Dance on the Volcano

by Marie Vieux-Chauvet

  “No one knows.”

  The young woman looked at Jean-Pierre and the same wild flame burned in both of their gazes. The latter leaned forward suddenly.

  “Hide her, Zoé,” he said to the young woman. “They’re coming this way.”

  “No one has accused me,” began Minette. “A white man…”

  “Be quiet,” whispered Jean-Pierre, waving his hand.

  There was such authority in his voice that Minette obeyed instantly. She followed Zoé into the next room and left the two old people and the young man. Zoé had not yet closed the door to the bedroom when someone entered the front room without knocking. They heard the click of a sword and someone swearing. It was a former slave, broken by his training with the constabulary, for whom capturing maroons or law-breaking freedmen was a lucrative and entertaining business.

  “Who are you looking for?” asked Jean-Pierre.

  “A man of color. He’s suspected of killing a sailor. Are there others here with you?”

  “Yes, two women in the bedroom. Feel free to go check for yourself.”

  He walked over without a word and immediately a cry of surprise escaped him when he recognized Minette.

  “What? It’s you! What the hell are you doing here? I thought you’d left with the Marquis de Chastenoye.”

  “I lost him in the crowd.”

  “Is this where you live?”

  “No, this is…my friends’ house,” responded Minette, terribly worried.

  “I should have arrested you,” continued the policeman, looking strangely at Minette and Zoé, “but that old fool paid me a hefty sum to leave you alone. And then, the white bystanders agreed that you had no part in the incident. Was it perhaps a lover of yours who did the deed?” he questioned, suddenly suspicious.

  Minette immediately altered her expression, becoming a little girl, innocent and awkward.

  “Oh, dear!” she protested, “at my age!…”

  “At your age, what? There are girls younger than you in the life, don’t you know?”

  “No, I don’t know anything about that…”

  “Fine. I’d love to believe you. Maybe those blasted ‘malcontents’ have struck again.”

  He left the room, passed through the front room and left without saying another word to anyone.

  Zoé took Minette’s hand and dragged her along after her.

  “Jean-Pierre,” she began, “he mentioned ‘malcontents,’ and this young lady isn’t a suspect.”

  “It’s just shameful!” he exclaimed, rage boiling in his voice. “To hear such words in the mouth of one of our brothers!”

  He turned to Minette. For a brief moment his burning gaze fell on her.

  “Listen,” he said to her, “you can trust us. Who do you suspect did this?”

  “Suspect! Well, no one…” stammered Minette, as she saw in her mind a bronze horseman wearing a straw hat. Jean-Baptiste Lapointe’s gaze had overwhelmed her. She remembered it and now realized that it had burned with hatred and disgust at the sight of the sailor who was mistreating her. Yes, that gaze could well be that of a criminal or a vigilante. But why, why would he have killed a white man? For her? That wasn’t possible. He did not seem at all like a great admirer of hers or like a jealous lover and, clear evidence of his total indifference toward her, he had refused her a dance at the ball.

  All four of them were looking at her with such apprehension that she felt compelled to speak. But at the same time, she was suspicious. Who were these four? They seemed like good people, especially the old man and woman, but the other two – such passion in their gaze, such fever in their voice and gestures! Why were they interrogating her with such curiosity, such impatience? Why were they so interested in this whole affair?

  “Don’t give us a name, if that bothers you, young lady,” said Jean-Pierre, “but speak – it will help us, believe me.”

  For a moment he remained rooted right in front of her and his immense eyes opened so exorbitantly in his dark face that Minette was afraid.

  “Do you suspect a white man of having killed that sailor?…”

  “A white man?” replied Minette quickly. “Oh, no!…”

  “So you do suspect someone.”

  “I don’t dare…I don’t want to…”

  “Don’t say his name, if that’s a problem,” said Zoé encouragingly.

  “It was a griffe,” admitted Minette, “a griffe on horseback – tall, handsome, and young.”

  Suddenly the atmosphere changed. Jean-Pierre and Zoé threw themselves into one another’s arms and embraced as if delirious with joy.

  “It’s him!” cried Zoé, “It’s him – I’m sure of it!…”

  “Calm yourselves, children, calm yourselves,” said the old woman gently as she looked outside nervously. “For heaven’s sake, calm down!”

  Jean-Pierre had become serious again, not in obedience to the old woman’s admonitions, but because he seemed to be following a thought that made him throw himself against the chair in which the old man was seated. Their eyes met, and Minette was once again struck by their resemblance.

  “Ah! Their reprisals will become more violent every day. We can expect a movement of solidarity very soon, isn’t that right, father?…”

  “Very soon,” the old man answered, “no one can say if it will be soon. I’ll die perhaps before seeing it come to pass, but it will happen…yes.”

  Minette got the impression they had forgotten about her, but then they remembered her presence and abruptly turned in her direction. In an instant, they seemed to come together and a sort of secret, tacit understanding established itself among them. Zoé turned to Minette.

  “How old are you?” she asked her.

  “Fifteen.”

  “At fifteen I already understood quite a lot of things…”

  She stood up, came toward Minette and placed her hands on her shoulders.

  “You are the daughter of a mulatto woman and a white man, and I am the daughter of two Negroes. Your skin is different than mine but we are both free women of color and the laws are the same for both of us, no?”

  Breathless, Minette nodded yes. Where was she going with this, for heaven’s sake? What tragic eyes and what terrible passion! she said to herself.

  “Your story is as follows,” continued Zoé, “your mother was a slave, she suffered the advances of her master and you were the result, right?”

  “Yes, but how do you know?”

  “It’s the eternal story of all pretty little mixed-race girls like you. And before you, your mother was born in the same circumstances, and your freedom is nothing but the result of chance.”

  She began walking, and kept her eyes on Minette as she paced up and down the room. And Minette got the impression that what Zoé was saying right then she had already repeated to hundreds of people with a goal that she, Minette, did not yet understand.

  “My parents were slaves, slaves in Martinique, which is a country that absolutely resembles Saint-Domingue, as far as suffering and injustice are concerned.”

  The word “injustice” was spoken with such bitterness that Minette felt like she was hearing it for the very first time.

  Injustice! Who had said that before Zoé? she thought. Who? Injustice had kept slaves in irons, allowed them to be beaten, tortured, killed. Injustice toward the freedmen, the same injustice that prohibited them from performing at the Comédie, from going to the Whites’ ball, from getting an education…all those unjust laws, this entire order of things, unjust, this social prejudice, unjust…But who had said all these things before Zoé? Joseph? Father Raynal? No, it was a painful sensation she felt manifesting itself all around her and that had been revealed to her, not because anyone had pointed it out to her but because in herself she had felt a muted revolt against so much absurdity. This revolt had been brewing for some time. It had taken shape the very day when she understood that she and Lise, because they had a few drops of black blood in them, were put in quarantine even by little wh
ite girls their own age. In effect, she had continued to live with her revolt without even realizing it was there, eating her up, sleeping, as she envied the life of the Whites just like all the others in her social class. But in listening to Zoé, a veil had been torn off, exposing everything that had been so well hidden inside her and that undoubtedly had inspired this need to insult the Whites, to spit in their faces, and to hate them. Joseph had helped her to see things clearly within herself. The work Zoé was doing on Minette’s narrow little freedwoman’s consciousness had been initiated by Joseph, but more gently, more patiently and, above all, more prudently.

  Zoé pulled back a curtain and revealed a few shelves filled with books.

  “That’s where I learned to read and how I continue to teach myself. An old freedman lent me his books. He’s rich and his courtyard is a veritable paradise, with birds and fish everywhere.”

  “Labadie!” cried Minette.

  “You know him?”

  “Yes. I learned from his books, too.”

  “Ah!…”

  She put her arms around Minette’s shoulders with an affectionate gesture so unexpected that Minette could not help but look at her in surprise. But Zoé was no longer thinking about Minette. She had run to her brother and was speaking to him in low tones, in a persuasive, passionate voice. He listened to her, a faraway look in his eye.

  At that very moment, the door that gave onto the street opened up and a mulatto woman entered. She had long braids pinned back in a thick bun at the nape of her neck and was dressed in a severely cut black dress and a long-sleeved blouse that covered half her hands. On her arrival, Zoé let out a cry of surprise:

  “Louise,” she called out, and ran to embrace her.

  The mulatto woman let her worried gaze linger on the elderly couple, kissed them and held out her hand to Jean-Pierre.

  “Have you seen Beauvais, Lambert?” she asked.

  “No, not in three days,” he answered, “but he promised me he’d come, so he’ll come.”

  She let her gaze travel over the narrow room and seemed to notice Minette for the first time.

  “And who is this – a friend of yours, Zoé?” she said, looking over Minette suspiciously.

  “A friend?” responded Zoé, looking Minette in the eyes. “Yes, I think so…I think we can count on her, too.”

  “Good,” said the mulatto woman, taking Jean-Pierre Lambert by the hand.

  “Excuse us,” she said, leading him into the bedroom. “Something confidential.”

  Minette felt weary. Too many things had happened in the course of that one morning. She had only one desire: to leave, to go home, to go to bed, to not see anything else, to not hear anything else. She got up and, without saying a word, hugged Zoé and gave her a kiss.

  “Tell me your name?”

  “Minette.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Traversière Street.”

  “We’ll meet again, Minette.”

  “I hope so, Zoé. Goodbye Papa. Goodbye Mama.”

  “Goodbye, my daughter,” responded the old people.

  It was almost one o’clock when Minette arrived at her home. Her mother had already brought in the stand to serve lunch. For the first time in her life, the young girl was keeping secrets from her mother. She did not tell her about the murdered sailor, or about Jean-Baptiste Lapointe or the Lamberts. Her worried air, while she ate the traditional meal of peas and rice, did not escape Lise, who began questioning her about her morning. Had she been with Mme Acquaire at the Comédie? How had the rehearsal gone? Had Goulard paid her any compliments?

  “I wasn’t at the Comédie,” admitted Minette, so as to put an end to her sister’s rather annoying investigation. “I felt like going for a walk, so I went for a walk.”

  “Speak French!” begged Jasmine.

  And suddenly realizing what Minette had just said:

  “What? What are you saying, my daughter? You went for a walk? With whom?”

  “Oh! By myself, Mama,” responded Minette, exasperated.

  She was holding back with some difficulty the tears that had begun streaming down her cheeks.

  “I’m tired,” she said with a voice so shaky and plaintive that Lise, whose eyes had been lowered on her plate, looked up at her and cried:

  “You’re crying? What’s the matter with you?”

  Minette pushed away her plate and stood up. What she wouldn’t have given to be alone for a moment, just a moment. Oh, to have a room of my own, to be able to close myself up somewhere to think and to cry as much as I want! she thought to herself. Everything she had lived through that morning was knocking around inside her in feverish disorder: the stakeholder in the theater, the sailor, the horseman, Zoé and Jean-Pierre! Oh! She simply could not handle it. She was going to start screaming, screaming like a madwoman. Jasmine looked at her like a mother hen fearing her chick would run away; Lise wore the expression of a surprised and stupid little goose. Did she not have the right to keep to herself things she had no desire to talk about? How would she talk about them? She herself could barely manage to understand what had been going on inside her and around her from the moment she had left the Comédie. How could she possibly tell Jasmine that she had been out walking alone, that a sailor who had kissed her had been killed, and that she suspected a certain Lapointe had done it? Oh! All of that was too complicated and Jasmine would have a reason to whimper, to weep, to look her in the eye to remind her of her scarred back, to force her to repent, to retreat back into herself. She left the dining room without a word and entered into the only bedroom, closing the door after her. For a minute she listened to the sound of Lise and her mother’s voices, pricked up her ears to be sure they had not followed her. Then she lay down in her bed, buried her head in her pillow and wept despairingly.

  X

  FOLLOWING THE sailor’s murder, the planters hung two men of color as an example. Though they swore they had been mere innocent bystanders, they were brought to the public square and hung from lampposts after a mockery of a trial. Coincidentally, as if they had been tipped off, a group of free colored women, abandoning their sandals, their Indian-style skirts, and their madras scarves, but decked out in velvet and lace, chose that same day to display themselves ostentatiously on the arms of the most handsome officers of the colony.

  Moreover, their feet were shod, which infuriated the white Creoles and European women. Wearing the jewels that their white lovers had offered them the night before, adorned like so many human shrines, the free women of color went to witness the freedmen’s ordeal.

  The accused were two young men, perhaps twenty or twenty-five years old. The younger of the two screamed and attempted to escape the clutches of the soldiers. Their mothers and other relatives followed behind them, wailing, screaming, and praying aloud. “Mercy, mercy,” they cried, “Lord God, have mercy.” One of their mothers rolled on the ground in despair and, when they placed the rope around her son’s neck, leapt on a police officer and bit his arm. She was arrested immediately. Curious onlookers pressed forward, jostling one another so as to get a better look at the swinging bodies with tongues that had begun to stick out, purple and swollen, from the mouths of the hanged men.

  Among the free people of color there was Nicolette, in velvet skirt and lace bodice, as well as Kiss-Me-Lips, her face half hidden beneath a fringed parasol. The way they were dressed could not exactly be considered a form of vengeance, yet, gathered together at the scene of the hanging in that way, they were so striking in their luxury that, despite the childishness of the gesture, they nonetheless seemed to issue some manner of protest. Some of the white women, recognizing their husbands or lovers among the companions of the beautiful colored women, shouted at the latter – calling them dirty niggers, bastards, and gens de la côte. These were serious insults: the colored women took them without flinching – as if they had planned it – and behaved as if impervious.

  Having attended the hanging with unreadable expressions on their f
aces, they dispersed along with the rest of the crowd and, from that moment on, only ever appeared dressed as ladies. The murder of the soldier, the provocative attitude of the free colored women, and multiple cases of marooning created a horrible state of tension that turned the tide against Minette. And, as she was visible and had been the first to begin wearing such expensive garments, she became a prime target. She was attacked immediately in the local gazette, criticized for her extravagant tastes and compared unfavorably to Mme Marsan, a white actress from Cap-Français, so as to destroy her in public opinion. The paper contrasted the two women’s talent, their beauty, and their social standing. It lamented Port-au-Prince’s apparent appreciation for a little half-breed that local whites – too indulgent and in complete disregard for the law – had supported in a career that allowed her to show herself in public, and so risked weakening the power of prejudice and pushing “those creatures” to take on inappropriate airs. The paper openly reproached the Governor for having encouraged such attacks on the edicts of the King in fortifying, by his weakness, unacceptable aspirations and desires. The day after the hanging, Minette’s name was dragged into the drama that had taken place at the seaside and the “young person” who sang at the Comédie was revealed as the woman who had been in the arms of the sailor at the moment of his murder.

  Horrified by the two freedmen’s ordeal, Minette spent the day in her room, weeping and cursing the dead sailor, the judges, and the planters. Now that she had heard the word “injustice” used by Zoé Lambert, she had begun using it as something of a mantra, repeating it to herself constantly. When Joseph arrived, she spat it out at him with the same fervor she had heard in Zoé’s tone.

  “Such injustice, such cruel injustice – killing those poor men! I know for a fact they didn’t do anything.”

  Without responding, Joseph unfolded the newspaper he had brought with him and showed the article to Minette.

  “How mixed up are you in this sad affair, Minette?” he asked.

  As he had spoken loudly, she made a gesture to silence him.

  “There’s no point in Mama and Lise knowing about this. Come over here, I’ll tell you everything.”