Dance on the Volcano

by Marie Vieux-Chauvet

  Minette, at a breaking point, clasped the old woman’s hands.

  “I’ll go with Zoé on this mission – I promise you…”

  Zoé raised her head. Minette saw her so calm that she had the impression her every feeling had been buried deep inside of her. Only the wide and still feverish eyes still bore a hint of her despair. Zoé finished dressing, tied her madras scarf over her hair and then, rifling through a drawer, took out a makandal, which she looked at steadily for a moment without speaking.

  “Come, Minette,” she said simply.

  “Have you forgotten anything, my child?”

  “I haven’t forgotten anything, Mama…”

  Then the old woman wept with such force that her entire body seemed to shake with spasms. And still, not a single tear ran down her cheeks. The source was dried up, but the fear that called them forth was so fresh that it gripped her entirely.

  For a second, Minette felt herself overcome by that uncontrollable fear. She wanted to leave them all there – to run home and never come back. I’m going to risk my own freedom, she said to herself, trembling. As if to make her even more nervous, the old woman clutched Zoé’s arm:

  “Be careful, my child…”

  “I’ll be careful, Mama.”

  She went over to her father. For a brief moment their so-similar gazes seemed to become one.

  “Be sure not to let anyone look into your eyes,” said the old man. “Your eyes give everything away.”

  Zoé bent over and accidentally kissed him high up on the cheek; the kiss rang hollow, as if it had fallen into a hole. Minette turned to look: one of the man’s ears was missing. It had been sliced off at the base.

  XXI

  EVERYTHING HAD GONE well on the trip from Zoé’s to Louise Rasteau’s house, where they left the slave they wisely had disguised as a market-woman. Minette had suffered no more than a bout of intense emotion, and as soon as she had returned to the Lamberts’ she felt herself capable of the most dangerous missions. She left Zoé with her parents and went to find Jean-Pierre in his workshop. She found him sawing a plank and smoking his pipe.

  “You want to speak with me, my child,” he said once he became aware of her presence.

  “I’m going to see Joseph, Lambert,” she announced straight off.

  “At the Marquis’? That would be madness. The house is guarded by vicious dogs and slaves armed to the teeth.”

  “Mademoiselle asked me to come see her.”

  “You?”

  “Yes, me. She likes hearing me sing and…”

  “If you can do that, if you can manage it…”

  He let go of the saw, placed his pipe on the table, and looked at Minette.

  “Zoé’s right; you’re no coward.”

  “Thank you.”

  He walked toward Minette and took her shoulders in his powerful hands.

  “Can I count on your discretion and your courage?”

  “I’m no coward, Lambert,” she repeated, looking at him boldly.

  “Don’t I know it…But I’m not so keen on exposing you…Your talent in the eyes of the white world is useful to us, in a sense. You don’t think so, huh? Well, it’s true. There are lots of things – both big and small – that can lead to the same goals…If I’ve never thanked you for singing so beautifully, let me do that here today.”

  “Thank you, Lambert.”

  A horse’s gallop suddenly broke the silence in the little street. Lambert cocked his ear and Minette saw all the features of his face suddenly tense up with worry.

  “Might be a soldier from the constabulary,” he said tersely.

  The horse stopped with a whinny at the front door of the house, and Minette noticed Lambert shiver and clench his fists. Then the horse galloped away.

  “When you leave here,” he said, “be very careful, and come back when you have news about Joseph.”

  “May I leave now?”

  “Wait.”

  He went to the front door, opened it slightly, and looked up and down the street.

  “Go ahead.”

  Obsessed by thoughts of Joseph, she headed toward the Comédie. She found the actors in a state of complete dismay, having just learned of François Saint-Martin’s death. Goulard, his eyes reddened, came to greet her. He kissed her hand and wiped his nose. They were all so horribly sad that for a moment Minette wanted to escape back to Arcahaie. Ever since her return, all she heard was bad news. First Joseph, now Saint-Martin. What was Lise going to do? How alone she must feel with this dead man on her hands!

  “Poor François,” said Macarty. “Dying was the only thing it wasn’t like him to do.”

  “How did he die?” asked Minette, stunned.

  “Fever. We got a letter from a notary he told his final wishes to.”

  “Lise hasn’t written?”

  “We don’t know anything more.”

  The Acquaires arrived just then. They embraced Minette and fell sobbing into Macarty and Nelanger’s arms.

  The blonde Dubuisson, slightly less pretentious since being booed, looked at Minette out of the corner of her eye. “What did she have, that girl, that the public found so appealing?” she seemed to be asking herself. Mme Tessyre and Magdeleine Brousse blew their noses with loud sighs. Saint-Martin’s death brought back the memory of little Rose, and it was not clear who Mme Tessyre was weeping for. As for Mme Valville, she no longer had her birdlike vivacity and remained locked in an embarrassed silence.

  “My God,” Magdeleine Brousse let out with difficulty, “death is a horrendous, horrendous thing!”

  François Mesplès walked in on these words. He was so overcome with emotion that he did not even notice Minette’s presence. He shook all the actors’ hands, repeating:

  “What terrible news, what terrible news!…”

  Minette stood between Goulard and Mlle Dubuisson. He noticed her just as he held out his hand to Goulard, and his unhappy expression was replaced by a sort of grimace, at once irritated and conciliatory. Without extending his hand to her, he said:

  “And so here you are. You must be quite happily savoring your little victory. You ditch us. The public demands your return. Someone writes asking you to come back…For heaven’s sake!…”

  And turning to Mlle Dubuisson:

  “And as for you and your famous missed note!…”

  “She had a sore throat,” said Mme Valville coldly.

  “Well then you should have kept her from singing.”

  “I’ve been feeling a bit ‘off’ for some time now,” interjected the young Dubuisson, looking slyly in Minette’s direction.

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” questioned Mesplès.

  “Oh, I don’t know…That girl left, and the very next day I start going hoarse and am overcome by migraines…In this country, the Whites are at the mercy of these people and their horrible superstitions….”

  “Are you crazy?” spat out Minette indignantly.

  “Be quiet,” interrupted Mesplès. “How dare you call Mademoiselle Dubuisson crazy?”

  “She insulted me.”

  Goulard stepped between them and Mme Acquaire pleaded Minette’s case, guaranteeing her innocence.

  “Very well,” said Mesplès. “I wash my hands of the whole thing. You launched this girl and the public adores her. Up to you to deal with it. As long as I’m paid, I could care less from now on.”

  Mechanically, he caressed his bulging stomach and held Minette’s gaze for a long moment.

  “She’s the most beautiful little nuisance of a freedwoman I’ve ever seen in my life,” he concluded. “She isn’t afraid to look a white man in the eyes…Ah, if she didn’t have that voice!…”

  He went out, leaving the actors as shocked by Saint-Martin’s death as they were upset by the obligations they would have to take on. The Comédie was swimming in debt. The planters had not paid their subscriptions for the past three months. They had signed off on bonds that once again they would have to bring to Mesplès for an a
dvance of the money at a usurious rate of interest. The bohemian Saint-Martin had lived like he was immortal – from strokes of luck to rolls of the dice – and he owed money to the stagehands, the set designers, the porters, and even the guards hired to keep order in the theater. M Acquaire let out an enormous sigh and, his eye twitching grotesquely, said:

  “Saint-Martin has left us with an empty till on our hands. Who’s going to take responsibility?”

  Depoix looked at his bosom-buddy Favart. They smiled at one another and, stepping forward, answered:

  “We will.”

  “Good,” said Goulard, “but I warn you: the Comédie owes the actors just as much as it owes the folks backstage.”

  “If the Government grants us direction of the theater, we’ll make good on everything,” promised Favart.

  “Good luck with that!” said Magdeleine Brousse, inconsolable at the loss of the young director.

  “Thanks,” Depoix answered coldly.

  Everyone went his separate way and Minette went out with Magdeleine Brousse, who had begun railing against life.

  “I swear, life is a real bitch; a real nasty bitch. I do my best to forget it by sleeping with everyone I fancy. It’s the only way to get old and die without regret.”

  To prove that her words were more than hot air, Magdeleine left Minette and headed over to a young soldier who was calling her.

  “Farewell,” she said. “I’m going to go forget about this bitch of a life for a few hours in the arms of this handsome young man.”

  The soldier looked at Minette. He was tall and slender, with dark hair that fell in unruly curls on his forehead, setting off his splendid blue eyes.

  “Bring your friend,” he shouted to Magdeleine.

  “Do you want to come?” she asked Minette.

  “No.”

  “Bring her,” the soldier insisted.

  “She refuses.”

  “She just hasn’t had a chance to see me up close…”

  He came forward and, his hand on his hip, he lowered his irresistible, smiling young face to Minette.

  “So are you coming?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t like me?”

  “No.”

  She gave a seductive smile and headed home. Her throat was dry and it suddenly seemed to her that she had lived the last few hours without even knowing whether or not she was suffering. When she arrived at Traversière Street, the vendors had just gone inside, fortunately. She was so tired she would not have been able to speak to them. The painter Perrosier was standing in his doorstep, as filthy and drunk as ever. He called to Minette laughingly:

  “Come pose for me, beautiful girl.”

  She ran away and opened the door to her house, crossing the front room and heading to the bedroom. She threw herself across the bed and remained there, not moving, eyes staring at the ceiling. “Jean, Jean-Baptiste Lapointe!” her heart screamed. “Joseph! Joseph at Caradeux’s, Joseph enslaved! No, no, no! My God,” she muttered, “take pity, take pity on us.” Then she remembered Mlle Dubuisson and Mesplès’ recent insults.

  Jasmine stuck her head through the partly opened door.

  “Are you here? Do you want to eat something?”

  “I’d like something to drink, Mama. Please give me something to drink.”

  Jasmine handed her a big glass of cool water, which she drank down without stopping to breathe. Then she stayed in bed, seated now, not moving, and turning so many things over in her thoughts at once that her head began to hurt. What did she really want? To go back to Boucassin? To save Joseph? To slap every White that had insulted her? She struggled with herself, caught up in the gears of those three impossibilities. She tossed aside those ideas and made an effort to steer her thoughts toward something she could actually accomplish. How much longer was she going to let herself be insulted by the people at the theater? Saint-Martin had died owing her nearly three years of wages; she would go claim what was due her and would demand an apology from Mlle Dubuisson and François Mesplès. She called to her mother.

  “Lise is going to come back, Mama,” she told her. “Monsieur Saint-Martin has just died in Les Cayes.”

  “The young director? My God! And Lise is all by herself there!”

  “No one’s going to eat her, Mama. But I’ll never forgive her for not writing to us about any of this.”

  “She must be on her way – Lord, Lord!…”

  Minette stood up and began undressing. She took a bath and went back to bed. That evening, Lise arrived seeming so defeated that, forgetting her anger, Minette took her in her arms and held her there in silence.

  “Oh! It was horrible – horrible, Minette!” she immediately confided. “He fought hard; he didn’t want to die. He held on to the bed, to my arm, to the doctor’s. Oh, I’ll never be able to forget it…”

  Jasmine quickly made her an infusion of calming leaves and put her to bed.

  “Oh, Mama! He was so good, so perfect with me. He was like a brother, like a big brother. I never would have thought that a White could behave that way toward me…”

  “Don’t talk about all that anymore,” advised her mother.

  “But I’ll never, never be able to forget. He didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to…”

  She kept sobbing as the vendors, who had noticed her arrival, began coming by to ask questions and offer advice. Minette tried to usher them out. They were crowding the tiny little room, all talking at once and shaking their heads wrapped in bright, multicolored scarves. It was at this juncture that Pitchoun showed up and declared that he would be entering the army.

  “I’ll soon be a uniformed soldier. If you don’t find that too unappealing…I…”

  He was stammering, as Minette looked at him, amused.

  “I’m sure I’ll find you very handsome.”

  He leaned forward suddenly and kissed her cheek.

  “Little rascal!” she said to him, mussing his curls with an affectionate caress. “Come say hello to Lise. As for me, I’ve got some business at the Comédie. You’ll have to excuse me…”

  As she walked along, she bumped right into a hanged man’s feet and was seized with a feeling so strong she felt suddenly unsteady.

  A man of color was hanging at the end of a rope. His head had been stuffed into a bag, and a sign hung from his feet. Horrified, Minette read:

  CRUSH THEIR DEMANDS

  She stayed there for a moment, unable to think and unaware, even, of the passersby who had begun to gather. Then she took off running back home, passing by her mother without looking at her and rushing into the house, where she crashed into Pitchoun, who was just on his way out.

  “What’s the matter, Minette?”

  “Oh, just leave me be.”

  “But what’s the matter?”

  “What would you like me to tell you?” she spat out with such rage that he just looked at her, stunned. “That a colored man’s just been hanged? Don’t you know just as well as I do that these things happen?”

  She hid her face in her hands.

  “Minette!…”

  “I turned right around, you see? I was going to the Comédie to demand the money they’ve owed me for three years. I was going to demand apologies for their uncalled-for insults. I was going to demand – me, to demand…”

  She broke out into a nervous, strident laugh that rang so false Pitchoun seized her hands.

  “Listen to me, Minette, listen to me…”

  “Oh, leave me alone…”

  “I’m not a child anymore. Listen to me…”

  “Let me be, I beg you, let me be, let me be!”

  He let go of her hands and slammed the door after him. Once she had come to her senses, she ran to call after him. He was already gone.

  She sat down for a moment and stayed there looking straight ahead, not moving.

  “Minette!” called Lise.

  She stood up and opened the bedroom door.

  “What’s going on with Pitchoun?”

/>   “Nothing,” answered Minette.

  “You seem terribly upset.”

  “Yes. But it’s nothing.”

  Lise had a fresh compress on her forehead and her eyes were still red from crying.

  “I’m hungry,” she stammered, as if ashamed.

  “I’ll go look for something for you to eat. I don’t think there’s much at the house. And I don’t have a cent. And you, did you make some money in Les Cayes?

  “Yes,” she admitted, “but I had to buy all my costumes.”

  Minette went out and came back with a piece of bread and a caramel, which she handed to her sister.

  “That’s all I could find.”

  Lise immediately sat down on the bed and began devouring the food.

  “I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday,” she admitted, as if to apologize.

  And as she gobbled up mouthful after mouthful, she told Minette about her debut on the stage, her successes, and Saint-Martin’s death.

  “Oh, if you’d only seen me in the role of Theresa, with my multicolored camisole, my pipe, and my hitched-up skirts! Monsieur Saint-Martin played the role of Papa Simon. What a hit we were!…”

  Minette made a mocking little grimace.

  “I know you don’t much like those local plays. But this one is adorable, trust me. The sets represented Papa Simon’s hut and provision grounds, and my partner was a young white man that, unfortunately, we had to do up in blackface. He was handsome, but when he touched me his hands got me all dirty…”

  “That’s one of the reasons I detest those local plays,” said Minette, as if talking to herself.

  Lise, lost in her memories, sat on the bed as she held the compress with one hand, covering her forehead.

  “Do you think I can keep performing? I’d like to leave for Léogane; that was the advice I got there, in Les Cayes.”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “I’m counting on you to convince Mama.”

  “Can’t you manage that on your own?”

  “Of course. But she’ll agree quicker if you get involved.”

  “Okay, then.”