“She stole Françoise’s heart as well,” I said archly.
“It’s true. Although it surprises me less than it does you. I don’t know anything about Françoise’s past, but Claudette has more than enough reasons to distrust men. In any case, the Theâtre Nomade was born there in Linz. Surely you’ll remember the huge number of women who’d been traveling with the 5th Battalion. It’s true that there were all types among them, but some of them, like Claudette and me, were theater people. And not just theater people, but theater people whose resources had all but vanished, and who needed to earn a living. A young Jewish boy who was marching to Strasbourg with his father also joined us. Guess who he is? None other than Maurice Larose, our clarinetist, the jewel of our little orchestra. Of course the day arrived when we were finally allowed to move on toward Vienna. But I’m superstitious, my dear. I don’t know if I’ve told you that before. I prefer not to travel east if I can get away with traveling in any other direction. If you think about it, for us French, everything bad has always come at us from the east. It’s something my father used to say. And so, after buying a wagon and a new carriage, we set off for Salzburg, where we found the Pinelli Brothers and the Venetian Mimes. And there, I had to make a decision. My show had always been limited, more or less, to what now makes up the second act. And we’d gotten along reasonably well like that. But Rocco, the eldest of the Pinelli Brothers, convinced me that I’d do much better if I joined forces with his people and made room in the show for some circus acts, danseuses de corde, magicians, contortionists, animaux savants. ‘This way we’ll have something for everyone,’ he told me. And he was right. Later, in Mannheim, Frau Müller joined us with her dogs, as well as the gypsies and their bears, and in the market in Frankfurt, I found Professor Kosti with Pythagoras and also Piet, who’d just returned from touring in London, with Joseph Grimaldi, no less, and who, like me, was traveling across the Rhineland. And so it’s been. With the exception of giants, midgets, bearded women, hermaphrodites and other phénomènes that serve no purpose other than showcasing their physical oddities, I’m willing to accept anyone and anything in the realm of circus arts. And I’ll tell you another thing: if we continue to attract such experienced performers, I don’t see any reason that we couldn’t work in France, although not just yet; the public’s expectations are much higher there. But one day we shall cross that border. I’ve thought it all out: Strasbourg, Metz, Nancy. Little by little, we’ll be moving toward Paris. My city. Ten years, Henriette. It’s been ten years since I left Paris.”
“You’ll be back soon enough now. But what you’ve told me is simply amazing,” I said, in awe at the apparent ease with which she had organized such a complicated show. “Although I believe it’s more than just coincidence at work. I’d say it was your destiny. Of course you’ll return to Paris. You were born under a lucky star. That’s the main thing. I’ve heard that Napoleon, before promoting anyone to the rank of general, asks first if he was born under a lucky star. My star, on the other hand, well you know . . . Aunt Margot, then Robert.”
“Oh, Henriette, how little you know about my life,” she sighed.
But I did know at least a little. And I don’t mean her unfortunate relationship with Varga and the matter of the duel, things I never let on that I knew about. But one night in Vienna, in that moment of intimacy one slips into after making love, I asked Robert what he knew about Maryse’s life in Saint-Domingue. Whether because he always shied away from talking about other people, or because he actually knew little about Maryse’s past, he told me only that she and Claudette, after suffering many hardships, had left Saint-Domingue just before General Rochambeau’s surrender. “But let’s speak of happy things,” he’d said. “The stories about Saint-Domingue are too frightening. What do you think about throwing a banquet in honor of Constant’s birthday?”
“Forgive me,” I said to Maryse, ashamed. “I spoke without thinking. I know from Robert that you were very unlucky in Saint-Domingue.”
“Unlucky? I’ve suffered a great deal. First I lost my daughter’s father,” she said in a low voice. “Then I lost my daughter,” she added, turning her face toward the carriage window.
“Oh, Maryse!”
“It’s all right, Henriette, it’s all right,” she said after a moment, trying to smile beneath her tears. “But promise me something. Promise me that you will never speak to me of these things. I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t have told you.”
But those painful memories had already surfaced, and, like blind birds, they flew about between us, unable to return to hiding or to take flight. I drew her close. I hugged her until she understood that it would be better to give in to it and tell me everything. And so, beginning that very day, she surrendered up her story to me little by little, like the chapters in a feuilleton.
Shortly before the turbulent days of the storming of the Bastille—an appropriate date from which to begin many stories of my time—Maryse was a young and talented singer, increasingly well-received on the stages of Paris. She was in love with a married man, a wealthy mulatto from Saint-Domingue by the name of Jean-Charles Portelance, who had traveled to Paris to lobby in support of the rights of citizenship for people of color in the colonies, a category to which he himself also belonged. To this end, he was active in the Société des Amis des Noirs, an organization prominent in those years, whose members included notable men such as Mirabeau, Necker, Sieyés, and La Fayette. One day, Maryse discovered that she was pregnant. It was something that neither she nor Portelance had wanted, but they both adjusted to their new reality, if not with enthusiasm, then with calm resignation. And so, their daughter, who they named Justine, was born. After the first few months, and after a great deal of consideration, Maryse decided to live alone with her daughter and the wet nurse, since she believed it would be morally unhealthy for the girl to be raised in an illegitimate household. At first, Portelance did not approve of this separation, but, little by little, he grew accustomed to the arrangement and, like Maryse, came to believe that it was for the best, given their situation.
Despite the sincere love that bound the couple, their relationship was far from happy. This was not because Portelance’s marital status presented an emotional obstacle—his marriage was the result of an arrangement between families, and Madame Portelance, having already performed her marital duty in giving birth to a son, lived an independent life in Boston—but rather because their professional interests did not coincide and they scarcely found time to see one another. In addition to being an ardent idealist, Portelance was an intense and dedicated man who only had eyes for his political projects; when he wasn’t in his office writing an editorial for the Mercure, he was editing a pamphlet against the Club Massiac; when he wasn’t attending an Amis des Noirs meeting, he was at a secret meeting with an English abolitionist. Maryse was no different. Her