crossed herself. “Sit.”

  As one the class sat and waited as she opened her desk drawer to withdraw the lesson book. She did it automatically, without looking, putting her hand into the drawer, feeling for the bound edges of the book. But what she felt was not the book. She gasped in horror and gave out a little shriek. Like lightning she drew her hand back. She jumped up so quickly that she knocked over her chair, which crashed to the floor. Sister Godrick rubbed her hand back and forth on her habit and stared at the abomination. There, in the middle of the drawer, was a snake. It was a little one. It had been coiled comfortably in the dark until she startled it, and now regarded her with alarm. It was a harmless garter snake, but she didn’t know that. She knew only that it was a serpent.

  For a moment Sister Godrick was speechless. The fright had sent shock waves coursing through her all the way to her feet. The fear tightened her throat. But outwardly her demeanor before the class was as icy as ever. She closed her eyes and clutched her rosary. With steely resolve she composed herself, determined that the students not enjoy her discomfort. She crossed herself quickly.

  “Look, a snake!” Pierre said, as he and the other boys crowded around. “I’ll get it out!” The nun nodded dumbly. He reached in the drawer and grasped it behind its head. He lifted it out of the drawer, its body writhing under his hand. Sister Godrick took a step back, and Pierre carried it quickly from the room. In the silence the other boys traded glances, eyes regarding eyes to see who knew.

  “Take your seats.” The shock had passed. Sister Godrick recovered her composure as the boys obeyed. She picked up her chair and set it upright, brushed off her habit, and took her seat. Carefully she opened each of the remaining drawers of her desk. She examined each of them, all the way into the back. She used a ruler to lift her papers and poke around. Satisfied at last that no other surprises lurked inside, she probed the drawer where she’d found the snake. She put the end of the ruler through something and lifted it out. Gingerly, as though it were a load of dynamite, she placed it on top of her desk, square in the middle where everyone could see it.

  Moussa felt his face flush when he saw what it was. She looked straight at him, and from the distance he could feel her eyes burning. He knew that she could see him flushing. He wished he could teach himself not to do that, to stop the tingling sensation that washed over him when he was nervous or embarrassed and turned his skin red. More than once, when he was guilty, it had gotten him in trouble. Now, when he was not, it could do the same.

  “Michel,” she said. “Come here.”

  Heart pounding, mouth dry, he stood up from his desk and approached her. As he always tried to do, he accepted her gaze, and held it. The room was deathly quiet.

  “You forgot your book bag during your little prank, Michel,” she said, indicating the missing leather bag. “Or were you afraid to take the serpent out of it?”

  He was nervous and not thinking, and the first thing out of his mouth was a defense of his own bravery. “It was a garter snake, Sister. I am not afraid of garter snakes.” It was the worst thing he could have said. He realized his error immediately and started to correct himself, but she spoke first.

  “Apparently not, as that is what you put in the bag. So you did know about it.”

  “No, Sister, what I meant was – I was only trying to say that garter snakes don’t bite. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I didn’t mean—”

  “The Lord is your witness, Michel deVries. Do not compound your situation by lying before Him.”

  “But I did not do it, Sister. Someone took the bag from my desk.”

  “And you said nothing about it.”

  “I only just noticed, Sister.” He wished that a Prussian bomb would land on them right that second. “ ‘Someone’ took your bag, you say.”

  “Yes, Sister.”

  “And do you know who that might have been?” Moussa debated with himself. He knew well enough, but preferred to deal with it after class
. And yet he was tired of getting in trouble for things he had not done. He decided to try something different.

  “I think it was Pierre, Sister.”

  “Pierre! Come forward!”

  Pierre rose from his chair and hurried to the front of the room. His face was impassive as he stood before her.

  “Did you steal this bag from Michel’s desk?”

  “No, Sister.”

  “Did you have anything to do with the serpent?” “No, Sister.”

  She turned her hardest stare upon the boy. Her eyes were narrowed and severe. Sometimes it unnerved a child, and served to get at the truth. Sometimes it just scared them, or made them cry. “God is your witness, Pierre. Do not jeopardize your soul by lying before Him! Did you know of this?” Pierre looked at her, then down at the floor. He was one of the boys who got scared. His voice quivered when he answered.

  “No, Sister. I swear it before the Lord God.” Moussa closed his eyes. He should have known better.

  “Very well. Take your seat.”

  With a silent sigh of relief, Pierre returned to his desk with a wry glance at his friends.

  Moussa tried again. “Sister, I too swear—”

  “Do not!” she lashed back, before he could say more. “A boy who does not bow his head in prayer before the Lord God will not now swear an oath in His name! Do not dare it before Him!” Sister Godrick stood up. “For your lie, Michel, you shall suffer God’s punishment in the hereafter. For the serpent, you shall suffer mine now. Drop your trousers.”

  “Here?”

  “Here.”

  Moussa was determined not to show his fear, and he heard his father’s voice. They respect only strength. With great effort he summoned the courage to look stronger than he felt. There was no defeat in his eyes. He would submit, but he wasn’t beaten – not by Sister Godrick, not by a whipping, not by the treachery of another student. She made him lean over a desk and take hold of the side bars. Then she had the other boys line up in a row so that they could watch and see clearly what was happening. Moussa would be humiliated before them, as they in turn would be warned and humbled by his punishment. In that manner everyone would profit. She made him turn his head toward his classmates, so that he could watch them watching. Only his shirt covered his buttocks. Moussa could see the boys smirking at his exposure. The oak paddle screamed down. She wielded it with terrific force, so that some of the boys jumped when it hit. It was to be no ordinary whipping, then. They saw it in the way she held herself. She was small in stature, but she put her whole upper body into it, and took care with her aim. After five blows she stopped, panting.