“Of course.”
Lise lay down and looked in Jasmine’s direction to see if she had fallen asleep.
“Minette,” she whispered, “are you in love with someone?”
“Yes.”
“Is it Monsieur Goulard?”
“No.”
“Is he the man of your dreams – handsome and good, brave and strong?”
“I don’t know, Lise. He suffers far too much. He himself doesn’t seem to really know what he is. The only thing I’m certain of is that he’s suffering.”
“Why is he suffering?”
“He’s a freedman.”
“Ah!”
She lay down again and, before falling asleep, thought of her sister’s last words. That answer, even for Lise, was no mystery.
XXIV
GOULARD WAS ONLY very slightly injured in the duel. The following day, he arrived with his arm in a makeshift sling, an issue of the gazette in his hands.
“Read this,” he said to Minette, furious.
She looked at him and said with a slight reproach in her voice:
“Why did you fight over me, Claude?”
He repeated impatiently: “Read this,” and threw the paper into her hands.
The anonymous article was devastating. The name of the beautiful Mme Marsan, actress in Cap-Français, was mentioned in the same performance of Iphigenia’s duet, comparing Minette’s talents unfavorably to those of the white actress. In an effort to denigrate her in the eyes of the public, Minette’s social status was recalled in the most unsparing terms, and the article claimed that Port-au-Prince audiences were showing bad taste in their preference for her over the white actress from Cap-Français, whose fame in the Italian theater was surely equal to that of La Dugazon and La Contat.
The article hurt Minette’s pride, inasmuch as she had promised herself to garner unanimous praise. Now divided, the spectators fell into two groups: those who remained Minette’s fervent admirers and those who agreed with the article. But who had written it? Mozard? She swore to find out.
That same morning, Lise left for Léogane, without any tears this time. She planned to attract an audience by reminding the public that she was “Minette’s sister.” Whatever her sister’s enemies had tried to do, Minette had been launched and was decidedly famous. In every corner of the country, people knew her name and people praised her.
This time, when she signed a new contract, she did so before a notary and proudly signed her name “Mademoiselle” Minette. Aside from a few other scathing, anonymously signed articles, there was an immense crowd for the Christmas performance, for which she took in the profits. She had arranged everything herself, as planned: the choice of the music, the casting, the costumes, the sets, the stage direction. It was a top-notch performance that perhaps even Mme Marsan’s admirer’s ultimately applauded.
For nearly a year, Minette was praised consistently in every play she brought to the stage. She played the main roles in Blaise and Babet, in The Travels of Rosina, in The Village Trial, and in The Statue Lover – in which the part of Célimène had been considered, up until that point, to be the downfall of even the best singers. That evening, two enthusiastic young Whites had come up on the stage and lifted her onto their shoulders in triumph. She reigned supreme on the Saint-Domingue stage, despite Mme Marsan and the anonymous articles. Then, one morning, Macarty ran into the theater, unceremoniously interrupting rehearsal.
“The ‘company of Parisian actors’ has just landed here,” he cried, gesticulating so wildly one would have thought the whole place was on fire.
“What’s going on?” screamed Nelanger.
“François Ribié’s company – they’re here.”
There was a moment of blind panic. The backstage was put into some semblance of order, the small reception hall was more or less well arranged, the women powdered their faces, the men adjusted their clothes, and everyone – aside from Mme Tessyre and Magdeleine Brousse, who had been sent to fetch some rum and some glasses – went out to greet the newcomers.
The director, François Ribié, a handsome fellow with a booming voice, greeted the actors with big slaps on the back. He had red cheeks and appeared to be a little tipsy. After pinching Minette’s chin and calling her a “Creole beauty,” he introduced her to Mlle Thibault, a woman as fair as Minette was dark. Favart called the actors by name and Ribié did the same with his company. As he introduced Claude Gémont, a dashing young man, he pushed him toward Minette and said:
“Now there’s something for your mistress to get jealous about, my friend.”
He burst out laughing, as Mlle Thibault pursed her lips and looked Minette up and down.
Depoix interrupted the introductions to ask Ribié’s company to head over to the Comédie, where they would all raise a glass together.
“That’s a lovely idea,” said Ribié. “It’s hot here in the tropics and the heat makes a man thirsty.”
Rhapsodizing about the beauty of the sky, the novelty of the houses, and the women’s diverse and fresh-colored garments, the new actors arrived at the theater district.
Crossing a group of slaves carrying planks, Mlle Thibault opened her eyes wide and said:
“Do the Negroes all go around naked in the street like that?”
Her remark made Goulard laugh. He assured her that after a couple of days she would no longer notice.
“I find that quite peculiar,” declared Claude Gémont. “Those black, naked bodies remind me of Africa…”
“Are there a lot of them here?” asked Ribié, very intrigued.
“You tell us,” answered M Acquaire, his tic in full force. “There are a hundred and sixty thousand of them, fourteen thousand Whites, and twelve thousand people of color – and that’s only in the West!”
Ribié let out a quick whistle, and looked around as he wiped his brow.
“Well then! If things start going south one of these days!…”
“Monsieur Ribié,” said Favart, with an at once kindly and cutting tone, “we actors try to avoid politics.”
Ribié whistled a second time and shook his head.
“A hundred and sixty thousand,” he repeated. “And that’s only in the West!…”
Mlle Thibault distracted everyone by letting out cries of admiration at the sight of an ivy-covered fountain.
“Oh, have a look, darling,” she said, clasping Claude Gémont’s arm.
With her finger, she pointed to a young freedwoman wearing a madras scarf and colorful skirt, her breasts half exposed.
“She’s lovely,” cried Ribié, with his extravagant voice. “What class does that young woman belong to?”
He had turned toward Minette. She was about to respond when Goulard stepped in.
“That’s a free Mulatress.”
Ponsard, a dancer from Ribié’s company, stood on his tiptoes, opened his arms wide as if to embrace the entire country.
“Beautiful skies, delicious nature, beautiful women – why, it’s paradise on Earth!”
Mlle Thibault, overexcited by the naked bodies of the slaves, the transparency of the women’s bodices, by the sun and the overall scenery, kissed Gémont full on the mouth. He returned her kisses, laughing with slight embarrassment, as his charming and impertinent gaze sought Minette’s eyes.
Once arrived at the doors of the Comédie, Ribié let out a few notes of Figaro from The Barber of Seville, in his beautiful voice, and grabbed Minette by the waist. They came upon Magdeleine Brousse and Mme Tessyre in the reception hall, in the middle of laying out the glasses. They all drank a first round to the good health of the actors from the Paris Comédie and then a second to the success of the next evening. After that point, Ribié kept the bottle right next to him, to keep from being separated from it again.
Two days later, the billboards announced the arrival of the French company and an upcoming performance of The Barber of Seville, a play by Beaumarchais that had spread all over Paris and in which Ribié would play the role of Figa
ro alongside Mlle Thibault and Mlle Minette.
An even wider public came out to see Ribié’s company in a performance for which it had already been decided that the Acquaires would take in the profits. Minette’s talent astonished the Parisian company director, who went into the wings to pay her compliments. Then he made some suggestions and critiques to the Acquaires.
“Your stage direction lacked coherence and the actors’ performance lacked spirit,” he declared. “I’ll help you do better. And as for those costumes!…”
If he really intended to help, he had gone about it the wrong way. He was easily carried away and hurt people’s feelings at times.
He had brought with him from France a sure eye and a great deal of experience, which he tried to communicate with the local actors. It was a total upending of all the customary ways of that well-meaning, but ultimately very closed little world. Ribié got angry, calling them “little village fairground entertainers.” He himself would direct the rehearsals for The Barber of Seville. He was severe in every respect and would not tolerate the slightest omission or the slightest change to the original text.
Wearing a white shirt, his sleeves rolled back, he gesticulated, shouted, stormed about, and even went so far as to insult Goulard, who insisted on drawling his words as he sang.
“Beaumarchais didn’t write this play in Creole,” he screamed, waving around the bottle of rum, which rarely left his side, “Put some effort into it, my friend, put some effort into it…”
Angered, Goulard left the stage and had to be begged by Minette and Mlle Thibault before he would agree to return.
“It’s for your own good, my friend,” Ribié then said. “Do you think I haven’t made the same mistakes myself, for Pete’s sake?”
He took several long swallows of rum straight from the bottle then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand while watching Magdeleine Brousse, who was practically swooning and so head over heels this time that she had no problem bringing this new lover home with her while her husband was away. But the latter surprised them in a state of undress that made clear what they were up to. Overcome with rage, the poor wigmaker wept, stormed, threatened.
“This time,” he promised the fair Magdeleine, who was unable to come up with any excuses, “for once, this time, I’m going straight to the Governor to ask his permission to stick you in a convent. I’ve had enough of being ridiculed. And as for you, Monsieur…”
Ribié, like any good actor, threw his clothing on quickly and, bowing deeply to M Brousse, declared loudly:
“I’ve just learned to appreciate your excellent taste, Monsieur, and I thank you.”
He was handsome and strong and, as a mark of his eccentricity, wore a gold ring in his left ear, which made him look like something of a bandit. M Brousse stepped back, fearful, and Magdeleine, seeing her husband all aquiver, was overcome by a fit of the giggles.
Despite it all, rehearsals went along well and, from the very first one, Minette saw in Mlle Thibault a worthy rival. She was very young and very beautiful. Her voice, softened by many years of training, was pure and rich. Hearing the two actresses sing, Ribié declared that Minette’s voice was filled with sunlight, whereas Mlle Thibault’s was fresh like an April morning. As for their acting skills, their diction and grace, they were equally accomplished and Minette confided to Claude Goulard that, for the first time in her life, she feared being upstaged. Her costume was meant to be sober and modest; she had the ill-advised idea to trim it with chiffon and lace, despite the counsel of Mme Acquaire and Ribié. The fear of being outshined by the new actress made her slightly feverish, and she slept poorly on the night before the performance.
The show’s success was unprecedented. The actors were lauded – especially Ribié, Minette, and Mlle Thibault.
The next day, an article – signed this time by Mozard – directly criticized Minette for having added too many trimmings to her costumes and accused her, ultimately, of having indulged her desire to shine at the expense of authenticity.
The critique was legitimate enough to wound Minette’s pride deeply. She went directly to visit Mozard, who welcomed her with the delighted smile of someone who had already been won over.
“Monsieur,” she said to him, looking him straight in the eyes, as was her way, “are you the one behind this lovely turn of phrase?”
She breathed and, watching her diction, said:
“The papers are lamplights that enlighten the people – and tyrants do not want people to be enlightened,” she stated slowly.
“You’re quite young to be so wise,” answered the journalist, amused.
“Monsieur, you’ve been very discouraging.”
“How so?”
“Your article…”
“It wasn’t that bad, and I love saying what I think.”
“The ones before…”
“Those weren’t me. As I’m sure you also know, I detest anonymity.”
He stared at her for a minute, intrigued.
“Do you know,” he said, “that up close you’re less beautiful but more touching?”
She adopted her most seductive pose.
“Is it possible I’ve touched you, Monsieur?”
“Ha, ha, ha,” he immediately protested. “Don’t you try putting me on. Let me be touched without you trying to seduce me.”
That’s not going to work with him, she told herself, changing tactics. So she held his gaze so brazenly that he cried out:
“I prefer that. There’s nothing of the coquette about you and I don’t appreciate being taken for a ride. I find you very beautiful. Let’s go out together this evening, shall we?”
She looked at him. There was certainly nothing of the charming young man about him. He looked like what he was: a hardworking businessman who surely did not make waves in his conjugal life very often. Married to a modest woman, whom he rarely saw due to the demands of his business, his only pleasure consisted of going to the theater, where, as a journalist, he was admitted for free.
Hoping to win him over entirely, Minette accepted his invitation.
To prove to Mozard that his reproaches were undeserved, she had dressed very simply in a dark skirt and a gauze bodice with pleated sleeves that revealed her forearms, and a shawl that discreetly covered her breasts. He came to collect her in a six-horse carriage that Nicolette watched go by with a knowing air. Jasmine and Joseph watched her leave and did not dare ask where she was going. She had become even more respected by friends and neighbors ever since the feat she had managed with the Caradeux – and since she had earned the title “Mademoiselle.”
Going out with Mozard, she had prepared for the worst. Jean-Baptiste Lapointe was irretrievably lost to her. And as she had to keep living, even in her despair, she decided to throw herself into the fray – heart and soul. She had to get Mozard to agree not to keep praising Mme Marsan to the high heavens. She had to blind him with love and get him to stop judging her so severely. If she managed to win over the gazette, she would be saved.
He brought her to the restaurant of a white commoner who received them with flattering low bows. Mozard stared at her as they ate. At the end of the meal, he picked up his glass and, raising it high, said:
“To your success, my dear,” he said.
“There won’t be any more for me, Monsieur, if you keep bashing me,” she answered him without smiling.
She looked right into his eyes. No, she would not be able to seduce him. She could not do it. She who was such a good actress onstage, she could not, despite all her efforts, smile or cry, chit-chat or simper with the sole aim of seducing a man. Her face hardened. She felt like leaving Mozard there and going home. He was a white man, a slave-trader, who excluded freedmen from his paper. What was she doing there with her enemy? Something in her face must have betrayed her, for the journalist exclaimed:
“Whoa, there it is. There’s hatred in your eyes.”
She did not look away. To her great surprise, he spoke again:
; “I like you. There’s nothing of the hypocrisy so common with women of your kind, and you look so much better up close.”
He drank a glassful of wine.
“But why in heaven’s name do you persist in wearing lace when you’re playing the part of a peasant?”
“Perhaps because I was afraid of not being charming enough, Monsieur.”
Her tone was so sincere that he suddenly understood her fears, her dilemmas, her unending struggles in the face of a capricious and sectarian public, which could turn on her from one moment to the next. Until that very moment he had not truly understood that she was nothing other than a poor little freedwoman, blessed by fortune, striving to climb the rungs of the perilous ladder to fame.
“You don’t have to worry anymore,” he told her.
He had a kind, jovial, and intelligent face. His behavior toward her had been correct and even courteous. She was on the verge of letting herself go, forgetting her hatred, and crying out to him, “Monsieur Mozard, if a white woman just upstaged me, I’ll die. My talent is the only thing I have.”
But she kept silent, telling herself that he already knew all of that and that it would be fruitless for him to pity her any further.
“Tell me, why did you agree to go out with me?” he asked roughly.
“I hoped to win you over, Monsieur.”
He burst out laughing and rapped her on the hand.
“You’ve already succeeded,” he assured her.
They got back in the carriage, where Mozard maintained the same decorous attitude toward her. They rolled along the coastline, then he asked whether she would enjoy going for a dance at Vaux-Hall. She declined. Then he thought of something that would please her and shouted an address to the driver. He let her out in a sort of boutique where people were coming and going laughingly. It was a museum, she realized on seeing what was on exhibit. He bought two tickets and escorted her into a great room filled with wax statues – those of the royal family surrounded by their guards. Minette was enchanted by Marie-Antoinette’s beauty and pointed out to Mozard that the Queen seemed just as taken with lace and trimmings as she was.
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