A Masque of Chameleons

by Joan Van Every Frost

  “All right, have it your way. Just look out, Roberta, or you’re going to end up with a heart like a dried prune.”

  His handsome face was set in such a look of yearning that she was touched. Like so many of us, she thought, always reaching for what we can’t have. She laughed, for she might otherwise have wept. If only her heart were a dried prune... “Find yourself a nice pretty girl who loves you, Gavin. You deserve better than me.”

  He thought she was laughing at him, and with a scowl he turned and walked away from her. Just as well, she thought. If he’s angry enough with me he’ll forget wanting to love me.

  *

  The next morning breakfast was served as it was just getting light, not all that early in the month of November. The grim pile of dark gray stone that was Morro Castle slid by slowly, followed on the opposite side of the passage by Havana itself, the pale blue and red jumble of houses shouldering their way down to the waterfront. In the bay were a large number of men-of-war and merchant ships from every part of the world. Small boats with white sails plied back, and forth between the wharves and the anchored ships, manned by blacks and carrying men and supplies to and fro.

  The wharf was alive with color and noise. Soldiers stood about watching black stevedores as they shouldered bundles and barrels into enormous piles that would replace the Priscilla's cargo once she was unloaded. Eventually small boats were rowed out, and one by one the passengers were lifted in chairs over the side of the ship and deposited amid much squealing from the ladies into the boats that took them to the wharf. Waiting for Hugh was a very excitable coffee-colored man who embraced him effusively and announced he was the manager of the Teatro de Tacon where they were scheduled to play the very next night. The Italian opera company was met with much shouting and hand waving by the manager of the Teatro Principal, and the mezzo-soprano was swept off in triumph by an Italian nearly as fat as she was.

  Though hardly a novelty, foreigners in the entertainment field were in demand among many of the better families in Havana, who invited them to their dinner parties and even vied with each other as to who would put them up. Except for Jason, Hugh and Daphne were the only ones who had ever been to Havana before. They with Roberta and Rosemary were put into a volante, one of the ugly black carriages drawn by a mule on which sat a black man dressed in a grimy but elaborate uniform with top hat and high muddy boots. Roberta caught a glimpse of Will and Jessica and Jason and Carmelita climbing awkwardly into another volante, to be taken to another house. She laughed as the sudden thought came to her that it must be more than a bit awkward for Jason and Carmelita to be thrown into the same room all the time, and possibly into the same bed as well. From what Roberta had seen of her, Carmelita probably wouldn’t mind — she seemed awfully free with her favors — but she couldn’t imagine Jason making love to anyone. He seemed so immersed in his schemes that he had all the romanticism of one of those homely black Cuban carriages.

  As they left the waterfront area, all of them craning their necks to absorb the colorful scenes about them, she saw Zaragoza swing up on a magnificent black horse and trot off deep in conversation with another man on an elegant chestnut. All Zaragoza’s horse needed, Roberta thought, was a black funeral plume to be completely in character.

  At last they drew up in front of an imposing cream-colored house whose long windows held no glass. They passed through a large gateway into an inner courtyard surrounded by stables, rooms for the servants, and a huge kitchen bustling with activity. They mounted the stairs to the second story, a single large room surrounded by a wide gallery looking out on the street. Separate rooms here were defined only by draperies of gauze and silk, which meant that the smallest sound carried readily from room to room.

  That first morning they were met by Señora Lamartine, their hostess, a tall, handsome woman who made Roberta feel almost petite. She had magnificent topaz eyes, set in a coffee and cream face, enormous gold earrings with little bells on them that tinkled constantly, and a dazzling array of diamonds and emeralds — even the buttons on her dress were diamonds set in mother-of-pearl. This magnificent creature welcomed them warmly as if she had known all of them for years, and was soon puffing her cigar and picking her teeth with a gold toothpick with a complete lack of self-consciousness.

  “Ah, how I envy you!” she was saying in a musically accented French. “When my poor Jean was alive, we traveled everywhere: England, the Continent, even Mexico and the United States. Since God took him, though, I’ve done nothing but rot in this mausoleum.” She waved a careless hand at the marble-topped tables, the silk-upholstered chairs, the gauze and silk draperies.

  “I cannot fathom why someone of your charms is not married again,” Hugh said gallantly. “Surely you must have had a horde of gentlemen pounding on your door.”

  She laughed, a full-bodied mellow golden laugh that went with her skin and eyes. “They are all afraid of me. The money makes them come tiptoeing around from time to time, but they are always frightened off. Cabrones, they have nothing but soft butter between their legs.” She turned and shouted in Spanish toward the courtyard. “Jorge! Tell them to hurry up with that breakfast!”

  When they all protested that they had had breakfast on the ship, she wouldn't hear of it. “They serve swill on such ships. We won’t be eating again until four or five this afternoon, and I don’t want you all to swoon from hunger by then.”

  Before long, the breakfast was served in the long cool gallery. There must have been twenty dishes: thin slices of beef cooked in oil and garlic, a garlic and tomato and bread soup, three different kinds of eggs, shrimp, several kinds of deep-fried fish, pork and lentils, chicken and saffron rice, and a beef and banana and bean stew cooked with cinnamon.

  *

  That afternoon they entered the volante once more and bumped their way through the narrow cobbled streets to the Teatro de Tacon. Already most of the rest of the company was there, including Jason and an irritated Will, who had discovered that his hosts spoke only Spanish and French. He had to sit fuming while Jason, Carmelita, and Jessica prattled on in Spanish about what he was convinced were fascinating subjects. Jason was now distant and preoccupied to the point where he missed several cues, irritating Hugh no end.

  “If you would be so good as to join us in this rehearsal, Mr. Whitney,” Hugh said with heavy sarcasm, “we should be much obliged to you.”

  At best the entire rehearsal was wooden, not helped by Carmelita apparently having forgotten what few lines she knew.

  “If you do as well tomorrow night,” Hugh observed gloomily, “we won’t have to worry about Mexico because we’ll be tarred and feathered and run out of town right here.”

  “Oh, ch-cheer up, Hugh,” Guy tried to comfort him.

  “You know perfectly well last rehearsals are usually n-no good. Opening night everything will be f-fine.”

  “We still have to print large signs for the side of the stage until the programs come through,” Hugh said. “Who’s good at printing? Gavin, you write a fair script; can you print?”

  In the end, Gavin outlined the letters and they all helped fill them in with black paint. They even enlisted the help of the volante drivers, who got them materials and brushes. The men finally took off their shirts entirely, both to save the shirts from the paint and to survive the suffocating heat in the closed theater.

  “Dear God, what’s it going to be like with an audience here?” moaned Jessica.

  Jason, Will, and Hugh went through the flats in the back of the theater and picked out several that would do as sets. Stripped to the waist, all three of them glistened with sweat in the lamplight as they hauled the heavy flats around. It was after eight before they finished, knowing unhappily that they had all missed the big meal of the day.

  Señora Lamartine didn’t seem very put out. “Never mind, I’ve laid on a little supper for you, and if you wish you may bathe before you go to bed.”

  The little supper turned out to be twice the size of the voluminous breakfas
t, dish following dish until they finally had to beg off, feeling stuffed as Christmas geese.

  “Ah, you poor things, you’re nervous about the performance tomorrow, aren’t you?” She puffed energetically on her cigar. “Once it’s over your appetites will return, I’m sure.”

  “Madame,” Hugh managed with a replete sigh, “I haven’t eaten so much in thirty years.”

  *

  The following day was hectic, everyone sent off on errands either to buy needed items or to sort through costumes and props and put into condition the ones they would be using that night. Roberta put a pile of clothing in the volante and took it back to the Lamartine house, where their hostess had promised the services of several of the black maids to press them.

  “Tell me,” Senora Lamartine demanded as they had tea while waiting for the costumes, “what is the life of an actress like? How is it to travel everywhere and not have to care a fig for convention?”

  “I’ve always liked the freedom,” Roberta said cautiously, “but we’re not so different from other people.”

  “Not different?” Again the wonderful laugh. “My dear, if you only knew what the lives of the rest of us women are like. Do you have any idea what a well-bred Cuban lady does with her day? Do you?”

  Roberta shook her head, fascinated by this exotic creature who might have walked out of the pages of a book on African royalty.

  “Nothing,” her companion said triumphantly. “Absolutely nothing. An hour or so of shopping is a big event, and at that they don’t even get out of their volantes — the shopkeepers have to bring the goods out to them.”

  “You’re not like that.”

  “I play the piano and read. Because I like to ride horseback I am considered no lady. Because I haven’t remarried, the wives are terrified I’m going to enter into a liaison with their husbands, and the unmarried men are terrified I’m going to marry them. My husband only came up to my shoulder, but he was twice the man any of these preening popinjays could ever dream of being. They’re so busy trying to pretend their grandparents weren’t slaves that they want only women they don’t have to see very often, women who never argue with them, never do anything but sit quietly all day with their cigars and their daydreams.”

  “Do all the women here smoke?” Roberta asked, curious.

  “They smoke and they pick their teeth and they spit. Those are their only recreations, so they can be forgiven.”

  “Tour life is so different,” Roberta said, “that I hardly know where best to start. You see, actors in the United States are looked down upon, and actresses cannot be ladies. It’s really rather nice because we can do as we like since we’re disapproved of no matter what we do. We should never be invited to stay in a home like this one.”

  Señora Lamartine’s eyebrows rose. “You mean they have no curiosity? That seems incredible.”

  “Oh, they have curiosity, all right, and sometimes we are given a supper so that they can talk to us and stare at us, but it’s usually on neutral ground, not in anyone’s home. Of course, gentlemen have affairs with actresses all the time, and that’s supposed to be all right. A girl in our company just married an earl recently, but he was eccentric and absolutely mad about her.”

  '“And do you have many lovers then?”

  Roberta laughed ruefully. “Not one. We’re not nearly so much more improper than other people. If I took a lover, I think Hugh would take a switch to me. He feels very responsible because I have no family.”

  “How odd,” murmured the other woman. “If I had your freedom, I would take a hundred lovers. No one here wants to marry a widow; they want to marry only young virgins. Because Jean and I had no children, they are afraid I’m barren besides. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two. A bit long in the tooth for marriage.”

  “We are not so backward as all that, Roberta — I may call you Roberta, mayn’t I? You must call me Josefina. Many of our women marry in their late twenties and no one thinks the worse of them for waiting so long.”

  “I can’t see that marriage is all that wonderful anyway,” Roberta flared. “To sit home and scrub floors and wash dishes and wipe the noses of a lot of wretched children is not my idea of living.”

  “Ah, you are in love with someone who will not or cannot marry you, are you?” Josefina asked cannily.

  “Unless you were half-witted, you'd never have to scrub floors or wipe noses — you’d have servants to do it for you.”

  “Gentlemen marry only ladies. They dally with actresses.”

  “Be your age, Roberta. If a man is besotted with a woman, he’ll marry her anyway, no matter what she is.”

  “Men don’t become besotted with large ladies wearing oversized hands and feet.”

  “Don’t they now?” Josefina put one of her hands up against Roberta’s. The golden-brown fingers with their shell-pink nails were half an inch longer than Roberta’s.

  “But yours look elegant, and mine simply look — big.”

  “I’ll let you in on the most important advice anyone will ever give you, child. Think of yourself as elegant and you’ll be elegant; think of yourself as beautiful and you’ll be beautiful.” Josefina smiled at her indulgently.

  “I could never lie to myself like that. There is nothing more foolish than an ugly woman who is vain.”

  “Unless it’s an ugly woman who makes herself uglier by disliking herself. Try hard to think of yourself as handsome — not petite, but handsome — and you’ll see it will work wonders. People only see what you make them think they see. If you have no regard for your looks, they won’t either. So for heaven’s sake put away those dingy dresses you wear. In turquoise, flame, gold, you’d be magnificent.”

  The maids came in then with the costumes pressed and placed on hangers. Josefina came down to the volante and supervised the stowing of the clothing. “Think over what I said,” she called in farewell. “Mon dieu, I wish I could change places with you.”

  *

  At the theater everything was at sixes and sevens. Jason was trying to coach a work crew of hulking black laborers when and how to change the flats, and Roberta grinned as she realized she was picking up a whole new set of heartfelt swear words. Margarita never said anything worse than caramba. Gavin was trying to put the props in order, muttering to himself the act and scene as he handled each one. Rosemary was letting out one of Desdemona’s dresses to take into account the weight Carmelita had gained on board the ship.

  “If she doesn’t look out,” Rosemary said darkly, “we’ll have a fat Desdemona. She must have gained ten pounds.”

  “Where is she?” Roberta asked idly as she carefully hung the costumes in a large wardrobe backstage.

  Rosemary shrugged irritably. “I don’t know and I don’t care. She complained all the time I was fitting her, and I was glad to see her go. A bit longer, and I’d have stuck a pin in that large rump of hers.”

  Hugh and Will were making crosses in chalk on the stage floor. “Drat it,” Will complained, “where’s Carmelita? She’s got as many problems with her crosses as she does her lines and cues, and I want to be sure she can be heard in the back.”

  As the afternoon wore on into evening, more and more people needed Carmelita. Will wanted to rehearse her once more, Rosemary wanted to try on the altered costumes, Gavin wanted to go over her props with her, and at last even Jason wanted to take her to eat something before the performance.

  “I’ll go see if she’s at the house where we’re staying,” Jason offered at last. “I can’t think where she’s got to.”

  “When you find her,” Hugh said grimly, “I hope you beat her. Of all the times to go off and tell no one where you’re going...”

  After a more than ample supper at Josefina’s, they all returned to the theater to dress and put on their makeup. Nine-thirty came and went with no sign of Carmelita. Jason was beside himself, and Roberta knew that part of it at least was that he wondered if Zaragoza had anything to do with her absence. At ten Hugh aske
d Jessica to dress and make up for the Desdemona part. Roberta thought he was mad to put in a woman so much older than Desdemona really was. It wasn’t that there weren’t many aging actresses who played Desdemona, and Juliet too for that matter, but Roberta thought they were pathetic. While it was true that Jessica could throw her voice in a way that made a performance believable and exciting, Roberta felt that no amount of makeup could hide her age. It took Jessica nearly half an hour to get ready, but Guy reported that though the theater had been sold out, it was still almost a quarter empty. Josefina had warned them that many would not arrive before the second or third act.

  All went as usual, Guy doing a better than average job as Roderigo, until Desdemona entered and began her speech, “My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty...” The stance, the gestures, the voice were all those of a young girl who had had womanhood thrust suddenly upon her. Roberta stood transfixed as she watched the older woman.

  Jessica’s presence struck sparks from Hugh’s Brabantio, from all of them. Even beyond her delivery with never a hesitation or a misspoken word, she turned Desdemona from a solemn, humorless little prig into a living, breathing woman.

  Until then, they had all circled Jason as moths flutter about a flame, but Jessica easily equaled him in a far more difficult part. Though few of the audience understood enough English to follow the dialogue, the explanations on the posters were almost unnecessary. The quality of the voices, the language of gesture and expression were enough in themselves to show Iago a villain, Desdemona unfairly besmirched, Othello an all too willing dupe. As the final curtain went down, there was a roar of applause. As they all bowed, Jason took hold of Roberta’s arm and gestured slightly with his chin. There in a box, smiling and waving, sat Zaragoza, elegant indeed with ruffled shirtfront and black opera cloak.

  Backstage, in the midst of the congratulations, Jason pulled Roberta aside. “I must talk to you.”