He’d been observing María Ana for some time. Each Sunday, he hoped to see her appear among the crowd of native women who arrived with baskets on their backs and their hands scabby from spending the day cooking tortillas on a comal. He courted the one with the huaraches and the one with the fried bananas, but was beginning to tire. He might not be an Adonis, but at least he knew how to talk to plants, and had not lost his gift for caressing. He saw the girl inspecting fruit, talking to the merchants. He saw her laugh. And that day, blessed be the Virgin of Guadalupe, María Ana approached to see the Mexican marigolds.
“How much?”
“Are they for you?”
“It depends on the price.”
“If they’re for you, they’re free.”
“And why would you do that?”
“Because you’re so pretty.”
“Just for that?”
“Yeah, just that.”
María Ana appeared to weigh the offer.
“And you’re not going to ask me for anything in return?”
“Well, what do you want me to ask you for?”
“I’m just asking.”
They both fell silent for a moment.
“What’s your name?”
Used to making up names all the time, she had no trouble lying.
“Concepción,” she said, showing her teeth with a smile.
The gardener tied up a bunch of fifteen flowers with a ribbon and gave it to her.
“Here. A flower for each of your years.”
“How did you know?”
“I know everything, kid.”
María Ana smiled.
“If you come back another day, I’ll give you more flowers.”
María Ana took the bunch and left, but after a few steps she was unable to resist the urge to turn around. The gardener was watching her. She set off again. She could feel the man’s eyes on her backside, sensing him concentrate so he would not miss a single detail of her gentle sway. She quickened her pace; she was used to attracting attention, but there was something about this man, a certain something, that made her think that, yes, perhaps she would come back for more flowers.
The next Sunday, María Ana returned for more flowers. And the next Sunday, and the next. By the fourth Sunday, Ignacio Sedano, as the gardener was called, had persuaded her to go live with him on a hacienda near Cuernavaca. Doña Eulalia flew into a rage. She cried, she begged her daughter by all that was sacred not to go with that old cradle snatcher, but María Ana, with the insolence of her fifteen years, paid no attention to her. They argued, they fought, and the mother even shook her daughter to try to snap her out of her tantrum. It was all to no avail. After a great deal of yelling and screaming, afraid that her child would run away in the middle of the night, Doña Eulalia let her go toward the destiny that was circling her.
Despite the pain and disappointment, she found the strength to say, “I wish you the best, my girl. But if, God forbid, something goes wrong, wherever your mother is, you’ll have a home. Do you hear me?” And after kissing her and crossing her forehead and chest, Eulalia said, “God be with you.”
And as they hugged, María Ana replied, “Goodbye, mamita.”
With that goodbye, María Ana parted company not only with her mother but also with her childhood, her virginity, and her name. From that day on, she made everyone call her Concepción, and she never turned back.
Concepción Sedano, like María Ana, knew nothing about life, but the new woman she believed she’d become was in a hurry to live it, as if a giant clock inside her were setting the pace. She was in a hurry to do everything, to grow, to eat, to reach a future that seemed to always be just out of reach.
All because of the garden. The house where Ignacio worked—though it was an ancestral home that to Concepción seemed like a castle—was old, ill tended, and riddled with damp. It had been built by a Spaniard with a French father who, busy exploiting the silver mines of Taxco, left it in the hands of other owners, and from those it passed on to others, and others still, until the beautiful property started to fall to pieces. From time to time a carriage arrived at the house carrying distinguished people who didn’t speak Spanish or any language Concepción had ever heard. They came to see the property because they were interested in spending the weekend there. That was how Concepción discovered that there was an entire world that had been hidden from her. She learned that, in spite of everything she knew, she knew nothing at all about anything. Living with Nacho Sedano was a window through which she saw a Mexico she hadn’t known existed, and that was enough to make her endure more than she would’ve otherwise borne. Concepción was fascinated by the gentlemen with yellow or red hair and white skin, accompanied by ladies who walked carefully to avoid getting earth on the hems of their dresses. She didn’t know how to lift a skirt to keep it clean; she only did so to carry mangos or lemons in her lap. She didn’t know what it was to be afraid of dust or mud, and she spent hours watching these women who covered their heads with hats in an absurd attempt to escape the sun. They received several foreigners each week. Due to the poor state of the house, many of them left to stay somewhere else, but some remained just for the garden. Because, oh! The garden was something else altogether. With care, affection, and an immense knowledge of botany, Nacho Sedano had made this plot of land his little Eden. The trees and plants competed with one another, each in their own way, in size and exuberance. He tended the grass like a jockey tends his horse, and he knew every plant by its first name. Nacho spoke to the flowers softly, unhurriedly, with an affection that Concepción had never known in him. With her, after the first few months of cohabitation, he became terse. He could spend the day in silence and only break it to ask her for things. Concepción, I feel like some lemon water, and so Concepción went to gather lemons to make the water. Concepción, I feel like some guava jelly, and off the girl went in search of guavas with which to make the dessert. Concepción, I’m hungry. Concepción, draw me a bath. Concepción, I’m cold, make me some hot chocolate. A long list of orders preceded by her made-up name. But as soon as he went out into the garden, Nacho was transformed into sweetness personified. Look how big and pretty you are, he said to the arums. And if a freak storm threatened to damage his buds, he ran to cover them with a protective cloth. Seeing him like this, anyone would say he was the most caring man they’d known.
Encouraged, perhaps, by this affection he professed for his flowers, or surprised at the tenderness he was able to show toward nature while to her he barely said a word, Concepción opened two buttons on her blouse and, letting him see more flesh than the neckline normally allowed, said to him jealously, “You say nicer things to those plants than to me.”
“But I do things to you I don’t do to the plants . . .” And thereupon he turned her around, lifted the skirt of her dress, and raised her onto the kitchen table; he grabbed her braid to ram into her from behind. Concepción allowed him to do it with her arms crossed, face down on the table, clutching the edges of the tabletop that shook like everything in her.
“I don’t do this to the plants, do I? Do I?”
Ow, Concepción kept saying, and Slowly, and It hurts, but that only excited Nacho more, and he kept going until he finished with a slow, dull groan that indicated to her it was finally over. As he withdrew, without looking her in the face, the man bit her ear and gave her a slap on the bottom. Her buttock barely moved; the red mark on the skin remained a little longer. The pain in her soul remained forever.
Concepción took a few minutes to recover from the goring. She readjusted her dress, and then, with difficulty, she walked slowly to the stream to wash away the trickle of semen and blood running down between her thighs.
Part Three
47
1867, Belgium
Marie Henriette was an unhappy queen. The kindness her dark eyes carried in her youth had faded so gradually that someone who hadn’t seen it would think they had always been that way, but they were like embers that had burned f
or too long. She was tall, solid, and some thought her stature was a reflection of her character, for nobody could persuade her to do anything against her will.
Her strength of character was of little use when she married Leopold II. He crushed it slowly, her barely noticing, until she was under his control. She found it easier to accept his infidelities than his tyranny. There were many things the Belgian king could be loathed for, but in her mind, he was a much worse husband than monarch; by dint of disappointments, something in her withered. So when she started hearing about her sister-in-law Carlota—she was out of her mind, she was having paranoid delusions, and she’d given birth to a child she couldn’t see because she was being held hostage at Miramare—she knew it would be up to her to help the poor woman. In a way she suffered from the same ills without the refuge of mental instability. She’d always believed madness was an escape like any other, and sometimes she’d been tempted to lock herself in her room until the world stopped revolving, but she was made of sterner stuff. Some women escaped when they were convicted as witches or lunatics. The rest were left feigning devotion to endure destinies that were more a burden than boredom. With her madness, Carlota had chosen the abysmal middle ground of false indolence.
“I’m going to fetch Charlotte,” she told her husband one day.
Leopold looked up from his papers without moving his head. Marie Henriette held her breath for a moment, waiting for Leopold to say something. Receiving no answer, she continued.
“I’ll leave tomorrow.”
Leopold stood, and, leaning on his knuckles on his desk as if he’d been waiting for this for some time, he said, “You’ve already decided, I see.”
Marie Henriette replied with a concise “Yes.”
“You’re making a mistake. Charlotte is better off where she is.”
Marie Henriette thought about her husband’s bad blood; he was a man capable of selling his mother to the devil if necessary. He preferred to leave his sister in the hands of strangers, in a castle built on a rock. He would leave her to rot there just to remove an obstacle. He would do the same with Marie Henriette if he could. Would he dare? She felt a stab of uncertainty. And when she was about to protest, Leopold spoke before she did.
“All right, go. But not alone. Baron Auguste Goffinet and Dr. Bolkens will accompany you.”
“Dr. Bolkens from the village of Geel?”
“That’s right.”
“We don’t need a doctor, Leopold. Much less a lymphatic, tiresome Flemish one.”
Leopold took a deep breath before saying, “Henriette, sometimes I don’t know if you’re stupid or just pretending to be. Dr. Bolkens goes or there will be no journey.”
Marie Henriette, long accustomed to the offensive remarks his royal mouth directed at her, said nothing; she simply turned around and walked out.
In addition to the company, the queen left with twenty thousand gold francs and an unlimited letter of credit for the House of Rothschild in Vienna. It was July 5, 1867, just one year since Carlota left Mexico, and yet a slow, torturous road into darkness.
Upon arriving in Augsburg, there was a telegram at the hotel reception from Maximilian’s brother the emperor Franz Joseph. Marie Henriette read it with a look of disgust.
“Is something wrong, Your Majesty?” a countess who was accompanying her asked.
Marie Henriette thought about screwing the telegram up into a ball. Instead, she held it out to the countess with an ironic “Franz Joseph authorizes me to allow Dr. Bolkens to attend to Charlotte in Vienna.” And then, to herself, she added, “As if we needed his blessing.”
In reality Marie Henriette was closer to the Habsburgs than to the Belgians, for she was an Austrian archduchess by birth. However, since her marriage to Leopold II, Vienna had felt very distant; she was the queen of the Belgians and that was that.
With the wisdom she’d acquired during her years living with Leopold II, she said to her entourage, “Prepare yourselves . . . we’re about to fight a little battle. Something tells me they’re not going to let us take my august sister-in-law so easily.”
And she couldn’t have been more right. They were received in Salzburg by Dr. Riedel; the administrator of Miramare, prefect Edouard Radonetz; and the person in charge of all of them: Charles de Bombelles. Seeing Bombelles, Marie Henriette’s stomach tightened. She was used to grappling with warts, but this man especially made her feel more than just repulsion or suspicion. There was something in him she couldn’t describe, something in his gaze, perhaps. Something. She couldn’t tell exactly what, and that disturbed her. For a long time, she’d thought she had learned to read people, and she considered Bombelles to be affected, but above all, false; next to him, Judas was a holy man. He looked at people with his head tilted, narrowing his already small eyes, and when he spoke, he kept a forefinger over his mouth, like children do when they lie. After the appropriate introductions, Marie Henriette proceeded to inquire about her sister-in-law. The first person to respond, as was to be expected, was Bombelles.
“The empress is in good hands at Miramare, Your Highness. You shouldn’t have troubled yourself to come.”
“You understand that the king and I are exceedingly worried about the news that reaches us, Charles.”
Bombelles was no fool. He could smell the queen’s distrust like a bloodhound. He already knew of her determination to take Carlota away; that was why she was there, to take her, but he couldn’t allow it. For him, Carlota embodied a castle by the sea, life insurance in perpetuity. He’d gone to too much trouble to give up now.
“The empress is suffering from dementia praecox.”
“That’s why Dr. Bolkens is here. He’s an outstanding specialist in illnesses of the mind, as you know. I’d like to hear a diagnosis from his mouth.”
Dr. Bolkens stepped forward and nodded. Charles fixed his eyes on him; for a second, he wondered whether he was the venal type. Probably he was. What will your price be? he thought.
Charles de Bombelles glanced at Dr. Riedel, who for the first time in a long while had fallen silent, not daring to say anything in the queen’s presence. Because it was true, there was a stony confidence in her. Her eyes were an unbreakable wall. Charles wished he could exude the same strength. She, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care how steely she appeared. That was why she was queen. Suddenly, Charles remembered Carlota dealing with affairs of state at Chapultepec with the same regal demeanor, and he broke into a Machiavellian smile thinking of her now, small, wasted away to almost nothing in her room at Miramare. His thoughts were interrupted when he felt the weight of Marie Henriette’s gaze. He immediately changed tactic: invoking the gods of the theater, he began to cry.
“Your Majesty, please, have mercy. I beg of you, do not appear before Charlotte; her condition is so fragile that your visit could kill her.”
The queen opened her eyes wide. Not knowing what Bombelles was going to do next was precisely what surprised her.
“What are you saying?”
“I implore you, Majesty. My affection for the empress is great; I don’t want anything to upset her. I fear for her. I’m afraid of the effect your visit could have on her.”
Bombelles’s eyes were quivering. Marie Henriette pulled herself together.
“Seeing as she is our sister, our affection for Charlotte is as great as yours, Charles. The empress will come with us whether you like it or not, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”
They continued the journey toward Miramare. With each hour, Marie Henriette found it harder to put up with Bombelles’s sniveling. Sick of his nonsense, she headed straight to Carlota’s accommodation as soon as they arrived, followed by the three men speaking over one another: Wait, stop, for the love of God and a string of profanities that the queen couldn’t hear. She reached Carlota’s room and slammed the door behind her.
Her spirit faded when she saw the woman lying in the bed and didn’t recognize her. The room was poorly lit, and there was a nauseating smell floati
ng among the curtains. She forced herself to take a couple of steps forward and when she reached the bed sat near the headboard, like a loving mother.
“Charlotte, dear, I came to fetch you.”
Carlota lifted herself onto her elbows when she recognized a different voice.
“Who is it?”
“It’s your sister, Marie Henriette.”
Carlota blinked several times, forcing her eyes to look. She seemed to recognize her and made an attempt to smile, but she was suddenly overcome with shame: she was in an appalling state and was frightened. She held her hands to her chest in an imploring gesture, and Marie Henriette took them in hers.
“There, there, little one, everything will be fine now,” she said.
Carlota sighed for the first time in months at the touch of hands that weren’t there to threaten her.
“I’m afraid,” Carlota said to her with horror in her eyes.
“What of, dear?”
“That they’ll come to tie down my hands and feet again.”
Marie Henriette tried to hide her astonishment. It couldn’t be true. Had they done this to the empress? As if she were a common criminal? As if she were a lunatic?
Carlota pleaded with her.
“Promise me no one will come, that nobody will come in, that they won’t tie me to the bed again.”
And after saying this she looked toward the door, where Bombelles, who’d entered quietly, was observing the scene breathlessly.
Marie Henriette tried to regain her composure. Nobody would confirm such a statement, but what if it had happened? Damned Bombelles, she thought, looking at him.
“Don’t worry. Nobody will dare hurt you while you’re with me.”
She hugged her, and Marie Henriette silently swore to protect the poor creature from the scheming men around her. She knew very well what they were prepared to do for power and money. She would bring her back from the edge they were driving her toward. She would bring her back from the inaccessible and inhospitable land she’d inhabited for the last year.
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