The Light in Trieste

By Rosemary Aubert

•The Light in Trieste is a novel of international intrigue that spans three centuries. It’s a tale about illegal immigration: the story of an empress, a refugee and a prostitute, three desperate women in three different time periods, each attempting to use the same stolen antique scientific instrument to bribe her way into a new life in America. It’s a work of fiction based on true events in the past of a remarkable city.

In a novel inspired by the unusual life of Sisi, Empress of Bavaria and renegade wife of Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Aubert follows the fictional path of the glowing prism once owned by Sir Isaac Newton, which in real life resides at Cambridge University.

Rosemary Aubert has achieved world-wide attention with her Ellis Portal series. She is a Toronto writer, teacher, speaker and criminologist who mentors fresh mystery writers and treasures classic ones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rosemary Aubert
• Release date: Feb 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781772421132

Rosemary Aubert

Rosemary Aubert is the author of sixteen published books, including the Ellis Portal mystery series and other novels as well as several books of poetry. Excerpts and information about these can be viewed on her website: rosemaryaubert.com.

Book preview

Secretary of Peter the Great

December 2, 1698

Moscow

The Kremlin

To the Honourable Sir Isaac Newton:

Kensington

England

Dear Sir Isaac Newton:

At the command of my Sovereign, His Imperial Highness, Pytor Alexeyevich Romanov, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, I write to convey compliments and expressions of gratitude for Sir Isaac’s generous hospitality in London and for his thoughtful gift. I am instructed to inform that the object will remain a pleasant and permanent reminder of His Highness’s private conversations with Sir Isaac about scientific matters of great import.

I am further instructed to remind Sir Isaac that, should he ever entertain the idea of a trip to Moscow, he may be assured of a warm and enthusiastic welcome.

Yours in honour and respect,

Mikhail Naryshkin

Secretary

Franz

August 9, 1898

Vienna, Austria

Beloved—

I dare call you that name again, even as I did the first day I set eyes upon you.

I am an old man—perhaps an old fool, but I have not forgotten our first years together. Much has happened to both of us since then, but all is not lost.

I forgive you everything. Do not be afraid. You cannot steal from me. All I have is yours.

Come home, my beloved Elizabeth. It is not too late.

Even after all these years, it is not too late.

F.

CHAPTER ONE

August 10, 1898

Trieste, Austria

One hundred twelve buttons and no maid.

Sisi, Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie, Duchess in Bavaria, Kaiserin, Empress of Austria, Queen of Hungary, ran her fingers along the dark purple silk of her bodice. On impulse, she stretched her two hands around her waist. Her fingers still met in front. It was hard to have a waist that tiny at sixty. She was prouder of her figure than of her empire. Maybe some men liked fat women. Who cared? Her people loved her for her spirit—rebellious. Free. Anyway, why would she want to look like other women?

It didn’t matter about the maid. There was nothing she wore that she couldn’t put on or take off by herself. The maids didn’t know, but she hated the touch of other people, even the touch of Franz, especially the touch of Franz.

She began at the hem of the skirt. This dress—like all her dresses—was so tight that she could not bend, but she knew how to lift the smooth silk with her toe until she could reach the bottom buttons, then undo each of the others as the fabric slid through her hands.

She wore no petticoat and only the flimsiest of bloomers. There was no use in fighting all one’s life to be thin, then padding oneself like a hausfrau in coarse, thick undergarments.

When the top button was finally loosed and the gown slithered onto the carpet, Sisi stood naked for a moment in the center of the room.

This hotel suite looked a lot like her private rooms in the Hofburg Palace. How very tedious! Everything in Trieste reminded her of Vienna, except for Miramare, high on a promontory overlooking the Adriatic Sea. Soon she would be up there and she couldn’t wait, despite the abiding sorrow of that place. At Miramare, Franz’s brother, Maximilian, had planned a life of ease and splendor. But the family’s imperial ambitions had made him Emperor of Mexico instead. And the Mexicans had killed him in short order. Worse, Sisi had often shared Miramare with her daughter-in-law. But the girl’s husband, Sisi’s only son, had killed himself at Mayerling and he had not been alone.

Sisi sighed. Her whole life had been a saga of grand hopes dashed by the desires of other people.

Well, not any more. Where she was going now, people followed their own dreams. Even old people.

Covering her nakedness with a linen towel, she stepped to the window. Her attendants had opened the shutters, which was good because, strong as she was from years of riding and swimming and hiking, even she could not have managed the forty-foot ornately carved white wooden slats that had hidden her view of the piazza.

Sisi glanced out. From this room in the Hotel Garni, she could see the sparkling waters of the sea at the edge of the piazza, and glimpse many of the tall white marble buildings that surrounded the vast square. On the smooth stones of the plaza itself, tables had been set up and now, late in the afternoon, gentlemen in suits and spats lounged in the shade of broad umbrellas. A small brass band played at the base of the fountain and a few children, all dressed in white, ran about under the eyes of governesses, also dressed in white.

She could hear nothing through the heavy glass of the windows, but she imagined that most of these people spoke in the same light, swift Austrian German that she spoke herself. But there were other tongues spoken in Trieste, and she longed to hear them, in love as she was with any place that wasn’t home. She imagined the singing tones of the Italians, the dark, guttural utterances of the Slavs. Trieste might look like Vienna, but it sounded like itself.

To be naked meant to be as light as one could possibly be—almost. Sisi crossed her wide room, entered the adjoining water closet, relieved herself, washed her hands and stuck her finger deep into her mouth. But there was no need, really. She hadn’t eaten anything solid in thirteen days and had already vomited spontaneously once today—at the smell of a big basket of fruit that some idiot had left in her room as a welcome.

She had been married to Franz Joseph now for—what, forty-four years? Had borne him four children. But her real life had always been away from them all. She could still remember the first time she had ever seen Franz, slim, blond, handsome and stiff in his soldier’s uniform. She could tell he was besotted from the first moment. They say a woman’s past life flows before her eyes in the seconds before death. Sisi had seen her whole future pass before her eyes that day, and when Franz left, she had wept, had been weeping, it seemed, ever since.

Looking toward the mantle of the room’s tall fireplace, she sought the clock, its face embraced by two disgusting fat bronze nude angels. Four p.m. Still two hours to go. Good. It would take her at least that long to transform herself from the Empress of Austria-Hungary into an Italian maidservant. In Vienna, no gentlewoman’s servant would be seen unaccompanied in public with a man. But things were different in the south. And in America—oh yes!

Still naked, she unfastened her hair and let it fall from where it was held by a diamond clip in the shape of a rose to her waist. No photograph of her had been allowed in many years, so only those who saw her in person knew that the rich dark tresses were now ruined by silver. But her hair was still thick, still scented by essences made for her in Hungary and France. She grabbed a handful of the silky richness of her mane and held it to her nose, breathed deeply. She loved the smell of herself—of her whole body.

Letting her hair fall again, she strode into the anteroom where she’d ordered her luggage to be deposited. Today, she had only two trunks and a few small handbags. She never travelled as lightly as this, but clothing and toiletries could be replaced in New York. Maybe even Franz could be replaced in New York…

Her long fingers dug through the folded garments in the nearest trunk until she found a long white skirt, a smocked white blouse, a soft, long petticoat, a fringed shawl.

For a panicked moment, she thought she’d forgotten the slippers, but no, here they were tucked between a brightly embroidered apron and the complicated headdress that Sisi had had copied from a magazine she’d found in Venice.

She was no stranger to the thrills of disguise. Her mind sped back to the vineyards of Hungary. For years she had enjoyed the sweet pleasures of the yearly wine festival in the verdant countryside beyond Pesht. Dressed in the simple skirt and shawl of a country matron, she’d even carried the ceremonial grape wreath through the village to the wine press where strong young men in embroidered cloaks had accepted that burden of harvest from her outstretched hands. One year, it occurred to her that she was fooling no one. That everyone in that village knew exactly who she really was. It was a gift of love from them that they never let on.

She laid the ensemble out on the massive bed in yet another chamber of the suite. It looked quite perfect—authentic. Now she could begin to dress like the Contadina she was about to pretend to be.

When she finished, only one more detail remained before she would be ready for her assignation. From her small handbag—her own proper silk purse, she took a piece of rough yellow paper and carefully unfolded it.

Beneath a sketch in black ink, a name was carefully written. The sketch was a self-portrait of the sender. Since she had never seen the depicted man in person, she could not be sure how accurate his drawing of himself was, but it had better be good or this whole enterprise would come to shame.

In the picture he was, she thought, the exact opposite of her husband: young, dark, a little unkempt with his tousled black hair falling across his brow. He had, it appeared, a full black moustache. Franz’s, of course, was pure white now, but it had always been sharply trimmed. Had it been a quarter of a century since they had passionately kissed? She could still feel the bristly hairs of his hard little moustache.

An unexplained wave of tenderness surprised her. She pushed away thoughts of her husband, just as she had already discarded the letter that had come from him that morning.

Dejan. That was the name at the bottom of the picture. She studied it, memorizing the man’s features. She didn’t know whether he would be waiting for her or whether she would have to pick him out of the crowd in the piazza or even—heaven forbid—in the street.

Her reputation, her safety… Everything was at risk.

But there was no greater risk than to do nothing, to return to the deadness of her old life in Vienna. She was too old to escape once again to the embracing green fields of Hungary, too old to swim for hours, to ride all day and all night, to hike in the mountains, to lie down in a wood, guarded by her maids, to sleep outside so she wouldn’t have to sleep in a bed. She was probably too old to keep starving herself, to exist on nothing but the juice of raw meat.

But she was not so old that she could not risk one more escape, the great escape, the saving of the rest of her life.

Once she had traded on her great beauty to get whatever she needed. Well, if that was done now, it was done.

But she could still trade on some beauty.

On the beauty of the object she had taken from the great library at the Hofburg one afternoon before she had even thought of her plan.

In fact, the object seemed to have a life of its own. Held a certain way, it could catch a ray of sun that seemed to tease her skin, making it tingle until it almost hurt. As soon as she had lifted the thing and felt the smooth weight of it on her palm, as soon as she had seen the hot light dancing through it, she had wondered what she could trade it for.

She would never have dreamed at first that she could trade it for freedom.

But now she was determined to trade it for nothing less.

CHAPTER TWO

Do you have it?

That would be the first question this Dejan would ask.

No. Yes.

No, she had no intention of giving him the object until he could prove that the buyer in New York, that museum, had sent enough money for her passage—and for rooms on Fifth Avenue as well.

But yes, she had the beautiful thing in her possession, safely tucked away from the prying eyes of even her most trusted servant.

So Franz didn’t care that she had taken it? He was always telling her that she could have anything of his she wanted. Once when he had asked, What, my love, can I give you? she had answered, Hungary. It was no joke. The people of Hungary would have given her their country themselves if they could. She loved them and they loved her back. That was how love worked sometimes.

As she stepped into the lobby of the Garni, she expected the uniformed doormen to snap to attention the way they usually did. Then she remembered how she was dressed. No one looked at her face. It was rude to do so. Besides, who cared what an old peasant looked like? Anyone who saw her would assume that she was either running an errand for her mistress or else going somewhere that she had been summoned.

She slipped quickly out the door of the hotel and into the sunlight in the square, which was still bright, though the sun hung low over the horizon and glinted off the water of the harbor at the edge of the piazza.

Sisi shielded her eyes and glanced across the wide white expanse. The tall buildings appeared to enclose the square entirely, giving her a momentary sensation of claustrophobia. She drew in a breath, surprised at how easy it was to breathe in this uncorsetted outfit. She tried another deep breath just for the experience. Exhilarating!

At the far end of the square, opposite the sea, the magnificent municipal hall thrust its square white tower toward the sky. Six. She was here. Where was he?

In the deep shade at the base of the tower and writhing within it, she thought she saw the secretive movements of someone waiting.

She took a step forward. Two dusty gray dogs scurried from the shadows and, dancing around each other, circled toward the massive fountain in front of the hall.

There were a number of other figures in the piazza, among them the gentlemen she’d noticed earlier, still chatting at leisure and sipping fresh drinks as they lounged at round white tables beneath yellow umbrellas.

Could one of these be Dejan?

Suddenly she was blinded by a flutter of dark, bony hands in front of her eyes, picking at her headdress, plucking at her collar like crows.

Fighting panic, she waved her arms, trying to fend them off, but strong fingers grabbed her wrists and yanked her arms until they hurt.

She fought hard not to scream, not to show weakness. She was still physically a strong woman, despite her tiny size, and she knew it. She struck out with her fists, landing a punch on the jaw of the nearest woman and unbalancing her, sending the whole lot of them tumbling onto the stones at her feet like a pile of mountebanks.

Half a dozen high, squeaking voices assailed her ears, yelling in an incomprehensible but familiar tongue. Czigany!

Sisi realized she was standing over the sprawling bodies of a number of Gypsy women, a couple of whom were no younger than herself. One of the oldest manipulated her toothless mouth and sent a huge gob of spittle toward the embroidered apron that Sisi wore. It landed right in the middle of the bib.

Forget her, one of the younger woman cried out in an Italian dialect that Sisi could understand. She’s nothing but a servant anyway.

Sisi considered giving them a swift kick or two. Then she remembered herself. She wasn’t a servant. She was an empress. She was, in fact, empress of the Rom. In Hungary she had seen their tattered camps, their ragged children. They struggled hard to make their way by fair means or foul. She admired their self-sufficiency, their courage. She had heard they had a code of honor more stringent than her own. Be that as it may.

She reached into the pocket of her apron, pulled out a handful of coins and threw them a few feet away.

Most of the Gypsy women dove for the coins the way a gaggle of geese will dive for a piece of bread, but one lagged behind. Into Sisi’s ear she whispered—in English—Gold will not buy your dream across the sea.

In the corner of the square, farthest from the harbor, where the edge of the municipal hall met the edge of the café of the yellow umbrellas, a dark passage suddenly revealed itself to Sisi’s sun-struck eyes. At the end of it, she could see a shaft of light hitting the leaves of shrubs and trees. She stepped into the shadows and began to follow a narrow alley that led toward this park and the streets behind the piazza. She heard the soft murmur of voices and took them to be passers-by, like those in the square behind her.

She’d not taken two steps when the passage came alive with the flash of knives as men drew close from every direction.

Unencumbered by the heavy cotton skirts, the broad apron, the towering headdress, the soft, useless slippers of her peasant garb, she would have run for it.

She could smell the men, circling her the way the other dogs had circled that fountain.

"Lasceteme, she cried hopelessly in Italian. Leave me."

Yes, a smooth, deep voice seemed to answer from the shadows, leave her. She’s mine.

Sisi tried to turn, to catch sight of the owner of that voice. It was so mellow, so deep, so unlike either the lilting Italian of the streets or the spirited German of the court. Slavic, that’s what it was. Balkan. She’d not spent all these long years travelling into and out of Trieste without having heard the Slovenes speak, the Croats, even the Serbs, though they came from farther away. But she certainly couldn’t tell from the accent which of these the man might be.

Before she could move, though, she felt strong arms come from behind and grasp her around her waist. Again, the unmistakable scent of maleness assaulted her nostrils. Terror gripped her, until she realized this male smelled not of sweat, nor of horses, nor of tobacco, nor—heaven forbid—of the disgusting sourness of the unwashed. This man smelled of some musky cologne, more intense, but also more mysteriously pleasing than the scent of a thousand partners she’d been forced to dance with over the decades.

Easy to get away from such a man!

She twisted, pulled her body out of his arms.

But though his hold was no stronger than that of a partner in a waltz, she couldn’t get loose.

Steady, madam, he breathed in her ear. Don’t move and you won’t be hurt.

She’d fought the Rom and she would fight again. She lifted her leg, intending to kick backwards.

But she immediately felt his knee between her legs.

Shocked, she went limp for an instant and in that instant felt the side of a knife blade cold against her cheek.

Now she feared she might faint. There was a first time for everything.

Stay still and you won’t be hurt.

His whole body seemed to vibrate with the low tones of his voice so that she wasn’t sure whether she heard him or merely felt the trembling of his words along the blade, along his arm that held her less tightly than the bodices of her tight dresses, but rendered her nearly incapable of breath nonetheless.

She could still smell the others, could still feel them circling her. The gold coins she’d tossed to the Rom had been the only valuables in her possession. Of what could these rough men rob her?

And since she was no longer young and beautiful, she could think of nothing to be gained by this other brigand, the one who held her like a dancer, the one who smelled like musk and lime.

His blade left her cheek, and swinging it in a wide arc, he lashed out at the other men, who seemed to cower, frightened, she thought, more by his manner than his weapon. Pulling her along, he dragged her toward the opening at the end of the alley.

Like rats afraid of the light of day, the others fell behind, until it was only he and she at the narrow entrance to the small park behind the square.

He hauled her out into the sun. His arm loosened, letting her breathe deeply again, allowing her to turn to face him.

He was tall, as well built as a farmer or a teamster. She thought he must be twenty years younger than she—which would make him forty. To a woman of sixty, a man of forty is someone who has just come into the full strength of his manhood. His skin was darker than hers, for sure, but in the Italian sun, everything looks golden, including the rough planes of his high cheeks, the stubborn line of his jaw, the fullness of his manly lips pressed together now in a show of severity that she took to be just a tiny bit false.

His dark hair was unspoiled by any strand of gray. In the back it fell smoothly to his collar. But it was far more wild than any hair arrangement she was used to. For an instant she thought of Franz. Once, very early in their marriage, she had touched his hair. It looked like a brush—always. But the first time she had touched it, it had felt so soft. In that moment, for no reason she could ever name, she had loved her husband, not as duty, but as desire. How soft would the thick, dark hair of this man feel?

He was staring at her in a way she’d thought a man would never look at her again. She knew what his gaze meant. It was a mixture of surprise, satisfaction, even a hint of hope. Like so many hundreds of men before him, he thought she was beautiful! Even now… Even with everything about her so old and destroyed.

She knew what had always come next. The boyish declarations. The awkward confessions. The clumsily articulated stunned responses to her beauty, her grace, her magnificence.

She half expected this man to declare his undying love on the spot, to say, as others had said, I have heard that you are beautiful. Yet I had no idea.

But that is not what the man said.

What he said was, Do you have it?

CHAPTER THREE

She took several steps back and glanced around. They seemed to be in the treed courtyard of a very old building. There was no one visible in the courtyard itself, nor in