The Accidental Empress (47 page)

As spring bloomed across the city, the air ripening with the scent of acacia, Sisi saw firsthand why that season in Budapest had been memorialized in poetry, symphonies, and paintings. The mountains and plains along the river seemed to burst with new life, the buds appearing like a patchwork tapestry of green, red, and yellow against the blue of the Danube. Outdoor markets, florists, and fruit vendors popped up like new blooms. And the city’s wide, stately boulevards luxuriated under the dappled shade cast by leafy sycamore and chestnut trees. For the first time in years—for the first time since Possi, really—Sisi felt that she was truly free to enjoy the arrival and ripening of spring, in all its wonders.

For Sisi there was no better way to pay homage to the season and the signs of new life than to take off into the world around her on horseback. Franz was not up for riding these days; his hours were jammed with papers from Vienna and plans for a rapprochement with Hungary. But that did not stop Sisi, and, in fact, he encouraged her to ride.

It was during this particular moment, this soft and delicate period between early and late spring, a moment as fragile as the new buds and the newly warm sunlight, that Sisi told her husband that she was the happiest she had been since their wedding day. It was the truth.

She was enamored of her daughters, and she finally felt that they returned that same affection to her. She and her husband had enjoyed a reawakening of intimacy as invigorating to Sisi as the May sunshine. Franz had seemed somehow depleted when they arrived in Budapest, disarmed by his status—however unofficial as it was—as visitor and outsider in this land. A severe cold and the discomforts of the journey had seemed to humble him, while the instant love and support of the Hungarian people for his wife had only elevated her high spirits. They seemed to know, implicitly, that she felt like an outsider at a court full of Austrians. That she, like them, was foreign; she would never be a true Habsburg.

Word had spread in the cafés and restaurants that the empress favored her Hungarian lady’s maid above all others, that she had brought only Marie Festetics on the journey. They knew of the empress’s love for riding on Hungary’s plains; they heard of her fascination with Hungarian poetry and history; they smiled as she fumbled and struggled her way through the Hungarian language in public. And, perhaps best of all, they had caught whiffs—whispers and rumors, reports that seeped out of Vienna—of the discord that existed between their empress and their emperor’s mother. Sophie, the harshest critic of Hungarians during and since the punishing years of ’48–’49, and self-professed opponent to any expansion of Hungarian rights, was not welcome in Budapest. Which meant that Sisi, as her opponent at court, instantly was.

The way the Hungarian people embraced Sisi prompted Franz to look on his wife with a newfound admiration; she became his most important friend and ally. Sisi saw this shift in his behavior, however minor it may have appeared to others, as a miraculous gesture of marital commitment—a gesture that she had craved ever since their earliest days together. He saw her, and needed her. She was finally relevant.

Franz and Sisi became inseparable, close like they had not yet been in their marriage. No longer was Sisi forced to go entire days without seeing a trace of her husband. In Budapest, away from the ceaseless demands of the court and courtiers, they took all their meals together. The girls joined them. They discussed the politics of Hungary together, and Franz, after the period of distance required by two close pregnancies, returned to their marital bed. Sisi enjoyed coupling with her husband once more, not because it brought her any particular pleasure—she still did not understand how to make the act more satisfying for herself—but because it brought him close to her in the most intimate of ways.

Afterward, when they were still, he would lie beside her, his face just inches from hers on the pillow, and she’d enjoy the midnight companionship and conversation that she had cherished in the earliest days of their marriage. It seemed as though the physical distance they had put between themselves and his mother had allowed Franz to put the archduchess out of his mind as well—to focus on his wife as the most important woman in his life. At night, when they shared a bed, he was hers once more; he was open to her loving him and craving closeness. He responded in kind.

Perhaps it was all the time they were suddenly spending with their own children, but, at night, while the rest of the castle slept, Sisi and Franz would share stories of their own childhoods. Childhoods which, when compared, could not have been less similar. Sisi would tell Franz of the excursions her father had taken her on into the Bavarian Alps, where they would hike, and fish, and mingle with local farmers and herders. How, in the summer, her cousin Ludwig would come to stay with the family and they would spend the entire summer out of doors, seldom wearing shoes and often going weeks without formal school lessons.

Franz, by contrast, would tell Sisi of his earliest days in the imperial nursery. Of how, at the age of four, he had begun his formal schooling. Franz spoke of long days, drilling with stern-faced military tutors. Days that began with ice-cold baths before six in the morning. He told her, for the first time, about the void he had felt when the only paternal figure in his life, his grandfather, had died; a void that he had been taught not to dwell upon, for an excessive display of emotion would be very unsuitable. Especially for a future king.

“It’s odd, isn’t it?” It was the middle of the night in late May. Sisi lay beside Franz, staring at him through the glow of the last candle.

“What is?” Franz appeared drowsy now, and his lips pulled apart in a yawn.

“How different our childhoods were. Though they are sisters, my mother and your mother are nothing alike.”

“Well”—Franz thought about this—“they’ve lived such different lives. They’ve been apart since they were young girls.”

“Yes. But how is it that my mother encouraged us to read romantic fairy tales, and run about outside?” Sisi paused, missing her mother like an ache in her bones. “While your mother, she taught you such stoicism.”

“Well, Mother became a Habsburg.” Franz shifted restlessly, punching his pillow to fluff the downy feathers inside it. “She knew what was expected of her.”

Sisi noticed that whenever she tried to bring up the topic of his mother, Franz quickly changed the course of the conversation, a defensive tone tingeing his words.

“I suppose.” Sisi sighed. Frustrated as she was by her husband’s unwillingness to address this one particular topic, she was not willing to argue. Not when they had been so happy recently. She changed subjects: “Franz, I’ve decided something. I’m very poor with languages, but I am going to try very hard to master Hungarian.”

“Is that right?” Franz turned toward her now, surprised. “Why? You have the imperial translators at your disposal.”

“Yes, I know. But I’d like to be able to speak directly to the people. In their own tongue. And it’s such a beautiful language—I can have Marie teach me.”

“Imagine that, a Habsburg empress speaking to the Hungarians in their own tongue. It would certainly be a first.” Franz’s tone had softened, and his sleepy eyes beheld her now with a glow of affection. “They shall love you even more than they already do. And I shall love you even more for making me look so good.”

“If I
do
learn Hungarian, can we stay here forever?” Sisi asked, a playful smile tugging on the corners of her lips.

“Forever? You would stay here, in this dark, dingy castle rather than return to our monstrously large and lavish Austrian palaces?” Franz kissed her lips, sliding his body closer to hers under the covers.

“It’s just that we are so happy here in Hungary. The whole family, together.”

“You are happy, aren’t you? Hungary suits you, I can tell.” He threaded a finger through one of her loose waves, tugging it gently. “I love seeing you this happy, Elisa.”

“Of course I’m happy. I have everything I could ever want. I have you. I have my little girls with me every day. I am free here. My days are my own. In Budapest I don’t feel chained by the rigidity . . . the
customs
 . . . the rules that dictate life in Vienna.” She sighed. “I am blissfully happy and I don’t wish to leave.” Her brow creased at the thought and she recoiled from his kisses.

“Now, now, Elisa. Let’s not think of such troublesome things, my sweet, restless little wife. We are together with our daughters now, aren’t we? And I love you.”

“I love you, too, Franz.” She sighed, allowing him to kiss her again. He was right, for now. They were together, for now, and so she held on to the days in Budapest with greedy protectiveness.

“
Van két kislány
.”

“Which means?”

“I have two little girls.”

“Well done, Empress. But you can improve your accent—remember that the emphasis is always on the first syllable.”

“
Van két KIS-lány
.”

“Precisely!” Marie clapped.

Sisi was in the middle of a Hungarian lesson when the invitation arrived, a large, ecru envelope delivered by a gloved footman. The cursive lettering was long and elegant, a fine hand, but the note was entirely in Hungarian.

“Well, I may be practicing Hungarian, but I’m nowhere near ready to read this.” Sisi handed the paper to Marie. “Can you please translate this?”

Marie took the card in her hand and studied it, her eyes immediately widening. “Very interesting, Your Grace.”

“What? What is it, Marie?”

“This comes from Count Julius Andrássy.”

Sisi had heard that name on an almost daily basis since their arrival to Budapest; that name was the primary reason they had come to Hungary. The tall, dark-haired man she had met in the opera house. The troublemaking man who had invited the emperor to Budapest, but who had yet to be in the city and available to meet with Franz.

“Oh, so Andrássy has decided to come back and meet with my husband, at last?” Sisi grumbled, taking the invitation back in her hands and staring at it with new wariness. “Tell me, Marie, what does Andrássy want?”

“Count Andrássy wishes to invite you and the emperor to his home for a night of dinner and dancing, according to this invitation.”

“Ha! As if we are old friends.”

“Will Your Majesties attend?”

Sisi considered this. “If the emperor thinks it wise, then yes, I suppose we will.” Sisi turned the card over in her hand. “Quick, Marie, you must teach me how to say:
Behave yourself, Count Andrássy
.”

The two ladies laughed.

“Come, enough studying for today. How about we finish up here and you join me and my girls for tea up on Buda Hill? It’s a lovely day and I’d like them to see the boats floating down the Danube.”

“I don’t see why we must attend a dinner with Andrássy. A meeting, perhaps. But a dinner party seems too jolly.”

“Believe me, Elisa, there is nothing jolly about the look on your face.”

Sisi stepped out of the carriage, taking her husband’s arm. The night was balmy and she paused, adjusting and arranging the lightweight silk of her evening attire. She had selected one of her favorite gowns, a sapphire blue, with matching peacock feathers ornamenting her hair.

The two of them lingered in front of Andrássy’s home—a stately limestone mansion surrounded by sycamore trees. The building sat on a generous lot in Budapest’s upscale Terézváros neighborhood. She studied the building as their retinue of imperial guards formed a column around her and Franz. Violin music and candlelight spilled out of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the first floor, splashing onto the lane where she stood, staring up at the glimpses of the gay dinner party within.

“I dislike the man before I even know him,” she said. “I do not appreciate how he’s disrespected you, Franz.”

“I know, Elisa. Andrássy is not my favorite person either. But he’s the most powerful man in Hungary. And if we are to reach a peaceful accord, it will only be because Andrássy gives his blessing. Please, be friendly. This is, after all, why we are here.”

“I’m here to be away from Vienna . . . and from your moth—”