by Thad Carhart
Baptiste smiled, enchanted by the familiar figure standing before him.
“It is good to see you,” she said. “Let’s walk, shall we,” and in a lower tone she added, “Then we can talk undisturbed.” She gave him her arm and said, “You cannot imagine how many men assume that an unaccompanied woman on a park bench is an invitation to mischief.”
They walked arm in arm, and her closeness after the long time apart felt both comfortable and strange, as if they had been together the previous day. “I am very happy to see you again, Maura,” Baptiste said.
“I may as well tell you that you complicated things considerably by showing up at the door of the Collège.”
Baptiste’s cheeks reddened. He told her of Paul’s sudden decision to come to Paris earlier than planned, and that he had had no hope of sending a letter ahead of time.
“A man does not call upon a young lady in the evening,” Maura said firmly. “Fortunately, Monsieur Dubois thought you were the messenger.” She laughed now, a pure, confiding laugh that drew Baptiste in and calmed his fear.
“If you don’t live at the Collège, why do you receive my mail there?” Baptiste asked.
“It is a place I can be sure of receiving messages without causing problems for others. Years ago, when my father was young, his family was very generous to the Revolutionary cause through the Collège. Later he was a pensionnaire there with Jerome Bonaparte and Eugene de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s younger brother and his stepson. He is no friend to the Bourbons and, as you know, his correspondence is closely watched. The Collège allows him to correspond with others by using the names of various teachers and residents who sympathize with his ideas.” She looked around quickly, then continued. “There is one thing I must mention. You wrote that you recalled what my father had to say about the Bourbons. That is the sort of language that could cause trouble if the wrong eyes were to see it. You must be more careful.”
They walked up and down the allées, talking about the months since they had met. Maura told him she had been trying to enroll in the university’s medical school. “A few of the professors have allowed me to be present as an auditor, but there is no question of being allowed to sit examinations. One of them suggested I train as a midwife!”
Baptiste could hear the anger in her words; he found her candor stimulating. “What do you do when you are not studying medicine?” he asked.
“I work with my father in the wine business,” Maura said. “He has many clients in Paris.”
Baptiste was delighted to be hearing English again, especially Maura’s, with its engaging lilt. “And are your parents well?”
“They are. My father is busier than ever with his vineyard, and my mother is in Ireland for a visit. When she returns, I’ll become her special project again.” Maura shook her head slightly.
“What project is that?” he asked.
“She wants to see me married, Baptiste,” Maura said with an exasperated look. “Like any mother, she fears the worst. Fortunately, she is not a very persistent matchmaker.”
“And your father?”
“It is different with my father,” she explained. “I am the one child he has, and in many ways he raised me as he would have raised a son. He trusts me with confidences, he introduces me to clients and political allies, and he teaches me his business. He knows that will end when I marry, and so he is of two minds.”
“What does he think of your attempts to study medicine?”
“He sees no reason why I should not become a doctor,” Maura responded in a matter-of-fact tone. “But he can do very little to open those doors for me or any other woman.”
She held his arm more tightly and Baptiste felt his heart race. For an instant he thought of Theresa, of how they had grown comfortable with each other over time. He felt different now, elated by Maura’s enthusiasm and directness.
“Tell me about yourself,” she said. “What is the purpose of all these travels?”
“I sometimes wonder!” Baptiste exclaimed. “Paul has relatives and friends everywhere, many of them other specialists in natural history.” He mentioned all the places they had visited since August.
“It must sometimes be very tiring,” Maura said.
“It is,” he agreed. “There are days when I think I would as soon die as sit in a coach.” He winced, then continued. “But I’ve never seen any of it before, and I may never again, so I keep my eyes and ears open and learn what I can.”
Maura nodded. “Did you meet anyone of interest?”
“Two or three people,” Baptiste told her. “The rest treated me like an unusual new animal.”
“That’s how I feel in Professor Langlois’s anatomy class! I might as well have two heads, for the way they look at me.”
They both laughed.
“Did you have any adventures on all your travels across Europe?”
Maura asked.
“I almost got myself shot at Paul’s brother’s castle in Silesia,” Baptiste said laconically. He saw Maura’s eyes widen expectantly, and he continued. “I took his nephew and two nieces out to play. They had asked me to show them how Indians hunt. We found a wolf ’s pelt still attached to the head in one of the hunting lodges, and I strapped it to my back and limbs. Then, in the tall grass of a nearby meadow, the children played grazing buffalo and I was the stalking wolf.”
“What happened?”
Baptiste shook his head at the memory. “One of the gamekeepers came upon us and mistook me for a real wolf. When I stood up to reassure him, he took a wild shot, then turned and ran. He thought I was what they call a ‘werewolf,’ some kind of human wolf the peasants in Silesia believe stalks people.”
Maura squeezed his hand. “I’m glad the gamekeeper was a bad shot.”
Baptiste reddened as he saw that there was more than playfulness in Maura’s eyes. Suddenly he mimed the gamekeeper’s frantic flight for three or four steps, hands high above his head and face contorted in fear. Together he and Maura exploded in laughter, and only after they sat together on a bench were they able to regain their composure. Looking toward the far side of the gardens, Baptiste could see the river’s glint through the gold-tipped iron pickets that enclosed the park. Then the light looked particularly soft, and the trees and footpaths and the distant fountains seemed to glow.
In the days ahead Baptiste could think of nothing but Maura. Beyond her beauty, he was attracted to her practical attitude. Though she was young, like him, she had learned something essential about people in her travels with her father. Her discernment and curiosity pleased him, and her way of thinking for herself reminded him of some of the free spirits he had encountered on the frontier. She was more selfreliant than any of the young women he had met in Europe. Were the Irish all so full of independence? In Maura’s company he had experienced a quickening of all his senses, and a near giddiness that he had not known before. She even walked forcefully, with a stride that knew where it wanted to go.
Baptiste considered what Maura had said about her mother’s concerns, and he remembered Theresa’s thoughts on the importance of a respectable marriage. He understood that for him a marriage in Europe was unimaginable: he was landless, he had no fortune, he was of mixed race, and he was from a far-distant country. No European family would consider him a worthy match for their daughter. I’m not looking for a wife anyway, he told himself. That Theresa should take him as a lover and teach him about European ways made sense when he looked at it from a distance. She was nearly twice his age and had no intention of making a life with anyone else. Her wealth and position allowed her to remain entirely independent; she was the only woman he knew who could say that. Their paths clearly would part.
But Maura was genuinely interested in seeing him and knowing him better, and he wondered if there could be any future for them together. He dismissed the thought as he imagined all the reputable young men who would want to propose marriage, and their distinguished mothers hovering nearby, waiting to inspect the merchandise.
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Paul and Baptiste stayed in Paris for a week, so Baptiste and Maura were able to see each other once more before he returned to Württemberg. They met in the early afternoon at Maura’s godmother’s apartment overlooking the Tuileries. After a cup of coffee and some light conversation, Madame Lemonnier excused herself, pleading correspondence that needed her attention.
“I would like to say my goodbyes when Monsieur Charbonneau is preparing to leave,” she said, and closed the door on the two of them.
Maura said, “Madame is a free spirit who believes that young people should be trusted. I cannot tell you how unusual that is.”
“I have some idea that it is not too common in these parts,” Baptiste responded. He was entranced by Maura’s presence. Her body had an artless kind of grace, slender without being lean, and for an instant he watched the outline of her breasts rise and subside beneath the dark sheen of her dress. He raised his cup of coffee as if it were wine. “Here is to your free spirit of a godmother.” As they drank their eyes met, and neither turned away.
Maura was distressed. “Yesterday I was refused entrance to the medical faculty’s operating theater,” she told him. “ ‘Too much blood for a lady,’ they claimed.” Her eyes were wide with disdain. “So I should return to the Gironde and make my life among vintners,” she said with a rueful smile. “Surely the wide world holds more than that!”
“Is there nowhere in France where a woman can become a doctor?”
“Not in all of Europe, Baptiste!” Maura cried. “Is it very different in America? My father’s acquaintances say that women there are much more independent.” Her voice was hopeful.
All the women Baptiste had known in St. Louis—from William Clark’s two wives and the grandes dames of the Chouteau and Pratte fur trader clans to the wives of voyageurs and tradesmen—were principally responsible for raising children and keeping the household, fancy or modest. “I can’t speak for all of America,” he said at last, “but I don’t know of any women doctors. I suppose you could say that women have to be more self-reliant because they’re left for months at a time while the men are upriver. But unless they keep slaves, that just means that they do all the work themselves.”
“Are there no other choices?” Maura asked.
“There were some Creole women in New Orleans who ran businesses,” Baptiste told her. “And wives of voyageurs often keep accounts and trade directly when their husbands are away.”
Maura considered his words, then said, “My uncle lives in Philadelphia. He once visited New Orleans and wrote that the Mississippi at its mouth is like the sea. When I was a child, he would read to me from a book called Atala, which opens with a description of that river. I am intrigued by that part of America.”
Baptiste shook his head. “The rivers I know—the Mississippi and the Missouri, the Kansas and the Platte—are different entirely from what you have in Europe,” he told her. “There are no stone embankments or jetties, and they aren’t dredged for boat traffic. They’re unpredictable and wily, like something alive, full of tree trunks, sand bars, whirlpools, and rapids. When the rains come, you can’t even see across them in parts. And the farther you go upstream, the more you leave people behind. Once you get out into it, there is no end to the wild, open land. There is nothing like that here at all.”
“Our rivers sound very tame by comparison,” Maura said, “but our mountains are certainly wild. In the Alps above Annecy, we saw several chamois on a cliff above the path as we walked around the lake. And there are still wolves in the Alps, and peaks that have never been climbed.”
Baptiste looked at her in exasperation. “The Alps are as wild as this drawing room! Every valley has its village and every mountaintop its cross.”
Maura wanted to take his hand in hers, but Baptiste looked suddenly distant. She sat down in one of the chairs near the hearth and gestured for him to take the one opposite. The vase of greens on the low round table between them gave her hope—they seemed wild, or at least connected to something that was—and she poured out two glasses of wine from the decanter, placing one in front of him. “The frontier sounds like nothing I have dreamed of, much less known,” she said. “Please tell me more.”
Baptiste sank slowly into the chair, stretched out his legs before him, and leaned back with his eyes closed, his face a study in concentration. He sat quietly, wondering if he could find the words. What could someone who knew only Europe possibly understand? Even in repose, he conveyed a sort of athletic readiness that made Maura wonder if he would suddenly jump up and dash from the room. She saw again the chiseled fineness of his features, a bony nobility that had led her father, not without a certain respect, to call him a “Tartar” after their first meeting. But the sunlight showed he was a Tartar with the coloring of an Andalusian, a contrast that was at once unexpected and attractive.
The trace of a smile appeared on Baptiste’s face and he opened his eyes quickly, determined to tell Maura about his home. He stood and moved his chair back from the center of the room. Crouched lightly on the balls of his feet, he looked into a fathomless distance and swung his arm across a horizon only he could see. Maura thought of someone poised to throw a spear on a long and perfect arc.
“Imagine the Alps seen across a vast plain, from a hundred miles away,” Baptiste began, “with nothing between you and them but prairies, rivers, and endless herds. There are deer, antelope, elk, and buffalo as far as you can see, sometimes lost to sight by grass higher than a man’s head. The land stretches to the mountains in rolling curves of green and brown, and a steady wind carries the smell of prairie sage.” His voice was full of excitement.
“In the wider parts of the rivers, close by, water birds cover the surface so completely that it looks almost like dry land. Only an occasional movement of wings and the noise of the ducks and geese remind you that they are all floating, feeding on the water plants that fill the shallows. From miles away you see what looks like a coil of smoke rising into the air, a strange haze endlessly unraveling upward from the ground until it blocks the sun and begins to move sideways across the plain.” He raised his arm to indicate the motion in the distance. “A flock of birds, you realize, undulating for miles on the horizon, expanding and contracting like a dark and porous sheet being borne away in a stiff wind. They make you see the air as surely as if it were something you could touch, and you follow their dance across the sky until they are swallowed up in the clouds.”
Maura could see that this vision was more real to him than the chair she was sitting on, or the stone walls of the buildings on the rue de Rivoli, or any part of Paris that stretched below them. Gradually his gaze returned to her, his voice softer now but the intensity undiminished.
“Maura, between where you stand and the mountains, there is no trace of human life—no buildings, no roads, no carriages, no fences or walls. All is open, but that does not mean it is unknown or empty. Each tribe is like a shadow that attaches to the great herds and follows them as the seasons change.”
She wanted him to continue before the spell broke. She wanted him to show her what it was like, take her somewhere that only he knew. He told her about hunting buffalo with his Mandan cousins: the long trip toward the herd’s feeding ground; the infinite number of animals; the careful attention to staying downwind; the soundless waiting and sudden explosion of surprise; the chase, with its sudden ration of fear, excitement, and individual exploits. And finally, the celebration, satiety, fatigue, and frequent grief at the injury or death of a friend.
“It is how the tribe feeds itself,” Baptiste told her. “If the herd cannot be found, the old, the young, and the weak all drop like autumn leaves.”
Maura could hardly find her voice. “My father uses much the same words to describe what happens to the farmers of Europe when the crops fail.” She took their wineglasses from the table and handed him a glass as she raised her own.
“To the herds and the crops. May they never fail.”
They drank, then Baptiste
took her glass and placed it on the mantel. After describing his home to Maura, he felt confident and at ease. He held her hands in his, stepped close to her, and covered her neck with kisses, and her face flushed red. Her body softened and leaned into his and he discovered that her passion equaled his own. Then Maura gently pushed him back, and dimly he saw her shining eyes and the blameless smile on her lips as she whispered, “Not here, Baptiste. Not now.”
He drew back slowly and said, “When?”
“I hope it will be soon.”
She turned away. As she smoothed her hair she said, “Baptiste, I would like you to have something of mine to remember me by when we are apart. Will you take my handkerchief?”
Her hand went to the pocket of her dress for the square of white linen. She placed it in his hand and Baptiste saw the embroidered letters on one corner: MFH. He smiled in thanks and put the handkerchief in his jacket.
“What shall I have in return?” she asked.
Baptiste thought for a moment, then his features brightened. He undid the top two buttons of his shirt, reached in and pulled over his head a thin rawhide cord from which hung a gleaming crescent of black. “It is an eagle’s talon,” he explained as he held it before her wondering eyes.
She reached out and touched it. “I can’t . . .”
“If you have it, then we will both be protected.”
She took it and placed it against her lips. Just then, a commotion of sorts arose in the hall—voices, a door slamming, more voices—and Maura whispered, “It is my godmother’s way of telling us our visit is over.” She sat in one of the armchairs. A tapping at the door soon followed and the older woman entered.
“Why, you must both be parched; you have hardly drunk any wine at all! Whatever is becoming of young people these days?”
