When Joseph left, she told her mother that she was going to leave to Arcahaie soon.
“With the company?”
“No, alone, Mama.”
“Very well, my dear.”
“And Mama, wait a bit before renting that new house. We just can’t know, you understand, we can never know what’ll happen.”
She handed her mother half of the money she had earned and asked her to dispose of it as she pleased. Then she left to purchase a little trousseau, which she brought to Nicolette.
“How much would it cost me for you to make me three skirts, two bodices, and two underskirts?” she asked the dressmaker.
“Give me a red necklace from Miss Monnot’s,” she said.
That was a worthless bauble. Minette embraced her in gratitude.
“Yes, a red necklace, and not another word about it.”
She had taken out her famous scissors, which she kept in a tin chest adorned with dry leaves and bird feathers.
“Look at my little chest. ‘Arranged’ as it is, it forces my scissors to do only the best work.”
She cut through the fabrics with confidence.
The skirts, the blouses, the underskirts were trimmed and sewn in no time. Minette, watching her work, thought to herself that never in her life had she seen fingers work a needle so well.
“This time, don’t tell me that you’re not going to meet someone. It wouldn’t be normal for a girl your age not to have a lover,” said Nicolette, looking at her with laughing eyes.
Minette, taking a conspiratorial tone, told her that, in fact, she was going to Arcahaie to meet a handsome young man she fancied.
“My mother doesn’t know anything. Don’t betray me.”
Which caused Nicolette to respond reproachfully:
“Do we women ever betray one another?”
Then, she gave her some advice that she assured her was practical and based on years of experience.
“This is your first lover, right?” asked the young courtesan. “Well, put your pockets before your heart and remember that your good sense must come before your feelings. Otherwise you’re done for.”
She promised Minette that she would bring the new dresses herself, first thing the next morning.
“I’ll iron them for you, too. You’ll just have to put them in your trunk.”
Once back home, Minette saw Jasmine setting three plates on the table alongside a fragrant bowl of spicy-smelling broth.
“Where’s Lise?” she asked.
“At her lesson with the Acquaires,” answered Jasmine.
She had hardly finished her sentence when Lise walked in, followed by Mme Acquaire. Out of prudence, Mme Acquaire made no mention of the scene with Mesplès and, taking an air of great enthusiasm, tried to explain to Minette her new passion for local plays, how she’d gotten the taste for them and why she and Saint-Martin were interested.
“In fact, why don’t you try to perform local plays, Minette?” she asked the young girl once she thought she had made her best pitch.
“Me, Madame?”
“Well yes, why not?”
“Perhaps you’ve just discovered that I’d be more easily forgiven that sort of easy triumph, Madame?”
“My, how you take things the wrong way!”
“No, Madame. I see things clearly, that’s all.”
It was futile to insist. Never, and Mme Acquaire understood it well, would Minette agree to perform in one of those degrading plays. I could never depict the atrocities my people have suffered with the buffoonery of a badly written comedy, said Minette to herself. She added, so to better hide her thoughts:
“You’ve crafted my taste. I’ve been marked, definitively, by that which is beautiful and grand. The local plays, Madame Acquaire? How could you have thought for even a moment that I’d agree?…”
Lise, who did not understand all of this fuss over the exact thing that was going to launch her on the stage, smoothed her hair coquettishly before the mirror.
“But they’re plays like any other. Monsieur Saint-Martin told me himself that Love in Mirebalais is a masterpiece. It’s a parody of Rousseau’s The Village Soothsayer, you know.”
Minette looked at her without the slightest disdain. That she could declare that a local play written by a bad local poet was a masterpiece – there was nothing surprising there. But she was certain of one thing: Saint-Martin had lied in telling her that.
Mme Acquaire sighed. Her future in the theater had to be terribly uncertain for the good woman to have proposed such a thing to her, Minette said to herself. They didn’t want to lose her at the Comédie. She was earning them a lot of money, after all. They were trying to keep her without upsetting M Mesplès too greatly.
“This is all so tiresome – so tiresome!” exclaimed the Creole woman with another sigh.
Once Mme Acquaire had left, it was Magdeleine Brousse who came by with words of encouragement, the same promises of success for Minette if she accepted the lead role in the next local comedy.
“Come on, what does it matter to you, dear? What do you want, to earn a little money, right? And at least that way no one will bother you.”
Minette, who had had just about enough, was making a real effort to control herself. She had a crazy desire to scream insults at the Acquaires, at Magdeleine Brousse, and at François Saint-Martin himself. As for Mesplès, she swore to get back at him when the time came. He would get what he deserved. Twice he had put himself in her way and she was starting to lose patience. For the moment, it was easy for Mesplès to pay her back for the smug and victorious little attitude she had shown him on the night of the ball. But she was going to become powerful and he would come to fear her, she swore it to herself. Even if she had to offer herself to all the great heads of state in the country. This worthless chastity was starting to wear on her. Nicolette had done well. Letting it be known that she was with the King’s Bursar gave her respect and consideration. Yes, she too would need a powerful protector: the Marquis de Chastenoye, for example. He was old, rich, and well established. She would be known as the protégeé of a great personage and people would admire her. Joseph, with his pure and intransigent priestly ideas, could he possibly understand her horrific situation? Certain aspects of life were just beyond his comprehension. It was evident in the clarity and serenity of his gaze. But it was impossible that he had not seen all around him the planter priests, businessmen and slave-owners; he could not have grown up and not seen, just as she had, that the struggle was merciless and that at some point it was necessary to ignore one’s heart and one’s honor, to seize life with two hands and squeeze one’s fingers around it, like around the neck of an enemy one has vanquished. Oh, she would fight! All the François Mesplèses put together would not keep her from moving forward and finally making it.
“So you refuse, then?” insisted the blonde actress, having been tasked with trying to convince her.
“I can’t, I just can’t,” Minette repeated with a stubborn little air. “Beautiful music and beautiful verse – that alone is theater in my eyes. It’s not my fault.”
When she pronounced those words, Magdeleine Brousse leaned toward her and embraced her.
“And you’re absolutely right, my dear,” she said to her. “If you had given in, the director himself might very well have been angry with you. Hold tight, and we’ll see what happens.”
XV
WITH THE ARRIVAL of the new actresses from France, both Saint-Martin’s trip to Les Cayes and Minette’s trip to Arcahaie were postponed for several weeks. There was too much to do for the new play, in which Minette, for reasons she would not reveal, refused to perform. Believing it to be some whim of hers, Saint-Martin had not insisted. For this one time, he had very honorably replaced her with Mlle Dubuisson. Once the play had been performed, he redoubled his efforts to get Jasmine to entrust him with Lise. It had not been an easy task. Her younger daughter was still very young, indeed, and Saint-Martin had a bad reputation, thought Jasmine. But jus
t like Minette, Lise was becoming more distant: an ambitious girl, she had long dreamt of making her debut on the stage and being cheered and praised just like her sister. Her pride had registered, without the slightest jealousy, all of Minette’s successes; nevertheless, that had strengthened her deepest resolve to be known, to make money, and to become famous – because she, too, had a lovely, well-honed voice. She recognized, for that matter, that Minette was more hot-blooded than she and that her sister’s voice was fuller and had more range than hers. She said proudly, imitating Mme Acquaire’s coquettish tone: “My sister is a contralto and I’m a light soprano,” which meant: “Between the two of us, there’s something for everyone.” Less complicated than Minette, she knew exactly where she wanted to go and why. The theater would allow her to earn money and with that money she would buy all those beautiful things she was so tired of desiring without being able to afford. She had no interest in pursuing a libertine path like Nicolette’s. She was flirtatious without sensuality and had no desire to sleep with old men for money or jewels. She found it more practical and certainly less disgusting to earn that money performing local or other plays at the Comédie.
As certain complications did not torment her as of yet, she accepted indifferently the way things were, seeing everything with the same serene regard and dreaming at night about clothes, carriages, and fame.
There was none of that fervent desire to defy, to shock, and to conquer in her. When she spoke to Mme Acquaire or to the actors at the theater, she maintained the modest demeanor of a well-bred little girl who, very young, had learned not to look Whites in the eyes, to always be docile and conciliatory, and above all to always show exaggerated gratitude. The Whites were her superiors. The French she spoke was the language of the masters and symbolized the good taste and refinement of a proper education.
Their mother, who had learned to speak French in the masters’ house, repeated ten or twenty times a day: “Speak French, speak French.” Lise and Minette had heard that little phrase throughout their entire childhood. In the local plays, the only degrading aspect, as far as Lise was concerned, was that Creole was spoken – and Minette’s refusal to perform in them had a bit to do with the same aversion. She who spoke only of Grétry’s music and who, imitating Mme Acquaire, recited the most beautiful classical verses – to ask her to babble away in Creole while playing the buffoon! Lise vaguely understood that feeling of revolt. But the other side of the question, the more serious side, escaped her: she never would have believed that it disgusted Minette to exhibit the physical and moral suffering of the unfortunate slaves via the buffoonery of a comedy. If she had been able, Lise would have bought herself a slave or two the very next day. The wealthy freedmen, Blacks, and Mulattos owned slaves, why should she not do the same? She would have bought some even if she had known of her mother’s past. Jasmine was so certain of this that she preferred not to bother reliving that past in vain. Lise loved her dearly; she knew that. Seeing the scars on her back, she would cry – but she would forget about it two days later.
When it came to Minette, however, it seemed that her gesture had not been for nothing. Nevertheless, she sometimes believed, as she had intimated to Joseph, that the master’s blood had stirred up all its inheritances in her daughter’s veins, pushing her toward formidable, unchecked aspirations. The terrible pride of the father – that wealthy, nouveau riche white man who had bought himself a title – had been resuscitated in his female offspring, to whom he had left as sole legacy his white blood, infused with neuroses and pride. She resembled him unmistakably. Each passing day made that even clearer to Jasmine. There were times when she suspected Minette of living, even within the confines of that tiny little room the three of them shared, a dangerous life in which frivolity already had very little place. Minette had shocked her on that day when Joseph had hidden the slave at their house. Her behavior had not been that of a scared little girl, but that of a woman playing a high-stakes game. She had kept the secret without betraying him and had never spoken about it again.
She was also the one who had known how to weaken her resistance the day Saint-Martin had come to talk to her about Lise.
“Mama,” she had said with a calm and measured tone, “let Lise go, don’t stand in her way. She’ll resent you for it later.”
She had acquiesced immediately, weeping the way all mothers weep when faced with situations beyond their control.
Minette had taken that same measured tone to speak to Joseph about her plan to leave for Arcahaie. Although she had looked him straight in the eyes as always, he had realized that she would never admit to him the real reason for her trip. She had not come up with any alibi to mislead him and had spoken to him of her decision with a tone that allowed for no interrogation. Yet, there had been such affection and respect in her attitude toward him. He could trust a girl like that. He only feared that her own nature would get the better of her, and that her pride would lead her to confuse wrong for right. This faith he had in her, he had been happy to find that Zoé and Lambert felt the same. And they had only met her twice. Even Beauvais, distrustful Beauvais, had spoke of her in flattering terms, saying that she possessed the most honest and impertinent regard he had ever seen in a woman. However, despite everything Joseph said to reassure himself, he could not help thinking of Jean-Baptiste Lapointe and the impression he had made on Minette on the night of the ball. Was she going to reignite things? He was having a hard time letting go of a nagging feeling that was painful for him to confront. Deep inside, he knew what it was – what the answer to the question was. But since there was nothing he could do about it, he kept quiet, and merely hoped that Minette would return soon enough – praying for his little sister’s salvation in the manner of all pious souls.
Lise’s journey was necessary, as he himself had said to Jasmine. Despite his religious ideals, he was not one of those close-minded men who saw evil everywhere. Thanks to Labadie, he had made contact with a whole host of things that, opening his mind, had guided him naturally along the path for which it seemed he had been born. He would stand among those good priests who defend the right to justice, who demand the light of instruction and Christian charity for the oppressed, all the while remaining a man and, above all, understanding the human in every man.
Lise wanted to leave to try her luck. He weighed in on her behalf and reasoned with Jasmine, saying to her:
“You’ll have to resign yourself sooner or later. Let her go, Jasmine…”
The day of the two sisters’ departure, Minette brought Joseph into an isolated corner of the back courtyard.
“Tell the Lamberts I haven’t forgotten anything,” she said to him. “No matter when and no matter where I am, I’ll be with them. This trip, this trip…”
Joseph put his hand to her mouth.
“Keep your secret, my sister,” he said to her. “That, too, is what freedom means.”
…The little house was full of people: people from the neighborhood and a few actors from the Comédie crowded the front room.
Saint-Martin, relieved to learn that Minette only planned to go away for a short while, eagerly supported the idea. He figured it might be a good thing for the public either to forget her or to suffer from her absence to the point of calling her back to the stage. He gave her a letter of introduction for Mme Saint-Ar, a European woman who had married a Creole planter from Arcahaie. Saint-Martin told Minette that they were reputed to be free-spirited people, neither prejudiced nor snobs, and he insisted that she pay them a visit.
“You’ll be there for the third Thursday in Lent. Don’t miss the chance to attend one of Madame Saint-Ar’s balls. That’ll be one of your best memories.”
He had added, doubtless just to make small talk:
“And so, is it true? Are you deserting the theater – are you abandoning us?”
Without giving him an answer, she left her house with him and went to say her goodbyes at the Comédie. There they came upon a cheery and enthusiastic scene, which made cl
ear to Minette that she had been perfectly well replaced. M Mesplès, present that day, cynically and ostentatiously praised the talents of the new actresses in her presence, using the most flattering terms in talking about Mlle Dubuisson’s singing voice. The latter missed no occasion to flutter her eyelashes at him, all the while smiling her seductive, pursed-lip smile for the benefit of all the other men there.
“She’s already Saint-Martin’s mistress,” Magdeleine Brousse had confided jealously.
“So you’re off on holiday, my dear,” said Mlle Dubuisson to Minette with a patronizing and disdainful little tone.
“I’m going to take a moment to recover from my success,” Minette responded, trembling with rage and looking her straight in the eye.
That unexpected response from a young person she had meant to insult astonished the actress.
“You’ll be back soon enough,” was her impertinent response. “Yes, you’ll always be back soon enough for the public to realize it’s had enough of you.”
Goulard did not defend her this time. A lover’s spitefulness and jealousy had made him bitter.
Nevertheless, he accompanied her to the stagecoach alongside Joseph and Jasmine, though without speaking a word and full of resentment toward her. They shook hands in silence and he did not even ask for a farewell kiss. His lover’s instinct told him that this trip was bringing his beloved to someone new, which he took exception to. His manly pride was deeply hurt by such a show of casual indifference.
“Our love was only just born, but I think it would be best to bury it now,” he said to her bitterly.
“Who knows?” she answered. “Perhaps I’ll come back more in love with you.”
“Do you have to cut your teeth on someone else before you can love me? Farewell, Minette. I expect to be completely over you by the time you return.”
“Well that’s too bad for you, you cruel man!”
She smiled at him and, after kissing her mother and Joseph, gave Lise a thousand little bits of advice and wished her luck. The stagecoach, into which several people of color traveling to Arcahaie had been sandwiched, awaited just a few steps away. She ran over to it without looking back, and then disappeared from sight.
Dance on the Volcano Page 18
