Almost before she could make up her mind he had withdrawn the black glove from his thick left hand, pulled out the fifty one-hundred dollar bills that were rolled up in his pocket like a plump croissant, and handed them to her.
Madame Métier was amazed. “I’ll get you a bag, then,” she said. She went down to the kitchen to fetch him a sack for his things—the bottles of pills and the curious tin—but by the time she returned he had already packed them in a large manila envelope, which he had handily stored in his inside coat pocket. Overwhelmed by the five thousand dollar croissant in her hand, she offered also to give him the Medicines Chest, but this he refused. Perhaps she could find some use for it herself, he said.
In a fluster—she was scarcely able to comprehend what had just occurred—Madame Métier showed Monsieur Morte downstairs to the door. It was now well past noon. The sun was up and the roses were singing in the garden. The strange agitation that had made her so wakeful the whole night before seemed now to have passed. She breathed in the sweet summer air, closed the door, took the handful of bills, and folded them into her lingerie drawer. Then she drew off her clothes, and with the cool summer air floating in through the windows, she lay down on her bed and fell into a deep, restful sleep.
CHAPTER 14
Madame Métier After Selling the Medicines Chest
Now that Madame Métier’s financial worries were temporarily over and she had something to go on—she wouldn’t have to sell the house; she could start up with her cremes again—she decided to fabricate a life.
She went through the house and stripped it of all the dead doctor’s items—his oxblood loafers, his books on death and disease, his dirty socks, his suits and ties, his brandies and vodkas and gins, his sports car magazines.
She was happy. She had the soft tinkling feeling that something new was about to occur. She felt, as she watched the trash man pull out of the driveway, hauling the last batch of her husband’s things away, that a strange, immemorial load had been lifted from her. She felt joyful. She felt a strange sense of magic. She felt young. She walked through the house, which was perfumed now with the scent of fresh roses, with the lilt of a dance in her step.
She went to her lingerie drawer and peeled off three of the fifty one-hundred dollar bills and decided to go shopping.
CHAPTER 15
Madame Métier Goes Shopping
It had been some time since Madame Métier had been out shopping on her own. Since her husband, the doctor, had always had strict ideas about what she should wear, he had always picked out her clothes.
Thus now it was a treat indeed to go shopping for herself. She bought a new dress (Prussian blue), new stockings (camellia white), and shoes (silver pumps), and, passing a summer vacation display in an avant-garde boutique, she went in, and on impulse bought herself a new red bathing suit.
It was somewhat daring, perhaps even outrageous, the suit, with bold geometric cut-outs in its field of red—an oval here, a triangle there—revealing planes and curves of her body that she hadn’t seen for years.
Having thus indulged herself, she decided also to buy some flowers. She wanted to make a bouquet to celebrate her repossession of the house. Walking gaily with her bags down the street, she headed toward the Flower Vendor’s Stand, whiffing the roses and chrysanthemums, the dahlias and baby’s breath. She wanted to make a huge bouquet, but of what, precisely, she couldn’t yet guess. But as she was looking over the florist’s vases of long-stemmed roses, delphiniums and gladiolas, her father’s face, illumined and faintly smiling, appeared for a moment, intaglioed on the back wall of the Flower Vendor’s Stand. She paused, blinked, disbelieving; but when she opened her eyes again, it was still there—distinct and unmistakable, an image of her father’s face.
It was strange, she thought, how the unexpected could quite unexpectedly occur—first her weirdly subsidized shopping spree, and now, out of the blue, this vision of her father. A few tears came into her eyes. Did things mean things, she wondered? Or were such odd occurrences, as her mother had always said, “just her imagination gone wild”? Did the occult—as perhaps it might be called—appearance of her father’s face mean something now? A blessing perhaps? A sign that she should return to her cremes? Or did it mean nothing at all? She looked again at the wall where his face had just appeared, but the image was already fading, pixel by pixel disappearing from the wall.
In a few more minutes she had dismissed it, wondered in fact if she had seen it at all, and yet when it had entirely vanished, she found herself choosing not armloads of irises and lilies to make up her celebration bouquet, but ruined lavenders and roses, fading poppies, wilted saxifrages—the plants whose healing properties her father had always talked about. In fact, it was really quite strange, but all the fresh flowers had suddenly lost their appeal.
Having emptied all the flower urns of their worn-out and shabby editions, she gathered them up and paid the flower vendor for them. He looked at her strangely, as if she were somewhat deranged. Feeling his judgment as she waited for him to hand her the change, she averted her eyes, and, as she did, she noticed a sad but lovely young woman at the opposite end of the flower stand. She was selecting pink rosebuds and daisies and little blue forget-me-nots and arranging pretty nosegays.
This gave her pause. For a moment she reached back in her mind to the old sweet time just minutes ago when flowers had still been flowers and not what she now perceived them to be—the raw material for cremes. She felt a thin veil of sadness whispering across her eyes like curtains in a summer breeze. A few tears striped her eyes, and when she blinked them away, she saw once again the image of her father’s face—now strongly smiling—and she knew somehow that forever, everything had changed.
CHAPTER 16
Monsieur Sorbonne After His Marriage
After some days at the downtown hotel, Monsieur Sorbonne decided to check out his situation in life. Perhaps after her “it’s-all-over” tizzy, the fortitudinous Miss Gutz had come to her senses and would now let him come back home.
This thought in mind, he drove to the print shop, where it was reported to him that Miss Gutz was off on a two-hour lunch with a farmer. Something strange had happened to her, a print shop cohort said. Two days ago she had lost all verve for her work. Her moods had veered from melancholia to rage, and she was threatening to change professions. She was tired of working so hard, she said, tired of slaving for her useless husband. She had sat around on a boat with him for two years, while he sailed by the stars and read his astronomy books (so the cohort reported) and now—she had stamped her foot—she wanted more, something better. She wanted to be cared for and paid for, to be treated like a wife.
A farmer had shown up two days ago needing some stationery printed for his hog farm. He had then somewhat courted Miss Gutz, telling her tales of farmhouse sunrises. It was he who had taken her to lunch.
This didn’t bode well, thought Monsieur Sorbonne. He thanked the informative cohort, got in his car, and drove on. As he approached his house, he wondered what might be the point of trying to reinsert himself into his life with Miss Gutz. They had had a brief, curious marriage. They had had a good trip in the boat—speaking in general, that is. They hadn’t turned upside-down and both drowned or come down with scurvy. But they had also had no romance, no heartfelt conversations beneath the moon, no tenderness, no passion. It had been for them both an effort, an exercise in fortitude.
Perhaps his indiscretion with Mademoiselle Objet—impulsive at the time—represented an unpremeditated but much needed scintilla of joy in his drab daily life. It was, in fact, perhaps a clue that his marriage was over and he should move on. He regretted, for Miss Gutz’s sake, the awkwardness of it all. He hadn’t, in truth, ever wanted to hurt her; and now, he supposed, he should apologize, at least express his regrets, or leave her a note at the door. But when he arrived at the house, the front door was barred with two black, creosote railroad ties, along with a sign in big block letters— Times Roman, 1000 point, he
noted to himself—which said, “KEEP OUT, and this means YOU!!”
It really was over, Monsieur Sorbonne surmised, supposing the YOU referred to himself. Slightly stunned by the odd finality of it all, he backed his car out of the driveway and headed back to the hotel.
CHAPTER 17
Mademoiselle Objet After Her Marriage
Feeling guilty and somewhat disarranged the morning after her unexpected soirée with Monsieur Sorbonne (it was one thing to misplace your objects, but quite another to misplace yourself in your own life), Mademoiselle Objet had a momentary inclination to confess her indiscretion. Speaking the truth—perhaps this could be the beginning of something real between herself and Mr. TV. But Mr. TV had already gone off to work, and so, alas, he was not available to hear her confession.
This was most unfortunate, since (despite her behavior of the night before) Mademoiselle Objet was a young woman of the highest moral character, and knew she would have to do penance for her sweet self-indulgence of the night before. The minute she had organized this thought, a prickly pain overflooded her heart, and a rash appeared on her hands.
Since she couldn’t, it appeared, confess, perhaps she could work out her guilt in some other way. She could make Mr. TV a TV dinner, but it would be cold by the time he got home. She could scrub and mop the kitchen floor, but that had, even as a penance, exactly no appeal. She could bring wheeling meals to the infirm and old, or—Aha, Ah, yes!—this did have some appeal—she could bring flowers to the children at the Orphans’ Hospital.
She got dressed, thinking irrepressibly of Monsieur Sorbonne—his blue jacket and red handkerchief, the aplomb with which he had ordered the wine and turned down the sheets and made love to her—and so thinking, she drove into town.
At the Flower Vendor’s Stand she noticed a quite unusual woman. She was tall and slender and had white-blonde hair. She was beautiful in a strange, extraordinary way, and had a quite melodically lovely voice—Mademoiselle Objet could hear it, even from where she was standing at the far end of the stall. But the strangely beautiful woman seemed to have an odd way with flowers. She seemed to prefer all the wilted ones, the already bowed-over roses, the drooping poppies and shriveled lilies. All this intrigued Mademoiselle Objet, who, with her exquisite hands, was busy arranging half a dozen nosegays (one for each hour of her happy indiscretion) to bring to the joy-forsaken children at the Orphans’ Hospital.
When she had finished—when she had every petal of forget-me-not in place—she looked up to see that the quite unusual woman who had been there only moments ago had now started walking—huge bundles of wilted flowers in her arms—quite gracefully down the street. There was an aura of something—though Mademoiselle Objet couldn’t tell quite what—that was so strangely captivating about this wilted-flower woman, that it occurred to her for a moment to leave her nosegays behind and run down the street to try and meet her. But when she considered it further, it seemed such an odd thing to do that she just stood there and watched as the rather unusual woman, holding two elegant shopping bags in one hand and piles of wilted flowers in the crook of her other arm, turned the corner and disappeared.
CHAPTER 18
Mademoiselle Objet Goes Home
When Mademoiselle Objet returned home that night, Mr. TV said that tonight, before he watched his TV, he had a thing or two to say to her. Hearing this, Mademoiselle Objet was inclined once again to confess her indiscretion, but before she could so much as mutter an “I’m so sorry,” Mr. TV announced that he had been offered a job in The Very Big City selling sofa recliners. This job represented not just a promotion, he said, but also a sizeable raise. He would, as a result, be able to buy them a big color TV. He would have to begin there next week, though—the previous salesman had died. From a heart attack. At a movie. While eating a jumbo, double-buttered popcorn, so Mr. TV was needed at once and he had already agreed to go.
She should start packing, he told her—those poems books would take a long time to pack—and on Tuesday they would leave.
Hearing all this, Mademoiselle Objet felt suddenly as if her confession was now obsolete. She thought quickly, which it was uncharacteristic for her to do and said that, if it was all the same to him, she would just as soon have this be the end of their marriage. She wouldn’t, she thought, be happy in The Very Big City (not to mention two minutes longer with Mr. TV). Besides, she couldn’t pack her poems books in time. She wondered, therefore, if, instead of buying the new TV to share with her in The City, he would be willing to give her half the price of the color TV in cash.
Mr. TV was enraged—though not by the thought that this was the end of their marriage—“you do have a point there,” or some such thing, he said—but by her claim on the still-unpurchased big screen TV. “What makes you think you deserve half the price of a brand-new big-screen color TV?” he said. “Before I’ve even bought it? You’ve got your nerve!”
“I don’t know,” or some such thing, said Mademoiselle Objet, who was by then quite jittery and shaken. The rash of the morning, which had subsided whil she was visiting the Orphans’ Hospital, had now started crawling in itchy red blotches up both her arms. “Forget it,” she said. “It was just an idea.” And although she no longer felt guilty, she started to cry.
Here Mr. TV momentarily (and uncharacteristically) took a small pity on her. He would not, he asserted, give her the sum of half of the price of a new large TV, not in cash anyway; but he would leave behind the old black–and-white, his Barking Lounger chair, and all the kitchen items. That way, he said, she could watch TV sitting down and, if she wanted, could also heat up some TV dinners to dine on. In addition, he would pay her rent for one month.
With regret—what would she do with an old TV, a pitiful sixteen-inch black and white, a Barking Lounger chair, and some used pots and pans? She didn’t quite know. She thanked Mr. TV for his kindness, gave him a peck on the cheek and, while he stayed up late in the living room watching TV (from his still-his Barking Lounger chair), she curled up alone in her bed wondering where, if ever, she would see Monsieur Sorbonne again.
CHAPTER 19
Monsieur Sorbonne After His Foray Back Home
Having faced the music—his marriage was over, his house was barred, his wife was on her way to a hog farm (where, it occurred to him now, she might prefer to be)—Monsieur Sorbonne went back to the hotel, which made him think sadly of Mademoiselle Objet.
Although he was inclined to think endlessly of her (into what social void had she disappeared? From what social matrix had she first emerged?), he decided that no matter what, she had been a real gift. She had appeared, with her tears and her exquisite hands, at precisely the right moment to excise him from his marriage. That in itself was a small-time miracle—and now? Why, now he must go on.
He must go on—that was quite clear, whether or not Mademoiselle Objet would ever again emerge from the vapors. To that end, he must make some decisions. First of all, what must he do? How could he support himself when the $200,000 from the Oblong Credit Card ran out? If he gave up his lifelong career of appeasing his curiosity, what new career could he or should he now undertake?
He contemplated many options: race car driver, pilot, inventor, bibliographer, antiquarian. These all appealed to his prodigious curiosity, and offered a chance to learn more facts about more things; but as he considered them all, a deeper thought took hold of him. He no longer wanted simply to learn—to acquire the facts, parameters and uses, the characteristics and quirks of various things; he wanted to apprehend, to see into and truly know the mysteries of the world about him. The notion of knowing things in their essence intrigued him greatly. But how could he do this? He had already learned so much, from books and from his own observation. And yet there seemed to be much more to know, more than he, with even his great curiosity, had learned. How, then (or rather, how now) could he learn more? By looking? By paying attention? By carefully observing? By using his mind? By thinking? Perhaps he could see things more deeply by making a
n image of them, by drawing their pictures with charcoal or pens, by photographing their image, translating it through a lens. The thought of photography—this pleased him greatly.
The thought of seeing things differently, through a second, wise eye, with light falling this way and that way, the thought of trapping an image, of trapping a moment, an essence, and making it last—the more he thought about it all, the more photography intrigued him. Perhaps captured in time, held still, suspended, an object might gradually give up its secrets and show its quintessence to him.
This last thought returned him sadly to Mademoiselle Objet. Thinking of her almost brought tears to his eyes. He turned down the blankets and sheets, wishing emphatically and sadly that he had made an image of her small, exquisite fingers turning down the sheets. He got into bed and turned out the light and, closing his eyes hard to block her image from his mind’s eye, he decided that in the morning he would buy a camera at the Flea Fair.
CHAPTER 20
Mademoiselle Objet as Time Went On
When Mademoiselle Objet woke up the next morning, the reality of Mr. TV’s imminent departure suddenly hit her. She had been living, she realized, in a kind of fairyland, having Mr. TV pay the bills, going her way as she wished, thinking her thoughts, arranging her pencils, reading her poems books in her pink room.
Now all that was over. An elephantine shudder ran up and down and sideways along her spine, and her rash reappeared. She had one month’s grace, a few horrible items with which to raise some revenue, and a wide-open life—that gaped like the loose trouser leg of a war-wrecked amputee—in front of her.
The Magical World of Madame Métier Page 3
