“THE GIRL SURVIVED—AM I RIGHT?” The Austrian eased back the folds of a discoloured lace drape and peered out at the Zócalo. “She suffered no permanent harm?”
“I don’t know,” said Diego. “I haven’t seen her. I don’t know where she is.”
“Oh? I understood you knew her.” He let the curtain fall back into place and turned to look at Diego. “Salm-Salm told me so.”
“He may well have done. I—”
“Your Majesty.”
Diego nodded. “Your Majesty.”
This hardly seemed the time for a lesson in courtly protocol. Diego had received no news of Ángela in the past three days, not since she had collapsed on the stage at the opera. Since then, he had tried to find her by every means he could think of—find her and determine her condition. So far, he had failed. She’d been shot, and he was the one responsible. The scheme at the opera had been his idea. But it was she who’d taken the risks. Now here he was, responding to an invitation from the emperor to appear before him, and it seemed even the Austrian knew more about the attack and its aftermath than he did, little though that was. It didn’t help that he was being subjected to a seemingly unnecessary lecture in the niceties of etiquette at court. He realized Maximiliano was still speaking.
“Do not think me picayune,” said the emperor. He strode across the room and settled his tall, spare frame into a high-back chair at a large marble desk. He stroked his beard, keeping his eyes fixed upon his guest. “Empires have fallen for a lack of attention to custom and form. Without order, we are nothing.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The emperor smiled. “At any rate, I am informed that the girl is out of danger. Salm-Salm told me so not an hour ago. I thought you knew.”
Diego reached for his hat and got to his feet. “Where is she now … Your Majesty?”
“In a hospital of some kind. It seems no lasting damage was done. I’d talk to Salm-Salm if I were you. But that is not the reason I have invited you here. Please. Sit down.”
Diego had received the invitation the previous afternoon, delivered to his lodgings with what he now deemed to be the usual pomp—a European carriage, a pair of liverymen, a messenger in a dark frock coat. He had assumed the proposed audience would have something do with Ángela and the events at the opera. He now realized his error, for these subjects seemed to be dealt with only in passing. Before long, it became clear that what Maximiliano really wished to speak of was Chapultepec Castle and his delight in finding so suitable a residence. It reminded him a little of Schönbrunn, he said, explaining that this was the palace where he’d been raised, in Vienna. He said he was deeply in his visitor’s debt, for it was Diego who had proposed Chapultepec. He regarded the building as a testament to his visitor’s sound aesthetic judgment and overall perspicacity.
“I have summoned you,” Maximiliano said at length, “in order to make a proposal. You are aware, I imagine, that Poliakovitz has passed on.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Poliakovitz. My private secretary. He succumbed to the yellow fever. A terrible thing.”
“I am sorry to hear it.”
“A great shame. His family will grieve the loss deeply. I only wish there were more I could do to ease their burden, but …” He shook his head. “In any case, his remains are to be returned to Europe. Meanwhile, we must accommodate ourselves to new circumstances.”
The Austrian shifted in his chair. He reached forward, plucked a cigarette from a humidor. A servant hurried over with a wooden phosphorous match. Maximiliano inhaled with evident pleasure and then released two plumes of bluish smoke through his nostrils.
“I have decided,” he said, “to offer the position to you.”
Diego realized that, in some inexplicable way, he had been expecting to hear these very words ever since Salm-Salm had first mentioned the emperor’s European secretary and his fragile health. Even so, he found he couldn’t speak. Expected or not, now that it was being made, the offer had the effect of dumbfounding him.
“I see I have rendered you … verblüfft,” said the Austrian. “How do you say it in Spanish?”
“I’m not sure.”
“The French would say sidéré.”
“Ah, pasmado,” said Diego. “Yes, it’s true.”
He was speechless, or very nearly.
It was a dilemma. What should he say now? He did not hesitate long. “Baldemar Peralta,” he said.
The Austrian cocked his head. “I beg your pardon?”
“My friend, in the Martinica. That night at the opera, you said you would pardon him. I wonder …”
“You wonder if I shall keep my word, even if my word was wrested from me in a most reprehensible fashion.” The Austrian ground out his cigarette. “Yes, I shall. This Peralta fellow and all his confrères—they will go free, as promised. On one condition. I insist that—”
“You know that Maréchal Bazaine opposes the measure.”
The emperor frowned, evidently unaccustomed to being interrupted in mid-sentence. “Of course he does.”
“I’m serious. He is dead set against it.”
“He told you so?”
“No … I mean, no, Your Majesty. I have heard it from others.”
“Who would be well advised to hold their tongues. As for Bazaine, he is a military man and thinks in military terms. That is his profession. But I possess a wider brief.”
“Won’t this cause a rift?”
“Not for a moment. The man will carry out his duty no matter what. Personal happiness does not come into it. He is a field officer, whereas I am the emperor. They don’t compare.” He gave a low, gentle laugh. “Don’t worry about Bazaine.”
“What of Márquez, then?”
The Austrian shook his head. “Shameful business. The fellow has no remorse at all. Says he’s glad he did it.”
“He’ll be tried, of course?”
“Yes, of course. Tried and acquitted. There’s no other way. Bazaine and I have discussed this in detail. A conviction would play havoc with army morale. We can’t afford it. We’ll pack him off to Constantinople. It was Bazaine’s idea, and a good one, too. He’ll be my minister plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire. He can’t cause much trouble there.”
The Austrian waited a moment. “I believe I made you a proposal.”
So he had. But the man had also mentioned a condition. He would release Baldemar and the others on one condition. Now Diego understood. By most lights, the idea was unthinkable—he, a liberal and a republican, acting as secretary to an emperor, and a foreigner to boot! He should retrieve his hat and leave this building at once.
Only he couldn’t—for what then would become of Baldemar?
He sat back in his chair. So this was the condition the emperor was attaching to Baldemar’s release, the price he himself would have to pay.
“Your Majesty,” he said. Already, the honorific had become easier—not natural but not entirely alien, either. “I wonder if you have noticed that I am deprived of the use of my left arm?”
“The circumstance has called itself to my attention, yes. I presume you are not left-handed?”
“No. I somehow managed to avoid that curse.”
“Then we need not worry ourselves further on the subject.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Diego hadn’t expected the absence of most of an arm to be sloughed off so easily. It unnerved him a little. He hesitated before raising another qualm. “I wonder,” he said, “if Your Majesty has not also noticed the colour of my skin?”
“You mean that you are brown skinned? An Indian?”
Spoken without hesitation, as if these were niggling matters not worthy of consideration.
“Not Indian,” Diego said. “Mestizo. Half Indian, half European.”
“Very well. Mestizo then. I’m not sure I see your point.”
“What I mean to say,” said Diego, “is … I mean … would you not prefer someone who—”
“Is white? Is that what you mean?”
Diego nodded.
“What? One of these puffed-up creoles who call themselves Mexican? Dear God, they appall me, and I only just got here. No. Please. I beg of you. Spare me that.”
What next ensued was a discussion of Diego’s duties, should he accept the position. Mention was made of likely remuneration—an otherworldly sum. In the end, Diego begged leave to consider the matter. He would provide his answer in two days, three at most. He rose to his feet. “Your Majesty …”
Again the emperor arched his eyebrows. “Yes?”
“I have another question.” Diego swallowed with some difficulty, his throat exceedingly dry. He said, “Why me?”
The man smiled. “Why you? Well, Chapultepec Castle, for one thing. Let’s not pretend otherwise. It was a recommendation that showed great discernment. We expect to decamp for the palace in a matter of days. The women, especially, are in raptures. Besides, you are Mexican. You can explain things to me—customs, habits, principles, and beliefs. Moreover, you speak French, which is an immense help, given the state of my Spanish. Finally, your dress.”
“My dress?” said Diego. “Oh—charro.”
“Eh?”
“Charro, Your Majesty. It’s our name for this style of clothing.”
The stamped boots. The tight-fitting pantaloons, sometimes with spangles along the seam. The voluminous white blouse. The bolero jacket, sometimes with gold piping on the lapels.
“Charro. I see. Well, I was struck by it at once, that first time I saw you. In Veracruz, I think. No one else was dressed this way.”
“No,” said Diego. “It is less common now than before, for obvious reasons.”
“Obvious? Why ‘obvious’?”
“It is the way liberals dress.”
“Explain.”
“Mexico’s liberals have mostly fled to the north, you see. With Benito Juárez. Or many of them have.”
Maximiliano tilted his head. “And so I take this to mean that you are a liberal too?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“A happy coincidence then.” The man smiled, revealing the yellow stains on his teeth. “For I may be counted as a liberal myself.”