Sisi, page 15
“Yes, Aunt Sophie?”
Now Sophie turned from her niece to her son, before looking back to Sisi. “Sisi, you will be the sole comfort to my poor Franzi now. Please, be good to him. Be good to the children. Your place is…” But Sophie stopped, struggling to breathe. When she had recovered several moments later, Sophie seemed to have lost the thread of her thoughts, for now she turned to her son. “Franzi?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“You are here, Franzi?”
He held her hand tighter, leaned in a little closer. Sisi had never seen any likeness of her son in Franz, but in that moment, she caught a glimpse of the boy’s soft, emotive face. “I am here, Mother,” Franz said.
“Franzi, you are ready. You’ve been ready for a long time. I’ve prepared you for this.”
Neither Sisi nor Franz said anything. Did the old woman not realize that it was her forty-one-year-old son to whom she spoke and not the eighteen-year-old boy, newly ascended to the throne? The throne she had won for him.
“It falls on you now, my son. Remember, it’s your sacred duty to be strong. Always be strong.” Sophie took a pause, her breath wheezy and labored. “If you show weakness, even if it’s with the best of intentions to help the people, you shall simply end up hurting them. For any sign of weakness will only encourage revolution and lawlessness.”
That was Sophie, Sisi thought. Exerting her will up until her last breath, always thinking about duty even as she barely clung to life. Sisi listened to what she supposed would be the last lecture by the old woman with a strange and indecipherable swirl of emotions.
“You know…both of you know, right?” Now Sophie looked back and forth between her son and his wife, the old woman’s eyes watery but watchful, as if she feared that she might never teach them all that they needed to know.
“Know what, Mother?” Franz leaned forward, his voice tender in a way Sisi had never heard it.
“You know that…” Sophie coughed, and the effort seemed to consume her last bit of strength. “You know that…all I ever wanted…was for you two…”
One final spasm shook Sophie’s chest, and it looked as if she spent the final reserves of her breath to whisper: “Please, a priest.”
“I am here, Your Imperial Highness Archduchess Sophie.” A robed priest glided forward.
“It is time. My rites. My last rites. For soon…” Sophie struggled to breathe. “I shall be with my Lord and Savior.”
Clutching a cross and a string of rosary beads—the same cross and rosary beads that had once belonged to Empress Maria Theresa—Sophie was granted her last rites. She listened with a somber expression, eyes open and mouth shut, displaying the same stoic dignity with which she’d presided over the court during her many formidable years. When the priest was done, Sophie’s face seemed to slacken into a more peaceful look as if, at last, she might rest.
From that point, Sophie slipped in and out of wakefulness, uttering the occasional sigh or small, inaudible prayer. Rudy and Gisela came and went, keeping vigil with their parents during the daylight hours, retreating to their bedchambers at night on their father’s orders. Only Sisi and Franz Joseph stayed around the clock.
Sisi lost track of time, slipping into an almost trancelike, meditative rhythm. She noticed, absently, how Marie Festetics entered on occasion to urge her to leave for a bit to rest and eat. “No.” Sisi would shake her head, still clinging to Sophie’s hand while, across the bed from her, Franz did the same. Her husband didn’t seem to register anyone’s presence, didn’t even see the room around him. And yet, Sisi felt as if she needed to be there with him. And with Sophie. “No, Marie, I shall stay here until she has breathed her last.”
Neither Sisi nor Franz rose from the bedside. Food was brought in and left, growing cold on the trays because of their fear that if they turned away, they might miss the final moment. But Sophie’s last breath didn’t come. The woman’s strength and will to fight had never been in question, and they were proved all the more clearly in her final days. The archduchess, the member of the royal family most diligent about protocol and punctuality, now kept everybody waiting for days. So strong was her spirit that even death itself would not defeat her without a hard-fought battle.
Sisi thought it a small miracle that when the time finally came, when Sophie let out her final breath, her chest heaving high before collapsing in on itself and pushing out a raspy puff of air, both Rudy and Gisela were in the room. It was how they had wanted it.
Franz stirred, clutching his mother’s hand. The doctor stepped forward and felt the woman’s chest and neck before nodding to the waiting priest.
“The archduchess is with her Maker,” the priest said aloud to the dark room, making a sign of the cross over the bed. At that pronouncement, both Franz Joseph and Rudy began to weep, burying their faces in their hands. Gisela sat in the corner silently praying, as the holy water was splashed over Sophie’s resting figure.
Sisi, aware that the hand to which she clung now belonged to a corpse, slid her fingers free and rose. Her head swam as she stood, dizzy with exhaustion and hunger and—yes, she supposed—grief. She made to walk around the bed toward Franz, but suddenly the room spun so violently that she could not remain upright.
She reached for the nearby bedpost, hearing her son and her husband weeping as the priest recited the Latin prayers. She realized, in that moment, that it was the first time she had seen her husband cry since the death of their child. She thought of her daughter Sophie in heaven, and then of her mother-in-law joining the little girl there. So they would be together again, the loving grandmother and the darling princess. Inseparable, just as they had been in life. Sisi wasn’t sure if she felt glad that they were together, or jealous, or something else, but before she could decide, everything went dark.
Sisi awoke in her own bed, daylight slipping through the curtains and testifying to a warm spring day outside. Disoriented, aware of her parched throat, she looked around before pressing the buzzer that rang Ida in the adjacent room.
“Your Majesty!” Ida swept into the bedchamber several moments later, her face ragged with fatigue even as she wore an immaculately pressed gown and offered a quick smile. “How does Your Grace feel?”
“I’m…I’m fine, but what time is it? Why am I in bed?” Sisi shifted under the bedsheets, feeling weak as she attempted to sit up.
“Your Majesty didn’t eat or sleep for days. You took yourself to the verge of exhaustion and starvation remaining beside the archduchess’s bed.”
That was when Sisi remembered everything—the scenes coming to her like patches of a horrific, shadowy dream. “Sophie!” Sisi kicked aside the covers. “I must get up. I must go to Franz. And the children.”
“Please, Empress Elisabeth, wouldn’t it please Your Majesty to eat something first?”
“No, I must go to Franz.” Sisi shook her head. “Fetch me a black gown.”
Ida frowned, making clear her disapproval even as she obeyed without protest. Sisi dressed quickly, covering her unruly waves with a veiled cap of black silk. “Tell Valerie that I will come to her later. The poor girl must be confused; she must be so terribly upset that I’ve left her alone.” With that, Sisi swept from her suite and strode briskly toward Franz’s apartments, aware that Ida and Marie fell in step behind her.
Franz’s antechamber was as crowded as Sophie’s had been, the dark-paneled space filled with black-clad ministers, ambassadors, courtiers, and clergymen, all eager to express their condolences and prayers to the bereft emperor. They all turned now as Sisi entered, and she paused, as if paralyzed by the intensity of their collective stares. She should have known they’d all gather here, and yet, she wasn’t prepared to see them, didn’t wish to share this moment with so many others. She stood still, pulling her veil tighter around her face. Immediately the whispers began.
Sisi stepped forward into the room, fighting the desire to flee from this bowing crowd, to be gone from their probing stares and expectant expressions. “Please, as you were,” she said, her voice quiet and without authority. My, she was thirsty; why hadn’t she at least taken a sip of water before leaving her rooms?
The crowd splintered off into small clusters as Sisi glided through, whispering, “Excuse me, please,” as she made her way toward her husband’s door. She just wanted to be near him, to provide whatever small comfort she could. Poor Franz, she thought. He was so devoted to his mother. The way he had stayed beside the old woman’s bed, the way he, always so strong, had broken down at her passing. Her heart was soft for her husband in a way it hadn’t been for years—perhaps in over a decade. It had been Sophie’s last wish that she, Sisi, would be there for Franz. Now, for the first time in years, Sisi felt her own wishes aligned with those of her mother-in-law.
And then she heard one courtier’s voice louder than all the others. He spoke to a companion, but he had to know that everyone else in the room could hear. “It’s exactly what I said. You can see it here, the newspaper’s words, not mine. ‘With the Archduchess Sophie’s passing, Austria loses its real empress.’ ”
Sisi looked around the room, trying to locate the figure who had spoken these words.
The low voice continued, its owner obscured by the crowds: “And here, you see they go on to say, ‘This was a respectable, devout, and significant woman, the most significant woman in Austria since Maria Theresa. She leaves no worthy female successor at court, only a void greater than we can fathom.’ And it’s not just a void in the government. Without his mother, the poor emperor will feel the void more intensely than anyone. Now he is stuck only with his selfish wife, and there will be no domestic comfort for him from now on. You heard how she collapsed the minute after Sophie died? That’s her—always demanding that the attention be on her. Even when she runs away, it’s always a ploy to pull his attention back to her.”
Sisi’s eyes, falling on a familiar face, finally found the origin of the hateful voice. Count Bellegarde stood at the center of a small circle of ministers, his hands clutching a thick pile of newspapers from which he read aloud.
Sisi swallowed hard, freezing midstride. Bellegarde looked toward her now, staring her straight in the eyes, a muscle twitching in his jaw. And then, without a touch of reverence or apology, he bowed his head just an inch as he said, “Empress Elisabeth, my condolences. We all know how fond you were of that remarkable woman. This must be a bitter ordeal for you, indeed.”
—
Inside the emperor’s room, Franz sat motionless in a chair, staring out the window at his well-groomed, sunlit grounds. He didn’t look up when Sisi entered, nor did he respond with anything more than a shrug of his shoulders when she asked if there was anything she might do.
Rudy and Gisela clung to each other, weeping on the nearby couch as maids darted in and out, offering tea and biscuits and asking whether or not Their Majesties wished the windows to be opened or the curtains drawn. No one answered with anything more than a blank expression.
Sisi found Andrássy in the corner of the room, her stomach in knots as she continued to digest the vitriol of Bellegarde’s words. But it wasn’t Bellegarde alone who felt that way. Why, he had simply been reading from the front page of one of the national newspapers. So then all of Austria felt that way! And now the whole world would see it!
Sisi had always suspected—no, known—that she had vocal critics at the Viennese Court. They resented her long absences from the capital; they had sided with Sophie in past family quarrels; they had heard of her and Franz’s periods of marital estrangement and had begrudged her affinity for Hungary. But that their enmity toward her was so ripe and well known that the newspapers railed against her, at a time such as this—this was too much for her to bear.
“I must leave, Andrássy,” Sisi whispered, her voice low and hollow. Her heart pounded against her rib cage, and she thought that perhaps she might even run from this room and take off through the palace gates on foot. When she said she must leave, she meant right at that moment. She knew it was selfish—she knew it would mean abandoning her husband and children in their grief. But if everyone agreed she was selfish to begin with, what did she have to lose in confirming that impression of herself? “I can’t stay here, not where they all hate me. I need to leave.”
Andrássy looked at her, and his own expression registered alarm. She was certain that her appearance warranted such concern: she had barely slept in days, she hadn’t eaten a bite of food, she was pale and haggard, and tension surely pulled tight across her features.
Andrássy confirmed this by saying, “Perhaps you are right, Empress. Perhaps you should go somewhere else to grieve and recover from this blow in private.” He paused a moment, as if weighing his next words, before he added, “The last thing the emperor should do right now is worry about your health, too. He needs you strong.”
Sisi had to sit down. She steadied herself on the nearby table, knocking over the miniature portrait of herself that rested there, as she said, “Yes, you’re right. Then that’s what I’ll do. I’ll take Valerie and…” Sisi nodded, casting a nervous glance toward her other two children, preparing herself for the unpleasantness of taking her leave from them. But then again, the way they clung to each other in grief, ignoring her to mourn their grandmother…they made it perfectly clear that she was no mother to them, not as Sophie had been.
“I myself must return to Hungary,” Andrássy said. “The parliament is to meet next month, and I will be laying out the emperor’s agenda to them.”
“Hungary,” Sisi repeated. “Hungary? Yes. I will go to Hungary.”
“It’s a good idea.” A faint voice, choked with grief and the threat of tears, spoke from the corner of the room. Sisi looked over, startled, at Franz. She hadn’t known he could hear her and Andrássy. “Hungary,” Franz repeated, still with his back to the room as he stared out the window. “We shall all go to Hungary. I think that even I am entitled to a bit of a break.”
V
Geneva, Switzerland
September 1898
HE WALKS INTO THE CAFÉ du Pont, a bistro just off the Mont Blanc Bridge. The hour is between breakfast and lunch, and the place is empty. A mustached man glances up from behind the bar, where he stands wiping cups with his apron. He has the well-groomed and tidy appearance of all of the Swiss, and he eyes Luigi for just a moment too long. There it is, Luigi thinks, that familiar look, a visible mixture of mistrust and disdain. The man doubts whether Luigi can pay, and he’s weighing whether to kick him out now or to wait until after he’s admitted that he can’t afford a meal. “No charity in here,” the bartender says, apparently deciding on the former.
Luigi smirks. He begins to whistle as he pulls a Swiss franc from his pocket, rubbing it between his thumb and pointer finger. Charity indeed, Luigi thinks, but this man doesn’t need to know it. Doesn’t need to know that a well-dressed lady tossed the coin toward Luigi when she found him this morning, sleeping on the quay. The coin catches the sunlight, and the barkeeper’s entire demeanor changes. He places the cup on the bar and says, “My apologies, Monsieur. Long journey? How about a round on the house.”
Luigi props his elbows on the cleanly polished bar counter and nods, looking squarely into the Swiss man’s eyes. He accepts the drink and then orders another one with a bowl of soup. When it comes, he forces himself to eat slowly, even though his stomach begs for him to lift the bowl and pour the entirety of its contents down his throat in one swallow. In order to slow the pace of his eating, he makes conversation. “Duke of Orléans is expected here, in Geneva.”
The bartender, back to polishing his cups, looks over at Luigi. His lips pressed tight under his neat mustache, he doesn’t offer a reply.
“How long until the big man arrives?” Luigi puts his spoon down and wipes his mouth. Even just talking about the duke sets his heart to racing. The Duke of Orléans. The man who imagines himself next in line for the French throne, one of the richest, most powerful men in the world! Luigi thinks once more of the blade in his pocket, of his plans for the Great Deed. “He’s expected today or tomorrow, right?” He manages nonchalance, even a shrug, as he asks the all-important question.
The bartender lowers his cup, wipes his hands on his pristine apron. “You don’t know? Haven’t heard?” The Swiss man’s tone drips with condescension.
Luigi bristles. He doesn’t like being made to feel stupid, not by this bartender. His hand goes to his pocket, and he fingers the blade, considers plucking it out right now and giving the bartender with his thin mustache a bit of a shave.
But he keeps his cool, reminds himself not to waste the Great Deed on someone as lowly and inconsequential as this barkeep. He removes his hand from his pocket and picks up the soup spoon once more. With a cool shrug, he says, “No, heard what?”
“The Duke of Orléans is not coming to Geneva,” the bartender says, and Luigi feels his stomach plummet.
The Duke of Orléans—not coming? But Luigi has spent all summer trying to catch up to the man. Not coming to Geneva? Well, then where is he going? And how will Luigi carry out the Great Deed? The royal Luigi has been hunting so methodically, now sprung free from his trap. So, what then is Luigi to do in Geneva?
CHAPTER 5
Gödöllő Palace, Hungary
Autumn 1872
“Surely you are too young to be a grandmother, Queen Elisabeth.” Nikolaus Esterházy glanced sideways at Sisi, his dark hair escaping his riding cap in unruly tufts that fell around his strong, angular face, and Sisi couldn’t help but think how attractive he was. “But then, if you are to be one, allow me to say that you shall be the most beautiful grandmother who ever lived.”
“You are too kind, Nicky.” Sisi adjusted her seat in the saddle, flashing her most beguiling smile at the Hungarian nobleman beside her. It felt so good to flirt once more, to parry a man’s flattery with wit and laughter.
