The Secret Life of Josephine: Napoleon's Bird of Paradise Page 3

  “Let me read her letter to you,” he went on, putting on his glasses and unfolding the thick sheet.

  “My dear Joseph,

  I am writing in haste to tell you excellent news which I am sure will benefit our entire family. Our dear Alexandre, who is now seventeen years old and a junior officer in the Sarre regiment, desires to marry one of your daughters. Once he is married he will begin to receive his inheritance, which is an annual income of forty thousand livres. Please obtain passage on the next ship for yourself and one of your daughters. I will order her trousseau once she arrives in Paris. No time must be lost.

  Ever your affectionate Edmee Renaudin”

  “Can I go please, father? I never liked Alexandre much, but I’m sure I will love Paris.” I hugged myself and held my breath, watching my father’s face.

  “I am not convinced that we should send either of you girls to Paris,” my mother said. “I don’t trust Edmee. She’s a schemer.”

  “The scheme,” said my father icily, “is quite transparent, my dear. The boy wants his money. For that he needs a wife. If we provide one, he will overlook her lack of dowry and reward us by saving us from bankruptcy.”

  “And what of Edmee’s profit in this scheme?”

  “Ha! That’s easy enough to guess,” said my plain-featured, iron-grey-haired grandmother, who had a low opinion of the beautiful Edmee. “Her old lover Beauharnais is dying. How old is he now? Sixty? Sixty-five? And gouty and feeble, from what I hear from my acquaintances in the capital. Edmee won’t get any of his fortune when he dies—she’s only his mistress, after all—so she wants to marry his son Alexandre to her niece. That way she knows she will get her share, in time.”

  “How accurately you put it, mother-in-law. And how discreetly. But you overlook the obvious. We too will be part of the scheme. We will profit more than Edmee will. Yeyette will go to France, marry a well-to-do officer, and live a life of comfort, sending money to us every month here in Martinique. Won’t you, Yeyette?” I nodded vigorously, afraid to speak. “We can sell Les Trois-Ilets and move to Fort-Royal—”

  “Never!” Father was interrupted by mother, whose loud utterance made my ears ring.

  Father sighed, grandmother snorted.

  “If you send me to Paris, I will give you every sou Alexandre lets me have. Enough to buy you a new plantation if you like.”

  “Thank you, Yeyette, but I don’t believe your husband will be quite that rich.”

  I thought of Alexandre, blond and fair like Scipion but superior in his manner and fastidious and snobbish. I had not seen Alexandre in eight years, not since he had left Martinique when he was nine years old and I was six. I remembered him very well indeed. He had lived with us all my life and most of his, tormenting me and my sister Catherine and being tormented in turn by bigger and tougher boys who called him a sissy. Adults liked Alexandre because he was polite to them, and highly intelligent. We children hated him because he was mean and arrogant.

  But what did any of that matter? I would be going to Paris—if only my mother would agree. But of course she would agree, she had to. Hadn’t Orgulon told me that I would go across the water and live my important life there? Here was my opportunity.

  After three days of arguments, during which Euphemia and I quietly packed my trunks—for we both felt certain that I would go to France— my mother relented and my father had his way. He inquired at Fort-Royal and found a ship bound for the harbor of Brest. I said my tearful goodbyes to Scipion and, full of excitement, prepared to embark.

  But on the day we were to go, we suddenly heard the booming of cannon across the bay in Fort-Royal. The English navy, we learned, had seized the nearby island of St. Lucia and were attempting to invade Martinique. My father, ordinarily so indolent, rode swiftly to summon the militia. Our family barricaded ourselves in the sugar mill. Our navy fought the English, as I prayed for Scipion’s safety.

  There was no way I could go to France to be married. I was trapped on our island, and no one, not even Orgulon, could release me.

  5

  FOR MONTHS WE WERE AT WAR, and it was during those months that I had a series of strange experiences that I have never spoken of to anyone. Experiences that revealed to me something vital about who I am.

  There was a boy who came around the plantation at dusk, and watched for me. Sometimes I saw him lurking in the shadows, or hiding in the bushes near the mill. Once I thought I saw him in a long line of convicts chained together, walking along a path beside one of our fallow fields. Often he came to the beach at Les Trois-Ilets, that loveliest of white sand beaches where Euphemia took Manette and me to swim in the clear aquamarine water and watch the dolphins leap and dive farther out toward the islands in the bay.

  The boy never quite revealed himself fully, he stayed mostly out of sight but he made sure I caught tantalizing glimpses of him and he seemed to sense that I welcomed his presence—how, I don’t know.

  He wasn’t like anyone else. That is, he wasn’t a laborer or a member of the Grands Blancs (though he dressed in the ragged remains of a nobleman’s embroidered waistcoat and breeches) and he did not have the look of a townsman from Fort-Royal. I wondered whether he might be a renegade from a titled family in France (we had a number of these on the island, exiles from all that was familiar to them, strangers in our midst and nearly all of them wretchedly unhappy) or a runaway soldier or even a pirate or smuggler. But a pirate would be away at sea for long periods of time, I reasoned, while this boy was nearly always there at Les Trois-Ilets, at dusk, and smugglers were rich, far too rich to dress the way he did, in castoff finery.

  He was an enigma, and that made him all the more interesting to me. And, of course, I liked the way he looked. His long dark straight hair was tied back loosely off his neck, with one brown lock hanging down over one eye. His face, deeply tanned from the tropical sun, was lean, his lips full, his eyes a deep brown. His torn shirt was open at the neck, showing his muscular chest. He was lithe, like a panther, when he moved.

  Had Euphemia seen the boy, she would surely have yelled at him and shooed him away, for he didn’t belong on our land and for all I knew he might have been planning to break into the mill and steal the money (very little money, in actuality) my father kept in a chest in his bedroom. But he was clever; he didn’t let Euphemia see him. I had the feeling that he only revealed himself to me.

  I found myself watching for him each evening at dusk, finding excuses to sit near a window with my embroidery frame or even, when I was feeling bold, to sit out on our veranda and pretend to be watching the sunset—when in fact I was watching for the intriguing boy.

  I was of course greatly preoccupied with Scipion during those months, though he was on duty most of the time, on his ship guarding the harbor and occasionally engaged in a skirmish with the English fleet. He came ashore from time to time and visited me, and between visits he sent me love letters and keepsakes wrapped in squares of silk and tied in wide satin ribbons. His visits were intense, and passionate. We went riding on the grounds of the estate, or we met at my uncle’s house and walked in the gardens or, every month or so, Scipion took me to a dinner or ball given in Fort-Royal by one of his senior officers. We were often alone, and then he took me in his arms and kissed me.

  Scipion was in anguish over the fact that I would be leaving Martinique as soon as peace was restored and going to France.

  “How can you think of marrying that fop Alexandre de Beauharnais when you could stay right here and marry another Grand Blanc?” Scipion knew Alexandre slightly, his squadron was based in Brest as was Alexandre’s regiment.

  “It is all arranged within our families,” I said. “I have nothing to say about it. Besides, you will not be in Martinique forever. You and I can meet in Paris.” I moved closer to him and smiled up at him in a way that always made his face go soft with longing. By this time, Scipion had told me that he was engaged, to the daughter of a marquis, an engagement that had been in place since they were children.


  “Besides,” I said, “you would object to any man I married, whether here in Martinique or elsewhere.”

  “I will be jealous, yes. Perhaps I shall challenge your Alexandre to a duel, and shoot him.”

  “I warn you, he is a very good shot. Or so my aunt tells me.”

  We both laughed at this, and kissed, and I felt a pang, knowing that our meetings could not go on forever. Yet there was a part of me, even when I was near Scipion, that was mindful of the boy who waited for me each evening at dusk, and who I knew would be there again that night.

  There came an evening when I looked for the dark boy in vain. I went to the window of my bedroom, and looked out, and he was not there. I went out on the veranda and peered into the shadowy foliage, through the palm trees and out toward the beach. But his familiar figure was absent. I waited, minute after minute, the minutes stretching into half an hour, then an hour. He did not come into view.

  Where was he? What had become of him? Did he have an accident? Had he been waylaid and attacked? I knew that there were gangs of renegade slaves on the island, and thieves and pickpockets in abundance in Fort-Royal. Had he been the victim of criminals?

  I worried over him, and resumed my watch after supper though it was too dark to see anything, only the broken turf that ringed the mill. I waited until moonrise, but still saw nothing other than the silvery light reflecting off the broad plantains and palm fronds, a light that seemed to me nothing more than a silvery emptiness without the outline of the boy.

  The following morning Euphemia and I went by cart to Fort-Royal to buy a length of lawn for undergarments for my mother and Manette. My mother did not like to go to town for fear she would encounter one of my father’s mistresses, and she did not trust any of the servants to know her taste. So she sent us in her place.

  I loved going to Fort-Royal. The town hummed with activity, and I was drawn in to its color and the life of its dusty unpaved streets, full of deep ruts and holes which no one ever bothered to fill. The cries of the street vendors, the braying of donkeys and squawking of chickens filled the humid, still air and every so often a cluster of drunken men would burst into song as they reeled past. Sharp smells lingered among the rickety stalls where live chickens and rabbits, ducks and barrels of crabs, rum and flowers, baskets and cheap crockery were displayed for sale. As everywhere on the island the scent of sugar was strong, along with the pungent odors of pig manure and leather, unwashed bodies and roses and cinnamon and garlic.

  I left Euphemia to select the lawn and shop for herself (she had a weakness for liquorice) while I went off by myself toward the street of the charm-sellers. African women in loose cotton blousons cut low on the bosom and skirts tight across the hips strolled along, sampling the food and feeling the goods offered for sale. I had always admired the frank sensuality of their swaying walk, the way they balanced their purchases on their hips and held their heads proudly, wide bandanas covering their black hair. The street of the charm-sellers was full of such women, stopping to listen as the vendors pointed to their bottles and baskets and described each of their wares.

  “This potion will bring him back to you!” “Put this charm under your pillow, and you will dream of your lover.” “Here is a tea to mend your broken heart!” “Love-juice to make you a mother!”

  There were cures for head colds and upset stomachs, fetishes to restore virility and remedies for the English disease, the bane of soldiers and sailors who slept with women of the streets. (Fort-Royal had plenty of these, many of them beautiful exotic women of mixed race who took pride in their ancestry.)

  I bought a charm for headaches for my mother and one to bring prosperity for my father, intending to put it under his bed when I got home. I bought a love potion, and tucked it into my bag. I was turning to leave the small shop to rejoin Euphemia, when I saw him.

  He was quite close to me, leaning against the side of a low building, his arms folded and his gaze fixed on me with such intensity that I almost reeled at the sight of him. I was in no doubt, he was the dark boy I had seen so often at Les Trois-Ilets. His hair fell untidily across his forehead in the same way, he wore the same breeches and torn waistcoat, and he aroused the same mixture of excitement and fear in me as he had at the plantation.

  I reacted quickly, turning away from him and walking as rapidly as I could along the rutted unpaved street in the opposite direction. I walked on, tripping, my slippers snagging on objects in the roadway. Was he following me? I felt that he was, though I didn’t dare turn to look. Up one narrow, twisting street and down another I half-walked, half-ran until I turned into an alley where a cart had overturned and a crowd had gathered. All was confusion as some people sought to right the cart and others rushed in to gather the limes and plantains and barrels of meal that had fallen from it.

  Trapped within the widening crowd, I was unable to go forward or back. Just then I felt an arm encircle my waist. The touch was like fire, like no touch I had ever felt. I drew in my breath, and in the next instant his mouth was against my ear. I felt his warm breath, and the tingling along my spine overwhelmed me. Then, just as quickly as the touch had begun, it was withdrawn. I saw his back as he adroitly slipped through the unruly crowd and disappeared from view.

  It was the boy, of course. He was teasing me, tormenting me. I thought about what had happened the night before and imagined that he had been watching me, keeping just out of sight, enjoying my distress as the night grew later and later and I had no sight of him. Like it or not, I was engaged in an erotic game of hide and seek with this boy, a game he controlled but I enjoyed.

  All the way back to Les Trois-Ilets, riding along, chatting with Euphemia who shared her liquorice with me, I watched the lush roadside foliage for a stirring of the leaves, a glimpse of shirt or a quick movement of a hand. Once or twice I looked back along the way we had come, thinking that he might be following us on horseback. But the road was clear, save for an occasional donkey-cart like ours, or a swift rider on a costly mount, galloping toward Morne Mirande or one of the forts on the north part of the island. There was no further sign of the boy, only the marks of his hand on my pale pink sash, and the lingering memory of his warm breath in my ear, a memory that continued to make me tingle with desire.

  6

  EUPHEMIA TOOK ME AND MANETTE to the beach most afternoons, when it was not raining. We would go for a long swim and then lie in the shade of the palm trees, drowsing and napping. I loved these long lazy afternoons, the swim in the warm clear water, watching the yellow and blue and green fish dart and hover around and under me, the sun dazzle on the water, like a splash of gold across its aquamarine surface, the heat of the fine soft white sand between my toes, and the delicious tiredness that came over me and made my eyelids droop.

  The first time I saw the boy at the beach I was startled. Euphemia and Manette were in their hammocks, asleep, and I was lying on a blanket under a palm tree. There was no one else on the beach. Euphemia was snoring gently and Manette did not stir. I awoke suddenly, and saw the boy walking purposefully toward the gentle surf. Ignoring me, he was nearly at the water’s edge when he flung off his clothes and jumped onto a rock. He stood there, in his slim nakedness, as if poised to dive in.

  I had seen naked slaves before, but never a naked white man—or boy my own age. He was beautiful, I thought, as he stood there, his muscles taut, his shoulders well molded, his stomach flat and his penis and scrotum like those I had seen on the copies of Greek statues my uncle Robert had in his gardens in Fort-Royal.

  He let me admire him for several minutes before plunging into the bay and swimming to one of the islands, where he disappeared, not to be seen again for the rest of the afternoon. With the image of his body strongly in my mind I napped once again. Yet the image lingered, and came back to me in dreams over the next several days.

  Just then many things preoccupied my family’s attention and kept our household in a stir. The fighting between our fleet and the British, the news from Scipion (who was w
ounded in a skirmish off St. Lucia at about this time), his urgent messages to me and occasional visits, plus my father’s absence with the militia all kept us in a state of uncertainty. More letters arrived from Aunt Edmee saying how eager Alexandre was for our marriage to take place and how vital it was that father and I come to Paris on the next available ship.

  I answered my aunt’s letters as best I could, explaining that we could not sail as long as the fighting continued and that our island might be captured by the British. I realized as I wrote this that Alexandre might decide to give up on me and choose another bride. My chance to go to Paris might well be slipping away—and with it, my father’s chance to salvage his finances and keep Les Trois-Ilets.

  Restless in mind about these things, I thought of attempting to return to the Sacred Crossroads to consult Orgulon. But the days passed, and I did not climb Morne Gantheaume. Instead I went to the beach with Euphemia and Manette, and forgot my worries as I swam and rested and napped—and watched for the boy.

  One warm afternoon, as I lay napping, I was awakened by the soft touch of his lips on mine. I felt no fear, my body yielded to his and our kiss became an embrace. I wore only a light shift and could feel his strong, muscular flesh close to mine. I lost myself in his arms, forgetting the others, forgetting everything but the feel of him beside me, on top of me, surrounding me. His mouth tasted of fermented cane beer and spices and he smelled of salt water and sweat.

  When he took me he was gentle, without roughness or force. Our bodies merged naturally, as if made for this moment of union. All that I had ever heard about the coupling of man and woman passed into oblivion then, replaced by the pleasures of his touch and the ease with which we changed from strangers to lovers.