I stepped out of the customs building, crossed a wide expanse of vacant land and walked into Louisville, followed by a Chinese porter carting my luggage on a trolley. To call Louisville a town would be an embellishment. In 1881, it was barely a village, a forlorn cluster of tin sheds and whitewashed wooden cottages linked by dirt tracks, better described by that vague term, ‘settlement’, although the most settled aspect of the scene was the fine, dry-season dust that covered everything. Behind Louisville rose the hill where I had first seen Marchand’s ship, ninety years before. Behind the hill, clad in violet shade, were the mountains.
Louisville boasted a population of fewer than a hundred foreigners, most of whom were French – soldiers, gendarmes, functionaries, priests, merchants, a handful of wives, a dozen children, a couple of beachcombers and some farmers. Among them were smatterings of Englishmen, Germans and Americans who monopolised the few shops and businesses, as well as some Chinese labourers and merchants. As for the islanders themselves, they’d converted to Christianity and were settled in a mission near the beach outside of Louisville.
I began walking down a main street flanked by modest commercial buildings: a general store, a post office, a tavern and a bank, next to which was the Hibiscus. Behind the hotel was a school and a little mudbrick church with a steeple. Further up the hill stood residences with whitewashed timber walls, pitched pandanus roofs and dusty little gardens bordered by white picket fences. The Hibiscus itself was an unassuming two-storeyed inn, whose upstairs rooms were rented.
That night, I was kept awake not just by a flood of remembrances of my youth, but also by the noises from the corridor and neighbouring rooms, as men trudged up and down the stairs to pay their respects, judging by the noises emanating through the walls, to women who occupied the adjacent rooms. Having finally fallen asleep as the eastern sky lightened, I was woken only two or three hours later by a heavy knock at the door. It was Lieutenant Perrault delivering a letter bearing the letterhead of His Majesty Mehevi, King of Oaeetee. Mehevi was inviting me to the Royal Palace that very afternoon. The lieutenant offered to accompany me there.
That morning, I wandered the streets of Louisville, a promenade that did not last more than a quarter-hour before I had walked every path. After luncheon, Perrault took me to the Royal Palace in a horse-drawn buggy. I asked him where all the islanders were, as there were few to be seen in the street. He replied that natives were permitted in Louisville by permission, and that after sunset a strict curfew was enforced. Other than the King and his retinue in the palace, they were not permitted to stay overnight in Louisville. We passed a modest church flanked by a hut that doubled as a presbytery and a school for a score of European children. The Oaeetian children, Perrault told me, attended the mission school. I asked if I could visit the mission. He replied that it was outside the confines of the town, and thus off-limits to me without the King’s consent.
Located on a hill overlooking Louisville, the palace was hardly palatial. It was, rather, a two-storeyed wooden structure, not much larger than the Hibiscus, also whitewashed, and, as its only sign of distinction, was surrounded by columns on all sides. It occupied the summit of a hill that overlooked the settlement and a stately garden with a neatly trimmed lawn, adorned with breadfruit trees, mimosas, guava trees and delicate touch-me-nots. Within a watchful distance of the palace, slightly higher up the hill, was another building in the same vein, more modestly proportioned and featuring columns only on the front facade. This was the Residence-General, where lived the chief representative of the French empire.
We alighted from the buggy. A servant opened the grand carved entrance doors that led inside the palace, and we were guided to an antechamber. Once I had taken a seat, Lieutenant Perrault requested that I remove my veil out of respect for His Royal Majesty. I refused.
‘The King will consider it an impertinence,’ said Perrault without further protest, and left.
There were half-a-dozen islander people with me in that antechamber, waiting to petition the King. Presently Perrault reappeared and invited me into the Royal Hall. I pointed to the petitioners who had been waiting longer than I, but the lieutenant shook his head. ‘They’re used to waiting,’ he said. The teak doors opened and I followed him into a long, white, high-ceilinged room with wide, open windows, through which the plants of the palace garden extended their tendrils. At the end of this great hall sat three men, the one in the middle seated higher than those at his sides. I approached them, the silks of my dress rustling and the leather soles of my shoes clacking ostentatiously on the parquetry.
The man sitting in the middle seat was King Mehevi. His Royal Majesty’s military uniform, stiff with gold lace and embroidery, decorated a great and powerful chest, and where his heart beat all kinds of silks, ribbons and medals were proudly arrayed. His neck seemed broader than his head, while his shaven crown was concealed by a wide chapeau-bras, waving with peacock plumes. A broad patch of tattooing stretched completely across his face, in line with his eyes, which shone all the whiter in their frame of blue ink. The throne he sat in was burnished with silver and gold and carved with biblical scenes. On Mehevi’s right-hand side was Colonel Mirabelle, the Resident-General, sporting grey mutton-chops and dressed in the iridescent uniform of a senior officer of the French Navy. On the King’s left-hand side was a bald, round-shouldered man in a clerical collar, a long black cassock and a purple skullcap. Perrault announced him as the Archbishop of Oaeetee, Monsignor Fabien.
Colonel Mirabelle asked why I had come to the island. I described at length my vocation to spread the gospel among the pagan natives. Monsignor Fabien asked what experience I had in education. I described my years spent teaching the native children of New Caledonia. Colonel Mirabelle asked how I had come to be in New Caledonia. I replied that, though not a radical, I had once become embroiled in the Commune, but that my time as an exiled convict had impressed upon me that only Christ’s salvation can bring true happiness. I held out my letters of recommendation, which were taken, at a sign from the King, by Lieutenant Perrault, who was standing by my side. Monsignor Fabien asked if I was aware of the activities of the missionaries, and I replied that their mission was renowned, and that I did not wish to encroach on their work but rather teach those children still living in a state of savagery. Colonel Mirabelle asked me how I intended, as a woman, to communicate with heathens who had yet to repudiate their primitive language, manners and customs and whom even the most dedicated of Christ’s servants had been unable to bring into the bosom of civilisation. I replied that I had learned to speak the islander tongue in New Caledonia, and had also become acquainted with native manners and customs. At this point, King Mehevi, who for all this time had said nothing, merely observing and listening to the conversation, emitted a sort of contemptuous snort. Colonel Mirabelle asked how I would finance my work, and I replied that I was the heiress to a substantial fortune and intended to spend it on spreading the message of Christ to the remotest corners of the world.
At length the questions came to an end and both the Resident-General and the archbishop fell silent. King Mehevi still had not said a word. Finally he spoke, in as mellifluous and charming a voice as I have ever heard, in as pure a French as was spoken in any Parisian salon: ‘Madame, why do you wear a veil before the King? Were you not informed that it is forbidden?’
‘Your Majesty,’ I replied, ‘my veil is not intended to slight you but to protect you.’
‘How so?’
‘It masks a deformity best left unseen.’
‘Surely I am the best judge of what I should see or not see.’
‘In all other matters I would agree with you, Your Majesty.’
‘In that case, remove that thing at once.’
‘Very well, Your Majesty.’ I lifted my veil and watched the faces of the Resident-General and the archbishop crease with disgust. The face of the King, on the other hand, did not change. He watched me from above, on his throne, with an expression that was inscrutable.
Then, from the depths of his magnificent throat, I heard a chuckle rise. It grew louder, transformed into a cruel laugh, an open, extravagant derision that did not stop as most laughs do but continued to echo throughout the halls of the palace and into the gardens outside. He turned to his fellows as if expecting them to join in the revelry, and, sure enough, they picked up on the cue and also began to laugh, hesitantly at first but, before long, heartily. When the laughter had died down at last, the King’s expression resumed its customary coolness.
‘Lower your veil, madame,’ said Colonel Mirabelle. ‘And pray keep it lowered in our presence in the future.’
Mehevi leaned over to whisper something to Colonel Mirabelle, who whispered a reply. He did the same with Monsignor Fabien, with the same result. Then I was addressed by Colonel Mirabelle: ‘His Royal Highness King Mehevi, Sovereign of Oaeetee, will consider your petition. You will remain within the limits of Louisville until you receive his royal assent. Good day, madame.’ With that, I curtsied and left the room, and indeed the palace, without anyone saying another word to me, or I to anyone, and returned to the Hibiscus on foot.
Thus I set out to wait for the King’s decree. Day after day, as I waited, I remained in my room, staring at the lumpy whitewashed walls, or else took short walks around the settlement, beyond which I was not permitted to stray. Day and night I heard the clomping of heavy boots in the stairwell outside my room as men marched up and down from the tavern below, visiting the four island girls in the neighbouring rooms. Smiling at one of them in the corridor one morning, I ventured to speak with her. Her name was Rahama. She barely spoke French, I quickly gathered, and so, after making sure we could not be overheard, I began to speak in the island language. I realised, when she replied, that the language had much changed since I had last spoken it ninety years earlier, but not so much that I could not understand her. When they learned that the strange new Frenchwoman could somehow speak their native tongue, the other women who worked in the adjoining rooms began to approach me. They asked how it was that I knew their language. I repeated the lie I had told at the palace – that I had learned it in New Caledonia, where a different form of it was spoken.
The days passed at a crawl. I yearned to be free of the strictures I’d been placed under, to walk barefoot on my land, to swim in the waters unimpeded by the encumbrances of a white woman’s dress, to be with my people, to learn what had become of them and the Law. But on the threshold of my heart’s satisfaction I’d been shackled. Even if there were no chains around my ankles, I was a prisoner all the same. I took the silence of the palace not as a sign that I’d been forgotten but that I was being watched and scrutinised. I imagined the King, the Resident-General and the cleric hesitating about what to do with me. Knowing I must prove my trustworthiness, I did not venture beyond the limits set for me.
After several days of this pacing to and fro, I sat at the writing desk in my room to write a letter to Mathilde. But no sooner had I had inked the words, My dear Mathilde, than my mind’s eye was flooded by remembrances that halted my letter-writing altogether.
After her crossing in Belgium with Charles sixteen years earlier, Mathilde and I returned to our home overlooking the river on the Île Saint-Louis. I resumed running the affairs of my businesses as well as those of the Baudelaire Society. For a brief time, Mathilde appeared delighted by her new surrounds, and smiled at me with a semblance of affection. Now that we were finally reunited, I took such moments as an occasion to mention a return to Oaeetee. Although I knew the Law was long since beyond repair, I felt, over and above my yearning for our home, a duty to return, if only to observe what havoc our actions might have wreaked, and what restitution might be possible. But as soon as the topic of a return was broached Mathilde’s smile would vanish, and her usual sullen expression would take its place. She claimed, when I gently interrogated her about it, to remember nothing of her crossing, nor of her previous incarnation as Charles. There was no doubt in my mind that they had actually crossed, despite her denials. I had evidence enough: after the crossing, she began to have nightmares every night, as had Charles before her.
After several months, Mathilde brought a son into the world. She called him Lucien. I waited several months more to raise once again the subject of our return. ‘Lucien is too young to undertake such a journey,’ Mathilde replied. But I never could bring her around to the idea of the crossing. Her mind was too practical to entertain its possibility, despite my convictions. Over time she came to consider me and my tales as a kind of lunacy, just as Charles had. I gave her the story Charles had written before the crossing, which he’d entitled, ‘The Education of a Monster’, but she could read only a little and she resisted every attempt I made to read it aloud to her. Like Charles before her, she dismissed my offers to cross with her and then cross back to prove that I was telling the truth. It was all sorcery to her, black magic, the devil’s work. There is no way of forcing someone to look you in the eye, after all – I have spent enough time trying to find a way to do it. An eyeball is a slippery thing. It cannot be held still between two fingers. It wasn’t long before the mere mention of the subject incited an expression of contempt, and I began to avoid it. I decided I ought to be patient with her. As much as my own veil, her face was a blank surface behind which she lived a life that was carefully hidden from me.
As for Charles, he never fully recovered from the crossing. The doctors diagnosed a neuralgic attack brought on by advanced syphilis, but I knew it was the crossing that had caused it. Sometimes the shock of the new soul is too much for a body weakened by age and disease to withstand. His mother brought him back to Paris and placed him in a clinic. There he spent his last days sitting in a big armchair, his skin pale, eyes searching and fixed. He was incapable of walking, of even sitting at a writing desk, and was ill-tempered and frequently driven to paroxysms of rage. Somehow in the crossing he had lost his powers of speech. His vocabulary was reduced to one solitary word that he repeated over and again: ‘Crénom! Crénom!’ No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many doctors and experts were consulted, it was the limit of his self-expression. Crénom. Now he moaned it, he sneered it and, with little cries of anger and pleasure, used it to translate his every need and thought.
He continued in this state for more than a year, slowly deteriorating until only one eye remained open a fraction, and his head hung down too heavily on the shoulder. In this eye, like a fading gleam, memory kept watch. His last days, in the summer of 1867, were cruel, and he was buried in the family crypt at the Montparnasse cemetery with his stepfather, where, years later, his mother would join them.
As I waited for Mathilde to decide that Lucien was old enough to travel, I continued to occupy myself with the Baudelaire Society. It now served the dual purpose of library for safekeeping Charles’s writings and charity for young poets in need. I purchased the Hôtel Pimodan, where as Jeanne I’d lived with Charles, to serve as the Society’s headquarters. The three of us lived upstairs. Meanwhile, I also began preparations for our forthcoming voyage to the South Seas. I became the first woman to join the Société de Géographie on the Boulevard Saint-Germain. In that little reading room, I read every book and magazine article I could find on the subject of Oaeetee and the nearby South Sea Islands. I devoured the descriptions of the islanders and their habits, studied the illustrations, and pored over the missionaries’ reports and newspaper accounts.
And so we settled into our parallel lives, Mathilde and I, together but separate, each as stubborn as the other. She raised Lucien with utter devotion while I, equally devoted, prepared for our eventual return. Every time I raised the subject of the voyage, Mathilde would evade it. Lucien was still too young, she’d say, and we should wait at the very least until he had learned to walk, then talk, then read. And in the meantime I conceived an entire imaginary expedition, with a chartered boat and crew and provisions to last several years.
Lucien was the bridge that kept us connected. I ensured, from a polite distance, t
hat he lacked for nothing. From the earliest, he considered us his two mothers. He addressed Mathilde as Maman, naturally, but for some reason he took to calling me Mère. At first, we accepted it as a natural childish confusion. Each time he did so, Mathilde would correct him: I was his aunt, she told him, not his mother. But on this subject the boy was not to be corrected, even when Mathilde scolded him. As soon as Mathilde disappeared into another room, he would come to me, and ask me to take him in my arms, finishing the supplication with that magical word, Mère, which I could never resist, and I would cradle him as he sucked his thumb.
But this domestic scene, the closest I had known to peace and family for generations, was not to last. In the summer of 1870, when Lucien was only three years old, the Prussians, who wished to make a modern German nation out of the ancient Holy Roman Empire, baited the emperor of France, the second Napoleon, who called himself the Third, into declaring war. The Emperor was humiliated, the Empire capitulated and a new republic – the Third – was declared. The Prussians continued their advance to Paris and, in the winter of 1870, the coldest in memory, laid siege to the city. I never saw such deprivation. On my way to or from the Société de Géographie, I would step around barely living corpses shivering in the gutter, or see starving children chasing rats to take home to eat. So Mathilde and I opened our house to all who needed shelter, turning it into a makeshift canteen at first, and soon thereafter an infirmary, a nursery and a school.
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