October, 1955--


Life is full of surprises.
I feel that I can confidently comment on life, since, at the age of eighty-two, I have lived quite a lot of it. Eighty-two years. Two lifetimes when I was a girl. Then, we had little hope of living this long, but now...now, people can do anything. It really is a magical time, mes amis, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
I witnessed some of this magic tonight, in fact. The marvel that they call the motion picture, the marvel of celluloid, the marvel of projected image. Of cinema. Normally I would never go to such a thing-- to be entertained by flat images on a screen? To be pacified by rehearsed, dead lines, to see through a camera? No, never! Give me real entertainment, give me that dance halls, give me the theater! Do not try and show me these images and tell me that this is life. It isn't even close.
It is blasphemy, and it was what I was forced to endure in the name of family.
It was my son who brought me there tonight. Come, Maman, he said, his eyes shining, still very much a child even at fifty-four years of age. Come, watch this! I know you'll like it! Come on!
Reluctantly I went with him, to drown myself in idiocy with a crowd of ignorants, to waste two hours of my life in a dark room, crammed into an uncomfortable seat, with my shoes sticking to the floor. The lights dimmed down and the curtain drew back, and for a moment I hoped that my son was joking, that he had taken me to a real show, but then the screen flickered and my hopes were dashed.
At first, I wasn't sure what I was seeing. There was a great flurry of motion, a burst of sound, and then the title reared onto the screen, huge and bold.
French Cancan.
French Cancan? That was the name of the film? They made a film about my dance, about the one thing I was ever good for in my life, the only thing I can truly feel proud of when I look back on my youth? They blasphemed my dance? I bristled with anger at the arrogance of the producers, the director and star. French Cancan indeed! They wouldn't know a true cancan if it bit them on the...
my son hissed at me. Look at the main character! Look at her name!
I grumbled and turned my eyes upwards, still cursing at the creators of this sacrilege. And then...then I saw it. I saw the credit.
Starring Françoise Arnoul as Nini..'
NINI?
I was stunned. Nini? Nini! They had dared to use that name? My name, the only name I'd ever known? Those arrogant, selfish, stealing bastards! I leaned over and hissed in my son's ear. This is ridiculous, I told him flatly. I won't watch this.
Please, Maman, he pleaded. Just give it a try! It might not be...well, so bad.

All right, I'm sorry. I didn't think you would take it so bad.
I'm not angry at you, I told him. But please, mon cher, promise me you'll never, ever take me to another one of those trifles again in my life, won't you? Your mother is old! She doesn't have time to waste two hours on such nonsense!
My son sat in his armchair, his pipe dangling listlessly from his mouth, the smoke mixing with the smell of paint and turpentine that filled the room. I'm sorry, he said simply. Gabrielle thought you would like it.
I snorted. Ah, what your wife knows about the Moulin is from that silly romance novel she's read a thousand times over. I've told you time and time again, the man was half-mad with love, and then half-mad with grief. He glossed over everything. I sighed. I suppose he was an all right writer, if that's what you happen to like. But this...this was a pack of lies, made to make money. None of it was true.
my son looked at me, his eyebrow arched. Maman, what do you mean?
French Cancan, I told him. The story of a penniless young woman named Nini who is brought to the Moulin Rouge by an unscrupulous owner and is made into the Queen of the Cancan. He published a play with that plot in 1908. If you find it in one of those delightfully Bohemian bookshops you're so fond of frequenting, you'll see that it's the same story. Oh, yes, they put in a few fictional details, of course...but the story, my story, is the same.
It took a moment for him to fully digest this. Your...your story? I thought he only wrote--
Moulin Rouge? I asked. Yes, that's what he's most known for. But he wrote other plays, other books. I smiled. And believe me, mon cher, Satine wasn't his only muse.
Not his only one? He leaned back, exhaling smoke gently. How do you know this? he asked.
It's simple, I said. I know because I was one, too.