a fencing master from Sicily,’ Basco protested.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Citizen Aulard firmly, ‘that’s our little secret.’
‘What if I have to act?’
Heaven help us if that day arrives, Citizen Aulard thought, but said, ‘Don’t worry; as long as we keep Yann’s true identity from the authorities all will be well.’
These were the days of conscription when young Frenchmen like Yann were expected to fight for their country. The trouble was that although Basco looked the part, he had been completely honest when he said he could not act his way out of a paper hat. Now, with less than an hour before the curtain was due to rise, the poor man was feeling sick to his stomach. Clutching his rosary, he prayed with all his might that the Virgin Mary and any other saint of wayward and lost travellers would hear his prayer and bring Yann back in time, before they were all sent to the Tribunal and the death carts.
Upstairs in his office, Citizen Aulard was pacing back and forth, his nails chewed to the quick, while Tetu sat on the edge of a chair with Iago the parrot perched on the back.
‘I suppose Basco could come in on crutches and limp through his part. After all the theatre has been closed for five days on account of his supposed sprained ankle. Mort bleu , I wish now I’d said he’d broken a leg.’
‘It would have made little difference,’ said Tetu, looking sadly at his friend. ‘We would still have been ordered to put on a show.’
‘Five days I’ve been rehearsing Basco,’ said Citizen Aulard, who looked tired, ‘and there has been no improvement, none. He’s a wooden doll, a puppet. What are we going to do?’
‘I’ll work the magic,’ said Tetu, ‘and make it look as if he’s performing Yann’s tricks.’ He got out of his chair. ‘I’m teaching Yann a new one.’
‘What’s that?’
Tetu handed Citizen Aulard a piece of paper.
‘Where did you get this from?’ asked the theatre manager.
‘Get what, my friend?’
‘Why, this bill! Who spent this money?’
‘Look again.’
Citizen Aulard stared in amazement. Nothing. Just a plain piece of paper.
‘Why, that’s marvellous, quite extraordinary!’
‘Then I will do the magic tonight.’
‘It’s not the magic that worries me,’ said Citizen Aulard. ‘He’ll give the game away the minute he appears on stage.’ He threw up his arms and exclaimed, ‘We are lost. What will become of Iago?’
M uch had changed since the days when Citizen Aulard had managed the Theatre of Liberty in the rue du Temple, and one of the main transformations started with the theatre manager himself. He had become passionate about the real-life drama that was happening outside his proscenium arch; the appalling tragedies played out daily, seasoned as always with the pepper of pathos, in the court rooms of the Tribunal.
The injustice of it all had struck Citizen Aulard like a bolt of lightning, for what is liberty, what does liberty stand for if it is not the right to free will, the right to free speech? The right to come and go as one pleases? More important still, what did it say about the leaders of the Revolution if they cared so little for their fellow men that they argued there was virtue in terror? Surely that way lies the end of the world?
Tetu agreed wholeheartedly with his sentiments.
‘Fine words are what all actors want,’ he replied, ‘but only the few and the brave are called upon to act.’
To Tetu’s astonishment Citizen Aulard had acted, and Tetu had been genuinely moved by this newly courageous man, a sheep in borrowed lion’s clothes, who was determined to play his part helping citizens escape, even if it cost him his life.
Yann, Tetu and Citizen Aulard had set about gathering a small company of trusted actors, an eccentric menagerie of misfits. Every one of them had his or her reasons for joining such a dangerous venture; all of them knew their lives were at stake if it failed.
The
London Casey, Karolyn James