The Empire of Yearning (25 page)

T
HE IMPERIAL AUTHORITIES HANGED
Baldemar Peralta in Mexico City on May 15, 1866. The execution was carried out summarily, without trial. In his guise as the priest named Father Fischer, Salm-Salm was permitted to view the body prior to its interment, and he reported to Diego later that it was not an agreeable sight. The man had obviously been made to endure great suffering before being put to the noose. By the time they killed him, he was probably already dead.

Diego didn’t wait to hear any more. His mind could not contain the idea of Baldemar’s death. He stormed out into the marble hallways of Chapultepec Castle, Salm-Salm trailing behind him. He meant to confront the emperor. Where in God’s name was he? He wasn’t in his study or in his bedchambers. He had not gone out for a morning hack. Diego finally found him where he had least expected—in the newly inaugurated nursery. It was a makeshift facility assembled on short notice to accommodate the little Agustín, all of three years old. Ángela had signed away her rights to the child in the expectation of saving her brother. Now her brother was dead, and she had lost her son. Diego
had known it might end this way. But what else could Ángela or anyone else have done?

He stormed into the nursery and would have barged straight past the boy but something stopped him. Agustín was Baldemar’s nephew, after all, and here he was, a round-faced child with a strangely grave demeanour. He tottered about in a sailor suit, hands poised on his hips, inspecting things. Wobbling in the middle of the nursery, the boy peered up at Diego.

“You have just one hand,” the child said. “Where is your other hand? Is it hiding?”

The emperor watched. He was seated in a large chair with scrolled legs and a high back. There were dark patches under his eyes. “Ah, Serrano …” he said.

Diego glanced at the child again and then returned his gaze to the emperor. “They hanged Baldemar,” he said, spitting out the words. “Last night, they hanged him. Did you authorize that?”

“Why are you angry?” said the boy.

“I can explain,” said Maximiliano. “I—”

“Please, Your Majesty.” This was Salm-Salm. “Not here, I think. The child.”

“Let us go to my study.” Maximiliano rose and led the way.

“Where are you going?” said the boy. “May I come too?”

He lurched after them, but the governess intervened, scooping Agustín into her arms and carrying him toward a large window overlooking the interior courtyard.

In his study, the emperor collapsed at his desk, let out a long sigh, and began to stroke his beard. He called out for coffee, then turned toward Diego. “Carlota won’t so much as look at the boy,” he said. “Ill-gotten gains—that’s what she says.”

“Your Majesty,” said Diego. He struggled to control his voice, but it was impossible. He realized he was stammering. His shoulders trembled. He felt as if his head would burst. “Baldemar Peralta is dead. You promised he would live. This was our agreement. You lied to me. You—”

“It’s all connected,” said Salm-Salm. He lit a cigarette and blew out the match.

“I’m sorry?”

“Everything. It’s all connected. You’ll see.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s true what you say. His Majesty lied to you about your friend. Isn’t that right, Max?”

The emperor stared at Salm-Salm, apparently not expecting such candour. Then he sighed again and nodded. “Yes, it’s true. I had no choice.”

“No choice?”

“There was never any hope of gaining a pardon for this fellow, your friend,” said Salm-Salm. “D’you think for a moment that Márquez would hear of it? Besides, he had the emperor’s permission to do as he wished.”

Diego realized his fist was clenched. He wanted to hit someone. “What are you talking about?”

“The decree. Max signed the decree. It permits summary execution of anyone suspected of armed activity on behalf of the liberals. You might consider the implications for yourself. Call it free advice.” Salm-Salm sat down, slid back in his seat. “I would think about it, if I were you.”

“Felix told me about your journey to Texas—you know, to seek out Juárez,” said the emperor. He stirred sugar into his coffee. “It had nothing to do with making peace. You were lying to me.”

It seemed to Diego that they had all been lying to each other right from the start. He turned to the emperor. “You signed Márquez’s decree? Why, for God’s sake?”

“Why? Because Márquez insisted. It was his price for turning over the boy.”

He didn’t need to say more. Diego understood perfectly well. The emperor was afraid of Márquez. It had been true ever since that evening in the billiards room when the general had humiliated him in public. Perhaps it had been true even before that night.

“A necessary evil,” said Salm-Salm. “These lies. All this subterfuge.
They’re all a necessary evil. In a better world, it might be different. But this is the world we have. This is the way we live.”

“Not Baldemar Peralta. Not now.”

Salm-Salm grimaced and inclined his head, acknowledging what was patently true. Not Baldemar Peralta. Not now.

Diego waited, his breath still short, his heart still thudding in his chest. Then he turned and left the room. He made straight for the nursery, not entirely sure what he meant to do. He could not leave the boy there. But already several guards had been posted at the entrance. They would not let him pass. He made for his own chambers and packed what little he would need. In the stables, a groom saddled his horse and led her out into the courtyard. Diego swung up into the saddle and rode toward the gate. Once there, he halted and raised his only hand, ready to slam it against the wooden portal, hard as he could. But something made him stop. It wasn’t worth it. He took up the reins again, kicked his heels, and cantered away from Chapultepec Castle, back to Mexico City and his lodgings near La Ciudadela. He expected never to look upon Maximiliano again. That debt was paid.

“T
HE EMPRESS CALLED FOR YOU.
” The new porter stood in the doorway of Diego’s lodgings. “She was here not half an hour ago.”

It was still early in the day, and Diego had just returned from a morning outing to visit Ángela. She had recently returned to the capital, for there was no reason to remain in hiding any longer. She had lost everything. What Diego hoped was that Maximiliano would quash the adoption and return the child to its mother, but he had seen no sign of that. Now the empress? Why would she seek him out here? He glowered at the porter. “You’re sure?”

“She left a message.” The porter put back his shoulders and cleared his throat. “The empress extends her respects and wishes to inform don Diego Serrano that she will return at half past ten o’clock of the morning.”

The man proffered a note left by the empress, along with a small bundle of other letters that had arrived in that morning’s post.

Diego took the mail and gave the man a coin. He entered his lodgings and closed the door, then wandered over to his writing table. His mail
contained a letter, badly weathered and soiled, that bore the letterhead of a U.S. newspaper, the
Boston Journal.
Diego tore it open, and out spilled a newspaper clipping and a handwritten note. It was from J.S. Bartlett, the customs agent and journalist in Franklin, Texas. Both the clipping and the letter contained news that the president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, had been shot on the night of April the fourteenth during a theatrical performance. He died the following day. Bartlett expressed the view that this event, though of historic and tragic significance in his country, was unlikely to have much effect on events in Mexico. As before, the French would leave. The death of a president could not change that. Diego knew little of American presidents. Mainly, he marvelled at the speed with which the letter had travelled.

Diego reached for the next letter. He broke the wax seal and pulled the envelope open. He slid the missive out and saw that it was from Beatríz—fully three pages, bursting with ideas, impressions, and opinions. She wrote at length about the monarch butterflies that fluttered among the trees in the garden each morning. In the fall, they arrived. And in the spring, they departed. Where did they go? How long and how arduous was their journey? They seemed such fragile creatures. And yet was this not the way of life—that the most fragile among us were the ones most obliged to be strong? Halfway through reading the letter, Diego rose from his seat and wandered over to the casement window. He pushed the jalousies outward, letting the afternoon light flood the room.

He settled himself in his customary place of contemplation, the window’s deep sill, a vantage point that provided a clear view of the street. He returned his attention to Beatríz’s letter. She wrote that she had heard of Baldemar’s death, and she wished to console her friend for his loss. She knew he must be grieving deeply and wanted him to know she would do whatever was in her power to ease his suffering. But she worried that there was little she could do. Sad to say, some sorrows had to be faced alone. Still, she longed to offer him what little comfort she could. At the same time, she wondered what had become of little Agustín—to whom she had become greatly attached—and urged Diego to send her news.
Finally, she declared that she had lately taken up the card game known as conquian and suggested he consider doing the same. She found it an excellent means of escape from worry and trouble. Maybe, one day, the two of them would play.

Diego read these lines and then reshuffled the leaves in order to read them again. Just then, he heard a commotion in the street—the empress’s return. He didn’t wait for her carriage to appear. Instead, he slid the letter into the side pocket of his jacket. He climbed to his feet, fetched his hat, and made his way outdoors, where sundry pedestrians were picking their way through the ruts and puddles that littered the avenue.

The empress’s carriage—an elegant black coach-and-four bearing the imperial crest on its sides—swayed on the cobbles, and a quartet of horses pawed and shifted in their traces. One of the liveried coachmen sprang down to open the carriage door. The empress emerged, blinking in the morning sunshine, like a bejewelled butterfly, wings outspread. A small guard of hussars reined their horses into formation around the carriage.

One might have thought that Carlota’s arrival would arouse some flurry of excitement on the street. But no one other than Diego seemed to take much interest in the spectacle at all.

“You there,” she called out. She poked at the air with her parasol. “That’s right. You.”

A youngish man in a small bowler hat halted, turned, and looked at the empress with an almost bemused expression.

“Yes. You.” Carlota stepped down onto the broken and uneven cobbles and advanced a pace or two. “Do you not recognize your monarch? Do you not know who I am?”

The man said nothing.

“Have you no tongue? Are you mute? Do you not understand plain Spanish when it is spoken to you? Are you human or beast? Speak, man. Answer me.”

The man nodded. “Spanish—yes. I speak Spanish.”

“Then reply to a question when it is put to you. Do you, or do you not, know who I am?”

“You are Mamá Carlota …” He hesitated. This disparaging term was in common usage now. “I mean, the Empress Carlota.”

“So you do know.” Carlota raised her parasol against the sun’s rays and snapped it open. She set it upon her shoulder and stepped toward the man. “And are the gentlemen of this country in the habit of wearing their hats in the presence of empresses?”

The man reached up and briefly tipped his hat in Carlota’s direction. “Begging your pardon,” he said. He turned and sauntered away, leaving the empress speechless in his wake.

Diego watched him go. If the empress was offended, he didn’t much care. Since Baldemar’s death, it was as if the scales had fallen from his eyes. These Europeans—all of them—were an affront to Mexico. It didn’t matter which side they took, or professed to take, whether conservative or liberal. They had no place here. Mexico must find its own way. Now when he looked in a mirror—saw the darkness of his skin—he was unashamed. He was proud. He was Mexican, no less than Benito Juárez or Beatríz Sedano or Baldemar Peralta.

Still, here was the empress, and he wondered what she could possibly want with him, after all that had happened. He stepped out of the shadows and into the morning light.

“D
AMNED IMPERTINENCE.
” The empress glared out the carriage window. “Damned bloody impertinence.”

She and Diego were seated side by side, riding in the passenger compartment of her conveyance as it lurched along the rain-gouged street and the heaving cobbles. He said nothing. He simply waited while the woman recovered her composure. First she coughed into a silk handkerchief. Then she took several deep breaths. Finally, she said she was aghast at this news concerning the withdrawal of Napoleon’s troops. One might have expected it, a bare-faced betrayal, but that was little preparation for the shock when it came.

Diego nodded but did not speak. It had been several weeks since the withdrawal had begun, and still it seemed Chapultepec Castle was in a turmoil. Some courtiers had already fled, others were on the brink of fleeing, while still others were biding their time, waiting to see which way their fortunes tended.

“Damn that man,” she said. She meant Napoleon. “I knew he could not be trusted. I said as much to Max at the outset. My father did as well. But there was no choice. What else could we do? Nothing.”

It wasn’t true. There was much they could have done. They could have remained on the Dalmatian shores and never set foot anywhere in Mexico. The Europeans were not wanted here. But what was the point in belabouring this any longer? Surely their future was manifest now. They must leave. Diego listened as the empress railed on about the deceitfulness of men. The chaotic scenery of Mexico City rattled past them, the bright, incongruous showers of bougainvillea, the pools of fetid water, the carriages and donkey carts, the earnest vendors, the mournful
pordioseros
, as the beggars were called on account of their guttural chant.
Por Dios. Por Dios, señor …

The imperial carriage looped back and forth through the streets, up one avenue, down another. Evidently, the empress had no particular destination in mind. She glared out the window for a time, then turned and looked at him.

“Max means to abdicate,” she said.

This caught Diego by surprise. “I thought Márquez was raising an army. Twenty-nine thousand men, I think.”

“Márquez is a liar and a murderer.” She shook her head. “He won’t stand by us, not in the end. We need Napoleon on our side. I am determined to achieve it.”

Diego recalled a previous conversation with Carlota in which she had assessed her situation and that of her husband in the most realistic of terms. They would have to leave Mexico. Their reign was at an end. Somehow, her mind had changed.

“I shall go to Paris. I shall speak to Napoleon. Reason
shall
prevail. But, meanwhile, Max must remain here to keep our throne secure.”

In a low voice, quivering with conviction, she told Diego that she could not bear the prospect of abdication. She would rather die. Yes, die. Diego listened to her words but also to the tremor in her voice. It was impossible to doubt what she said, even though he could not truly understand it. Her conviction was something outside his own experience, a need he could not fathom. A throne was a necessity to her, it seemed, like water or air to him. At the same time, he sensed a manic quality in
her voice, and he wondered—not for the first time—if she were entirely sane. He had heard her outbursts before and had thought them evidence of a high-spirited personality, nothing more. Now this intensity of hers seemed less than stable, almost like madness.

She said, “You must help me.”

“How?”

“By talking to Max. He’ll listen to you.”

“I don’t think he will.”

“Nonsense. He respects you. He finds you
sagacious.
He thinks you are possessed of some native Mexican wisdom. You were his first true Mexican friend, you know. He imagines the soil speaks through you.” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “It might be madness, but he
will
listen to you.”

Diego turned and stared out the window. “I owe him nothing.”

“Perhaps not. But—”

“For a time, I did,” he said. He was thinking of Baldemar, but that was done now. Baldemar was in his grave, and the debt was void. “For a time, I thought I owed your husband everything. I don’t think so anymore. Besides, I am sure His Majesty can make up his own mind. I—”

“His Majesty,” she broke in, “can do no such thing. I must face the truth. His Majesty is a weak and shallow man. He means well but only because he believes that by meaning well he will make others like him better. Beyond this, he has no fixed principles. He will always do as others wish.”

Her words were harsh, but Diego appreciated their truth. It might be that the man possessed other, more admirable qualities—he
did
possess them and in abundance—but they did not matter now.

The empress continued. “I am convinced that I can have this decision revoked, this withdrawal of France’s troops. It will not be easy, but I am sure that Napoleon will relent once the case is put to him directly. But first I must persuade Max to remain behind as emperor. For that, I require your help. I—”

“What about Agustín?”

“Agustín?”

“Ángela’s son.”

The empress’s shoulders slumped, and she put up her hands in a gesture of helplessness. She shook her head. “I have tried. But Max is adamant on this question.” She sighed. “But, very well, I shall try to persuade him. I
will
persuade him.” She turned back to Diego, fixed her attention squarely upon him, summoning every last gram of her authority. “This, then, will be our bargain. I shall see to the child. You must see to Max. If you tell him to stay, it will be as if all Mexico had told him to do so. You have my word that he will receive you. He will listen to you. I implore you to help. I …”

Carlota’s voice trailed off, and what happened next was almost beyond Diego’s comprehension. The empress fumbled with the ties on the curtains, and the velvet fabric fell shut. A grey darkness filled the carriage. The empress pressed close against him. The scent of her cologne rose, drifted on the currents of her body’s heat, swelled around him. Her décolletage suddenly released, and her bosom spilled against his chest. Her arms ventured around him, grasping, reaching. Her lips sought his. One of her hands probed below his waist, searched for him there.

For a moment, he felt himself surrendering to this bewildering seduction. He was in a dream, his blood suddenly racing despite himself. And then the sensation stopped. He owed this woman nothing, and he would owe her nothing. He pushed her away, reached up and pounded with his fist on the ceiling of the carriage. “
¡Pare, chofer! ¡Pare!
”

Nothing happened, and so he pounded on the ceiling again.

The coach tottered to a halt. Diego turned back to the empress, who was huddled in a corner of the carriage, her face barely discernible in the half-darkness.

“Your Majesty …” he began. But he could think of nothing further to say, and so he said nothing. He pushed open the carriage door and clambered out into the blinding midday light.

He found himself on the cobbles of some unknown street in some unfamiliar section of the city, and he watched as the black carriage
creaked into motion and rattled away, kicking up waves of coppery dust. The conveyance was flanked by the half-dozen hussars on their tall European mounts, three to each side. They cantered away in unison, and he watched them go. A woman’s hand emerged from the window of the carriage grasping a hat that then sailed through the vivid morning light. The hat spun on the currents of the air and gradually descended until it came to a rest beside a mound of litter. Diego waited until the carriage was gone and the dust had cleared, and then he walked over to his hat. He reached down and picked it up, slapped it against his pant leg, and set it on his head.

He realized now that he would indeed seek out the emperor a last time. If he had influence, as Carlota said, then he would use it—but not as she had proposed. He turned the opposite way the carriage had taken and began to walk in what he thought was the direction of his home.