Hilary Reyl - Lessons in French

I took some cash from the box in Lydia’s drawer, went out, found a news kiosk, bought Le Monde , Libération and some strawberry Hollywood chewing gum.

It had stopped raining.

The German story of the day was about a hundred arrests at a demonstration in Liepzig. Helmut Kohl, the prime minister of West Germany, had denounced them.

Back in the office, I turned on the electric typewriter. Lydia had told me not to touch her computer. It was easily sabotaged, she said.

I found the scissors in a mug that said VOGUE.

I took a moment to feel impressed by my new boss. She was creating art that would refract for years through millions of eyes and brains and hearts. Even though she was probably driving some poor translator in Germany crazy right now, she was giving meaning to her times.

My own mother back home, what was she doing? She was smoothing things over for a powerful man, a lawyer who was not her husband. She was organizing lives, his, mine, hers to some extent. But what was she making? What did she mean?

I stopped cutting Libération and picked up the proof sheet closest to the computer, all close-ups of a half-smiling man labeled “Portraits of Salman” in red crayon.

Even I knew who Salman was. Muslim extremists had put a price on his head for “offensive” passages in his novel The Satanic Verses. In these images, he appeared quiet and resolved. I gazed into his sympathetic eyes.

My communion with Salman Rushdie was short-lived. When the phone rang, I dropped the pictures, leaped to the ringer on Lydia’s desk. It was touch-tone. Modern.

“ Allo ?”

“Who is this?” It was a young woman’s voice, soft and faintly accusatory.

“This is Kate. I’m Lydia Schell’s assistant. Can I help you?” I asked, pleased with my imitation of professionalism.

“I’m Portia, Lydia’s daughter. My mother is very busy right now so she has asked me to call you with some instructions for the house.”

‘’Hi, Portia.”

She came back quick and breathy. “Hi, listen, my mother asks that you call the plumber—his name is Monsieur Polanski and you’ll find him in the Rolodex—because the toilet in her bathroom is running and also to tell Madame Fidelio to have the window washer come as soon as possible. Apparently the windows in my bedroom are filthy. Also, look out for a delivery for me from Maud Frizon.”

“Maud Frizon?”

“Shoes”—she sounded as though she could barely mask her surprise at my ignorance. “Boots actually. A pair of boots I ordered last time I was in Paris. They’re finally in.”

“What should I do with the boots?”

“Oh, send them please. They’re fall boots. I won’t be in Europe before Thanksgiving.”

“Sure.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind. Really. Listen, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

So, Olivier dated a girl who liked her windows clean, who summoned window washers even though she lived on the ground floor, or rather had her mother’s assistant summon them by way of her concierge.

Olivier must have been the one to tell her the windows were “filthy.” After all, he had spent the last few nights in her ruffly room. Despite what he’d said about being an outsider like me, he must really be on her aesthetic plane.

It was all I could do not to hate her.

Nobody had told me that Clarence was British. Olivier’s use of “pompous” to describe him, which I quickly found inaccurate, was probably meant as a synonym for British, but I had not caught on and was startled by his accent.

“Lovely to meet you. What do you go by, Katherine? Kate?”

I liked him immediately. “My friends call me Katie.”

“Katie it is. I hope you were welcomed. Madame Fidelio can be a bit daft, but I trust she hasn’t been too hostile. You are settling in?”

He was gangling, but with a fleshy face, full quivering lips and unruly curls that were turning silver. There were specks of dandruff on his glasses.

“Oh, Madame Fidelio was quite nice to me, and I’m fine. I absolutely love it here. It’s unreal.”

“Lydia will tell you it’s a bit of a shambles, but I adore the place, even if the courtyard is sunless. How long have you been here now?”

“A week today. It’s such a fantastic neighborhood.” Could I sound any more like I had never left Southern California? Why did I always revert when I was nervous?

But he didn’t seem to mind. My enthusiasm swept across his face. As he smiled almost youthfully, his glasses hopped. “So, I trust you’re finding your way around?”

“I’ve been doing some exploring. Paris is the greatest city to walk in. I guess that’s a cliché, but I mean it. It’s the best city to wander around alone because it’s so beautiful you feel like it’s hugging you.”

“An embrace, yes. Nicely put. These are the most satisfying streets to experience on one’s own. And even when one arrives at this empty apartment, one feels welcomed, despite the vicious Portuguese sentry!”

We laughed.

Right away, I was comfortable with Clarence. Having spent long stretches of my adolescence imagining what life with a father would be like, I was emotionally primed for this man with his ripe, knowing face, as he took off his blazer in his half-painted entryway and ushered me into his living room with a gallant “please.”

The leafy motif of his ascot matched the celadon stripe in the cushion where he rested his elbow as he settled into an armchair. The cushion was of the same striped fabric that covered the ottoman. I was beginning to notice patterns in the apartment where before there had only been striking, singular images. Was familiarity like this?

“Lydia said you teach comparative literature and that you’re on sabbatical writing?”

“Did she happen to say what I was writing about?”

“Well, I don’t know if she mentioned it, but I—”

“Oh, bloody hell!” His calm rippled furiously, then resettled.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s nothing. Just that ridiculous old clock. It’s rubbish, but Lydia is very attached to it. I suppose it’s valuable rubbish if such a thing can be. Expensive rubbish anyway. Why did the painters put it on the floor like that? Bloody idiots, all of them.”

I had only looked at this clock to check the time with Olivier while we were drinking. I had not noticed that the clock face was set in a black tree ornamented with Rococo branches. Wrapped around the tree was a polished snake. And beside the tree, standing on the bronze base, was a fairy, fondling the snake with one hand and offering it a drink from a half-shell in the other. The snake was arching into the fairy’s caress.

“It’s not ticking, is it?” Again, a slight erosion of calm, then he chuckled. “But it serves her right. It’s so hideous, that object.”

“You’re right, it’s not ticking. I think it must have stopped. It was working when I got here. Last time I checked. A week ago.”

“It’s appalling-looking, don’t you think? I mean, didn’t it strike you as hideous when you first entered the room? That’s not to say that it’s uninteresting, historically. It’s probably very revelatory of the 1830s, but that doesn’t mean we need it in our living room, does it? For goodness sake, swastikas are revelatory.”

“Well, it’s not my taste, but there is something very French-looking about it.”

“You’re kind. Lydia did say that about you, that you seemed like a kind person.”

“Goodness, thanks. So, what are you writing about?”

He looked at me as though he were about to pull a big box of chocolates from behind his back. He may have even winked.