“I know quite a bit of Spanish. I can imitate the Spanish accent,” I said, enjoying myself. “I am a Mameluke with General Savarrry,” I added, garbling the words and hollowing out my voice.
“That could work if you invert the genders of nouns and only use verbs in the infinitive. Merde, if Molière could only hear me!” concluded Maryse.
And there I was, trotting along the left-hand side of the road, my skin tinted a chestnut brown and dressed up as a Caliph, although I must have looked more like a Turkish clown, since every soldier I passed, without exception, pointed and burst out laughing at the sight of me: “Have a good day, Lieutenant Mohammed! Mecca is behind you, cretin! Ugh, it reeks of of camel! Has the carnival arrived?” they shouted. But the fact was, pressing ahead through the mockery and the laughter, I was getting closer and closer to Robert, and leaving the rest behind: the carts laden with barrels of flour, rice, peas and lentils, jugs of oil, strings of garlic, casks of wine and cognac and huge rocks of salt, as well as the contingent of walking meat—old cattle slavering at the mouth, lame and poorly patched-up horses. By midmorning I had already counted fifty wagons piled high with animal fodder, uniforms, saddles, harnesses and even drums. By noon, thanks to Jeudi’s long stride, I had come to the ambulances, and to the wounded, calm and as silent as blindfolded marionettes waiting for someone to pull on their strings (and if Robert were among them?). Then I passed the wagons filled with powder kegs and munitions, the cannons pulled along by four horses—the howitzers by six—and the lines of artillerymen on foot, whose gray uniforms I had already learned to recognize. Then I left behind the endless companies of musketeers, many of them barefoot and in rags, some clenching empty pipes between their teeth, others talking amongst themselves, but most of them quite serious, surely thinking of all they were missing—a bed, a meal of roasted meat, the kiss of a loved-one. And thus marched the 5th Battalion on the road to Linz, across the plains and cropped, straw-colored fields, through a sudden cool breeze that foretold of rain, a wind out of the west that sent shakos and balls of snarled hay tumbling.
“Where are you going, Mameluke?” demanded a Dragoon lieutenant who, flanked by half a dozen men, had blocked my way.
“9th Hussars!” I cried, pulling up on the reins and forcing poor Jeudi, who was already past the point of exhaustion, to rear up on his hind legs.
“They are over there,” said the lieutenant, looking at me curiously and extending his arm toward a distant cavalry troop whose colors were blurred in the whirls of dust and the strange violet light of that afternoon. “Your horse is on the verge of collapse,” he added, noting Jeudi’s ragged breathing and lathered muzzle. “But this is not a Mameluke’s horse.”
“Cuirassier horse. My horse break hoof,” I said firmly.
“From whom is your message?” he asked, with a suspicious air.
“General Savary. Imperial Guard.”
The lieutenant nodded assent. Before turning his horse, he advised me to dismount and to go by foot along the road. “You needn’t hurry. We’ll be stopping shortly, as soon as the sun sets . . . or the rain begins,” he added, peering at the thick clouds in the western sky.
Accepting his advice, I crossed my leg over the fleece that covered Jeudi’s saddle and jumped to the ground. After ten hours of riding, my muscles ached atrociously. I took a few steps and promptly realized that the pain in my waist and upper thighs would make it nearly impossible for me to walk. Suddenly, as though he’d only been waiting for me to climb off his back, the noble Jeudi folded his front legs, gave a muffled snort, and fell on his side, hooves in the air, smacking the ground with a dull and fatal thud. I knew immediately that there was nothing to be done. That old horse had fought his final battle. This time, he hadn’t charged against an enemy battalion, but rather, against time, my time, my desire to reach Robert as soon as possible. And he had lost. Unable to stand, he’d be slaughtered at dawn and served to the musketeers I’d seen marching a few hours back. Yes, I thought, horrified, Jeudi will be disemboweled, quartered, and eaten, just like so many other useless horses. I could not bear to think of it further. I merely untied the saddlebag containing my jewels and papers, and abandoned the rest of my luggage. With an abrupt gesture, I turned away from Jeudi, and began walking toward the road, by now scarcely visible. My legs were stiff, as though made of wood. On top of everything, it started to rain, first a few fat, scattered drops that pelted my ridiculous turban like hailstones, but quickly becoming a torrential downpour.
I have no idea how far I walked. In my memory, I see myself—as sometimes happens in dreams—wandering through the rain and the night like a lost little girl, crying out in anguish and desolation, my voice gone hoarse from screaming Robert’s name.
This morning, as I always do after drinking my ounce of rum cured with garlic cloves—a Cuban remedy, highly recommended for rheumatism and as a strengthening tonic for the body—I began to revise the pages I wrote yesterday and crossed out, in red ink, many unnecessary adjectives, a defect characteristic of my writing, as is my illegible handwriting—a doctor’s script that is difficult, even for Milly, to transcribe cleanly. I also discarded an episode that, no matter how hard I tried, I could not manage to narrate in a natural way, perhaps because, in it, I spoke of how I had finally reunited with Robert on that harrowing night. In any case, my conscience is clear; I have spared from posterity those “sublime and poignant lines”—as my Milly, ever the romantic, called them—in which I described our reunion, how safe I felt under his cloak, the tender words and professions of love that we whispered in each other’s ears beneath the drumming of the rain, how, from then on, Robert called me, affectionately, “my little Turk.” To complete my narrative of the episode, I’ll mention that, days later, I entered Vienna hidden in a wagon belonging to Ma Valoin, sutler of the 9th Hussar battalion, a voluminous and good-natured woman, without whose complicity I would never have been able to remain by my lover’s side.
Vienna surrendered on the 11th of November. The Grande Armée’s triumphal march lasted two full days and nights, though I, myself, was witness only to the cavalry passing by. Although the Austrian Court had fled to Budapest, the vast majority of Viennese citizens did not appear to fear our troops, so much so, in fact, that thousands of them lined up, on both sides of the road, to watch, openmouthed and somewhat shamelessly, as the incomparable military machine that had conquered them paraded by. Upon seeing the Mamelukes pass by, I asked myself how on earth anyone had mistaken me for one of those exotic-faced Moors with jet-black eyes. It also amazed me, dressed now in Ma Valoin’s drapey clothing, with a red handkerchief knotted about my head, that people were unable to see through my latest disguise. (“The habit makes the nun, my dear,” Maryse would say, years later. “If you dress in mourning, you’ll be a widow or an orphan; if you dress as an old woman, you’ll look ten years older than you are; if you don an ermine cloak and a golden crown, you’ll be a queen.”) In any event, after spending an entire morning watching thousands of Grenadiers, Dragoons, Chasseurs, Cuirassiers, Carabineers, Gendarmes, Lancers, and Hussars file past, I had the thrill of seeing Robert parade by in his dress uniform, his saber unsheathed, his white glove holding the reins of his mount Patriote as delicately as if he were carrying a cup of tea. We were married that same week.
My honeymoon lasted for three nights—during the day Robert worked inspecting the city’s arsenal, whose stores of weapons and gunpowder had been captured intact. I could narrate those nights one by one, during which Robert went about successively filling all the portals of my body with love, erasing the rushed and mediocre experience in Strasbourg. How shall I explain those long hours dedicated to my apprenticeship in the erotic arts? Though “apprenticeship” isn’t the right word, since what I mean has to do with that false passivity of the novice who, though appearing to give herself over like a living statue,