If You Are There

by Susan Sherman

  After confession she stayed for lauds. It was a beautiful service and she left feeling lighter, cleansed, and full of hope. She had planned to find a cheaper room for the night, but now all that seemed unnecessary. The day had turned into a crisp autumnal pageant complete with blazing leaves under a flawless sky. She felt flawless too, confident that God had a plan for her and would soon put things right.

  She went to the Tuileries to look for signs. She always had better luck in nature, among God’s best creations, and thought that if he had sent her a message, she would find it there. She wandered down the grand alley bordered by horse chestnuts, their leaves flaming and smelling of loamy soil. She could see the donkey rides up ahead next to the booth selling toys, and the girls in their starched caps carrying baskets of pastries and barley sugar in the shape of birds, bears, and soldiers. She had just decided to get a green sugar bear when a boy tumbled out of nowhere and landed on the path right in front of her. An instant later another boy somersaulted over the first and was quickly followed by a third and fourth, and then a whole troupe of little ones, girls and boys, tumbling, backflipping, and pinwheeling up and down the path. They were all dressed alike—in black-and-white-striped leotards and tights. Their faces were painted in black and white stripes and each wore a hat made of a bright red paper flower.

  Three of the strongest suddenly stood up straight, feet firmly on the ground, palms up, while the smaller ones leaped onto their outstretched hands, feet gripping palms, backs arched, heads high, their arms waiting for the next layer.

  A crowd had formed and the children and their nounous laughed and clapped at the antics of the acrobatic team. The next layer climbed the pyramid and took their place on top. When the pyramid was nearly complete a little girl bounced on a springboard and landed on the shoulders of the highest acrobat, grinning broadly, her hands reaching out to the heavens above.

  The crowd erupted into a clamorous show of appreciation. The performers held the pose, their muscles trembling from the effort, while they waited for the applause to die down. Then, layer by layer, the troupe jumped down and flipped and cartwheeled back into the greenery. The last to leave was the strongest of the bunch. He ripped off the paper flower from his head, bowed deeply, and handed it to Lucia. Then he retreated through a series of backflips and melted into the shrubbery, a sprite returning to an enchanted glade.

  Lucia held up the flower and sucked in her breath. What stopped her was not the advertisement for the acrobatic team that would be performing at a local theater, but the flower itself. It was a corn poppy, the national flower of Poland. This must be the sign she had been looking for. She felt certain that it meant she was close to home. Not that she was going back to Poland necessarily, but that she was about to find her way. She was about to find a new home, a place of belonging in this very peculiar world.

  The next morning Lucia stood in line, shivering with the other girls, while she waited for the doors to open at the employment agency. Ahead of her was a young woman who proved to be a talker. Marta Delaune spoke with the kind of authority that comes from knowing you are right most of the time. She had left her mistress without notice, a foolhardy thing to do, but brave and something to brag about.

  “Remember that cold spell we had last winter?” she said to no one in particular, although everyone was listening. “Gave me curtains for blankets. Nothing but curtains to keep me warm. It’s a wonder I didn’t freeze to death. And you should have seen the portions. We were always hungry. Always going on about how poor she was and how she couldn’t afford this and that. Wasn’t too poor to hire a carriage, I can tell you that. Parading around like the queen of Arabia. I ask you, how can you be poor and live in the faubourg? The building had a lift!”

  Everyone in line knew what Marta Delaune was going on about. They all knew about mistresses of this sort.

  Most of the girls were drab, compliant, and hopeful. They stood shivering in their coats and dingy shirtwaists that had been washed too many times. Lucia imagined their thin underwear and patched stockings, their breakfast of tea and toast. They stood in the somber morning, under a cloud of defeat, pale faces beneath unfortunate hats, waiting for the fog to lift, for the door to open at Madame Gagnon’s Agency for Household Help.

  Marta was different, however. She was sturdy and bold, definite in her views, and curious. It was her curiosity that was unsettling to Lucia. She thought the girl was going to ask her how she came to be without a situation. Fortunately, Marta wanted to know only what kind of work Lucia was looking for.

  “Kitchen maid,” she replied, uncomfortably.

  Sooner or later Marta was bound to ask about her last place and she would have to say that she was let go. Everyone would hear her of course and want to know why. She felt a prick of shame at the prospect of trying to explain it. The agency would want to know and so would prospective employers. Everyone would want to know how it was that she was let go without a character, even though she was a good worker, honest and capable.

  The agency was considered one of the best in the city. Madame Gagnon charged a high fee because it was known that she listed only the best households and never sent her girls to the brothels, as some agencies did. That morning her assistant was late lifting the shade and opening the door. Marta and Lucia filed in with the others to get a good look at the boards. Since they were both looking for the same work they decided to strike out together, agreeing it would be nice to have company. Marta was unaccountably cheerful, especially for one without a position.

  That day they went all over Paris, to the Plaine Monceau, to Faubourg Saint-Germain, to Faubourg Saint-Honoré, to a large flat in the rue de Lille, and even to a grand hôtel particulier near the Champs-Elysées. As they stood in line at the back door of a large flat off the rue de Médicis a few blocks from the Sorbonne, Lucia told her new friend about the Babineauxes, and about Madame Clos and how she was let go.

  “She was jealous of you.”

  “Madame Clos? Of me?”

  “You were too good. She didn’t want you in her kitchen, stealing the credit and maybe her position.”

  Lucia shook her head. “Madame Clos is a brilliant cook and everyone knows it. Believe me, I am no worry to Madame Clos.”

  Lucia had to step aside when a young man came out of the kitchen door carrying a camera and a satchel full of photographic plates. She thought it odd because he didn’t look like a tradesman. His coat was shabby to be sure; however, he had the air of an educated man. He grinned at her, a row of straight teeth peeking out from beneath a wheat-colored moustache. “Shortcut,” he said by way of an explanation.

  When Lucia’s turn came to go into the kitchen, she found a large woman, fleshy with heavy, mannish features, seated at the table where the staff took their meals. A kitchen maid, wearing a shapeless dress and dirty apron, stood at the sink scrubbing potatoes. Lucia assumed that the new hire would be replacing this girl.

  Lucia couldn’t help but take a quick look around. The kitchen had the smell of a well-run establishment. The range was even more impressive than at the Babineauxes’. It would take her the better part of an hour just to black it and much longer to polish it. She didn’t like to think about the chores that would soon be hers again—all the work that the charwoman had lifted from her shoulders—the sweeping, washing, scrubbing, and polishing.

  The cook motioned Lucia to a chair. “And you are?” She regarded Lucia from over her specs. That’s when Lucia noticed the cook’s brooch pinned to her shirtwaist above her heart. “Beautiful, isn’t it,” the cook said, following Lucia’s gaze. “They gave it to me last week. Twenty-five years of service.”

  “It’s a bluebird.”

  “Supposed to bring you luck, but I don’t put much stock in it.” The cook admired it. “Very pretty though.” Then she straightened. “So, tell me, mademoiselle, what can you do for me?”

  “I make sauces,” Lucia said without hesitation. “And soups and aspics. I bake cakes and tarts, breads and pies. I scrub
and clean and polish. And I’m no trouble.” It was the bluebird. It was giving her confidence.

  “That’s quite a lot.” Lucia could tell the cook was impressed. Then the woman laughed. “Well, well, well,” she said, cheerfully. “I believe God has just answered my prayers.”

  “Oh, yes, he has,” Lucia blurted out. “And mine too.” She almost asked the cook if she believed in signs but thought better of it.

  “I need someone right away.”

  “I can start anytime.”

  The cook considered her thoughtfully. “Let me see your reference.”

  “I have a certificate of employment.”

  This gave the cook pause. “No character?” Her smile faded.

  The kitchen maid, who had showed no interest in them up until now, turned to get a better look.

  “Why don’t you have a character?” the cook asked. “Didn’t you give notice?”

  “I did not have to give notice,” Lucia said with some difficulty.

  “She let you go.”

  “Yes, but I was a good worker.”

  “Did you steal?”

  “I never stole anything in my life.” Then she remembered the grosze from her father’s tin and colored ferociously.

  “Then why did she let you go?”

  Lucia shifted in her chair and dropped her eyes. “Pride, I suppose,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper.

  “She let you go because of pride?”

  Lucia nodded.

  “Who is this cook?”

  “Madame Clos.”

  The woman regarded her closely. “I know Madame Clos. She is somewhat prideful herself, wouldn’t you agree? It doesn’t seem that she would have anything against a little pride.”

  Lucia blinked, but said nothing.

  The woman sighed heavily. “I am sorry, mademoiselle, I do not see how I can help you. You seem like a respectable girl, even if you are a foreigner, but how can I know that for sure without a character? I would be taking a chance if I hired you and I do not take chances here. Not in my kitchen. Not with Dr. Richet and his family.”

  Out on the street Marta stopped and gave her a look of inflated astonishment. “Why did you tell her the truth? You only tell them what they want to hear. Don’t you know anything? Where are you from anyway?”

  “Poland.”

  Marta’s father was a blacksmith from Arcueil. She was the oldest of nine children with a tubercular mother, so she was used to helping others with their deficiencies. She was the kind of girl who liked to give advice.

  “Poland? And where is that?” she asked, clearly vexed.

  “Far away,” Lucia said, regretfully. She knew she wasn’t being helpful, coming as she did from a foreign country.

  “Doesn’t anybody lie in Poland?” They were standing at the omnibus stop. “Do you think anyone will hire you without a character and knowing that you were let go? Don’t be a dunce. I know you are not from around here, but show some sense. You have to be more clever if you want to get on.”

  After that Marta instructed her on what to say and how to say it. She told her to be brief, not to say anything that would trip her up later on. She told her to make up a few details and use them in every interview. “Soon, you’ll be believing it yourself.”

  Lucia knew it was a sin to lie. She couldn’t do it even if she wanted to. Yet, Marta had a way about her. She was magnetic with her fierce black eyes set like two buttons deep in their sockets, her patrician’s nose and firm chin leading the way into the world. She was certain, direct, and practical, like a locomotive pushing through a snowbank, stopping for nothing, least of all for any objections Lucia may have had.

  Overhead, the sky had darkened, sending the first drops of rain falling through the bruise-colored clouds. Once the omnibus appeared the girls paid their fifteen centimes and climbed the narrow metal staircase to the top, to the imperial, to the cheaper seats outside in the rain, huddled under their umbrellas with their skirts tucked under their knees to stay dry.

  Marta told her about a friend, a milliner’s assistant, who happened to be looking for someone to share her room. She described a garret that was a block or two from the slaughterhouses. “It doesn’t smell nice, but it’s cheap. And she’s a clean girl. That’s important, you know. You don’t want to catch anything. I’m sure she would be happy for the company. And the extra money. I’ll talk to her and if she hasn’t found anyone, you can move in.” She made this pronouncement without even consulting Lucia or the girl. She made it plain by her impatience, by her bristling efficiency and theatrical amazement at Lucia’s ineptitude, that the situation was dire and that it was time, perhaps past time, for her to step in.

  The milliner’s assistant, Olivie, was grateful for the company. She said as much to Lucia on the first day and then imparted that she didn’t like being alone, and that she was about to get married. This last proved to be a bit of an exaggeration. There was a boy who worked at his uncle’s seed store. They had met at a caf’conc some months ago, but he had never once mentioned marriage. Olivie said she wasn’t too worried though, as it was “only a matter of time.”

  Olivie wasn’t like Iris. She shared everything and even moved some of her clothes out of the armoire to make room for Lucia’s. It was a small room with a bed, a table, and two chairs. A dressing table decorated with a frilly skirt stood against one wall and held a washstand, comb, and brush. Above it hung a shelf where Olivie kept her cosmetics, neatly lined up in glass jars. Hanging on pegs around the room were twenty or so hats of all kinds, even men’s hats: a bowler, a visor cap, and one old top hat.

  Lucia laid out the acrobat’s red flower on the little stand by the bed and hung her mother’s cross on the wall above her pillow. She told herself that the cross would protect her and that the flower was proof that Poland was close by. This last was still a mystery, for she felt very far away from home.

  “You know how boys are,” Olivie continued. She was propped up on her side of the bed, leaning against the pillows. “He won’t say it, but he loves me. Of course he loves me. It is not even a question.” The very fact that she mentioned it several times over several days made it a question, at least in Lucia’s mind.

  “I want you to meet Sevrin,” she said one rainy night as she washed up at the basin. “He has friends. You can come out with us, and who knows, maybe you might find a husband too. He is so smart and knows everything about seeds and planting and cream separators. They have one in the shop. He showed it to me once. All chrome and porcelain. It’s quite lovely.”

  Lucia hadn’t given marriage much thought, mainly because it didn’t seem like a possibility. She was a foreigner with no family and few friends and she was a domestic. Olivie had warned her not to tell anybody that she was a kitchen maid. “They don’t like servants. The boys, I mean. They think servants are beneath them.” Then she thought for a minute, standing in her corset and chemise with the hairpin box in her hand, and said: “Tell them you work in a shop. Tell them you work in a cheese shop or maybe a charcuterie. That sounds more respectable.”

  “A kitchen maid is not respectable?”

  Olivie’s cheeks reddened as she quickly tried to obviate her offense. “Of course it is. My aunt is a kitchen maid. That’s not what I meant. I just meant it is not as exciting as working in a shop. Especially to the boys. Most of them work in trade, so naturally they are going to find a shopgirl more interesting.”

  Despite her views on what constituted interesting employment, Olivie was kind and appreciative. She liked the meals Lucia cooked, mostly soups made with cheap ingredients, and often went on about them, though to Lucia’s way of thinking they were nothing special. Once Olivie brought home silk violets from work and decorated Lucia’s hat without being asked. Nevertheless, Olivie’s friendliness and her willing to share did not make up for her constant chatter. Iris, who had none of her good qualities, was a great deal easier to live with, mainly because she left Lucia alone.

  It was November
and Lucia had been looking for work for nearly three months. There had been a few hopeful interviews, but they had turned sour once the subject of a reference came up. Every morning she would wait for Olivie to go off to work and then sit by the window and count her savings, calculating how many weeks she had before she wouldn’t be able to pay her share of the rent. That morning she sat at the window with the bills spread out in her lap. Below her the abattoir workers were plodding to work, men in thick leather aprons, their heavy wooden clogs clacking on the cobblestones.

  She had a month, maybe six weeks, and then it would be a life on the streets. She wondered how long Olivie would let her stay if she couldn’t pay her way—perhaps a week, maybe more. Olivie needed the money too. How else could she afford the clothes she needed to lure Sevrin into marriage?

  Lucia often sought comfort in the church around the corner. She would go there for lauds or just to sit in the pews and pray. That morning she didn’t go to the church. Maybe she started out for it, but she was so caught up in a raft of emotions that she didn’t notice where she was going. She turned down several streets at random, until she found herself walking in the boulevard de Magenta, near the Gare du Nord. There, a large cathedral stood resplendent on a shabby stretch of street. She had never seen it before and didn’t even know its name. Later she would claim that God had brought her there, but at the time she was confused and wretched and did not have a clue how she found it.