A Free Man of Color Read Online Free Page B

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?
    DOÑA SMERALDA I go to Congo Square where all the slaves meet—“ Ba-doum”
    DOÑA POLISSENA ( trying to feel the rhythm ) “Bad-oum Badoum!” Your husband doesn’t mind?
    DOÑA SMERALDA I’ll give you a list of the things my husband doesn’t know!
    DOÑA POLISSENA ( trying to find the rhythm )Paradise!
    DOÑA SMERALDA Ba-doum!
    DOÑA POLISSENA My body has never moved this way— Badoum
    DOÑA SMERALDA It will in New Orleans.
    Gunshots. Creux returns, followed by ORPHEE .
    ORPHEE ( to Doña Smeralda )Your honored guest shot at us!
    DOÑA SMERALDA You mustn’t shoot our slaves!
    CREUX I won’t miss the next time. The odor of pomade on his black half-kinked hair sickens me.
    Orphee barks.
    CREUX Don’t be frightened, dear.
    Orphee exits, laughing.
    CREUX Sante Domingue? A perfect civilization distorted by those leprous words of liberte, fraternite, egalite, which have no right in the mouth of the Negro.
    DOÑA POLISSENA It is the voice of history. This is a time of revolution.
    CREUX I curse all revolution. The Americans, the French gave too many people the idea of freedom.
    DOÑA POLISSENA What else could they have done?
    CREUX Had their revolutions, but done them in secret!
    Jacques enters the garden. Murmur follows.
    JACQUES CORNET Stay at hand.
    DR. T As Jacques Cornet enters, let me take you to Paris.
    Napoleon sits in a bathtub. Tallyrand paces studying a map of the world. Josephine does tarot cards.
    NAPOLEON I have lost the Rhine.
    TALLYRAND That is a sign from our creator to change directions. Oh Most Blessed Angel of Military Brilliance, move from Europe to the New World! The source of infinite wealth!
    Tallyrand reveals a map of the vast Louisiana Territory.
    NAPOLEON Spain would never give us all this.
    TALLYRAND ( waving a letter )It will now. Carlos Cuarto— an utter jackass—wants something from us.
    CARLOS CUARTO, King of Spain, and his daughter, the INFANTA, appear. She has one eye and eats greedily.
    CARLOS CUARTO Illustrious First Consul, I who am as great a power as has ever existed in the history of the world except for you, come bowing to the might of France. My daughter has found a husband and would like to be a queen. We don’t need a large kingdom. She only has one eye.
    INFANTA I’d like my husband to be King of—Tuscany!
    TALLYRAND Tuscany is now called Etruria.
    INFANTA I want Etruria.
    NAPOLEON In exchange for what?
    CARLOS CUARTO Spain has nothing! Our colonies bleed us dry.
    TALLYRAND They are parasites, these colonies. Let us take a colony off your hands. We will give your son-in-law the throne of Etruria in exchange for—where? Here? Here? Here? No—Louisiana.
    Tallyrand reveals the map