Dance on the Volcano

by Marie Vieux-Chauvet

  A Creole set piece, a ball, and an opera were all part of the new program, The Fifteen-Year-Old Lovers. Minette listened uncomfortably to the rehearsals for Mirebalaisian Love Stories, a Negro parody of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Village Soothsayer. The gestures and lines in Creole rubbed her the wrong way. In her mind, the theater was Racine, Corneille, Molière, etc., and she could not understand how one could waste time singing vulgar ditties in the local patois. She found it degrading to one’s talent to perform such facile and superficial plays. “If they could even be said to serve some greater purpose,” she thought to herself. “If they could speak the truth, cry out in the slaves’ own language their sufferings and their desire for freedom!” But on the contrary, theater being subject to censorship by the authorities, what deserved to be spoken was instead ridiculed, and the planters always came out smelling like roses.

  That evening, Saint-Martin invited the group of actors to his home to raise a glass, as he put it, to Minette’s prodigious talent. For all that he admired her as a man, the artist in him was too thoroughly and sincerely in awe of her talent to allow him to in any way jeopardize Minette’s future. Of course, he would have loved to take her in his arms, to show her off to the public as a delicious conquest, and then to drop her – as he had done with so many other women. But he feared that such disappointment might somehow affect that exceptional voice that he had promised himself to exploit to everyone’s advantage. There was no bad faith in his dealings with Minette. Mme Acquaire had told him she was calling for a salary, and he wanted to grant her request but found that he usually lost the money he owed her at the gambling table. He was always sorry afterward, but that hardly made things right. Goulard had also advocated for her and, most recently, his argument had been so fierce that Saint-Martin had looked at him mockingly and said:

  “So, my poor friend, you’re smitten to that extent?”

  To which Goulard had responded with a revealing silence.

  After leaving the theater, Minette had gone to let her mother know that she had been invited to Saint-Martin’s home.

  “To drink alcohol with the other actors, my dear!” Jasmine exclaimed.

  Joseph interrupted:

  “Let her go, Jasmine, and trust her.”

  But Jasmine had nonetheless put on her best dress and accompanied her daughter to Mme Acquaire’s house, entrusting her to the latter.

  “Take her yourself, Madame, I beg you. Mothers have great responsibilities,” she said to her, lowering her head.

  As they spoke, the group of actors roamed the streets, to the delight of the passersby, who cheered them laughingly. Durand, a pale, thin blond with impeccable diction, recited a few lines. Macarty answered him with a tirade that Nelanger punctuated with plucks of his guitar. They were charming, and received ovations as they passed, which inspired Macarty to exclaim with a comic grimace:

  “Hey, what’s this – do they take us for street performers?”

  That simple comment set off a fit of giggles. Claude Goulard was walking next to Minette. He had offered her his arm, which she had refused to take and – with her shining eyes, easy stride, and breasts modestly covered by a thick scarf – calmly observed the passersby, carrying herself with put-on indifference alongside the elegantly dressed white women with their noisy skirts and the men in officer’s stripes who turned to admire them.

  Two young white girls, recognizing her, pointed in her direction, one of them saying distinctly:

  “It’s the ‘young person,’ there she is – the ‘young person’!” which aroused the curiosity of the passersby.

  “Look at that – you’re famous, Minette,” said Saint-Martin.

  “Not yet,” she replied with such a confident tone that he laughed heartily, calling her a “young upstart.”

  A few minutes later, they arrived at Saint-Martin’s home. He opened the door and a young Mulatto woman, two children hanging on her skirts, ran toward him.

  “Monsieur François,” she exclaimed with such a passionate tone that Minette looked at her, shocked, “how late you are!”

  “Good evening, Zabeth,” he answered, pinching her cheek distractedly. “I’ve brought you the whole group, along with this lovely young lady, a free colored like yourself who sings at the Comédie.”

  “Hello, Zabeth,” said all the actors in turn.

  Her eyes were somewhat similar to Minette’s in their form, but their frightened expression was completely different.

  The two children, two and three years old, lifted their sweet little faces – the faces of a baby Saint-Martin, because to see them was to know without a doubt that he was their father. As she prepared the glasses, Zabeth stared at Minette, who was caressing the children. As they approached him, their father pushed them away with an impatient gesture that was not lost on anyone. Saint-Martin had filled the glasses and, raising his own glass high in the air, said:

  “My friends, let us drink tonight to Minette, the young girl with the divine voice. May her talent sow glory and success on her path.”

  “To Minette!” they all cried.

  As he drank, Claude Goulard kept his eyes fixed on her. The little ones forced their way over to him and climbed onto his lap with familiarity.

  At the other end of the table, Zabeth also watched Saint-Martin, and Minette – who was watching her – noticed an expression of such pride and such love on her face that she was deeply moved. For that expression was the same one she saw on Claude Goulard’s face when he looked at her, and she understood that he must truly love her, Minette, as much as Zabeth loved Saint-Martin. “Love – what is love, really?” she wondered in that moment. She was not in love with anyone and felt strangely independent and carefree. She would not be bogged down with such a troublesome, such a demanding sentiment that filled one’s eyes with sadness, as she had noticed with Goulard and Zabeth. It was important for her to remain herself, so as to succeed in her career, and receive – without any remorse – compliments and declarations of love from Whites. She would soon be sixteen. She was going to earn money. She would dress like a lady and break hearts without mercy. She was loath to cut her teeth on Goulard. He was white, that was true, but like the Acquaires he seemed different from the others and was part of the company. And the company was sacred for Minette. Had not Saint-Martin himself said that artists are not people like everyone else when he first presented her to the group? That was where she was in her thoughts when Mme Acquaire, standing up, pointed out the lateness of the hour and suggested they leave. The children had fallen asleep in Goulard’s arms. He gave them over to their mother, saying:

  “If the clergy didn’t prohibit us from holding these children over the baptismal fount, at least one of them would be my godchild.”

  He smiled ruefully and turned to Saint-Martin:

  “Do you remember, François, that night when you barged through the doors of the church to ring the bells for little Morange’s funeral?”

  “She was so sweet,” commented Macarty, draining the glass he had raised again from the table.

  “And me, too young not to protest the injustice of the clergy,” added Saint-Martin with an expression he had never had before then.

  In effect, his face had changed suddenly. His slightly cynical mask had softened, and the revival of some memory had brought a twinge of sadness to his eyes.

  “Of what crime, exactly, do these men accuse us?” asked Durand.

  “And of what crime was little Morange guilty?” answered Saint-Martin, with a slightly bitter voice. “I saw her grow up; she was a sweet and pure little girl.”

  In that instant, Zabeth’s face took on such a worried expression that, seeing it, Minette felt her own heart tighten. Saint-Martin had loved the little French actress, he must love her still – and so desperately that his heart was forever closed to others. And Zabeth knew it. Her face revealed each of her thoughts like an open book.

  “It’s like we have the plague,” concluded Macarty, with a frightening grimace.r />
  Saint-Martin laughed, a bit nervously, in fact. And noticing that, Goulard almost regretted having initiated the conversation.

  “We’re denied the cemetery or proper burial ceremonies, and, for lack of a godfather and godmother, my children couldn’t be baptized since the only friends I have are actors…It’s true I could care less about all those things. But sometimes I just want to grab a priest by the throat and tell him to go to hell…”

  He turned to Minette and apologized.

  “It’s fine. Don’t apologize,” said M Acquaire, his tic appearing as he smiled. “She’ll have to get used to it. But if her dear mother were to ever find out…”

  “I know how to use swear words, too, Monsieur Acquaire,” responded Minette so amusingly that everyone burst into laughter.

  Everyone left on that rather happy note, planning to meet at the theater the next morning at ten o’clock.

  On returning home, Minette was careful not to wake Lise and her mother. She needed to be alone to think about everything she had just seen and heard at Saint-Martin’s house. First, the secret sorrow the latter hid behind his rather tough mask and that was due, she was sure of it, to the death of the young actress he had loved; and then to know about the injustice they all suffered and that was not only, as she had believed, her people’s lot. In Saint-Martin’s voice she had sensed the stirrings of a different version of the same revolt Joseph had revealed to her that one night. The Whites could also suffer the injustice of the Law! She remembered Joseph explaining to her that the planters’ greatest enemies were the poor whites. Discontent, hatred, and revolt thus existed on a human scale and not only within the black race, despised and enslaved?

  She fell asleep with these thoughts and did not wake until Lise called her in the morning. It was eight o’clock and the vendors were already setting up their stalls on the public thoroughfare with a cheerful clamor.

  VIII

  FOR THIS NEW performance, the sets had been transformed from top to bottom, just as Saint-Martin had promised. Jean Peyret, the set designer, along with the stagehand, Julian, had worked on it for twenty days without a break.

  On the evening of February 13, an enormous crowd began filing into the theater as early as six o’clock. Some of the theatergoers, hoping to get the best seats, preferred to spend two hours waiting inside the theater to avoid getting stuck in the last rows, near the Negresses.

  That evening, once the curtains had opened and the orchestra launched into the first bars of music, a shiver of pleasure ran through the crowd upon Minette’s appearance onstage. The audience was there for her just as much as for either Macarty or Durand. The evening was a triumph, and ended in so much applause that the actors were obliged to return to the stage three times. A chorus of voices called out for Minette, shouting:

  “Long live the ‘young person’!”

  When she reappeared onstage, the crowd’s enthusiasm became absolute delirium. Love letters were thrown at her feet, flowers torn hastily from boutonnieres rained down on her. When she returned backstage, she once again wept on Mme Acquaire’s shoulder, overcome with emotion. Her mentor was equally moved. M Acquaire was so thrilled that his right eye had all but disappeared from the mad blinking of his tic, and little Tesseyre, completely fascinated, standing on her toes in preparation for a curtsy, forgot to resume first position.

  Despite this incredible success, Minette was not allowed to join the crowd in the ballroom. Obliged to assist his friend Saint-Martin, Goulard reluctantly left Minette after lovingly kissing her hand. Clutching the curtains, Minette watched the dancing couples for a moment – she caught sight of Magdeleine Brousse, Goulard, and Saint-Martin, who had entered the brightly lit room through a side door – and then left to join her mother and sister in front of the theater. She felt humiliated. The very public that had just cheered for her, that had cried out for more of her as if the sole reason they had left their homes that evening was to hear her sing, was the same public that now refused to allow her into the ball. This was how it had always been, and it had to be respected and accepted as divine law. But she, Minette, had broken that law by appearing onstage and, worse still, she had forced white hands to applaud her, disdainful mouths to cry out for her, and this by the sole distinction of her talent. That talent had opened a door for her, and it would open others, if she wanted it to, if she truly wanted it the way one had to want something in order to make it happen, she told herself. One day, she would enter that great room – that room from which she now had been twice turned away – triumphantly and on the arm of a white man. Saint-Martin and the Acquaires had done enough for her, and she understood that. They did not dare push things any further, for fear of being punished. The laws of prejudice had been established on high and had to be respected. It was one thing to serve as entertainment, to be the kind of jester that Joseph told her kings possessed. That was where the possibility of transgressing the law ended for her protectors, and they had done a lot for her…

  Jasmine was with Lise, Joseph, and a few other people of color from the neighborhood. Mme Acquaire arrived in a magnificent, rustling taffeta dress she had had sent from France. In her hand she held little folded notes, which she proffered to Minette, saying:

  “Your first love letters, my dear. I picked them up from the stage. They’re from your white admirers. You can read them tonight.”

  She slipped them into Minette’s bodice. The young girl blushed, but made no attempt to stop her.

  “It’s just wonderful to get love letters,” sighed Lise, looking enviously at her sister’s bodice. “Oh, my dear, you’ll buy me a little parasol, won’t you? I so long for a parasol.”

  Lise had tired of playing the lady with her fan and let it drop as she dreamed of a parasol. Joseph smiled, thinking that she was already as flirtatious as an eighteen-year-old. Jasmine must have thought the same thing, for she dragged Lise off into a corner to scold her. A few young women of color approached Minette and invited her to join them at the freedmen’s ball being hosted that night by Célimene. Lise begged her mother with her eyes and, since Joseph had no objection, Jasmine consented, heady with her elder daughter’s success.

  The colored woman’s ballroom was as rich and splendorous as that of the theater. Scores of people were crowded into the space and one could make out a few young white men who, having left their own salons, were dancing with the colored girls in their madras headscarves. Upon Minette’s arrival, those who had attended her performance at the theater began cheering her, and she was immediately surrounded by admirers inviting her to dance. Not knowing how to choose, she regarded each of them in turn, as if to select the one she liked best. At that very instant, her gaze fell on a young man of about twenty, dark-skinned, leaning against one of the columns and looking at her unsmilingly.

  He was dressed in a striped cotton shirt and white pants. His hair was cut short, exposing a perfect forehead. His thin nose, its nostrils flared, seemed to sniff at the people around him with a disdain that amplified the harsh expression of his mouth. His eyes, so wide and elongated that they somehow contradicted everything else about his face, seemed naively surprised and trusting. He was slim but well built, and his hands, which were splayed nonchalantly on his hips, appeared slender and refined. He had one of those faces without real beauty but that could not go unremarked. A face that held your attention and whose every expression seemed to reveal each thought. For the moment, his expression was mocking, wary, and yet so tender and so passionate that it overwhelmed Minette.

  “Close your eyes,” suggested one of her potential dance partners, “and just pick one of us at random.”

  She pushed them all away, shaking her head, and headed toward him. For a moment, their eyes met and Minette felt an unexpected shock run through her. Her heart pounded, her hands trembled, and she felt as if she was gently shivering.

  “And you, would you have any interest in dancing with me?”

  What was this new voice of hers – breathy, toneless, and alm
ost pleading?

  The young man smiled and immediately his face transformed, becoming joyful and luminous. “Is it the brightness of his teeth?” Minette wondered.

  Bowing, he raised his hands in a gesture of regret.

  “My apologies,” he said, “but I am disabled.”

  Though it was said without bitterness, his statement shook Minette even further. For a moment, her embarrassed, searching gaze held the young man’s eyes.

  “Pardon me,” she murmured by way of apology.

  “That’s all right,” he answered.

  And bowing his head, he walked away, limping and dragging his right leg behind him.

  Hundreds of women dressed in long flowered skirts spun all around Minette as they danced, wrapped in the arms of partners wearing striped or solid-colored short pants and colorful shirts; they all sang along with the band. A man in a yellow silk shirt emerged from her circle of admirers and pushed Jasmine, Lise, and Joseph into the middle of the room, gathered some chairs, sat them down and shouted:

  “Minette’s going to sing!”

  “What’s going on?” asked the dancing couples, who hadn’t yet noticed.

  “Minette’s going to sing!” the man in the yellow shirt shouted again. “Someone quiet the band!”

  The man approached Minette and took her by the hand.

  “Since you won’t dance, lovely lady, sing for us,” he said.

  She smiled.

  Obediently, the band had stopped immediately, and the dancers gathered in an enormous circle, surrounding her and cheering.

  “What shall we play, young goddess?” asked the eccentric character. “Your wish is our command.”

  Chin raised, Minette followed the young disabled man, who was still walking away. Without responding, she opened her mouth and let out a note so wondrously pure that he stopped in his tracks, turning around to look at her. She was alone in the middle of the ballroom, hands clutching her skirts, eyes fixed on him. He smiled at her again. Then she began a melody she had often heard coming through Mme Acquaire’s window and that as a little girl she had hummed, seated on the bench in front of her mother’s stand. It was the aria from The Beautiful Arsène, which began with these words: “Can there be a more glorious fate…”