12

IT WASN’T UNTIL AFTER I’D completed my first-year exams that I began to regard my classmates as regular, ordinary people. Until then, I’d thought of them as research subjects, or better, as hospital patients I needed to observe in order to learn more about them. Nevertheless, there were two exceptions who, from the very beginning, touched an emotional chord within me: Raymond Fauriel, a “state student” from the north, and Claude Bousquet, the most handsome man at the Faculty, the youngest son of a wealthy porcelain manufacturer from the city of Limoges.

Fauriel—it was our custom in the Faculty to call one another by our surnames—was the poorest of the poor; so poor that he couldn’t even afford an attic room in the Latin Quarter. He lived on a tiny farmstead on the outskirts of the city. At sunup he had to help the owner milk the cows and then accompany him to sell the milk. When the milk wagon arrived at the Hospital de la Charité, he would jump off and come running into the building just in time for the class on outpatient medicine given by Boyer, one of our most popular professors. Since he didn’t have enough money to buy books—he sent most of his stipend home to his mother—after classes he could be found in the Faculty library, his elbows on the table, immersed in Bichat’s Anatomie générale, or pondering Percy’s Rapports du physique et du moral de l’homme. He owned only one frockcoat, repeatedly mended and patched, and his wooden shoes were always covered with damp mud and straws of hay. He was quite short—a good four or five centimeters shorter than me—and he carried no extra weight on his fine-boned and agile frame. His hair, which he wore cut to shoulder length, was thick and black, like Robledo’s must have looked in his youth; we all envied it, and if anyone ever complemented him on it, he would poke fun at himself, saying it was the result of wearing it loose in the open air, since he lacked the resources to buy a hat. His only vanity was to be always carefully shaved. Allowed to grow, his beard must have been extremely thick: although one never saw actual hair on his chin, part of his face was perennially shadowed in a bluish cast. While his features were regular enough—his cheekbones perhaps a touch high and broad—his greatest attraction lay in his smile, or better, in his laugh. I had never seen anyone laugh like him; it was as though the best and most genuine of all human traits were revealed on his face. In spite of the time his farm chores took away from his studies, he distinguished himself as a student, especially in the practical courses. I had the double good fortune to count him as my friend as well as my group-mate in the Practical School, in which the dissection tables were assigned in alphabetical order. His knife cuts were always swift and clean; thanks to him, our table had been designated one of the three best in the previous year. Aware of his poverty, I bought him lunch quite frequently, and he repaid my invitations with his indefatigable good humor.

Bousquet attracted me in a different way; an absolutely animal, and therefore relentless attraction, unmitigated by morals or reason. Physically, he shared a great deal in common with Robert and Alfred. Like them, he was tall, elegant, and had a military bearing, yet he was more handsome. Although perhaps handsome isn’t the word; the word could be . . . it should be, apollonian, as in Apollo. I’ll explain: on one of my birthdays—I can’t remember if it was my eighth or ninth—Aunt Margot had given me, among other gifts, a book of Greek mythology that my grandfather Antoine-Marie had given her one Christmas. The first of the engravings was of Zeus, depicted seated on his throne, bearded, and surrounded by zigzagging bolts of lightning, eagles, and other symbols; the next engravings were of Hera and her children, Leto with the twins Apollo and Artemis, Demeter and her daughter Persephone, and so on. The idea, I suppose, was to present the Olympian pantheon as a big, happy family in which Zeus’s promiscuity, while not erased, was excused by making it abundantly clear that his fruitful romantic adventures had taken place during his youth, before he was wed to Hera. In reality, it was a children’s book in which the gods appeared modestly dressed in long, loose-fitting tunics which, in accordance with Madame de La Fayette’s pedagogical approach, scarcely revealed a bare shoulder, calf, or small portion of a masculine torso. When I proudly showed the book to my tutor, abbé Lachouque, he began to leaf carefully through the pages, showing his approval of its contents with repetitive little nods. Suddenly, a sheet of paper folded in quarters fell out from among the final pages. Lachouque picked it up from the table and began to unfold it, but stopped abruptly, exclaiming “Dear God!” Incapable of lying, he told me that it was a picture of a naked statue of Apollo, something that only adults could see. Noticing my curiosity, he told me to go to the other end of the library until he called me back. I did so, and when I returned, he showed me the drawing: a damp, black-ink tunic now covered Apollo’s body. “Now here is something fit for your eyes,” he said, and without further ado, he pushed the inkwell away and began his lesson as though nothing had happened. Having my suspicions as to the location of that which had so scandalized my tutor, the moment he left I took my penknife and scraped at the ink. My disappointment was immense: the black tunic now looked like a sort of discolored codpiece that, as I continued to scrape, became an irreparable hole in the paper. Disconsolate, I folded the drawing and slipped it back inside the book. Weeks later, seeing Laguerre’s horse’s member swinging back and forth, I guessed that Apollo’s attribute must have been something similar. I ran to the library and found the book. Paintbrush in hand, I spent a good long time trying to reproduce my observations in watercolor. After experimenting with various colors, I finally managed something that looked, more or less, like a purplish snake escaping from the hole in the paper between the god’s thighs. As I was ecstatically beholding my restoration job, Aunt Margot’s powerful hands descended upon my shoulders, took the drawing, and reduced it, instantaneously, to a crackling ball of paper. My aunt had the good sense not to scold me. After offering me an impersonal smile, she left the room with the crumpled drawing in the pocket of her robe. I recount this anecdote so that it will be clear why discovering, in Bousquet, the head of my lost Apollo—his same ringlet curls, his same straight nose, his same full lips, his same smooth and harmoniously proportioned face—awakened in me the confused and elemental passion that had been dormant since my childhood days. Its power, perhaps for having been constrained all of those years, became irresistible, as though the Gorgons, Cerberus, Minotaur, and all the other creeping evils locked away in Pandora’s box had joined forces against my moral equilibrium. In my nocturnal fantasies I saw myself perversely rolling back his tunic until I’d unveiled a pendulous, rosy-fleshed cylinder that, in terms of size, compared favorably with the knobby appendage that the cross-eyed Vincenzo so loved to exhibit. In the turbid scenes I would concoct in my desire, I would often kneel before the swaying phallus and, taking it in both hands, begin to squeeze it, caress it, massage it, watching as its veins swelled and feeling its juices pulsating beneath my fingers. Sometimes, in my uncontrollable deliriums, that stalk of passion would appear circumcised, in all its divine brazenness, its head an apple from the garden of the Hesperides; other times, it appeared like an umbrella made of toughened leather that, quivering, unfurled itself to reveal a gigantic ripe grape that, touching my lips, would swell until bursting in a torrent of thick nectar whose warm drops christened me the Goddess’ priestess, Aphrodite’s vassal, a mythic and sacred prostitute whose duty it was to eternalize all men’s pleasure.

It should be said that, except for his resemblance to my Apollo, there was absolutely nothing else to admire about Bousquet. According to the date upon which he’d been admitted to the Faculty, he should have already been writing his doctoral dissertation, and yet, he was still in my class. But it wasn’t his clumsiness or his lack of application that I held against him, but rather his vanity; he scarcely spoke a word to anyone, students and professors alike. He lived alone and ate dinner almost every night at the popular Café Procope. He often went to salons, dances, and theaters, and his door was like a sultan’s, opening every night for a different woman. Actresses, singers, dressmakers, laborers, fine-ladies, and haughty courtesans ascended and descended the stairs to his room between six in the evening and dawn. We were not friends. In truth, as I said, Bousquet didn’t have friends. Surely he believed them unnecessary for the sort of life he led. The fact that I knew about his personal life owed as much to chance as to my curiosity. When, wanting a bit more space, I moved to a different house on the Rue Vaugirard, by pure coincidence it turned out that my apartment was adjacent to his; what was more, the room I’d chosen as my bedroom was separated from his by a thin wall that made it possible to hear everything that happened on the other side. The fact that I’d already become obsessed with Bousquet only spurred my curiosity and, not thinking of the consequences, one night I pressed my ear to the wall to better hear the conversation he was having with one of his lovers. I think that, had I not made this one move, my life would have followed a different course, probably one that would have led me away from the war, rather than drawing me closer to it. But I’m a fool who doesn’t seem to grow wiser with the passage of time. Though really, who can peek into the future and see the final consequences of an action? Perhaps the war was already there in the middle of my path, a morass of gunpowder and blood to which all of my steps would inevitably lead, regardless of who they were following or what direction they took; a morass I would be forced to cross in order to continue moving forward.

And so, hearing the muffled whispers coming from his room that night, I glued my ear to the wall and discovered that they were spoken in the language of pleasure. I remained there, in a state of alert, my pulse racing, until his words of farewell were followed by the sound of the door. I ran to my other room and half-stuck my head out the window: presently, a woman in a wide-brimmed hat climbed quickly into a waiting coach. I went to bed and slept clutching my pillow, pretending the warm linen pillowcase was the skin of his cheek.

When I woke up, I reproached myself for my unhealthy curiosity and moved the bed, promising myself that I’d never again enter that room at night. I would only use it to store my clothes, books, and luggage trunks. “But man proposes, and the devil disposes, my dear,” Maryse would have said, had I told her that, just a week later, trembling with desire, I’d gone back to the forbidden room to listen, once again, to Bousquet making love. Soon I would become convinced that it takes only one repetition of certain actions to form a habit. In the same way that it was impossible for me to go without laudanum when my head ached or at the onset of my menstrual cramps, as night fell I was compelled by an urgent need to transform into a kind of night owl, perched on a chair against the wall, impatiently awaiting the moment of the hunt. The rest of my life continued along its regular course, outpatient clinic and surgery at the Hospital de la Charité, lunch with Fauriel at Madame Binot’s tavern, botany and forensic medicine at the Faculty, dissection of an interminable thorax at table number six, walk to Rue Vaugirard, climb the stairs, open the door, wash-up and change clothes, go to the Café Procope and sit almost directly in front of him, making my presence obvious, nod my head briefly by way of greeting, spy on him as he read the newspaper between sips of wine and distracted mouthfuls of stewed beef tongue or tenderloin. After the salad and cheese course I’d let him go, almost like a cat playing with a mouse, knowing that, as night fell, he’d be mine, that I’d have him on the other side of my wall, all his sounds for me, all his words for me, all his moans for me, and then I’d take off my underclothes, hook my leg over the arm of the chair and, sinking my finger into my wetness, I’d follow the rhythm of his panting, of his pleasure, until his long cry would mount my sigh and we’d both fall against the wall, spent, sweat-soaked, breathing raggedly.

One night, after our customary greeting in the café, it seemed to me that his eyes sought me out over the top of his newspaper. I was about to leave my table, go sit next to him and do away with the pretense once and for all; tell him that I’d wanted him for weeks, that I was schooled in all the arts of love and that I was prepared to satisfy him in any way he might desire, that I didn’t hope to be his lover or wish to meddle in his life, but that I wanted to have him for at least one night, just one night, and the only condition I’d impose would be that he guard my secret. The only thing that held me back was the arrival of a Hussar, his mustaches waxed, the fur over his left shoulder, the cross on his chest, the plume of his shako the colors of Robert’s regiment.

“Well, citoyen! Haven’t you ever seen an Imperial Hussar?” he said. I lowered my head, dropped some money on the tablecloth and left the place furtively, as though I’d been caught in the very instant that separates intent from the commission of a crime. I wandered the streets. I considered crossing to the other side of the river to tell Françoise of my torment, if only to unburden myself a bit. As I rounded a corner, the towers of Notre Dame, silhouetted by the light of the moon, appeared before me like an omen. I paused to look at them. How long had it been since I’d performed the duties of the religion in which I’d been raised? How long since I’d kneeled before a confessional, since my tongue had received the bread of communion? But among my sins was that of passing as a man, and it didn’t seem that, when it came to God, there was much room for gray areas: the Church would always accept me as a sinning widow, but never as a doctor. I sat down on a spur-stone. Several carriages passed by in the direction of the bridge; pedestrians, pairs of lovers, mounted police, men in uniform. Head down and disheartened, I went home. An unassuming grisette was coming down the stairs; she descended happily, a bouquet of flowers, surely a gift from him, in her hand; she had a snub-nose and her cheeks looked ruddy even in the faint light from the street lamp. I stepped to the side to allow her to pass. Our smiles met for an instant. Oh, how I envied her!

The following day, as I was crossing the plaza in front of the dissection pavilions, I heard Fauriel’s clarion voice calling me from afar. I turned around. He was running toward me, his wooden clogs making a clock, clock, clock sound on the pavement.

“I’ll be damned, Fuenmayor!” he exclaimed through one of his most radiant smiles. “You’ll never guess what happened to me. When I put my coat on after surgery I found seven napoleons in my pocket!” he said euphorically, and he showed me the gold coins as if thinking I’d doubt his mere words.

“The genuine article,” I said, after checking that the coins were good. “Do you have any idea who your benefactor might be?”

“Well, no. Whoever it was only left me the coins. No note. It’s all very odd. Don’t you think?”

“Extremely odd,” I replied. “Well, one thing’s for certain: that money was meant for you. It’s yours.”

“Yes, although I can’t get used to the idea. Seven napoleons are seven napoleons. It wouldn’t have been you, by any chance?” he said, enveloping me in another smile. “You’re rich and you’re my best friend,” he added, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“Me! The things you come up with, Fauriel!” I said, slightly ashamed, realizing I’d never offered him money. It had never even occurred to me to give him a pair of boots or a new frock coat, both of which he could sorely use.

“Well, then, who could it be? Nuns, doctors, patients and students. . . . There’s no one else in the Charité. Come on, Fuenmayor, confess. It was you.”

“I’m telling you it wasn’t. I’ll admit that I’d thought about giving you a frock coat. But I was going to wait a bit, until winter had arrived,” I lied shamelessly, promising myself that I’d do it as soon as the weather turned. “Maybe a grateful patient? Or someone you helped or did a favor for?”

“As you like. I won’t insist. I ask just one thing of you, and you have to say yes. I won’t accept refusals.”

“Let’s talk about this later. Don’t forget that Monsieur X’s thorax awaits us,” I said, and started to walk toward the dissection pavilions.

“I’m inviting you to dinner, Fuenmayor. You can’t say no. You’ve bought me fifty lunches. Today it’s my turn.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” I said evasively, thinking that I couldn’t possibly allow him to spend any part of that money on me. Although, on second thought, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go together to the Café Procope. I’d seen him talking to Bousquet on a few occasions. Maybe he’d invite us to his table or else join us at ours. Why had this not occurred to me before? “All right then, if you insist on going to dinner, let’s go to the Café Procope. And tomorrow, I’ll treat you.”

The table we’d been assigned in the Practical School was in the first pavilion and they had not yet passed the attendance list. We left our coats in the cloakroom and put on our aprons, permeated, as always, with the smell of the disinfectant with which they injected the cadavers. We greeted our classmates and, taking up the knives, we set about removing the intercostal muscles of Monsieur X’s ever-useful body. (I won’t belabor this disagreeable aspect of medical instruction. I’ll merely say that, upon crossing the threshold of the Practical School, the new student was confronted full on, with no transition, with the world of death; a true trial by fire that was the cause of a good many faintings and desertions during the first few weeks of the academic year. And yet, what would we know of the human body without its post mortem desecration?) Done for the day, we washed our hands and arms and left the pavilion, welcoming the fresh air outside.

The Café Procope was close to the Faculty buildings, located on the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, a street with an interesting history. Given that Bousquet would disappoint me that night by dining elsewhere—perhaps with his most recent conquest—and that I can’t remember what Fauriel and I talked about as we ate and drank, I’ll describe that short and intense street so as to suspend it in time for you, reading me now, whatsoever your name may be. I’ll begin with the house marked number four. It was occupied, in 1727, by Philippe Destouches, a well-known academic and dramatist with a moralizing bent. It would be his first home after returning from London, where he’d served as a diplomat while familiarizing himself with the theatrical mood of the Restoration. Among the reasons propelling Destouches to rent that particular house, we may surmise two: it was on the same street as the Comédie Française—where his works would debut—and it was nearly across the street from the Café Procope, the favored gathering place for theater types. It was no doubt an excellent move for Destouches to settle in that neighborhood. There he would write Le Philosophe marié, one of his most successful comedies. The house designated number ten lacked an official history despite being the oldest on the entire street. This was not the case with number fourteen. Beginning in 1550 and lasting for many years after that, that unique building housed a jeu de paume, an indoor game involving a ball that the competitors would strike with the palm of the hand. Purchased and remodeled as a theater, the building housed the Comédie Française from 1689 to 1770, at which point the theater moved once again. Needless to say, during that time the greatest classical works of Corneille, Molière, and Racine repeatedly graced its stages, although the most lauded new plays were those by Voltaire and Marivaux who, in those days, were the greatest exponents of the tragicomedy. In honor of the building’s contribution to French theater, the street was christened la Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie. Like a witness to the building’s past, its façade still displays a classical high-relief of Minerva, attributed to Le Hongre. The painters Horace Vernet, Baron Gros, and the monumental David must have seen something in that canny image, for they would all decide to set up their respective studios in that very building. How many paintings must have been created by the light of its large windows? But time is short and we must move on to the next house, number sixteen. This is where Marat lived in September of 1789, when the first issue of his newspaper, L’Ami de Peuple, went to press. It was there he penned his caustic articles accusing the aristocrats of conspiracy against the Revolution, becoming one of the most radical voices of the moment, an idol of the people, an open enemy of the conservatives; it was that house he would finally be forced to flee, to England, no less, upon receiving the news of his imminent arrest. Is that where he would leave behind the heavy silver ladle that would lend a revolutionary luster to Achille Despaigne’s collection? Who knows? But now it’s time to cross the street and enter the storied Café Procope itself. Its glorious history is as follows: in 1670, Francesco Procopio, a twenty-year-old Sicilian seeking his fortune in Paris, partnered with two Armenians by the names of Pascal and Maliban, proprietors of a small business selling coffee at two and a half sous per cup. When he’d become sufficiently prosperous, he parted ways with the Armenians, adopted the French name François Procope, and opened his own coffee shop on the Rue Tournon, where he remained for several years. In 1684, he came across a location he thought more providential, and set up shop in the building we see today. This move would prove fortuitous. To begin with, Procope benefitted from the clientele of two adjacent businesses: the aforementioned jeu de paume and Malrus’ petanque court, which abutted the café’s rear door. He was surely further pleased to learn that the Comédie Française had purchased the former. Always far-sighted, he bought the second floor of the café building, whose magnificent balcony still dominates the street today. The Procope’s salons immediately filled with playwrights and actors, not to mention the patrons who flowed in after attending performances. With the daily menu improved thanks to the talents of a renowned chef, in a few scant months the Procope had become the favored spot for artists, theater critics, journalists, and intellectuals; further, it became a hub for the interchange of news and gossip; reputations were made or lost at its tables. But that was not all. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the most important ideas of the century were debated there—Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D’Alambert, Fréron, Marmontel, Piron and the rest of the encyclopedists met regularly at the enterprising Sicilian’s; in fact, the Encyclopédie itself was born of a conversation between Diderot and D’Alambert one memorable night among glasses of calvados, cups of coffee, and the diligent to and fro of the Procope’s garçons. It was there that, in 1785, a reception was held in honor of the debut of Beaumarchais’s famous Le Mariage de Figaro, a work that earned its author three days in jail for its critique of the privileges of the nobility. And the Revolution would arrive as well. The Bastille would be stormed and many things would change. And of course, in the new era, the café’s clientele would also change. Now the hoarse and demanding voices of Marat, Danton, Legendre, Desmoulins, Billaud-Varanne, and other inflamed residents of the quartier would be heard there. The red cap of the sans-culottes would make its first appearance there, and the cry to attack Les Tuileries would be raised there in July and August of 1792; there, toasts would be made to Robespierre and the Comité de Salut Public, the Reign of Terror would be applauded, heads yet to roll would be tallied; there, in short, the truly revolutionary years of the Republic would be born, grow, age, and die, drowned in their own blood. Understandably, the café’s popularity began to wane in the days of the Directorate. The Jacobins no longer showed their faces, and the writers and artists preferred to gather in salons run by certain languid ladies, provocatively dressed in tulles with the plunging necklines of latest fashion. Yet to come were Napoleon, Italy, Egypt, the 18th of Brumaire, the Consulate, the Empire, and a different clientele, tending toward the bourgeois, began to fill the café’s salons: high officials from all branches of the military, functionaries, professionals, businessmen, industrialists, and the odd student of means, such as Bousquet and myself. And finally, number twenty-one. There, at the beginning of the Revolution, lived one whose zeal for equalizing nobles and commoners before the executioner would be crowned by the most categorical and prolonged of successes: Doctor Guillotin.

Our second visit to the café went exactly as I had imagined. The ever-affable Fauriel made his way over to Bousquet’s table, heedless of the fact that the latter was apparently engrossed in the newspaper. It would all happen as though in a dream: Fauriel signaled to me, I approached, Bousquet stood and politely extended his hand, then immediately invited me to sit next to him. Of course, he would say, it really was about time we got to know each other better since, after all, we lived on the same floor and ate dinner at the same café and, although I might not have realized it, he had more than once been on the verge of approaching my table and introducing himself properly, only he’d formed the opinion that I was an extremely private person or that I had exotic habits, since he’d noticed that I always drank a shot of rum before ordering dinner, not a French custom, after all, or at the very least, not a Parisian one, although it would not be an odd habit, he supposed, for a person born in Havana, something he knew because in the Faculty they called me “the Cuban,” and, in fact, he’d known of Havana since his childhood days, since his father had always received many orders for porcelain objects from there, and not the most typical objects either, but before I told him what my city was like and what sort of life I had led there, he wanted to congratulate me on my excellent French, quite superior to that of the other South Americans in the Faculty who could scarcely be understood when answering a question in class, and another thing, would I mind if he spoke in the familiar form with me since he was in need, that night, of some good friends to share his table? And Bousquet would have gone on talking, dripping ambrosia into my eardrums, if Fauriel, by nature somewhat impatient, had not interrupted him to tell the story of how, two days earlier, he’d found seven napoleons in his coat pocket, seven napoleons! And no, there hadn’t been a note of any kind, only the money, and he didn’t have the least idea who could have put it there, although he suspected that his benefactor was a friend, some well-off classmate, probably the very same person sitting at his side this very moment, although—

“Come on, Fauriel! I’ve already told you it wasn’t me!” I interrupted him. “Let’s talk about something else. Let’s see . . . tell us how you are going to spend the money.”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said, offering us a luminous smile.

“If I were in your place, I’d buy a pair of leather shoes,” offered Bousquet.

“And a frock coat,” I added.

“And a vest, and some breeches,” suggested Bousquet.

“And two shirts, and wool socks. Winter’s coming soon.”

“And a hat.”

“Never! Don’t speak to me of hats!” protested Fauriel in his shrill voice, while Bousquet ordered another bottle of wine and I ordered an oyster soup and some lamb chops. “Anyway, I found all of that, plus a pair of mittens and a scarf, all barely used and exactly my size, just this morning at the pawnshop. And that’s not all: I still have some money left over to share with my mother.”

I was amazed at Bousquet’s friendliness toward us, and toward me in particular. His greetings had always been courteous but cold, lending him a vainglorious air which, that night, was nowhere in evidence. To be sure, his conversation could not have been more superficial—I hadn’t heard him utter a single intelligent word—but that was something I had already taken for granted: what Don Juan has ever distinguished himself for his wit or sensibility? As we ate, Fauriel praising the quality of the food and wine, it occurred to me that my feelings for Bousquet must have been akin to his toward his lovers; an attraction based exclusively on the appetites of the flesh, on the desire to possess a beautiful body, to touch and kiss and smell it until you’d made it yours. But no, what I felt for Bousquet was this and much more besides. Bousquet was my reencounter with Apollo and with all the dusky things that he implied, and, whatever the cost, I could not allow the hand of fate to rob me of him a second time. Unable to control my longing, I moved my knee closer to his, seeking its pressure and heat. It wouldn’t last long: taking advantage of a lull in the conversation, he filled his glass and stood.

“Before continuing with dinner,” he announced, “I must make a confession. You see, I, too, have something to celebrate. I imagine that you both already know of my failings as a student. I’ve only managed to advance to the second year and, well, it’s not my studies I wish to discuss, but rather my not-studies. Gentlemen,” he said, raising his glass, “a toast to my liberation. My father has just released me from academia. I am no longer required to embarrass myself in front of you two or anyone else. He’s finally accepted that I’ll never be a doctor. From now on, I’ll work in his porcelain business, just like my brothers.”

“Will you be returning to Limoges then?” interrupted Fauriel, without waiting for the toast to be over.

“God forbid!” said Bousquet, without lowering his glass. “My father’s decision was aided by the sudden death of Monsieur Guichon, our longtime agent on the Rue des Lombards. Next Monday I’ll take charge of the account books and the shop. It’s true that I know little of numbers, but I know life in Paris like the palm of my hand. A toast to my good fortune!”

“Santé!” Fauriel and I said in unison.

Over dessert, Bousquet stopped talking about his family and the porcelain business and, in a confidential tone, he extended us a surprising invitation: “I must go in a few minutes. A matter of skirts. Something truly special . . . although it occurs to me that we could continue our celebration in my apartment. I have a date with two sisters. . . . There are three of us, but I could find another one of my lady friends on the way home.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Fauriel said immediately, without considering the matter further. “I have to walk almost two hours back to the farm and the cows wake up early.”

“And you?’ Bousquet asked me. “You live right next door to me. You have no excuse.”

I hesitated.

“Well, no . . . I couldn’t. I need to study.”

Bousquet made an irritated gesture and looked at the twelve-candled chandelier that hung above our heads.

“You see! My God! Yesterday I didn’t have any friends because I was too ashamed of my failure as a student. Today, just when I thought I’d found two, it turns out that they abandon me.”

“How I wish I could!” I sighed. “But believe me when I say it’s impossible.”

“Come on, man! Even if it’s just for one drink! No commitment. You can leave whenever you want to.”

This time I reconsidered the invitation.

“All right. Just one drink,” I said, and immediately regretted my lack of willpower. But the truth was that my desire to be in his apartment, to watch how he treated his women friends, to drink his wine, to sit on his furniture, to see his bed and the other side of my wall, simply won out over prudence. “But, I repeat. Just one drink.”

Their names, that night, were Mademoiselle Rouge and Mademoiselle Brune. They said they were from Passy. Bousquet had met them the previous Saturday at a costume ball on the Boulevard du Temple. No one would possibly take them for sisters—one was tall and redheaded, the other short and brunette—although they did have two things in common: each spoke with the vulgarity of a prostitute and wore a black velvet mask that covered the top half of her face. Shortly after their boisterous arrival, just as they were beginning to tell dirty jokes at Napoleon and Joséphine’s expense, I finished my glass of champagne and, despite Bousquet’s protests, bid them good evening. After washing up and making myself comfortable, I went to my place against the wall, ready to listen to what promised to be a singular symphony for clarinet and two violins. When the recital failed to begin, I picked up my anatomy book and started to read. Immediately I began to nod off, and I felt the book fall from my hands. In the small hours of the morning, the concert of moans awoke me. I don’t know if it was because I’d awoken so abruptly but, despite my best attempts, I couldn’t manage to join the threesome.

On Monday, our dissections done for the day, we went back to the Café Procope. Fauriel strutted proudly in his new leather shoes. His gray frock coat, though a touch too long in the arms, was well cut and lent him an air of distinction. Bousquet arrived late. He came from the Rue des Lombards and swore he hadn’t understood a single word of what Monsieur Guichon’s assistant had explained to him. He was in a foul mood, that much was certain, and he scarcely touched his food. He also appeared exhausted: bags under his eyes, a trembling in his voice, wrinkles I’d not seen before. Almost nothing remained of his Apollonian aura, and for a moment he seemed to me a mere mortal, just like everyone else. He surprised me by refusing to share another bottle of wine with us.

“Parbleu, Bousquet, you look terrible!” said Fauriel crossly, as though he could no longer bear to look at our new friend’s lined and sullen face. “Where have you left your happiness at being a free man?”

“It will pass,” replied Bousquet. “There are certain things that one does without knowing why,” he said cryptically, then immediately stood and bid us farewell. When he’d made it almost to the door he turned and retraced his steps. “I have to go to Limoges. I’ll see you in a few weeks.”

“What happened the other night?” Fauriel asked me, as soon as Bousquet had left the café.

“Nothing in particular. I left his apartment right away. I left him drinking champagne with a certain Mademoiselle Rouge and Mademoiselle Brune. Both masked, of course.”

“Maybe he wasn’t up to the challenge of the circumstance,” joked Fauriel. “It’s not the same fighting two duels at once.”

“Perhaps,” I said, knowing quite well that he was mistaken. “Although I’m under the impression that Bousquet is a born Don Juan.”

“You know, I don’t find him attractive. He’s too pretty. He seems fake, like a doll, a statue, a painting. I don’t know. He’s too perfect. And in any case, his features do not bespeak intelligence. Don’t you agree?”

“What do you take to be intelligent features?” I asked, intrigued.

“Oh, well, I don’t really know. Let’s see. . . . Some of our professors have intelligent faces. Boyer, for example.”

“Boyer is an ugly man, Fauriel.”

“That’s true. Okay, Lacloche, for example.”

“The doctor who teaches in the outpatient clinic with Boyer? Well, yes, he has a pleasant face, although it hardly compares with Bousquet’s. Your problem is that you look at men with a man’s eye. I prefer not to pass judgment. Now then, as for Bousquet, I can assure you that he’s capable of seducing a broom. How well I know it, seeing women entering and leaving his apartment as though they were attending a show at the theater! In any case, even if he does live as though he were Casanova, I’m pleased to accept the friendship he’s offered me.”

“I don’t have anything against him, though perhaps against his class of people, factory owners, warehouse owners, mine owners. Greedy and insensitive people. . . . But anyway, getting back to Bousquet, I’d always suspected that what everyone took for vanity was nothing more than a façade to hide his incompetence. I have no doubt that he’ll excel as a tradesman. As for what you say about women, you’re right. Who am I to judge their opinions about masculine beauty?”

Following the sway of the conversation, I was stuck by a curiosity to know something about his love life.

“Do you have a girlfriend, Fauriel?”

“Yes,” he replied curtly. “Back in my village. And you?”

“Yes, me too. Actually, I’m engaged. Her name is Marisa Robledo and she’s the only daughter of a plantation owner,” I replied, using the premeditated response I’d devised in case anyone were to ever ask me that question. “We’re to be married as soon as I graduate.”

“Mine is poor. There are no rich people in my village, just mining families in ill health. You know, the coalmines in the north. Coal in the lungs. I’ll go back there. I’ll do something for them. Many die so young, you know? That was what happened to my father. I still remember him coughing,” he said, making distracted piles of breadcrumbs. “But your family is rich. You can’t possibly know what I’m talking about.”

“There are also poor people in Havana. What’s more, there are slaves. I have seen poverty up close,” I protested.

“But you haven’t lived it. It’s not the same thing.”

I knew it was true, and I glimpsed the black hole he’d come out of, realized the immense effort, given his circumstances, it must take for him to carry out his studies, and I thought how richly he deserved to have been selected as a “state student” from his district.

“The clothes you bought fit you quite well,” I said to change the subject. “Although I must admit that I’ll miss the clock, clock, clock of your clogs.”

“Do you really think I look good, Fuenmayor?” he asked, one of his smiles beginning to spread across his face.

“Almost as good as Bousquet. Now the women of Paris will have a new threat to contend with.”

“You know what, Fuenmayor?” he said, looking me in the eye. “You are the best friend I’ve ever had in my entire life. Who’ll ever believe me when I go back to my village and tell them that I, the son of the old invalid Fauriel, dined in a magnificent café with a rich friend from Havana?”

The following day I did not go to the Charité or attend any of my classes. At seven in the morning Pierre had knocked on my door to tell me that Uncle Charles had returned home. “He’s wounded, madame. Françoise insisted that I come fetch you in the cabriolet.”

I found my Uncle in his customary chair. His leg was resting atop a tower of pillows and cushions. When he saw me he feigned displeasure and said: “You see, no one pays me any mind around here anymore! I had wanted to wait until Sunday to tell you. That way you wouldn’t miss any of your classes. But, in any event, they’ve already gotten you out of bed, and I’m happy to see you Henriette. Come over here and give me a kiss. You look good, my girl, you look good. Very natural, I’d say. No one would ever . . . well, you know what I mean to say.”

He, on the other hand, looked terrible. He’d lost weight and his face was as weathered as a fisherman’s. Of course, it had been over a year since we’d last met, but to judge by how much he’d aged, one would have thought it had been five. He’d come from Spain, where he’d been sent after the armistice with the Austrians.

“And here you have me, with British lead in my thigh. It happened in an wretched place—Ciudad Rodrigo,” he said, laying a finger across the spot where the bullet had gone in. “I put myself on leave. It hurts to walk. Also to ride. I know what’s happened. I’ll speak to you as a surgeon. The bullet passed through the sartorial muscle, lodged in the femur and is disturbing a nerve in there. Next week I’ll oversee my own operation in the Val-de-Grâce. Anyway, nothing mortal so long as the wound is debrided thoroughly. You’ll see, I’ll be good as new.”

“Could I be there as well?”

“Don’t even think about it!” he said, laughing. “I would worry too much thinking that it would trouble you to see me grimacing in pain. But I’ll keep you informed. Now tell me, how are your studies going? But, before I forget, I have news to share: I’ve been awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor!”

We talked for several hours. He had seen Alfred on one occasion. He’d been promoted to Captain and was recuperating from a head wound he’d sustained in Zaragoza. Some old crone had thrown a flowerpot at him from an upstairs window. The business in the peninsula was dragging on. Massena was not conducting himself well. He had brought his wife along, dressed as a Dragoon, no less. She was a greedy woman who encouraged her husband to sack and pillage. As for the British, Wellington had made a difference. He was an astute and capable man, a difficult man to conquer. “But we’ll toss him out to sea nonetheless,” asserted Uncle Charles. And so we passed the afternoon, Uncle Charles talking about Spain, praising its seafood, sausages, and hams. Seeing that he was tired, I said goodbye, assuring him that I’d come to visit on Sundays.

Pierre tried to insist on taking me home in the cabriolet, but it had been so long since I’d walked those streets that I refused his offer. It was a beautiful, warm evening, and twilight found me walking along the river. It was almost dinnertime and, although I knew that Bousquet was out of town, I headed for the Café Procope. To my surprise, Fauriel was waiting for me by the door.

“I was waiting for you,” he said when he saw me. “Will you allow me to accompany you while you eat?”

“Better yet. I’ll treat you to dinner.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t. That’s not why I’ve come. I need to talk to you,” he said as we entered the café. “When you didn’t come to dissection, I assumed you were sick and so I went to your house. When you weren’t there, I thought that I’d probably find you here.”

“Has something happened to you, Fauriel?” I asked, seeing his agitation. The waiter came over to take our order. He was new at the café and didn’t know that I always drank rum before dinner. “Why don’t you have a little rum? It’ll do you some good and hopefully it’ll whet your appetite.”

“Thank you, Fuenmayor. I’ll let you buy me a glass of wine. Any kind is fine. A glass of the house red,” he ordered. “Now that I find myself face to face with you I don’t know where to begin. I’ll warn you, what I’m going to tell you will come as a shock.”

“I’m listening.”

“I know who put the money in my pocket. It’s the last person you’d ever imagine. Do you know Lacloche, from the outpatient clinic at the Charité? Yes, of course you know him. We’ve spoken of him.”

“It was Lacloche?”

Fauriel nodded.

“Did he owe you a favor?” I asked, surprised. Lacloche had graduated four or five years back and his salary as an “extern” couldn’t have amounted to much; his wife even brought his meals to the hospital.

“He likes me, Fuenmayor!” he whispered after downing his glass of wine in one gulp. “Do you understand?”

“Do you mean to say that he’s fallen in love with you? But he’s married!”

“It’s like I told you,” he replied impatiently. “But now . . . now I need your help. I only have two napoleons left. Could you lend me five? I need to return his money.”

“I’ll give them to you right now. But tell me about it, Fauriel. I promise you I’ll tell no one.”

“Oh, I know, Fuenmayor, I know. It’s just that it embarrasses me. This has never happened to me before. Well, there was one other time. A drunken miner from my village. I had to beat him over the head with a stick. Lacloche is another matter. What I mean is—”

“Of course he’s another matter; he’s a good doctor, an intelligent man, and married as well. Even if he did try to buy you, you should limit yourself to returning the money. What could you possibly gain by knocking him over the head or breaking his nose? There’s no need for you to ruin your life. Look, here’s the money,” I said, handing him my bag. “There’s enough in there for you and to pay for dinner. If there’s anything left over, send it to your mother.”

“Thank you. . . . Thank you. What else can I say? Oh, Fuenmayor, you’re right, I can’t give him a beating,” he said, and started to sob.

“Come now, Fauriel. . . . We’re in public,” I said, alarmed by this weeping from someone always in such high spirits.

“It’s that you don’t know. . . . He wasn’t trying to buy my favors with the money. He didn’t want anything from me. He said it pained him to see me so poor, that I deserved better. The seven napoleons were part of his savings. He kissed me, Fuenmayor. He came up to me and kissed me on the mouth and told me he loved me. Oh, Fuenmayor!”

“Fauriel, get a hold of yourself,” I said, taking him by the arm. “People are looking at us. Don’t you have a handkerchief? Here, use the napkin.”

His nose was running pathetically, and he brought the napkin to his face and rubbed at it. He stayed like that, with his face covered, for several minutes.

“Does the gentleman feel ill?” asked our waiter.

“He’s received a bit of bad news,” I said. “He’s in shock,” I added, waving him away with my hand.

“I’m all right now,” he said, clearing his throat, letting the napkin fall to the table. “I’ve always had powerful emotions.”

“Your face is redder than a cherry,” I noted. It was then I realized that the shadow of his beard and mustache had run down his face like the too-wet watercolors on a painting. I looked at the napkin. It was stained a dull black. “My God, Fauriel, your eyebrows, your face . . . is not your face!” I exclaimed, perplexed, my gaze fixed upon that ruddy, distressed, unexpected face. A woman’s face.

She looked at me in terror. She covered her cheeks with her hands and let out a wail that brought the patrons at the next table to their feet.

“Let’s go, let’s get out of here! It’s all gone to shit. I knew that someone from the Faculty would find me out eventually. Hold me up, Fuenmayor. Give me your arm and get me out of here!”

I took her to my apartment and made her an infusion of coffee with an emetic. She began retching immediately and vomited the entire contents of her stomach. Still shaking, she asked me to call her a coach, saying it was getting late and she needed to get back to the farm. But when she tried to stand, beads of sweat pearled on her forehead and she crumpled onto the bed. She had no tears left, but every few seconds her chest would heave in a deep, wracking sob. I dried her forehead. I took her pulse; it was weak. Her hands were cold. I covered her in my eiderdown quilt. I insisted that she spend the night in my apartment. I would sleep in the other room, with the door open, and I begged her to call me if she needed anything. I poured an herbal tea from a pitcher into a cup and lit a new candle on the bedside table. In an effort to put her at ease, before retiring for the evening, I swore that her secret was safe with me and that she needn’t feel obliged to explain anything.

Although I knew I wouldn’t sleep at all that night, I lay down on the sofa with a cushion as a pillow. As always happened to me when my nerves were agitated, I had the sensation of being divided, of being two people at once: on the one hand, the woman capable of reacting to whatever the situation required; on the other, the dazed little girl who, floating in a hazy limbo, lacked a clear understanding of what her counterpart was doing. And so, oscillating between reason and emotion, I felt no curiosity about who that woman resting in my room might be. I felt only compassion for her; I felt her fear, her shame at having been discovered by someone she assumed was a man. What would our relationship be like moving forward?—asked my practical side. It would certainly never be as it had been before. And yet, if that night had never happened, or, better yet, if she hadn’t needed to ask me for money, or, further, if Bousquet hadn’t flustered my judgment, I wouldn’t have taken her to the Café Procope and things would have continued just as they had been: our lunches in Madame Binot’s modest tavern, the dissection table, talk of Havana. Almost without realizing it, I had started to cry, tears that were for her and for me, for what the loss of our friendship would mean for the both of us. The loss of our friendship? Yes, the loss, the termination, since the barrier between the sexes would be raised between us without her ever suspecting that such a barrier didn’t exist. I didn’t think further; nor did I hesitate. Impelled at that moment by my emotions, I simply stood up and removed my waistcoat, my shirt, my breeches and the silk sash that flattened my breasts. Naked and barefoot, I picked up the candlestick and walked toward the light coming from her room. I paused at the threshold. She hadn’t been able to sleep either. I lowered the candlestick to the level of my stomach and walked toward the bed. Her expression of surprise began to change into a splendorous smile, the most beautiful smile that anyone has ever seen.

“It’s you, Fuenmayor.”

“Like you, Fauriel.”