The Many Lives of John Stone
We played cat and mouse for so long that I saw the first stars appear, and it was becoming cool. My brothers knew how to be patient, which was something I had yet to learn. When I thought they must have given up, I would creep out of my hiding place. Instantly one of them would appear and the chase would resume. I ran and wept, and hid, and wept some more. In the garden of the Sun King I felt alone in all the world. The suspense became so unbearable I wonder if, at heart, I had already given up the fight. They cornered me close to the fountain of Bacchus, each coming at me from a different direction. I might, even then, have got away had my damaged heel not given way. I knew it would not serve my cause to protest, or beg for mercy, or threaten to tell our father. Any retribution always came back at me a hundredfold. I do not need to bother you with their names: I would certainly rather forget them. They dragged me from view into the bushes and applied themselves to their self-appointed task. They were not stupid. They were careful not to mark my face. They threw me to the floor, one standing on my hands, which was, I recall, something he enjoyed, while the others kicked me. They stopped when I began to vomit. They hated me with such a passion: I had killed our mother in the act of coming into the world, and then I had stolen our father’s love from them. It was true that when my father greeted me his face lit up in a way it never did when he saw the approach of my brothers. He made no attempt to hide which son he favored. I believe something primeval stirred in their guts that told them we were not the same. I was an alien thing: a parasite sucking the blood from their family. But for all that, they were cruel men and monsters in my eyes. I have forgiven them now, but if I’d had a sword that night I would have gladly run them through. When I crawled into the alleyway, weak as a newborn colt, it was almost dark, and Venus was shining bright in the sky.
* * *
This part of the garden was a maze of paths, and I staggered between dense hedges, clutching my ribs. One foot dragged in the dirt. The warm evening air carried the strains of violins toward me. I could make out the distant, low hum of a crowd and, rising above it, an occasional peal of laughter that echoed across the gardens. When I emerged out of dark shadows onto a broad terrace halfway between the palace and the lake, I felt as if I had returned from the dead. The world was on the very edge of night, and for the first time since the sun had started its journey across that day’s sky, I was not afraid: My brothers had already done their worst. A long, double line of torches led toward the water. The King was sailing in a gilded galley with the violinists’ raft following in its wake. Floating all around him, moths to his flame, a fleet of Venetian gondolas transported his courtiers. Their stomachs full, their limbs tired after an afternoon’s hunting, they listened to sweet melodies while trailing their fingers in the cool water; they feasted their eyes on heavens dense with stars. My balance threatened to give way and the soles of my shoes scraped across the gravel as I dragged myself down the path. As darkness fell the boats became invisible, but I could see their torches from afar, creeping across the lake like glow worms in a meadow.
Soon my head was spinning so much I could scarcely put one foot in front of the other. The effort of keeping upright was becoming too much. Spotting a giant stone urn a short distance away, I shuffled toward it, arms outstretched: a toddler lurching toward its mother’s knees. My teeth chattering inside my skull, I clung to the cold, smooth stone. My fingers started to slide down the marble.
I heard a voice. “Please! Mademoiselle! By the ur-rn!” The voice was deeply accented, the rs rolled richly on the tongue, and it seemed to come from very far away. “Be so good as to catch him before he falls!”
At that same instant I felt small, soft hands support me and a slim shoulder maneuver itself under my arm. As this person gently levered me into an upright position, I caught the scent, I thought, of rosewater. I wanted to open my eyes but I could not.
“Monsieur,” a girl’s voice called out, next to my ear. “He trembles as if he were very cold!”
The girl, who merely happened to be passing, was Isabelle d’Alembert, though I did not know it then. The first voice belonged to the Spaniard, and he, it transpired, had been searching for me the whole day long. I was destined from birth to encounter the Spaniard, but Isabelle fell into my life like a blessing.
III
There was nothing halfhearted about the Spaniard: His opinions were definite, his reactions extravagant. My first teacher seemed old to me then. Now I would not think him so. He was full of vigor and appetite. I can hear him still, calling to me across a crowded room: Jean-Pier-r-re! Why do you not answer! Is it cabbages you have for ears?
He was a well-built man, yet there was an elegance about him, and his expressive hands were as articulate as his tongue. He loved the company of women and was always the most courteous of men. When he spoke, he would spit out his words like heavy hail, and the way he r-r-rolled his rs behind his teeth for emphasis was catching. Too much time in his company and I would start to do it myself. In private he revealed himself to be a quieter, more considered, subtler character, who in reality had a perfect command of French. He taught me to embrace the world at the same time as protecting myself from it. Over time I formed a deep affection for him although at first I was suspicious of him, despite his apparent kindness.
* * *
The day after my brothers beat me, I did not awake until midafternoon, and found myself in a room I did not recognize, and in such pain that I could not bear to move. I lay quietly and watched fingers of light creeping through the cracks of tall shutters. All was peaceful. Motes of dust danced in slanting rays of sunshine that sliced through the shadows; a clock ticked in an adjacent room; doves cooed outside the window. My precious blue jacket hung limply over a chair. I took stock of the stains with calm resignation: dirt, blood, vomit. One of the finely embroidered cuffs was ruined, while sticky juice from the crushed mirabelles had seeped through the pocket linings. It was clearly beyond repair. What my punishment would be for such carelessness I did not like to imagine. Then I discerned a sound that until that moment had escaped me: the slow in-and-out of someone else’s breath. I tried to push myself up, and let out an involuntary cry on account of the agony this movement provoked. The Spaniard’s strong nose and dark, soulful eyes loomed at me from the shadows.
“My boy,” he said, pressing a damp cloth to my forehead. “You are awake.”
“Who are you, Sir?” I asked by way of a reply.
He rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “I am your friend, Jean-Pierre. Your very good friend.” I was not reassured. Indeed, this struck me as an odd remark for a stranger to make. “My name is Don Vincencio Miguel de Lastimosa, and you are in my apartment, in my own bed, and you are safe.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Alas, your brothers did not spare you. I do not think it is wise that you continue to live under the same roof with them. When your father arrives, I will suggest that—as it does not appear he can control his sons—you should come to live here, in the palace, where it would be my pleasure to watch over you.”
Reassured to hear that my father had been sent for, I thought it best, in the circumstances, to make no comment. While there was no denying that I was unlucky to have such brothers, I told myself that my father loved me and would never agree to such an arrangement! Besides, what made this stranger presume he could interfere with my family in this way?
My father did love me: When word reached him that I was hurt, he returned at once to Versailles. In the meantime the Spaniard and his valet nursed me. They spooned broth into my mouth and applied hot poultices scented with herbs to my chest and back. Given the number of beatings I had suffered at the hands of my brothers—though admittedly this was the worst—I was bemused to receive such tender attention. Indeed, I almost regretted it, knowing that the next time my brothers turned on me I would be obliged to suffer once more in secret, and would have to cure myself like a wild beast, alone.
The Spaniard even went against his better jud
gement, as he later admitted to me, and summoned a doctor, who called on his great medical experience to pronounce that I had suffered a beating. He advised bleeding me. After all, where was the harm in shedding a little more? It was a procedure he performed with great skill, insofar as he relieved me of a quantity of blood without letting a single drop stain the linen. He cut into me with a stained blade and pressed my flesh to encourage a rich, red stream to flow into a porcelain bowl. It was decorated with a colorful floral motif on which I tried to focus my attention. I fainted and came to with a pounding head. Curiously, the treatment made me feel worse, not better. I should probably thank that doctor for making me unwilling to submit myself to his colleagues over the years. He has undoubtedly saved my life many times over.
At some point during my convalescence I awoke from a nap convinced that I could smell roses. The Spaniard’s valet told me that I had missed a visitor, a certain Isabelle d’Alembert, who had enquired after my health and left me a bowl of peaches. I resolved to seek her out when I was recovered.
On the fourth day my father arrived. He did not appear to be the least surprised to find me in the care of the Spaniard, who greeted him with warmth and affection.
“Do you know Signor Lastimosa, Father?” I whispered to him when the Spaniard left the sickroom for a moment.
“Oh, yes,” he replied. “Since you were a newborn.”
The Spaniard instructed his valet to remove my shirt in order that my father could see the full extent of my injuries. The flesh that covered my rib cage was hot and visibly swollen, while a flowering of great purple bruises, tinged with yellow, spread, impressively, over my abdomen toward my back. My father stood at the foot of the bed, tight-lipped.
“Did your brothers do this?”
I did not want to lie, nor did I wish to condemn my brothers—partly because I was no telltale but also because I could easily picture the consequences. I therefore remained silent. When my father was angry, a vein would appear that ran down the center of his forehead; I saw it now. The Spaniard drew him to one side and they both retired to the adjoining room, where they spoke loudly enough for me to hear snatches of their conversation. Had I been able to, I would have rolled out of bed and listened at the door.
The Spaniard, I gathered, was keen to be of service. Why he should have formed such a strong and swift attachment to me I could not comprehend, but I overheard him offer to become my tutor and to introduce me to the ways of the court. He also repeated his suggestion that I come to live with him. When my father—naturally—refused, I sensed the angry disappointment in the Spaniard’s voice. He warned my father that it was his responsibility to keep me safe, a remark that struck me as impertinent. Yet my father did not protest and presently he returned to my sickbed to take his leave of me, promising to fetch me home the following day.
* * *
By the time I returned to the house, which my father had rented for us in the town, my brothers had already been dispatched back to our estate in disgrace. I had thanked Signor Lastimosa for his kindness, and had bid him farewell, believing that our paths were unlikely to cross again. Now, to my astonishment, my father informed me that he was, after all, to become my tutor. “But why?” I demanded. His reply was vague and, being a dutiful son, I did not question his decision further. It puzzled me, nevertheless, that my father seemed to be in such thrall to the Spaniard.
Little by little, my father and I learned to do without each other for longer periods of time, weaning ourselves, with a kind of sweet melancholy, from a stage of life we both sensed was drawing to a close. A small attic room was found for me above Signor Lastimosa’s apartment, where, increasingly, I would sleep instead of returning to my father’s house. My father was not a remarkable man, but he gave me my most valuable gift: I knew, even before I was old enough to speak, that I was loved by another human being who enjoyed spending time in my company. He taught me how to laugh. Everything good starts from there.
* * *
And so began my education with the Spaniard. He taught me languages—ancient and modern—history, philosophy, mathematics, and the art of rhetoric. His strategy was always to finish while I still wanted more. A favorite game was to riddle his lessons with mistakes so that I, the pupil, could have the satisfaction of correcting my teacher. Then he would praise me excessively, so that, even though I understood it was a game, I always looked forward to my lessons. If my eyes glazed over he would pluck the quill from my hand. “Come, Jean-Pierre,” he would say. “Let us find something to divert us.” His approach produced an eager and diligent student, although I had my own reasons for being attentive. In the court of the Sun King, the art of conversation was highly prized. Indeed, wit was mostly the weapon of choice, and we courtiers feared public ridicule more than a beating: Its wounds were messier and took longer to heal. Besides, there was a particular young lady whom I hoped to impress.
IV
The spell that Isabelle d’Alembert cast on me was initially due to simple curiosity. Twice we had met, yet I had not seen her face, and the only words I had heard her utter were: “He trembles as if he were cold. . . .” If the sweet voice that continued to resonate in my head had a dreamlike quality, it was doubtless because I had been barely conscious when I heard it. Equally, though there were any number of ladies at court who doused their gowns with rosewater, it was a scent that, as far as I was concerned, now belonged irrevocably to her. I was feeding a daydream. I knew it but I did not care to stop. Her very name, Isabelle d’Alembert, acquired a patina of mystery, and I assigned qualities to her that her actions did not necessarily deserve. I had to meet her.
And so I resolved to write a letter of thanks to my unseen visitor. The Spaniard, who, as I was discovering, was most particular in questions of etiquette, asked if I would allow him to look over it. I saw the page tremble as he tried to conceal his laughter.
“I cannot allow you to send this, Jean-Pierre.”
Having spent an afternoon composing it, I was not pleased. “Why should I not send it, Monsieur?”
“The young lady brought peaches—”
“For which I thanked her—”
“So profusely that your letter reads like a declaration of undying love!”
“I assure you that it does not!”
“And I assure you that this young lady’s family will think that it does. If her father sees your letter you may have cause to regret your words.”
Insulted, I stood with my back to the Spaniard, and read it again. My cheeks burned: How easily our words betray us. I crumpled the letter in my hand.
“That young lady is beyond your reach,” said the Spaniard sternly. “The Comte D’Alembert plans a glittering match for his only child. At court your reputation is your most valuable currency. Lose it, and you may never get it back. Jean-Pierre, I cannot allow you to make your entrance onto its stage in the role of a fool. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Signor,” I replied flatly. “My reputation is my currency.” The Spaniard flashed his big white teeth at me, and slapped me on the back, as was his way, knowing full well that I had only the barest notion of what he spoke.
I allowed the Spaniard to dictate a short and appropriately worded note of thanks to Isabelle d’Alembert. I duly signed it with my most flourishing signature.
Later, in need of some air, we took a turn around the orangery. The sun blazed down; heat bounced off the pale walls of the palace and rose up from the gravel paths. The Spaniard fell into a pensive mood and we walked, mostly in silence, down an alley of citrus trees in their high, square containers. All at once he stopped to dig his thumbnail into the pith of a ripening lemon in order to release the zest. He inhaled deeply and beckoned for me to do the same.
“It reminds me of my childhood in Madrid,” he said. The sharp tang of citrus always made him homesick.
“Will you ever return to Spain, Signor?”
“Not until I have passed on to you what knowledge I can.”
“It must be hard t
o live in a country that is not your own,” I said. “If you miss your home you must not stay in France on my account.”
He turned to look at me square in the face, and his incredulous gaze discomforted me. “But Jean-Pierre, it is precisely on your account that I remain in France. Nothing is more important to me than your education and your welfare. Do not doubt it for an instant.”
* * *
Despite the Spaniard’s warning, I did not, of course, stop thinking about Isabelle d’Alembert. Often some beauty would catch my eye—fluttering her fan, or strolling through the bosquets, the shaded groves, arm in arm with her chaperone—and I would wonder if this was my Isabelle. As I had no clue as to what she looked like, it was frustrating to think that I might already have encountered her. I cannot tell you how distracting I found the scent of rosewater in a crowd. But in the end it was not perfume that led me to her.
One evening, at the end of my first summer at Versailles, I overheard a conversation. There had been a performance of a comedy by the late Monsieur Molière, and a colorful crowd of us swept like a roaring tide into the Hall of Mirrors. Our voices rose up to fill the echoing space; crystal chandeliers sparkled in great slabs of slanting golden light.
“Who is that plain creature?” said a woman’s voice close to me.
“Which one?” asked another.
“In the gray silk—so unbecoming.”
“You mean, Isabelle d’Alembert? My dear, there is a girl who does not have to worry about her looks. She was the only one of the brood to survive, and her father owns vast estates in the South.”
“I grant you that she has fine eyes. But as for the rest . . .”
If it were possible, my heart leapt and sank at the same instant. I whirled around to find the speakers of these unkind words and to see where they were looking. They were women of a certain age, wearing tall headdresses that obscured my view. Their attention was fixed on a group of young persons who commanded a prominent place in the center of the room. I moved through the crowd to gain a better vantage point. Some of them were known to me, by sight, at least. They belonged to the most powerful families in France, and they were all in high spirits, their voices carrying across the glittering room, loud and shrill. It seemed to me that this privileged band strutted, peacock-like, among us lesser mortals, and that if anyone was ignorant of their pedigree, the quantity and quality of their lace and jewels announced their status to the world. A blond-haired young man in dark blue silk was striking an attitude. He was telling an anecdote that provoked gales of laughter. I glanced down at my own old-fashioned surtout, a tight-fitting jacket made of some drab, inferior stuff, and wished that my father were richer.