14

1811 WOULD PROVE AN INTERESTING and meaningful year in my life. It was a preparatory year, a year in which the muscles of my spirit grew strong; a necessary year. Through the course of it, the bonds that linked me to Fauriel became so close that, one day, I spoke of her to Uncle Charles. I wanted to share my small family with her, wanted her to know what they were really like—not just through my stories about them—Françoise, Pierre, and Uncle Charles, and even Madame Bagnol, who was now Madame Cavent, since my uncle had made good use of his long convalescence and married her. Once admitted into my most intimate circle, Fauriel and I went to dinner at the house on Rue Sainte-Honoré almost every Sunday. We always arrived quite early, eager to hear Uncle Charles’ war stories and tales of the surgical exploits he’d performed on the battlefield. One afternoon he told us that there had always been women serving in the various armies. In Egypt he’d met a woman from Marseilles serving with the artillery. He had amputated one of her legs without complications. “What happens is that they’re only discovered when they turn up in the hospital,” he’d explained. When I asked him if he knew personally of other cases he’d said yes, two others, a Spaniard and a Prussian, but he’d heard of still more from his colleagues. Fauriel also asked him questions, although hers were always related to the practice of medicine. Despite the fact that several of our professors had belonged to the armies of the Republic, we had received very little in the way of instruction in military medicine. I can still see us, sitting around a huge platter of cheese, drinking Anjou wine while Madame Cavent gazed, love-struck, at Uncle Charles, seeing him as a sort of old-fashioned and dignified Knight of the Round Table whose feats of bravery—she always insisted—should be collected in a book.

My passion for Bousquet, though it did diminish with the passing months, had not disappeared completely. Sometimes, when Fauriel was asleep, I would creep, on tiptoe, into the forbidden room. With my ear to the wall and my hand between my legs, I’d indulge in the sounds of pleasure. Since Bousquet kept us abreast of his conquests, I had learned to identify the howls of an Italian soprano named Angelina, the discrete moans of the fourteen-year-old grisette with the Renaissance backside, and the hoarse death rattles of Mademoiselle Rouge and Mademoiselle Brune, who’d become regular visitors. Once or twice a week, despite Fauriel’s furious protests the entire way there, we would eat with him at the Café Procope. His conversation was as boring and superfluous as ever. Lately, we’d noticed that it focused increasingly on the erotic. Soon, he stopped talking about his lovers in order to offer his candid opinions on aphrodisiacs, pleasure-enhancing instruments, the virtues of unnatural intercourse, and Oriental perversions, which he detailed with an insider’s precision.

“We’re still in diapers here in Europe,” he assured us during one of our last dinners together. “We were dazzled by Casanova when he was really nothing more than an artless fornicator. It was said that Marie Antoinette was given to a scandalous life, but it’s now commonly known that the poor woman hadn’t the least bit of imagination. And well, there’s Sade. I won’t deny his merits. But what has been his fate? The prison, the madhouse, and the monastery. What is there in the Enciclopedia about the passions of the flesh? A great void. In contrast, in the Orient, there are the great books, the great treatises. Let’s see, Fauriel, you’re a palm reader. Have you ever read sublime lust in your collection of fingernails? Surely not. The French are a prosaic race, cerebral, rationalist. We have Deuxcartes to thank for that.”

“Descartes,” corrected Fauriel.

“That’s what I said. Anyway, I’ve learned, for example, that Japanese widows insert a bell into their vaginas. As they rock on their swings, the bells subtly vibrate, causing both an intimate sonority and a tickling sensation that consoles them during their period of mourning. There is also a Chinese violin, with only two strings, I believe, called an er-hu-hu. The sound box, tubular in shape and of moderate thickness, is affixed to the end of its long arm. It’s said that some Mandarins of advanced age will have the box, smeared with stimulating unguents, inserted into their orifice. Once this has been accomplished, a courtesan begins to strum the strings with a bow of white horsehair. Custom requires that the music begin in a tempo called ‘imperial elephant walk’ and that, after moving through several other cadences whose names I can’t recall, it must finish with the ‘twitter of nightingale in spring.’ It goes without saying that the vibrations pass through the rectum to the prostate gland, causing the lower regions to be engorged with blood, in turn stimulating erectile function and energizing the penis, at least for a few seconds. It’s at this very moment that the nubile concubine, in the presence of a dog, offers her hymen to her master.”

“Why in the presence of a dog?” I asked, repulsed.

“That I don’t know,” replied Bousquet. “That’s what I’ve been told and it never occurred to me to ask.”

“It must be so that it could bark in case the ‘twitter of nightingale in spring’ doesn’t have the desired effect,” said Fauriel.

“It could be,” allowed Bousquet. “And speaking of dogs. . . . ”

Without a doubt, something horrible had happened to my Apollo. It was as if a malignant parasite had entered through his ear and taken up residence in his brain. I say “his ear” because it was obvious that Bousquet was repeating what someone else had told him. It was enough for me to have arrived at that conclusion for me to understand immediately that this someone was, in fact, two people, Mademoiselle Rouge and Mademoiselle Brune, whose depravity had found fertile ground in Bousquet’s lax Don Juan morality. The saddest part of all was that his physical appearance had also begun to decline. Having recently become an aficionado of dessert, he stuffed himself with cream puffs and pastries, chocolate-covered chestnuts and cherries. I was disappointed to discover that, underneath the sparse little beard he now wore, a double chin was beginning to appear. Even so, it was still impossible for me to ignore the call of the moans that issued from his apartment. One night not long after the evening of the risqué conversation I’ve just related, Fauriel caught me, my legs splayed open in the chair, my head against the wall. She said nothing. She merely looked at me and smiled in that incomparable way of hers. As ashamed as a little girl, I headed to bed, and, as I entered my room I saw her go into the front room of the apartment. I spied on her through the keyhole of my bedroom door. She was also spying, at the window. For the first time ever, it seemed she had taken an interest in the identity of Bousquet’s visitors.

A week later, as I was changing clothes for dinner, she came in to my room.

“I’ve brought you a present, Fuenmayor,” she said, holding out a key similar to my own. “Today you can enter the secret gardens of your Mandarin.”

“Is that his key?” I asked, incredulous. “But how . . . ?”

“Quite simple, my little friend. Three days ago I put soft wax in the keyhole and, when I told you I was going to the library, I really went to take the mold to a locksmith who’d been a patient of mine at the Charité. He owed me a big favor. He’d smashed his finger with a hammer and I convinced Boyer to postpone the amputation until the first signs of gangrene appeared. I did to him what we always did back in my village. I covered his finger in spider webs and bandages soaked in warm water and told him to keep them moist. Miracle cure. I saved his finger.”

“Not that I’m planning to actually use it, but, have you confirmed that the key works?” I asked, doubtful that it could be so easy to copy a key.

“It works,” she assured me. “When Bousquet goes out to dinner, you can enter his apartment. Once inside, you can hide in his armoire and you’ll have front row seats for the entire show.”

“The day I do something like that will be the day I cease to be me,” I declared, rejecting the key with a wave of my hand. “I’d lose all respect for myself.”

“Don’t be a hypocrite. You do it in your imagination all the time. Isn’t that worse?”

“And anyway, I’d be invading his privacy.”

“Oh, please! And what are you doing when you think I’m asleep?”

“It’s not the same thing,” I said, confused.

“It’s worse, because it’s a vice that you can’t control through willpower. And in any case,” she added, “you won’t be running any risk.”

“How do you know?”

“Because yesterday, the tables turned. While you were asleep, I went into Bousquet’s apartment to have a look around. There is a large armoire across from the bed. I climbed inside and looked out through the keyhole.”

“I can’t Fauriel. I can’t,” I said, trying to imagine myself imitating her actions. “I just don’t have it in me. It would be immoral.”

“You aren’t a nun, Fuenmayor. Be truly faithful to you desires. At least on this one night. It would be best for you to do it today. You’ll thank me later. Tonight your old acquaintances are coming, Mademoiselle Rouge and Mademoiselle Brune.”

“How can you be so sure?” I pressed, suspecting that she knew a great deal more than she was letting on.

“Because that’s what they said yesterday when I was watching from the armoire.”

“Are you crazy? Bousquet could have discovered you!”

“That’s true, but he didn’t. I waited until his lady friends had left and he fell asleep. I already told you: you won’t run any risk.”

“I won’t go Fauriel,” I said determinedly. “Don’t pressure me any more. I won’t go, not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

“What a shame!” she said, putting the key in her pocket. “You would have had the surprise of your life. And not only that, but I’d have had your eternal gratitude. You can’t even imagine the caprices of your Mandarin. Are you sure you don’t want to find out?”

“Stop tempting me,” I said, irritated by her persistence. “I’ve already told you. And anyway, I imagine I already know what goes on on the other side of that wall.”

“Hearing is not the same as seeing, my friend. But very well, I won’t insist anymore if you promise to go to the theater with me tonight. If you’ll humor me on this, I’ll toss the key down a sewer drain and never mention it again.”

I knew Fauriel. I knew that she’d cooked up some scheme, laid a trap in which Bousquet, those perverted sisters, and I were to be ensnared. Nevertheless, this foresight wasn’t enough to dampen my curiosity. After all, what physical or moral danger could threaten me in a theater?

“Any theater in particular?” I asked her.

“The Feydeau.”

“We’ll be late.”

“We’ll have dinner afterwards.”

“What are they performing?”

“We’ll soon find out.”

We arrived right on time. Although I’d intended to buy tickets for box seats, Fauriel insisted that we sit in the seats closest to the orchestra pit. The opera that evening was Ma Tante Aurore, and I couldn’t help but think of Maryse, since its author, Adrien Boieldieu, had also written The Caliph of Bagdad. “And now I have another favor to ask you,” whispered Fauriel as the cheerful overture came to a close. “Look closely at the footmen in the chorus.” She repeated this request three or four times throughout the performance. At last the curtains fell. Amid well-deserved applause and shouted bravos, Madame de Saint-Aubin and Monsieur Elleviou exited the stage, and we stood to leave.

“Did you get a close look at the footmen? “ Fauriel asked again once we were out on the street. “Did you notice anything unusual about them?” she added, without waiting for my reply.

“One was very tall and the other limped a bit on his left leg.”

“Exactly!” she said approvingly.

I didn’t ask her why she was so interested in the men who had portrayed the footmen. I knew that, when the moment arrived, she’d move her pieces like the most accomplished of chess players and checkmate me. To hasten the arrival of the inevitable denouement, I headed for the coaches waiting in a line in front of the theater.

“Wait. It’s not time to go just yet,” she said, stopping me with a gesture. Soon, the street was empty of people and only a few coaches remained, no doubt waiting for the performers. The first to emerge were the musicians, followed shortly by Monsieur Elleviou, elegantly dressed in gray. Then, chattering away, arm in arm and wearing their velvet masks, Mademoiselle Rouge and Mademoiselle Brune came out the door.

“There you have your footmen,” said my friend with an air of triumph. And, in fact, there they were, one tall, the other lame in the left leg. It was a devastating vision. Silently, I watched them climb into a waiting coach. Once it had left, I turned around: “Oh, Fauriel, this was all so unnecessary!” I cried out, tears in my eyes. “You could have just told me about it. I would have believed you.”

“Perhaps. But I’m sure you’ll agree with me that purgatives are best taken quickly, all in one gulp. Can you guess where they are headed now?”

“I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know anything more about this. Don’t tell me anything! Never again. Not one more word!”

But Fauriel, with the same dexterity with which she wielded the scalpel on the dissection table, made the final incision: “You don’t even want to know what happens on the other side of your wall! It seems that their favorite game involves the Chinese violin,” she said, mockingly.

Days later, without saying goodbye to Bousquet, we moved to a house on the Boulevard Saint-Michel. The apartment was stuffy and had only two rooms, but it was the first place we could find. More than ever, I focused on my studies, and both Fauriel and I passed our third-year exams with flying colors. While we were celebrating with a few other students in Madame Binot’s tavern, Fauriel leaned in close and said: “There was a moment when I was on the verge of dressing as a woman and saying to hell with it all. You gave me the strength to keep going. I’ll never forget you, Fuenmayor.”

We spent the evening before Uncle Charles’ birthday at his house. When the clock struck midnight, we toasted to his good health and happiness in the year to come. Then my uncle made a surprising announcement: “Now that I can congratulate myself on having survived forty-six years, I must share some unpleasant news, although, for me, it’s neither good nor bad news, since it’s simply a matter of duty: I’ll be leaving in a few days.”

Madame Cavent, who, thinking my uncle had been about to make another toast, still held her glass aloft, let it fall to the table with a little shout. The glass snapped at the stem; the rounded goblet rotated slowly upon the wine-stained tablecloth, mesmerizing us all, then fell to the floor where it shattered into tiny pieces.

“A bad omen,” murmured Françoise before heading to the kitchen in search of a broom.

“Oh, what wretchedness! What am I going to do without you?” wailed Madame Cavent. “And in any case, you are still limping and Spain disagrees with you. It’s a bad war.”

“I’m not going to Spain, my love. I’m heading east,” said Uncle Charles from the opposite head of the table. “Where both the Emperor and I have always been lucky.”

“Thank goodness,” I said. “For a moment there I thought they were sending you back to the war. You’ve given us all a good scare, Uncle.”

“To the war? Heaven forbid! Larrey has been named Surgeon General of the Grande Armée and he’s taking me with him to Mainz, surely in order to inspect the German hospitals,” he said smiling. Nevertheless, perhaps because of what Françoise had said, I felt uneasy as I headed to bed.

I felt the same uneasiness the next day at the Faculty. There was a celebration in honor of Desgenettes, one of the founders of the new school. The Dean’s speech was as insipid as ever, although he stuttered a few times and it was clear that he was preoccupied. There was something disquieting in the air in that great amphitheater, a feeling that was expressed in whispers, coughs and blown noses. Fauriel felt it too.

“There are rumors of troop movements,” she told me as we were crossing the patio of the Practical School, hurrying so as to be the first ones to arrive. “But as hard as I’ve tried to find out, no one seems to know for certain what’s going on.”

When we asked the assistant to which dissection table we’d been assigned, he didn’t reply. Looking at the floor, he sank his hand into his pocket, took out a sheet of paper, and held it out to Fauriel.

“Would you believe it? My number’s finally come up!” she exclaimed sardonically as she read the communiqué for a second time.

Uncles Charles said no, that he was very sorry but there was nothing he could do for Fauriel.

“But she’s a woman, Uncle,” I protested.

“Clearly this is her responsibility, not mine,” he growled at my insistence.

“It’s not her fault. She was registered as a male at birth. She’s been passing as a man for more than twenty years.”

My uncle thought for a moment and said: “My advice is that she go to the physical exam that the physicians from the recruitment commission administer at the Faculty. Since, in the case of students, the exam is a mere formality, she should disclose that she is a woman. If she does this, she’ll be examined and declared unfit for service. Then there will be an administrative procedure. Her birth certificate will be amended. I’m sure she’d be able to serve as a midwife if she so chooses.”

“Very well,” I sighed, “I’ll tell her what you’ve said. Now, Uncle, tell me the truth. You know how discrete I am. Is there to be war in the east?”

“We’re at peace with the Russians. Austria and Prussia are now our allies,” he said, after a moment’s consideration. “There is talk of a plan to invade England from the Baltic, but it’s such a preposterous idea that I think it’s merely a rumor started by the Emperor to confuse the enemy, whoever that may be. If Larrey knows something, he hasn’t revealed it to me. He’s told me only that he has orders to report to the general headquarters in Mainz. We shall see. It’s true that there are huge troop movements toward the east. Perhaps Russia. . . . Most likely the Emperor plans to restore Poland’s old territories. In any event, we’ll soon find out. Any campaign in the east would have to begin in early summer. The Emperor doesn’t like the cold. Now,” he added, coming toward me, “give me a hug just in case we don’t see one another again before I leave. I have certain matters to attend to. As you know, I leave the day after tomorrow.”

I left the Val de Grâce hospital and took a hired coach to Madame Binot’s tavern, where Fauriel awaited me.

“So, I’ll go to war, like it or not,” she said, after listening to the details of my conversation with Uncle Charles. “I’m not going to declare myself a woman at this late date, having just conquered my latest crisis. Anyway, I’ve always wanted to see Spain.”

“How do you know where they’re sending you?”

“Because the only war is in Spain. Surely Napoleon wants to finish it quickly. They say he’s amassing a huge number of troops, including Germans and Italians, to unleash over the Pyrenees. That’s why we’ve all been drafted.”

“What do you mean?” I said, surprised.

“Oh, of course! I’d forgotten that you weren’t at the Faculty this morning. Well, my dear friend, I’ll tell you: every one of us fourth-year students has been called. If Leroux didn’t make a general announcement in the amphitheater, it was because he wanted to handle the matter with discretion, that is, with individual notifications. Not you, of course,” she added, seeing my alarm. “You aren’t French, or better said, you are Enrique Fuenmayor, a subject of Spain.”

“If this is another one of your jokes, I beg you to stop it now,” I said, dead serious.

“It’s no joke. My jokes always aim for a constructive outcome. You know how I hate war. How I wish I were in your place, or a Mexican’s or an Argentine’s! I would have finished this year and spent Christmas in my village. Be happy that you’re staying. You have one more reason to thank your friend Maryse. If she hadn’t sent you a Spanish passport. . . . Well, anyway, no one knows what war means better than you.”

“Don’t talk like that. You make me feel guilty.”

“That’s not my intention. But I would certainly love to have a passport from Havana.”

“When do the physicals begin?”

“You know Napoleon. They’ll start tonight. Since my name starts with an ‘f,’ my turn will come around nine o’clock. Why do you ask? If you’d like to come with me, you’re quite welcome. We could get drunk afterwards.”

But my question had a different purpose. Without weighing the pros and cons, I’d decided that if Fauriel was to be conscripted, I’d go with her. I’d offer myself as a volunteer.

“You’re stark raving mad!” she cried, once I’d revealed my intentions. “Now I’m the one who feels guilty. And anyway, how can you be sure we’d even be together?”

“I’ll go see my uncle tomorrow. I’ll ask him to request us as his assistants. If there is a war, we’ll march with him. We’ll be part of the General Staff. I can promise you that it won’t be as bad for us as it will be for some of our colleagues. I know from experience.”

“Goddamned lunatic!” said Fauriel, laughing. “Who could ever have told me that I’d serve Napoleon alongside a friend who was not only a woman, but a veteran as well?”

The recruitment doctor didn’t even ask us to remove our frock coats. He merely examined our tongues, pinched our cheeks and had us walk from one end to the other of the amphitheater, which had been taken over for the physicals. “Fuenmayor, Spanish volunteer, fit for service,” he dictated to the clerk. Then, turning back to me, he clapped me on the shoulder and recommended that I continue attending classes until the order to join my regiment arrived.

Since it was scarcely nine-thirty, we took a coach to my Uncle’s house. We didn’t stop joking the entire way there, Fauriel saying that for once she was going to have new clothes and a new hat: “A bicorn, no less!” When we arrived at the house on Saint-Honoré, we were surprised to see that the windows were dark. We knocked several times. Above us two heads poked out through the little attic window: it was Pierre and Françoise. Uncle Charles had left at noon, taking Madam Cavent with him. There was a letter for me. They had been instructed to place themselves at my disposal beginning the very next day.

While Pierre and Françoise made their way down the stairs to open the door for us, Fauriel looked at me appreciatively. “You’re no longer under your Uncle’s protection. Just look at the fix you’re in because of me.”

It was cold in the house and Pierre lit several logs in the stove. I read Uncle Charles’ letter, which was really no more than a note. He had left earlier than expected because Madame Cavent had insisted on accompanying him and she wanted to say goodbye to her mother in Blois. I was not to worry. Everything would go well. He had just paid another full year’s rent, my room was exactly as I’d left it, my jewelry had been entrusted to his lawyer, Monsieur Dubreuil, and the cabriolet and the horses were in a stable in the faubourg. He closed by apprising me of the fact that Françoise and Pierre had begun a relationship and, although the decision was, by rights, mine, he thought that I should allow them to return to Foix so that they could marry.

While Françoise served us the last of the wine from an open bottle, I asked Fauriel to give us a moment alone.

“My Uncle tells me that you and Pierre are in love. Is he mistaken?”

Françoise shrugged and sat down next to me.

“Little by little, we’ve been getting closer, Henriette. I am grateful to him. He saved me from burning to death in Germany. Do I love him, well, I don’t know. . . . He’s good company up there,” she said, referring to the attic room they shared. “I taught him to read. What can I tell you? He’s like a big child. He’s a good man, Henriette. He respects you a great deal. He says he’s seen the world thanks to you. You should see how he struts about when he gets together with the other drivers!”

“Would he marry you despite . . . ?” I said, leaving the question hanging.

“Despite Claudette? Well, yes. It’s not that he’s spoken to me of her but he has told me more than once that if he were in Foix he would like to marry me and have children. His mother and brothers live there, as perhaps you already know.”

“Will you be happy with him?”

Françoise nodded. By the light of the candelabra a few gray hairs shone in her red tresses. I thought that like me, she also had a story to tell. Would she remember her days as Aunt Margot’s housekeeper? Perhaps they seemed as distant to her as they did to me. For an instant, I saw her at my aunt’s bedside, reading her to sleep with one of her favorite novels.

“I’m very happy to hear it,” I said contentedly. “Tell Pierre to come in. I want to hear from him what his intentions are.”

And so, the wedding was arranged. I gave them the cabriolet and the horses, which, together, were worth at least three thousand francs. They could use the money from the sale of them to establish themselves back in the village. I also gave each of them one hundred and eighty francs in gold. Finally, I told Françoise that she could take all of my clothes from the armoire except the black dress, my mourning dress for Robert, which I’d kept as a kind of keepsake since Warsaw. Of course, I told them, they could leave whenever they saw fit, but when they found out that Fauriel and I would live in the house until we were called up, both insisted upon staying in my service as long as I remained in the city.

After a few days, our lives went back to normal. We continued attending classes and, though more than two-thirds of our classmates were called up relatively quickly, it appeared that the authorities in charge of conscription had forgotten about us. Nor did the newspapers reflect any military unrest. They made a great deal of Napoleon’s visit to the new beet sugar factory and, although there was a shortage of bread, the celebrations for carnival were the most joyous of any I’d seen since my arrival in Paris. At my insistence, Fauriel agreed to accompany me to the students’ ball at the University. We made grand preparations for the event, including the dancing lessons I gave my friend. Powdered and rouged by Françoise, we wore women’s domino costumes and masks. Our audacity reached such a point that we even joined in a quadrille with the Spaniards from the Americas. Fauriel’s movements lacked feminine grace, but her smile, now highlighted by lipstick, proved irresistible, to judge by the half-dozen young men who asked her to dance. At the end of the evening, I found myself having to liberate her from a veritable blockade of admirers.

“You were a complete triumph,” I said as we were entered the house. “Don’t your feet hurt?”

“Everything hurts,” she said, collapsing in Uncle Charles’ soft armchair. “But I had such a good time. I’ll even tell you that a daring hand found its way between the buttons of my costume and pinched one of my fried eggs. How was it for you?”

“My bottom must be covered in bruises. Although I feel it’s quite content,” I laughed. “Don’t you think we could do this more often? There are still several days of dances left,” I proposed, throwing my domino costume on the sofa.

“No, Fuenmayor. It’s too dangerous. Soon you’ll want to do it every night.”

“Come on, Fauriel. Just one more time. Do you know where I’d like to go? To one of the dances at the Temple.”

“And what if Bousquet asks you to dance?”

“Oh, my Apollo! What has become of him?”

“He’s probably been completely devoured between Mademoiselle Rouge and Mademoiselle Brune.”

“Seriously, though. Why not go to the Temple tomorrow night?”

“I already told you why not.”

“You talk as if you’re not headed off to war. Come on, woman!”

“Fine, we’ll go on the last night of the season. That way we won’t be able to relapse into the sin of being women.”

Dolled up once again by Françoise, we took the cabriolet to the Boulevard de Temple, where there were several dances being held that evening. We went into one called the Bal Frisson, where, to judge by the menu outside the door, a good meal could be had. The dancehall was absolutely packed and we danced until we could dance no more. I noticed that Fauriel was moving with ever more suppleness, and that she appeared to be as at home as a goldfish in its bowl. Invited to dine by two good-natured centurions with solid-looking calves, we sat at a table away from the music. In the middle of dinner I felt my centurion’s hand come to rest on my thigh and begin to climb slowly upward. On any other occasion I would have slapped his hand away, but the mask had a curious effect on me, making me feel that it covered my entire body like a protective talisman, a magical cape that made my body invisible, as well as my virtue. I opened my legs and allowed the hand to do what it would. My eyes half-closed, I looked over at Fauriel: she was reading her companion’s left palm. Immediately I corrected my assessment. Her mouth was partially open, her tongue lolled in a kind of sweet panting, as if she’d fallen into an ecstatic trance. I realized that the man’s other hand was under the tablecloth. I thought that if she were to look at me, she’d see exactly the same thing that I was seeing: a thick open mouth, damp with pleasure. . . . Seeing myself reflected in her masked face, in her yearning lips, I suddenly wished it were my hand caressing her and her fingers roaming my privates. I felt the tremor of an orgasm arriving and the table began to shake. She looked at me. For an instant, we were one.

“I told you it was dangerous,” she said, back in the cabriolet.

“Yes,” I sighed. “It must have been the mask. I’ll never put one on again. I will tell you though that while he was caressing me under the table, I wanted it to be your hand between my legs. That never would have occurred to me if I hadn’t been wearing the mask,” I added, a bit surprised by my own frankness.

“It wasn’t the mask,” she said. “Deep down, it wasn’t the mask. It was the real person that you wear under your everyday mask. I’ve wanted you too. Come here. Come closer.”

“Mesdames!” shouted Pierre from the coachbox. “The other drivers swear that there is to be war with Russia. The stock market fell three francs and the National Guard has been enlisted.”

“So much the better,” said Fauriel, ill-humored, withdrawing her embrace.

One morning before breakfast we heard a loud knock at the door. It was a sergeant accompanied by a pair of soldiers. Fauriel was to report for duty in the courtyard at the Val de Grâce hospital at two o’clock that afternoon. There she would receive her assistant to the Surgeon General’s uniform and the following day she would head for Germany aboard a Guard train.

“At least you’re in the Guard,” I said, seeing that she was depressed at having been given notice. “I expect they’ll call me any day now. Surely I’ll serve with you. Luckily my uncle—”

“Leave me alone, Fuenmayor!” she said curtly.

“Aren’t you going to have breakfast with me?”

“Leave me alone, please.”

After breakfast, I got dressed and went to see her in her room, which was actually Uncle Charles’ old room. When I opened the door, I saw that her expression had changed. It was the same Fauriel as ever.

“Fuenmayor, if there’s one thing I hate in this world it’s goodbyes. Go to the Faculty just like any other day. Let’s say goodbye right now,” she said quickly, taking me by the waist and hugging me tight.

“I wanted to go with you to the Val de Grâce,” I protested.

“It’s better this way. Believe me.”

“You’ll need money,” I said.

“Whatever you think to give me, leave it on the table. Now go. As I told you, it’s easier for me this way.”

She hugged me again and pushed me out of the room. Deeply saddened, I put a bag of napoleons on the table and left the house. I wasn’t in the mood to go to the Faculty. I wandered aimlessly until I came to a café. I was cold and ordered some wine. Suddenly I felt an urgent need to be with her, even if only for a few minutes. I paid the bill and headed back to the house. I went as quickly as possible, half-running, half-walking. But when I arrived, Françoise told me right away that she had gone, scarcely saying goodbye and carrying a bundle of clothing under her arm. An uncontrollable sob exploded from within me and I threw myself into Françoise’s arms.

At dinnertime Pierre called to me, distressed, from the other side of the door.

“What’s happening?” I asked him.

“Get dressed, madame! There are some soldiers outside who want to search the house. Françoise is arguing with them.”

When I came out of my room, I recognized the sergeant who’d come to the door that morning. He told me that Fauriel had not appeared at the Val de Grâce or at the Faculty, either. He had orders to search the house. “It’s in your friend’s best interest, citoyene. If he doesn’t turn up before midnight he’ll be declared a deserter.”

Overwhelmed, I gestured my consent and returned to my room. The soldier who came in to search my room shot me a recriminating look, as though I were an accomplice to a crime. He looked under the bed and opened the armoire. In frustration, he threw all of my clothes to the floor. “The Emperor is not popular here in the Saint-Honoré faubourg,” he muttered as he passed by me.

Confused, not knowing what to think, I began to pick up my clothes and to hang them back up. As I was closing the armoire, I had the feeling that something was missing. I looked at the clothes again, my pants, my frockcoats, my vests. My mourning dress wasn’t there.

I called Françoise.

“She was wearing it, Henriette. I told her to take it off, that it was important to you. I tried to stop her. I didn’t want to tell you today and make you even sadder.”

“I understand,” I said, knowing I had lost her.

Her name appeared on the list of deserters and she was expelled from the Faculty. I never saw, or heard of her again.

Five days later, I went to war.