The Game of Hope

  My first day back at the Institute, I had a lesson with Citoyen Jadin. I had been looking forward to it, yet I fumbled terribly.

  “What’s wrong?” He had the most penetrating eyes. (Were all geniuses like that? I wondered.)

  “I’m worried,” I said.

  “About your brother in Egypt?”

  “Yes.” Although that wasn’t what was really bothering me. At least not just then.

  “I gather that you are close.”

  “Very. During the . . . the Terror, we only had each other.” I thought of the letters I wrote Eugène, letters I would never send.

  “I’m close to my brothers as well, and I have five. They call me Confessor because they come to me with their problems.”

  “They must trust you.” Who could I trust? Maîtresse knew Maman well. Too well. I couldn’t even talk to Mouse or Ém about certain things. “May I confide in you?”

  “The confessional is open,” he said with a smile.

  Did I have the courage? “Promise never to tell?”

  “I will take your confidence to my grave.”

  “It has to do with my—” But I could not say, dared not. “It has to do with someone I love. Someone I’ve always thought of as pure virtue and goodness.” My voice gave way.

  “That’s rather a lot to expect of someone,” he said.

  “I expect it of myself.”

  “I’m not surprised.” He smiled.

  I must have looked forlorn, for he added, gently, “Citoyenne Beauharnais . . .” He paused. “One never knows what personal wars a person might be fighting.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I mean, if you’re tempted to think ill of someone, remind yourself that he—or she?—may have reason for what they are doing. One must learn to trust, and to forgive.”

  I wished I could trust Maman. I wished she had given me reason not to believe what Eugène had written in that letter. (If it really was his letter.) “I don’t know if I can, Citoyen Jadin,” I admitted.

  “I understand how hard it can be.” He gestured to the keyboard. “It might help to play.”

  And so I did, played confused and sad and angry and disappointed, played all those things. In the end there was only one thing left, and that was love.

  * * *

  —

  Was I in love with Hyacinthe Jadin? I did not know. I was not attracted to him, not in that way. He had a sweet face, without a doubt, and the nicest eyes, if somewhat pale (and sometimes scary). And certainly I was in awe of his talent, his genius.

  But most of all I liked talking with him, confiding in him. He was patient, and he listened. He didn’t tell me I was silly (like Eugène sometimes used to do), and he didn’t lecture (like Maîtresse would sometimes)—unless it had to do with music, of course.

  What I liked more than anything was his faith in me. Maîtresse had faith in me, but then, she had faith in most every girl in the school. (Maybe even Caroline.) Maman loved me, but that was different, and I didn’t think she had faith in me, in truth. She thought I should study harp, be prettier, more pleasing to the young men she insisted I meet. I suspected I was a disappointment to her, which made me sad. And Ém? Well, we were like sisters, and as for Mouse, dear Mouse, she would do anything for me, but there were things I couldn’t talk to her about because she might get agitated and have one of her spells.

  And so . . . ?

  And so Citoyen Jadin and I talked often, and as I continued my lessons, I found myself telling him more and more—although never revealing to him my heartsick doubts about Maman and Citoyen Charles.

  III

  DECEIT

  24 Ventôse – 9 Thermidor, An 7

  (14 March – 27 July, 1799)

  THE SNAKE CARD: DECEIT

  AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

  Late one spring afternoon at school, a courtyard monitor handed me a note written in Maîtresse’s elegant hand: Come to my office immediately. I ran up the winding stairs two at a time, but then took the steps more slowly.

  Maîtresse met me at the landing. “I have a surprise for you.” She took my elbow and guided me into her study.

  I yelped when I saw someone standing by the shelves. He was wearing a dark-blue cut-away jacket with red facing and gold epaulettes. The tricolor armband on his upper left arm indicated that he was an aide to the General. He had big, sad eyes, a long nose and pouting lips.

  Wasn’t it Louis, the General’s younger brother, who was supposed to be in Egypt with my brother?

  Mon Dieu. It was him.

  “Louis,” I burst out, “what are you doing here? Where’s Eugène?” I feared I would weep and giggle at the same time. “He must be with you. Why isn’t he with you?” My mind was racing from one thought to another. “How did you get here? Where are the others?”

  I felt Maîtresse’s grip on my shoulder. “Sit, angel. Breathe.”

  “But Maîtresse, how is it possible for him to be here?” Our fleet had been destroyed, and the long journey overland was treacherous.

  “Louis left Egypt some time ago, released from his duties for reasons of health,” she explained, gesturing him to the chair beside me. “He left before the disaster,” she explained, sitting down behind her cluttered table.

  Ah. So: he’d been able to sail without risk of capture.

  “He sailed to Corsica, where he has been with his mother, regaining his health.”

  Louis shifted in his seat beside me, crossing his legs. “I have a rare form of rheumatism,” he said.

  “But what are you doing here?” I demanded, leaning away from him.

  “Hortense, please, refrain from interrogating this young man. The Captain and his mother arrived in Paris only yesterday, and he has been kind enough to come directly out to the Institute to give you something.”

  Something for me? That was curious.

  “I have a letter for you, from your brother,” he said.

  “Eugène?” My heart did somersaults.

  He withdrew a folded paper from his stained leather satchel. “It got wet on the ship,” he said. “Some of the ink smeared. The crossing was dreadful, with ferocious ocean swells.”

  I snatched the parchment out of his hand. I had no time for Louis’s poetic details!

  I teared up seeing the pattern of tight lines and swirls Eugène always put under his name. His “mark,” he called it, as a boy, drawing it with care on the list of the laundry we took to our parents in prison.

  My dear Chouchoute, little sister . . .

  I scanned the letter quickly: how he was, what he ate. Something about horrid camels. No mention of Citoyen Charles—I was relieved on that account—but nothing about Christophe Duroc, either. There was no date on the letter, but it must have been written over six months ago, before the destruction of our fleet.

  “I don’t suppose you know how he is?” I asked Louis. “Now?”

  “I don’t even know how my brother is,” he said. His brother, the General.

  “Luigi!” Caroline burst into the room like a torrent and threw herself into her brother’s arms, very nearly knocking him over, sending his satchel flying. “Il mio tronco è imballato. Sono pronto per andare,” she exclaimed, ignoring Maîtresse and me. (I knew a little Italian, and I guessed she was saying that her trunk was packed and she was ready to go.)

  With a look of annoyance, Louis reached for his bag. A small book had slipped out of it. I picked it up and handed it to him. A slim volume of poetry, it looked like.

  “Annunziata must return to Paris with me,” he informed Maîtresse, “to see our mother.”

  “I’m Caroline now, Luigi. Not Annunziata.”

  “And I’ve been Louis for some time,” he said curtly. “Not Luigi.”

  Glad that’s settled, I thought. Bonapartes!

  A triangle
sounded: it was time for the older students’ afternoon reading. Maîtresse suggested that Louis put off their departure for a half hour. Caroline began to object. “We are all of us thirsting for news,” Maîtresse insisted. “We would be grateful to hear at least a short presentation on that far-away land.”

  * * *

  —

  Everyone chirped with excitement when Louis entered the salon. We’d never before invited a male to join us for the readings.

  Mouse was up at the front, helping her aunt. I slipped into a chair near the back beside Ém.

  “Can that be Louis?” she said. He spotted her in the crowd and stared, holding her gaze. “He looks so very well,” she said, grinning.

  I thought he looked poorly, frankly. “Ém . . .” I could see the emotion in her eyes. “You must not—”

  “Not what?” she challenged.

  I wanted to remind her that she was a married woman now, and that a girl’s reputation must be safeguarded, for it didn’t take much to sully it. We’d been taught that once one’s reputation was ruined, there was no getting it back, and life after would be one long, downward spiral. But instead I said, “He had to return for health reasons.” It occurred to me that I could lie and say that he had a contagious disease, maybe gonorrhea, something sinful like that.

  As I was thinking such disgusting thoughts, Louis approached. He stooped down beside us—beside Ém. (Was he wearing thigh pads under his breeches to make his legs look muscular?)

  “I have something to return to you,” I heard him tell her, withdrawing the book that had fallen out of his pack.

  Ém had given him that book?

  “I want to thank you for it,” he said.

  “You are most welcome, Louis,” she said softly.

  They were whispering, looking into each other’s eyes. It was as if they were in their own world, as if no one else existed.

  “I thought you might like the poems,” Ém went on. “The ones on death especially.”

  “As well as those on love,” he said, speaking so quietly that it was hard for me to hear. “They saved my life, over there.” Then he took her hand and kissed it.

  I glanced up to see Maîtresse watching, watching and frowning.

  Louis stood and walked away. Ém pressed the book to her heart and slipped it into her schoolbag.

  Maîtresse rang her bell. “General Bonaparte’s brother, Captain Louis Bonaparte, can’t be with us long today,” she announced, “but I’m sure we all have questions about Egypt. Captain, I must first ask after the General’s aide-de-camp, Captain Antoine Lavalette, our Émilie’s husband. We’ve heard accounts of his bravery.”

  Ém stared down at her boots, her cheeks an angry red.

  A DINNER PARTY

  The following décadi, I broke the news to Maman.

  “Louis and his mother are in Paris?” she said.

  “Yes. He came out to the school. He gave me this.” I handed her Eugène’s letter.

  Maman touched it with reverence, as if it were a holy object.

  “The ink was smeared by seawater,” I explained. “It’s from before the loss of our fleet. Louis left Egypt before that happened because of weak health. He’s been staying with his mother in Corsica.”

  “But he’s here now? With Signora Letizia?”

  Maman had met the General’s mother in Italy. She described her as an attractive woman with a steely heart.

  “I think they’re staying with Joseph,” I said.

  “On Rue de Rocher? How long have they been here?”

  “I’m not sure,” I lied. I knew Maman would be rankled to learn that her mother-in-law had been in Paris for days. “Likely not long.” I realized I had to tell the truth. She would find out, in any case. “Five days, I think.”

  “Five days! Why have they not called on me? Or at least sent word. This is ludicrous. I’m Bonaparte’s wife!”

  A faithless wife, they perhaps believed.

  “Maybe if you invited them here?” I suggested.

  —

  Maman and I went into a flurry of activity, planning a fête in Signora Letizia’s honor.

  First, the guest list. Of the Bonapartes, we had:

  Signora Letizia

  Louis

  Caroline

  the General’s older sister Elisa (the severe one who hiccupped)

  wanton Pauline (whose husband was not in Paris)

  “King” Joseph (whose wife was staying at Mortefontaine, their country estate far from Paris)

  And, of course, Maman and me. That made eight in all—perfect.

  The Bonapartes preferred country cuisine made to look sophisticated, so we decided to begin with only one soup—a turnip puree—followed by rabbit fillets, quail with bay leaves, roast chicken and pheasant pie. Two additional dishes sufficed: eggs with gravy and cocks’ crests (delicious). Last, for desserts, cream puffs and madeleines, of course. A small but tasty feast, and not too expensive, either, because we had cream and butter from our cow, eggs from our chickens, turnips from last summer in the cold cellar and chickens running free.

  Once the invitations were sent out, Maman and I turned our attention to our attire, spreading gowns, ribbons and shawls all over her dressing room.

  * * *

  —

  Nasty: When you invite people to a fête and nobody comes.

  * * *

  —

  Maman and I sat in silence in the front parlor, which we’d decorated with a profusion of daffodils from her garden. Heavenly scents of pheasant pie and roast chicken wafted up from the cellar kitchen.

  “Why couldn’t any of them come?” Maman said, shifting in her cushioned chair by the fire. She’d been working hard preparing; her hip was bothering her again.

  Wouldn’t come, I thought, chagrined. I feared they had heard stories of Maman’s indiscretions.

  At that moment Mimi announced that the musician Maman had hired had arrived.

  “We should send him home,” she said sadly.

  “We already paid him,” Mimi said.

  “Then he might as well stay and play for us,” I suggested.

  Mimi went back to the foyer and returned, followed by a young man.

  “Citoyen Jadin!” I exclaimed.

  He smiled, making an elegant bow. He looked handsome in the old-fashioned black velvet tailcoat he was wearing.

  “You know each other?” Maman asked after Mimi had left to show Jadin to the pianoforte.

  “He’s my music teacher.”

  “At the Institute? But he’s so young.”

  “And he’s a composer, too,” I said, with pride. I listened for a moment. “That’s one of his compositions he’s playing now.” His Sonata in C minor was one of my favorites. It sounded better on the school piano, but it was beautiful on our pianoforte, nonetheless.

  Someone was at the door again. “Maybe it’s the Bonapartes,” Maman said with a hopeful shine in her eyes.

  Mimi reappeared, followed this time by a big woman with a gold tooth. It was Citoyenne Lenormand, the famous fortune-teller. Predicting the future had become a fashionable salon diversion, so Maman had invited her to our fête. She knew Lenormand from prison, where she’d foretold Robespierre’s death.

  “Such a wind!” Citoyenne Lenormand exclaimed, her face red. One of her eyes was strange—a “wandering” eye, it looked off to one side.

  “My dear Citoyenne, there seems to have been a change of plans. There isn’t to be a dinner party.” Maman’s voice was tearful now.

  “But Maman,” I said, inspired again. “Perhaps there is, but just for us?”

  “Yes, of course, please, do join us,” Maman said, instructing Mimi to extend the dinner invitation to Citoyen Jadin, as well (which he declined).

  And
so it was that Maman, Citoyenne Lenormand, Mimi and I dined sumptuously while listening to heavenly music.

  A PREDICTION

  After dining, Maman insisted that Citoyen Jadin share cordials and sweetmeats with us.

  “Bravo!” We applauded when he appeared.

  He slipped into the chair Maman indicated at the head of the table (the chair Signora Letizia was to have occupied). It seemed strange seeing him outside the Institute, in my family home. With my mother.

  As we indulged ourselves with cream puffs, sugar-dusted almond madeleines and Maman’s black cherry brandy, Citoyenne Lenormand showed us a German card game called Das Spiel der Hofnung—the Game of Hope. “But it can be used as an oracle, as well,” she said. She was not a pretty woman, and her roving eye was unsettling. “Who would like to know their future? Citoyenne Bonaparte?”

  “Oh no, thank you, not me,” Maman said, “but perhaps Citoyen Jadin?”

  “No,” he said firmly.

  “Why not?” Maman gently persisted. “I foresee nothing but fame for you. My daughter tells me that the compositions you played for us tonight were of your own creation. I dare say you are our very own Mozart.”

  “My future has already been revealed to me,” he said with puzzling sadness.

  “I’m sure it will be glorious,” Maman said. “How about you, dear heart?” she suggested with a be-polite-and-don’t-quarrel look.

  I glanced at Citoyen Jadin. He inclined his head quizzically. We had talked together of many things—personal things, things I couldn’t share with anyone.

  “Dear heart?” Maman nudged.

  “Very well,” I said, sitting forward. I had many (many) questions about my future, but what might be revealed?

  “There are a number of ways these cards may be used to foretell,” Citoyenne Lenormand began, shuffling the deck. “You could simply draw one card and reflect on its meaning, or, if you have a specific question in mind, draw out one, two or three. But since this is your first reading, Citoyenne Beauharnais, I recommend that I cast a grand jeu for you, a full spread.” She handed me the deck. “Hold them while considering your question, and then cut.”