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Chapter 8

Jeanot’s école maternelle at rue des Epinettes annually put on a show for parents and local dignitaries to involve them in the education of their children. Originally launched by the mayor of the 17th arrondissement as a platform for politicking, over time the show had become a spectacle, with preparations beginning at the start of the school year and involving stage sets, music, sound effects, costumes and special lighting. This year’s special guest was Jules Dassin. Jeanot’s teacher, Madame Charbonneau explained that Dassin was a director whose 1942 film Reunion in France created a stir when it was shown in Paris after the war. Madame Charbonneau was probably, thought Jeanot, somewhere in her thirties. She had a pleasant face, an inviting bosom, and was, according to the whispers of some of the older students, involved with the married school principal.

The school’s show, Les Peaux Rouges, was a presentation loosely based on the battle of Great Meadows during the French and Indian Wars. There was some confusion regarding historical facts and costuming; cowboys, Indians of many different varieties and tribes, as well as the occasional pilgrim all peopled the stage at the same time.

Jeanot was a Sioux, an unimportant one whose sole function was to be tied to a stake and danced around by other Indians as flames of yellow light devoured his feet and legs. He was to be stoic as he burned; an example of what his teacher referred to as “the noble savage.” It was a very small part and Maman confessed to being annoyed that her only son should be relegated to the role of sacrificial Sioux.

Jeanot, on his own, had practiced looking both brave and resigned as the fire devoured him. He wondered if he should writhe and make faces to engage the audience in the drama of the moment, but since he’d been expressly instructed not to utter a word or sound, he decided he would stand as straight as the binding ropes allowed and burn like a man.

Maman rejected this. She mentioned the idea of painting Jeanot a glorious shade of red, which, she assured him, would make him stand out among the pale-skinned Parisian urchins. Finally, she hit upon the notion of dipping him in red food coloring to give him an all-over ruddiness truer to the American Indian complexion. Jeanot thought it was a good idea too, and the morning of the performance he climbed into the bathtub and marinated for an hour in the red water. Maman told him to hold his breath as she dunked his head under several times. While he steeped, she also dyed his hair jet black. The transformation was amazing and ghastly, decided Jeanot, gazing at himself in the bathroom mirror. When Papa saw Jeanot, he turned ashen and was speechless during the entire drive to the school.

Maman wrapped Jeanot in a blanket and walked him to the refectory, where a complicated multi-platformed stage had been erected. Half-naked children with pastel war paints milled around, as did cowboys in hats with cloth fringes pinned to their sleeves. Inexplicably, one sweating boy was dressed as an Eskimo. There was a teepee made of brown butcher paper, and a stake in the center of the topmost platform. This would be Jeanot’s post.

He took a deep breath and dropped his towel.

Madame Charbonneau looked at Jeanot standing redly at attention in his loincloth and her hand flew to her mouth. She turned to Maman, eyes wide.

“Madame, your child is sick. He has la rougeole!”

Neither Jeanot nor Maman had considered Jeanot’s hue might be mistaken for measles. It took them both a moment to regroup, to react. “Non, non, Madame! I assure you our Jeanot is perfectly healthy. He insisted on being as red as a real Indian and there was no arguing with him. I came back from the market and there he was, dyed from head to foot! God knows if he’ll ever be pink again!” She laughed, maybe a bit too brightly.

Jeanot kept mum. He was in character and silence was essential. Madame Charbonneau and Maman clucked at each other another minute or two, until Maman took Jeanot by the hand and said, “Now go with Madame. Behave yourself, and after school I’ll take you home and we’ll wash all this silly red color away!”

“But I want to stay red!” Jeanot had come to this decision minutes earlier. He liked being red, was even pleased with the unnatural blackness of his hair. He could see a red future ahead, where people would mistake him for a real Indian child, or maybe Mowgli, the jungle boy from India.

Maman said, “Don’t be silly!” She looked at Madame Charbonneau. “Children these days! Don’t worry, Madame, he’ll be white as snow come Monday!”

“I want to stay red!” This time Jeanot raised his voice a little, edged it with more conviction. It was vitally important that he remain red, crucially important. Staying red would change his life, he knew. People would like him more; his entire future might be altered. His eyes were tearing with the necessity of staying red.

Maman threw up her arms. “Children! Des petits sauvages! What can we do?”

Madame Charbonneau, no longer paying attention, was separating little cowboys from little Indians. The Eskimo was stage left, sucking his thumb and crying quietly. Madame Charbonneau called, “Jeanot, viens ici!” and Jeanot came, climbed to the sacrificial stake and stood still as the teacher bound him to it loosely.

The lights in the room dimmed and School Director, Monsieur Rampallon, flanked by the mayor and his deputy, made a brief speech on the benefits of education to The Republic. He left the stage to a smattering of applause from parents, teachers, brothers and sisters, and Monsieur Champollion, mayor of the 17em arrondissement, enumerated his accomplishments. Tied to the stake, Jeanot was the image of stoicism.

In time, Indian drums made from cardboard hatboxes, faint ululations and clapping hands beat a haphazard rhythm. A heavily accented voice began reciting Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha in French, and as the epic droned on, the room grew summer hot. Puritans and Indians shared a Thanksgiving meal. Sweat formed on Jeanot’s chest, forehead and underarms. The beads ran past his red belly button and into his loincloth which soon started itching.

He rubbed his butt against the stake, trying to rearrange the scratchy cloth (a piece of burlap Maman had decided went well with his coloring), and bought a few moments’ relief. Then the itching became worse, intolerable, so he gritted his teeth and thought courageous thoughts.

The other Indians danced around Jeanot in a pre-sacrificial frenzy. They whooped, they hollered, they jumped and cavorted; they made terrible, gargoyle faces and rolled their eyes. Among them was the Eskimo, tears forgotten, and one small cowboy who, caught up in the excitement of the moment, had forgotten who he was. The yellow lights focused on Jeanot’s feet. He was now officially on fire.

The itch became a torture. He rubbed his butt against the stake again, this time more forcefully. The loincloth, tied with a loose knot, fell about his ankles. Jeanot’s triangular, impeccably clean American underwear shone like a beacon on the stage. It radiated white against his red skin, and the first small Indian to notice it stopped dancing, pointed and burst into laughter. The Puritans hooted, the dancing cowboy stood gape-jawed, and from the middle of the audience came a loud guffaw. Jeanot, through his mortification, could see famed director Jules Dassin laughing with his head thrown back. Madame Charbonneau leaped onto the stage and wrapped her shawl about Jeanot’s middle, tore him from the stake and whisked him away.

It took more than ten minutes to quiet everyone down, reassemble the players and find another child—the Eskimo—for the stake.

Later that night at home, Marité and Roland decided it was wise to keep Jeanot out of school the rest of the week. The food dye refused to come off even after several scrubbings and it would be a full month before Jeanot returned to an overall Parisian paleness.

Over the years the tale of Jeanot the Naked Redskin would grow as stories do, and when Marité recounted it, her son became the hero, the star, the best of all the small French Indians.