Cadoville (unfinished)

Chapter IX

I met Lucie twice after our first meeting at the Halle aux blés, both times at the Café Février, where she and two other girls told me they were Mariannes. Far from probing Gabriella however, they got tipsy and told me all about the japes and larks they got up to backstage between fits of giggles. I was more relaxed when they were like that – smiley and less cold – we seemed to get on rather well, as self-conscious and guarded as I clearly was.... Lucie was the eldest at 21, the others were around my age – Angélique Legrand liked young, boisterous citizenesses....

The Théâtre du people was in the Marais, not far from the river. Lucie showed me in and guided me through a dingy rabbit warren of curtains and drapes, whispers and silhouettes wandering between the shadows, to a space behind a wide, blood-red curtain. A dozen or so posh dresses and deathly white faces with eyes like saucers glared at me, and doubtlessly listening to the muffled voices on the other side.

"There's wine on the table...," said Lucie, pointing to a dark brown smudge in the corner. "Go through the curtain when they call your name. Good luck...."

She winked and made her way to the other side of the curtain. Pouring myself some wine gave me an excuse to turn my back on the room – I would've preferred rum.

A voice in the darkness summoned the next girl and I caught a glimpse of 'the other side'. My hands clammed up and my mouth experienced an unprecedented drought. The other girls edged forward to listen. I drank the wine quickly. It was just what I needed to bring some colour back to my cheeks and get my thoughts in order. Gabriella wasn't allowed to be nervous, she scoffed at stage-fright..., my nerves on the other hand were far more unyielding. 'Think of the money,' I told myself. 'Think of Gruyères.' From a quiet corner away from the candle's glow, I gave each one of the girls a good look. Trembling, lip-licking, frowning, nail-biting, handwringing.... They were just a handful of sweaty-faced, fidgety girls like me, whose theatrical ambitions and dreams had been building to this point.... Tough. My need was greater than theirs.

One by one, the girls came and went, until at last I heard....

"Gabriella Lucchesi!" A red hot poker skewered my belly. "...Come through."

Crossing the veil, I found myself in total darkness. A smattering of shimmering, gold orbs materialised before me, revealing a cluster of silent, shadowy figures. Although I didn't see them, I felt their eyes crawling over my skin like swarming ants. Only a couple of candles illuminated a stocky, robust frame sitting in front of me, the glow bouncing off her pink cheeks, eyes like a couple of raisins staring back.... Lucie stepped into view and handed me a piece of parchment.

"When you're ready...," she said, before slipping back into my blind spot.

Immediately, I heard the cruel but distant rustle of whispering.... The paper quivered between my sweaty fingers – hopefully not too obvious in the dim light. I read the parchment as best I could – an extract from Rousseau's The Social Contract, and not a text I was familiar with. I assumed I just had to read it with feeling and Gabriella's best accent. So, clearing my throat, summoning my inner Neapolitan, I began, flakily....

"Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. How did this change come about? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? That question I think I can answer. If I took into account only force, and the effects derived from it, I should say, 'As long as a people is compelled to obey, and obeys, it does well; as soon as it can shake off the yoke, and shakes it off, it does still better; for, regaining its liberty by the same right as took it away, either it is justified in resuming it, or there was no justification for those who took it away...."