Dance on the Volcano

by Marie Vieux-Chauvet

  “You’re not going to do that! You’re not going to do that!” She was practically screaming.

  “But we have no choice!”

  Mme Acquaire let herself fall back on the bed, dissolving in sobs while holding the compress to her head with a trembling hand. Sell Scipion! No, it wasn’t possible! Not for a second had she thought they could do with him what people did with other slaves. What did it matter to her if people sold wet nurses, suckling infants, half-dead elderly slaves whose value was measured by the ton like cattle, as long as Scipion remained hers! She had figured out that certain things in Saint Domingue would never change. Daughter of a planter, raised in the courtyard of a great house, she had been accustomed since girlhood to being served, adored; like all young Creoles, she had had a cocotte to whom she had confided her earliest secrets. She had let her be beaten – oh, never very much, but just enough so that her low-born confidante would understand that she was the mistress and that she alone held the power of life and death over her. Now, with age, she had learned to be indulgent toward that race, though the rebellion of one of its members had cost her her rank and her fortune.

  While thinking about all this, an idea came to her in a flash. She quickly pulled herself together and cried out: “Now there’s an idea!…”

  “What is it?” asked M Acquaire, pulled out of the state of lethargy into which his misery had plunged him.

  “Minette!” whispered Mme Acquaire to her husband, as if she did not dare to say the idea loud and clear…

  “Well, what about Minette?”

  She opened her arms dramatically and said, louder this time: “To attract a big audience to the theater, and to seduce our existing public, perhaps a bit tired of the same old act, we need something sensational, no?”

  “Right!” responded M Acquaire, like someone still trying to understand.

  “That something sensational will be Minette – in a duet with one of our young actors.”

  M Acquaire looked at his wife with what seemed like a combination of shock and pity, and said to her:

  “You’ve gone mad.”

  “Mad? Not at all…”

  “But they’d never let a girl of color perform on the stage of the Comédie! Are you trying to create a scandal, for heaven’s sake? Have you forgotten who François Mesplès is?”

  “No, I know who he is…Listen, our backs are against the wall. This scandal will either destroy all our hopes or save us.

  M Acquaire’s tic twitched as he stroked his chin – a sign that he was doing some serious thinking.

  “It’s true, that child has extraordinary talent.”

  Mme Acquaire took advantage of her husband’s softening to press her point.

  “Let me do it. What’s the worst that can happen? We risk being expelled from the island. Big deal. If we fail, I promise you we can sell Scipion to pay for our trip overseas…”

  The slave had heard everything. In a house that small, the walls have ears. And even though he was not making any particular effort, his masters’ words reached him loud and clear. He understood that his fate no longer depended on the Acquaires, but on the little colored girl with the crystal clear voice. He already admired her; he began to adore her.

  Mme Acquaire, whose excellent idea had immediately cured her of her malaise, put on a mauve silk gaule, beneath which she tied a modest underskirt, and ran to Jasmine’s house.

  When the door opened and she stood there before them, the girls let out a little cry of surprise, for they had just left her ailing in her bed.

  Joseph rose and nodded to her. Mme Acquaire, overexcited, paid him no attention.

  “My dears, where is your mother? Call her – I’d like to speak to her.”

  Jasmine hurried in, wiping her hands on her blue camisole. Sensing something unusual in the excitement of the Creole woman, the young people went out onto the patio so that she might speak freely.

  “Jasmine, I have good news for you.”

  “Good news, Lady Acquaire?

  How would Jasmine react? That question had not even occurred to the actress. She was certain that the poor freedwoman would be only too pleased to show off her daughter on a stage with white performers. Thus did she decide to forego any preamble and get straight to her proposal, saying: “I’m going to try and have Minette sing at the Comédie.”

  “The Comédie! You know very well that that’s impossible, Lady Acquaire.”

  “I know the director of the theater – he’s a white man, but not at all prejudiced. Entrust your daughter to me and you’ll see.”

  Jasmine closed her eyes for a moment. Watching Minette grow up, she had been serene in the knowledge that with the education she had provided, her daughter would be all right – despite her beauty and the ambiance of vice and sensuality that reigned in the country. Although the atmosphere of the markets, the streets, and the public squares was a wide-open book where any young person could easily find ample opportunities for indecency and compromise, she had hoped to protect her children and to steer them toward a good marriage with a man of their race. She was not one of those former slaves who preferred to marry their daughters to some white adventurer rather than giving them to men of their own kind. She was ambitious, of course, but her ambition was legitimate and proper. What did she know about the Whites? There were the arrogant officers; the cruel seignorial planters, who made the men and women of her race bend under their yoke; and then there were the young, adventure-seeking libertines who spent their days chasing skirts. If benevolent, generous, honest white men actually existed, Jasmine had never encountered one. Yes, there was one – a Jesuit priest who had been run out of the country for teaching the slaves. Mme Acquaire, being Creole and poor, gave her the impression of not being so different from herself. But here she had wrested Minette from her influence, enticing her with a promise of access to the unforgiving white world.

  “Why aren’t you answering, Jasmine?”

  “Lady Acquaire, it simply isn’t possible.”

  “Not possible! But I’m telling you I can arrange everything. You have nothing to fear.”

  “It isn’t what you think, Lady Acquaire.”

  Noting the tone of her response, Mme Acquaire understood that she was dealing with a particularly strong-willed woman who, unlike most women those days, was worried about her daughter’s virtue.

  “Listen, Jasmine. I promise you that I will watch over Minette as if she were my own daughter.”

  The colored woman smiled. What talent Minette must have for someone to plead her case like this!

  “Think of her future, Jasmine. Think of the good she might do for others of her kind in revealing her talent to the Whites. For she has a splendid voice, Jasmine, a unique voice…”

  Jasmine closed her eyes a second time. She envisioned Minette singing onstage, in a velvet gown and adorned with jewels, hundreds of hands clapping – white hands, the hands of important planters…She struggled with herself for an instant. Was she really going to refuse – did she have that right? No, it was not possible. And her emotions, which the mad leaping of her heart made obvious, did not escape the actress…Her daughter was going to appear onstage with white performers; she was going to be the first to break the impermeable color barrier – she, a fifteen-year-old girl. God was going to allow her, Jasmine, a former slave, to witness such a day!

  She burst into tears, fell to her knees and, seizing Mme Acquaire’s dress in both hands exclaimed: “Lady Acquaire, are you sure you can protect my child? I’m afraid, I just don’t want to regret this…”

  “You won’t regret it, Jasmine,” responded the actress, with the attitude of one who is sure of victory.

  “That’s all I ask, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” responded Jasmine, making the sign of the cross.

  Once alone, she called in the girls from the patio, where Joseph had left them, and told them the good news. Minette, overjoyed, threw herself into her mother’s arms. Lise wrested her away and, hanging on her neck, re
peated:

  “To the Comédie! To the Comédie!”

  Her cries immediately brought Minette back to her senses. “The Comédie, you say, Mama? But they’ll never allow…”

  “Lady Acquaire says it’s possible.”

  “Oh! Mama!…”

  Jasmine let herself revel for a moment in her daughters’ happiness. She asked Lise to take out the merchandise, then took Minette by the hand and pulled her into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  “You’re becoming a young lady, Minette, and your life is going to change. You’ll encounter a new world – a world I’ve kept from you, for your own good and for your happiness. You may be praised and complimented. Whites will come to see you, to court you…don’t let yourself be steered in the wrong direction.”

  As she spoke, she unbuttoned her blouse and Minette, who had been observing her, realized that she had never seen her mother undressed before.

  “You must understand something, Minette. Life is much more than songs, laughter, and fancy clothing. There is something else. It will make you sad, my child, but there is something else. Look.”

  She took off her bodice and showed her daughter the brand on her right breast. She then turned around and showed her back, lined with scars.

  Minette screamed and wanted to run away. Jasmine made a gesture to silence her – to take control and force her to stay put.

  “You needed to know, do you understand? You needed to know.”

  Leaning down toward her daughter and with a voice broken by tiny hiccups of sorrow, she then whispered: “You will see white men, lots of white men. Never forget that your father was one of them, and that he was my master.”

  IV

  THE DAYS PASSED. While Minette studied nonstop with Mme Acquaire, M Acquaire began preparing the public by announcing widely that there would be an extraordinary surprise that Christmas season.

  What they were planning to do, without the permission of either the shareholders in the theater or its director, was extremely dangerous, for the atmosphere in that moment was especially tense. The colonists had lost a number of slaves to the ever-growing bands of maroons in the hills – and they had overtly accused the freedmen of helping them flee. For many weeks, not a day passed where one did not read at least one announcement in the local paper concerning one or several slaves who had fled their workhouse. Hanging from the trees, along the roads, the police had nailed signs that read:

  FREEDMEN ARE STRICTLY PROHIBITED FROM GIVING SHELTER TO MAROONS. ANY PERSON FOUND GUILTY OF SUCH AN INFRACTION WILL LOSE HIS LIBERTY, AS WILL ALL MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY RESIDING WITH HIM.

  The town criers, who circulated the placards announcing the next Christmas spectacle at the theater, had no idea, as they stood beneath the trees bearing the official signs, that they themselves were drumming up publicity for a colored girl who would be performing the lead role in the comic opera Isabelle and Gertrude.

  M Acquaire was not unconcerned about the welcome his protégée would receive. He shared his anxieties with Mme Acquaire who, either totally unaware of the politics of the moment or blindly optimistic, assured him that the evening would be a success. They would make a good profit and Mme Acquaire, who had managed to keep their creditors at bay until Christmas day, chased away any thoughts that could undermine her certainty.

  “I have every confidence, you understand,” she said to her husband whenever he seemed too nervous, “every confidence in both the talent and the charm of this girl.”

  “Talent and charm don’t undo the fact that she’s colored and that we’re breaking the law.”

  “She has so little color to her that the law will be forgiving.”

  M Acquaire’s tic started twitching nervously as he replied: “There’s something about her that gives it away.”

  Mme Acquaire smiled mysteriously and responded: “That’s precisely the thing I’m counting on to seduce the audience. And though the women may boo her, the men will cheer.”

  As the rehearsals were taking place secretly on Traversière Street, M Acquaire had been playing the role of the young actor, Claude Goulard, with whom Minette would sing the duet during the performance.

  To familiarize her with the stage, they improvised one in the middle of the room. A large sheet served as curtain. As for the other actors, M Acquaire simply made use of the furniture.

  “Look, this chair is Magdeleine Brousse. She sings the melody – you’ll sing back to her. This portrait is the group of actors playing in the final scene. I’m Claude Goulard and Madame Acquaire is Madame Tessyre. Have you got that?”

  Scipion played the role of stage manager and struck the partition with a stone three times, wherein the sheet was lowered and Minette walked onstage. She was perfectly natural, betraying not the slightest emotion, and was surprised at the idea that anyone could suffer from stage fright.

  “How easy this is!” she exclaimed happily.

  She sang back to the chair that was meant to be Magdeleine Brousse and to the painting that was standing in for the group of actors with the same self-assurance, and the Acquaires – well satisfied – pronounced her both astonishing and perfect.

  “This is working beautifully,” M Acquaire said finally, though still worried. He felt it would have been more honest to call a meeting of the shareholders in the theater to discuss Minette. But a refusal could ruin his high hopes and so he decided it would be best to confront the shareholders and the director with the done deal. The very intuitive Mme Acquaire knew in advance that she had nothing to fear from the liberal François Saint-Martin, director of the Comédie, and that he would be as taken by Minette as he was by all the beautiful mulatto girls in the country. As for François Mesplès, this was her way of getting revenge, she told herself. This vengeance, it was true, might end up hurting the two of them, but it would very certainly hurt him, Mesplès, and that made it well worth the risk.

  Joseph Ogé, aware of what was being planned, hesitated to praise the plan and questioned Minette in a way that filled Jasmine with worry.

  “Madame Acquaire wants to have you sing at the Whites-only Comédie. That’s very courageous of her. But there’s a mysteriousness to her preparations that doesn’t sit right with me. Has she introduced you to the director?”

  “No.”

  “Have you signed a contract?”

  “No.”

  “Have you been to the Comédie?”

  “The Acquaires…”

  “The Acquaires, the Acquaires – but they’re only actors! The Theater doesn’t belong to them.”

  He was right to be concerned. Added to the colonists’ rage at the escape of their best slaves was a wave of fear brought on by a number of poisoning deaths. Slaves committed suicide after having poisoned the masters and their cattle and, on Bonne-Foi Street, a certain Pradel had lost his freedom for having hidden two runaway slaves in his home. He had been hanged right on Main Street as an example, and for two days there was a line to go look at his contorted mouth, from which his thick purple tongue protruded. Desperate for new entertainment, the women went to the spectacle hoping to bring on a fainting spell, whereas the children thoughtlessly threw stones at the victim.

  As a precautionary measure, the slaves were subsequently banned from their last remaining solace – they were forbidden to gather either at church or even outside, where they would listen to the “prairie preachers” who taught them that Jesus is the father of all men, independent of color, and that the slave must accept the yoke and serve his master with respect and devotion. These sermons were not always so innocent, and the colonists knew it well. They closed down the churches as soon as night fell. It was a grave mistake, for, deprived of this spiritual relief, those poor souls who believed naively everything religion taught them returned with renewed fervor to their old beliefs, and this time they held on intractably. Among them, a few enlightened ones, contemporaries of Makandal, strengthened their faith by establishing comparisons between the white man’s God, who loved the Whites
, and the African gods, who loved the Blacks. Vodou became powerful in the hands of the maroon leaders, who had found in that religion the necessary passion to awaken the most resigned slave.

  Thus it was that in the hills and in the slave workhouses the drums and the lambi horns continued to communicate mysterious messages, especially during the night…

  However, Jasmine, who was not unaware of any of this, interrupted when Joseph tried to question Minette again. She had made the decision to take her chances – and now that this decision had been made, she would not tolerate being discouraged by anyone.

  Hope had made her heart soar. She said to herself, One never knows or She sings so well! and, to reassure herself, concluded that Mme Acquaire knew better than anyone what she was doing, and that she could be trusted.

  Despite her ignorance, her maternal love had provided her with an uncommon psychological astuteness. This, coupled with her instinct, gave her antennae. The opportunity being offered to her daughter was unique; she knew that. The sad and miserable routine of her life was being rerouted by the Acquaire’s project. Now when she thought about it, the future seemed to have been brightened by a luminous point that attracted her irresistibly.

  “Let her have this chance, Joseph!” she said to the young man. “No matter what the risk, let her try…”

  Joseph Ogé lowered his head, convinced that, in the end, it was better to close his eyes, put his head in the sand, and leave things in the Acquaires’ hands. They were the darlings of the theater – maybe they would be able to fight for Minette. With no small effort, he chased away his bothersome fears and called the girls over for some reading aloud.

  At around noon, as he was preparing to leave, the door opened suddenly and a woman from the neighborhood rushed toward Jasmine.

  “They’ve just arrested a runaway slave,” she burst out, trembling. “Apparently he had been hiding out on this street. Do you think they’ll suspect us? My Lord! Here come the police!…”

  Without answering, Jasmine went to the door, accompanied by Joseph and her daughters.