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sean brijbasi
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the genealogy of the bicycle, or maria (a true story)
the bicycle is a direct descendent of Napoleon Bonaparte
The Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte often went to his mistress' apartment as what he called a bicycle (the old Corsican word for secret or two wheels).
'As a bicycle', he often said, 'I can mingle with the common folk and go unnoticed.'
And as a bicycle he was exiled to Denmark after Josephine mistakenly rode him to the market to buy some eggplants and a chicken. She leaned him against a fishmonger's stand, but his mistress was at the market also and thinking that Napoleon had come to rendezvous, hopped on his back and rode him to her apartment on Rue de Voltaire.
Tragically for Napoleon, Josephine arrived just as his mistress was in the act of dismounting him.
whim and a woman's ass
I'm riding my bicycle along Istedgade and plan to spend the day at the park, reading the collected letters of Napoleon, but I see a woman's ass that makes me change course. And so I wonder if in the historias brevitas of this journey that I could have taken a different course that would, in turn, lead to different consequences. But I don't. And that is the dilemma (always in retrospect) that impulse and whim place on a man like me. Could it have been…? Did I…? Should I have…? Perhaps this…? Perhaps that…?
The woman sits at an outdoor café' (on that beautiful…), orders a coffee, and reads the lady with the blue umbrella. The summer breeze flirts with her hair.
the lady with the blue umbrella
Van Gogh's wheat bends beneath the rain, and the lady with the blue umbrella watches dark clouds roll up from the horizon. There is something magical about her umbrella that calms her. Something magical about all umbrellas she thinks-like candles, bicycles, hats, and lullabies. Something that allows them to stretch their wills across generations and even centuries. Something about them that tells her that what was still is, will never change-and is, in fact, timeless.
from the collected letters of Napoleon Bonaparte
(to Mlle. Maria Elena de A.)
Maria,
…I know that we have held each other before in an intoxicated world that never intersected with this one. But something came back with me the last time we held each other. Something that should be sown in a secret garden and allowed to grow if it will. It is not a convenient thing for us Maria, but it's too precious, too innocent to be destroyed-by me or by anyone…
Napoleon Bonaparte (Paris, Nov. 1798)
the sigh of the universe
The rain falls and the wind sighs strangely, as if the universe is unburdening itself from a great weight. The woman is eating a peach. And I'm thinking about eating a peach also. Thinking of finding a strand of her hair on the café chair. Thinking that I want her to leave something behind. I was happier a few minutes ago. I was happier but didn't know it until now, because I see from the ring on her finger that she is married.
"Is it possible", I ask her, "for two corrupted people to create something innocent?"
"Yes", she says, "but it will happen accidentally, perhaps without the knowledge of either person. Regrettably, however, it will not last. The corruption will inveigle its way into the innocence and eventually kill it. The mere thoughts of the corrupted people will injure the innocence irrevocably. Better not to speak of it. Even better not to think of it."
But I do think of it and I slowly realize that the sigh of the universe is a sigh of regret.
passion
Napoleon placed the blue umbrella against the wall and opened the window to let in the rain. Maria moved to the edge of the bed and lifted her dress to her hips. Then they spoke about the empire, about the meaning of a few paragraphs in a novel. But it was an unspoken eroticism that their friendship was based on.
"If anyone else shares this with you, well then my heart would break into a million pieces", she said.
Napoleon kissed her tenderly. People are corrupt he thought, but passion is innocent.
maria
My bicycle carries me around strange corners and through strange streets, to a park and stops by the woman with the beautiful ass, sun bathing on a blanket.
"You've been thinking about me", she says.
"Yes", I say.
"My name is Maria", she says.
I hope that she has been thinking about me also. Like when she sees a bicycle out of the corner of her eye, or when the breeze blows so faintly that she hardly notices and doesn't know why my face and the indescribable feeling of our first meeting come to her. I hope that invisible forces are at work for me.
"The trees are beautifully silent this time of the year", she says.
I nod in agreement and smile.
"A day can no longer go by that I don't see you," I say.
She takes off her ring and gestures me to lie down beside her. The leaves on the tree above us rustle suddenly. I look up and then look at her and realize that at this very moment in my life there is no other place that I should be.
from the collected letters of Napoleon Bonaparte
…you are right in saying that we are friends. And yet ours is a friendship that is strange indeed. When you are in the room I watch you as I watch no other friend. From the very moment that I met you, a strange feeling overcame me, and I wanted to be near you. And now when I am near you I feel an excitement and I want to hold you. Our conversations disguise motives, our glances hide passion. Tell me what this is Maria? Politics and war are easy for me. But this…this confounds me…
Napoleon Bonaparte (Paris, Jan. 1799)
that is me
Napoleon lifted himself to his full height, and turned towards Josephine.
"I will give you the pleasure of riding me back to the market", he said.
"No", Josephine said, "you are a bad bicycle."
Maria left the room.
"I am a man independent and strong enough to follow this or that impulse no matter where it takes me", he said haughtily, "and to say to the accusers of my indiscretions so what, that is me. I am Napoleon and there is no other."
"You are, of course, correct my Emperor", Josephine said coldly, "but even the strongest man, independent enough to follow this or that impulse is often made a slave by them."
love
Think of it in this way…
You are walking down the street, but before you turn the corner, you can see what is already there: children running across the road, a man asking for directions, a newspaper leaf pausing in the wind. And then you turn the corner, but you see Maria waving to you from the distance, and a black bull chasing a cabaret dancer along the sidewalk, and a scarlet flag covering the sky. The statues in the park are sunlit bronze, the grass is green, and a bicycle leans against the spitting fountain…
maria, whispered
When I wake up I am on my bicycle. It takes me from Copenhagen through the Danish countryside. I pass farmers in Germany. Day turns to night. Night turns to day again. I sleep. I wake up. I yawn and stretch. I think about the hundreds of years that the trees have lived-lived in front of the houses that have been built, destroyed, and rebuilt. Kept every secret, even those of the most reviled men, and whispered nothing, not even to the wind. I say Maria's name silently to myself - Maria. And again, Maria. Then thoughts about her and her husband, living in the same house, sharing the same bed make my bicycle race faster and faster. Such pain, I think. How is it possible that anyone could endure such pain?
from the collected letters of Napoleon Bonaparte
Maria,
…this is my last letter to you. And this is what I want to tell you…that I will always think of you from time to time. That I want nothing from you that you will not give of yourself freely. That our friendship is rare. Rare in its intensity if not its duration. There is more that I should say, but there is a certain incommunicability of the heart. Something transparent, yet deep. You do understand. Maria, think of me from time to time. Think of me now that I am no longer Emperor…now that I am but two wheels, a broken bell, and a scrap of twisted metal…
Napoleon Bonaparte (Paris, Mar. 1799)
a letter to napoleon
I arrive in Paris and my bicycle stops in front of an apartment on Rue de Voltaire. I climb the stairs and open the door. I walk past the hallway into the living room. I pull up the rug and remove a panel from the floor, where I find a letter written by Maria Elena de A. to Napoleon Bonaparte dated March, 1799.
Cher Napoleon,
My heart is broken and I am damaged beyond repair without you. I will look for you and promise that I will find you one day. Two souls such as ours shall always find each other…
I think about Maria. Outside it begins to rain. A lady with a blue umbrella passes by the window, and my bicycle leans against the oldest tree in Paris.
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