by Ruth Reichl
I watched miserably as the door closed behind her. I felt empty inside, and I was overwhelmed by nausea. The smell of disinfectant battled with floor wax as I climbed the stairs behind Hawkface. The building was old, and the reception area, where Mom had been received by the directrice, had high ceilings, carved glass, and an elegantly winding staircase; it looked like the entrance of a turn-of-the-century Paris apartment house. I clutched the carved banister, pulling myself up. But the grandeur ended at the second floor. Up here the stairs were narrow, the banister just a businesslike piece of uncarved wood.
“Voozet treesta?” asked Hawkface. “Nap lura pah. Toola mond ette tray jantie.” She babbled incomprehensibly up three flights of stairs and down a hall. She opened a door into a small room with hospital-green walls, barred windows, and three cots with gray blankets. Two round faces peered at me. “Lanu vel fee,” said Hawkface, pushing me in the door. “Elsa pel root.”
“Root,” the girls chorused, gathering around me.
“What?” I said.
“Root!” they insisted, pointing at me. The one with long dark hair pointed at herself and said, “Janine.” She indicated the one with bobbed hair, round rosy cheeks, and glasses and said, “Suzanne.” Then at me again. “Root!” she insisted. I understood, finally.
It did not seem like an auspicious beginning. On Mars even my name was different.
For as long as she lived my mother asked, at least once a year, “Aren’t you glad you speak French?” She kept asking, over and over, hoping that I would finally give her the reply she wanted. “Total immersion is the only way to learn a language,” she’d say self-righteously. Perhaps, but each time she said it the smell of onions and Javel flooded my nostrils. The pay phone at Collège Marie de France was right by the kitchen, and I stood there every night, huddled against the wall, begging my parents to let me come home.
“It’s only five months,” I told myself the first night as I crouched in a stall of the big yellow bathroom with its naked lightbulbs, crying and berating myself for being so miserable. “I can stand anything for five months.”
By the next morning I was sure I was wrong. Numbly I shrugged on my new white blouse and navy jumper and followed the girls through the long corridors, down the stairs, past the ornate lobby, and into the dining room in the basement. It was windowless, with long, oilcloth-covered picnic tables and it smelled, day and night, like boiled beef.
The girls stood behind their bowls of café au lait, waiting for Mademoiselle Petit, the housemother, to sit down. Then they bowed their heads, crossed themselves, and sang a song that began, “Benny say noo, senior.” I stared down into the café au lait. “Mange!” commanded Mademoiselle. I tapped my fingers against the side of the bowl and said under my breath, “Cheerio! Have a nice day.” And then I started crying again. The girls around me looked away, embarrassed. After breakfast the boarders went to the assembly hall to join the day students and sing the “Marseillaise” and the Canadian national anthem. Then they recited the school pledge. “Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce,” they intoned together; it was months before I thought to translate the words and more months before I realized that I had been faithfully repeating the Hail Mary every morning.
When assembly was over Janine, who seemed to have appointed herself my guardian, grabbed my sleeve and pulled me along a hall. Accustomed to the raucous freedom of an American high school I was shocked by the silence. The girls watched their feet as they walked to their lessons and bobbed their heads in a silent curtsey each time a teacher passed. Janine led me into a severely orderly classroom and pushed me into a desk next to hers. The room smelled of steam heat, wet wool, and perspiration. The color scheme was entirely monochromatic, with none of the cheerful maps, plants, and drawings my school had. It reminded me of something from the nineteenth century.
Janine tried to tell me something, but of course it was incomprehensible. Looking at my watch, I realized that at this very minute a week ago, on a far-away planet, my best friend Jeanie and I had been walking into homeroom; the horrible, embarrassing lump of tears appeared in my throat and I stared down, hoping no one would notice. Suddenly the room went eerily silent.
“J’attends,” said an icy voice. Janine tugged desperately at my sleeve. I looked up and realized that all the other girl were on their feet. I leapt up. A small woman stood at the front of the class fixing me with a look of hostile disapproval. She was as colorless as the classroom. Dressed in a black skirt and drab cardigan, she wore no makeup and even her short straight hair seemed to have no particular color. She leveled her pointer directly at me and unleashed a stream of angry words. Janine said something, clearly in my defense, and the pointer went down. The hostile stare did not. Madame Cartet looked me up and down, shook her head slightly, and said, “Bien. Asseyez-vous.” The girls sat down at the same time, as if they were a single organism. I was a beat behind.
Class went on and on. Lunch, more class, study hall, dinner. Nothing made any sense to me. I was on Mars, where no sound, no smell, no emotion was familiar. Even my own thoughts had become alien, and I despised the whining mass of misery I seemed to be. I spent most of my time writing in my diary, chiding myself for being so unhappy, waiting until it was time to call home. “Let me come back,” I pleaded. I knew Dad wanted me back but my mother always answered. And the answer was always the same: no. Then it was Friday and all the other girls left for the weekend. The silence was a relief.
“Ne quitte pas l’école,” said Mademoiselle Petit. I shrugged my shoulders; I didn’t understand. “Ça, alors!” said Mademoiselle, pushing me down the stairs to the entranceway and pointing to the big wooden door. “Ne quitte pas,” she repeated slowly, as if talking to a deaf person. She went to the door, threw herself across it, arms stretched wide, and shook her head vigorously. I got the point.
It had not occurred to me that there was life outside Mars, but she had given me an idea. “What are they going to do, throw me out?” I said to myself the next day as I opened the door of the silent, empty building. I peered outside. “Make me spend the weekend in school?”
I strolled down Queen Mary Road, ignoring the cold and following strangers for the sheer pleasure of listening to what they were saying. When I saw a movie theater with a sign in English I went in. I would have happily watched any movie in a language I could understand, but I was in luck. The feature was All Hands on Deck and for as long as the movie played its vapid happiness pulled me along. Then the lights went on and all around me people made plans for the rest of the day. I felt self-conscious, embarrassed for myself: everybody else seemed to have somewhere to go, something to do, and someone to do it with.
I tried to pretend that being alone was just a temporary matter, that I was really on my way to meet a friend. With as much swagger as I could muster I went into the small deli next door. The smell of dill and pepper and garlic came rushing at me, comforting and familiar. I sat at the counter, watching the cook pull steaming chunks of glistening pink meat out of watery vats. I wondered what it was.
“Smoked meat?” asked the cook. He was speaking English! I nodded.
“Fat or lean?” he asked.
“Fat?” I said.
“Fat’s better,” he agreed, leaning over to impale a piece of meat on his fork. He set it on the wooden counter and began to carve, letting the rosy slices fall away from his knife in ribbons. He scooped them onto a piece of rye bread, slapped a mustard-slathered slice on top, and handed the sandwich across the counter. The sweet, salty pile of meat was the best thing I had ever eaten. I had another, chewing slowly to make it last. And a third. “For a little girl, you do put it away,” said the counterman admiringly.
There was a bakery next door, and I went in and bought two dozen French pastries to tide me over the weekend. I spent all of Sunday in bed, reading Gone With the Wind, eating pastries and feeling sorry for myself. Gorged on sugar and fat and the joy of English, I slowly came back to earth. Then my roommates returned, and life
on Mars started all over again.
“I realize,” I wrote in my diary, “that I am like the Puerto Ricans who come into our classes in New York. Except we are not nearly as nice. These kids are really sweet, they all help me in my work and don’t mind when I goof up on my French, which is almost always. Françoise, who sits in the desk next to mine, is trying to help me with spelling. But I don’t think I’ll ever get it.”
Madame Cartet certainly didn’t think I would get it. She acted as if I were a slow and wayward stranger who had been foisted upon her, and when she announced exam scores she always seemed disgusted. “Zéro, une fois de plus pour Mademoiselle Reichl,” she would say pityingly, as if any person of normal intelligence would have learned to speak French, much less spell it, by now.
A few of the girls took their cues from her. The worst was the banker’s daughter, Béatrice, the richest girl in school. Her father was said to be very close to General de Gaulle. She had never actually spoken to me, but she had discovered my secret cache of candy, cake, and novels and tortured me by moving it. I knew she was the culprit because she brazenly ate an éclair in my presence, daring me to do something. I shrugged. I suspected that she stole my mail too, but I felt helpless. The odd thing is that if she hadn’t been so mean to me I would have admired her. She was constantly collecting “mauvaises notes” for whispering in class, for not being prepared, once for daring to talk back when Madame Cartet spoke of Australian savages.
“They are not savages!” said Béatrice. “I’ve been there.” A thrill ran through the class. French girls never offered their own opinions, they simply parroted those of their teachers. And certainly no French girl ever contradicted an adult, which must have been why Madame Cartet seemed more puzzled than angry.
“The Aboriginals are not Christian,” she said firmly, “we will not discuss this any further. Zero for conduct, and this will cost you a Saturday in school.”
My heart sank; I had come to like my lonely pastrami weekends and I did not want Béatrice skulking about. But she seemed unconcerned; she tossed her frizzy blonde mane and said darkly, “Nous verrons!” Béatrice ALWAYS went home on weekends.
By Friday I had forgotten Madame Cartet’s threat and after the school emptied out I was startled to hear someone crying downstairs. I followed the sound and found Béatrice facedown on her bed. “Va t’en!” she said fiercely. I turned and raced back to the third floor.
I slammed the door behind me, took The World of Suzie Wong out of the laundry bag in which I had hidden it, and unearthed some cream puffs from beneath the bed. They were a week old, but I didn’t mind. I was groping for the last one when Béatrice came in.
“Give me that!” she said grabbing the pastry. Her frizzy blonde hair was wild, her eyes red, her pleated blue uniform crumpled. She stuffed the cream puff into her mouth and ate it in a gulp.
“Did your mother send you these?”
I shook my head.
“Where are they from?” she insisted.
“A pastry shop down the road,” I said.
“Take me,” she commanded.
“Now?” I asked. “It’s almost dark. They’ll be furious if we leave at night.”
Béatrice shrugged. “What are they doing to do about it?” she asked. “Call our parents? The Petit will be too scared to let them know she’s lost us. She’ll just wring her hands and look pitiful. Let’s go!”
It was the longest conversation I had ever had in French and I would have taken Béatrice anywhere just to keep her talking. The streetlights came on as we walked down the snowy boulevard, and I told Béatrice about smoked meat sandwiches and the English movie theater. “We’ll go tomorrow,” she said confidently. I didn’t argue.
“I’m so glad you have someone to play with,” said Mademoiselle Petit at breakfast the next morning.
“She sounds like we’re going to run outside and jump rope,” whispered Béatrice. “How much money do you have?”
I was too grateful for her company to ask why we were spending my money, but it was enough to eat all day. We started at the deli. I translated. “She’s never had smoked meat before,” I confided to my friend behind the counter.
“Never?” he asked, horrified. His knife flashed as he piled the meat on extra thick. Béatrice shook her head. “Nevaire,” she said in a thick French accent.
“Does she eat as much as you do?” he asked. She did.
Afterward we went next door to the pastry shop, and then down the street to a small Chinese restaurant. Béatrice had never had Chinese food either and I inducted her into the joys of egg rolls, fried rice, and chop suey. “C’est superbe!” she cried. “What other strange foods do you know about?”
A girl who had never had an egg roll, I thought, must have been brought up very oddly. I tried to think what other exotica I knew in Montreal, but the only restaurant I’d been to was Moishe’s.
We started walking, happy to be away from the school, happy to be together, not particularly concerned about where we were going or what we would find. In the end we had more smoked meat; every coffee shop in Montreal had its three watery vats of steaming cured beef. We came out, walked a little farther, and bought cones of French fries with malt vinegar. When those ran out we went into a candy store and bought a box of chocolate-covered cherries with stems. After we had polished those off we found a pastry shop. I bought a dozen éclairs; Béatrice, more adventurous, asked for one of everything. “We’ll taste them all and see which is best,” she said. “Then tomorrow we can come back and buy some more.”
I wondered if Béatrice would abandon me when the other girls came back. When they spilled into the school on Sunday night they flashed significant looks in my direction and chorused “Pauvre toi,” to Béatrice. But she just looked annoyed and said, “Pas du tout.” And then she announced that staying in school was so much fun she intended to do it again the following weekend.
Her parents had other ideas. They wanted her to come home, and when she told them about the poor lonely American at the school they insisted that I come too. And so the following Friday when the other girls left for the station, I was with them.
There were twelve of us on the train to Ottawa; the French ambassador’s daughter, the Haitian ambassador’s girls, and the daughters of lesser people attached to various embassies. We were laughing and calling to each other, making the sort of noise only teenagers can, when a woman at the end of the car turned to her companion and said, “These French …” in a cold, high, disapproving English voice. I froze. I realized that, without even thinking about it, I had actually been speaking their language.
Friendly groups of parents collected their girls with hugs and laughter. There was a chauffeur for us; he touched his hat, said, “Bonjour, Mesdemoiselles,” and picked up our luggage. It hit me that I was going to spend the weekend in a millionaire’s house.
The chauffeur took us to a huge gated mansion set in a private park. It was forbidding, but not nearly as forbidding as Béatrice’s mother. Impeccable and elegant, Madame du Croix looked askance at her daughter’s rumpled suit and my frizzy hair. She kissed Béatrice on both cheeks, and shook my hand. But the biggest shock was when Béatrice introduced us. “Je voudrais vous presenter ma copine Root,” she said formally. In all the time I knew her, I never once heard her address either of her parents as tu.
Béatrice might inhabit the same house as her parents, but they hardly seemed to breathe the same air. They lived in a separate and grown-up world two floors below the children’s quarters. The only time the two worlds intersected was at the table.
“Vôtre père est au travail,” said Madame du Croix at breakfast. She bent her head and said grace. Then a maid in a black dress, white apron, and frilly cap brought out pitchers of coffee and hot milk. While Madame poured café au lait the maid buttered baguettes and offered fresh tartines. Then she walked around the table with sparkling bowls of homemade jam. Meanwhile Madame interrogated Béatrice about her week at school. I ached for the meal to
be over.
We spent the morning in the yard, forgetting that we were too dignified to play tag and dig in the dirt. It was only when Béatrice said we had to change for lunch that I started to worry about what was coming. I watched her wash her face and hands, clean her fingernails, fuss with her hair. Then she put on a plain white blouse and a pleated blue skirt that looked a lot like our school uniforms. I put on my red corduroy dress and swatted ferociously at the frizz on top of my head. It was hopeless.
Monsieur du Croix sat at the head of the long table. “Papa!” said Béatrice happily. He got up to kiss her and I saw how short he was. Still, with his snowy white hair and sapphire blue eyes he was an imposing figure.
“Asseyez-vous,” he commanded, picking up a ladle by his plate and dipping it into a terrine of soup. A butler stood before him holding out a bowl, and he slowly splashed it full of a thick orange liquid. Then the butler walked solemnly around the table, distributing bowls by age and rank. The soup was fragrant and steamed invitingly. I sat, tantalized, waiting for Madame du Croix to lift her spoon.
Finally she did. I dipped my own into the thick liquid and brought it to my mouth. With the first sip I knew that I had never really eaten before. The initial taste was pure carrot, followed by cream, butter, a bit of nutmeg. Then I swallowed and my whole mouth and throat filled with the echo of a rich chicken stock. I took another bite and it began all over again. I ate as if in a dream.
The butler set a roast before Béatrice’s father, while the maid removed our empty bowls. Slowly the roast was carved and then the butler moved majestically around the table serving the meat.
It was just a filet of beef. But I had never tasted anything like this sauce, a mixture of red wine, marrow, butter, herbs, and mushrooms. It was like autumn distilled in a spoon. A shiver went down my back. “This sauce!” I exclaimed involuntarily. The sound echoed through the polite conversation at the table and I put my hand to my mouth. Monsieur du Croix laughed.
