by Rasha Adly
“What’s the name of the artist?” he asked.
“Alton Germain,” she said.
His eyes narrowed and grew unfocused, and he seemed lost in thought. Then he got up and entered the name into his computer, checking their archive. Seconds later, he said, “Yes. That artist was on the boat that took the artists and scientists to Egypt. It set sail from the port of Toulon on July 29, 1798.”
She felt her eyes shine and felt light with relief. With this confident declaration, she felt certain that this was the painter of the portrait. After a pause, the man said, eyes still on his computer, “Alton Germain was an artist of great skill and compassionate temperament. He never sought any positions of power: he was only on the ship by sheer chance, as his name was not originally on the list of Campaign artists. At the last moment, an artist fell ill, and a replacement was needed: Alton Germain was chosen. He was an opponent of Napoleon’s policies: his paintings did not properly glorify Napoleon, instead depicting the customs and manners of the common people. The few paintings he was compelled to paint depicted Napoleon and his soldiers as cruel and evil invaders, while the Egyptians he portrayed as equal in stature to the French. The greatest disaster was the painting he created of Napoleon’s campaign in the Levant, when he painted the soldiers suffering in the desert, enfeebled and miserable, awaiting death.
“His paintings were in the original first edition of The Description of Egypt,” he continued, “and when Napoleon saw them, he ordered that every painting by that artist be expunged from the book and that it be reprinted.”
“That’s why he removed every trace of him,” Yasmine nodded, bursting with excitement, “and he may have imprisoned or killed him!”
“He did erase him without a trace,” said Andrea, “but he didn’t imprison or kill him.” He looked at his watch, indicating an end to their interview.
“Well,” she said, picking up her handbag from the desk, “I have to go now.”
“I’ll expect you tomorrow at two o’clock,” said Andrea, “and we can finish our conversation. You can bring the painting you think is his: we can take a color sample and run some tests on it to see if the colors match his other work. That way we’ll be certain.”
She nodded, shook his hand, and left.
The weather bureau had been absolutely correct: it was raining and a chilly wind was blowing. Luckily, she had remembered to bring an umbrella. She liked walking in the rain: it made her feel washed clean. Still, it was hard to walk in the rain in three-inch heels. She took a taxi instead. It was a good thing she had, as the heavens had opened up and the taxi driver could barely see for what seemed like buckets of water falling from the sky. The windshield wipers barely managed to wipe the rain away, sweeping back and forth in a dull rhythm.
She mentally replayed the conversation she had just had, pausing at, “The greatest disaster was the painting he created of Napoleon’s campaign in the Levant.”
Between Haifa and Acre: March 1798
Disease was rampant: it spread through the soldiers like wildfire. First there were the buboes that sprouted on men’s faces, under their arms, and on their thighs; then they would grow and blacken, followed by vomiting and fever. We used an abandoned monastery between Haifa and Acre to set up a field hospital, and moved the afflicted soldiers there. Their numbers increased day by day. I volunteered, along with a number of doctors and nurses, to work in the hospital: this was no time to be painting pictures to glorify the emperor, with ruin and devastation around us everywhere we looked.
The beds filled up with plague-ridden soldiers; the new arrivals we were obliged to place on the floor so that one could scarcely walk through the hospital. All of them were suffering from fevers, buboes covering their bodies, their cries filling the halls. I assisted with all the strength I could muster. I did not fear this black plague nor run from it, as many of the Campaign scientists who were with us did— they excused themselves from assisting—or as the officers and soldiers did, diverting their path to take them away from the hospital. I know that death and life are fated and not within our purvey to control: the junior officer who refused to enter to comfort his soldiers with some word that might bring them peace on their way to the afterlife, we heard was killed that same day in battle. Death awaits us wherever we are: so why fear? All I did was take the necessary precautions: I did not take off my gloves or mask, I disinfected myself, and washed my hands well with vinegar and lime.
One evening there was a loud clamor: we ran to see what was the matter. A large group of afflicted soldiers had been brought there from Acre, their comrades bearing them upon stretchers. Among their number was Lautrec, lying upon a stretcher. His face was ruddy and covered with boils, which marred his beautiful features. He had wasted away to nothing, a mere skeleton of a man. Because I had the unwelcome skill of knowing which of the afflicted was closest to death, I knew that there were mere hours between him and death. I was greatly pained at the knowledge and could not restrain myself from weeping. It was as though all the tears I had held back since leaving from the port of Toulon had found a suitable excuse to fall now, without stopping.
I approached Lautrec. He tried valiantly to smile. Despite it all, that beautiful smile was unchanged. I removed his clothing and disinfected his body, then bandaged his buboes that had grown huge and burst, oozing pus and blood. I wept in silence throughout. I remembered the night he had told me the story of his life, and that he had always been an unwelcome guest in his own home. Had he come here, I thought, to die?
As he was in his death throes, he gestured weakly to his jacket. I handed it to him. He pulled a letter out of an inside pocket and held it out to me. In tones scarcely audible, he whispered, “Please . . . give it to her.”
He was holding the lock of her hair to his heart. He held it there until his heart stopped beating.
I covered his face with the sheet and grieved for him.
In this manner, the beds emptied, then filled once more. Death after death brought it home to me how much ruin this rash man had brought down upon the young men of his country to fulfill his grandiose dreams, by forcing them into a war whose consequences he had not considered.
News came to us of the resounding defeat our soldiers had suffered at Acre, bringing disappointment to everyone. One morning, there was chaos in the hospital: there was news that Bonaparte was going to pay the hospital a visit on his way to Cairo. It was a good thing, for perhaps it might be good for the troops’ morale. At eleven o’clock in the morning, he strode into the hospital surrounded by his senior officers, having practically bathed in disinfectant and covered his face so thoroughly that only his eyes were visible. He hurried through the rows of beds, then rushed outside, with no word of comfort, consolation, or encouragement. I looked into the eyes of the afflicted men, seeing grief and disenchantment there: he had led them to their death, and then he had all but ignored them.
That day my colleagues and I—doctors and volunteers—gathered at a table, and I saw deep shame in the eyes of those who had seen Bonaparte as a great hero, and justified all his deeds hitherto. In a choked voice, Monsieur Shalimar, who had been one of them, said “He has the face of defeat. It is nature that defeated him. His greatest enemies were the desert and the plague.”
“That is not to say,” someone added, “that he did not throw us into the jaws of the lion without an adequate plan for this project. He only cares for his own interests, for acquiring the title of ‘Emperor of East and West.’ For the sake of this, he is prepared to sacrifice anything and everything.”
“He rejected the British offer to take his plague-ridden soldiers of Acre on a special ship that would have taken them to France to be treated,” said a doctor, “for his pride would not permit him to owe a single word of thanks to an Englishman.” He exhaled heavily. “He would rather let his soldiers sicken and die than accept their offer.”
“As if that were not enough,” said a volunteer, “out of sheer baseness, he commanded that those with inc
urable cases of the plague be poisoned, to relieve the burden upon the army.”
The next day, before he left for Egypt, Bonaparte gave a speech. “You have crossed the desert that divides Africa from Asia,” he said, “as fast as any army could. You have vanquished the army that would have come to invade Egypt, taken its commander prisoner, and destroyed their machines of war. There is nothing for us but to face reality and keep what remains of the army, and return to Egypt.”
The joyous cries of the soldiers rang out, glad to hear the news of our return. Caravans set forth one after the other. The officers gave orders to start on our way. I and those responsible for the oversight of the field hospital refused to leave the sick and dying behind. In flagrant disobedience of orders, we stayed behind. We resolved to divide ourselves into two groups: one to transport the men who were recovering, and one to stay with the dead and dying until they had expired.
We moved the recovering men on stretchers. The soldiers carried them on the return journey, which I privately entitled “The Journey through Hell” for all the hardships and privations we endured. It was as though everything conspired against us: the return was tragedy incarnate. We were all of us exhausted and weak, barely able to carry our own selves, let alone stretchers laden with plague-ridden soldiers, leaving aside the risk of contagion. Each pair of men bore a stretcher, one to the fore and the other to the rear, and thus we dragged our feet through the heavy and burning desert sand step after painful step, beneath the scorching sun. We had not sufficient water and were obliged to ration what we did have.
Hundreds of thirsting soldiers, wounded men, and plague sufferers lay motionless in the desert. Many shot themselves to be rid of their unrelenting torment. Exhaustion sapped the strength of those who had volunteered to carry their comrades, and they were unable to continue. Some tipped the sick men off the stretchers, then threw the stretchers themselves aside, and staggered on their way half-mad with weeping and shouting, and I could not blame them: they were scarce able to move under their own weight. The cries of the wounded men we left behind split the burning desert, echoing through the boundless cruel silence, crying, “Do not abandon us! Please take us with you! Save us! We would not die here alone!” But circumstance overpowered us all.
I thought amid all this suffering that it might be punishment for some sin we had committed: perhaps some bereft mother, widowed wife, or orphaned child had cursed us after the French army had killed their sons, husbands, or fathers; perhaps all the defeat and death we endured was divine retribution. I dragged myself on, drained and enfeebled, and we dragged our defeat along with us. The idea took shape in my head of painting this scene, a moment of inspiration in my darkest hour. Death’s raucous presence and merciless tyranny loomed over us all.
In the night, beneath the moon I could almost touch—my only company in my loneliness in the night—I would take out my brushes and palette and paint the men’s suffering faces and dying bodies. I painted sand dunes paved with corpses and carrion-eating birds. I painted ravening wolves, while overhead the owls and ravens filled the desert night with their cries. I painted shame and the betrayal of those who had allowed this thing to befall us. The painting cried aloud with all this pain: I would not obey the orders of a mad general and paint him as he wished. I would not paint the false victories of which he made empty boasts. True victory is over an enemy capable of fighting back, not an unarmed victim.
I was afflicted with fever: I burned. It was then I knew that the disease had struck me as well. My body had borne the contagion through my time in the field hospital, and now the symptoms had begun to make themselves known to me. A high fever; enfeeblement as my body failed me; and other sensations that I longed to dismiss as sunstroke or mere exhaustion. But when the first boil appeared on my face, I knew: it was the plague.
Day after day, my condition worsened, until I was but a breath from dying. Still, I refused to surrender to my illness. I took up my brush, now heavy in my hand, and fought my illness by painting.
The physician examined me and said that my case was serious. He said nothing, merely giving me a pitying look that told me I was well on my way. I prayed to Heaven that I might not expire here in this pitiless desert, to be devoured by wolves. At least let me have a grave and a headstone of marble proclaiming, “Here lies Alton Germain,” even if no one sees it.
When we reached the outskirts of the city, I was quarantined along with all the other men afflicted with the plague. I lay on a humble bed, surrounded by a great number of sick men. I was in the last stages of the disease, delirium and hallucinations and phases of unconsciousness, repeated over and over again. In my moments of consciousness, there was one name on my lips: Zeinab.
I delivered the painting I had completed depicting Bonaparte’s campaign in the Levant to one of the doctors, with instructions to deliver it to my artist colleagues in the Campaign. I remembered the soldier Lautrec, and the letter he had pressed into my hand to deliver to his sweetheart, laughing at the irony of fate: here I was, facing the same end, and I dipped my quill in ink to write to her. I did not know what language to write in, I who knew no Arabic, so I wrote down one phrase, meaning everything: I love you.
If I had not finished her portrait, scant days before going out on the expedition to the Levant, I would have grieved. It was the only painting that I had painted, not with my tools, but with my heart. I secreted it in one of the house’s hidden passageways, used only for storage. It was nailed to the underside of a wooden table, hidden from prying eyes and grasping hands. This portrait I painted for myself alone, so that I might see it on my wall wherever I went. I had concealed locks of her hair under a layer of black paint: no one who saw it could tell it was there. I had done it to allow her braids to rest softly on her shoulders, as she always wished.
25
At last, exhausted, she got to the hotel, dropping into a brief nap. She awoke to the ringing of her phone.
“How are you?”
“Doing okay. You?”
“Tell me, did you find out anything?”
“Yes! Lots of things. Tomorrow I have an important meeting where I’m going to find out more.”
There was a beat of silence. “I miss you.”
He always blurted it out in the middle of a conversation, like one of those pat phrases we say without really meaning them, but this time he sounded sincere.
“We just saw each other only a couple of days ago,” she said, effectively shutting him up.
She clearly wanted to hear a response from him, something to the effect of “I always miss you, even when we’re together.” He resolved to disappoint her as she had disappointed him, saying, “You’re right at that. It hasn’t been long at all. Anyway, take care of yourself.”
He hung up in a hurry, leaving her hanging on, alone in her hotel.
Yasmine called her grandmother to make sure she was okay, and then she found herself standing at the window, looking out: the Eiffel Tower, covered with snow; close-set apartment blocks with window boxes on the balconies; narrow, crooked streets washed with rainwater. She had always loved this city. Everything in it urged you to live, to love, to create art. For a moment she imagined the man she was searching for in the corridors of history: the man who had painted with passion and honesty. Which of these alleyways would he have emerged from? Which of these streets would he have walked down? Didn’t streets recall the footsteps of those who had walked down them long ago? If only she could make the streets speak, and tell her where he had come and gone. She imagined him as a slight young man, a lock of hair falling into his face, walking down the streets of Paris, ages ago. He went out with his palette and brushes to capture life on his canvas. The paintings that she had seen of his were proof that this artist was inspired by real life, by the footsteps of passersby in the streets around her. Her sense of being in the same space where this man had once been made her feel close to him, filling her with peace and contentment. His ghost was here, in the corners of the city, all aro
und her, trying to provide her with clues to who and where he was. He urged her to go outside, to walk in the fresh air and down the very streets he had traversed so long ago.
The hotel phone rang, startling her. Who would be calling her here?
“Hello?”
A heavy silence weighted down the other end of the line. She was about to hang up when a voice scraped down the line, as though from the depths of the past: “Hello, Yasmine. How are you?”
She was intimately familiar with this voice and its distinctive tones, but she could not be sure it was him. “Who is this?” she asked.
There was silence on the other end of the line. What should he say in response? Reproach her for not recognizing his voice at once? And what right did he have? “I can’t blame you for not recognizing my voice. It’s been a while,” the voice replied.
It was a shock. Her legs could not hold her and she dropped down to sit on the bed. “How did you know I was here?”
“Is that all you have to say, after all these years?”
His voice was enough to stir up every memory of the past, dredging up her most painful memory from the mists of her recollection. She had always tried not to remember him.
“I moved to France years ago. Yesterday morning I read that the Association for Art History was holding a conference, and your name was on the list of people attending.”
“How did you know I was staying here?”
“I called the conference organizers to ask about you, and they gave me the name of the hotel where the attendees were staying.”
“Well, you found me. What do you want?”
“To see you. I promise not to take up too much of your time. I just want to see you and talk to you. I’ve missed you so much.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t have the time.”