Désirée (66 page)

"Your Highness, you are the strangest woman I've ever met," exclaimed the young Count.

You only think so because I'm the first commoner you've ever known well." I was suddenly very tired. "You've always been at court or in royal palaces. Now you are aide to a silk merchant's daughter. Try to get used to it, won't you?"

Paris, February, 1813

The letter was delivered to me at seven o'clock in the evening.

I ordered the carriage immediately, and asked Count Rosen to accompany me.

"To the Hôtel Dieu?" My Swedish coachman, unfortunately, hasn't yet learned his way around Paris.

"The Hôtel Dieu is a hospital," and because he still looked bewildered, I said, "Drive to Notre-Dame; the hospital is opposite."

The wet paving stones shimmered in many colours. "I've just received a note from Colonel Villatte. He was able to get Marie's son into a load of wounded who were brought to the Hôtel Dieu. I want to take Pierre home."

"And Colonel Villatte?" Rosen asked.

"He couldn't come to Paris. He's been assigned to to the Rhineland to try to assemble the survivors of his regiment."

"I am glad he's well," murmured Rosen politely.

"He's not well. He's suffering from a shoulder wound. But he hopes to see us again."

"When?"

"Sometime. When it's all over."

"An odd name—Hôtel Dieu."

"The Lord's House. A beautiful name for a hospital. The wounded used to be taken to military hospitals outside the city. But this time so few got back to Paris that military hospitals weren't needed. They simply turned over the big general hospitals."

"But there must be thousands and thousands of wounded. Where are they?"

"Why do you torment me? You've heard hundreds of times that they fell to the wolves, and their bones lie under the snow." I caught my breath.

"I beg Your Highness' pardon."

I was ashamed. One doesn't shout at an aide, aides can't talk back. "The survivors were first taken to emergency hospitals in Smolensk and Wilna and other towns. Then Cossacks came and I don't know what happened to the wounded. There weren't any more wagons to bring them any farther. A few thousand are in Germany, and only one load has been brought to Paris. Somehow Villatte managed to send Pierre on this."

"What's wrong with Pierre?"

"Villatte didn't say. So I haven't told Marie anything. Well, here's the Cathedral. The hospital is to the left, coachman."

The gate was locked. Rosen pulled the bell cord. Suddenly the door opened a crack. The porter had only one arm, and I saw by his medals that he'd been wounded in the Italian campaign. "No visitors allowed," he said.

"This is Her Royal Highness . . ."

"No visitors allowed."

The door was slammed shut.

"Please knock, Count!"

Rosen knocked. He knocked loud and long. Finally it again opened a crack. I pushed Rosen aside and said quickly, "I have a permit to visit the hospital."

"Have you a special pass?" he asked skeptically.

"Yes."

We were finally admitted and found ourselves in a dark gateway lighted only by the candle in the hand of the disabled soldier. "Your pass, madame?"

"I haven't it with me. I am King Joseph's sister-in-law."

He held the candle up so that the light fell on my face.

"You will understand," I continued, "that I could have a pass at any time. But I was in such a hurry I couldn't spare the time. I've come for a wounded man," I said. And because we didn't answer, I reassured him. "I really am King Joseph's sister-in-law."

"I recognize you, madame, I have often seen you at parades. You are Marshal Bernadotte's wife."

I smiled in relief. "Have you perhaps served under my husband?"

His face didn't relax. He was silent.

"Please call someone who can show us the way to the wards," I said.

But he didn't move. The man made me uncomfortable.

"Lend us your candle, and we'll find the way ourselves," I suggested helplessly.

He handed me the candle, stepped back, and vanished in the darkness. But we heard his voice: "Marshal Bernadotte's wife," he sneered. With that he spat loudly and it spattered on the floor.

Count Rosen took the candle from me, for my hand was shaking violently. "Forget this man, we must search for Pierre," I said.

We groped our way up the broad staircase. Rosen held up the candle: a corridor with many doors. The doors were ajar. We heard moaning and sharp cries. I resolutely pushed open the first door and was assailed by a terrible stench. Blood, sweat, excrement—I rallied, and breathed deep so as not to, be overcome. The moaning was close to us now, right at my feet. I took the candle from Rosen and looked down. There were beds on both sides of the room, and in the middle a row of straw mattresses. The other end of the room, where a candle and a sacred flame burned, seemed very far away. At a table with a candle sat a nun.

"Sister—"

But my voice could not be heard above the moaning an groaning. I could hardly hear the whimpering at my feet. "Water, water . . . " I lowered the candle. On the straw sack lay a man with a bandaged head. His mouth was wide open, and in his agony he tried to say some word, time and again. I raised my skirts so as not to brush against his poor face and groped my way forward a few steps. "Sister—" At last the nun heard me, picked up her candle and came over to us. I saw a thin expressionless face under a huge white winged cap.

"Sister, I'm looking for a wounded man named Pierre Dubois."

It didn't seem to surprise her.

"All day long women stand in front of the hospital and beg to be admitted, hoping to find their relatives or to get news of them. We let no one in. This is no sight for wives, fiancées and mothers."

"I—but I have a permit to search for Pierre Dubois," I insisted.

"We can't help you, there are so many here we don't know their names," gently, and indifferently, too.

"Then how can I find him?" I sobbed.

"I don't know," said the nun politely. "If you have a permit to search for him, you'd better search. Go from bed to bed, and perhaps you'll find him."

She turned in her soft-soled shoes and went back to her table. "Water, water—" the whimpering continued.

"Sister, can't you give the man a drink?"

She stood still. "He has a stomach wound and isn't allowed to drink. Besides, he's unconscious, the wound in his head—" She disappeared from the light thrown by my candle.

I closed my eyes for a moment. The smell of blood mingled with the stench from the pans between the beds and the sacks of straw. I shook myself. "We must go from bed to bed," I said to Rosen.

And we walked from bed to bed, from straw sack to straw sack, directing our light on every face. Irresolutely I looked down on bandaged eyes and noses, bitten, bleeding lips. Perhaps . . . No, not that one. I saw a man who hiccupped between every breath, like that General Duphot who had bled in my arms many years before. I saw a smile on a waxy yellow face, and went on. The man smiled only because he had just died. His neighbour, dazzled by the light of my candle, opened his eyes wide and tried to ask me something, but I had gone on to the next one and couldn't hear his plea. This search I must spare you, Marie. This is more than a mother could bear. The bed before the last, and then the door.

Pierre was not in this ward.

We went to the next. I raised my skirt, shone the light on the first straw sack, on the second, hesitated before every bandaged head, closed my eyes at the sight of a shattered chin, but forced them open again to study the face. Perhaps . . . No, definitely not Pierre.

I went on searching, searching. . . . We were nearly at the end of the room before the nun noticed us. She was still very young, her eyes were full of pity. "Are you looking for your husband, madame?" I shook my head. The light from my candle fell on an emaciated arm with a small round wound, covered with a crust. The crust moved—lice. "Wounds of this kind heal by themselves," the nun said gently, "when the soldiers get enough to eat. So many of them starved during the retreat. But perhaps you'll still find the man you're seeking, madame."

Pierre wasn't in this ward either.

In the corridor Rosen leaned suddenly against the wall. I held up the candle. Beads of sweat shone on his forehead. He turned quickly, swayed forward a few steps, and was sick. I wanted to comfort him, but that would have embarrassed him. All I could do was wait until he felt better. While I waited I noticed a sacred red flame. I went over to it slowly. It burned under a statue of the Madonna. A simple, unpretentious figure in a blue and white gown, with round red cheeks and sad eyes. The little boy in her arms was rosy and laughing. I put my candle on the floor and folded my hands. I hadn't done that for many years. The little red light flickered, from the many doors came the awful sounds. I pressed my hands together. Then I heard footsteps behind me and picked up my candle. "I humbly beg Your Highness' pardon," murmured my young Swede apologetically. I gave my Madonna one last look, her chubby face was again in shadow. We mothers, I thought, we mothers. . . .

In front of the next door, I said, "You'd better wait outside, I'll go in alone."

He hesitated. "It's my duty to stay with Your Highness until we find him," he said, a little shame-faced.

"Stay outside, Count," I said firmly, and left him.

My candle had already hovered over all the beds on the right side. At the end of the room sat an old nun reading a little black book. She, also, looked at me without surprise. "I'm looking for a certain Pierre Dubois," I said, and realized myself how hopeless my voice sounded.

"Dubois? I believe we have two Dubois here. One of them . . ." She took me by the hand and led me to a straw sack in the middle of the room. I knelt down, and my candle shone on tangled white hair, an emaciated face. His bony knuckles kneaded his stomach, his knees were drawn up, a stupefying stench rose from the straw. The nun's strong hand helped me up. "Dysentery, like most of them. They lived on snow water and raw horsemeat. Is that your Dubois?"

I shook my head.

She led me to the left bank of beds. To the last bed. At the head of the bed, I raised my candle. The dark eyes were wide open, staring at me. The swollen lips had bloody cracks. I lowered the candle. "Pierre."

He continued to stare straight ahead.

"Pierre—don't you recognize me?"

"Of course," he murmured indifferently. "Mme la maréchale."

I leaned over him. "I've come—to get you. We're taking you home, Pierre. Now. To your mother."

His face showed no emotion.

"Pierre—aren't you glad to go home?"

No answer.

I turned, perplexed, to the nun. "That's my Pierre Dubois. The one I was looking for. I want to take him home and get him well. His mother is waiting for him there. I have a carriage. Perhaps someone will help me—"

"The porters have all gone home. You must wait until tomorrow, madame."

But I didn't want to leave Pierre there another minute. "Is he very badly wounded? My ai-a gentleman is waiting for me outside the ward. Together we could help Pierre Dubois, if he can just manage the stairs . . ."

The nun lifted my hand, in which I held the candle. The
light fell on the blanket. Where Pierre's legs should have been, it was flat. Quite flat. "I have a coachman downstairs who can help me," I said quietly. "I'll be right back, Sister."

A figure swayed out from the wall near the door. "Ask our coachman to come up, Count. He must carry Pierre down the carriage. Here, take my candle. And bring all the robes we have in the carriage."

Then I waited. No more and never again will he walk, I thought. And so it is in the Dear Lord's House. One learns how to pray, another gives up. The whole world seemed like this Dear Lord's House. And we've made the world what it is. We, the mothers of sons, and you the sons of mothers.

Their footsteps echoed. I met Rosen and the coachman as they came into the ward. "Please help us, Sister, we must wrap him up warmly. And Johansson—" I nudged the coachman and he stepped forward. "And Johansson will carry him down."

The Sister lifted Pierre's shoulders, he couldn't resist. His eyes burned with hatred. "Leave me in peace, madame, leave me alone—" The nun flung back the bed covering. I shut my eyes and held up my candle for her. When I opened my eyes again, Pierre Dubois lay in front of me like a wrapped-up package.

That's how I brought Marie's son home to her.

Paris, beginning of April, 1813

In half an hour, I shall speak to him for the last time in my life, I thought, and put some silver paint on my eyelids.

Then this long relationship, which began as first love, will be over. . . . I painted my lips with deep red, and put on my new hat, a high tight-fitting hat, which ties under my chin with a rose bow and which I wasn't sure was becoming to me. I studied myself a long time in the mirror. So this was how he would remember me: a crown princess with silver eyelids, a violet velvet costume, a bouquet of pale violets in the low V-neck. And a new hat with a rose-coloured bow.