Wild Lavender (7 page)

The stage went black and I wondered what was going to happen next. I could make out a row of lights around the orchestra pit and a circle of light shining from a lamp in the front wing.

After a while, there were voices. The sound grew louder. My nose twitched: tobacco smoke drifted in the air. I peered beyond the gap in the curtains and made out the silhouettes of people pouring down the aisles and filling the seats. A few minutes later, a man’s voice echoed around the hall and the chatter abruptly ceased. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Le Chat Espiègle…’

A shiver ran all the way down my spine to the backs of my legs. Bonbon pressed herself against me and pricked up her ears. A circle of light flashed on the stage in front of the curtains. The audience clapped. The vibration of the applause shook the floorboards under my feet and made the chandelier tinkle. The band struck up a romantic melody and a man in a striped shirt and beret stepped into the spotlight. He turned and I caught his profile. His face was covered in white make-up and his eyes and lips were circled in black. He held out his hand, pretending to smell a flower. After admiring it, he offered the bloom to imaginary people passing by. I had seen mime artists at the Sault fair, but this one was more convincing. Each time his offer of the flower was rejected, his shoulders drooped and he bowed his head in a way that made me feel his disillusionment. I couldn’t see his facial expressions but the audience burst into laughter and stamped their feet at his
performance, which ended when someone accepted his flower and he skipped down the stage steps towards them.

The percussion instruments burst out with an explosion of drums and rattles. The curtains flew open and light flooded the stage. A stampede rumbled on the stairs above me and the stage filled with chorus girls dressed as American Indians. Their tan stockings shimmered under the lights and their plaited hairpieces swung around their faces as they bucked and stomped around the totem pole, singing out their war cry. The audience stood up and cheered. Some whistled and others made catcalls. With the brighter lights I could see them more clearly than before. They were nearly all men in dark suits and caps, or sailors, but dotted among the crowd were showy women in sequins and feathers and about half a dozen out-of-place men dressed like Monsieur Gosling. On stage, the dancing turned wilder. Indian braves arrived with a canoe, but were overrun by the squaws who wrestled them to the ground and stole their moccasins.

Then, as quickly as they had appeared, the girls departed like ants before a storm, fleeing into the wings or up the stairs. The sound of their fading voices ricocheted around me. The lights blacked out again. Bonbon quivered in my arms. My own heart thumped in my chest. Seeing the performance was like being hit by lightning. My skin burned and my temples throbbed. I had never experienced anything like it before.

I peered through the curtain again and blinked. Ghostly beings were scuffling around on the stage. They hoisted something over the backdrop; it unfurled with the
thump
of a sail opening into the wind. They pushed the totem pole into the wings and in its place set out objects that looked like trees. A few minutes later their shadowy shapes retreated, like assassins slinking away. I became aware of a muffled voice and saw that another act was taking place in front of the curtain. The rounded shoulders and grim posture were familiar and I realised that it was the sullen comedian. I couldn’t hear what he
was saying because he was projecting his voice towards the audience, but whatever it was they didn’t like it. They were booing and banging the sides of their chairs with their fists.

‘Bring on the girls!’ a surly voice shouted above the riot.

Whether the comedian had finished his act or not I didn’t know, but a few moments later a harp began a lilting melody. A flute joined in and weaved around the notes like a serpent. Golden light spread over the stage. The audience gasped and so did I. The scene was ancient Egypt with a backdrop of sand, pyramids and palm trees. The chorus girls stood or knelt before a staircase that disappeared into the rafters. They were dressed in white robes fastened at the shoulder with a silver clasp and all looked alike in ebony wigs and with eyes elongated with black liner. Eunuchs stood on either side of the stage, waving fans of peacock feathers. The chorus girls chanted and their voices were answered by a warbling one from up in the flies.

Feet bejewelled in silver anklets appeared at the top of the staircase and began to descend. They were followed by slim legs and a torso. When the woman came fully into sight a breathless hush fell over the audience. Draped over her hips was a swirl of muslin fastened at the waist with a clasp in the form of a cobra. She shimmered with jewels. They glistened at her ears and wrists and on each upper arm she wore a gold band. Over her chest dangled strings of beads which scarcely hid her pert breasts. One foot in front of the other she glided down the stairs. It was only because of her elegant walk that I recognised her. Camille. She had transformed from a pretty woman into an exotic temptress. Suddenly I understood Monsieur Gosling’s fever.

Camille reached the bottom of the stairs and moved towards the footlights where she began snaking her arms and gyrating her hips in time to the music. A man in the front row clamped his hand over his mouth but couldn’t take his eyes off her. The rest of the audience didn’t move at all. They sat clutching their seats. Camille rolled her shoulders and hips and turned in a circle. I caught the flash
of her eyes, her haughty expression. Everyone else on stage faded into insignificance. Her voice was thin but her stage presence was formidable. A boat with a purple sail slid out from the wings and stopped at the foot of the staircase. Flanked by the chorus girls, Camille stepped into it. She turned and gave the audience a last cheeky swing of her hips before being spirited away. The lights went out. The dance was over. The audience stood up and roared, their applause louder than a thunderstorm. I clutched Bonbon to me, both of us quivering.

After several encores, for none of which Camille appeared, I realised that it must be getting late and I would have to miss the second act. I stood up to go home.

Albert was smoking on the landing and I thanked him for letting me see the show, but I barely heard my own words, so fresh was the memory of music and applause in my ears. I wandered down the Canebière in a dream, Bonbon’s paws pattering on the cobblestones beside me. Camille’s act played before my eyes again; it had impressed me more than anything I had ever seen. It wasn’t lewd or vulgar, as Aunt Augustine had described. It was spellbinding. And in comparison to it, my life seemed even more dreary.

I reached the front door as the sun was setting and lifted the latch. But the girl who had left the house that evening was not the same girl who returned to it. I knew then that my life would have to be the stage, or it would be nothing at all.

L
e Chat Espiègle was not a high-class music hall with a large production budget and an audience that included dukes and princes. But it was a place of magic to me. I thought that the lights and music, the bright costumes and the chorus girls, were the height of glamour and excitement. I had nothing to compare it with. I was blind to the tattered curtains, the shabby seats, the near starved faces of the performers. I lived for those evenings when Bonbon and I walked to the theatre and Albert sneaked us into our secret place in the wings.

Sometimes acts were changed from the second to the first half of the program, and once I saw the Sunday matinée when Aunt Augustine was down with a migraine and told me not to disturb her or make any noise around the house. In this way, I had a chance to see the other performers. The artists and the impresario, Monsieur Dargent, discovered me from time to time but said nothing. Even Camille turned a blind eye to my presence, remaining aloof but not giving me away to Aunt Augustine and continuing to pay me to walk Bonbon.

The mime’s name was Gerard Chalou. Although I only saw his back during his performance, I often stumbled across him backstage, practising a shoulder stand against a wall or lying flat on his back, contracting and relaxing his stomach muscles. He would sometimes warm up in the wing where I sat, and often spent four or five minutes just rolling his eyes.

‘They convey everything,’ he replied to my puzzled expression. ‘They must be limbered up too.’

During the interval Chalou gave me and Albert a performance of his sketch about a poodle who would not behave. To emphasise the comedy he froze in some of his positions. I scrutinised his lips and chest, searching for some telltale sign of breathing, but couldn’t find any. Madeleine and Rosalie, two chorus girls who appeared nude in the show except for jewel-studded
cache-sexes
, begged Gerard to teach them his special ‘immobilisation’ technique.

‘Practise by running around,’ he said. ‘Then stop in a pose. You must not move a muscle. But you must not look dead either. Your eyes should convey inner life.’

Madeleine and Rosalie pranced around like ponies. When Gerard shouted ‘Freeze!’ they came to a stop, doing their best not to teeter on their high heels and holding their feather boas out behind them like wings. But for all their earnestness, each time they tried something would give them away. An earring would rattle against a headdress; a bracelet would slip down an arm; or their breasts would continue to bounce. For women who were supposed to be nude, their ‘costumes’ were often heavier than those of the chorus girls who appeared clothed.

Monsieur Dargent, passing by, watched their attempts with interest. ‘It will never do even if they manage to freeze,’ he said. ‘Not with all that running around.’

Albert explained to me that, according to the law, nude showgirls could appear in the program as long as they only paraded and posed. If they danced or moved too much, they would be considered strippers and the police could close down the production.

Claude Contet, the magician, was dazzling. He had the luminous skin and pale eyes of a mystical conjurer. When he paraded across the stage, his cape glittered and sparked with electricity. I watched him sweep his wand over the bird cage three times and tug away the purple scarf. The canary was nowhere to be seen. The audience clapped. Claude held out his palms to their enthralled faces. ‘You see, my hands are empty.’

When the Zo-Zo Family appeared everyone backstage came out to watch, their painted faces, and my unpainted one, turned towards the spotlights while Alfredo, Enrico, Peppino, Vincenzo, Violetta and Luisa dusted their hands in chalk and scaled the rope ladder to take their positions on the platforms.

‘Oh my! Oh my!’ Madame Tarasova, the wardrobe mistress, would mutter into her handkerchief.

Violetta and Luisa leapt for their swings and swept over us like spangled birds, moving back and forth to gather momentum. The Zo-Zos performed their act without a net and the groan of the trapeze under their weight added to the tension. Often there were gasps and the occasional scream from the audience. Sometimes when the strain was too much, I’d have to look down at the musicians in the pit. There was no music for the act: the wrong beat could be fatal. The conductor would have his eyes squeezed shut. The violinists sat with their heads bowed, like monks at prayer. Only the brass section was brave enough to keep watching. I’d lose my breath the second before the transition and my heart lurched in my throat. Suddenly the women were spinning, somersaulting through the air like silver dolphins. A sensation in my stomach made it seem as if they were falling, swooning towards the deadly edges of the stage. But with a
slap!
their hands clutched those of their catchers with such split-second timing that for a moment the audience remained dazed. Then the sound of applause roared through the hall. Those whose legs weren’t still trembling stood up to shout their admiration. Somehow, from that point on, I knew that the Zo-Zo Family would be safe even though their pirouetting and passages became increasingly complicated as the act progressed.

Although I saw the act several times, each time it ended and the band played the victory tune tears blurred my vision. The performance stirred my sense of beauty and loathing. Beauty because the act was more about trust than tricks; loathing because of the snatches of conversation I
heard backstage. ‘Not this time, I guess,’ muttered as a sigh. When all the Zo-Zos had scaled back down to the stage and taken their bows, the collective exhalation of relief that went through the other performers contained a tinge of dissatisfaction: the same disappointment as among onlookers when a suicide decides not to jump.

But my greatest fear was that Aunt Augustine would find out where I was going each evening and forbid me to walk Bonbon any more. I was not a natural liar and the double life of deception took its toll. I was fearful of getting home late, and as evening approached I never knew until the last minute if Aunt Augustine was going to give me an errand to do and a whole day’s anticipation of going to the music hall would come to nothing. If I ever wanted to work in show business, it was clear that I would have to leave Aunt Augustine’s first.

It was in this matter that Albert came to the rescue.

‘Madame Tarasova needs help with the costumes,’ he said. ‘Go see her.’

I pinched my wrist to make sure it wasn’t a dream and found my way to the backstage area where the wardrobe mistress was stacking headdresses on a shelf.

‘
Bonsoir
, Madame,’ I called out. ‘Albert said you need help. And I need a job.’

Madame Tarasova was a Russian
émigrée
who always wore a loose corduroy dress and a scarf fastened at her throat with a brooch. She smiled at me and cooed to Bonbon. ‘What a beautiful doggie,’ she said, stroking Bonbon’s chin. ‘We must make sure we don’t put her on someone’s head instead of a wig.’

We both laughed.

A blonde girl, a few years older than me, appeared with some dresses on hangers. She nodded to me and hung the dresses up behind a curtain.

‘That is my daughter, Vera,’ said Madame Tarasova, pulling some needles from a cushion and pinning them to my blouse. She slipped a spool of cotton and a pair of scissors into my pocket. ‘Can you sew?’

I told her that I sewed well because on my family’s farm that was one thing that I
could
do.

Madame Tarasova nodded. ‘I need you to do repairs quickly,’ she said, gesturing for me to follow her up the staircase. ‘And to help set out the costumes. The headdresses are too awkward for the girls to run up the stairs with, so we collect them as each performer comes off the stage, clean them, then pack them away downstairs. If you come earlier tomorrow, you can help Vera set them out for the first act.’

We stopped outside a door with the number six painted on it. The chirping of female voices came from the other side. Madame Tarasova pushed the door open and a tableau of chaos unfolded before us. The chorus girls were perched on stools side by side in the cramped room. They were staring into mirrors and rubbing their faces with greasepaint sticks and rouge. The air reeked of
eau de cologne
, brilliantine and sweat. Madame Tarasova took Bonbon from me and placed her in a hatbox on a chair, where someone discarded a kimono on top of her. Bonbon peered out from the material then slipped under the chair to watch the goings on from behind the safety of the legs. The redheaded girl I had seen before recognised me. ‘Hello again!’ she called out, smearing her eyelids with purple shadow. ‘Helping out Mama Tarasova?’ It was then I realised why her French had sounded so strange; it was because she was English.

‘When the girls are on stage,’ said Madame Tarasova above the commotion, ‘you and Vera should come up here and straighten out the room.’ She stopped to help a girl with the ties of her Indian costume and shook her head at a dress lying on the floor. ‘They are good girls but sometimes they forget to hang up their costumes. Don’t they, Marion?’

The girl grinned and continued rouging her cheeks.

A bell rang. ‘Ten minutes until showtime,’ called out Madame Tarasova.

The pace in the dressing room quickened. The girls flung off their kimonos and slipped on their costumes. Madame
Tarasova and I ran between them, helping to straighten tights and smooth down wigs.

‘Look,’ said a pale-skinned girl, whom I recognised as the one who had complained of hunger the first night I had watched the performers arrive at the stage door. She pointed to a tear under the arm of her smock. ‘I’ll fix it,’ I said. She tugged off her costume and handed it to me. I tried to ignore her bare breasts and mound of pubic hair jutting towards me and threaded my needle. I wasn’t shy, but I wasn’t used to the sight of female nakedness paraded so casually either.

I heard applause and the bell rang again. I helped the girl back into her costume and watched her flee after the others down the stairs. Madame Tarasova followed. The clamour of the chorus girls’ feet and the war cries they shrieked as they ran down the stairs made the floor vibrate and the walls shake.

‘Simone!’ Madame Tarasova called over her shoulder. ‘Come back tomorrow night. I will go to the office tomorrow and sign you up for the payroll.’

I guessed that meant I was hired.

Madame Tarasova said that I could live in the backstage area until I found a room of my own. Monsieur Dargent had let her and Vera stay there when they first came to Marseilles after fleeing Russia, and I understood why they were so loyal to him when they could have got better jobs elsewhere. The day after I was hired, I couldn’t wait to get my things and tell Aunt Augustine that I was leaving. It was only when I had gathered my belongings and bundled up my clothes that I noticed Bonbon sitting by the door of my room with her ears drooping.

I picked her up. I had forgotten that if I left I would not see her any more. I climbed the stairs to Camille’s room and knocked on the door. Camille opened it, dressed in a kimono. Her pretty face was ethereal without her stage make-up.

‘I’m leaving,’ I told her. ‘I’ve got a job at Le Chat Espiègle.’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘But I’ll still take care of Bonbon if you bring her to the theatre with you. For free.’

‘Take him,’ Camille said, yawning. ‘What am I going to do with a dog?’

Bonbon’s ears pricked up and she wagged her tail. She must have sensed the happiness that ran through me. It was a good start to a new life: my little companion could stay with me.

Aunt Augustine was sitting in the parlour, reading the newspaper. I’d already sent a letter to Aunt Yvette that morning, telling her and my mother that I was leaving and that I had found work as a seamstress with a music hall. I had to contact them first, because who knew what lies the old woman would tell my family if I didn’t. I could not think of one redeeming quality that made me feel sorry for Aunt Augustine. She had not shown me any kindness. She had not ‘taken me in’ after my father’s death. She had done nothing but exploit me.

Aunt Augustine’s face turned red and her nostrils flared like a maddened bull when I told her I was leaving. ‘You ungrateful little hussy!’ she screamed. ‘Have you got yourself pregnant?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve got another job.’

Aunt Augustine was stunned for a moment but quickly recovered. ‘Where?’ she asked, then her eyes fell to Bonbon who was sitting by my bundle. ‘So you’ve joined with that slut upstairs, have you?’ she spat. ‘Well, let me tell you this. She’ll have work as long as she is young and pretty but then she’ll end up like those women next door.’ She nodded in the direction of our neighbours. ‘But you,’ she laughed, ‘you’re not even pretty enough for that now.’

Her insult stung because there was truth in it: I was not as pretty as Camille. I would have done anything to have her hypnotic, catlike blondeness, but I was a black-eyed giraffe. Before Aunt Augustine could say anything else to
discourage me, I swept up Bonbon and my baggage and walked out the door. In the end, what kind of looks did a seamstress need?

Aunt Augustine rushed to the doorstep after me and the women next door stepped out onto their balcony to see what the commotion was about.

‘Simone!’ Aunt Augustine shouted. I turned to see her pointing at the prostitutes. ‘That’s what happens to plain girls without talent who try their luck in the music hall. Look, Simone! That’s your future staring back at you!’

I tucked Bonbon under my arm, slung my bundle of clothes over my shoulder and fixed my eyes firmly in the direction of Le Chat Espiègle.

A few weeks after I started work in the wardrobe department at Le Chat Espiègle, a neighbouring music hall called The One-Eyed Sailor closed down and Monsieur Dargent bought some of the sets and costumes from the debt collectors. He created a new show titled ‘On the Seas’. The first act was a sketch about three sailors who find themselves shipwrecked on an island of Hawaiian beauties.

Because the costumes were simpler than those of the previous show, I could sometimes snatch a moment to watch the act from the wings. I began to understand the difference between the chorus girls and Camille. The chorus girls sang and shook their legs because they didn’t want to starve. Dancing in a music hall was better than working on the streets and the audience paid them more respect, if only slightly. It was a cut above working in a laundry or a bakery or in domestic service where the burden of their labours would soon wear out their greatest asset: their youthful prettiness. In the theatre they could hold out a little longer, hoping that some night there would be a rich suitor among the men hanging around the stage door after the show. It was well known among the chorus girls that Madeleine, after a liaison with the heir to a shipping fortune, had been
forced by the young man’s father to have an abortion and that the previous year two girls had to leave the theatre after contracting venereal diseases. It was not an aspect of theatrical life that I had anticipated and it shocked me. I had not heard of La Belle Otero, Liane de Pougy or Gaby Deslys—women of the stage who were mistresses to kings and princes. Although the chorus girls did sometimes receive jewels and clothes for their favours, Madame Tarasova was quick to point out that no one at Le Chat Espiègle had ever been whisked away to matrimonial heaven by a prince, or even the manager of an olive oil company, and did her best to educate everyone on the benefits of
les capotes anglaises
, rubber sheaths that men wore over their penises to prevent conception and disease. But her advice fell on deaf ears; getting pregnant was still seen as a viable way of trapping a husband.