The Rainbow Bridge (26 page)

‘Will I always be unclean then, contaminating anyone I touch?’

‘I don’t think we can undo something that is done, Jacquot, but we can change our understanding of it. When I
am unhappy I have a dream in which I see a rainbow, and I long to cross the rainbow and go back to what might have been, to go back to Pieter, the boy I loved. But yet I hear my father’s voice, saying: “Think about it, Louise. Is that really what your rainbow means? Think of the science of it”.’

Jacquot looked into the distance for a moment. ‘I have a dream too,’ he said. ‘Ever since he first came to me. In my dream I am in a forest glade … there is a cliff, a flat shelf of rock, from which a waterfall plunges into a pool of the purest water. I just know that if I can stand under that waterfall it will wash me clean. But he … he is always there, laughing, dodging about and blocking my way.’

‘But he’s gone now, Jacquot. There’s no one to hold you back. You must dream that dream again.’

‘But what about you?’

‘You can take me too.’

‘How can I take a picture under the waterfall?’

‘I can be as real as you make me, Jacquot. Please take me there.’

They walked together in Jacquot’s dream.

‘We’ll soon be there,’ he said, taking courage from her company. Louise enjoyed being with him. She remembered how she had looked out over the fields from the walls of Delft with Pieter and had seen the familiar countryside with his artist’s eye. Now she was experiencing this French forest as Jacquot did. His was a world of smells and small sounds; the swish of their feet through the leaves changed as they passed under oak, or beech, or Spanish chestnut. When something struck the ground near them he made her stand still till the thrower, a red squirrel, peeked out to see if his
nut had found its mark. He got her to listen, her ear to the trunk of an ancient tree, to the click of beetles feasting under the bark. He got her to fill her head with the heady smell of resin where a lone pine grew on a stony bluff. After a while the trees began to thin and a stream joined them, hurrying past, chattering to itself about some recent adventure. Louise could feel Jacquot’s apprehension mounting.

‘It’s here that he stops me, where I can see the waterfall.’ Jacquot whispered. ‘I’m afraid …’

‘Don’t be, Jacquot. I told you, he’s gone.’

‘Look,’ he said, pointing through the trees. There it was, a rocky escarpment notched at the skyline where a single sheet of water sprang from its lip before arching down to plunge into a pool below. They stepped forward and the trees seemed to draw back as if making way for them.

The boy still hesitated. ‘Go on, don’t be shy,’ Louise encouraged. He stepped forward, warily, like a child, checking for lurking monsters, wondering if this enchantment was really for him.

‘Will you come too?’

‘No,’ Louise said. ‘This is your dream, your place.’ She looked the other way as he stripped, but turned to watch as he stepped into the water, lifting his feet delicately like a fawn. When he reached the cascade he stepped forward, holding his hands above his head to break the flow. The water burst over him, spreading a fine spray into the low sunlight, and a rainbow appeared, arching over and around him. It was as if he was holding it above his head in his hands. Then he spread his arms so that the water thundered on to his head and shoulders. She had seen a drawing of a figure like this somewhere – in the Master’s studio maybe – a symbol of mankind, enclosed in a circle. But here the
circle was a rainbow, and Jacquot walked through it into the space behind the curtain of water where she could see him scrubbing himself from head to toe.

Louise went to the edge of the pool and dipped her hands into the clear water. She washed her face and drank a little from her cupped hands, and felt refreshed. She was tempted to follow Jacquot under the waterfall, but this was his future, not hers, and it was time for her to go. But he had given her the sign she had been looking for. There was no magical way back to Pieter; the gulf of time separated them. The rainbow was an invitation to go forward, to whatever the future had in store.

Louise left Jacquot to his dream. She never knew where it took him, but if she had heard that, on his waking, the goldfinch in Marie’s room had put back its head and sung for joy, she might have guessed.

In March 1796, when the Hussars of Auxerre, including Gaston’s troop, had ridden down into the city of Nice to join Bonaparte’s starved and ragged ‘army of Italy’, they looked like strutting pheasants in a yard full of moulting hens. That evening Bonaparte addressed the rabble army: Soldiers, you are naked, badly fed … Rich provinces and great towns will be in your power, and in them you will find honour, glory, wealth. Soldiers of Italy, will you be wanting in courage and steadfastness?’ Whatever about ‘honour and glory’, the word ‘wealth’ spoke to the dispirited men. Overnight the mood and appearance of the army changed. Rags were washed clean and muskets oiled. When the General inspected the newly arrived hussars and told them that it was their courage he wanted, not their whiskers, they caught the mood of the moment and cheered. Gaston sat motionless in his saddle during the inspection, staring straight ahead, as if carved out of wood. Bonaparte would never recognise him out of a whole brigade. However, when he came to Gaston he looked up. His Corsican accent was as rough as ever.

‘Lieutenant Morteau, you will report to my headquarters this evening at five o’clock.’

Gaston was too astonished to do more than say, ‘Monsieur le Général,’ as he continued to stare straight
ahead.

That evening he received orders to join the General Bonaparte’s entourage. As he was too junior to be a staff officer, he was appointed as a special courier. Having explained his orders, the General was about to turn away when Gaston dared to say:

‘Mon Général, I have a request.’ A flicker of disapproval crossed Bonaparte’s face, but Gaston went on. ‘I have a cadet, a superb horseman, I would like him to ride with me.’

‘Why?’

‘If one of us is wounded, the other will see that your orders get through.’

In the months that followed, the General’s two couriers became known up and down the still hungry and ragged column that tramped down the coast back into Italy, to where Austria and her allies waited to confront them.

Now that spring had come, not only to the forest but also to the two occupants of the hut, Louise was able to enjoy the not infrequent glimpses of life with the army in Italy. Gaston was almost as bad at remembering her as he was about writing letters to Colette. When he did, it was at times of scenic beauty or relaxation. She would suddenly see Pierre across the flicker of a campfire, or hear him called to sing one of the songs of Normandy as the wine was passed around. Pierre was more constant. He had not been part of the pact to think of Louise, but he thought of her because thinking of her made him happy – sometimes in moments of elation, but also in times of stress, when even the hardened soldier’s hand will steal to some hidden talisman or charm.

Though Louise had no way of reckoning time other than by following the season’s changes, it was in fact 10th May 1796 when her reverie was broken by the sound of guns. Smoke swirled across her vision and she realised that she was in Italy again. Ahead of her a horse and rider climbed up the side of a small knoll. Guns poked over a parapet of fresh earth. She could see a river glinting below. As the rider dismounted and handed his reins to a soldier he half turned; it was Gaston. So, Pierre was her eyes this time. She watched Gaston approach one of the guns where a smallish man was crouched over its sleek barrel. Soldiers with spikes and mallets were turning and elevating the gun following his directions. Now the man stood to one side, mouthed an order, and a soldier who had been standing by with a smouldering match stepped forward. He touched the burning tip to the powder in the touch-hole. A small flame spurted out and with an angry roar the gun leapt back – flame, then smoke, spouting from its muzzle. Pierre’s horse must have shied, as Louise could see its head rise as the smoke swept past them. The man who had been sighting the gun was peering to see where his shot had landed. Suddenly everyone was cheering and the man smiled, slapped one hand on the other with satisfaction, and turned to Gaston; it was General Bonaparte himself! Gaston bent to shout in his ear and pointed up the river. The news must be good; the General nodded. Gaston stepped back and saluted. Then he looked up at Pierre and smiled. Louise’s heart gave a great lurch, it was as if he was smiling at her.

All of the new landowners had taken up the winery’s offer to work their vineyards for them. When Colette came out and stood watching M. Morteau give the orders of the day,
Louise could see that the yard was full of men. ‘Like the old days,’ M. Morteau said, adding, ‘If only we had Gaston back.’

The war in Italy seemed to be going on forever. When the grape harvest came, Louise could feel that Colette was missing Gaston just as she was. When she could summon the energy, she would try hard to convey to Colette that Gaston was all right. He was better about writing now, but letters still took many weeks to reach home.

Though she tried to be optimistic, Louise was far from happy. Pierre, clinging to his image of her for comfort and reassurance, was showing her far more of the horrors of war than she wanted to see, although it would never have occurred to him that he was doing this. Battles became names: Mantua, Lonato, Castiglione, Bassano, Arcola … It was at Lodi that the men started calling Bonaparte ‘our little corporal,’ because he had done a corporal’s job by sighting the guns himself before the attack.

Then one day her whole vision was taken up with bodies, mostly clad in the blue of France, many of them intertwined with the grey uniforms of Austria. Pierre was searching among the fallen, looking for the bright colours of a hussar. Louise could hear the whimper in his breath and her own throat constricted in pain. Gaston must be missing! For half an hour they searched. Then the flap parted on a crudely erected tent and a man emerged. It was Gaston, his head newly bandaged. He turned at Pierre’s shout and the image faded as Pierre forgot all about Louise in a joyful rush to his lieutenant.

Christmas passed but there was little festive fare for the French soldiers and even less for the starving Austrians
besieged in the town of Mantua. Battle raged about Rivoli as the Austrian army from the north strove to relieve the siege and drive the French out of Italy.

Louise knew nothing about the reasons for the battle she was seeing through Pierre’s eyes, but she could sense from his apprehension that disaster was imminent. She watched as the French line bent, held, then yielded. Now she could see Gaston thrusting orders into his tunic.

‘The orders are for Lasalle to charge! Follow me, Pierre … but not too close.’ Up the wide gorge they rode, the roar of battle behind them. Louise heard the whirring whine of a cannon ball, and the last clear vision she would remember from that day was seeing the track of the ball – a linear disturbance of the light – streaking inexorably towards the point where Gaston was riding ahead.

Pierre’s appeal for help came so imperiously that Louise had no choice but to respond. Afterwards she remembered nothing. When the energy of the crisis was expended she was completely drained and had no idea what had happened to her during those dreadful minutes, or were they hours?

It took young Jacquot, working on her foot and chatting about the day’s events, to restore her to the point at which she could remember even that something dreadful had happened. She put out a silent appeal to her soldiers in Italy. All she received in return was a picture of a two-storey house, a red tiled roof, with four small windows above and below, and for no good reason, a conviction that Gaston was still alive.

After their shared dream, Louise never appeared to Jacquot again. She had done for him what she could, and he
seemed to accept that life was now of his own making. But when he talked to himself in his hut he liked to think that Louise was listening, so he included all the news that he thought might interest her. It was now 1798, and word had come of the success of the Italian campaign. Though Louise’s conviction that Gaston was still alive never faltered, neither he nor Pierre sent her any more clear messages. Marie now spent more time in Jacquot’s hut than she did in the chateau, but she made him keep his distance; she was not going to be any fallen lady. The political climate changed, and the Count’s affairs were put in order. To his amazement, Jacquot found himself the owner of the pretty little dower house that stood apart from the chateau, and the possessor of a position of responsibility on the estate.

Quite suddenly, after an anxious wait of months, Louise began to get messages from Colette and Gaston again. Later she would learn that news of Gaston’s wound had far outstripped news that he had survived. In her anxiety, poor Colette was too turned in on herself to share this with Louise. She could not work out how she knew, but it came as no surprise to Louise to hear that Gaston had lost a leg. Now, to her delight, Colette was showing her Gaston again, first on crutches, and then trying to walk with a wooden leg, assisted by Pierre. She had been worried about Pierre too, and was delighted to see him, but why was he not sending her his own images? She really missed this when Colette and Gaston were married. Colette had shared all the preparations with Louise, but on the day itself they both had other things to think of, so Pierre’s view would have made all the difference.