“Not in so public a place as a hotel pool.”
“Exactly. And I don’t think it should be condoned here. But of course we can’t afford to annoy the tourists. Have you bothered with any of our tourist attractions?”
“We went yesterday to see the house where Empress Josephine was born.”
“I never advise anyone to visit there. That old man, the curator, what a chatterbox! And I can’t say which is worse—his French or his English or his German. Such a bore. As though the journey getting there weren’t tiring enough.”
Our hummingbird departs. Far off we hear steel-drum bands, tambourines, drunken choirs (“Ce soir, ce soir nous danserons sans chemise, sans pantalons”: Tonight, tonight we dance without shirts, without pants), sounds reminding us that it is Carnival week in Martinique.
“Usually,” she announces, “I leave the island during Carnival. It’s impossible. The racket, the stench.”
When planning for this Martinique experience, which included traveling with three companions, I had not known our visit would coincide with Carnival; as a New Orleans native, I’ve had my fill of such affairs. However, the Martinique variation proved surprisingly vital, spontaneous and vivid as a bomb explosion in a fireworks factory. “We’re enjoying it, my friends and I. Last night there was one marvelous marching group: fifty men carrying black umbrellas and wearing silk tophats and with their torsos painted with phosphorescent skeleton bones.
I love the old ladies with gold-tinsel wigs and sequins pasted all over their faces. And all those men wearing their wives’ white wedding gowns! And the millions of children holding candles, glowing like fireflies. Actually, we did have one near-disaster. We borrowed a car from the hotel, and just as we arrived in Fort de France, and were creeping through the midst of the crowds, one of our tires blew out, and immediately we were surrounded by red devils with pitchforks—”
Madame is amused: “Oui. Oui. The little boys who dress as red devils. That goes back centuries.”
“Yes, but they were dancing all over the car. Doing terrific damage. The roof was a positive samba floor. But we couldn’t abandon it, for fear they’d wreck it altogether. So the calmest of my friends, Bob MacBride, volunteered to change the tire then and there. The problem was that he had on a new white linen suit and didn’t want to ruin it.”
“Therefore, he disrobed. Very sensible.”
“At least it was funny. To watch MacBride, who’s quite a solemn sort of fellow, stripped to his briefs and trying to change a tire with Mardi Gras madness swirling around him and red devils jabbing at him with pitchforks. Paper pitchforks, luckily.”
“But Mr. MacBride succeeded.”
“If he hadn’t, I doubt that I’d be here abusing your hospitality.”
“Nothing would have happened. We are not a violent people.”
“Please. I’m not suggesting we were in any danger. It was just—well, part of the fun.”
“Absinthe? Un peu?”
“A mite. Thank you.”
The hummingbird returns.
“Your friend, the composer?”
“Marc Blitzstein.”
“I’ve been thinking. He came here once to dinner. Madame Derain brought him. And Lord Snowdon was here that evening. With his uncle, the Englishman who built all those houses on Mustique—”
“Oliver Messel.”
“Oui. Oui. It was while my husband was still alive. My husband had a fine ear for music. He asked your friend to play the piano. He played some German songs.” She is standing now, moving to and fro, and I am aware of how exquisite her figure is, how ethereal it seems silhouetted inside a frail green lace Parisian dress. “I remember that, yet I can’t recall how he died. Who killed him?”
All the while the black mirror has been lying in my lap, and once more my eyes seek its depths. Strange where our passions carry us, floggingly pursue us, forcing upon us unwanted dreams, unwelcome destinies.
“Two sailors.”
“From here? Martinique?”
“No. Two Portuguese sailors off a ship that was in harbor. He met them in a bar. He was here working on an opera, and he’d rented a house. He took them home with him—”
“I do remember. They robbed him and beat him to death. It was dreadful. An appalling tragedy.”
“A tragic accident.” The black mirror mocks me: Why did you say that? It wasn’t an accident.
“But our police caught those sailors. They were tried and sentenced and sent to prison in Guiana. I wonder if they are still there. I might ask Paulot. He would know. After all, he is the First President of the Court of Appeals.”
“It really doesn’t matter.”
“Not matter! Those wretches ought to have been guillotined.”
“No. But I wouldn’t mind seeing them at work in the fields in Haiti, picking bugs off coffee plants.”
Raising my eyes from the mirror’s demonic shine, I notice my hostess has momentarily retreated from the terrace into her shadowy salon. A piano chord echoes, and another. Madame is toying with the same tune. Soon the music lovers assemble, chameleons scarlet, green, lavender, an audience that, lined out on the floor of the terra-cotta terrace, resembles a written arrangement of musical notes. A Mozartean mosaic.
The end
