It didn’t take that long. The rumors had begun to spread that the empress was pregnant long before she set sail for Europe. Under their breath, mindful they weren’t being listened to, in the cantinas of the Gulf of Mexico, people sang, “Adiós, Carlota, the people rejoice to see you so plump!” in place of the well-known lyrics composed to sing her praises and see her off with the honors she deserved: “Adiós, Mamá Carlota, adiós, my tender love.” But she either never heard it or she pretended that she hadn’t. Because, when all was said and done, what was carrying a bastard in her womb compared to the responsibility of saving an empire?
2
July 1857, Belgium
Trying in vain to count along with her heartbeat, Carlota stood spellbound in front of the mirror. It was the novelty. She had never seen herself so beautiful. Her parents had taught her to be austere, and she rarely dressed in colors other than gray. The sin of vanity, suppressed since childhood in favor of cultivating her intellect, erupted with fury. She couldn’t suppress the pleasure she felt seeing herself like this—for the first and perhaps only time—as if her spirit were finally able to express itself in her aspect. She wore a full silk satin dress embroidered with silver and a long Ghent lace veil held in place by a diadem of orange blossom and diamonds. She smoothed down the billowing skirt with both hands, taking care not to crush the crinoline. What would Maximilian think when he saw her like this, a bride brimming with youth and beauty? How would he look? She felt her cheeks flush. She was just seventeen, as fresh as a blanket of green grass, and filled with hope for her life. However, first and foremost, Charlotte of Saxe-Coburg and Orléans, about to marry her prince, was in love.
She took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on the face in the mirror. The face of a girl about to become a woman. Her grandmother, Queen Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, had informed her of her marital duties. “You must not be afraid, my child,” she had told her in a loving attempt to fill the void that her mother had left, a mother who had taught her, at the age of ten, what it meant to be an orphan all too early. “Do not be afraid. The consummation of marriage is a natural act, like eating or breathing.” How far her sweet grandmother was from knowing her soul, she thought, for she felt no fear—far from it. The hours seemed to stretch out forever when she thought about the moment she would become one with her archduke. From the moment they met he’d struck her as gallant, cultured, and exceedingly attractive. She wanted to be with her Max, and thinking about it made her pulse race. She looked at herself one last time to see the woman ready to emerge from the mirror. She lifted her chin. Proud. She had a queen’s bearing, and she could almost feel the weight of destiny gazing back at her. She shook her head, and, barely suppressing a smile, she set off to the Royal Palace of Brussels’s Blue Room, where Maximilian of Habsburg, in the prime of his youth at twenty-five, wearing a rear admiral’s uniform, was waiting nervously.
In her worst moments, Carlota had wished that she could have a wedding like that of Maximilian’s sister-in-law, the empress Sissi, who’d married his brother Franz Joseph with great fanfare. But since they weren’t firstborns, Maximilian and Carlota would have to make do with a quiet marriage in the palace. When the envy began to eat at her, she shook her head, trying to rid herself of the bad thoughts, and told herself that her life would be as happy or even happier than Sissi’s, who, in her darkest thoughts, she detested.
None of the heirs to the royal households of Europe attended the wedding; however, her grandmother, who wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world, witnessed the union. Carlota was the apple of her eye, and she’d raised her with the same love with which she had cared for her own daughters. Despite her apparent severity, she couldn’t suppress a tear of joy when she saw her beloved granddaughter walk in on her father’s arm. On behalf of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Carlota’s cousin on her father’s side, her consort Prince Albert was in attendance, and Maximilian’s brother, the archduke Karl Ludwig, had traveled from Vienna to be present at the ceremony. Carlota advanced with care, aware that she was heading not just toward love, but glory. She was certain that Maximilian—and therefore she—was destined for great enterprises. The veil prevented her from seeing clearly; even so, she could make out her groom’s unmistakable slender figure at the end of the hall. She was trying to look sidelong at the guests and greet them with a slight nod of her head, when suddenly, close to Maximilian in the background, two figures caught her attention: two young men, handsome and very serious, were watching her like lions. Carlota felt uncomfortable and for a moment lowered her gaze. She quickly looked up toward her father, who looked back affectionately and whispered, “Safe passage, flower of my heart.”
The two men, she discovered later, were the count Charles de Bombelles and Maximilian’s Hungarian valet, Sebastian Schertzenlechner. When she saw them, Carlota’s stomach knotted, though she wasn’t sure why.
When she reached Maximilian, he flashed a smile of amorous complicity that lingered for a few seconds before fading to absolute indifference. He must be enraptured, like me, Carlota thought. Because as soon as she saw him, the infatuation that had already overwhelmed her was only strengthened. Again, he seemed the most elegant man on the face of the earth, his naval officer’s demeanor making her legs tremble. But however much she smiled at him, Maximilian, fixed in a cold, ceremonious posture, kept turning his eyes back to the priest. Carlota attributed it to the solemnity of the occasion. What nobleman would allow his passions to betray him in a ceremony as public as a wedding? Her Max was not that banal. There would be time for pleasantries when they were alone together. This was a public occasion, and her father had taught her that duty came before all else. A monarch—he’d told her since she was a child—must never show frailty or weakness, even at the gallows. A Habsburg never showed emotion in public. That was how great her Maximilian was, how noble. And if he thought she looked beautiful, he wouldn’t diminish himself by telling her so now. I’ll wait, she thought to herself. And that was what she did.
She waited all night and the next night and then the next, as her heart saddened and her soul grew distressed. She tried to understand what caused his behavior, but she couldn’t. Carlota was left waiting forever for her beloved Maximilian—who bit by bit began to crumble before her eyes—to offer her a sign of affection, let alone lust. Maximilian let her slowly dry out, like a grape in the sun, until nothing remained in her except the shame and sadness of knowing herself utterly unwanted. The woman in the mirror could never emerge, and the seventeen-year-old girl was condemned to the desert of unrequited desire. Maximilian spent each night aboard his ship, while Carlota, filled with anguish, remained in the castle asking herself over and over what she’d done wrong. One day, seized by crushing disappointment while at tea with her brother Philippe, the Count of Flanders, she said, “Oh, brother, this marriage has left me as I was before.”
He looked at her with wide eyes, thinking he must have misheard. “What did you say?”
Carlota, suddenly ashamed and aware of what such a statement meant, reconsidered. “Ignore me, Philippe. I’m just tired. Everything is fine.”
They fixed their eyes on their cups, trying to elude the terrible specter of doubt that would install itself in their hearts from then thereafter.
3
Two months after the wedding, Leopold I, who had little faith in his son-in-law’s talents, asked Franz Joseph to find a good position for the young archduke, and the emperor of Austria, who also had little trust in his brother’s political abilities, reluctantly agreed. The couple traveled to the Austrian territory Lombardy-Venetia, to the capital, Milan. At first Carlota thought it would become her home, but she soon realized she had no choice but to learn to be bored gracefully.
They weren’t wanted there. The kingdom had Austrian sovereignty but an Italian soul, and the people made it clear they weren’t welcome. In the streets they heard shouts of Non siete nessuno, “You are nothing,” to humiliate them by emphasizing that they held
no sway there. Va’, pensiero, the chorus of a Verdi opera heavy with the composer’s immense sorrow of losing his wife and two children, was in fashion. The Italians adopted it as their anthem, an anthem that echoed in their hearts, demanding sovereignty: “Oh, my homeland, so beautiful and lost!” Though Maximilian was open to liberal ideas and was, to some extent, charismatic, he was universally disliked; the Italians saw him as the representative of a foreign occupying force, and the Austrians thought he was too tolerant of nationalist ideas. Carlota could see his face drop every time he received a letter from Franz Joseph. She didn’t trouble him with questions to which she already knew the answer. But like a mischievous little girl, when he left her alone in the palace for days, she took the correspondence from his drawer and read it. With a violent hand, the Austrian sovereign, her husband’s elder brother, wrote things like “I cannot expect you to agree with my decisions, but our opponents must not be emboldened by the idea that you are on their side.” Carlota knew Maximilian didn’t care about that. He didn’t care if he became separated from a regime that he considered indolent. He didn’t care about much other than the restoration of the Royal Villa of Monza, some miles from Milan; Maximilian enjoyed the pomp of courts and wanted to re-create his own in the seventeenth-century style. He amused himself picking out curved swords for the guards and period livery for the footmen. He wanted Moorish pages, and for dinner to be served by black servants while an orchestra played. He boasted he was the only monarch with such exotic servants. Carlota thought that perhaps Maximilian would have been happier with someone like Sissi, beautiful on the outside and empty within, drawn to luxury and power like sailors to a mermaid. These excesses horrified Carlota. From a young age, her mother—and after her death, her father—had taught her the importance of using clothes until they tore, and then to wear the patches with dignity. In the Belgian castle, the austerity of the monarchs and the court was visible in every piece of fabric. Which was why, among other reasons, Carlota couldn’t stand her sister-in-law. They spent little time together, but it was enough for ill will to emerge between them. On one occasion, the Austrian empress referred to Carlota as the Belgian Duck. Far from upsetting Carlota, this merely confirmed how far beneath her own intelligence and lineage Elisabeth of Bavaria was. Sissi’s mother-in-law, the princess Sophie, did not like her either: she considered Sissi fanciful, spoiled, and foolish, and didn’t think her qualified to raise her children in the correct manner. Carlota, though she never said it aloud, thought the same.
But Carlota never allowed herself a moment’s doubt. She knew that governing was a burden disguised as a privilege. She didn’t expect peace or gratitude; being a monarch meant making difficult decisions. Above all, she was prepared to not be universally liked. Her father had reminded her every day and night: “Duty, Charlotte, duty.” Omnipotent God bestowed this duty on them, and they answered only to Him. “Men err in their judgment, Charlotte; the Almighty does not.” So she put on a brave front and bore her cross as Jesus Christ had, writing letters to her grandmother in which the most frequent word was “blessed.” How blessed she was! Blessed inside. Blessed to live in such a beautiful country. Blessed for everything that was agreeable to her. Blessed because God had given her everything. But sometimes, while writing, she had a bitter taste in her mouth, aware that for each line of lies, she would have to confess. For blessed she was not. She was not blessed at all. She was married to a man who appeared romantic on the surface but who seemed to grow ever more impotent. Impotent and effeminate. Carlota was beginning to see the libertine look of strange tastes in his eyes, though sometimes, on nights when she longed for a warm body beside hers, she yearned to be the object of his perversions, whatever they were. To make matters worse, when she awoke, she found herself weighed down by their Italian dominions: they were living in a powder keg, a feeling of unease everywhere. The Italians didn’t want Austria to become kinder; they wanted it to leave.
To ingratiate himself with the people, Maximilian decided to organize a performance at La Scala, as rulers customarily did. Carlota didn’t think it was a good idea, but she was beginning to understand that her husband was motivated more by beauty than by politics. She had not yet seen him truly govern. If she were him, she would have held meetings with the political leaders to see how they could address the matters that most concerned the Italians, to lay certain foundations, and prevent the situation from escalating. Instead, Maximilian organized sumptuous concerts and lunches, always surrounded by twenty or thirty sycophants.
Carlota found him one afternoon choosing the gold envelopes for the invitations he was sending to the foremost members of Lombardian and Venetian society inviting them to the opera. She sighed, disappointed and a little envious. Sometimes, when boredom struck, she wished she could be infected with her husband’s enthusiasm at undertaking a project—it would make everything easier. For some time, she’d felt subdued, apathetic, with no interest in anything. Taking a step forward required monumental effort. She looked out the window and wondered how she could be in such a beautiful place and feel so empty, so trapped. There had to be something more. She felt as if the future were waiting for her on the other side of the street, but she didn’t dare cross it.
She retraced her steps to Maximilian, who remained engrossed in his guest list, imagining how honored the recipients would all feel when they received the royal envelope sealed with his initials. She came up behind him and was about to kiss his head when suddenly he exclaimed, escaping her embrace, “Mind my wig!”
She froze, petrified inside and out. Finally, she plucked up the courage to speak. “Wig?”
Barely hiding his displeasure, Maximilian replied in the most casual manner he could muster. “It protects me from the cold and from toothache. Anyway, it’s very discreet.”
Carlota, swallowing, still motionless, replied, “Yes, yes, very discreet.”
Days later when they arrived at La Scala, Maximilian almost lost his wig from the shock as they entered the theater: there wasn’t a single empty seat. A full house. At first, his vanity swelled like a dove’s chest, but then he realized that he didn’t recognize any of the seats’ occupants; the cream of Milan society wasn’t there. To Maximilian’s horror, it gradually sank in that he’d been the victim of a gigantic orchestrated snub. None of the guests had deigned to attend. In their places, all of the nobles whose names had been written in gold ink had decided to send their servants. Carlota held Maximilian tightly by the arm and they continued. He wanted to say something but couldn’t; she prodded him with her elbow to walk on. From the box, maintaining the dignity that never abandoned her, she raised her hand to greet everyone in attendance with a royal wave. Then, in a low voice, she instructed Maximilian. “Sit down and, by all that’s sacred, do not show your displeasure.”
He obeyed.
It was the most dramatic opera that they would attend in their lives. That night, as if the universe were conspiring against them, Sissi and Franz Joseph had their first son: a boy who, before he’d even opened his eyes, had kicked Maximilian down to third in line for the throne, while he swallowed ignoble, weak tears, his spirits as threadbare as the hair his wig concealed.
4
Mid 1800s, Mexico City
Across the ocean, Constanza Murrieta had had the misfortune to be born a woman in a world governed by men. Her father had prayed aloud for another boy to succeed him, helping with the conservative military effort he championed, and he never learned to hide his displeasure. She was born on September 14, the day that, to the shame of every Mexican, the Stars and Stripes was hoisted over the National Palace. That was when she entered the world, and there was nothing she could do to avoid being born on that turbulent day. She’d been expected later, but the cannons booming in the heart of Mexico City made her mother give birth prematurely. It was September 1847, an ironically patriotic month, for it was when the nation’s independence was usually celebrated, but not this year. This year, the only shouts were horrified screams as people
saw the soldiers being massacred by snipers on the roofs. The Mexicans defended their city tooth and nail and, running out of munitions, they even threw flowerpots at the Americans, but in the end, they had no choice but to surrender. Sometimes Constanza thought that the confusion of being born in an occupied territory was what led her to a life of multiple identities, turning her into a Mexican disguised as a foreigner in her own country.
Across the Atlantic, Europe would soon witness the birth of a new world. The old authoritarian regimes were being battered by liberal revolutionary waves—the Spring of Nations, as they were called—and everywhere, from France to Hungary, nationalist protests erupted, supported by the workers’ movement. All of the uprisings were crushed by the upper echelons of power. That year, Emily Brontë published Wuthering Heights under the pseudonym Ellis Bell; a single time zone was established in Great Britain, a convention that would later be extended to the rest of the planet; and Spain held its first April Fair among the palm trees. It was also the year of the birth of Thomas Alva Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, while General Santa Anna was president of Mexico for his ninth term. In the midst of all of this, the gringos believed for a moment that Mexico belonged to them, and they decided to claim sovereignty, with many deaths on both sides.
The Murrieta Salases were a family of five. The two elder brothers, Joaquín and Salvador, were career soldiers like their father, and from a young age they bore the burden of being Major Vicente’s sons. After Salvador came a baby who’d been unable to survive the harsh winter and died a few days later; nobody spoke of her, as if the silence prevented them from suffering. Constanza was the only one to understand that her mother always missed that child; it was her spirit, more than her body, that was broken, but she was young and strong, and somewhere in her soul she must have found the will to conceive a third child. Before the baby was born, Major Vicente decided that, should it be a boy, he would be a priest, and Agustín was born. From a very young age his father guided him toward saintliness, as Vicente liked to say wholeheartedly. They always dressed him in black and taught him Latin; in the shade of a tree in the courtyard, they explained to him that priesthood meant dedicating one’s life not just to God but also to power. Perhaps he might even become a bishop. “Can you imagine? You’d be Monsignor Murrieta.” Agustín laughed at the idea, and from that moment on he ordered everyone in the house to start calling him Monsi. When the time came, nobody was surprised that Agustín took holy orders as naturally as a river reaches the sea.
The Empress: A novel Page 2