The Empress: A novel

by Laura Martínez-Belli

  The journey’s challenges soon made her forget her emotional struggles; there wasn’t time for self-pity. The mountain rain gave her goose bumps, and her ladies-in-waiting were as pale as the embroidery on their dresses. Near Córdoba, one of the carriage wheels broke on an enormous rock. They slowly climbed out of the coach; Carlota was grateful for the forced rest so she could stretch her legs. Her chambermaid, Mathilde Döblinger, approached and said, “Your Majesty, we must take shelter. We cannot go on in these conditions.”

  “We cannot stop, Mathilde. If we delay, we’ll miss the ship.”

  “We have no choice, Majesty. We shall have to stay here until the morning, when we can find a replacement carriage.”

  Carlota looked at the men and women accompanying her; they all seemed strangely relaxed, as if they were in no hurry to live their lives. And then Charles de Bombelles, her husband’s friend and her rival for his affection, ventured to say, “You’ll see how lovely Córdoba is, Your Majesty.”

  Carlota exploded with rage.

  “Don’t speak nonsense, Bombelles!” She yelled so hard her face flushed red. Her hands began to tremble. But Carlota, hearing her own raised voice, no longer cared. “We’re not here for sightseeing! Mexico’s fate hangs on this journey! The emperor’s future, the empire’s future! However beautiful it may be, do you think I’m going to stop and admire the scenery?”

  Bombelles, blushing, lowered his head.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty, I didn’t intend to upset you.”

  Dr. Bohuslavek, her personal physician, intervened.

  “Don’t upset yourself, Your Majesty. It’s not advisable for you to become agitated in your . . . Please, stay calm.”

  The doctor held some smelling salts under her nose, but she batted them away.

  “Don’t you start with the frailties of health. I am perfectly well. A woman has the right to raise her voice when she hears a person talk nonsense!”

  Everyone was silent, not daring to say anything that might earn them an earful from the empress. They had never seen her like this. She appeared to have lost her senses.

  Carlota observed them with an unfamiliar rage. She suddenly wanted to slap them all: she imagined herself flogging them one by one until their buttocks were raw. She breathed. She tried to calm herself. She looked at the coachman.

  “You,” she said to him. “I hope you’re not trying to delay us so we miss the ship.”

  “Of course not, Your Majesty. It was an accident. The stone was in the road, there was nothing I could do to avoid it,” he said without looking at her.

  Then Carlota spoke as if from a pulpit. “Nobody is going to stop me. Do you hear me? Nobody! Tell the spies that were sent to prevent me from reaching France in time that they will never succeed. Never!”

  Mathilde plucked up the courage to speak on behalf of everyone. “My lady, rest assured. Nobody wants to stop us. Spies? Here among us? We are your faithful servants. Look at us . . . We are here to serve you, to assist you.”

  Carlota suddenly seemed calm again after her panic attack. She slowly looked around, seeing their frightened expressions. She felt ashamed.

  “Very well,” she said. “But I insist that we travel on horseback to Paso del Macho and take the train from there.”

  Seeing her less agitated, Dr. Bohuslavek approached her again. “That is not advisable, given your . . . given the conditions, Your Majesty. Let us spend the night here. The new carriage will arrive tomorrow at first light. We won’t be late and we’ll make the ship.”

  Carlota turned away, holding her hands to her face for a few seconds. She felt exhausted, furious and exhausted. Furious that she’d lost her temper, exhausted from the grueling journey. Finally, she lowered her hands and turned back to the others. “Very well. Let us go to this inn, then. We’ll try to rest.”

  The next day, the replacement carriage arrived, and they set off without incident, but the previous day’s episode had cast a pall over the entourage that remained with them for the rest of the journey.

  After several days passing along roads that the rain had turned to mud chutes, with landslides and stones blocking the narrowest passes, they finally reached the port of Veracruz, where they would set sail for Saint-Nazaire. They had survived the roads and the vomiting sickness at the worst time of year. Carlota thanked God and crossed herself. She was dirty, she smelled of sweat and tears; a violent stench penetrated her nose and nauseated her. But she attempted to control herself, breathed deeply, and hoped that the salty sea air would cleanse her of the constant feeling of disgust.

  The Empress Eugénie, a ship of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, was waiting to be boarded. They were about to board when Carlota noticed that atop the mast a French flag was blowing in the wind. Her expression darkened and her heart tightened. France had turned her back on them, it had betrayed them from afar, abandoning them to their fate. This treacherous France would not fly its flag over her during the weeks at sea. As soon as she set foot on deck, she addressed Captain Cloue, who’d come to welcome her without much enthusiasm. Before he was able to speak, she made a firm demand.

  “You understand, Captain, that I shall not sail on a ship that doesn’t fly the Mexican flag.”

  Surprised, the captain resisted with arguments that, while true, seemed abrupt and tactless.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but we were only informed of your arrival yesterday . . . In order to accommodate you, we even had to refuse passengers who’d been waiting a long time.”

  Carlota could hear the unease in the captain’s voice. She knew it would be an uncomfortable voyage: it was clear this man would’ve been happier transporting a large group of civilians rather than an empress demanding protocol. But Carlota wasn’t one to show weakness; God only knew how hard it had been to learn to do a man’s work in a woman’s skirts. She interrupted the officer midsentence.

  “You heard me. I shall not sail aboard a ship that does not recognize the greatness of the empire.”

  “But time is pressing—”

  “Then you had better be quick, Captain.” And swallowing her impatience, heavy as a brick, she added, “We shall wait for as long as it takes.” Then she turned and addressed Manuelita del Barrio, who had learned to recognize when a response to an order could be delayed for a little longer than it should be and when it couldn’t. “I will wait in the command building. Send for me when the captain is ready to depart.”

  The captain watched her walk away with a firm stride and knew that it would be a very, very long journey.

  They set sail two days later. From the port, the people watched the empress leave with her retinue: her ladies-in-waiting headed by Manuelita del Barrio; the foreign minister, the count of Orizaba; the commander of the Chapultepec palatine guard; the treasurer of Miramare and Chapultepec; a chambermaid; a secretary; Carlota’s maid, Mathilde Döblinger; and her personal physician, Dr. Bohuslavek. And of course, Charles de Bombelles, whom Maximilian had ordered to watch over the empress on the crossing.

  On her sleepless nights, of which there were many, Carlota couldn’t stop thinking about how convenient it would be for Bombelles if she suffered some kind of accident. Who would console Maximilian if she died? And then she closed her eyes and saw faithful Charles, so polite, so serene, smiling malevolently in the darkness.

  6

  1862, Belgium

  Philippe Petit was beginning to grow weary of his ordinary life. He worked as a carpenter in Antwerp under the apprenticeship of Mr. Walton, a man whose only consideration was to provide a roof, a bowl of soup, and a hunk of bread after an endless day polishing wood. Philippe didn’t dislike the work. The repetitive sound of gouges against wood soothed him and helped empty his mind of thoughts, because, if he dared to think, he often slipped into imagining a future that might not be better but was certainly different. He preferred to hypnotize himself with the sound of the file rubbing at the rough surfaces until they were as smooth as marble. That was how he’d spent his
days since the age of thirteen.

  He was the fifth child in a family of six. When his parents died, he and his siblings had been forced to fend for themselves. The landlords didn’t hesitate to throw them out when they learned they wouldn’t be able to pay the rent. They knew they’d be unable to remain together, since no one in their right mind could take responsibility for six orphans at once; the logical thing was to find homes for them according to their skills and ages. Under the circumstances, the eldest brother, Arthur, promised to care for them all, and one night the six of them fled in the direction of the mountains. They found a cave, where they took shelter. On the first night, Philippe was so afraid and so cold he didn’t think he’d be able to stand another night. They huddled together for warmth, but also to ward off the immense feeling of loneliness. In that moment, with no candles and in silence, Philippe discovered the cruelty of the night, but they were together and that was what mattered. On the second night they built a fire. On the third, little Noah began to cough up blood. Arthur knew then that they couldn’t escape their fate. He could tolerate many things, but not seeing his little brother die, so he decided to return to the town and place each of them in homes where they could at least grow up without too much hardship. Philippe, as he smoothed the wood, sometimes remembered his brother’s words. I’ll be back for you, he had promised, and that was ten years ago. Every day Philippe tried not to think about the family he’d once had—it hurt too much. He preferred to fill his days working hard and saying little, but lately he’d begun to think that he didn’t want to die with a carpenter’s hands. Perhaps there were other things he could do, other paths to take. He was twenty-three and, despite his dalliances in the slums of Antwerp, he had no one to come home to at night. In his life there was only Mr. Walton with his soup, his wood, and his frugality. But the most intolerable thing of all was that he was beginning to sense, as sure as the sun rises in the morning, that the next day would be exactly the same as the one before. Routine—that was his own private hell. Philippe went to bed, like he did every night, in the hope that a miracle would change the course of his life.

  7

  Philippe woke, as he did every day, to the sound of a cock crowing. He couldn’t remember what it felt like to open his eyes naturally, when the tiredness had left his body. He got up, washed his face and underarms with a little water from a bowl in his room, put on some loosely laced boots, and went down to the kitchen. As he did every morning, he heated water to make tea, serving himself a cup with a spoon, though he hadn’t added milk, for the sheer pleasure of making tiny swirls in the liquid. He took a sip and burned his tongue. “Ah!” he exclaimed as he snapped the cup away from his lips and spilled a bit of tea on the table. “Damn it!” he whispered. He didn’t want Mr. Walton to wake up; he liked the solitude of the kitchen at this early hour.

  He looked for a cloth to wipe the table. If there was one thing he’d learned in all his years in the trade, it was that water made wood swell, and as the perfectionist he was, he couldn’t allow such a blunder. He found an old newspaper and without hesitation laid it on the surface to absorb the spill. He leaned against the table with a hand at either end of the paper, which gradually soaked up the liquid. His eyes fell on an article that was changing color as it became wet, and before the paper was ruined, he lifted it up, completely engrossed. The wood’s potential swelling became a secondary concern as Philippe read:

  At the request of Leopold I, king of Belgium, Parliament authorizes the formation of a regiment to guard the Belgian Princess Charlotte, who will travel to Mexico to be empress.

  Wherefore, the king calls for two thousand unmarried men, no older than thirty-five, with a medical certificate and a letter of recommendation bearing witness to their good character. Members of the Belgian army who enlist shall be given a military rank immediately above the one they hold, and their years of service in the Belgian legion in Mexico shall be taken into account for their pension. Six years of service shall be required, with one year’s leave. Those who, upon retiring from service, wish to return to Belgium may be repatriated and shall receive compensation. Civilian volunteers . . .

  Philippe opened his eyes wide. Civilians. They’re recruiting civilians, too, he thought. He continued reading:

  Civilian volunteers shall be employed for a sum of sixty to a hundred francs and shall be granted a military rank. They shall receive military training so that they may perform their duties. At the end of their six years of service, whether soldiers or officers, those who wish to remain in Mexico shall be granted land.

  It couldn’t be right. A piece of land; volunteers could have their own land. In Mexico . . . Where was that? What did it matter! And a salary, too. And military rank. Too good to be true.

  Philippe laid the paper back on the table and sat in silence for a few minutes. He distantly heard Mr. Walton waking up: he was calling for him to put the kettle on the fire. Leaving the kitchen to head to the workshop, Philippe stopped and retraced his footsteps, tore the damp page from the newspaper, and carefully put it in his trouser pocket.

  8

  Constanza grew up between two worlds without realizing it, worlds that coexisted naturally despite the gulf between them.

  One world was male dominated, full of military men and priests who dreamed aloud about strict authoritarian regimes to control the troublemakers who were upsetting the established order. Presiding over this world like an all-powerful god was her father, Don Vicente, to whom she owed obedience and respect. He had lost a leg in the Battle of Palo Alto, when he still believed that Mexico belonged to the Mexicans. The sound of the walking stick that preceded him always filled Constanza with fear, like the drumroll before an execution by firing squad.

  The other world was domestic, and yet, within it, Constanza was able to enjoy the illusion of free will. This world was led by her mother, her Refugio. Her mother taught her to see with different eyes, critical eyes that questioned everything, eyes capable of asking why. Deep down, she saw in her daughter something that she once possessed herself, something from before her marriage, before having children. Something lost to submission and routine.

  They lived in a beautiful house that filled Vicente with pride. He was proud, too, that his new and hard-earned family fortune, the result of a great deal of sacrifice and expertise, had opened doors for him. Not everybody could build wealth from nothing, but he was a Murrieta, and, even during the worst turmoil, his good sense and political nose had enabled him to back the winning horse. At least, that was the official version—the true story was that, when she married Vicente, Refugio had brought to the marriage her family’s cotton mill in Chalco, which they owned because her grandparents had done good business with the mining families of New Spain. Vicente, meanwhile, brought good breeding, and everyone was satisfied with the arrangement.

  Perhaps because he knew himself to be rich for the first time in his life, after the army, building the house became Vicente’s great calling. He knew exactly which materials were used in each room; he knew the origin of every tile on the stairs. He’d promised himself that, for the years he had left, the house would be the home of a refined family. He knew he was on the right path when the block became known as the location of the Murrieta house. Sure enough, there was a constant buzz of people at the house: Vicente loved to host dinners and lunches to fête—the euphemism he used for “buying favors”—high-ranking officials in the army and the Church. That was how he was; he liked to think he called the shots. His sons usually joined the gatherings; however, Clotilde and Constanza were sent to their rooms and told to be quiet when there were guests. The visitors never seemed trustworthy to Constanza, though neither did she consider them enemies: they were snakes waiting to shed their skin. They were very serious when they arrived in their impeccable military uniforms, politely introducing themselves before disappearing into the library to discuss political matters. The women waited in the parlor, limiting themselves to the trivial subjects that women converse about, or
at least what they pretend to.

  The women’s days were spent between embroidery and the gospel. The three women of the Murrieta house, immersed in their silent complicity, listened to their father and husband put the country, if not the world, to rights. According to him, Mexico was slowly being brought down by the Liberales; little by little, the country was descending into chaos. The way he saw it, since the Plan of Ayutla, which overthrew President Santa Anna in 1855, political decisions had been one absurdity after another; if they went on like this, they’d end up with Benito Juárez as president. This man, among other aberrations, was drafting laws to eliminate the ecclesiastic and military courts’ jurisdiction in civil affairs.

  “Who does he think he is to decide anything in this country? The upstart. An Indian as president . . . Por favor! What’s the world coming to?”

  When Vicente began to rant and rave against Comonfort and Juárez, Refugio pricked her finger with her needle and excused herself to go wash the wound.

  He wasn’t a bad man, but he showed little affection for his children, and his manner was coarse. He had never been very loving; he was never seen to kiss his wife in public, let alone any of his children. He remained so proper that sometimes Constanza wondered how he had won her mother if he didn’t even look her in the eyes. Nonetheless, he loved them in his own manner; the way he showed it was to ensure their family name was never the subject of gossip, and that they always had a roof over their heads and a hot plate of food on the table. Beyond that, they didn’t expect much affection or understanding from him. Not even when Constanza was a little girl who liked to be held did she have the confidence to climb onto his lap; her father commanded respect and fear in equal measure, and for her they amounted to the same thing. She feared his limp as much as his stick: seeing him advance toward his study dragging his leg, and hearing his wooden support banging on the floor, made her run as fast as she could to her bedroom. He only addressed his daughters to request something to drink or to ask them about their prayers or chores, and often Constanza preferred to save herself the effort of a formal conversation. Even so, under his fierce appearance was a good heart, even if Vicente had spent half his life trying to hide it: since he was a boy, he’d known the pain of war and the death that came with it. A man was born to survive, and nobody would ever persuade him otherwise.