Then she said, “Imagine I’m her.”
Constanza, with perfectly orchestrated choreography, grabbed her skirt by the hem and began lifting it slowly until she was completely covered. She disappeared beneath it. What was left uncovered was a pair of open legs that made way for him with all the benevolence that the Red Sea showed to Moses. A woman’s body without a face. Philippe looked at her, feeling his stiff member fighting to burst out of his trousers. He couldn’t see her face, but noticed the frantic beating of her heart: her chest rose and fell under all the fabric. Despite his immense desire to throw himself on top of her, Philippe approached slowly. Still dressed, he lay next to her and his fingers slid like snakes up her thighs until they separated the lips of her vulva; without seeing her, he could feel Constanza shudder. The tips of his fingers began to stroke her, circling her genitals, and then, without warning, he pinched the clitoris. What’re you doing? Stop, stop . . . , said Constanza while lifting her knees more to make space for her lover. Stop, stop right now . . . , she stammered as she opened her legs wider. Philippe was moving his fingers with greater relish. Constanza’s moans were muffled under the fabric, but her moaning was growing louder. Oh, oh, oh, what is this? Oh my God, what is this? she said. Touch me. Touch me more. Then Philippe inserted his fingers; he felt the flesh open with a crackle, and Constanza secreted something like semen. The sheets were soaked.
And to his astonishment Philippe heard Constanza, her voice faltering, order him, “Call me . . . Carlota, Philippe . . . Call me Carlota.”
Without stopping, Philippe obeyed.
“Carlota, oh, my Carlota. Car . . . lo . . . ta . . .”
Philippe felt his hard organ emerge like the serpent from a snake charmer’s basket. He felt for one of her hands and held it to his groin. Blindly, Constanza began to rub. She did it with difficulty, struggling to both give and receive attention at the same time. Her skirts were beginning to suffocate her, and in a fit of passion she forgot her supposed anonymity and allowed Philippe to see her flushed face. For the first time, Constanza saw the expression of a man on fire, and infected by his lust, she pulled down her tight bodice, allowing breasts with rosy nipples to escape. Philippe, still conducting the concert, set his baton aside to lap at them with a pup’s gluttony. Constanza was burning, about to explode, and then Philippe left the nipples and headed south, to that red, moist, and fleshy vulva, and he sucked at it. In a trance of pleasure, Constanza rolled her eyes back. She supported herself on her elbows, letting out a scream, and Philippe knew he’d finished.
He lay on his back beside her. Constanza took a few seconds to reemerge like a snail after a storm, not daring to speak. She looked at Philippe’s still-erect member; she wasn’t sure what she should do now. They lay in silence, trying to gather their thoughts. Stunned, Constanza wondered whether she remained a virgin, since there had been no penetration, but the fact was she felt as deflowered as she could have been. Philippe, on the other hand, was wondering who the woman he’d just discovered was.
“So this is what drives people crazy?” said Constanza in an attempt to rescue her innocence, and as she said the words she felt a fierce attack of conscience.
Philippe did not respond.
Suddenly they were overcome with shame. Constanza covered her legs. She was still moist, as was the bed. The moans would’ve been heard clearly in broad daylight: Constanza, shut away in her bedchamber with one of the empress’s soldiers. The palace would know about it sooner or later.
Philippe waited for everything to be back in its place before leaving the room. For the rest of the day, he remained pensive. He was experiencing something new. Perhaps, he told himself, he could love this woman. Perhaps Mexico would be his children’s homeland. A new world, cocooned by the complicity of a woman who allowed him to have his fantasies. Her allowing him to think about Carlota while he made love to her had been the most exciting and erotic moment of his life. Despite their best attempts, no Belgian whore had managed to make him feel like he was with another woman. And Philippe knew that Constanza, unlike the others, hadn’t pretended.
58
When Constanza opened the door to Philippe, she knew a torrent of pleasure would enter with him. He loved her with such patience and virility that she wondered if all men were like him. He never stopped until he’d satisfied her fully, making every pore of her skin vibrate until she begged through tears for him to stop because so much pleasure was unbearable. Hidden away, they loved each other as day broke or when night fell, whichever happened first. After so long without a woman, Philippe allowed his self-imposed abstinence to burst, and for the first few weeks, his lovemaking capacity seemed endless. Carlota and Van der Smissen didn’t love each other like this; their love was more serene. Constanza and Philippe, on the other hand, aroused the envy of Eros himself. They didn’t speak with words. Constanza knew that words were deceptive, sharpened swords that could cut with both sides. They preferred to speak with their eyes, with their hands, with their ears, with their noses. They preferred to allow their senses to perceive breath, to decipher silence, feeling the sheets on their skin, savoring the salt of their sweat. They cherished each other without words; they weren’t needed to dream that life thereafter would be long and full. Constanza, however, knew that if she spoke, she would turn everything to mud, like a field after a flood. She struggled to see a future with Philippe in which there was no empire. He spoke of future glories in which the sovereigns would gain control of Mexico. There would be no more wars or spilled blood. They would bring peace. Mexico would become the great country it could be. A paradise between America and Europe.
“Then we’ll marry and make a family.”
Constanza would give a half smile, swallowing. But sometimes, just sometimes, betrayed by her feelings, she believed it could be true. Deep down she knew her happiness with Philippe would be fleeting if he discovered what she’d been doing in recent months. And however much her conscience writhed like a worm in vinegar; however much she wanted to confess to him, huddled under his arms as she sought the words to apologize, before giving up when she heard her lover’s gentle snores; however hard she tried to open her heart, she wasn’t prepared to douse her newfound passion. So she stayed silent. As silent as the dead. She would sooner hang herself than reveal her secret. All women have secrets, her mother had told her, and from the moment she made the decision to poison the empress, she’d condemned herself to silence. To the grave.
One day, finally, their bodies quieted. No longer able to shield themselves behind the enchantment of their imaginations, for they each knew the flavor of the other very well, other more bodily ghosts materialized.
The burden of guilt tormented Constanza every day. The empress was sinking into lapses of the mind that were put down to exhaustion, but she knew it was her fault; she could see it in her absent gaze. Sometimes she felt as if the empress was looking at her aghast, realizing what she was doing, and Constanza would turn in the other direction, overcome with doubt. Carlota appeared in her dreams and yelled, How could you do this to me? She asked herself the same thing. Why hadn’t they asked her to poison the emperor? That would’ve caused her less conflict. And when these thoughts assailed her, she saw Maximilian with his greenish, taciturn face, forever afflicted with diarrhea from dysentery that was slowly killing him, and she wondered whether there was someone else in the court, camouflaged like her, giving him another type of poison. When the guilt felt too heavy to bear it alone, she turned to her brother.
She and Salvador walked in the gardens together, always under the watchful eye of Philippe, who, without being a spy, could’ve played the part perfectly if he’d wanted to. He observed them from a distance like a predator, scanning the horizon, trying to read the movement of their lips. He wondered how they had so much to talk about, no matter how close their family bond. He squeezed his eyes shut, because his brother’s face appeared, saying, I’ll come back for you, and his heart clenched with envy. He saw anguish in Constanza’s
face, distress, and his head told him there was something she was hiding from him, but his heart couldn’t accept it.
He started to have strange thoughts about her. He asked himself why her attitude had never seemed strange to him before. That aura of constant service she had, like a soldier on the front lines. The many meetings with Salvador, who often introduced her to people he never saw again, even though, one afternoon, they talked until the sun went down. Constanza was always alert, but in a different way from the others, as if she’d sold her soul to the devil and was waiting for him to collect. How, he thought, had he not realized? Or was it all a product of his imagination? Was it jealousy slowly eating away at him? He shook his head and made himself think about something else.
Philippe watched Salvador kiss her cheek and say goodbye. The conversation with her brother was over. She stayed alone as he walked off, leaving her immersed in some kind of void. For a moment, Philippe thought he was looking at a fisherman’s wife watching the boat sail off under a stormy sky. There was sadness in her gaze. Philippe turned away before she headed in a different direction.
Constanza wandered the garden for a few more minutes. She didn’t want to see anybody. Her brother had just given her news that had left her ice-cold. She sat on a bench and held both hands to her head. It felt very heavy. She let it drop forward. It must be true, there was no doubt.
“The emperor’s expecting a child,” she whispered to herself.
It can’t be, she thought. But Salvador had been clear. The girl in the Cuernavaca garden was pregnant and all indications were that it was Maximilian’s child. The emperor was as proud as a huntsman posing next to his slain quarry. At last his virility was proven. He was going to have a child. Salvador had shown her an intercepted letter from a French officer to his family, in which he wrote:
What is certain is that the emperor and the empire are most unpopular here, and everyone is waiting to see both disappear. But Maximilian isn’t very upset. His main concern is going to Cuernavaca to see a Mexican girl expecting his child, which pleases him beyond all measure; he’s very proud to have discovered his flair for fatherhood, an attribute that was often questioned.
So that was it. All the trips to the Casa Borda garden had ended in this. With a mestizo heir.
This will finish Carlota, Constanza thought.
Then she remembered her brother’s words, the ones still boring into her conscience. That child must be killed. Remembering them, she trembled like a leaf in the autumn wind.
“We’re not murderers, Salvador. Or is that what we’ve become?”
“Don’t you see? There can’t be any heirs to this absurd throne. That child must be killed.”
“I won’t carry that on my conscience, Salvador. If you want to kill it, find someone else. I can’t do it.”
“Don’t worry, it’s already been arranged.”
Constanza cursed the moment her father decided to bring a European prince here to govern. Now she would have blood on her hands, even if it was only by omission. The blood of an infant. The blood of an empress. She might not be driving a dagger through Carlota’s heart, but she was bleeding her drop by drop, emptying her mind of sanity. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, she said to herself, recalling the catechism that had seeped into her bones through repetition. And then, in punishment, she dealt herself a blow to the chest.
She stood up and smoothed her skirt with her hands, before heading to perform her palace duties. The sooner she completed her mission, the better. She wanted to leave Chapultepec and never return.
Philippe sensed that something wasn’t right. Constanza seemed on edge, disoriented. He tried to read her thoughts, and it infuriated him that he couldn’t. Constanza was many things, but she was not a transparent woman. She was as prickly as a hedgehog. He wanted to know what was going through her mind when she looked at him with those eyes like a hungry cat’s. When he slept, he had nightmares in which, while he made love to her, he squeezed her head until the skull cracked, and then Philippe woke, pale. He didn’t know how Constanza aroused such violent urges in him. It frightened him; this woman would make him lose his mind. Just when he was beginning to believe that loving her was a mistake, fate interceded to prevent him from going mad for her.
Chapultepec awoke one morning caressed by wind that bent the crowns of the trees. The air howled and brought with it the stench of decadence, as if the atmosphere were marred with betrayals and bad omens. The news of Carlota’s nocturnal outings with Van der Smissen in the Chalco Valley had reached Maximilian: Charles de Bombelles passed on detailed reports that his spies supplied him with. The emperor, in an act of feigned outrage at his wife’s honor being tainted, decided to send the colonel as far away as possible. And he wouldn’t go alone. The empress’s entire Belgian retinue was ordered to leave. Not satisfied with that, a new humiliation was added: Maximilian instructed that General Ramón Méndez, a native, would guide them. When Van der Smissen found out, he burned with rage. He knew that Maximilian was doing it out of pure spite, to make him pay for having the temerity to touch his wife, even though the emperor himself had condemned her to a fallow existence. An emperor was superior to a commander and, if it wasn’t clear already, he made it evident where it most hurt: rank.
“This is a humiliation! He places the Belgians on a par with the natives, clearly inferior to the other European troops!” Van der Smissen complained.
The colonel’s indignation infected the entire regiment. In the corridors, they demanded the defense of their honor. The commotion was such that Maximilian summoned him behind closed doors. As soon as he was in Maximilian’s presence, the emperor went for the jugular in a much more subtle way than Bombelles would have liked.
“You understand that I can’t allow you to stay at Chapultepec, Colonel.”
“My presence didn’t trouble you before, Your Majesty.”
They looked at each other. Maximilian knew the colonel well enough to know he wasn’t an easy man to get the better of.
“You will comply with my orders. Whether you like it or not.”
“My soldiers are not willing to follow a man who not long ago was a tailor into battle when they should be led by a man with the Legion of Honor, lord.”
“Are you referring to yourself?”
“Who else, Your Majesty?”
Maximilian had the impression that Van der Smissen was being haughtier than usual. He found it attractive.
“Then you will have to tell them it is a direct order from the emperor.”
“If you want to humiliate me, you don’t have to punish the entire Belgian delegation. Those men came of their own accord to take care of the empress.”
“As you have taken care of her?”
There was silence. Had he not been the emperor, Van der Smissen would have challenged him to a duel right there.
“I’ve taken better care of her than you, Your Majesty.”
“No doubt, Colonel. That’s what they’ve told me.”
There was another silence.
Maximilian looked at the man in front of him, scrutinizing him. How curious that Carlota, of all possible men, fell into his arms.
“As a sign of my generosity,” the emperor suddenly said, “you will leave in the company of the French general Felix Douay for San Luis Potosí, and then you will cross the desert to Monterrey.”
Van der Smissen turned pale.
“Cross the desert?”
Maximilian nodded.
“Many won’t survive such a journey,” said the colonel.
“Why not, if they will have a man with the Legion of Honor leading them?” Maximilian said with a sarcastic smile.
Van der Smissen said nothing. If crossing the desert was the price to pay for having loved the empress, he would pay happily. He left with his dignity intact.
Not far away, the rest of Carlota’s Belgians received the news. Philippe felt as if he were being pushed into another cold cave. This time, he couldn’t escape: the whole Bel
gian regiment had to leave. The Juaristas were gaining ground. In the northeast, the imperialists were confined to Monterrey, Matamoros, Parras, and Saltillo. General Mariano Escobedo was planning incursions into Monterrey from Nuevo Laredo, and reinforcements were needed.
But Philippe wanted to make love, not war. He’d avoided the massacre at Tacámbaro, in which the majority of the Belgians had encountered death. Where was Albert, his traveling companion? Where were the rest of the volunteers who headed to the battlefield filled with excitement? Perhaps their remains now rested in the cemetery known as the Panteón Francés de la Piedad in the south of the city. Philippe had enrolled to protect the empress; he would die for her if necessary, but not leagues away from her. His romantic idea of protecting her involved hand-to-hand combat. Or taking a bullet for her. Being able to look at her before dying. Instead, it seemed his path was going in a different direction, away from her and from Constanza. Because, of all the ghosts that swirled around him, Constanza was the only one of flesh and bone. At least, he thought, she would give him a reason to return.
The news of their imminent parting made Constanza’s heart stop. How could she endure Chapultepec without him? The castle would bear down on her with the empire’s suffocating weight. She realized then that, since she’d arrived there as a servant of the empress, her driving force had always been him. Afternoons learning French, secret conversations, the anguish of not being able to tell him that she was an informant for the Juaristas, knowing Carlota through his eyes, the sex. Could she learn to be alone again? Sometimes she chided herself for allowing herself to love him. Everything would be much easier if she didn’t now have a love to miss. She wanted to feel as she had before, when she didn’t know him. She wanted to feel innocent again, to return to the refuge of her mother’s lap, retreat to the pleasure of prohibited books. But it was impossible. How could she drink this glass of sour milk? She would have to go back to being with herself. She berated herself for being so weak, for allowing herself to be seduced by forbidden fruit, for allowing the serpent to enter her. But all her self-recrimination was in vain. What was done was done. Constanza, for the first time since she arrived at the palace, cried inconsolably.
The Empress: A novel Page 29