The Resistance Girl. Jina Bacarr

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      ‘It took real guts to make that speech, mademoiselle, after those rabble-rousers kicked you around like a dead toad.’

      I feel a tug on my arm and smell the cigar smoke before the man blows it in my face. I don’t cough, though I want to. I recognize that voice. He yelled at the audience to let me go on. I sense it’s more important I put all my attention on him, give him a pious nod for saving my butt. I look up slowly, not surprised to see the man in the white Panama hat.

      ‘Thank you for what you did, monsieur, but it won’t do any good. They’ll do it again the next time I sneak into – I mean, come to the theater and they’ll bring even more rotten vegetables.’ I wrap my lace shawl over my face. ‘I have to go…’

      I try to be polite as Sister Vincent taught me, but the good sister is probably frantic waiting for me, saying a novena, wondering what mess I’ve gotten myself into. The sister often makes excuses for me, but today I dread showing her my uniform soiled with seedy tomato mush.

      ‘You’ve got real acting talent.’

      I stop. ‘Me, monsieur?’

      ‘I’ve been watching you… Sylvie, n’est-ce pas?’

      I nod. ‘Yes.’

      ‘At first, I was merely amused when I saw you acting out the scene in my film—’

      ‘Your film?’ My pulse races with a different kind of excitement than I’m used to when I’m called into Sister Ursula’s office for being late to vespers.

      ‘But that performance on stage, the way you grabbed the audience by the throat, pulled every emotion out of them and didn’t let them go…’ He smacks his fingers against his lips. ‘You were magnifique!’

      ‘Who are you, monsieur?’ I beg to ask, my head aching with the downside of my exuberant high crashing then soaring upward again at hearing his praise. ‘Don’t make fun of me, please.’

      ‘Allow me to introduce myself, mademoiselle.’ He takes off his white hat and bows from the waist, his cigar dangling from his fingers and dropping ash everywhere. I catch a glimpse of Monsieur Durand wiping his sweaty face with his long, black cravat, but he makes no move to reprimand the man. In the next moment, I find out why. ‘I’m Emil-Hugo de Ville, the esteemed and successful director of such films as…’

      He rattles off a long list of motion pictures – some I know, some I don’t – but what’s most important is, he said he was a film director.

      I try to get my feet to walking, but my fervor to leave the theater is gone. He proffers me a small white card, and, with sticky fingers, I take it. I hold it up to the bare lightbulb hanging from ceiling, turning it this way and that, marveling at the elegant, raised text on the pristine, white card. Under his name I make out an address in Paris on Rue de Sevis and the name of a film studio, Delacroix Films.

      ‘Are you really from Paris, Monsieur de Ville?’ I sound like a country schoolgirl because I am a country schoolgirl. ‘I’ve never been to Paris… the Eiffel Tower and the Moulin Rouge…’

      ‘Call me Emil,’ he says, then continues, ‘I often travel to villages and towns outside Paris to gauge how my films are doing.’ He leans down closer to me and I feel oddly breathless as if I’m standing on the edge of a cliff. He tells me at first his only interest in me was that he thought me pretty enough to be a background player in his next film, but after my stage performance—

      I giggle. He calls it a performance. I call it my moment of liberation. I never expected it to last past this afternoon.

      I don’t protest when he guides me out of the back of the theater toward his parked Citroën as shiny as a tart lemon. He keeps talking about how he can make me a film star if I leave everything behind and become his protégé. It will take hard work, he says, and I’m buying it. Long hours, hot lights, scripts to memorize, no time for anything but the work… and dedication. He doesn’t let me get in a word. I couldn’t speak if I wanted to as he opens the passenger door and ushers me inside the plush vehicle.

      I should run, tell him I’m not that kind of girl, but I don’t. I have no illusions about my looks. Except for my white-blonde hair, I’m ordinary-looking. Taller than most girls my age, skinny with no bosom, and a deep dimple in my left cheek Sister Vincent says means I was pinched by an angel when I was born. Now I feel more like the devil is after my hide because I want to go with him. Want it badly.

      I don’t protest when Monsieur de Ville puts the motorcar into gear and off we go.

      ‘I see a great future for you, Sylvie… what did you say your last name was?’ he asks out of curiosity.

      ‘Martone… Sylvie Martone.’

      ‘It has an elegant ring to it and perfect for a theater marquee. I like it.’

      I grin big. ‘Merci, monsieur. My mother was a grand aristocrat who fell in love with a stable hand, a dark, handsome stranger who wooed her then mysteriously disappeared before I was born… it’s his name I bear.’

      ‘An amazing story, Sylvie.’ He looks over at me like I’m making it up. I’m not. I sit quietly, my jaw clamped, determined not to budge with my story. Sister Vincent told me where I came from, though I admit her black rosary beads were tightly wound around her fingers, her lips moving in silent words afterward, but I’m sticking to it.

      The big, clunky motorcar rambles over the cobblestone driveway behind the theater as I settle back in the plush white seat. I let go of my final bout of butterflies and settle in. ‘Why did you pick me, monsieur?’

      ‘I meet a lot of girls who want to be in pictures, but I see something different in you, Sylvie. An exquisite, platinum-blonde with fire and tenacity, as well as raw acting talent. What you need is my tutelage. I have connections in the film business everywhere and the savoir-faire to know what the public wants, and they want you.’

      ‘What about my life here… the convent, the nuns who raised me… Sister Vincent might understand, but she reports to the Mother Superior…’ I make an anguished sound, ‘Sister Ursula will forbid it.’

      He winks at me. ‘Then we won’t tell her. I’ll drop you off near the convent, then you get your things and I’ll come back for you for after I complete my business in town. I booked a call to Paris СКАЧАТЬ