The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire

by C. M. Mayo

  José Luis carries it across the damp lawn. Birds sing. The sky is the color of fruit.

  Not so long ago, José Luis imagined that an emperor simply, well, sat on his throne, one serene hand extended to receive kisses. An emperor, he supposed, dressed every day in a sumptuous cloak and carried a scepter and orb studded with diamonds. His was a life of adoration and glory—ha!

  The legs of the folding table groan.

  “That is a heavy one.”

  “Yes, sir.” José Luis pries open the lid.

  “Bonbon?”

  “Thank you, sir.” José Luis dips his hand into the Totonac bowl. Until he came to work for Maximilian, José Luis never could have imagined a gentleman making use of such a thing. The first time he saw this earthen bowl—the eye-popping fire orange, the black caterpillar carved around its circumference—right by the Imperial inkpot, and filled with fancy bonbons, he was perplexed. Why, when His Majesty could have the finest porcelain, the most exquisitely wrought silver, would he want this barbaric pot? At Maximilian’s side, José Luis is learning every day to see with new eyes. The Totonac bowl, for instance, is a superbly proportioned antiquity, its exquisite color, as Maximilian put it, “fiery as the flesh of a Sicilian blood-orange.” Not that José Luis has yet seen such a gruesome fruit (which he is sure must be delicious). One day he hopes to see Sicily, and also Naples, and Rome, and Paris—Europe, not in a picture book, but with his own eyes. That is the dream of his life.

  José Luis is about to bite into the bonbon when Maximilian says, “You’ll want to dunk it in your coffee.” Maximilian clicks his fingers; the footman steps forward and pours. The cup, Sèvres porcelain, has a gold rim and monogram, MIM, for the Latin Maximiliano Imperator de Mexico. The footman’s snow white glove presses on the silver lid. It is the last coffee in the pot, dribbling out thick and grainy.

  José Luis plucks the telegram from the top of the pile. “This just came in, sir—”

  Maximilian interrupts, putting up a finger. “What is the name of that bird?”

  José Luis holds his breath. Above the usual racket, there is one high-pitched hiyee, hiyee!

  “Er, I wouldn’t know, sir.”

  A curtain of boredom comes down over Maximilian’s face—or, more likely, José Luis thinks, disappointment. For a Mexican, José Luis has beautiful penmanship, more than passable Latin (and some Greek, too), but he was not taught one blessed thing about botanizing. With an inward sigh, he reminds himself, yet again, We Mexicans are so backward.

  “Perhaps,” Maximilian says, clasping his hands (a knuckle cracks), “you might be of more help with the dispatch box?”

  Hiyee, hiyee! The nameless yellow-breasted bird alights on the topmost branch of the jacaranda in the next patio, which happens to stand directly outside the door to Princess Iturbide’s bedroom.

  Hiyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

  Just when she was beginning to drift back to sleep! Pepa pulls the pillow over her good ear. But the bird’s cry is too shrill to muffle:

  HIYEEEEEEEEEEEE!

  This (she grits her teeth), after she has been lying awake since four in the morning—an hour Maximilian and a few hard-bitten sailors might accustom themselves to but one that she, as would anyone with a squib of sense, considers a perversity. It is a holy miracle that she got a wink of sleep at all! So appalled she is by Maximilian’s whim to uproot the court to this hamlet, two bone-jarring days’ travel up and down the sierra—good gracious, this is no time to abandon the capital and go gallivanting about with butterfly nets and beetle jars! Matamoros is under siege; the whole state of Guerrero, from Acapulco to Iguala, is in thrall to guerrillas. And Pepa got it from Frau von Kuhacsevich, who got it from Lieutenant Weissbrunn, that whilst the empress was in Yucatan, Maximilian fancied a visit to Acapulco, but General Bazaine nixed it because it would have been impossible to maintain security for his person. That is the sum of things!

  Oh, but in Mexico City Maximilian felt cramped, “an oyster in a bucket of ice,” he said. Over the past two months, the few times Pepa chanced to see Maximilian, he spoke of the empress’s dispatches from Yucatan proudly but with—Pepa recognized it when she saw it—a glint of green. If Maximilian could not have his expedition to Yucatan, by Jove, he was going to go some place tropical! And Maximilian would not be outshone by his consort. Oh no . . . A mere visit to Cuernavaca would not do; he had to serve himself the whole enchilada with the big spoon: an Imperial Residence with landscaping, fountains, an ornamental pond stocked with exotic fish, and furnishings and flubdubs aplenty, comme ça and de rigueur. Whom did he imagine he was impressing with this caprice? And poor Charlotte, so exhausted after Yucatan . . . And as if the von Kuhacseviches were not already floundering in their attempts to manage the Imperial Household in Mexico City! As if the Mexican Imperial Army could offer its officers anything approaching a living wage! Or keep its depots stocked with gunpowder! It is a monumental waste of time, of effort, of money, and to boot, Casa Borda is crawling with cockroaches, beetles, earwigs, and moths—a bonanza for Professor Bilimek!

  Furthermore, uprooting herself and Prince Agustín to Cuernavaca could not have come at a less convenient time. She had just taken possession of her new house, and this itself was a small disaster. The week before Christmas, the son of that unfortunate Count Villavaso finally put the house up for sale again. He apologized for offering it at such a price, but prices had gone up generally, and as his family was removing to Spain, he could not accept one peso less. Pepa, by then a veteran of three exasperating months of searching, agreed to pay the full price—and right away, before the place could be overtaken by one army or another desperate to billet their officers. But then the day after the bank transferred the funds, a letter arrived at Chapultepec Castle, that Doña Juliana de Gómez Pedraza had been robbed—her silver cleaned out, all her ivories, jewelry, clothing, half the pantry, and her old cook, Chole, murdered—and she was so beside herself she had determined to quit the city. Querétaro, that was her plan, and she offered Pepa her house, a far finer residence than the count’s, at a price that was—Pepa squeezed her fists and nearly wept—one half what she had just paid.

  And the new wallpaper is being hung, and she is not there to supervise it, nor the delivery of the Parisian gas lamps from the Emporio de Luz, nor the pair of Christofle silver-plate epergnes, nor the Steinway piano—Lord knows where those furniture movers will set it down, never mind that one has marked the floor with chalk. One cannot rely on footmen to supervise, and certainly not on chambermaids lent by Frau von Kuhacsevich (though that was very kind of her). She might have entrusted Lieutenant Weissbrunn to do that job, though he is an odd duck . . . But Weissbrunn’s orders were to accompany them to Cuernavaca. No, the head of the Palace Guard said, this could not be countermanded except by the “highest authority”—in other words, Maximilian—and as that Austrian officer’s tone made clear, if Pepa dared try that avenue, it would cost her.

  Pepa had already reached her limit when she arrived here in this buggy country house to find that she and Prince Agustín had been assigned rooms that front the street! Frau von Kuhacsevich threw up her hands; she was truly, terribly sorry, but nothing could be done because the rooms had been assigned by His Majesty. One was forced to endure the concert of carts clattering over cobblestones, drunken Indians, barking dogs, all this in addition to nonstop crickets and frogs and tomcats yowling and spitting and scrabbling over the rooftop—and then, at what must have been three in the morning, an entire burro train—burros enough to outfit the siege of Troy! And the driver pelting rocks at the beasts (one rock hit the wall right outside her bed!), and he went close by the window, as slow as you please, bellowing at the top of his lungs, “Brrro! Brrro!”

  HiyEEEEE!

  What more, then, is a bird with a blood-curdling screech? Pepa hurls the pillow to the foot of the bed. “May Maximilian shoot it and stuff it for Professor Bilimek’s museum!”

  And this is exactly what Mathilde Doblinger, the empress’s ward
robe maid, is thinking. She’d spied it earlier: a witch-black thing no bigger than a robin, with a stub tail. Then it opened its beak in a cry that could make your hair stand on end! From the sound of it, the creature must have flown over to the other side of the garden, where the Iturbides’ rooms are, thank God.

  She pulls tight the stays in Charlotte’s corset.

  Charlotte says crossly, “Tighter.”

  “But ma’am, you won’t be able to breathe!” Instantly, Mathilde lowers her eyes, for that was an impudence. With as gentle a tug as she can manage, she tightens the stay. Charlotte is insisting on wearing her corset so tight, it leaves welts over her ribs. She has been chewing the lace off her handerchiefs. And she has not stopped this hideous habit of pinching the insides of her arms.

  King Leopold has been with God since early December, but the cruel news did not come to his daughter until sixteen days ago—January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. It crushed her. Already she was in a delicate state, for she had just returned from Yucatan, where she had been made to eat brewlike foods and endure inhuman heat. They ran her like a slave with tours of schools, orphanages, rope factories, audiences, dinners, balls, every day from morning to night—and then, alone in her room, by a guttering candle, or a lamp if they thought to provide one, Charlotte would write letters and reports, pages and pages. And the next day she would be put through the same, and the day after that, it was a merciless treadmill, and they drove her deep into the jungle—Lord in Heaven, those lizards were the size of cats—and she marched to the top of a pyramid in heat that could make a combat soldier faint. In Yucatan, death came close enough, if not to take her, at least to pull her sleeve. Two of the footmen, one an Austrian, the other a Mexican, died of yellow fever. Arriving in Mexico City, Charlotte had circles under her eyes, dust thick in her hair, dust behind her ears, dust even in the creases of her palms. How heartless of Maximilian then to drag her to Cuernavaca.

  He took her down a notch, that’s what Frau von Kuhacsevich says—that Maximilian told Charlotte she should not feel too satisfied with her tour of Yucatan, because elsewhere in Mexico, General Bazaine is not doing his job, his men are lazy, or else stupidly cruel, that is why the guerrillas have been gaining ground. That old lecher—ach, there is much that has come to Matihlde’s ears about Bazaine. For instance, that he is the secret partner in a Mexico City shop that sells imported French laces, ribbons, buttons, silks, stockings, and all the like—and does Bazaine pay duties? Not when he can slip his merchandise into boxes labeled ARMES ET MUNITIONS. As for the Yankees, those vultures, five days after the new year, a gang of drunken Negroes crossed over the Rio Grande, sacked the port of Bagdad, ravished the women, slaughtered the garrison, and Bazaine did nothing. Nothing! He sat on his fat rear end!

  Frau von Kuhacsevich has let slip that she suspects they may all be home in Trieste by year’s end, perhaps sooner. Which would be welcome news for Mathilde, except, she knows, to have to go back, after all this, would send Charlotte over the edge. Frau von Kuhacsevich is not the only one who, back in Trieste, overheard Charlotte say, “I would rather die than spend the rest of my days with nothing to do but stare at the sea.” Trieste is such a windblown provincial town. At low tide, the air out by Miramar Castle smelled fishy. Mathilde had not particularly liked it, either.

  Now, to see Charlotte left an orphan and in this godforsaken situation, Mathilde could weep. But in front of her mistress, Mathilde must be strong. She prays to Mother Mary, Give Charlotte the grace of Your strength.

  Mathilde lays the hoopskirt flat on the floor. Charlotte steps into its circle; Mathilde pulls it up and fastens it around her waist. Then the frock: black crêpe de chine edged with a trim of scalloped black satin and moiré panels with black piping. At the news of her father’s death, Maximilian and Charlotte had raced back to Mexico City, where the court went into strictest mourning. In the Imperial Palace, among heaps of flowers, Maximilian received the condolences of his ministers, the diplomatic corps, the Austrian and the Belgian volunteers, and Bazaine and his ilk. Charlotte would speak to no one; Mathilde brought her food, but she scarcely touched it. Charlotte wanted the shutters closed. She kept a candle flickering before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and knelt—not on her prie dieu, but on the bare floor, and bolt upright—her gaze fixed upon that strange, dark face. Outside, the sun-shocked streets were draped in black. But after a mass had been said in the cathedral, there was no rest for Leopold’s daughter. At once, Maximilian, as was his whim, ordered that she pack up and haul herself once again over the mountains to Cuernavaca, and this time with the entire court, including “Princess” Iturbide and that caterwauling brat.

  Afternoons, when Charlotte comes out onto the veranda, what does she see? Maximilian in his white suit, tossing a ball to another woman’s little boy in his white frock. Charlotte turns a corner and finds Professor Bilimek down on one white knee, showing that boy some bug he has picked up off the ground. That’s right, the Master of Ceremonies has decreed that, here in Cuernavaca, everyone, except the empress, shall wear white. The dirt is still fresh on her father’s grave, and her husband and his court display themselves in white!

  And Maximilian and “Prince” Agustín have grown so fond of each other. “Little cousin,” Maximilian calls him. It is revolting. Princess Iturbide, an elephant in her white clothes, takes up space at every dinner, every tea. She’s scavenged a bit of German now, and in the evenings after dinner, she joins the von Kuhacseviches in games of whist and jackstraws.

  If Maximilian abdicates, will Charlotte be made to play hostess to these people in Trieste as well? Or, is the idea to leave Princess Iturbide in Mexico as regent? But the moment Mathilde begins to wonder about such matters, she feels as if she were bumping around in a dark closet full of dangerous things.

  Mathilde buttons up the back of Charlotte’s frock, and then—Charlotte lifts her arms—Mathilde brings the black silk sash around her waist. With deft fingers, Mathilde ties the bow.

  Now the coiffure. The hairdresser has done so badly, it must be redone. Frau von Kuhacsevich says, to try to find a skilled hairdresser here, one might as well expect to fish a dolphin out of a turtle pond. Having unpinned Charlotte’s hair, Mathilde brings the brush down the length of a chestnut-dark strand. In the mirror Charlotte’s eyes follow the brush. Mathilde knows that the Empress Sissi’s hairdresser keeps a strip of tape along the inside of her apron pocket, so that, when the brush is full, secretly, she swipes it there. Sissi says, “Show me the dead hair.” This hairdresser always shows her the brush clean—therefore, no one else may touch Sissi’s hair. Such are the wages of vanity, to attract, as moths to a flame, deceivers and flatterers. Maximilian, too, is vain. In a hundred ways, but especially with his beard, which he has his valet, Grill, tend with lotions as if it were a woman’s tresses. Maximilian cannot pass a mirror without throwing back his shoulders and regarding himself.

  “Ouch!” Charlotte says.

  Mathilde picks apart the knot. She pins the hair up with tiny hairpins, pulling them one by one from her lips. The sides of the coiffure, combed loosely over the ears, she stuffs with handfuls of lamb’s wool dyed to match. Now (and she hands Charlotte the sandalwood fan to protect her face) the mist of lacquer to keep it set. The finishing is a wreath of black silk rosettes. Mathilde fixes this to Charlotte’s coiffure with another multitude of tiny pins. Once she’s finished, Mathilde hands her the silver hand-mirror. In this way, Charlotte, tilting her head slightly, inspects the back.

  The light has gone out of her eyes. Frau von Kuhacsevich says Charlotte is arrogant, unfeeling; but Mathilde understands: it is, rather, that she has so much feeling. She is a brave soul in suffering. If not for the unbridgeable moat of difference in their rank, Mathilde would embrace her mistress, kiss her, tell her, You are not alone. Have faith in Our Lady. Have faith in God’s mercy.

  On the tray lined with dark blue velvet, Mathilde presents the earrings: black pearls. Mathilde then brings the little box with the live be
etle. The insect is chained to the pin, and on its back is a pasted-on jewel. A souvenir of Yucatan, it is worn as a brooch. Mathilde dislikes having to touch the thing; it wriggles.

  The black pongee parasol trimmed with black ostrich feathers.

  “What?” Charlotte seems confused.

  “Your parasol, ma’am.”

  “I will not be going into the garden.” Charlotte closes her eyes and touches her eyebrows with her fingertips. On the shoulder of her blouse, the jeweled beetle crawls to the end of its chain. “I have such a—” Charlotte’s voice quavers, “beastly headache.”

  “May I bring you a linden flower tea?”

  In barely a whisper: “No.”

  “A cool cloth?”

  Charlotte says no more; as she sweeps by, Mathilde sinks into her deepest curtsey. Charlotte’s footsteps fade down the long veranda. The room feels suddenly hot. The furniture all too large, the mirror greasy. A horsefly swings past, and out the door.

  Mathilde stays, picking the hair out of the silver brush, and then a few strands more off the floor tiles. It is her duty to keep the brushes clean. It is her self-appointed duty to make certain that not one single hair is lost. There are witches in this country.

  Hiyee! In the garden, as she descends the stone steps from the loggia to the ornamental pond, Frau von Kuhacsevich ducks. Hiyee! The yellow-breasted bird swoops low and alights on the rim of a canoe that has drifted into a mass of lily pads. Then, with another ear-splitting cry, the bird darts up and over the wall.