The Magical World of Madame Métier

by Daphne Rose Kingma

  Monsieur Sorbonne was not entirely dejected by the news, for it had been subterraneanly occurring to him that, as a man, he should have real work, a life’s calling—employment at least—as his raison d’etre. And it was now time—or long past time—that he should find his.

  Without waiting for further verbal flagellation from the salty Credit Guard, Monsieur Sorbonne, in a state of terror and sweet anticipation, returned to the hotel where, once again, he had agreed to consort with the lovely Mademoiselle Objet.

  CHAPTER 30

  Monsieur Sorbonne, at the Hotel, Contemplates His Condition

  Monsieur Sorbonne, sitting in a red velvet chair and through the hotel window perusing the leaf-shadow patterns on the boulevard below, was awaiting Mademoiselle Objet. He was in a rather sorry state. Now that he was home, that is to say, ensconced once again at the hotel, he felt frankly afraid about the future.

  Who would he be and what would he do without his Oblong Credit Card? He did, of course, have his new (old) camera, but how could the taking of photographs beome a life’s gainful work?

  There were, of course, thousands of things that one could take photographs of. There was the retouched family photograph sent out on family Christmas cards, the graduation yearbook shot, the engagement photo glamor pose. There were scenes, buildings, products, or, if a photographer for news, traffic jams, disasters, and catastrophes. But what could they all add up to in terms of paying one’s bills? Besides, there were already a thousand-and-one photographers plying their trade in the world.

  Thinking of them all out clacking their shutters for money, he wondered what he had done all these years. The shadows of the leaves were becoming slightly elongated now on the sidewalk on the boulevard, and it occurred to him for a moment, with uncharacteristic self-compassion, that for his entire life really, he had been in search of something—that his curiosity itself had been a search of the deepest, most inordinate kind. He had been looking—without quite knowing he was looking—for something that would give his life meaning. He had imagined that meaning would come through indulgence, through having and then more having. It had never occurred to him until precisely this minute—that meaning might arrive through finding his true vocation.

  As he composed himself around this insight, a feeling of peace descended upon him. He looked out the window. The shadows of the leaves were now virtually indistinguishable from the sidewalk below, so gray and still had the light become. He had the sense, deep and true, that in time, in a way that still eluded him, he would indeed discover his true life’s work.

  He rose to light a lamp on the far side of the room, and as he did he heard what he knew was the knocking of Mademoiselle Objet’s hand at the door.

  CHAPTER 31

  Mademoiselle Objet Returns to the Hotel

  When Mademoiselle Objet appeared in the hotel room, she was in a downhearted stew. She had been unable to locate Madame Métier in the hospital corridors and her search (conducted with her all the while scratching at the hateful rash) had been undertaken at such length, that when she returned from her elongated tea break she was informed by the management that, this being in a single month her second violation, tardy-wise, her employment at the Orphans’ Hospital had just been terminated.

  Before she could tell him any of this, she fell on Monsieur Sorbonne’s neck, embroidering the shoulder of his fine blue coat with tears. “What will we do? Ruin is upon us! Life isn’t fair,” she was practically shrieking.

  “Don’t worry,” said Monsieur Sorbonne, soothingly. “We’re together now. We’ll figure it out.”

  “We’re together!” wailed Mademoiselle Objet, “as if that in itself means anything!” It was wonderful, his saying that they were together, but it was awful, too. No employment and a rag-and-bone pile of a future—and by the way, how had it gone, she wondered, with the Oblong Credit Card? But before he could answer, she guessed. They hadn’t renewed it, had they? Just as she thought! This was just like at home with her father the drinker—life falling apart at the seams: unemployment, tragedy, disruption—and all these spontaneous ugly ailments on her hands. She felt like jumping out the window, she said, or blowing out her brains.

  Monsieur Sorbonne was stunned by this outburst. He had never before observed Mademoiselle Objet in such an emotional tenor; but then, as he reminded himself, he hadn’t known her that long either. Besides, he trivially observed to himself, life was full of surprises.

  He sat her down on a tufted red chair and dabbed at her eyes with his red silk handkerchief. It was remarkable, he observed to himself, how her outplay of hysteria had calmed his own existential tremors.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, a little shaken. “We’re together now, and a way will appear.” And with that he rang up Service-for-the-Rooms and ordered—although it was now nearly dark and many hours after teatime—a small pot of tea and a tray of cucumber sandwiches.

  The moment he hung up the phone, Mademoiselle Objet was smiling.

  What a mercurial temperament, he thought. One minute suicidal, the next as bright as a star.

  “I’m so happy,” she said. “I’m overjoyed. I can’t believe it—what you just said. You said ‘we!’ You said ‘we’re’ together! You said ‘we’ll’ solve everything. Does that mean that we are an us? Or that we could be? Or that maybe we already are?” She started jumping almost, up and down.

  Monsieur Sorbonne was shocked by her sudden enthusiasm. He was, if the truth be told, somewhat put off by the wildly gyrating emotions of Mademoiselle Objet, and was trying to incorporate these current explosions into his earlier softer impressions of her.

  The shy young Mademoiselle with the tears and the sweet little hands had become … a what? He wasn’t sure, but indeed she had seemed for a moment to be an out-and-out hysteric.

  Just then the Service-for-the-Rooms man knocked at the door and rolled in with a white-clothed table of cucumber sandwiches and tea. Mademoiselle Objet sat demure and lovely, waiting in grace while Monsieur Sorbonne signed the check and poured out the tea. “I’m so sorry for my outburst,” she said, as he handed her a cup. “It’s just that when things get out of control, so do I.” She sipped at her tea, trying to recompose herself. “I guess you didn’t know that about me,” she said. “Or did you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I didn’t,” said Monsiur Sorbonne. “But it doesn’t really matter. Because I love you anyway.”

  He was surprised to hear himself say this, surprised even more to notice that it felt true. Feeling the truth of it made him feel, suddenly, two other things. He felt happy. And responsible. She needed peace, this agitatable Mademoiselle Objet, and he seemed—just with his words—to be able to calm her. Perhaps, in a way that he had never had been able to before—he had made his mother and father unhappy simply by being born; he had made his uncle and aunt unhappy by never settling down—he could bring joy to another human being.

  Having poured his own tea, he sat down, once again, in his chair. He could no longer see the leaf shadows on the boulevard because the deep darkness had fallen, but in it he could see some things.

  “I think we should find a small house and make a life together,” he said.

  “You do? We should!? We can! That makes me so happy!” said Mademoiselle Objet. “Just hearing you say that makes me feel calm.”

  “Yes, I do,” said Monsieur Sorbonne. “We should. We can. And we will. But now, let’s sleep. We’ll work it all out in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Mademoiselle Objet and Monsieur Sorbonne Make Some Plans

  In the beautiful morning—the soleil was shining, the birds were twitting in the trees—Monsieur Sorbonne and Mademoiselle Objet agreed that she would go out and look for a house. She was the Mademoiselle of All Objects after all, and a house, in a sense, was an object, although an exceptionally big one. She would know just what it should look like and just where it could be found. Meanwhile, he would go out and look for a job, attempt to acquire gainful employment.

>   Since he was a man, he thought once again, as he soaped his head in the shower with vetiver shampoo, he had to find a job. A man’s job was having a job, after all. To only the gifted and predestined few fell the privilege of having not just a job, but that most rarefied form of gainful employment, a meaningful life’s work, a métier.

  With the one-hundred-dollar check that Monsieur Sorbonne had drawn against the dwindling balance of the Oblong Credit Card, Mademoiselle Objet set out on her quest. She was tiptoey happy because she knew she could accomplish it. Never had there been an object, no matter its size or purpose, whose whereabouts had eluded her (except for the TV-silencing earmuffs, which had occasioned her meeting with Monsieur Sorbonne). She was happy because she liked the idea of starting a new life with him. She liked his blue blazer and his red silk handkerchief. She liked the way he commandeered the Service for the Rooms. She liked the way his words could deliver her to calm.

  Monsieur Sorbonne—and this he managed to conceal—was not quite so happy, however. He was, in fact, quietly mourning the loss of his Oblong Credit Card, a friend, as it were, which had brought much joy to his life (fine tureens of soup, fresh crayfish, astronomy equipment)—and woefully contemplating what he could only construe to be the ignominy of having to go out and look for a job.

  Nevertheless, he put on his fine blue blazer, fastened the red silk handkerchief in its pocket and, having kissed Mademoiselle Objet good-bye, went out to seek his fortune.

  CHAPTER 33

  Mademoiselle Objet Goes Out to Look for a House

  When Mademoiselle Objet went down to the streets, she went at once to the Newspaper Vendor’s corner. It was only 10 a.m. but she knew—because she knew these things—that at 10:18 or thereabouts, the new newspapers for the day would be delivered to the corner.

  She also knew that anyone having a house to rent or share or sell or trade would have placed an ad in the paper, and that anyone wanting to rent or share or borrow or buy a house would look at the paper long before five o’clock when the papers would be hand-delivered to all the local subscribers.

  She smiled. She was tap-tapping her toes at the Paper Vendor’s Stand. Such things as this—lying in wait like a bandit for the papers to be delivered—brought forward another, as-yet-unknown to Monsieur Sorbonne, somewhat barracuda-like aspect of Mademoiselle Objet’s personality. For when it came to objects, and in particular to objects that had or would come to have a purpose, Mademoiselle Objet was a wizard of one-pointed focus.

  She could smell, feel, think, or blink her way into the presence of the desired item, obtain it with dispatch, and put it to use on the day, in exactly the way that would make her life (or anyone else’s) resoundingly improved.

  “Doing objects,” as she called it, seemed to be her purpose in life. Even arranging the pencils in the hospital had been a source of delight. It was people, who seemed to turn everything upways and sidewards, that gave her the problems. People—with rules and ways and ideas and notions particular to themselves. Unlike objects, people could change on a whim, be perfectly kind and nice one day and then, on another, be some way entirely different. It was this, she supposed, the changing emotional tides all around her, that brought on her terrible rash. As well as from time to time, she had to admit, her own emotional monsoons. People, alas, were trés compliqué. Unlike objects, she never could get them quite exactly in line.

  But how and for whom would she arrange things now that she was no longer straightening pencils in the Orphan Children’s Hospital? Monsieur Sorbonne, to be sure, had various things to arrange—his clothes, the camera, a telescope, some naval instruments—but he seemed to know how to arrange things for himself. His things were already carefully stacked in the hotel broom closet (as they must have been on his boat), with no need, it seemed, for her intervention.

  She was thus engaged in twirling her mind when the newspapers truck arrived and a man, unseen, slung out a strung-up bundle to the papers-vending man, who speedily untied them.

  Mademoiselle Objet took out her monies at once and no sooner had she exchanged them for a paper than she was off to a park bench she knew of (park benches, too, were objects she adored). Minutes later she sat with her pen poised over the Ads-for-Houses section. She marked three and numbered them 3, 2, 1, then headed, pronto, for a phone booth, where, in order, she called them all and made a trio of appointments.

  House #3 was a converted greenhouse under an aging citronella tree. It had four rooms, the largest of which was a bathroom the size of a volleyball court. This, with plumbing, had apparently been the original greenhouse, and the three other rooms, lean-tos with closets, had been added on. She thanked the owner, but no thank you, and moved hastily on to #2 which, according to #2’s owner, had just been rented to someone whom he had supposed was Mademoiselle Objet. (A young woman had come within minutes of Mademoiselle Object’s conversation with him, and so he had assumed that she was Mademoiselle Objet— with whom he had just been talking.

  “Well, you could have just asked her, point blank,” said Mademoiselle Objet—“if she was me—or herself.”

  “Some people don’t know the difference,” snapped the owner, and stomped off in a huff.

  People again, thought Mademoiselle Objet, just turning things—without any warning at all—so totally sideways up. As she had this thought, her rash began, ferociously, to itch, and once again she scratched it, drawing blood.

  The third house, which was in fact #1 on her list, was distinctly hard to find. It was on a road that loop-zig-zagged around, then went up a small hill. If her object-senses hadn’t been so thoroughly developed, Mademoiselle Objet would never have found it at all, for it was not on the streetline proper, but under a high wrought-iron arch suspended between two pillars on a narrow private lane.

  Outside the little house and leaning up against its front wall was a slightly scary-looking man. He was wearing mirrored blue sunglasses and a black leather jacket with oversized zippers edging its wide lapels. With his four-fingered right hand—its pointer digit was missing (and, as Mademoiselle Objet observed, had been quite raggedly cut off)—he was smoking a long, brown cigarette.

  Put off, somewhat, by his appearance, Mademoiselle Objet was about to turn around and depart, when, in the nicest of voices, he said, “Aren’t you the young woman who just phoned about the house?” People again, she was thinking. You just never could tell. You simply couldn’t expect them to be the way they appeared, how you thought they were or wanted them to be. How troubling, she thought. How truly unnerving and odd.

  “I am,” she said, turning away and once again attempting to leave, but the scary-looking man went on:

  “Don’t go away! I know my finger looks awful. People are always upset when they see it. I’m a carpenter—I shredded it on a chainsaw. A miracle really—my trigger finger—it kept me from going to war.”

  “I see,” said Mademoiselle Objet, yet again trying to get away.

  “Wouldn’t you like to see the house? I know that’s what you came for. Come,” he said, and graciously opened the door.

  The minute she stepped inside, Mademoiselle Objet was enchanted. The little house, which had once been a caretaker’s quarters, consisted of four quite small but utterly exquisite rooms, the largest of which was the blue high-ceilinged living room. It had tall narrow windows with floating half-moons at their tops through which she could see the tall waving fronds of some huge extraordinary plants. The kitchen was tiny, but nicely arranged with cupboards and shelves of interesting sizes and shapes. The bedroom was small, but it too was lit by two narrow windows which also had floating half-moons at their tops, and the bathroom wasn’t a squash court; it was the size of a bathroom.

  “Do you like it?” asked the scary-looking man. “If you do, then I hope you’ll take it right now. My little girl’s sick. I’ve been up with her almost all night and I’m worried half to death. I’d like you to have it—you and the man that you mentioned. You’d be good neighbors, I can tell. Just give me
a little deposit, a hundred dollars or so, and you can move in tomorrow.”

  How had it happened so fast? For a minute Mademoiselle Objet was worried—what kind of a landlord would he be? But then he smiled and handed her the key and showed her how to turn the lock. Then with his raggedy-fingered hand he shook her exquisite hand and said that, if she didn’t mind, he’d like to go back inside now. “I need to get back to my baby,” he said. “She’s in there alone and she’s scared—I can feel it. And soon she’ll be crying.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Monsieur Sorbonne Looks for a Job

  Monsieur Sorbonne was depressed. He was himself, in fact, teetering on the brink of hysteria. He simply could not, although he had promised, look for a job, however one did it, whatever it took.

  That settled, he headed for the Artifacts Museum. It was in a magnificent old building, the ancient elegiac dimensions of which sublimely affected his eyes. As he entered the huge glass doors laid over with exquisite wrought iron work, peace descended upon him. He walked up the old marble staircase and instantly he felt at home. He went to Gallery 13, where, for a month a collection of Gaelic razor blades (and other wrought iron personal items) were on display. He was transfixed by them all, by their ancientness, the ingenuity of their design, the fact that forever in time, human beings for no reason whatsoever and for every reason had been creating beautiful things.

  Monsieur Sorbonne moved on from gallery to gallery, like a dancer lost in an ever-so-intricate choreography until, amazed, he looked at his watch and discovered that it was already four-thirty in the afternoon.