Violet resides in New Orleans, in
the golden era of jazz, in an alcove of the winding alleyways that border the
Red Light District. Left to her own devices, she makes a modest living among
the late night cabarets, serving glasses of cloudy green absinthe and brandy.
Her real money comes from her deliveries to the bordellos, selling antique
clothing and jewelry from her deceased parents’ abandoned flat to the sparkling
girls in lipstick and embroidered corsets soliciting from windows and corners.
Many girls buy from her, delightedly sorting through glass gems and
old-fashioned lace.
She
is popular among the scarlet girls and is frequently offered permanent jobs,
but she turns them down, preferring to care for the girls when they get sick
with fever, or when their customers mistreat them. Violet often wards them of
potentially threatening clientele.
The
girls like Violet for her quiet disposition and gentle demeanor, as they
complain that in their line of business, they do a fair amount of listening,
and are rarely listened to. They like her habit of humming while she mends
their tattered dresses, her cool hands as she strokes their hair on days they
are too troubled to sleep.
Mostly,
Violet is known for her unnatural grace, for the way she seems to glide over
the paved streets, and because she has no idea how beautiful she is.
From
a distance she is enchanting; up close the shape of her face, the contrast of
her ebony hair against her skin, her pale green eyes, is radiant. She smiles
like a sphinx and has a regal posture, delicate cheekbones and a cat-like gaze.
In
return for her kindness, the scarlet girls spoil her with stories from their
childhoods; tales of runaways, castoffs and dancers. Violet listens and
illustrates their stories on a faded painting pad with a box of watercolours
and brushes with bent bristles.
Text by Lucie MacAulay
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