“What do you mean, child?”
Had he been close enough to Carlota, he would’ve been able to hear a little click. Suddenly Carlota seemed to understand with complete clarity what she’d just heard. She could see the images she’d feared, that she had suspected for so long. Doubt gave way to understanding. Fear washed into a sea of calm. Madness yielded to reason. Maximilian was no more.
“Dead,” she remarked. “Executed by Juárez.”
“Yes, child.”
“At least he had a glorious death,” said Carlota, trying to cushion the blow of the news.
And then, after letting out a groan, she broke down into tears. She cried from grief. From pity. From loneliness. From anguish. From abandonment. From rage. From impotence. From lost faith.
Marie Henriette ran to embrace her.
“It’s all right, little one, it’s all right.”
“Oh! If only I could make my peace with the heavens and confess!”
Marie Henriette was crying, too, but from happiness. Carlota had rediscovered her devotion. There was hope. There was a remedy. Surely she was nearer to recovery than she was to insanity.
“Of course, dear, of course. Confess, nothing would please God more. You can do so tomorrow morning. I’ll arrange everything so that you can.”
But in the middle of the night, gripped by a panic attack, she sent for Marie Henriette.
“I can’t do it; I don’t have the courage to confess.”
“Don’t worry, dear, whenever you’re ready,” the queen replied, trying to hide her disappointment.
After the sad news, Carlota wrote letters to her former governess and to Mexico’s former ministers in Paris, and in all these letters, there was no trace of incoherence. It was as if Maximilian’s death, far from disturbing her, had brought her back to the world of the living. She embraced the sacraments again, and both her reading and her conversation became fluent. With the exception of Leopold, who wasn’t pleased with the turn of events, everyone was delighted that it seemed as if all Carlota needed to return to sanity was to continue to live in peace with Marie Henriette caring for her.
And with the tranquility of the moon rising each night, changing its phase but not its essence, the days passed until misfortune, tired of chasing her in circles, decided to steal the sanity to which Carlota, after losing her father, her grandmother, Maximilian, her son, and the empire, had clung tooth and nail.
It was on January 22, 1869, three years after the house of cards collapsed.
From the depths of Marie Henriette’s soul came a scream of terror that shook Laeken like an earthquake, cracking the foundations of the royal marriage. Her only son, heir to the throne, was dying in her arms at the age of just nine. Two days before, the child had been skating on a frozen pond; the ice hadn’t been thick enough, he fell into the water, and the cold engulfed him. He didn’t drown, but after falling in and out of fever several times, pneumonia ended up killing him.
Leopold screamed, too, but his scream was more rage than pain. With his son’s death, the Belgian throne was left without a successor; he couldn’t countenance the possibility of any of his other descendants, all of them women, acceding to it. Power was conferred upon men and only men. There was crying. Reproaches. The rabid dog was about to bite. And even with her heart flooded with sorrow, Marie Henriette became pregnant again.
Carlota sensed that she was tired, apathetic, and seeing her with child reawakened old ghosts that she tried in vain to silence: of the devil, of the Church, of the army. These specters became more present when, nine months later, the queen gave birth to another girl.
Shouting. Complaints. The insults were endless. Marie Henriette cried.
“I’m not the one to blame!”
“Who else, if you were carrying the baby in your belly?”
“How could I know it would be a girl?”
“You have bad blood! You’re only capable of producing women! Even Charlotte was able to have a male!”
“And what good did it do her, when they snatched him from her as if she were a dog?”
“I disown you, woman! Get out of my sight.”
Marie Henriette fell into a silence in which only Carlota managed to reach her. They shared the same pain: the pain of being born women. They laid their heads in one another’s laps and stroked each other’s hair, plunged into the silence of their mutual sorrow. Though their malaise was not madness, Marie Henriette thought she was close to losing her mind, and sometimes she wished she could escape like Carlota to a world where she couldn’t feel her immense sadness. The sun did not warm them. The cold turned them to stone. Laughter made them cry, and rolls of thunder exploded in their heads. Life had no meaning, they told each other without speaking.
But unlike her sister-in-law, one morning, Marie Henriette rose, wiped away her tears, and found the strength of spirit to dress, pack her bags, and leave for the town of Spa. To hell with Leopold, Laeken, and everything that inhabited it. Only Carlota weighed on her conscience. She knew that, without her, the poor woman would be defenseless. What would become of Carlota if she left? She couldn’t leave her at the mercy of her husband. Perhaps, she thought, she should take her with her, away from that filthy, fatuous court, but Leopold, once again displaying his despotism, wouldn’t allow it.
“Take your horses, your parakeets, and your llama, but Charlotte stays here.”
“You only want to make her suffer. You won’t rest until you’ve seen her lose her mind, isn’t that so?”
“Out of my sight, woman.”
Marie Henriette gathered the dignity she still had and turned away.
When she said goodbye to her sister-in-law, they embraced so hard that their corsets dug into their ribs. She held her face in her hands, touched her lips with a kiss, and said, “Forgive me, but I can’t bury myself alive.”
“I will write to you,” Carlota said.
And Marie Henriette, unable to bear it any longer, left without looking back. She spent the whole journey trying not to think too much about the future that awaited poor Carlota.
May she find a way to the light, she thought to herself.
It wasn’t light but more darkness that her brother brought her. After Marie Henriette’s departure, he couldn’t wait to remove her from the palace: he sent her to Tervuren Castle, near enough so that the slight wasn’t too obvious, and far enough that he didn’t have to see her.
Though she had an entourage entirely at her service, and nobody deprived her of her freedom, Carlota felt as if the spirit of Miramare was flitting around the rooms of that castle. Fear and loneliness seeped into her bones again. Was she condemned to a life in which everyone she cared about would disappear? Without exception, all the people she’d been able to feel the warmth of humanity with had vanished like clouds dragged by the wind. Or they died: she was a plague, she made everything she touched rot. Everything. Everyone. No one.
And Carlota—as her brother had hoped—relapsed.
She locked herself in her room where, feverishly, she wrote twenty letters a day: letters asking to be rescued from her confinement, to be freed from her prison. She became aggressive and, whenever the doctors tried to give her medicine, she kicked and fought, crying, They’re trying to kill me! and spitting whatever it was in the face of whoever was there. She spent her days devising plans to escape, to flee, to shake off the yoke of her imprisonment.
Until, one day, in a state of complete calm, she handed a letter to Marie Moreau.
“It’s for Queen Marie Henriette. Deliver it to her and only her.”
When she was far enough away, with a puzzled expression, the lady opened the letter; she did so without remorse, for on the doctors’ instructions, they had to know what the empress’s intentions were at all times.
Madame Moreau turned pale as she read:
I invite you to kill yourself with me, for I wish to escape the captivity to which you so unjustly condemned me.
It wasn’t the first letter with suici
dal overtones. Nor would it be the last.
54
1865, Mexico
Colonel Van der Smissen had secretly loved Carlota for a long time, though he would sooner shoot himself in the head with his own pistol than confess it. King Leopold I had placed him at the head of the Belgian legion sent to guard the empress, and in so doing he appointed him more as his daughter’s protector than as a soldier. He accepted the position with resignation and under the weight of the discipline that prevented him from questioning an order, but in his heart he knew it would be a secondary mission in his military career. However, upon meeting her, he realized he’d been too quick to judge. It wasn’t her appearance, for she seemed to be uncomfortable in her body and reluctant to show enthusiasm about any of her attributes. She had an unusual, almost fragile beauty, attractive black hair, and a very pale complexion. No, it wasn’t her looks that struck him but her extraordinary sense of duty. Despite her young age, the empress was an old soul—proper, humble, and devoted—but above all, she had a gratitude toward the Belgian troops that Van der Smissen could only describe as moving. It wasn’t a feeling that exploded like cannon fire. It was much more subtle; it set slowly like cement, and once dry it became hard and unbreakable.
Soon after he entered into her service, it became clear to the colonel how much the empress was suffering. He’d seen it before and knew it firsthand. Rejection was a red-hot iron that marked the face and the soul, with no escape no matter how much one tried to hide. That the emperor preferred the company of others was an open secret. And the colonel could see that, while Maximilian kept himself busy with other bodies, other bones, other bloods, she remained alone, firm, as severe and as inscrutable as a Greek goddess. And it wasn’t that the opportunity didn’t present itself—a few of the nobles courted her—but that she never succumbed to wooing or niceties. She had a strong sense of state, an indestructible moral bond to the power that had been invested in her.
Van der Smissen watched her closely but always maintained a cautious distance. Little by little, the empress earned his respect and—even more important—his loyalty. Until one day he surprised himself by putting obstacles in the way of men requesting an audience with the empress, lest any of them be a rival. Are you stupid? he rebuked himself. As if you have any chance. But he couldn’t help feeling jealous. Nothing escaped his attention. He had a particular dislike for Philippe Petit, one of his men; anyone could see from a mile away that he preferred to be near Carlota rather than fighting in Tacámbaro, where much of the Belgian legion had been massacred owing to their inexperience and carelessness in combat. And though the lad had shown no signs of making an inappropriate move, the colonel kept his eyes on him just in case.
Thus, he became accustomed to seeing her without touching her. Smelling her without becoming intoxicated. Listening to her without rushing into anything. He had no choice. He was a colonel of the Belgian army, and she . . . she was the empress of Mexico, the queen of England’s cousin, daughter of King Leopold I of Belgium, sister-in-law of Emperor Franz Joseph, daughter-in-law of Sophie of Bavaria, daughter of Louise of Orléans, granddaughter of Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, great-granddaughter of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, and sister of the Duke of Brabant and of the Count of Flanders. Who could aspire to her? He—Alfred Louis Adolphe Graves, Baron Van der Smissen—could only dream of such a utopia.
Nonetheless, he loved her. He loved her even knowing he could never consummate his love for her. He loved from a distance, from the darkness, from the shadows. Each time she asked him to accompany her to stroll in the gardens, their peaceful pace and unhurried conversation more than satisfied him. Each time she exploded with helpless rage at Maximilian and walked straight into him at the door to the office, he contained the urge to kiss her forehead and say, Don’t cry, my princess. And he felt the same urge each time she spoke to him in French at a table in the tea room, telling stories about Belgium, remembering the streets they used to walk down. Each time they were struck with nostalgia, and without needing to say it they both knew they missed the flavor, the color, the smell of their country; each time melancholy snatched a sigh from their lungs; each time Van der Smissen believed he would forever be cursed, because having known her, once he had shared the air with such a woman, he could no longer live without her.
He swallowed all of this.
If Carlota had looked more closely, she would have discovered it in his eyes.
And then Leopold I died.
Important figures lined up at Chapultepec Castle to offer their sympathies to the sovereigns. People came from all over to sign the book of condolences for fear of committing the imprudence of failing to appear on one of its pages when, after the period of mourning, the empress ran her eyes over them. It was an absurd fear, for when her grief was at its height, the only arms in which she sought comfort were those of a man who reminded her of her father, a man who spoke the same language as her and with whom she could recall anecdotes intensified by the romance of their shared remoteness.
“Do you remember, Alfred, that my father had a dimple under his left eye when he smiled?” Carlota would ask him.
“Oui, je me souviens, Altesse.”
“Do you remember, Alfred, that my father ordered a twenty-one-gun salute to celebrate my birth? He adored me so!”
“Oui, je me souviens, Altesse.”
“Oh, Alfred! I miss him! How I would’ve liked to say goodbye, to kiss him, to thank him for all the blessings and affection. But I am so far away!”
And the colonel, accustomed to fighting duels, certain that he could run his sword through an enemy’s throat if he ran out of ammunition, didn’t know what to do when his greatest enemy was himself.
Without saying it, they knew that the other’s presence was a comfort. The list of problems that afflicted them was endless. The Mexican adventure was proving to be a failure; though Juárez remained in retreat from the city, he said that, wherever he was, there would be the presidency. Maximilian hadn’t managed to unify the empire. He hadn’t even been able to visit it beyond the roads guarded by the intervention forces. And on top of all that, he’d named Iturbide’s grandsons as his heirs: the eldest he’d sent to Europe, and the youngest was hanging around in the palace waiting to inherit the crown, while their mother fought to have them returned. One foolish act after another. There were some good decisions, but while Carlota was aware of them, they were offset by the string of political miscalculations that the archduke had committed lately. Of all of them, the affair with the pretty Indian, if not the most grievous, was the one that hurt most.
She would go out riding escorted by Van der Smissen, and when they arrived back at Chapultepec, he dismounted beside her to help her down. It was a rare moment when he could hold her around the waist, and for a brief, almost ethereal instant they looked each other in the eyes.
Carlota, who’d never shown any interest in the men of the court, began to notice how well the colonel’s uniform suited him, how sturdy his arms were, how manly his demeanor was. Dark-haired, with a beard as thick as the warp of a Persian rug, he was the diametric opposite of Maximilian. His small, blue eyes scrutinized everything with intelligence, questioning, analyzing. Eyes that didn’t allow themselves to be deceived by appearances, or distracted by the flutter of butterflies. Nor had Carlota noticed how tall he was until, one day, she saw him coming out of the emperor’s office with Maximilian, who suddenly seemed insignificant, tiny, pale, and soft alongside the battle-hardened colonel, who could knock a man down with his chin. Or his voice. She was captivated by the voice at a short distance, when their conversations didn’t warrant grand words or displays of eloquence. She liked listening to him say Chapultepec, cake, or saddle. That was when Carlota noticed that his tone was deep and gravelly—it reminded her of the sound of hooves being rasped—but more importantly that it was devoid of any poetry.
When the emperor went to Cuernavaca, they went out for walks in the Alameda park, and if the sun grew strong, Van de
r Smissen would ask for permission to roll up his sleeves; in his veins, Carlota could then see the tension of arms accustomed to physical labor. But what she liked most of all was the way he dragged out her name in something between a groan and a caress. Charlotte, he would say.
Almost without realizing it, the afternoons and walks they enjoyed together became their reason to wake up each morning. After carrying out their respective duties, they went out to walk without the presence of chamberlains or ladies, just the two of them; however, they could feel everyone’s eyes on the backs of their heads, from the ladies to Philippe and Constanza, from the housemaids to the cooks, from the footmen to the stable hands.
And then, one day, Carlota said to him, “Let’s go away, Alfred. I need air.”
Van der Smissen prepared everything, and they left for Lake Chalco. Nobody watched them there. There they were no more than two people in search of anonymity. Two people in search of silence for their words. They went there often at dusk. The sun would set, and they would return to the castle hoping that it would take longer to sink below the horizon the next day, because with each sunset they felt a part of their soul die. Until, on a barge one evening, the twilight came down on them with particular haste.
“We must go, Charlotte. It’s not safe being here alone.”
“No, wait, Alfred, let’s stay another minute. It’s so pleasant here.”
“But, Charlotte . . .”
“Please,” she begged. “Let’s watch the sunset.”
“All right,” he agreed.
Together, side by side, they contemplated the sun setting too fast.
“Is this what death’s like?” asked Carlota.
After thinking for a moment, Alfred replied, “Let’s hope so.”
“Do you fear death, Alfred?”
“No,” he said. “I’m more afraid of an empty life.”
An empty life, she thought. She felt the same way when she lived at Miramare. Now she was beginning to ask herself what an empty life was. Everything was relative.
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