Napoleon Symphony: A Novel in Four Movements (9 page)

“Can I go now, sir?” the smarting groom said.

“Go, go, go.” And a couple of whip-strokes on his back. “Who asked you to come in the first place?”

A good question to ponder as they trudged. Out of Syria with. Yelling fly-swarms of rear-harriers and. Marauders.
He
did,
lui
, but he would, would he not, proclaim himself no more than the agent of the goddess of republics, reason, humanity, knowledge, scientific progress, the goddess being encharged with many portfolios. A book of many volumes, all about Egypt, was being paid for by that man roped to a mule, vomiting endlessly into the sand, the vomit punching a transitory hole into the dense mob of black flies that fed on him, that man in multiplicate. And the British flag flew in the Acre wind and, on the Mediterranean, British warships flaunted like whores in the Place de la Concorde.

“The laudanum worked, the excess dose.”

“What?”

“Some of them expelled the activating organism. Praise God, or
lui
, or something.”

Sand and sand and everywhere was sand,

Sand and sand and sand on hand and hand,

The Holy Land I understand is sand.

Expand the planned command that planned the sand,

With blue too true a blue too blue to view

Garagorigrawninfieryfieryflaw

And blue to you who blew the few that flew.

Then band and bland and brand and gland and grand

And hand and land and rand and strand and sand

And then remand the band in ampersand

And overland and reprimand the sand.

F
rom Murat: They fell on such fleshpots as were, and
lui
, hardly pausing for a bath and a change of uniform, fell on his little blonde from Carcassonne. It was a matter of watching the sea, and the expected Turkish fleet was sighted making, it was evident, for Alexandria, or rather the peninsula they name Aboukir. We gave them a whole fortnight to encamp and to rest and reinvigorate our men. Report spoke of some ten thousand Turks, many of them of the new militia or, in their language,
yeniceri
,
yeni
meaning new, and frenched to janissaries, colorful in their red and blue and well-trained in the employment of musket, saber and pistol. When
lui
observed their formation—one line on flat ground and another on Mount Vizir—he said what was difficult at first wholly to understand: “She was wrong about water, wrong, wrong, wrong.” We concentrated on the line that stretched along the plain, Lannes with L’Estaing breaking the center, and your humble servant (whom, I fear, you will be shocked to see changed facially if not in heart or in the prowess of the amorous lists) to lead the cavalry against the flanks. As expected, the whole line retreated in some disorder to join their fellows on the hill, and then it was a matter of a vigorous cavalry charge into the very heart of these Mussulman worthies. It was on this occasion that your servant lost his good looks. I was honored to be confronted by the Turkish general himself, a fine if ancient fellow named Mustufa or Mustafa, the Mussulman being uncertain as to his vowels, who fired straight at my jaw with some inevitable disordering of both bone and dentition, whereupon I slashed at my assailant’s hand, driving to the ground in one saber-stroke both the pistol and two of his fingers. The pain in my lower jaw was slow in declaring itself, and I was able to share in the ensuing victory. The gallant victor must ever have some measure of compassion for the vanquished, especially when they are rendered pitiable by forces beyond the scope of the attacker. Thus, the sight of thousands of terrified janissaries plunged to certain drowning is not one I would willingly witness again. The two thousand or so who lay, transformed speedily to garishly attired cadavers, were of the general order of the fairly slain, and the shivering prisoners foiled of more severed French heads, were worthy of the contempt that the lower ranks lavished upon them. It would seem that the Turkish threat has been lifted from Egypt, but the British ships continue to parade their power in the Middle Sea, and Acre remains a blot and a humiliation. Sir Smith compounds the humiliation with the foxy subtlety of his race, ensuring that certain packets reach Alexandria for transportation to headquarters at Cairo, these being exclusively made up of newspapers that report sad things of the
patrie
, which I for one would be glad to believe pure English slander, though I fear there may be all too much truth in the uneasy reports.

“S
top reading those old magazines or whatever they are,” she pouted.

“Eh? Who?” And he went on frowning at the six-weeks-old copy of the
Gazette Française de Francfort
. It all seemed hardly credible, what with the English and the Russians in Holland and the Austrians and the Russians in Zurich and the Turks and the Russians in Corfu, and Naples, where that royal bitch was, joining in the anti-French alliance. He had not reckoned with the Russians, who had a watery diffused kind of country. He had a sudden hunger, which chimed in with a dyspeptic jab or might have been somehow cognate with it, for some maps of Russia. Instead he had the pink and gold map of this houri here, spread over the bed and swiping languidly with a feather fan at the flying insect life. Outside the palms whistled in the night breeze.

“Away all this time fighting your stupid wars and now you sit there with your uniform buttoned up to your chin and not a single word for your little—”

“Very well.” He sighed and put the newspaper down on a camp stool. She had, he now noticed, tacked some engravings to the walls—fat allegorical nudes by nameless and disregardable artists. She did not have the taste, this one, of that traitorous whore in Paris. And that too, another confrontation, along with those Directory swine. Oh yes, the time had come, and the Egyptian scheme must fall in abeyance since no money was available and, anyway, inflation had filled good French cash full of air. He suddenly shouted in agony:

“And they sell comfits in the streets and snigger
eighteen for
a louis.
” The fifes were playing outside, a detachment marching in from somewhere:

Like the wild roar of the waters

The guns of the soldiers advance

Who rip the bleeding heart of France

And will slay our wives and sons and daughters.

To arms—

“Yes yes. Come on then.”

He used the nudes on the wall to prime a distracted appetite and then, fully dressed
en général
except for the lowered breeches, took her. She had better go back to that husband of hers, no they were divorced, and was he still alive for that matter? Raising his breeches, he worked out who would go with him. Admiral Ganteaume, that pig who had refused sea transport from Acre for the bubonic sick, said the Mediterranean was as good as free of the British, that a few frigates were available. Monge? Berthollet? Berthier? Yes, those for a beginning. He must get some paper and make a list.

“You’re returning to France, is that not true?”

“Who said that? Who is saying so? Who spoke of this?”

“You’re tired of me, of course. Nevertheless, I’m going back with you. Sick of Egypt, why should I have to stay? Cleopatra, indeed. They call me Cleopatra, do you know that? Well, Cleopatra desires to see Paris.”

“Who puts these rumors about? I return to Paris when I’m ordered to return. Not before. A soldier must follow orders.”

“It’s you who make the orders, that’s well known. Lack of orders won’t stop you.” She squashed a mosquito against the carious wall. “
Anthony
.”

And Lannes and Murat and Duroc and Lavalette and Merlin. And
her
son, flesh of her flesh, Eugène Beauharnais, good boy, promising aide, he must not be smirched further by her rottenness.

“Anthony was a
great
lover. He lost a kingdom for love.”

Bourrienne, of course. And my servant, a man needs his servant, my genuine Mameluke, all to show Paris for the whole adventure, no no, no call for despondency, work has been done, work is still to do, Turkey and India to take, I will be back when France is reordered. Those villains, those libertines, gluttons, incompetents.

“In bed he made a woman desirous. Your skill is not there. Not in bed.” She slammed with her whisk at a great booming winged beetle.

Andréossy, Marmont, Bessières, a couple of centuries of the Guides. Her, no. Very much no. Kléber can look after things, the calm, the republican, the efficient.

“Not in bed.”

“Yes yes, I will be back there with you in a moment.”

G
eneral Kléber’s mouth opened and remained open. Hot breath emerged in a gust and discouraged the flies. “But,” he said. “I mean, this is a shock. The lack of preparation. I am not sure whether it’s possible to. This is, to say the least, a.”

“Surprise, eh, surprise?” He was cheerful and brisk. “Well, peace as well as war can have its surprises. You are more than equal to surprises, Kléber.”

“I had not realized that orders. I was aware of no courier.”

“The Turks will not annoy us further, be sure of that. You have an ordered republic here to rule. Be stern in the Divan, parade armed might occasionally. More than equal to it. As for France, must we let these rogues ruin all we have made? I know where my place is, Kléber.”

“But.” And then he crashed his resentment out. Bonaparte listened patiently, smiling sidewise occasionally at Roustam, his Mameluke, who was impressed by the noise and flying spittle. Thousands of men sick and homesick, a whole fleet sunk, here forever in this land of flies and camel-dung, the treasury seven million francs down, those savants to be responsible for, here till we die, I will write to the Directory, make no mistake about it, flagrant disregard of duty.

“There, Kléber, I know how you must feel. You never said those hard words, they will go unrecorded. Rest assured I will do all in my power to effect your repatriation. It will take time, undoubtedly, but you shall not be here forever. It has been a great adventure, ah yes. The world will be enriched by a new science, what may be called Egyptology. Doesn’t that awaken pride in you? We shall be kings of the East yet, but the
patrie
is in danger, it calls me. Look after the little blonde, will you, Cleopatra as they, ha, call her. Keep the men happy, arrange for some productions of Molière and Racine, if they will take Racine. Keep the staff of our little newspaper on their toes. Do your duty. I’m off to do mine.” And, since Kléber would not take his proffered hand, he nodded pleasantly before leaving.

“Swine,” swore Kléber, watching him mount his glossy Arab. “Traitor. Rat. Oh, you little bugger.”

And we were at sea full forty-seven days, the key

To the seas not ours but theirs, fleeing the

Fleet free of the sea, we, in ennui not glee, greeting

Each sun’s levee, each evening, thee, O sea,

Seeing in sea the sheen of evergreen of damascene

Of fellahin of guillotine of wolverine machine

Foreseen nectarine Josephine intervene contravene

Thirteen ravine gabardine and spleen and preen and

Queen and teen, cheek bleak beak clique oblique

Mystique pique physique, antipodes, antitheses,

Hippocrates, parentheses, cleave, achieve, conceive,

Believe believe believe

That Bonaparte will kiss the soil of France.

“T
he point is,” Gohier said, “that he will now have become aware of the official order of Fructidor. But he did not receive that letter before embarkation. Nevertheless the letter existed, he was authorized to leave Egypt even though he did not know of the authorization. A nice metaphysical point.”

“To the devil with your metaphysics,” bloated Barras said. “He was ordered to return with his army. His army is still out there. That is guillotinable enough. Desertion of his army in the face of the enemy.”

“We must be accurate. That enemy has been defeated. Luck always goes with him. Flowers and fruit and wine at Saint-Raphael. The news of the Aboukir victory was a kind of fanfare arranged by fate or something.”

“Where?”

“Saint-Raphael. Where he landed. Bernadotte recommends his arrest despite the popular acclaim. Let Bernadotte take over, it’s a War Ministry matter. Court-martial, shot not guillotined. If not for desertion, for evading the quarantine regulations. He may have this bubo thing raging in France in a week or two.”

“Shot for that?”

“Well, locked up. Till we decide what to do with him.”

“We decide? We?”

O shake yourself awake and take your lance,

Triad of virtues shamelessly asleep,

For Bonaparte has kissed the soil of France.

Long languished in a treasonable trance,

Directory, in indirection deep,

O shake yourself awake and take your lance.

“And,” Barras said, “how about
her
?”

“She was calm enough when the telegraph came through, calmer than I was. Nothing to fear, she kept saying, meaning herself. Meaning that she’s been with my wife most of the time. Anyway, she has to get to Lyons before his brothers do.”

“They’ll mince her alive, those two. Behind her back.”

Swifter and swifter, smoking wheels, advance!

Prepare a heart to plead, two eyes to weep,

For Bonaparte has kissed the soil of France.

“Look, mother,” Hortense said, as they sped south. “More flowers and arches. Is it for what he’s done or for what they think he’ll do? I mean, what do they think he can do?”

Repeated and repeated in the clattering wheels: extraordinary man, extraordinary man. Madame de Montesson, was it? Never forget that you are married to an extraordinary man, my dear, an extraordinary man.

“I fear they will be there first, Hortense, I fear it. They cannot forgive either him or me, any of them. That whaleboned tigress. Well, you may soften him, if not I. He is very fond of you, as of Eugène. I may well have to plead through my children.”