7

WHO TODAY EVEN REMEMBERS THE Confederation of the Rhine, that interminable list of tiny states—kingdoms, duchies, grand duchies, principalities and free cities—concocted by an ambitious Napoleon only to evaporate in the wake of his defeat at the Battle of Leipzig? But back in the days when Maryse and I traveled those German cities, the Confederation had just come into being and was a topic of much discussion. Many approved of it. They believed that the alliance with France would shake the dust off the provincialism and bureaucratic torpor of the federated states and have a modernizing effect on public administration, education, and social life. Others, looking toward the future, saw the Confederation as the first step toward a united and powerful Germany, a Germany independent of the influences of Austria and France, destined to play a historic role in Central Europe. But it was not all Franco-German harmony. Here and there, groups of radical patriots criticized the order imposed by Napoleon, an order that required unconditional—and in this they did not exaggerate—political and military support. These Germans, proud of their traditions and inflamed by nationalistic ideas, despised the presence of our soldiers in their cities, considering them unwanted foreigners whom they were obliged to feed and clothe. They looked askance, without distinction—and in this they were mistaken—at everything that came from France, from books and newspapers and social customs, to the arts and fashion. I say this not because the politics of that time interest me in particular, but rather to help you better understand the causes of the tragic episode that would put an end to our time in Germany.

But all that was yet to come. For the time being, we were happily heading north. We were bound for the city of Kassel, having been invited to perform there by an agent of the court of Jérôme Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. We were giddy with excitement because, should the King be pleased with our show, we might secure the possibility of working in France. As we traveled along we sang, memorized lines and rehearsed new numbers in the barns and stables along the way—we had decided that works by Shakespeare and Mozart quartets might not be to a Bonaparte’s liking. We had great hope for our new finale, a kind of operatic ballet that, accompanied by volleys of cannon-fire and the unfurling of flags, would represent the recent triumph of the Battle of Friedland. Françoise, taking on the role of head costume designer, supervised Frau Müller, Claudette, Columbine, the contortionist, the sopranos and the five tightrope walkers who, working industriously on a wagon bench, mended old uniforms we’d bought from a junk peddler. Pierre, for his part, had employed Kosti’s substantial roulette winnings—our stay in Baden-Baden had stretched out over one lucky week—to replace the horses stolen by the gypsies, to pay a backdrop artist to paint a convincing battle scene, and to secure an abundant provision of cheeses and cured meats, as well as three dozen rusty rifles, two drums, a bugle, various sabers and an old Prussian cannon, smelted in the foundries of Frederick the Great, all of which had been abandoned in the fields and collected by the locals.

But the changes went further than those made to our variety show. Maryse, whose romantic encounters had not, since Portelance’s death, been anything more than simple dalliances, was looking with growing fascination at her dashing admirer from Baden-Baden, allowing him to meet up with us along the road and to court her openly. It appeared to be love at first sight: “That man is tremendously attractive,” she’d told me as we were leaving the game room that night, and she had not been soliciting my opinion. The emphasis she’d placed on her words, that emphatic is, had leant her pronouncement a tone of irrefutable truth (to wit: the shortest distance between two points is a straight line). They had eaten breakfast together in the guesthouse the next morning and, while Pierre conducted his business on the outskirts of town, she had suggested, with the buoyancy of an adolescent, that we go on an excursion to a castle set into a nearby mountainside. With some of us riding in the wagons and some on horseback, we arrived at the foothills of the mountain. The path was so steep that it was necessary to go up by donkey. This seemed like an uncomfortable extravagance to the majority of the troupe, most of whom opted to return to town and join Kosti at the roulette table. Those of us remaining at the foot of the mountain were more than sufficient to rent the few available donkeys. Maryse and her admirer, my two suitors and I, were joined by Columbine—whose real name I don’t remember—and one of the Pinelli brothers. Cross-eyed Vincenzo, who portrayed the white-faced Pierrot, was left without a mount, and bid us farewell in sad pantomime.

The castle was in ruins. Its walls, blackened over the centuries and covered here and there by vines and wildflowers, seemed to grow out of the rock itself. We entered through the crumbling doorway, me ceding my position next to Maryse to that bronze-faced traveler, who had stepped in and claimed it as if it had always belonged to him. (I knew very little about him, as Maryse kept him quite to herself. His name was Julián Robledo, a well-to-do Spaniard from the Americas. He would accompany us as far as Kassel, which was on his way, and from there continue on to Prussia.) After climbing a narrow stone stairway, we arrived at the rampart walls. From there we entered a side tower and climbed up to the top. A magnificent panorama opened up before our eyes: the rise of the Black Forest, the meandering Rhine River, the rooftops of small villages on one side of its banks, the distant buildings of Strasbourg on the other, the cathedral’s spire towering over them all. I turned toward Maryse to make a comment about Strasbourg, but neither she nor her paramour were there. We searched everywhere for them, but they didn’t turn up until much later when, our outing finished, we waited for them by the donkeys. Maryse returned, excited and flushed, and, to distract us from the fact of her disappearance, began immediately talking about deep dungeons and dark narrow passageways they’d nearly gotten lost in.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t upset by this turn of events. In that moment, I realized that I was in danger of losing her, that, should a romantic involvement come between us, I’d no longer be her traveling companion, her closest attachment, the confidential book in which she’d begun to write the story of her life. Today—certainly not back then—I understand that what I was asking of Maryse was much more than her friendship. I also yearned for a more complex form of love, a mother’s love, and a sister’s. My jealousy sprang from the fear that I’d no longer be the focus of her affection, her understanding smile, her protective embrace; from the fear of abandonment, the fear of a solitude which, admittedly, I had thought to seek out in Foix only a few months earlier, but now wholeheartedly rejected. There was something else: as she told me of her past, I had begun to construct a future for her in which I would always be present. I had turned her into one of those resigned female characters in a Madame de La Fayette novel who, on the verge of being consumed by passionate love, instead finds salvation in filial love. Who better than I to replace her dead daughter? Hadn’t I reminded her of Justine that day in Strasbourg, when, upon learning my age, she’d shed a tear?

Nevertheless, I decided not to meddle in her love affair and to allow time to take its course. After all, Robledo would be leaving once we arrived in Kassel. And yes, I would accept Andrea and Piet’s advances, more than anything to prove to Maryse that I could get along without her company.

We passed through Mannheim en route to Kassel, and were offered the opportunity to stop and perform there; after some consideration, however, we decided to postpone it until a later date.

“One does not keep a king waiting, my dear, even if he’s a Bonaparte. Don’t you agree?” noted Maryse. I should say that, even though Maryse traveled with Robledo, took her meals and went out in the evenings with him, she always sought me out when anything relating to the troupe arose. Despite my general chagrin, it flattered me that she should consider me an equal partner in the Théâtre Nomade. On those occasions she would speak to me with the same naturalness as always, except that she never mentioned Robledo.

After arriving in the kingdom of Westphalia, an unpleasant incident occurred, one that I may have, at least in part, unwittingly caused. In an attempt to keep Andrea and Piet interested in me, I not only encouraged them to continue to court me, but I also permitted them certain liberties such as allowing them to accompany me in my carriage. My flirtation had reached the point where I would invite them to join me individually, and on alternate days, so that the one would never know what had happened with the other. The truth was, nothing was happening, or almost nothing, a few controlled kisses here, an insignificant caress there. In any event, Andrea had been with me one sweltering afternoon in Fulda, and I’d been slightly more tolerant of his advances than usual. That same night, when I entered my room at the guesthouse, I found him dressed in his Harlequin costume. His back was to me and he was wrapped in a cape that revealed only his legs, sheathed in black and red diamond patterned tights. He must have come in through the window and, for some reason, he had blown out the candles that I’d left burning before going down to dinner. I was too surprised to speak. I just stood there in the middle of the room, a candlestick in my hand. When I was finally able to demand that he go back to wherever he’d come from, Andrea turned around. He was wearing his big-nosed mask and was using both hands to support an enormous jutting phallus, as thick as my arm. Frightened, I backed toward the door, but when he saw that I intended to leave the room, he began to tug on his penis as though trying to pull it off, and let out a long and doleful moan. Bewildered, unable to move, I watched by the faint light of the candle as he detached that grotesque appendage from his body and deposited it on my bed, affectionately tucking it in as though it were a child. Then, without a word, he performed a bizarre bow and, laying his hand upon the windowsill, jumped nimbly into the night.

Terrorized, I ran from my room and knocked at Maryse’s door. When she didn’t answer, I went downstairs to the dining room where I was met with such a surprise that I sat down on the bottom step. Andrea, dressed in his regular clothes and smoking a cigar, was playing cards with Pierre, Maryse, and Robledo.

“Has something happened, my darling?” asked Maryse from the table. When I didn’t respond, she added: “If you’ve seen a ghost, don’t be too concerned. According to the innkeeper, it’s a benign spirit, a wayward soul who appears in the hallways from time to time.”

“A spirit of flesh and bone,” I said, standing up. “I would appreciate it if you’d come to my room with me. I want to show you something.” Everyone stopped playing and came over, intending to come up with me. “Thank you, but I only need Maryse,” I insisted.

When we entered the room, all of the candles were lit and there was nothing on the bed.

“I don’t doubt you, my love,” Maryse said, after I’d told her of the incident. “The only thing I can say is that your visitor was not Andrea. He’d been with us a good fifteen minutes when you came downstairs. Someone must have gone into his things and taken the Harlequin costume. As for the phallus, I can assure you that I’ve never seen such a thing in the troupe. I think it must be a cudgel or a piece of painted wood, maybe the leg off a piece of furniture, something that could be made in half an hour.”

“Yes, but who could it have been?”

“Who knows? There are more than forty of us.”

“Well, there are about twenty men. It was one of them.”

“And how do you know that it wasn’t a woman? You never did hear whoever it was speak.”

“But the phallus?” I said, unconvinced. “Only a man would think up such a thing.”

“How little you know women, my dear. I’d say it was someone who desires you, man or woman. Someone who dreams of you desperately, who wants to possess you but is too afraid to be identified. It’s not that strange really. Here, everyone thinks of you as a grand dame, a rich widow from the Languedoc. God only knows what things Pierre and Françoise have told them. But even if they’ve exaggerated, the fact is there’s a huge difference between your economic situation and that of the rest of us.” Seeing me about to protest, since the truth was that I felt at a disadvantage to the most modest saltimbanco, Maryse added: “Like it or not, it’s the reality, my dear. I’m certain that many see you as inaccessible, as far as romantic relations go.”

“That’s certainly not the case with Andrea or Piet. For heaven’s sake, Maryse, the last thing I needed was for you to make me feel excluded from the entire troupe!” I protested.

“That’s not what I mean,” she said gently, without losing her composure. “Everyone loves and respects you because you are a good girl and you treat everyone the same. But it’s one thing to eat dinner with you and quite another to share your bed. As for Andrea and Piet, I’m sure they don’t take more liberties with you than those you allow. And now that you mention it, you should know that it’s assumed among the troupe that you’re involved with both of them at the same time, something which gains you little favor. Perhaps that’s another reason your admirer doesn’t dare to express his or her love directly. Your admirer may think that if you’ve already got two lovers you couldn’t possibly need a third. But my point is that whomever this person is who so desires you has not let you know because they feel intimidated by you in some way. If you really think about it, this whole business with the phallus is nothing but a pathetic ode to the impossibility of making love to you.”

“All right. Point taken,” I said, hoping to get back to the topic that was really of the most interest to me. “But who do you think my desperate inamorato—or inamorat-a, which I seriously doubt—might be? Seeing as Andrea is innocent, I’m leaning toward Piet.”

“No,” she said categorically. “His muscles are not trained for stunts such as jumping out of windows. For the same reason I rule out the six musicians, Frau Müller and Kosti; the singers as well. Nor could it have been Columbine, who’s too big to fit into Harlequin’s tights. So, we’re left with six actors, three mimes, the four Pinelli brothers, five tightrope walkers, three jugglers, and the pair of contortionists. Count how many that is.”

“Twenty-three,” I said, adding them up on my fingers.

“Okay then. The Gizots are married and seem happy. Two of the tightrope walkers, Michou and Nicole, are self-declared lesbians and live in affectionate wedlock. One juggler and three of the actors are homosexual and, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, they work it out perfectly well among themselves.”

“That leaves fifteen,” I said, discouraged.

“Fifteen, my love. A very high number. As you can see, we can’t accuse anyone. At least for the time being. Perhaps, down the road, the circle of suspects will tighten. But for the moment, I think it best to keep this between you and me. Things could get complicated if the police were to intervene. We’d be forced to stay here until they’d finished their investigation, and probably in vain, to boot.”

“Yes, I think that’s best,” I sighed. “Please, I wouldn’t want you to tell anyone about this.”

“I won’t. You know what? I’ll sleep with you tonight. You’ll feel calmer that way. Tell me what side of the bed the phallus was on. I’ll sleep there,” she said, laughing. “How big did you say it was?”

We undressed down to our nightshirts, blew out all of the candles except one, and lay down to talk. Maryse, as always, was brimming with ideas and projects. She dreamt of returning to Paris, a city she missed more and more every day.

“If we’re well-received in Kassel, Jérôme Bonaparte’s recommendation could open the doors to the circus on the Rue de Temple. We could have multiple equestrians in our show and you could be in charge of directing them. What do you think? Equestrian acts are always crowd pleasers. Ideally, we could get enough money together to build a circus. Just imagine if we had our own circus in Paris! We would no longer be the Théâtre Nomade. What would we call ourselves? What do you think of The Grand Faber-Polidor Circus? No, no. Not original enough. Let’s see. . . . The Grand Olympic Circus. But what am I saying! We would call it The Imperial Circus! Napoleon and his court would love it, don’t you think?”

“Do you have a sense of how much it would cost to build a circus?” I asked, thinking I could sell some of my lands in Foix. I thought Maryse’s plan was wonderful, and I could already see myself, in the middle of the arena, dressed as a Hussar, directing the choreography of a half-dozen horses and riders to the thunderous applause of the audience.

“I see where you are going with this, my love. But my answer is no. I must look out for your economic security and I would never allow you to invest your money in a circus. Let others take care of that. For the time being, enjoy life, which is what I’m trying to do myself. You’ve already got more admirers than you know what to do with, although you really should decide on one of them.”

“I’ve been so foolish, Maryse,” I said, turning toward her side of the bed. “As I told you in Baden-Baden, I’m not interested in any man. The thing with Andrea and Piet is nothing. Pure flirtation.”

“Of course, my sweet. I’ve never thought otherwise. When one is flirting one feels . . . how shall I say this? Important? Don’t you think?”

“I’ve been a fool,” I repeated.

“Enough of that, my dear. Life must be lived to the fullest. And anyway, I know that you’ve been lonely lately.”

“More than lonely. Abandoned,” I reproached her.

“Come on, Henriette, it’s been barely three weeks. Don’t you think I have the right to be happy for a few weeks?”

“And what if you go away with Robledo? He’s a wealthy man, and he’s not wearing a wedding ring.”

“He’s a widower. He says he’s crazy for me. I know I’m but a shadow of what I once was, but it must be true because he’s asked me to marry him.”

“You see!” I cried bitterly, and I sat up in bed and looked her in the face. “I thought you wanted to lead an independent life. At least that’s what you told me, once upon a time. Do you remember?”

“But I’ll never marry him,” Maryse went on, unflappable. “I’ll admit I’m head over heels in love with him, something I thought would never happen again. He’s enchanting, Henriette. He has it all. Even his vanity is enchanting, it’s like a child’s. But,” she shook her head, “Robledo is not the man for me. Oh, if only Portelance had never existed! Although perhaps not even then. I detest the source of his fortune. Do you know what it is? A vast sugarcane plantation on the island of Cuba.”

“But you told me that Portelance had plantations,” I said, surprised.

“It’s true, but when he took them over, slavery had already been abolished in Saint-Domingue. Robledo’s plantation, on the other hand, is worked by slaves. He’s master of hundreds of slaves. Don’t you see? Hundreds of slaves who, if I were to marry him, would work, inevitably, for me. That is something I could not bear. And not just because of Portelance. Also because of my own convictions.”

“Have you discussed all of this with him?” I asked, curious to know the most intimate details of their relationship.

“Yes, at length. He says he understands me. He swears that he, too, abhors slavery, but he’s not well disposed toward selling his sugar mill. For him, sugar is much more than a commercial venture or a way to get rich; for him, it’s destiny. He says that without sugar, his island has no future. Even his travels have been motivated by sugar. If you only knew all of the exotic places he’s visited: China, Guinea, Tahiti. . . . Do you know what he’s going to do in Prussia?”

“Yes, he told me, the one time I’ve spoken with him. He’s interested in the cultivation of beets.”

“Actually in beet sugar, a new product. He wants to know how much it costs to make and what it sells for on the market. Just imagine, traveling to Berlin with that as your sole purpose. Afterwards, he’ll go to London. A dangerous adventure; the blockade against the British is fiercer than ever. I don’t know what he’s going to do there, but I’ve no doubt it has something to do with sugar. It’s his obsession.” Maryse stopped talking and closed her eyes. I thought she wanted to go to sleep and I lay quietly next to her. Suddenly, she said: “If you really think about it, maybe all men are like that, maybe they’re all obsessive. I’ve never met one who wasn’t—I once had a lover who was obsessed with duels, of all things. It’s a shame: they miss out on so much in life. Robledo could very well sell his plantation, marry me, and live a very good life. We’d have a circus in Paris and our show would be full of acts from China, whose operas, from what he’s told me, are extraordinary. We’d have dancers from Java and India, elephants, tigers and lions . . . and monkeys, which are very funny. And Transylvanian gypsies. Don’t you agree? It wouldn’t be so bad, right? And Red Skins from Canada and some act or another from Japan. Do you know anything about Japan? I know very little, but I love those silk kimonos. But now that I think about it, we’d really only be in Paris three or four months out of the year. The rest of the time we’d spend traveling with our show. Imagine it, my darling, instead of traveling these boring German streets like we’re doing now, full of dour people and monstrous phalluses, we’d traverse all the world’s oceans. And you with us, my love. You with us always, as a family. And when you find the prince of your dreams, you’ll convince him to join up with us as well. What do you think? Oh, I could give Robledo so much!”

“But isn’t there any way for the two of you to work it out? Tomorrow we arrive in Kassel. Everything just ends tomorrow?” I asked, to bring her back to reality.

“He’ll stay two or three days in Kassel. He’s to be received by King Jérôme. Then he’ll go.” Quickly she added: “He says he’ll find me when he returns from London, though I doubt it. It’s much harder to skirt the blockade leaving England than entering.”

“Who knows? Maybe he’ll return and change his mind,” I said, hoping for exactly the opposite.

Maryse, breaking the thread of our conversation, asked me: “Do you have anything to drink in your luggage?”

“A few bottles of German white wine. I’ve been terrified to drink alone since Robert died. I always end up crying. Would you like a glass?”

“Have you ever tried rum?” she asked me, sitting up on the edge of the bed. When I shook my head she quickly started getting dressed. “I’ll bring a bottle from my room. It’s a little bit like cognac, but less full-bodied and with a lighter spirit,” she said, as though describing a person.

I realized that Robledo was most certainly waiting for her and that I should let her go. I walked her to the door and threw the latch, then began looking through my traveling case in search of my silver goblets, a corkscrew, and a bottle of Moselle wine, in case I didn’t care for the rum. When I’d laid everything out on the table, Maryse knocked at the door. I opened it partway, and she stuck her head in.

“Put on a robe, my love. You have a visitor.”

I was greatly displeased to see that she’d brought Robledo with her and I started to motion to her with my finger that he should leave. But when she pushed open the door, I had no other option but to scurry about looking for my robe.

After the requisite introductions, I saw that Robledo was quite amused by the situation. As always, he was dressed in black, although the pearl he wore that night was oval-shaped and ivory-white.

“Well, my dear. I’ve brought my friend along because he’s just told me that he knows who your harlequinesque visitor was.”

“I though we’d agreed that you weren’t going to tell anyone about that,” I said, feigning a smile.

“I have never betrayed a secret,” said Robledo, holding his hand to his heart in a somewhat mocking way, as if to indicate that he’d kept secrets of much greater importance than mine. “In any event, madame, I believe I know who the intruder was.”

“None of this ‘madame’ business,” Maryse corrected him. “We’ll have no formalities here. Tonight she is Henriette and you’re Robledo, and that’s that. But, come now, we should sit and there’s only one chair. Robledo, please move the table over by the bed.”

Once we’d settled in, Robledo lit another candle and Maryse pulled a bottle of rum from her bag. When I tasted the liquor, I couldn’t help but think of Robert. How he would have loved it! It was strong but excellent. No schnapps could ever compare.

“Well,” said Maryse, looking at her lover. “Don’t keep Henriette waiting.”

“Vincenzo,” said Robledo, after downing half a glass of rum. “It was Vincenzo.”

“That cross-eyed old man?” I said, surprised. “How do you know?”

“When he saw your terrified face when you came downstairs,” interrupted Maryse, “Robledo assumed that someone had gone into your room and he remembered that he’d seen Vincenzo in the garden looking up at your window.”

“There’s something else, Henriette,” said Robledo. “Do you remember when we went to visit the ruins of that castle in Baden-Baden? Vincenzo just missed out on the last donkey and bid us farewell with a pantomime worthy of the best Pierrot.”

“Yes, I remember when he told us goodbye.”

“Not us, Henriette. I noticed that he looked only at you. Since then, during these days that Maryse has allowed me to accompany her, I’ve observed that he never stops looking at you. You’ve just never noticed him.”

“How disgusting!” I said, repulsed, thinking that I’d have preferred for the phallus to have been exhibited by someone else—Piet, or one of the Pinellis, certainly not by that sad, ungainly, runty, gray-haired man who always seemed to be looking skyward.

“Face it, my dear, you’re his fantasy,” said Maryse, filling our glasses with more rum. “The things he must imagine doing with you!”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” I said, draining my glass. “I don’t want to see him again, Maryse. I assume you’ll fire him.”

“As you wish, my dear. Although it will be quite difficult to replace him with another mime of the same quality. And that doesn’t take into account the fact that they’ve all worked together for years. But, anyway, you’ll have the final word.”

“Have some compassion, Henriette. Think of all the unrequited desire of those less fortunate than us, the beautiful people,” said Robledo without the least hint of modesty, including himself in a broad hand gesture that, after passing across Maryse’s face and mine, came to rest on the pearl in his left earlobe. “Think of how terrible it must be to be despised because one is cross-eyed or hunchbacked or lame or simply ugly.”

“Or a slave,” Maryse added, admonishing Robledo with a knowing look.

“Or a slave,” repeated Robledo, not returning her glance.

“Well, we can resolve the matter of Vincenzo tomorrow,” said Maryse, taking her lover’s hand so as to soften the reproach. “Now, Robledo, tell Henriette how you came by all of those magnificent pearls in Tahiti. And then about the operas and the customs of the Chinese. . . .”

“As you wish, my sweet.”

And so the night flew by, Robledo telling us of his adventures traveling the world: his affairs with the women in Tahiti, the run-ins with the law he’d had in Guangzhou and how he’d managed to spend a night inside a harem in Senegal. His unbridled vanity was at first surprising, though somehow not off-putting, and later caused me to reflect that it was perhaps preferable for one to show it off in a natural way, as he did, rather than to flaunt it archly as the Hussars did, or to hide it behind false modesty. And so, to humor Maryse, and with the innocent pride of a child, he untied the ribbon that held back his majestic hair so that I could admire it. “Even Absalom would have envied it,” I said to flatter him, and I nudged Maryse’s leg under the table to indicate that I’d joined in her little game, since it was clear that she’d brought him to my room so that I could share in her conflict: on the one hand, her love for that beautiful and gallant prince of the Indies, a love that I feared now more than ever; on the other, a profound abhorrence of the institutions that he represented. At daybreak, when, taking his leave, he took me about the waist and kissed my cheeks, when I felt the firmness of his grip and experienced up close the warm magnetism that emanated from his body, I realized that Robledo was something like the Tree of Knowledge, that any daughter of Eve who had tasted of his fruit would be his forever. “I understand,” I whispered to Maryse as we kissed goodbye at the door.

“I knew you would,” she murmured in my ear.

Immediately after Portelance’s death was confirmed, Maryse decided to take the next boat back to France. She had no money and she still had some good friends left in Paris. But one morning Monsieur Delacour, Portelance’s diligent lawyer, knocked at the door to notify her that his client had left her, in usufruct, all of his properties in Saint-Domingue. “If you’ll allow me to explain, madame,” the lawyer had told her, “said properties do not belong to you. They are subject to the Portelance family estate, the records of which are kept in Philadelphia. Now then, given the complexity of said estate, I’d venture to say that you could collect the rent from said properties for at least one year, a conservative estimate, madame.”

This provision led Maryse to change her immediate plans. Now the most sensible thing to do would be to remain in Cap-Français. In the event that Justine were not recognized as Portelance’s heir, Maryse would at least have had the chance to save enough money to settle in Paris.

Two years went by, and not a single day passed that Maryse didn’t miss Portelance. Though it was not her way to display her grief publically, as many widows feel obliged to do, she felt an inexpressible private nostalgia for all the little things that, with repetition, had shaped their life together—Portelance’s general indifference to food, the smell of cologne and tobacco in his clothes, the innocent way he’d made love, his fixation on politics, and so many other things that she’d responded to with predictable words and attitudes, everything repeating itself daily as though it were a performance of a dramatic dialogue. To offset this nostalgia, Maryse would take her breakfast on the balcony and, while Justine slept late into the morning, she would talk with Portelance in her head, imagining him seated in front of her, reading his correspondence between distracted sips of coffee. Sometimes she spoke of her musicians or actors, other times, of how well Monsieur Delacour was managing the plantations or of the new constitution that Louverture had sent to Bonaparte or of how General Christophe, now governor of the city, had completed the reconstruction projects. This morning ritual completed, she would fix her hair, get dressed, and throw herself into her work.

Sometimes while watching the sunset with her daughter, she would remember as though it were yesterday, that morning when she’d disembarked onto the bustling dock in Jacmel, and had been instantly captivated by the island. The years seemed to have flown by. It was only when she noticed the small cone shapes that Justine’s budding breasts now made in her dress that she registered the passage of time. The lawyer Delacour kept her up to date on the goings on in Philadelphia: Claude had died, and the subsequent changes to the various heirs’ legal situations were enough to instigate furious rounds of litigation among his widow, his sisters, and Madame Portelance, to the effect that they had not yet reached an agreement vis-à-vis the inheritance of the estate.

“This should come as no surprise, madame,” he’d said. “In every family there is one member who serves as the axis. When this person is gone, the mechanism breaks down and the remaining members are sent flying in all directions. I have known of cases in which the execution of a will has lasted an entire lifetime.”

“Do you think that the current situation will continue?” Maryse asked the lawyer.

“Indefinitely, Madame Polidor.”

“In that case, I’d like to spend some money in Port-au-Prince. I’ll start an arts program similar to the one we have here. Doesn’t that seem like a good idea? Little by little we’ll refine the tastes of the planters and the merchants, maître Delacour.”

“You may do what you wish with your money, madame,” replied Delacour respectfully, “but permit me to tell you that Achille Despaigne wants to sell La Gloire, his old sugar plantation in Morne Rouge. The machinery and all of the buildings were destroyed in the rebellions of ’95, but the land is among the very best in the Northern Province. It’s a good opportunity. I know that Monsieur Despaigne plans to go to the United States and is prepared to sell at a low price.”

“Even so, I’m certain I wouldn’t be able to pay what he’s asking. But you say that Monsieur Despaigne plans to leave the country?” Maryse asked, surprised.

“I just spoke with him this very morning.”

“His daughter, Claudette, hasn’t said anything to me about it. Well, I hope he takes his time, we’re rehearsing Le Calife de Bagdad and she’s one of the principals,” said Maryse, with a touch of dismay. “As for buying Monsieur Despaigne’s land, as I’ve already told you, I couldn’t afford it.”

“Perhaps, madame. I was thinking that . . .” Delacour hesitated. “I was thinking that if you and I were to join forces . . . a partnership, I mean to say . . . we could buy La Gloire. The prospects for sugar are much better than they are for coffee. And General Louverture has pulled off a true miracle. His Government is recognized on the entire island and the future looks auspicious. On another note, La Gloire would not be subject to the Portelance estate. It would be yours and mine.”

“But maître Delacour, I’ve no head for business,” Maryse said, starting to laugh.

“You have a daughter, madame,” Delacour insisted.

“You make a good point,” conceded Maryse. “But I can’t make this decision right now. I need two or three days to think. Who knows, perhaps you’re right. I would like to leave something solid to Justine.”

But Maryse would never reach a decision. The following day, after a night rent by disquieting noises, the sails of a dozen ships and numerous military transports appeared beyond the bay. It was the armada of General Leclerc, Napoleon’s brother-in-law. It was the expedition Portelance had so feared: an army of twenty thousand men whose orders were to sweep away Louverture’s black power, take over political and military control of the island, and reinstate slavery.