“He wants to poison you, child?”
“He does. Everyone does. He’s turned everyone against me. I no longer trust anybody.”
“Napoleon? What makes you say this, child?”
“They put white powders in my water. I’ve seen it. The doctor thinks I’m not aware of it, but I am.”
Pius IX remained silent. Carlota went on.
“If they must kill me, let them get it over with, without the sadism of doing it slowly.”
“But that’s impossible, child. Why would they kill you?”
“Why not? Right now, I’m a hindrance. All my lifelines have died: my father, my grandmother, my mother. Who would miss me if I died all these leagues away?”
The pope heard the weight of desperation in the young woman’s voice.
“Help me, Your Holiness, don’t leave me at the mercy of these men. They want to drive me out of my mind.”
Hearing this, the pope thought she must be delirious. To soothe her, he offered her some words of comfort; they came naturally, without thought. He consoled people instinctively. Everyone came to him with requests, sick children, serious cases, seeking miracles. He spent the day hearing requests, one after the other, and all he could do for any of those souls was pray.
“Fear not, child. Nobody gets poisoned in Rome.”
Then they spoke of other matters. They said goodbye with the pope promising to examine the concordat document. Carlota didn’t know what to expect. Three days later, dressed and ready at eight o’clock in the morning, she woke Sra. Del Barrio.
“Get dressed, Manuelita. We’re going to the Vatican.”
Sra. Del Barrio blinked a couple of times at the torrent of light that had flooded into the room. Startled, it took her a few seconds to react.
“They summoned you already? So soon?”
To which Carlota replied, “I’m not going to sit here with my arms crossed while Mexico’s future hangs in the balance. If I was a man, they would’ve already received me.”
Sra. Del Barrio looked at the empress’s clothes. She was wearing an everyday dress, clearly not appropriate for an audience with the pope. She delicately brought it to the attention of Carlota, who was pacing around the room.
“Forgive me, Majesty, but do you think you should wear something more suited to a visit to the pope?”
Carlota stopped. She hesitated for a second, then said with pride, “You forget, Manuelita, it is we monarchs who make the rules of etiquette. We are exempt from them.”
As they passed the Trevi Fountain, Carlota suddenly ordered the coachman to halt. The carriage stopped dead, and the women had to grab the armrests to steady themselves.
“What is it?” Sra. Del Barrio asked, hoping the empress had changed her mind and decided to change her clothes.
But Carlota just said, “I’m dying of thirst.”
Sra. Del Barrio watched in disbelief as the empress climbed down from the carriage with a small silver cup she’d never seen before.
“Where did you get that cup, Majesty?”
“I borrowed it from the Vatican.”
Sra. Del Barrio quickly crossed herself, hoping the ritual would cancel out the sin of theft.
Carlota walked toward the fountain like a bride walking to the altar, stretched out her arm, and, allowing the water to splash her dress, filled the cup and drank it all down. Sra. Del Barrio, with astonishment all over her face, watched her return to the carriage with a big smile; she sat watching the empress in silence, as if she’d just seen her butcher an animal. Sitting down, Carlota broke the silence.
“At least I won’t be poisoned here.”
They reached the Vatican early enough that they found the pope having breakfast. The Holy Father, who wasn’t accustomed to unexpected visits, was glad that, for once, someone had skipped the protocol.
“Let her in,” he said. “She can share the sacred food.”
When Carlota walked in, the first thing she noticed was the exquisite smell of bread and hot chocolate floating in the air among the tapestries. Her stomach rumbled with such force that she thought everyone must have heard it. She’d been hungry for days, sometimes because her nerves took away her appetite, and more often because she didn’t trust the food she was served. She approached the table. The pope spoke a few words to her, but she wasn’t listening: she was fixated on the steaming cup of thick chocolate in which His Holiness was dipping bread. She heard voices, but didn’t understand a word. She began to feel dizzy. A high-pitched sound went off in her ears, like sailors’ whistles. That’s it, she thought, I’m going to faint. She tried to pull herself together, taking a deep breath. The pope was speaking. He was looking at her with concern. She noticed His Holiness stand up, and Sra. Del Barrio held her around the waist. She had a thousand thoughts in two seconds. If I faint, they’ll discover I’m pregnant. No, she couldn’t. Not here. Not now. And just as she felt her legs buckling, she lurched into the table and without a second’s hesitation stuck her fingers in the papal cup.
If they had been able to hear it, they would have heard the devil bellow with laughter at the two deadly sins he’d managed to smuggle into those sacred rooms for the first time: with gluttony and lust, Carlota, empress of Mexico, sucked her fingers.
35
1864, Mexico
Carlota knew a man’s love was a privilege she would never have. By now she was well aware of this. Nobility and duty were oblique to falling in love. Sex, perhaps; but love . . . that was a horse of a different color. She had thought—in her naivety—that she would find love with the archduke, but one by one she’d cut loose those moorings until the ship disappeared over the horizon.
Philippe, on the other hand, never gave up on love. When he was a child, despite the hardship and the hunger, despite the struggles and disappointments that marked him forever, he always maintained an opening in his heart for love. He never dared admit it even to himself, but now and then, when the moon disappeared from the sky and the night turned darker than usual, a treacherous part of his soul dreamed. One day he would have children. One day he would have a family with which to regain the innocence he lost in that freezing cave. One day he would sleep in the arms of a woman who would keep him safe in the curve of her flesh. When he reached adolescence, his dreams of love and family evaporated to make way for pleasures that were no less gratifying. Loving wasn’t always satisfactory: the first women he visited terrified him. They were much older, with plenty of experience. Some felt tenderness toward the young man, others didn’t hide their boredom at being tutors in the amorous arts; teaching an adolescent took longer and was therefore less profitable. Some more sympathetic women allowed their maternal side to emerge and spoke to him as if he were a small child: Come to your mama, baby. When that happened, Philippe tensed, unable to combine two different beings in a single person: he was either with a mother or a whore. He tried to banish the few memories he had of his own mother from his mind, but broke down in tears because he missed her, and ran out of the room. He would rather pleasure himself; it was free and he could imagine whatever he wanted. He did so and then, having calmed himself, felt more alone than ever. He became a rock battered by the force of the tide, immersed in a solitude as vast as an ocean. He lay his head on a pillow and waited for the new moon to spirit in dreams of future loves.
And then he met Famke.
She wasn’t like the others. Seeing her dark eyes, Philippe felt as if he were looking into a black night where anything was possible, an imperturbable sea of tar. She couldn’t have been much older than him, a few years, perhaps. Her mother had been one of the best prostitutes in Brussels, and though at first she’d resisted sending her daughter into the same profession, she realized that if she could guide her to the right lovers, the girl would end up with wealth and power, or at least that was the excuse she told herself when she was overcome with guilt. Then she shook off her remorse, telling herself that Famke, as well as giving and receiving pleasure, would learn history, languages, and mu
sic. What she didn’t predict was that Famke would turn out to be even more successful than her; little by little she developed a repertoire of looks that made the men she lay with feel as if there were no other men on earth. That each of Famke’s kisses were the first she had given. More than one of them promised to take her away from that sinful, carnal world in which they so often and so pleasurably sinned. She smiled, lowered her head, and allowed herself to be kissed on the forehead, knowing she would never see them again. Because Famke’s mother had ignored something that proved to be her most beneficial virtue in such a profession: Famke didn’t possess one speck of innocence. She knew that marriage was a tombstone of financial and mental dependence under which she did not wish to lie. There was no inferno that could compare to the life of submission and subjection to which talentless women were condemned. It wasn’t easy. At first she cried a lot. But in time, she learned to embrace her profession, discovering that, in fact, men not only listened to her but also heeded her advice and opinions. And she was in charge of her own finances. Once she had sampled freedom and independence, there was no human power that could have persuaded her to turn to a life in the kitchen.
Philippe, a young man whose beard had barely begun to grow, also fell into her clutches. He met her by chance one night when, leaving Mr. Walton’s workshop, he found her lost, or pretending to be, in the dark streets. She had come out of a bourgeois merchant’s house and was returning to the tavern where her mother was waiting for her. Philippe offered to accompany her. That was all it took. At first he observed her reservation, keeping a distance, until he found himself thinking that he’d never seen such a perfect creature. Her golden hair hanging down to her tiny waist, breasts that bounced with each step, and a smile the heavens could fit in. From her conversation, he could tell she was different from the other girls. She knew Latin. And the more she spoke, the more Philippe was silent. Famke asked him all kinds of questions, but when he asked one, she evaded it with lightning-fast reactions. Finally, they reached the tavern.
“Thank you,” she said. “You made my night.”
Philippe bowed his head.
And then something unexpected, almost magical, happened, taking him by surprise: Famke took his hand, led him to an alleyway where there was a cat purring, and kissed him on the lips. Without saying a word, she guided Philippe in each movement of their tongues, each touch. Then she began to speak to him quietly. Slowly. Not like that. Open your mouth, but not too much. And so, without rushing and without resting, she waited for the young man to ripen. Suddenly she lifted her skirt and invited him to enter. Philippe learned many things that night, protected by the secrecy of darkness in that dead-end alleyway.
“Consider it a birthday gift,” she said.
“But it’s not my birthday.”
“It is now,” said Famke. And then she left.
They never saw each other again, but he tried—to no avail—to find her in every woman he met. Sometimes, when alcohol numbed his senses enough for him to love without losing consciousness, he thought he saw her dark eyes again, looking back at him. He closed his own eyes to be able to see her clearly, and then he would become the best of lovers. In time, Philippe’s fame spread among the brothels of Ghent, until there was a proliferation of people claiming to be him in order to get a discount. They were all found out, because if there was one thing the women of the bawdy houses could recognize, it was a man in love with an illusion.
Since his arrival in Mexico, Philippe hadn’t thought about her again. For many years, he believed Famke had been a dream, but nothing lasts forever, and Famke faded like any memory given long enough; it was an open wound that scarred badly. And Philippe embarked for Mexico. The army and the possibility of adventure beckoned. And one day, having turned twenty-four, he found himself dreaming a new dream, one as fragile and as elusive as water slipping through fingers. This new dream was named Carlota, and it was, by some margin, the stupidest of all his dreams. Unlike Famke, she wasn’t some fantasy in an alleyway: Carlota was tangible. Carlota was there, every day. She had a voice. She had a body. Carlota was on the banners, on the medals, on the carriages. Carlota. Always Carlota. The empress.
He struggled to admit it. At first, he thought the interest that she aroused in him came from simple curiosity from meeting a member of royalty. Carlota had a lot of time for her Belgians, as she called them, and every morning she ensured they got a cup of hot chocolate and a tortilla. Philippe disliked the tortilla—he much preferred the crusty bread from bakeries back home, whose smell could make even the dying hungry—but he ate it without a word of complaint. He watched her go with a slight smile on her lips, a rare occasion in which she seemed happy, at least for an instant. Her smile was nothing like Famke’s. Carlota didn’t seduce him in the same way, and that made her more interesting. Carlota seemed completely defenseless to him. Despite the pomp that surrounded her, for someone as empty as him it wasn’t hard to see the void in her. He knew there was an ocean between them; he wasn’t stupid, and he knew, as he did with Famke, that he would have to learn to see her vanish. Even so, though he was aware of the chasm between them, he couldn’t help thinking they were similar, as if Carlota was waiting for dawn in a cave like the one from his childhood. Watching her had become an obsession, so much so that whenever he had the chance, Philippe volunteered for her personal escort. He did it to be near her, but once he’d overcome his awe, he realized that it wasn’t just a privilege to be at her side but also a tremendous lesson in political ability. Carlota thought a lot and said little, yet she issued orders left and right. The emperor was forever absent, but Philippe thought that it was an advantage, because it fell to her to attend to matters. Philippe sensed that this was Carlota’s natural state, and she seemed to rise to the challenge with all the majesty of the orchids in summer. She rose at five to contemplate the sunrise lighting up the volcano Iztaccíhuatl, and starting at six she received ministers and heard all kinds of requests. Her primary concern was with the terrible treatment of the native population. In that, she was identical to Juárez, but Philippe would never dare say so. He saw her act with firmness, with an assuredness expected in men but not women. For Philippe, her education made her seductive without showing an inch of flesh. She governed with courage, energy, and intelligence. The way in which she carried herself, the way she firmly held a pen to sign a document, the way she was always one step ahead of ministers in their discussions, leaving them bewildered; all this captivated him.
One time, Philippe overheard a couple of ministers who, after showing respect for her in the absence of Maximilian, complained bitterly as they left her office.
“It’s unheard of to be ordered around by a woman who should be opening gardens, visiting the sick, and decorating the palace.”
The other replied, “But the emperor is more interested in choosing curtains for Chapultepec than watching over Bazaine’s actions! Wanting to make the castle his Schönbrunn, whatever that means . . .”
General Bazaine, in his reports to France, took the view that the empress possessed such a gift for governance that, were the power left totally in her hands, she would lead the empire better than her fainthearted husband. Philippe thought the same.
During sleepless nights, Philippe gave thanks for Colonel Van der Smissen’s belligerence, which had brought him to the doors to Carlota’s rooms.
He knew little of Van der Smissen; he’d only seen him when they left Belgium and on their arrival in Mexico. He flitted among the rows of men with the austere look of a Christ Pantocrator. While his manners were French, his mien when giving orders was that of a German through and through. Philippe could recognize his colonel from a distance, not just because he had sharp eyes, but because Van der Smissen stood out in a crowd. He was tall and well built, with a back so broad that, had he not been a soldier, he might well have worked on Antwerp’s docks unloading goods. He was imposing not just because of his physical appearance but owing to his hard gaze. He was a man of strict judgments
and uncompromising punishments, which was why his heart sank when he inspected his soldiers: he knew himself to be in command of a bunch of bandits, former mule drivers, or bakers who had become soldiers overnight. One of his best men had been a curtain-maker’s assistant twelve years ago, and had just been arrested for stealing handkerchiefs in the center of Mexico City. Many of the imperial “soldiers” had been sent there by force: recruited at bayonet point, which meant they could desert if they were so much as allowed near a sugarcane plantation. The enemy was within, and Van der Smissen knew it; the Belgians who had arrived were not of the best stock. The day the French army leaves, he thought, the empire will fall like a house of cards in the wind. Nonetheless, he’d joined the army to serve his king, Leopold I, and to climb the ranks; he was a career soldier, and he knew that medals were earned on the battlefield. He was responsible for turning these wretches into warriors prepared to die for a cause. He was responsible.
He formed them into rows and then, puffing out his chest, he spoke in a loud voice as if motivating them to go into battle.
“Soldiers!”
The echo of his voice reverberated among the Montezuma cypresses behind them.
“I know you have come here to protect the empress, and that you are eager to face the enemy. Believe me when I tell you, that is what we shall do in order to fight for the noble cause that brought us here! A man demonstrates his courage in war; in battle he shows what he is made of. I know that many of you have not been trained for combat, but you will not fight alone: we will fight together! For the empire, for the empress, and for Mexico!”
Guarding the empress had begun to seem more banal than glorious, and among themselves they joked about whether they were ladies of the court or Van der Smissen’s soldiers. So every morning, Van der Smissen mustered them and gave rousing speeches that filled them with pride and motivated them in equal measure. And it wasn’t long before they, too, were infected with the enthusiasm of the officers, who with each word from the colonel gradually regained the dignity lost amid the typhoid, rancid food, and infested barracks. Little by little the soldiers began to think that perhaps there was a purpose to their anonymous lives, and that was what war would give them. They hadn’t embarked on their journey to die, but neither did they live a dream life. Dying in combat, even if it wasn’t their war, would bring them honor and greatness. Their small egos began to swell with the promise of a worthy death or an honorable life. Yes, Van der Smissen’s words fertilized a soil that had been left fallow for many years. The colonel’s plan bore fruit when the order came one day to leave the empress and go on campaign. The Republican army had taken Oaxaca, Saltillo, and Monterrey, and all hands were needed to halt their advance. Against Van der Smissen’s wishes, they were divided into two battalions: the Empress’s Battalion, and the King of the Belgians’, consisting of artillerymen. They would depart for Michoacán, where, according to Bazaine, they would have an opportunity to prove themselves against the Republicans, given that it was a controlled situation: maintaining the province within the empire would require only a small force. They all set off with high hopes and their heads filled with dreams of victory. Before leaving, Van der Smissen chose six to stay and guard the empress. Five were recruited against their will, unhappy to lose the opportunity of their lives in order to act as nannies. But there was one, just one, who stepped forward when Van der Smissen requested volunteers to stay. His name was Philippe Petit, and there was only one battle he wanted to fight: the one against his empty heart, the heart that quivered when he learned he would be beside Carlota from dawn until the sun went down behind the snowy peaks.
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