Sisi, page 44
“Well, I won’t let their whispers prevent me from a pleasant night’s sleep. The lake and the mountain air do me good.”
—
The next morning Sisi ate breakfast in her room. Irma had been correct, for when the solicitous hotel manager appeared with the morning newspapers, Sisi saw her name and image plastered across the front of the Swiss journals.
EMPRESS ELISABETH IS HERE!
FAMED AUSTRIAN EMPRESS VISITS GENEVA!
EMPRESS ELISABETH HONORS HÔTEL BEAU RIVAGE WITH A VISIT!
“Looks like I’m getting out just in time,” Sisi muttered under her breath. The hotel manager certainly looked very pleased with himself as he smiled, asking Sisi if there was anything else he might do for her in her final few hours at the hotel. The way he said her alias, “Countess Hohenembs,” Sisi felt as if he fancied himself on the inside of some small and intimate conspiracy.
“No, I am fine, thank you,” Sisi said, and the man left.
As Sisi stretched out her morning toilette, Irma finished packing the trunks and sent the hotel’s porters ahead to the dock with the luggage. Sisi took her time pinning her thick hair back into a low bun, not eager to board the ship and begin her journey back to the spa town where she was to finish taking the cure. She longed for her aching joints to be healed, for the rash that still covered much of her skin to go away—and she hated that it all kept her from Franz.
Finally, after Irma’s repeated warnings that they would miss their ship—“Public ships don’t wait for anyone, and since Your Majesty declined the offer of Baroness Rothschild’s private yacht…”—Sisi began to dress. She selected a skirt and high-necked jacket of black silk, making sure to tuck Franz’s most recent note into her pocket. She patted the fold of her skirt where the letter rested. Once she was aboard the steamer, she’d pen her reply to him. She already knew how she would open it: Franz, I’ll be home to you soon….
Then, because the newspapers had confirmed to her what Irma had said last night—that the city knew of her presence at this hotel—Sisi picked up a fan in one hand and a parasol in the other. Both common enough ladies’ accoutrements, but also helpful tools with which she might subtly shield herself from followers and onlookers. Sisi glanced once more in the full-length mirror, nodding in approval at her tidy reflection. With that, she left the hotel room.
If the hotel staff hadn’t already alerted the town to her presence, their send-off now surely would do so. The entire staff, it seemed, stood lined up with the manager at the front doorway of the building. They bowed in unison as Sisi walked toward the sunlit street.
“Countess Hohenembs!” The hotel manager stepped forward with a bow and a flourish of his wrist. “We hope Your Grace enjoyed the stay at the Hôtel Beau Rivage. We do sincerely wish you the safest of travels, and we humbly hope that we might have the pleasure of serving Your Grace again in the future.”
“Thank you.” Sisi smiled, nodding as she walked past the many staring faces. “It was lovely. Thank you all.”
As she and Irma stepped out onto the bright street, she paused, opening her parasol wide. “We must hurry, Empress,” Irma said, quietly. “We are late. We might miss the ship.”
“It’s close, right up there. I can see the ship,” Sisi said. And she was grateful for it. If anyone had wandered over to the hotel to catch a glimpse of her, they wouldn’t have much time to spot her in the very short walk.
As she and Irma hurried along the quay, Sisi held the white parasol close, blocking herself from the view of curious passersby, but also obscuring her vision of everything save for what lay right in front of her. Voices called out now from across the street as a small crowd of curious onlookers guessed her identity, and Sisi registered the sound of her name being shouted. She tensed, clutching her parasol tighter. Irma, right beside her, would guide her where she needed to go.
Because of her shielded vision, Sisi didn’t see the short, thick man approach. Didn’t sense his nearness until he struck her unexpectedly, landing a rough fist against her breast. The force of the man’s blow caught her completely unaware, knocking her off balance and sending her falling backward. The world spun as Sisi noticed how her hair, long and thick as it was, and pinned in a low bun, softened her fall when her head hit the ground. She blinked. All around her now was a flurry of disorderly activity. A face she recognized, belonging to a porter from the hotel, leaned over her. “Are you hurt, Madame?”
Irma was muttering in Hungarian. “How could he? The scoundrel knocked right into Her Majesty! Was he not looking where he walked?”
Sisi allowed the porter to help her to her feet, where, standing, she straightened her hat and patted down her skirt.
“We will find him, I promise you, Madame,” the hotel manager said, standing nearby, his eyes scouring the street in the direction in which the man had continued his brisk stride. Then, turning back to Sisi, he asked, “But did he hurt you, Empress?”
Sisi glanced down over herself, then out at the street. The small crowd that had gathered on the quay was growing louder, now that they had something truly worthwhile to watch. She turned from the onlookers back toward the manager. “Hurt? No, I don’t think so. Just a bit startled.” It was true. The fall hadn’t been bad, though her chest ached where the man had struck her with his fist. That would resolve itself shortly.
“Will Your Majesty come back to the hotel and rest a moment?” the manager suggested. “Perhaps take a glass of wine to calm your nerves?”
Just then the steamer blared its long, ground-shaking horn. “No, thank you. I’d like to make it to the ship,” Sisi said, patting her skirt once more. “I’m fine, really.” She looked at Irma, who nodded, appearing to agree with the plan to catch the ship before its departure. “Let’s go, Irma.”
“As you wish, Empress.”
“Thank you,” Sisi said, nodding farewell to the small group that had come to her aid. The two ladies walked on, but Sisi found herself increasingly short of breath. As she stepped onto the gangway that would lead her up to the ship, her inhales grew ever more difficult. She made it to the lower deck just as the sailors hoisted the plank and gave the orders to push off.
“What did he want anyway?” Sisi asked, clutching her abdomen now as her breath lurched in and out in ragged, uneven gasps.
“The hotel manager?” Irma asked, keeping close to Sisi as they wove their way through the thin crowd along the deck’s railing. “I think he wanted you to come back to the hotel to rest a moment.”
“No, the other one,” Sisi said, looking around for a powder room where she might loosen her corset and recover her breath. “That horrid man who struck me. Did he want money? Or perhaps he wanted to take my watch from me?”
Irma put a gloved hand on Sisi’s arm, distress suddenly visible on the attendant’s features. “Empress, you are pale.”
Sisi forgot her labored breathing now as she watched her vision recede, the ship’s deck and her lady’s concerned face dissolving into a faded blur before her eyes. “Irma, give me your arm. Quickly. I think I might faint.”
Sisi was half aware as Irma practically caught her and hauled her weak body to the upper deck. “Air, we must get you fresh air!” Irma gasped as Sisi shut her eyes and slipped into unconsciousness.
She roused to the taste of something sweet, and her vision returned with a view of Irma overhead, pressing a rag soaked in sugary water to her lips. She was flat on her back, she realized, on the ship’s upper deck. Behind Irma, more faces hovered against the backdrop of the clear autumn sky. “What is it?” Sisi asked, trying to sit up, but finding she didn’t have the strength to do so.
Someone was fumbling with her bodice, saying, “Let her have more air! Let her breathe!” Ordinarily she would have protested against being undressed like this by a stranger, but she appreciated his efforts to remove her tight bodice now, because she did feel as though she could not breathe.
Irma turned to a man in a cap, surely the ship’s captain, and said, “Please turn the ship around. We must return to the city. She needs a doctor.”
“Turn around? We cannot turn around.” The captain scoffed, his heavily lined brow pressed in frustration. “We’ve got more than one hundred paying customers aboard this ship who expect to be taken to Montreux! We don’t turn around every time some old lady gets a bit queasy out on the water.”
Irma stood up tall now, her body going rigid with indignation as she barked at the man. “This is not ‘some old lady,’ sir, and I’ll thank you to show the proper respect, as you are in the company of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, and Her Majesty needs to see a doctor at once!”
Sisi’s blouse was now fully unbuttoned. Irma, turning her attention back in Sisi’s direction, gasped. “There’s blood!” Irma said, her face blanching. “Blood, right there on her shift! That man didn’t strike her with his fist—it was a blade. He’s stabbed the empress!”
All the faces leaned in close now, examining Sisi and gasping out an indistinguishable chorus of horrified exclamations. Sisi shut her eyes, and once more, everything went black.
When she awoke, she was back in her hotel room in the Beau Rivage, lying in bed while a man in a doctor’s uniform huddled next to another man, this one dressed like a priest. They spoke in soft, inaudible whispers, unaware that she had awoken. She could have opened her lips to address them, but the effort seemed too great, so she kept her mouth shut, deciding instead to spend the last bit of her strength on finding the paper in her pocket. Franz’s most recent note to her. The last words he had ever written to her flashed before her blurry eyes: I commend you to God, my beloved angel.
The rustling of the letter must have caught the attention of the two men, for they turned to the bed in time to see Sisi drop the paper and close her eyes, forcing out a heavy, labored exhale. One of them—Sisi wasn’t certain whether it was the man concerned with her body or the man concerned with her soul—said, “My God, she is lovely. But it looks like she is smiling.”
And Sisi was certain that indeed she was smiling, because as she shut her eyes, she found herself leaving that hotel room and entering someplace else, someplace where she felt overcome with a sudden and inexplicable joy. She looked back, once, weighing whether to return to the hotel room, but the idea held absolutely no appeal. No, she longed to see this new place. The difficulty of her breathing—the anvil on her lungs from a moment ago—suddenly lifted. Her blurred vision became instantly clear, revealing to Sisi a place far lovelier than her hotel room in Geneva. Far lovelier than even the most glorious hall in Schönbrunn or the most breathtaking vista atop the Alps. Where she was, precisely, Sisi could not be certain, but she knew, somehow, that she was not alone. And then she saw why. Rudolf stood before her, smiling, his face free of care. His body light and youthful, his once-bloodshot eyes now sparkling like molten amber. Rudolf, as she had never before seen him. He was Rudolf, not broken, but whole. And there, beside him, was little Sophie, the auburn-haired cherub, her first beloved girl, taken from her far too young. Little Sophie greeted her now, little Sophie, not sick, but strong. And there was Andrássy, who glided toward her, his hands lifted in welcome, his dark eyes alight and alive. Andrássy, not tormented, but at peace. Then she saw Sophie, her mother-in-law. The old woman was restored to the strength and vigor of her youth—and she opened her arms wide in an embrace as she beamed at Sisi, her smile emptied of judgment and full of grace. And there was Ludwig, glorious, joyful Ludwig, his beautiful face no longer haunted. Sisi wished to laugh in delight, so she did. And as she did so, she saw that there, too, stood her mother. Mamma, free from worry. Beside her was Papa, no longer in pain or causing pain to others. With them stood Néné and Sophie-Charlotte, Sisi’s beautiful sisters, their strong, healthy bodies seeming to glisten with a vivid, ineffable light.
As Sisi looked around now at the faces of so many of the people she loved, she noted that Franz Joseph and Valerie and Marie Festetics and Ida and Gisela weren’t there yet. And yet, in that moment, Sisi did not long for them. No, there was no way to long for anyone or anything, not in this place; this place was too full of love for one to feel any lack. Instead, Sisi smiled, thinking of the others, wishing them peace in the time that remained for them, the time in which they had to endure, before at last they, too, would be able to join her here, in this place where one might lay down one’s burdens and live in the light of grace.
Franz will come to her; she knows that. And when he does, she will help him to put down all of the cares that he has carried, so valiantly, all of these years. And together, they will take off on horseback and race through green fields and hillsides without ever growing tired. They will stop at crystalline streams, not because they thirst, but to taste the sweet water and to marvel at the reflections of the two happy, youthful faces that smile back at them from the tranquil pools of healing water.
All around Sisi now, love ebbs and expands, a vast, limitless sea. And Sisi feels it, for the first time, as whole. For the first time, it is hers to trust in and accept. There are no conditions on this love, no reasons why she cannot believe in it. Nothing that she does now will ever cause this love to forsake her. It doesn’t come from her or from other broken people; it’s nothing she has earned, yet she is invited to share in its perfection, and she knows, somehow, that it will never cease.
She, once so troubled by her brokenness, so plagued by her imperfections in the face of all those who expected perfection from her, she is, at last, free to taste all of the joy that comes from pure, perfect love. No more seeking, fleeing, weeping. She recalls, vaguely, that at one time there was something she felt and that it was called pain. But like a wisp of a cloud, that recollection slides away; she could no more tell you what pain feels like than she could grip a cloud in her hands.
Now someone else takes her hand. Someone she has never met before, yet someone who, somehow, she has always known. Or rather, he has always known her. As he smiles at her, lifting his hands to embrace her, all she feels is wholeness. Grace and mercy wash over her, making her more perfect than any earthly beautification ritual she might ever have imagined. The love of the people who stand before her, as vast and rich as it is, pales in comparison to the perfect love that enfolds all of them now. She is home. Her wandering has, at last, come to an end. She is, at last, free.
EPILOGUE
Vienna
September 10, 1898
Emperor Franz Joseph sits at his desk, staring at the massive portrait of his wife. Remembering the day, decades earlier, when she gifted him with this masterpiece. Oh, how he longs to see the beloved face that inspired this favorite painting of his. The real face that puts even this most cherished artistic rendering to shame. Soon now, he tells himself. He’s detected a shift in her these past few months. He’s sensed—fervently hoped—that his wife might be willing, at last, to return to him. That she might have finally forgiven him for the pain of their early years together. Even just the thought, the hope of her return, causes his aged heart to speed up within his breast. She’s always done that to him—his heart has never quite grown accustomed to her, has never stopped racing at the thought or sight of her.
A knock on the door. He groans. He’s reluctant to be pulled from these pleasant musings on his Sisi’s beauty; he’s unwilling to return to the ugly business of governing right at this moment. But, as he’s done so many thousands of times before, he yields to his duty. He puts Sisi aside so that he can turn back to the cares of his empire. “Yes, what is it?”
“Your Majesty—a telegram.” An aide’s pale face peeks tentatively around the emperor’s door. “From Geneva.”
“Geneva?” Franz sits up rigid at his desk. “Sisi.” He waves the man forward. They have been writing letters every single day. Why would she send a telegram, unless it was a matter of immediate urgency? He feels his whole body tense beneath the stiff confines of his heavy uniform as he looks down at the telegram.
HER MAJESTY THE EMPRESS HAS PASSED AWAY.
Franz Joseph stares at the paper in disbelief. That is it? That is all? Can it be? All happiness—his very life—blotted out with just seven words on a piece of trembling paper. Sisi, dead? His heart stalls in his chest as his eyes fly once more to the portrait, where she smiles at him, her cheeks colored with her painfully enticing blush, her incomparable chestnut hair cascading over the perfect curve of her bare shoulder. How could she be dead? Franz Joseph lets out a low, guttural groan, tossing his head back to look up at the ceiling where, behind the gold gilding, a God who proves more incomprehensible than ever hides. It cannot be. Sisi dead?
“Is nothing to be spared me?” He raises his hands, as if he would reach into the heavens to bring her back to him. To rend her from death’s grip. But his power is suddenly rendered farcical. His is a power of this earth, and not even he—Emperor Franz Joseph—can do such a thing, not unless the Almighty wills it.
As he weeps, his aides and ministers look on, aghast. None of them can hold back tears now, either; they’ve never seen Emperor Franz Joseph forget his ironclad self-control, and yet, here he sobs. He cries so hard that they fear he might choke, his whole body racked with convulsions of grief. The aides swear that, amid his sobs, they hear the emperor groan out the words: “No one will ever know how much I loved her.”
Emperor Franz Joseph weathers this blow as he has weathered so many blows before it. Days later, he receives the corpse of his murdered wife, the Empress Elisabeth, and oversees arrangements for her state funeral and interment at the Imperial Crypt at Vienna’s Capuchin Church. The Habsburgs’ “Fairy Queen” makes one final tour along the capital’s grand boulevards, this time amid none of the cheer or splendor with which the crowds, as thick as ever, once heralded her passage. As Sisi is laid to rest beside Rudolf, near the space that the emperor knows he’ll someday fill, Vienna lowers its flags to half-mast. Black banners are draped over homes, churches, and public buildings. In Budapest and across Hungary, the people sink into a deep and collective melancholy as they mourn the loss of their queen, the most beloved Habsburg to ever sit on their hilltop throne.
