Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe (25 page)

“I’ve never in my life seen a more miserable man.” “Good!” I said, but blinking back tears.

“I think it’s time we talked,” she said, handing me a flannel to dry my face.

And so we did. I told her how confused I was about Bonaparte, how angry he made me, how exasperating he was. And then I told her
how brilliant I believed him to be, how his mind was volcanic, always thinking—and how it frightened me sometimes, knowing the thoughts in his mind, knowing his dreams. I told her how different we were, how hard it was to live with him. And then I told her how alike we were, how we’d both grown up on islands, far from France, how we knew what it was like to be an outsider. And then I told her how he loved me more than anyone had ever loved me, and how he needed me, how I was his good luck star, and how sometimes I felt we were fated.

“Do you think he is your spirit friend?”

“I fear so,” I cried, weeping anew.

March 19, Feast of Saint Joseph.

I was combing my hair at my dressing table when I heard footsteps in the bedchamber. “Bonaparte?” I called out, standing.

He stuck his head in my dressing room, his hat still on. “There you are.”

“I’m …” Sorry, I started to say.

Solemnly, he held out a brass-plated chain. “It’s your name day today.”

The nineteenth of March, of course—feast of Saint Joseph. I was surprised he remembered, surprised he even knew. “How kind of you.” I slipped it on. “It’s lovely,” I lied.

“Josephine, I …”

I looked into his great grey eyes, his melancholy eyes so full of dreams. “I know, Bonaparte.”

“The Sultan of Turkey has over a hundred wives,” Bonaparte told me, “beauties awaiting their turn, devoted to pleasing, to the art of pleasing.” He stroked my breast, my hip. “Like my wife.” For I please this man, my husband.

“I want to go with you,” I told him.

“To Egypt?” he whispered.

“Wherever you go.”

^*
Tea made of rue, an evergreen shrub, was commonly used by women wishing to abort.

In which I must stay behind

March 20, 1798.

The Black Land—it haunts my thoughts. I have been reading about it, hiding the text under my mattress. We will arrive in June, after the simoon, a suffocating wind that blows across the desert. The temperature will be hot. “I’m a créole,” I reassure Bonaparte. “I will be able to take the heat.”

There is no rain in Egypt. Every year the Nile River overflows and inundates the land with a slimy substance. But for this, nothing would grow.

A land without water! Even the names of the oases sound dry on my tongue:
Khârgeh, Dâkhel, Farâfra, Sîwa, Bahrîyeh.

Diseases flourish in that land—plague, cholera, ophthalmia, dysentery … even boils so deadly that they can kill a man.

A land of crystalline rock, covered by shifting sand.

A land without trees. It is impossible to imagine such a place. I am curious to see a papyrus plant, from which the paper used throughout the ancient world was made. The lotus is a water lily that grows on the Nile.

Oxen, horses, asses, sheep, goats—familiar creatures. But camels! And cats without tails. (Fortunately, crocodiles are seldom seen.) The pelican, the beloved bird of my youth, abides in the north.

The cities are inhabited by white vultures, which are worshipped—as are certain beasts, reptiles and even vegetables. The sun god is Ra, a hawk-headed man, the moon god is Thoth. Seth is the power of evil, a spirit with a gentle, seductive name.

“Egypt is the first nation known to man,” Bonaparte told me with awe in his voice. He works by candlelight on the floor of our bedchamber, studying the maps, tracing the footsteps of Alexandre the Great, Julius Caesar. He dreams of desert sands.

April 2.

Meetings here all day preparing for “the expedition”—the
mysterious
expedition. Eugène emerged from the smoke-filled study, laughing with the men. “We’re going to Portugal,” he told me confidentially. “Oh?” It is all I can do not to tell him the true destination.

April 3.

The widow Hoche called on me today, her worry about Père Hoche overcoming her timidity. Her father-in-law was suffering, rage and grief were burning him up. “Is there nothing you can do?”

April 4.

“There’s a strange man to see you,” Mimi said, crinkling her nose.

It was my old friend Fouché,
^*
looking like a beggar. “How kind of you to come so soon.” For I had sent for him only this morning. I offered him a glass of orange water—Fouché did not partake of spirits, I knew. His hooded eyes, his disordered clothes, his stale odour, all brought on a feeling of affection in me. He was an eccentric, this slovenly man, this ardent Revolutionary with bad breath. This man who was devoted to his ugly red-haired wife and all their ugly red-haired children. This man who was making a fortune (I’d heard) as a partner in Company Ouen, a military supply company. This man, the extraordinary spy. “There is a document I need to obtain,” I ventured. “Might you be available?”

He opened his snuffbox. “For a price,” he said, sniffing a pinch. I flushed. “You mistake me, Citoyenne. It is information I trade in. I give you what you want, you repay me in kind.”

He made it sound so innocent, a simple exchange. But I knew what he meant, in truth. In exchange for whatever answers he might deliver, I would become a spy on his behalf. “I would never compromise a friend,” I said.

“That would hardly be necessary. You are no doubt aware that you have a number of enemies who could provide you with numerous opportunities to fulfill such an obligation.”

“Perhaps you could begin by telling me who they might be?” I smiled behind my fan.

“It does not take a clairvoyant to see that the Bonapartes wish you dead, but given the inconvenience of being caught with blood on their collective hands, would settle for ruin, no doubt. And in their midst, of late, a rather lovely young woman has been seen—a girl who was, at one time, your lady’s maid.” He took a small, careful sip of his glass of orange water. “It is a wisdom well understood by our ci-devant nobility that one should never reveal oneself to a man or woman who is in one’s pay. Servants thus taken into confidence come to know a great deal, putting them in a position to profit from the sale of such. And profit, even a Revolutionary will tell you, is an irresistible force of Nature. Perhaps it is this young woman who concerns you.”

Lisette had been seen with the Bonapartes? I went to the window, my cheeks burning. “No, it is not Citoyenne Compoint.”

“Perhaps it has to do with your present state of”—he paused—”embarrassment.”

My debts, he meant. “It has nothing to do with that.” Appalled, I confess, by how much Fouché knew.

“Then no doubt it regards the somewhat suspect practices of your business associates, the brothers Bodin.”

Suspect practices? “The name Bodin is unfamiliar to me, Citoyen Fouché,” I told him with splendid calm.

Fouché unbuttoned his jacket, revealing a dapper silver-trimmed waistcoat underneath. “Citoyenne, you are an effective liar, a quality I
have always admired in you. Tell me, then—what is it you wish to know?”

“General Hoche’s widow has solicited my help.” Fouché sat back, surprised. It pleased me, I confess, to startle a man such as Fouché, a professional in the matter of knowing. “Her father-in-law, Père Hoche, the late General Hoche’s father, is subject to morbid dreams, rages that have weakened his constitution. He has become obsessed with finding out how his son died.”

“Case closed, Citoyenne. It is common knowledge General Hoche died of consumption.”

“Specifically, the elder Hoche has tried, without success, to obtain a copy of the autopsy report—”

“Which, being a military matter, is confidential, of course.”

I nodded. “So I was told. The fact that no one is permitted to see it has inflamed Père Hoche’s imagination further.”

“But no doubt Director Barras could obtain a copy for you.”

“I’m afraid not.” I paused, unsure whether I should tell Fouché how emotional Barras had become at the very mention of it. “The problem is, Père Hoche is convinced his son was poisoned.”

“Père Hoche and the rest of Paris.” Fouché made a dismissive gesture. “Does he have cause? Or is he feeding off rumours like the rest of us?”

“He claims his son suffered convulsions in his dying moments.” I swallowed, a wave of tears rising dangerously within me. “Apparently, convulsions are not symptomatic of consumption.”

Fouché bit the inside of one cheek, considering.

“I’m of the view that the father’s grief is driving him mad. If he could just see the autopsy report, it might put his imaginings to rest. But after talking to Director Barras, I have come to the conclusion that obtaining a copy of the report will not be easy. Indeed, that it might require a certain degree of, well—”

“Sleuthing?”

I smiled apologetically. “Not to mention discretion. For I’m sure you can understand, Citoyen Fouché, how important it is that my own involvement in this matter be kept strictly confidential.”

“Secrecy is my passion, Citoyenne.”

April 6.

At Barras’s salon last night Fouché sidled up to me. “The autopsy report appears to be missing from the Ministry of War’s files,” he whispered, widening his eyes.

I motioned to him to be silent. Talleyrand had just entered the room.

“I have a contact at the School of Medicine,” he went on. “He should be able to give me the name of the surgeon who performed the autopsy.”

“How good to see you this evening, Citoyen Talleyrand,” I said, giving the Minister of Foreign Affairs my hand.

April 7.

“I located the surgeon who performed the autopsy, but he demands one hundred francs,” Fouché informed me tonight in the corridor at the Luxembourg Palace. “Are you willing?”

“To pay one hundred francs? Just for a copy of the report?”

Fouché shrugged. “I was surprised he didn’t ask for more.”

April 8, Easter Sunday.

“You got it?” I asked Fouché, my voice thick. I did not care for this, did not care for any of it, neither the seeking nor the finding. I wanted it to be over. Were it not for my promise to help the widow Hoche, I would wash my hands of this business completely.

Fouché arched his thin red eyebrows, his hand on his coat pocket. “I did. But it will not appease the father,” he warned, unfolding the single yellowed sheet. “According to the autopsy report, the cause of General Hoche’s death is”—he paused for effect—”unknown.”

It was not at all what I had expected. Barras himself had told me that the autopsy had determined that Lazare had died of consumption. “So General Hoche did not die of consumption?” I scanned the document and then folded it. I did not want to read it.

“Possibly—because if he had died of consumption, it seems to me that the surgeon would have clearly stated so. But if one were to die of poisoning—let us say, just for the purpose of inquiry—the effects being
subtle and therefore mysterious, then the cause of death would, most likely, be reported as—”

“Unknown!” Père Hoche shook the report in the air, as if at the gods. “My son was poisoned. There’s nothing unknown about that. And I’ll tell you who did it—Director Barras.”

I glanced at the widow, dismayed. She was standing by the fireplace, her hand on the blue urn on the mantel. I wanted to speak out in Barras’s defence, but I knew that it would only enrage the old man further.

“And I’ll tell you why,” he ranted on. “Director Barras murdered my son because Lazare had integrity. Speak that word around Director Barras and see if he even knows it. Integrity, honesty, bravery—they’re all foreign words to that traitor.”

“Can’t sleep?” Mimi asked, discovering me in the downstairs drawing room, curled up on the sofa, staring into the embers.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Two,” she said.

I sighed. Would I ever sleep? “I have worries, Mimi.” “I know.”

I smiled. Mimi knew everything.

“Want to talk?”

“Not yet,” I told her, standing.

“Always remember, we’re looking over you,” she said, “your mother and I.”

I turned at the landing. “Thank you.”

April 9.

Bonaparte and I have just returned from an evening at Barras’s salon. I’m in turmoil over a conversation with Fouché. He informed me that the man who had performed the autopsy had come to his home offering
more information—in exchange for more money, of course. “I took it upon myself to pay on your behalf.”

“Oh,” I said weakly. I thought the matter was finished. He’d obtained the report. The business was done.

“It seems that after the autopsy, General Hoche’s doctor asked that the heart be put aside.”

Lazare’s heart? Why? I sat down, sickened. I could not bear to think of Lazare’s body in this way, as a collection of so many parts.

“Furthermore,” Fouché said, sitting down beside me and hunching forward, his elbows on his knees, “there were specks in the lining of the stomach—sufficient to cause suspicion, but insufficient to prove anything.”

“Suspicion of what?” I heard a clock chime, followed by another, and then another.

“Of poisoning.” He turned to me and smiled. “May I make a suggestion, Citoyenne? Over the years I have learned that success depends on one thing and one thing only—the courage to ask the true question. And with respect, the true question may not be how General Hoche died, but rather who, in fact, killed him.”

“Citoyen Fouché, I would like this investigation dropped.”

He looked puzzled. “But Citoyenne—”

“I insist!”

April 10.

Bonaparte is frantic. There is so much to do, and everything made difficult by the necessity of raising the funds for the expedition—an expedition whose actual destination must remain unknown (to prevent the English from finding out). To that end we have been entertaining every evening—last night the banker Perrégaus; tonight Collot, the munitioner. Those evenings we do not entertain, Bonaparte and I attend Barras’s salon at the Luxembourg Palace, where the talk is invariably of what everyone is now calling “Bonaparte’s crusade.”