You feel faint in his presence.
You can’t bear to meet his eyes, the feeling is so strong.
You are drawn to wherever he is, as if by enchantment.
You feel it is the end of the world when he doesn’t notice you.
* * *
—
Nasty: Desperately loving someone who hardly knows you exist.
* * *
—
Three signs that you are meant for each other—
You end up with “He loves me” when you tear all the petals off a daisy.
You get the Heart card in the Game of Hope.
His last name sounds perfect with your first name.
—
Four signs that he doesn’t love you—
He eats the last two cream puffs, not leaving one for you.
When you come into a room, he doesn’t look your way.
When he sees you, he says, simply, “Hello,” and begins talking to someone else.
He pays more attention to your mother than to you.
* * *
—
“Hello.” It was a man’s deep voice.
“Yes?” I said, absorbed in my task of clearing the empty dishes on the dining room side table. I glanced up. Mon Dieu. It was Christophe. Was there a more comely young man in the world?
I didn’t know what to do, much less say. I’m usually, if anything, too chatty, so this was strange for me. I put the plates down. “Hello,” I said.
“Hello,” he said.
I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but no words came out. “I’m shy,” I blurted. Stupidly!
“Me too,” Christophe said with a smile. “Sometimes.” As if it were a secret he was sharing.
That was so sweet of him to say. “No, you aren’t.” And immediately I regretted it. Why was I being combative, of all things? “I—I’m sorry,” I stammered.
“Why?” He seemed genuinely curious.
“I’ve studied the art of conversation.” Another mistake. Making conversation was supposed to appear to come naturally.
“That’s interesting.” He put his thumb over the adorable cleft in his chin.
“And I’m not doing a very good job of it,” I said with a laugh. (Fortunately not a giggle, although—alarm!—I could feel the beginning of a fit coming over me. I took a deep breath.)
“The art of conversation?” He paused, stroking his chin. (He was clean-shaven, which was nice, I thought.) “That’s actually something I’d like to learn.”
“Why?” Another failure. One of the rules of the art of conversation was to ask questions, but not one-word questions. “I mean: Why do you wish to improve your conversational art? For what purpose?” I swallowed—with difficulty. “You seem, to me, to have mastered the art quite well.” I was on the right track. Or, at least, a better one.
“I get tongue-tied in polite society,” he said, “or when conversing with a member of the fair sex.” He inclined his head toward me. “Such as now.” He grinned. “You’re a student?”
I nodded. I hoped that didn’t make me seem hopelessly young to him.
“At an actual school?”
“Yes.” Most girls learned from their mothers, at home. “At the Institute.” We were having an actual conversation! “It’s a school for girls in Montagne-du-Bon-Air.”
“Didn’t that used to be Saint-Germain-en-Laye?”
“Yes,” I said, but at least refrained from stupidly nodding like a puppet. “I believe so. Before the Revolution.” He was so much older than I was. He remembered life before.
“What kind of subjects are you taught there?”
“Oh, music, singing, drawing,” I said, listing off the “pleasing” accomplishments that were considered important for girls to learn. “And dance, of course. That type of thing.” Not mentioning Latin, Greek, history, philosophy, literature, mathematics and science, for fear of scaring him off.
“I noticed that you’re reading Brumoy’s book on Greek theater.”
Aïe. That gave me away. “You’ve read it?”
“The General had a small library in Egypt—the few books that were still with us after the ships went down—and there were times when there wasn’t much to do, so . . .” He shrugged. “I love reading, learning new things. Do you?”
“To tell you the absolute truth,” I said, lowering my voice, “I’m really not proficient at academics.” And I wasn’t saying that just to impress him, either. “I’m reading Brumoy because I love theater.” And because I was writing an essay on Greek theater for school, but that sounded too academic.
“Ah, me too.”
“Oh?” All soldiers loved theater, of course. Loved actresses. I wondered if Christophe was like that. But of course he would be. Most men were, maybe even my brother. “In f-f-fact,” I stammered, “I love all the arts: theater, music, painting.”
“You play the pianoforte exceptionally well.”
When had he heard me play? “I have a excellent teacher at the Institute, Citoyen Jadin. Had an excellent teacher, that is.” My last lesson with Hyacinthe had been months before, when I’d made the mistake of showing him my composition. I hadn’t had a lesson with him since.
“I admire Jadin’s work—his compositions especially.”
“You know him? Well, I mean, you know his music?” I was flailing. I cleared my throat. “Have you heard his sonatas?” Aïe! It was a question that could be answered by a simple yes or no. “I mean, what do you think of his sonatas?” That was better.
“They’re amazing.”
“I agree! They are so—I can’t explain. So passionate.” I flushed at the word. “Without music, I think I might die,” I foolishly went on. “I believe God speaks to us through music. It’s as though one becomes possessed by a spirit.”
I stopped, my cheeks burning. What had I done? “I tend to get carried away. I must sound—” Moonsick, crazy. “I have to leave now!” I said, rushing up the stairs to my room.
CLEOPATRA
One subject that was never talked about was that woman: the General’s mistress in Egypt, his so-called Cleopatra. I got up the nerve to ask Eugène about her while he was working on a scrapbook in his room.
“May I ask you something personal?” I asked, sitting on a upholstered stool.
“That depends,” he said, stirring the thick paste. The scrapbook appeared to be about the General.
“It’s just that, I heard that the General had a . . . a mistress over there. In Egypt.”
He sighed uncomfortably. He didn’t think his “innocent” sister should know about such things. I assured him I already knew about “such things” (which mortified him), but even then he was reticent.
“I know this type of thing can happen,” I assured him, “particularly when—” I cleared my throat. “I know what the General was told, about Maman. Because of your letter, the one that was printed in an English news journal.”
“What letter?” he asked, trimming a news clipping.
How much he didn’t know! “The letter you wrote to Maman, about Citoyen Charles.”
“About Hippolyte?” He threw back his head, letting out a long breath. “It was printed?”
“Yes, in the London Morning Chronicle.”
“Mon Dieu.”
“But it’s not true,” I told him, “about Maman and Citoyen Charles.”
He tilted his head, looking skeptical.
“I’m serious. I talked to her about it.”
He let out a long, low whistle.
“And I believe her. They’re only friends, and Citoyen Charles is—” I stopped myself in time. I had promised not to say. “But what about Cleopatra?” I asked, swerving back to my original question.
“It’s true,” he admitted, telling me how awful it had been having to go out in public with her and the General, so bad that he’d looked into having his post changed. “But when the General found out, he stopped asking me to be present when she was with him,” he said, brushing on paste and positioning the clipping. The scrapbook was already thick with clippings. “He didn’t want to embarrass me, but even so I . . . I knew he was seeing her.”
Seeing her. That was a polite way of putting it.
“I hated it,” he said, smoothing the clipping. “If she had given him a child, he would have divorced Maman and married her.”
That was what Caroline had told me. I thought of Maman’s fear, that she couldn’t have any more children.
“I was relieved when the General left her behind.” He smirked. “I think he was finding her tiresome.”
“Ém told me something similar about Father,” I confessed.
“Our father?” He looked startled by the swerve in the conversation.
“That he . . . you know. That he had mistresses.”
Now it was Eugène’s turn to flush.
“Ém told me that there was one in particular. This was before Father ordered Maman to move into the convent. Do you know anything about it? About what he did? To Maman?”
Eugène grimaced. “Why does it matter, Chouchoute? All that’s in the past.”
Why did it matter? Did I want to know who to blame? Or was it more about finding out the truth?
“Do you remember when we last saw him? Do you remember how I cried out, before the guards came running?”
“All I remember is the guards.” He put the cork in the jar of paste and wiped his hands on a rag.
“I wrote about it. In a letter to you.” One of the many I’d written.
“Really? I never got it.”
I threw up my hands in a helpless gesture. “Because I never sent it. It was too risky. I wrote quite a few, actually. I was so frightened that something would happen to you, and I have trouble with . . . trouble sleeping sometimes, and Maîtresse suggested that writing to you might help, even if I couldn’t send them. And so I did. And it did help—a bit. I just wish I could remember the day Father died. I don’t remember anything.”
“Ah, Chouchoute.” He got up to sit beside me. “I remember that you cried. You wanted to go with Aunt Fanny and me.”
“You went?” To the guillotine? Aïe.
He bit his lip. “He was brave.”
“You watched?”
“I closed my eyes at the last moment,” he admitted.
“Yet you were there.” He would have heard the awful sound of the blade, the cheer of the crowd.
Yes, he nodded, clearing his throat.
“There is so much I don’t know,” I said, my throat tight.
“Have you seen this?” he asked, pulling a scrapbook from under his bed.
“I didn’t know that you made one about Father,” I said.
“It has lots about him in it.”
“May I?” I asked, holding it close.
* * *
—
The weather was unexpectedly mild, so I went outside with Eugène’s scrapbook. I sat on the wide bench under the apple tree, turning the pages slowly. There were copies of the speeches Father had given when he was President of the National Assembly, as well as accounts of his battle victories in the north. There was also a copy of a letter proposing that he be made Minister of War, and another of his declination.
I was absorbed in reading an account of the battle he had lost which led to his arrest—it was thought he had intentionally aided the enemy—when a shadow fell across the page. I glanced up: it was the General.
“Schoolwork?” he inquired, sitting down beside me on the bench. He offered me a cinnamon drop, which I declined.
“No,” I said, flustered, closing the scrapbook.
“Ah, this looks like one of your brother’s projects,” he said. “The scrapbook he made about your father?”
I flushed. It was easy enough to tell from the portrait of Father on the cover.
“No need to be embarrassed. You and your brother are fortunate. You have a father you can be proud of.”
“Yes,” I said uncertainly. There were some things about Father I was not proud of. “Doesn’t everyone?”
The General’s eyes were big, a curious shade of gray. It made him look transparent. “Not really,” he said, with a hint of sadness. “My father was a spendthrift, a ladies’ man, a dandy.”
I’d heard whispers, but it surprised me to hear the General say it.
“And, in truth, I’m not really convinced that he was my father,” he confessed.
He said it so matter-of-factly. I remembered how terrible it had been when I’d not been sure if my father was my father. “That must be hard, General,” I offered, in sympathy.
“We are who we are,” he said, standing abruptly. “We create ourselves.” And with that, he returned to the house, plucking a purple aster on the way in, an offering to Maman, no doubt.
PLACE DU TRÔNE-RENVERSÉ
I went back to my room and rummaged in my trunk, pushing aside my bag of small linens and sliding open the secret drawer. The letters to my brother were all there. I glanced through them, putting aside several that were clearly about Christophe. As I was putting the offending letters back in the drawer, I felt an object. It was Father’s portrait, the brass-edged miniature.
I looked at it as if I’d never seen it before. He looked severe. Had I ever really known him? He’d done remarkable things—Eugène’s scrapbook was a clear testament to that—but he’d been weak and fallible, too. And I’d been quick to judge him, quick to condemn. I’d expected him to be a god, an idol, but he was, instead, simply a human being. Like me. Like Eugène. Like Maman. And even like the General?
I slipped Father’s miniature back under my pillow, where it had always been, where it belonged.
* * *
—
The next morning I returned Eugène’s scrapbook. “Thank you,” I told him, feeling uncomfortable.
“You can keep it longer if you like,” Eugène said, buttoning his jacket. His valet, Constant, was picking hairs off the shoulders.
“Thank you, but no, I read it all.” I put it on his bed, my hand lingering on the cover: Father. My free hand clutched the letters I’d written Eugène. I’d made up my mind to give them to him, but now I wasn’t sure. “May I show you something—in private?” I gestured toward the hall.
“I’ll be right back,” he told his valet, and we stepped out of the room.
“These are some of the letters I wrote to you while you were in Egypt. I promised myself I would give them to you when you returned.”
“Oh?” He weighed the stack in his hands. There were quite a few.
“You don’t have to read them, at least not right now. Any time,” I hastened to add.
“No. No—I have time. I’ll read them now.”
“Now?”
* * *
—
I waited in my room, my stomach in knots. Finally, he appeared.
“Let’s go for a walk in the gardens,” he suggested.
I jumped up. The public park behind the Luxembourg Palace was lovely.
Outside, the air was crisp, the world golden. The trees and shrubs had begun to turn. We meandered silently for a time, avoiding the shady paths, where whores practiced their trade (and men relieved themselves).
“Would you like to see my new horse?” Eugène asked. “The riding school isn’t far.”
“You have a new horse?”
“The General got him for me. He’s a beauty.”
“I’d love to see him.”
* * *
—
Pegasus was indeed a beauty. A thoroughbred, over sixteen hand
s, with perfect conformation. I stroked his chest, pressed my face into his neck to inhale his horsey scent. “I’ve envied you your horses, you know,” I confessed. Horsemanship was considered an important part of a boy’s education, but our father felt that it was a waste of money to buy a girl a horse.
“You can ride Pegasus if you like,” Eugène said, pulling a burr out of the horse’s mane. “So long as you promise not to race,” he added with a grin.
I made a sad clown face.
“Chouchoute,” he began, “your letters, they . . .”
I held my breath. I thought of some of the things I’d written that I’d never thought he’d read.
“They made me cry,” he said.
I swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
He smiled his big-hearted grin. “I was touched. Truly.” He leaned over to peck me on the cheek. “Thank you for being such a wonderful sister.”
We walked back through the gardens, talking and sharing memories. He suggested that we go to Place du Trône-Renversé that afternoon, to see where Father died. “It might be easier for the two of us to go together,” he said.
* * *
—
Eugène choked up as we dodged horses and carriages, crossing the busy Place du Trône-Renversé to place a bouquet of flowers in the center.
“These won’t last long here,” he said, pulling me back from a cantering rider.
We dashed back to safety, and stood for a moment as he explained where he and Aunt Fanny had stood. “There was a fearsome thunderstorm that day.”
“I remember that,” I said.
“We got soaked, but then it cleared.”
He explained what direction the trundle had come carrying Father and the other prisoners, their hands tied behind their backs. “He was one of the last,” Eugène said, swallowing. “Dieu merci, it went quickly.”