Rondo Allegro (15 page)

Auguste reached Anna in half a dozen great strides, then
swung her off her feet. “You are safe!” he cried, as backstage, the chasseurs
made a hullabaloo as they grabbed at the buckets of brackish water that all
theaters kept against frequent fires, and splashed it about.

Anna squirmed in her admirer’s arms, and he set her down.

She ran a few steps forward, the truth borne in on her
through the shock and amazement. At the sight of M. Dupree’s pale, drawn face,
anger seared Anna, every bit as bright as the flames. Defer and deflect were
forgotten before the glory of righteous indignation.

“That fire,” she cried. “
You
set that fire! You could have burnt us alive!”

Her regal gesture took in the ‘rescued’ dancers, some of whom
were laughing, and others kissing their supposed rescuers.

“Come now, love, all is well that ends well,” Auguste said, white
teeth flashing as he advanced toward Anna, hands out-held in appeal. “It’s too
cursed hot for caterwauling. Let us go celebrate your surviving a terrible
danger!”

“Caterwauling?” Anna backed away toward the performers’
door, more truth unfolding like a terrible black flower. His compliments about
her glorious voice— “I thought you loved my voice. That you loved
me
,” she cried, trembling from head to
foot.

“I do!” Auguste flung his arms wide. “I will! For at least an
hour!”

The soldiers burst into laughter, followed by many of the
cast, though more of the men than the women.

Auguste looked around, never more handsome than when he was flushed
with triumph. He laid his hand on his breast in dramatic style. “For a soldier,
an hour is forever.”

Her singing was nothing to him! Anna whirled away in her
torn dress, spied the three bouquets lined up by the door, and snatched up the
closest. “
That
is forever!” she
cried, and hurled the vase at Auguste. “And that!” The second vase followed.

Greenish water splashed his splendid regimental coat, as
flowers cascaded over him. M. Dupree struck his palm over his eyes, and Anna
gave vent to a hysterical laugh.

The rest of the chasseurs howled and hooted with mirth.
Auguste smiled, his teeth showing white and strong, the enormous pupils in his
blue eyes reflecting tiny flames from the overhead lamps as he said, “
Mes amis!
We must scour the place, and
make certain there is no more danger from fire!”

He stalked off, heels ringing on the warped boards of the
floor, the last of the roses streaming off his pelisse. The chasseurs gave a
great shout, and dashed hither and yon.

Sick with dread, M. Dupree followed, trying to apologize, to
remonstrate, but Auguste gave him a one-handed shove, knocking him spinning
into the painted flats. The nearest came crashing down onto the stage.

“Get out, get out,” M. Dupree cried hoarsely, as he
struggled to rise from the ruined canvas. “They are going to run wild.”

Anna stared. “But—”

“Go to the street, Mademoiselle Bernardo,” M. Dupree said
gently, then he, too, ran off, his voice rising as he called for the backstage
workers, who stood about with the buckets emptied.

The laughter had ended. The deserted dancers streamed
off-stage, talking excitedly, with many backward looks.

Anna started for the exit, then stopped.
Parrette
, Anna thought, looking around.
She remembered the costume—Adelaide’s trunk, in the attic even farther away
from her dressing room!

She ran for the stairs. The lantern was either out, or had
been taken by the soldiers, whose raucous voices could be heard dispersing
through the theatre, calling mockingly to one another. The stairs were entirely
dark.

On her hands and knees, Anna groped her way up the narrow
stairs, banging her head at the sudden turning.

At the top, a lantern still burned; grabbing it, she lit her
way along the narrow catwalk, choking on the thick smoke. “Parrette! Parrette!”
she croaked, coughing as her lungs burned.

After what seemed an endless time, a figure appeared out of
the smoke, a bundle of cloth clutched in her arms. “I cannot find Adelaide’s
trunk, but I did discover two—”

“Fire,” Anna cried, then bent double in a burst of coughing.
“We must go.” She straightened up.

“Anna!” Parrette’s horror-stricken eyes gazed past Anna,
whose nerves chilled as she looked behind her. Smoke boiled up the stairway
Anna had been on moments before, flames eating greedily at the second landing
below.

“Back stair,” Parrette said tersely, flinging the costume
down.

They ran down the catwalk past the little alcove dressing
rooms to the storage attic, and beyond that to the oldest portion of the attic,
damaged in a fire during the Terror. There was no railing, and the floor
creaked horribly, but M. Dupree had caused a ladder to be put there. It was
still intact, though it only descended one floor, as its landing abutted the
back of the stage.

Anna trembled in terror as she followed Parrette down, the
swinging lantern in her hand making the shadows leap and writhe like
ghost-fires. The edges of the stairs shifted with the light, and Anna had to
feel her way with her toes. She dared not trust her burning, blurred eyes.

At the landing, Parrette threw herself to her knees, and
groped for the ladder to the backstage. “Here! Here it is,” she cried. “Go
first.”

“You go. I’ll light your way.”

Parrette nearly flung herself down the ladder, and Anna
tried not to step on her fingers as she followed, one hand clutching the lantern,
the other gripped tightly to the splintery wood.

Whirls of smoke obscured the backstage floor. Ruddy flickers
glowed hither and yon. The once-familiar area was strange now, its proportions
changed to nightmare by smoke and fire.

Terror sharpened every sound, every sense, rendering the
flames, the grain of withering wood, the cascade of evilly glowing sparks with
a dream-like clarity.

Anna gasped for breath, heat searing her throat as she
groped toward distant voices. Ten steps felt like a hundred, a thousand, until
they fell through the door into the street, where the entire company stood
aghast. Flames licked from the windows, sending towering billows of smoke up to
blot the stars from the sky. All up and down the boulevard, crowds streamed out
of the cafés and even from some of the bigger theaters to take in the free
show.

Anna watched the old theatre consumed by flames, as frantic
workers from the theaters at either side worked to keep the blaze from
spreading. The roar, the heat, the groans of old wood caused cheers to go up,
more enthusiastic than the best performance Médée had ever inspired.

Slowly the discrete details assembled into a whole, and Anna
saw that the chasseurs were gone, their laughter echoing behind them. Lise,
Hyacinthe, and a couple of the younger dancers had gone off with them, arm in
arm, as if to a party—sixteen-year-old Marie-Claude giggling admiringly up at
Auguste.

Anna’s body ached from temple to heels from the knocks she
hadn’t noticed in her escape. Gradually the truth forced itself into her
consciousness: there would be no rehearsal tomorrow. Auguste had not loved her,
he had probably not even liked her singing. Everything had been a sham, for a
wager, an hour’s tumble.

And the Théâtre Dupree was no more.

With a thunderous roar, the building collapsed, sending
fierce heat boiling out. The spectators scrambled backward, shouting and
cheering as sparks spiraled upward toward the sky in phoenix brilliance, but
unlike the phoenix, the fire was not reborn. It was soon reduced to fitful
tongues of flame here and there, and gradually the crowd dispersed.

Anna turned away, her eyes burning. It was the smoke, she
told herself fiercely. She would not weep. She would shed no tears for a
worthless liar.

She and Parrette walked in silence back to the Foulon. When
they reached their room, Anna stripped out of the ripped, ruined costume. When
she breathed out, she smelled smoke. She sank down onto the floor, becoming
aware for the first time of her head aching.

“Anna?” Parrette said gently. “You saved my life. I would
still be in that attic, if you had not come.”

“Then I did one right thing today,” Anna said, her throat
raw. “In a catalogue of many stupidities.” She lifted her head, and tried to
laugh. It came out sounding more like a sob, so she drew in another painful
breath. “
Scélérat
! All I will say is,
falling in love resembles the smallpox. But I am now well inoculated,” she
finished bitterly.

Anna woke to the sound of a thunderstorm rumbling
overhead. She lay still, her head pounding, her eyelids aflame. Every bone and
muscle ached. She would have to send a message to Maestro Paisiello, for her throat
was too raw for singing.

She sat up slowly, appalled at the dark bruises marring her
arms. She didn’t remember getting a one of them in that terrifying escape from
the burning theater.

The smell of fresh bread reached her. She had to be
dreaming.

She turned her head to discover Parrette gently closing the
door, a basket on her arm.

Parrette advanced into the room and set the basket down. As
Anna watched listlessly, Parrette set out a fresh tart, some excellent cheese
from the north, and a spray of plump berries. “Come. Eat up.”

Anna winced. “Oh, I smell of burned wood.”

“We’ll go to the baths—the Vigier. I will pay.” Parrette’s
voice was unwontedly soft as she named the finest bath in the first
arrondissement. “Once you eat. Pierre was by, and he told me to tell you that
Monsieur Dupree is calling a company meeting at midday.”

“To blame me for the fire?” Anna groaned. “I know it is my
fault.”

“It’s that yellow-haired satyr’s fault,” Parrette said with
a shade of her old spirit. Then she lowered her voice again. “Anna, you saved
my life. You could have left me there.”

Anna sat up the rest of the way. “But you saved me again and
again when we crossed the mountains and came into France. I think I should have
expired but for you.”

Parrette said, “That was for us both, and my promise to La
Signora Eugenia, your dear mother.” She frowned down at the fruit on the little
cracked plate. Then she looked up. “Trust comes hard to me. Looking out for
myself is . . .” She shook her head. “I am saying it wrong. I
think, Anna, what I mean is that I always see you as a girl, and of late I know
I have scolded you as if you were fifteen.”

“I think I have behaved as if I were fifteen,” Anna said, her
entire body prickling with shame.

“That’s as may be. But I see you differently now. I think La
Signora would be very proud of you,” she finished, and then, as if she felt
she’d said too much, she poked a finger at the food. “Eat now, before it all
goes stale in this heat. I think the storm is passing by. All I hear now are
drips.”

The rain had cleared off. With good food inside her, and her
outside considerably improved by a thorough soak among the lofty pillars of the
Vigier, Anna felt measurably better when they returned to the Foulon. She still
smelled smoke when she breathed out, but the repaired costume had been sent to
the laundry, and Parrette had brushed her shoes thoroughly.

At length she said, “What do you want to do?”

“Sing,” Anna stated. “More than ever. But first I believe I
owe it to M. Dupree to face whatever it is he has to say. You can blame the
chasseurs all you like, but it was I who flung those flowers in Auguste’s face,
and that after being warned not to trust them.”

“Very well,” Parrette said. “But I will go with you.”

They found Pierre lounging against a scorched tree trunk
before the ruined theater, watching as a gaggle of urchins poked about in the
ashy pools among the charred ruins. When he saw Anna, he smiled. “They are all
at the Egalité café. M. Dupree is waiting.”

The café was farther down the boulevard, the aproned servers
busy putting out chairs as Anna and Parrette threaded through the outside
tables to duck through the door.

Inside, they found most of the company gathered, including
all the dancers, Lise looking puffy-eyed, and Hyacinthe yawning.

M. Dupree came to meet them, as the others chattered.

“I am so sorry,” Anna said as soon as M. Dupree reached her.

“I am, too, but it was going to happen.” He lifted his
shoulders fatalistically. “Madame was even counting the days. Ah, and to have
it happen not from an untended candle, or a dropped spark, but as a result of such
a magnificent gesture against those beasts!” The impresario kissed his fingers
and flung wide his hands. “It was a privilege to witness.”

Anna gazed at him, and Parrette sensed a little of her guilt
easing. Parrette’s private conviction was that M. Dupree was accepting the
destruction of his theatre with publicly-expressed panache, which would impress
the men. But she decided not to tell Anna that, as she did not want Anna’s
self-blame to smother her ire against those villainous soldiers.

Anna apologized once again, looking pretty and sorrowful, as
she was watched by Jean-Baptiste Marsac. He, in turn, was watched narrowly by
Lise, who had been trying unsuccessfully to catch his eye.

“Everyone knows that.” M. Dupree lowered his voice. “And so
many richly enjoyed the story of that arrogant young dog getting his uniform
ruined. But we also know that Bonaparte’s pets can do what they wish in
Paris—the
Gros Talons
, the
Cuirassiers, are even worse—and the First Consul will look the other way.” He
wiped his handkerchief over the gleaming dome of his head, and then smiled
fondly across the room at his wife. “The old place was a ruin anyway. Sit down.
I have a plan.”

When he had taken his place again, and laced his fingers
with his wife’s, he addressed the company. “Remember what Portiez said: ‘Man is
born a spectator.’ Now, as some of you know, young Nicolet has been wanting to
run his own offshoot of the Gaîté. My theater was old, yes, but the location is
excellent! What I propose is that I lease the land to Nicolet for three years,
during which we tour the country.” He patted his wife’s hand. “In the country,
no one will care if Madame is in the family way, for it has been many years
since they have had anything from Paris except marauding soldiers.”