10

LIKE EVERY HUMAN BEING WHO has lived to see old age, I have the impression that I have been more than just one person. Am I really the Henriette Faber that is slowly emerging from the inkwell? I can’t be sure. Even if my intention to offer a truthful account is sincere, I fear that each page I complete remains trapped somewhere between the truth and my memory. I think that between an event and one’s memory of that event lies an enchanted forest; this territory, at once obscene and innocent, is called time. On the other hand, who among us could swear on a holy book that our memory is not tinged by desire? Do we not forget or remember what we choose to forget or remember? Let he who, in compiling a memoir, is certain that his writing is free of artifice, omissions, or fantasies, cast the first stone. It certainly will not be me. To begin with, my memories are as scattered as the stars in the sky. To wit: that faraway night when I met Robert and Maryse and when Aunt Margot died would be one of the brightest stars; another, the night in Strasbourg, a waning quarter moon at the expense of my virginity. Needless to say, a multitude of stars shine here and there in the darkness of my memory; points of light that I must link together, as the ancients did, with imaginary lines to form constellations—perhaps the giant Orion could represent the Russian campaign—and in such a way give, by the power and grace of words, a figurative celestial form to my past, my heaven, my existence, that otherwise, far from the orderly tale that I am constructing with my pen, would be a chaotic trail of stellar dust. My work, like any other that aspires to capture its author’s life, owes a great deal to imagination, perhaps even to fiction.

More than once I have asked myself what it is that compels me to write. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I do not pursue any edifying civic or educational agenda. Moll Flanders I am not. Nor do I write to improve my social position or to defend a cause; much less out of vanity, that defect so common among writers. And yet, I believe that all writing has a utilitarian purpose; it is a type of battle plan used to attain some material or spiritual triumph. And so, what forces are at work within me, impelling me to write? I believe I know the answer: I do it for the pleasure of recounting my memories, as deceptive as these may be, for the pleasure of pulling from oblivion the faces of those I loved, of reviving the magic of certain moments, of revisiting my fears, my doubts, my ambitions, my mistakes, and my successes; for the pleasure of shuffling the cards of my life and laying them out on the table as in a game of solitaire, the two of spades over the ace, the four of clubs over the three, the anticipation of placing the last king over the final queen. And what’s more, I write so that all of this might last beyond my days, return like a persistent firefly to a world whose features I can’t even imagine. Thanks to you, whoever you may be, the adventures and emotions laid out in front of you will shine during the hours you spend reading about them. For one moment, man or woman of another century, you will experience the illusion of looking me in the eye and of feeling my heart beat against your own. Do I play at living again? Why not? Doesn’t even the most tenuous of ghosts represent a victory over death?

Bundled in my traveling cloak, periodically wiping away the fog from my breath against the glass, I watched as the city I’d heard so much about paraded past my window. Uncle Charles, seated in front of me, gave a running commentary about the churches, palaces, buildings, squares, streets and houses which, because of current import or historical interest, he deemed worthy of mention. Paris! Paris, at last! A wintry Paris; damp, windy, and cold, but Paris all the same.

We rented the bottom floor of a house in an excellent neighborhood on the Rue Saint-Honoré, and we settled in quite comfortably. Our bedrooms were each a tad small, but the drawing room had a good fireplace and was quite large. The garret at the top floor of the house, divided into two rooms by a wooden partition, served as accommodations for Pierre and Françoise. (A year ago, before leaving for New York, I had occasion to explore the metropolis of grand boulevards and magnificent buildings and parks designed by Baron Haussmann. What a difference! My Paris, though the grandest city in Europe, was, in those days, still quite modest, with many of its streets still unpaved. Filthy and malodorous due to the scarcity of water, decrepit and poorly illuminated by a few thousand oil-lit streetlamps, the city was just beginning to emerge from its medieval shell thanks to the improvements being made at Napoleon’s behest. And yet. . . . )

In those days, courses in the Medical School began in January, coinciding with the military draft lottery. And so, I didn’t rush to tell Uncle Charles about my plans until I was certain he was happily ensconced in our flat and well immersed in the routine of his new position at the Val de Grâce Hospital. Once his life was well in order, I took advantage of the occasion of his birthday—Françoise had organized a grand dinner—to ask for his support. After listening to my well-rehearsed speech about the origins of my vocation and the certainty I held about being able to pass as a man, he sat in silence for several minutes, avoiding my gaze and tapping the rim of his wine glass with his index finger. Finally, he said: “I know from personal experience what it means to feel called to a vocation. If you want to dedicate your life to taking care of others, there’s no need for you to pretend to be a man. The Medical School has begun offering courses in midwifery. What better way to honor your vocation than by helping members of your own sex through the pains of childbirth?”

I knew by his tone that he hoped this proposition would resolve the issue once and for all.

“I don’t want to be a midwife, Uncle. I want to be a surgeon, just like you,” I said firmly.

“So that’s how you’re going to be!” exclaimed my Uncle, surprised at my tone. “But what you want is impossible, Henriette,” he added, extending his arms in his habitual gesture of helplessness. “The regulations for entrance into the Medical School have changed and a baccalaureate degree is now required.”

“A baccalaureate . . . a baccalaureate degree?” I stammered.

“Yes, the Medical School was closed during the years of the Revolution and the profession was invaded by knaves and charlatans without the least smattering of an education, rogues who, more often than not, hastened death instead of preventing it. So now it has been decreed that anyone practicing as a doctor or a surgeon who cannot produce an accredited degree must pass a rigorous exam. As for any new entrants to the Medical School, I repeat, it is now required that they have a baccalaureate degree. Not even foreign students are exempt from the new regulation.”

“But I know as much or more than anyone with a baccalaureate degree!” I protested. “You know what an excellent education Aunt Margot provided me. I can write in Greek, Latin, Italian, and Spanish; I know geometry, geography, philosophy, literature. I still have my flower and insect collections in Foix. Oh, Uncle Charles, what miserable luck! Isn’t there any way around the requirement?”

“No, my child,” he replied, and, seeing that my desire was not the mere caprice of an idle widow, he took my hand compassionately between his own. “The administrators at the Medical School are not fond of doing favors. It could cost them their posts. But who knows? Maybe one day the requirements will change. I’ll tell you what you can do in the meantime: I have all my books in my room. You have my permission to read them and ask me about anything you don’t understand. That won’t be so bad, right? In those books you’ll find everything you could learn at the Medical School, at least in theory. It’s the only thing I can offer you at the moment. Please believe me that I am very sorry.”

I thanked him for his good intentions with kisses on the cheeks and went to my room to cry. After a while, feeling the need to tell another woman about my misfortune, I took up a fountain pen and wrote a long letter to Maryse, closing with a promise to visit: “As you see, my dreams have come tumbling down. I can’t get used to living without your companionship. In December, as soon as my lawyer sends me the money from the rent at Foix, I’ll buy a ticket aboard the first ship bound for America.”

Despite my lingering sense of frustration, unmitigated even by the prospect of spending time with Maryse and Robledo, the subsequent months passed by happily enough. Our upstairs neighbors, a young married couple by the name of Orphile, were openhearted and jolly people who enjoyed my company. As their income was modest, I learned from them how to entertain myself with little money, an art form at which most Parisians were skilled and which would serve me well throughout my life. On Sundays, crowded into my new cabriolet—Aunt Margot’s heavy carriage had proven a nuisance on the narrow and busy Paris streets—we would go on long rides to Versailles, Saint-Cloud, Fontainebleau, Rambouillet. When summer arrived, while Armand Orphile worked his shift in a lawyer’s office, Marie-Louise, Françoise, and I would go on foot to enjoy the gardens of the Tuileries, or, employing the services of Pierre, who, by then, knew Paris as well as any of the local coachmen, we would head out to the orchards and large gardens on the outskirts of the city to buy fresh fruit and vegetables. Other times, mostly as a pretext to get out of the house, I would inspect the various construction projects underway, keeping track of their progress from week to week so I could update Uncle Charles, who only had eyes for his patients. “The great Arc de L’Etoile is complete save the paving stones. . . . They’ve made huge progress on the Théâtre de l’Odéon. . . . They say that the bronze bas-reliefs for the column at the Place Vendôme have already been cast. . . . The renovation of the Louvre is coming along nicely. . . . They’re about to take the scaffolding down from the Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel. . . . ”

In addition, I had no lack of suitors. Among the half-dozen officers Uncle Charles had introduced to me, certainly with the aim of diluting my interest in medicine, I had chosen the youngest and most original gallant of the lot: the Count Alfred Lubomirski, one of the most daring lancers in the Polish cavalry, who was serving voluntarily in the Grand Armée. My Uncle had met him at the hospital, where he’d been sent at General Poniatowski’s recommendation. There he’d had various pieces of shrapnel removed from his right shoulder. I should say that if I preferred him over my other admirers, it wasn’t because of his noble ancestry or his appearance, but rather because the first time we went to the theater together he told me, as we were saying good night, something that none of my other suitors had ever said: “I would very much like to see you again, Madame Renaud. I find you a unique and enchanting woman. Nevertheless, I feel it my duty to tell you that I will never ask for your hand in marriage nor allow anything serious to develop between us. I am already betrothed to someone whom no other could ever equal. Her name is Poland, my poor country, carved up three times over and now reduced to a meager duchy. I shall dedicate all my efforts, all the blood in my veins, toward her independence.”

That very night, remembering his words and his beautiful voice, I had a premonition that I’d fall in love with him.

What can I say of Alfred? He was twenty-two years old and more or less of the same height and weight as Robert, although his eyes were an intense blue and he had reddish, perpetually unkempt hair. His face, dominated by that prominent and aquiline nose characteristic of many Poles, generally wore a slightly disdainful, yet somehow inoffensive, expression, which, to be sure, was quite in vogue in those days. When he was scarcely out of adolescence, he’d distinguished himself fighting in Italy with the Legion of the Vistula, then left the Legion to serve as an attaché to Field Marshal Ney. His mother, the daughter of a well-to-do princess, had died when he was nine, leaving him a fortune; his father, also a member of high nobility, was a brilliant man with an unquenchable taste for travel—in addition to traveling across all of Europe and visiting China and Mongolia, he’d seen the Islamic world, and had published his impressions of all of them. Despite his father’s vast knowledge and the accolades he’d received, Alfred disapproved of the fact that he had given up the patriotic ideals of his youth to instead offer his services to Czar Alexander. But what most distanced father and son was the fact that, when the latter had been wounded and captured by the Russians, the former had gone to the Czar to beg for his freedom, promising that his son would never again wield a lance against his Crown. “It’s unforgivable that he didn’t consult me first, knowing, as he did, my political convictions,” he complained. “I don’t feel bound by the oath my father swore to that despot, but it’s impossible for me to reconcile with my father.” I should clarify that his feelings were ambiguous since, as a passionate reader of literature—whenever he visited me he would strike up lively discussions with Françoise—he admired his father as a writer, often comparing him to Lesage. (Years later, I had occasion to read one of the elder Lubomirski’s works published in Paris under the title Don Roque Busqueros, histoire espagnole, perhaps part of the long novel that, according to Alfred, he was always writing in between his travels and other occupations. And I’ll say that, the merits of Gil Blas notwithstanding, the Pole’s picaresque pages seemed, to me, far wittier and more entertaining.) While he recuperated during that summer and for part of the fall, and with my Uncle’s blessing, Alfred was my nightly companion. In order to give the impression that there wasn’t a serious commitment between us, I occasionally accepted the arm of Jules Lavalette, a grenadier captain who had serious designs on my affections. Several times I went with one or the other of them to the circus on the Rue de Temple—whose daring equestrian numbers I described in detail for Maryse—as well as to all of the theaters, which is saying a lot if one considers that, in addition to the Opera, the Théâtre Français, the Louvois, and the comic operas of Feydeau and the Italians, there were close to twenty concert halls in Paris.

I thought it very odd that Alfred never took me to a dance, and in the middle of August, when I received an invitation to a ball the City of Paris was hosting in honor of Napoleon’s birthday, I couldn’t help but ask him if he planned to attend.

“Dances bore me, madame. I’m aware that they serve a social and political function, but since I’m not interested in advancing my career, nor am I a fortune hunter or a seductor, I prefer to ignore them. And really, what is a ball anyway? A press of well-dressed, sweaty people, all crowding together in order to step on one another’s toes, drink warm champagne, and attempt to make witty and intelligent remarks in the hopes of landing a more private appointment later on.”

“There are those who enjoy dancing for dancing’s sake,” I said briskly, irritated because I had hoped that he’d accompany me to the ball. “For my part, I won’t deny that I enjoy waltzes and the opportunity to show off my jewels every once in a while.”

“You should have told me, madame. I have nothing against music and diamonds. The next time you’re in such a mood, let me know, and I’ll rent out a dance hall complete with musicians, put on my full-dress uniform, and we’ll waltz until dawn. Although given my clumsiness, I doubt you’d ever want to repeat the experience.”

“You are incorrigible tonight, lieutenant.”

“Simply abominable,” he said, laughing at himself as he turned to ask Françoise for his gloves and tall, hourglass-shaped czapka. Where do you prefer to go, the Opera or the Théâtre Français?”

“To the Théâtre Français. Talma has returned to perform in Cinna.”

“I expected as much. I’ve already reserved an excellent box.”

This being the state of affairs, I accepted Lavalette’s invitation to the dance which, since it was taken for granted that Napoleon and a considerable portion of Paris’ bourgeois would be in attendance, had become a highly anticipated event. I should say that in those days, at least up until the disastrous Russian campaign, the vast majority of Parisians supported Napoleon. There were good reasons for this. Of course, the general standard of living was better than it had been under the monarchy and during the Revolution; manufacturers and merchants were making money, there was a general sense of civil order, and the numerous construction projects throughout the city provided work for many citizens. But there was something more. As all of the Empire’s power was concentrated in the city, Parisians began to see themselves as France’s masters. This sentiment, which, in reality, extended beyond the Rhine and the Pyrenees, was cultivated by the official press—Le Moniteur, Le Journal de l’Empire—that depicted Napoleon as the architect of the new nation and Paris as its administrative and military center, as well as the seat of knowledge about the civilized world. And so, in just a few years, Paris and Napoleon had become so intertwined that the latter’s absence caused a general sense of disquiet throughout the city as though it were, in fact, and here I scarcely exaggerate, the sun that had failed to appear. During the months that he and Joséphine spent in Bayonne in order to see to the matter of Joseph Bonaparte’s ascension to the Spanish throne, all manner of rumor tore through the city’s streets. Marie-Louise, for example, knocked on my door at seven in the morning to tell me, aghast, as though it were a matter within her own family, something she’d heard from a reliable source the evening before: the emperor was on the verge of divorce and he’d already bought the tiara that the new empress was to wear—something which, in fact, would not occur for another two years. The unease was only heightened by the discovery of a conspiracy by a group of former military men who aimed to reinstate the Republic, and by the news of General Dupont’s embarrassing defeat at the hands of Spanish insurgents. As if that weren’t enough, it was said that eighty thousand conscripts would be immediately sent to fight in Spain, a rumor that caused a substantial dip in the Bourse de Paris. Like all Parisians, I too, began to wish for Napoleon’s rapid return, and I felt sincerely happy when his balcony at Les Tuileries was illuminated. That night, on the eve of the grand ball, I understood that, were Napoleon to die prematurely or to fall from power, Paris, myself and everything that surrounded me would cease, forever and ever, to be what it once was.

I was already dressed and putting on Aunt Margot’s jewelry in front of the mirror when Françoise entered my room with a note that had been left by a soldier. Since I had no secrets to hide from her, I asked her to read it to me: “Madame, I very much regret that I will not be able to accompany you this evening. Please believe me that there are grave reasons for this. With the hope of being worthy of your forgiveness, I remain at your feet, Captain Jules Lavalette.”

“What nerve!” I exclaimed. “Grave reasons! He could very well have written this note yesterday!”

“The worst part of all is that your Uncle has already left in the cabriolet to pick up Madame Bagnol,” said Françoise, referring to the wealthy and amiable divorcée whom Uncle Charles had been seeing regularly. “You’ll have to go in a hired coach.”

“Well that’s that! I’m not going to the dance! These aren’t the days of Cinderella, when a woman would arrive alone at a dance by royal decree,” I said, kicking the air furiously, causing my shoe to fly off my foot. Agitated, I began to take off the heavy diamond and emerald necklace.

“Let me help you,” said Françoise, seeing my trembling fingers fumbling ineffectively with the clasp. “Now then, let’s see. There! Shall I put it in its case?”

“Oh, how I wanted to go!” I complained. “But not alone!”

“Someone is knocking at the door,” said Françoise. “Settle down. I’ll be right back,” she said, placing the necklace in its case.

“It must be my Uncle!” I said, excited, thinking that he’d returned with Madame Bagnol to collect me so that we could all go to the dance together. “I’ll answer the door myself.”

One shoe on, one shoe off, I hobbled through the foyer, threw the latch, lifted the iron bar and opened the door. I stood there, astonished.

“Good evening, madame. I wonder if you’d do me the honor of accompanying me to the ball at the Hôtel de Ville,” said Alfred, his voice more reverberant than ever, holding the varnished visor of his czapka between his fingers.

There I was again, naked, in bed with a man. I tried to think how long my fidelity to Robert had lasted. Our last night together in Warsaw had been a few days before the battle at Pultusk—the end of December, 1806. And today was the twenty-first of August. One year and eight months. How slowly the time had passed! Would it always be that way? If so, by the time I reached thirty I’d feel like an old woman. I turned my head on the pillow and looked at Alfred. He slept peacefully. The disdainful look he usually wore had disappeared and he looked even younger than he actually was. I thought that perhaps he was dreaming of his childhood, and suddenly I realized that Robert had died in the same land where Alfred had been born. Winter and spring. Two unforgettable seasons in my romantic chronicles, for, were I to make comparisons, my life with Robert had been wintry, overshadowed by death. Alfred, on the other hand, with the taut, ripe plum of his penis, covered by an unexpected cocoon that I could draw back with my fingers—that night, the mystery of the uncircumcised penis was finally revealed to me—symbolized the spring, its winged and tender beauty; a god with the face of a boy and a voice as resonant as the base-string on a guitar who, concluding the tedious geometry of a waltz, had spirited me away from the Hôtel de Ville, transporting us to that spotless white room, with its white rug, white bed, white sheets, white pillows, white canopy, white candles that burned all around us like nocturnal suns. What would the chaste abbé Lachouque say were he to discover that his lessons in Greek mythology would inspire me, that night, to imagine that I’d been reincarnated as Persephone, dragged down to the dark depths of the underworld only to emerge into the light of spring with a flower in my hand? And while I’m playing this game, how to compare Alfred’s lovemaking with Robert’s? Or, to ask the only question that really counts after all, with whom had I enjoyed myself more? To begin with, Alfred, staying my hands with a single motion, had stopped me from undressing myself, preferring to do it himself, slowly, standing behind me, his kisses landing like warm butterflies on my throat, the nape of my neck, my ears. The ritual complete, he’d lifted me out of the wide hoop of my dress, and placed me gently upon the bed like a precious object, fragile, as though my skin were made of flower petals, and there, kneeling before me, still dressed in his magnificent blue uniform, he had traversed my body with his fingertips, lightly yet thoroughly, avoiding my nipples and my mound of Venus, and I, my eyes half-closed, felt myself bathed in a magical rain that utterly soaked me, that transformed the bed into a boat and the rug into a clear running river, my body adrift, carried by the current who knew where, until arriving at a still pool where time and the rain ceased, though I lived yet, feeling, imagining I heard the distant music of shepherd’s flutes, dreaming I was in some remote region, Arcadia, Corinth, Magnesia, and suddenly the clocks started up again and time was no longer a drop of light suspended above the boat, and I had turned to him, now naked, Olympian, his fingers encircling my nipples, describing ramparts of pleasure, now brushing the down of my pubis like furtive birds of fire, his tongue caressing my lips, his tongue on my tongue, and the boat began to spin, to careen atop a glittering wave, to roll and pitch about in the torrent, negotiating moss-covered rocks, bubbling whirlpools, and a vertiginous foam surrounded the boat as though it were nearing a vast waterfall, steaming and thundering, and then it began to take on water, to sink, to break apart, to hurl itself into an endless fall, until his Polish lance came to find me, pressing against me as I began to lose myself to the vertigo, and I grasped it in desperation, caught hold of it in the middle of the void, and anchored it inside me and felt it there, alive, rocking rhythmically through my flesh and my desire. . . .

Robert or Alfred? The winter with its Hussar cunning, or the spring with its flowering lance?

Even today I can’t decide.

If I had sailed upon Alfred’s enchanted boat again, or better, if the luminous orgasms with which we had celebrated Napoleon’s birthday—fireworks worthy of an emperor—had been repeated, perhaps I’d have been able to decide. But they were not repeated. That was the only night we ever made love.

And it’s not that we didn’t see one another again. After his fencing and equestrian exercises, his body bathed in lavender water, he’d take me to the theater just as before, or simply to walk on his arm along the parapet by the river followed by dinner in one café or another, though usually it was Le Coq Audacieux, on the left bank. There, acting as though nothing had happened between us, he would speak of Poland, of his father, and of the merits of certain young English and German poets, topics that I pretended interested me greatly.

“Madame, I have something for you,” he said on one occasion, taking a book of English poetry from his pocket.

“You are forgetting that I don’t read English,” I said impatiently, wishing he would speak to me familiarly, that he would take my hand and raise it to his lips, that he would tell me he loved me or at least make some allusion to our night together.

“Take it as a souvenir,” he insisted.

“A souvenir of what, monsieur?” I said, setting the book down alongside my plate. “Of the dance at the Hôtel de Ville?”

“Ah, the dance . . . the dance wasn’t half bad. It’s just that, as I’ve told you, dancing isn’t my favorite pastime,” he said, emphasizing the word in such a way that it was clear he meant for me to understand that he was speaking of lovemaking. “But you’re right. I’d forgotten that you couldn’t read English,” he added, retrieving the book and putting it quickly back in his pocket, not giving me the chance to say that I’d like to keep it after all.

His words wounded me. My cheeks felt hot and I imagined that I was blushing fiercely. Heedless of my pride, I said: “Clearly we don’t agree on the topic of dancing. It’s not that I accept just any invitation to dance, but it would be dishonest of me not to tell you that I very much enjoyed dancing with you.”

“Surely you only say that out of courtesy, madame. I imagine myself a poor dancer. In any case, I’ll not have the opportunity to escort you to another dance. My arm has fully healed and I’ll soon be leaving. I found out today that the Polish lancers have already begun fighting in Spain. Now, if you’ll permit me, I’ll order another bottle of wine. I’d like to celebrate my reinstatement by enjoying the pleasure of your company.”

After that night, there was nothing more to be said.

Uncle Charles walked over to the chair in which I sat reading Madame de Staël’s Corinne. His eyes sparkling with happiness, he held out a large package that he laid in my lap.

“The post just delivered it. It’s from Maryse,” he said, still standing next to me, curious, waiting for me to open the heavy wrapping.

“It’s a box, a big cigar box. Look at the beautiful lithographs,” I said, showing him the colorful allegories.

“Yes, yes,” pressed Uncle Charles. “What’s inside? I want to know how her health is these days.”

“Papers . . . some engravings, a newspaper. Some documents, what looks like a letter. I’ll read through it all and then pass it on to you,” I said, and shut the box so I could go through its contents in my room, leaving my uncle in suspense.

And yes, inside the fragrant box there was a letter in Maryse’s enormous, sprawling handwriting, but there were also many other things, among them a piece of parchment, rolled up and tied with a red cord. I opened it and spread it out across my desk. At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at, the Latin, the gothic characters, the multiple signatures and wax stamps with ribbons. It was a Bachelor of Arts diploma from the Real y Pontificia Universidad de Havana in the name of one Enrique Fuenmayor y Faber.

After recovering from the powerful emotions that had me wandering about the room like a sleepwalker, I threw myself down on the bed to read Maryse’s letter in the hopes of finding the explanation for how she had managed to pull off such a miracle.

The letter began in a joking tone—“Dear Enrique”— and told of her life in Havana, a city she found dirty and boring, particularly for ladies. The theater was abysmal, though she had to admit that her Spanish was still in its infancy and she didn’t understand what was being said on stage. But really, there was no need to understand. It was enough to see those poor people shouting out their lines, not knowing what to do with their arms. Luckily, she was happy with Robledo, very happy indeed, despite everything—which I interpreted to mean that he had not yet sold his estate. They were in the habit of taking lengthy excursions to the countryside, where Robledo had a house looking out over a lovely valley. It was a beautiful place full of tall palms. Later, she mentioned the presence of French colonists from Saint-Domingue who lived in the nearby mountains. There were also French people in Havana, as well as British and North Americans, but they were tiresome people whose highest form of entertainment was speaking ill about the Spanish. The native musicians were quite talented, especially the Negroes, and many had excellent voices. As soon as her Spanish improved she would probably decide to do something with them, seeing as her health was improving day by day. Finally, on the last page, she wrote of the Bachelor’s diploma. It was, of course, a fake, but everything had been imitated to perfection, from the parchment and calligraphy, down to the ink, stamps, seals, and signatures. Since Enrique Fuenmayor was supposedly from Havana, she had also included a passport, a map of the city, some engravings, a visitor’s guide, a newspaper, a description of the university, and information about professors and doctors. The letter concluded: “In the event that Don Enrique should decide not to pursue his studies in Paris, Madame Henriette Renaud will be welcomed in Havana with enormous affection, sympathy, and consideration by Señora Doña Marisa Polidor de Robledo y Echeverría.”

What was I to do with all of that? My vocation was intact, but now I was confronted with a double risk: passing as a man and passing as a Habanero. My Spanish was fairly good, although I was sure to have something of an accent. But it was another thing entirely to pretend I’d been born in Havana. Who could be certain there wouldn’t be an actual Habanero among the other medical students, or even someone who’d merely visited the city? I spent the remaining hours of the afternoon lying on my bed, immersed in these considerations. I would have happily stayed in my room for the rest of the evening as well, except that, realizing that the sun had already set, I remembered that Alfred was coming for dinner, and Uncle Charles would be anxious to know about the contents of Maryse’s parcel. What would I say to Alfred and to Uncle Charles? I could, of course, tell them both the truth; the former would take everything as a grand turn of events and then, upon further reflection, as an unselfish act in the service of French women’s civil liberties—my noble Pole understood life as a poem in which heroes fought for impossible causes. Furthermore, Alfred would be leaving any day and I took it for granted that I’d never see him again—although in this I was mistaken. But would it be prudent to show Uncle Charles the false diploma? Immediately I realized that it would not. His respect for the profession was such that he’d be affronted by it, even while knowing it represented my only chance to enter the Medical School. On the other hand, I couldn’t very well hide the truth from him. Apart from the fact that I found it distasteful to deceive him, the moment would arrive when I’d be forced to reveal my intentions to him. I mulled all of this over as I dressed for dinner, and by the time I’d put the final touches on my coiffure I’d arrived at the conclusion that, for the moment, it would be best to remain silent. I put the last page of Maryse’s letter under my pillow, together with the diploma, the passport and all of the papers relating to Cuban medicine and the university, and I left my room with the box in order to give it to my uncle.

He didn’t say goodbye. Not even in writing. One fine day I learned from Uncle Charles that he’d taken the road to Bordeaux, heading from there to Spain. Distressed by what he considered a lack of courtesy on Alfred’s part, my Uncle invented various senseless excuses and passed along Alfred’s supposed words of gratitude to me for having offered him my friendship during the months of his convalescence.

I won’t say that his departure didn’t affect me, that I didn’t miss his haughty and precise manner of speech and demeanor—not even in our moments of greatest intimacy did he use a familiar form of address with me—his aura of a medieval knight, his eccentric czapka and that diaphanous way he’d made love to me. I won’t say I didn’t love him because I did, with all of my tenderness and hope that he might be the champion destined to vanquish Robert’s subterranean presence. Did he love me? I couldn’t be sure. If he did, he never said so. Perhaps I was, for him, a transitory love, a minor figure, a summer romance; though his unwillingness to meet with my nakedness a second time leads me to think that he was, perhaps, not so indifferent to me after all, that I did mean something to him. Perhaps he feared that, were he to allow me in his bed again, I would succeed in conquering a part of his heart. In the end, I can’t fault him for loving me less than he loved his country; nor for his decision not to write to me. What would have been the point? His memory, far from having faded with time, comes back to me often, encased in two moments, one suffused with pleasure, the other with woe, like the irreconcilable faces of a coin, the currency with which we pay for our lives: the magical night of the dance at the Hôtel de Ville—needless to say— and the frozen hell of the Russian retreat, when, utterly unable to do anything to help him, I saw him shivering beneath a tattered blanket, his feet wrapped in rags, blind and groping his way along the road to Vilna. (This snowy afternoon in New York, with the wind whistling and my street resting beneath a white quilt, I think of Alfred and of his vast, anonymous grave. I think. . . . )