A Free Man of Color (3 page)

JACQUES CORNET
I’ve not seen you before.

MERCURE
(
brandishing his map
)
I have a map. I’ve been down here in the secret connector between the Atlantic and Pacific that runs underground! I entered through a cave in the Illinois territory—see—and sailed in dark caves—see—for many days until I spilled out into the Pacific’s nacreous foam.

JACQUES CORNET
Your breath.—This underground map is at least original. Pay him, Murmur.

Murmur does so. Mercure grovels with gratitude.

DR. T
Why do you buy these maps?

JACQUES CORNET
Like Pascal’s wager regarding the existence of God, one of these maps just might be true.

MORALES
(
trying to get Jacques Cornet’s attention
)
Most Exquisite Avatar of Beneficence, I compel you to command Señora Mandragola to allow me purchase the services of whichever of her girls I choose or I shall exile them to (
whispers
) Santo Domingo!

The Girls react in horror. NO!!!!

MME. MANDRAGOLA
(
to Morales
)
Which of my jewels do you want?

MORALES
Melpomene.

MELPOMENE
NOOOOOO! M. Cornet! Save me! Don’t you hear me? Sire, I implore you!

Melpomene inadvertently spills wine on Jacques Cornet’s sleeve.

JACQUES CORNET
Horrors! A drop of wine! Destroy this jacket! Cruel silken death! Murmur, dress me once more—

Jacques Cornet and Murmur leave. Morales picks up Melpomene to go into the other room as—

DR. T
At this moment out in the harbor, a packet boat from Havana slithers into New Orleans. It bears a message from a spy in the court of the King of Spain, addressed to the
Supreme Intendante
Morales. It is marked top secret. And change, the ultimate unchartered territory, casts its latest devil-may-care map over everyone’s head.

Pincepousse enters, agitated, out of breath, carrying an Imperial document.

PINCEPOUSSE
(
gasping
)
Morales! There you are! A messenger came seeking you. I took the message. It’s from Madrid. We never get mail.

MORALES
Pincepousse! I have a prior appointment.
Paciencia
.

Morales exits with Melpomene.

PINCEPOUSSE
(
to us
)
The King of Spain probably wants Margery!

DR. T
Who is Margery?

PINCEPOUSSE
No one! (
to us
)
Margery Jolicoeur. My true love. The King of Spain has received word of my recent
plaçage
and wants her for his own. No! Margery is mine! ‘She walks in beauty like the night’.

DR. T
(
to us
)
Plaçage
is a local law allowing white men to enter into an official arrangement with a woman of color—it protects her—it protects him.

MURMUR
Think of marriage without any of the downside.

Jacques enters in yet another dazzling outfit.

JACQUES CORNET
My brother! You’ve been out of town.

PINCEPOUSSE
My dear
half
-brother—Gad, I hate him so much I have forgot what I was going to say. All this should be mine!

JACQUES CORNET
Is that a letter for me?

PINCEPOUSSE
Not everything’s for you. I’m waiting for Morales.

JACQUES CORNET
The letter upsets you.

PINCEPOUSSE
Nothing could be further from the truth. I revel in the serenity of my mother being a
Duchesse.

Enter
MARGERY JOLICOEUR,
dressed in country clothes and wearing a tignon, a scarf wrapped high on her head, decorated with jewels and flowers.

MARGERY
How long I got to wait in that drafty carriage?

PINCEPOUSSE
(
a rage
)
Wait in the carriage! Let no man see you.

JACQUES CORNET
Is that a wife?

PINCEPOUSSE
Yes. No! Not a wife!

MARGERY
What beautiful dishes! What a beautiful house! (
she sees Jacques
) Oh. What a beautiful man.

JACQUES CORNET
(
to Margery
)
They told me you were beautiful. They didn’t tell me you were this beautiful—

PINCEPOUSSE
Wait in the carriage!

Pincepousse drags Margery out.

DORILANTE
Pincepousse has already lost his wife.

HARCOURT
I wouldn’t let my wife near Jacques.

SPARKS
Luckily, my wife has never seen Jacques.

MURMUR
(
holding up a key ring heavy with keys, to us
)
See these keys? My boss knows his way into these men’s bedrooms.

Pincepousse returns, attempting nonchalance.

JACQUES CORNET
Why, you old whore master, have you married? Murmur, bring the champagne!

PINCEPOUSSE
I deny it! (
banging on the chamber door
) Morales!!!! —The young woman is—she is—not a woman. It was merely a young man in costume for the ball tonight.

JACQUES CORNET
A boy in a dress? You are getting interesting in your old age. He was exceedingly pretty. Bring him in.

PINCEPOUSSE
You shall not debauch her—him.

JACQUES CORNET
You insist he’s male? Have you foresworn the fairer sex?

PINCEPOUSSE
I do have a mistress.

JACQUES CORNET
And the young man? A
ménage a trois?

PINCEPOUSSE
No
ménage
. Only her—brother!

JACQUES CORNET
Does your mistress know her brother is being seen around town in her clothes?

PINCEPOUSSE
I don’t know the fashion of the young.

JACQUES CORNET
Let me make you a wedding gift.

PINCEPOUSSE
I shall happily accept a wedding gift—such as this house, which is rightfully mine!

JACQUES CORNET
After
I meet her. Bring her here.

PINCEPOUSSE
She’s too awkward and ill-favored to bring to town. (
aside
) He wants everything that is mine!

Morales opens the chamber door—a matador after a kill.

MORALES
Olé!

Melpomene follows, limping.

MELPOMENE
He kept his armor on.

PINCEPOUSSE
(
pulls Morales aside
)
Look at this letter!

MORALES
(
opens it; shock
!)
It’s a cryptogram!

PINCEPOUSSE
A cryptogram?

MORALES
I remember some of the cipher. Plxtr is “Spain”. Here is another—Voomf is “Napoleon”.

JACQUES CORNET
Spain? Napoleon?

MORALES
Am I being dismissed? Oh, dear Lord—no—

PINCEPOUSSE
Where did you put the Imperial cipher breaker?

MORALES
At home in my safe.

PINCEPOUSSE
(
whispers
)
Could the cryptogram be orders to restore
le Code Noir
? I’d like that.

JACQUES CORNET
What is he saying?

MORALES
Restore
le Code Noir
?

JACQUES CORNET
Le Code Noir
? What about
le Code Noir?

DR. T
(
to us
)
George Feydeau, the great French playwright, was asked how to write a play.

GEORGES FEYDEAU
appears.

FEYDEAU
There is only one rule of playwriting. Character A says “My life is perfect as long as Character B does not show up.” Knock knock. Enter Character B.

Georges Feydeau goes.

JACQUES CORNET
My life is perfect.

Murmur enters, carrying a door. He is dressed in black and holds a skull.

MURMUR
Knock knock.

JACQUES CORNET
Who’s there?

MURMUR/DEATH
Le Code Noir!

Jacques Cornet, terrified, slams the door shut. Murmur goes.

DR. T
(
to us
)
He’ll tell you what
le Code Noir
is later in a very grand speech.

MORALES
Jacques,
muchos gracias
for your hospitality.—Pincepousse, to my house. Let no one suspect we have received a cryptogram.

PINCEPOUSSE
Find the code breaker!

Margery enters.

MARGERY
I want to see New Orleans. I want to eat food. I want to see that man.

PINCEPOUSSE
The carriage! Go!

Pincepousse drags Margery off. Morales follows.

JACQUES CORNET
A restoration of
le Code Noir?
Spain lets us live in the mathematics of a loose equation. But add Napoleon to the algebra? The name of my play is very clear:
A Free Man of Color
or
The Happy Life of a Man in Power.
What’s in that letter? Murmur, bring me the key to the garden of Senor Morales. Hurry! Hurry!

MURMUR
(
taking out the key ring
)
I’m hurrying.

Jacques Cornet goes onto the street. A masked woman appears.
(DOÑA ATHENE)
Jacques Cornet turns to her.

JACQUES CORNET
They told me you were beautiful. They didn’t tell me you—

DOÑA ATHENE
(
pulls off mask
)
It is your
wife
! Doña Athene! Why have you scorned me!

JACQUES CORNET
Murmur!

MURMUR
I’m staying out of this one.

DOÑA ATHENE
I thought I would dwell in Paradise when you begged to marry me to celebrate your newly purchased freedom. I relented happily to the wonder of your words. You promised me Israel in your arms. You parted the Red Sea when you loved me. Now you deny me your ardor. Why would Moses turn his back on his chosen people? A Gethsemane of madness crushes in on me. Your phantom words divorce me from all sense. How can you speak, yet be devoid of consequence?

Jacques Cornet runs off.

DOÑA ATHENE
What did I do to make him turn away?

MURMUR
Take it as a compliment, Madam. He found such comfort in your arms that he seeks you everywhere.

DOÑA ATHENE
“The Increase of appetite had grown by what it feeds on.” Is that my crime? My love made him discover love?

MURMUR
There you go.

Doña Athene goes. Jacques Cornet reappears.

JACQUES CORNET
Murmur, one of your few duties is to block Doña Athene.

MURMUR
She
is
your wife.

JACQUES CORNET
A moment’s spur. I didn’t buy myself out of one slavery to move into another. What’s in that letter?

Murmur plays the seductive rhythm of
el son
on a gourd.

MURMUR
The drawing room of Supreme Intendante Juan Ventura Morales.

DOÑA SMERALDA,
the wife of Morales, sits with
ACHILLE CREUX
and his wife,
DONA POLISSENA,
who carries a microscope. A bedroom is visible.

Morales and Pincepousse enter and proceed to take the drawing room apart.

MORALES
The safe! It’s here—in this safe—

DOÑA SMERALDA
Darlingest treasure trove! We have company!

MORALES
Have you seen the Imperial decoder—parchment— sealed with red wax—in a black leather tube?

DOÑA SMERALDA
Darlingest jewel in my jewel box, your cousin has arrived from Santo Domingo!

CREUX
Juan Ventura!

MORALES
(
turns, sees
)
Achille!

They embrace.

CREUX
Toussaint Louverture and his black beasts left
Sante Domingue
a desert. We once sweetened the world. Now my fertile island is a burned-out crater on a distant moon.

DOÑA POLISSENA
We made our way through the flames of our plantation to
Port Ste. Dauphine
, found a ship about to sail for New Orleans. Two weeks later,
voila
!

PINCEPOUSSE
We all have our problems. Could it be in the stables?

They exit.

DOÑA SMERALDA
Our joy to offer safety. Let our slaves fetch your things.

CREUX
Things?! We who had jewels and pianofortes and portraits of ancestors such as Charlemagne, Caligula, and Pontius Pilate, sailed out of Sante Domingue carrying only identity papers.

DOÑA POLISSENA
I, taking only my microscope.

DOÑA SMERALDA
Microscope?

CREUX
My wife charmingly describes herself as a scientist.

DOÑA POLISSENA
I
am
a scientist! My dream is to find the cause of yellow fever. Could it be that grape?

CREUX
We all know yellow fever is caused by Negroes who touch us and infect us. What is that music? That African barbarism!

Creux exits with his gun.

DOÑA SMERALDA
(
dancing seductively
)
Do you know this new dance? “
Dansez Bamboula! Bad-oum!”

DOÑA POLISSENA
“Bad-doum-bad-DOUM!”
Who is your teacher?