The Magical World of Madame Métier

by Daphne Rose Kingma

  The kiss had seemed like a blessing, a seal on the words he had spoken; yet it had also had a romantically delicious and quite titillating quality.

  Smilingly, she remembered it now, as in the quiet early evening, the fragrance of roses ascending through the high-paned windows of her bedroom, she sat on the bench at her small dressing table brushing her hair. She looked at herself in the mirror, trying to get a sense of herself. Her surface self, that is to say her appearance, appeared like a film almost in the mirror, but the inside things, that is to say her feelings, what she felt, imagined, and dreamed, she could see quite clearly. She could see, unmistakably, that she was happy, that she was delighted that she had been kissed.

  Feeling thus magically a-tingle, Madame Métier was quite surprised a few minutes later to hear the sound of a knock at the door.

  Hesitating a moment, she sashed up her red rose-dappled dressing gown and headed down the stairs, where she stood in front of the door until once again the knocking repeated itself. It had an inviting, almost lyrical quality about it and she wondered—she wished, in fact, momentarily that—possibility of all impossibilities—it was the knocking of the angel young man.

  Thinking and, impossibly, hoping this, she opened the door.

  CHAPTER 7

  Monsieur Sorbonne Is Surprised

  Monsieur Sorbonne was startled by the white-blonde apparition in rose-dappled silk who stood before him at the door. In fact, this woman so little resembled the woman whom months ago he had witnessed on the TeleVisions screen—she looked happier, prettier, softer, younger—to say nothing of being utterly unlike the two-horned, distractable, difficult woman whom Mademoiselle Objet had just described, and whom only moments ago he himself had been castigating on his couch at home, that for a moment he thought he had shown himself to the wrong door.

  “I don’t ordinarily take To-Be-Seens in the evening,” said the apparition. But if you’re having a special problem …” She paused, studying him for a moment, then immediately perceiving that not only his problem, but also he himself, was indeed quite special and unique, she said at once, “Please, come in.”

  She stood aside, and following a delicate but nonetheless insistent intuition, instead of shepherding him to the upstairs Seeing Room, allowed him to pass in front of her into the downstairs sitting room where, momentarily, she turned on a light.

  Monsieur Sorbonne was surprised. He had expected a chilly reception.

  “Sit down,” said Madame Métier, before he could so much as introduce himself, “I’ll bring us some tea.”

  Wearing his fine blue blazer and red silk handkerchief, Monsieur Sorbonne felt quite at home in this room of high white ceilings and beautiful multi-paned windows. Aside from the couch on which he was sitting and the low, glass-topped table which stood directly in front of it, it was entirely empty, creating a cathedral-like feeling. It was strange, he thought, how comfortable it felt, for ordinarily he should have wanted immediately, with art and artifacts, to fill up such a room, to civilize it with things. But for some reason in this particular instance, he was not so inclined.

  “In emptiness,” said Madame Métier, returning with a huge tea tray from the kitchen and setting it down on the marble-topped table, “there is room for so much.” She smiled and sat down. “You must be Monsieur Sorbonne, my Mademoiselle Objet’s life counterpart. I was just feeling that in the kitchen. I could feel your great equanimity,” she said, pouring out from the blue-flowered porcelain pot two cups of chamomile tea. “I feel always the calm of your presence around her, the blessing of your steadfast love. She’s as lucky to have you as I am lucky to have her.” She passed him a cache pot of trumpet vine honey. “We are all so terribly lucky to have one another,” she said.

  She looked at him. What a splendid handsome man he was. His dark hair and green eyes seemed precisely the color of Mademoiselle Objet’s, his stature and elegant manner of dress the perfect male counterpart to her exquisite loveliness. “It’s delightful,” she went on, “to think of you two together. You’re perfect for her. I’m so happy to meet you at last. What a unique and sacred pleasure.”

  Monsieur Sorbonne, who, on the way over, had been preparing a speech, indeed an attack, was now totally disarmed. Perhaps, though, this woman, like Mademoiselle Objet herself, would now go on endlessly talking. But just as he entertained this thought, she crossed her long legs and, drawing her white, dappled-with-roses silk dressing gown a little more tightly around her, sat quietly sipping her tea. From time to time, she lifted her eyes to the night-shrouded window and stared out at the faintly etched limbs of the tall chestnut trees as if there were messages in them.

  “I’m worried about her,” said Monsieur Sorbonne finally. Of all the words and paragraphs and epithets he had prepared, this single sentence was the only one he could muster.

  Madame Métier did not respond, but allowing a space in the air to encircle his words, waited for him to go on.

  He told her then about Mademoiselle Objet’s upsetness, her frustration with Madame Métier’s “rather unconventional ways,” as he diplomatically called them, his fear that, should she continue to be so upset, her hands would once again be scratched to ribbons.

  “I’m so very sorry,” said Madame Métier, setting her teacup down on the table. “I know this, and yet today, because of a crisis of my own, I became unable to know. Her help,” and here she paused for a moment, breathing deeply as if to embrace with her whole heart and mind the full magnitude of the benediction of Mademoiselle Objet’s energetic and organizing presence in her life, “is beyond what I could have ever imagined. Her very being here gives me the sense that what I am doing is right; and yet there are times—today, unfortunately, was one of them—when, for reasons of my own, I doubt.”

  “When one is tout seule—all alone—on a path,” she went on, “for which there is no precedent, no map, one can be easily driven to doubt—as I was only this morning; and each testing by doubt must be somehow encountered and transformed, alchemized, as it were, so that in place of the doubt there comes an even clearer vision of one’s calling.” She paused, looking off at the stars, which, in a multitude had pierced the night sky and were dotting the blue rectangles of the sitting room windows.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said now, turning to him once again and feeling at the corners of her eyes the slightly astringent sting of oncoming tears. “I am so very, very sorry that my crisis of faith should have constituted such a hardship for her. And for you.”

  So touched was he by her expressions in the matter that instantly, with his red silk handkerchief (precisely the red of the roses on her dressing gown, he noted), he dabbed away her tears.

  “I’m amazed myself, at times,” she went on, “how upended I can become in the presence of my own questions, until I go through them. Or,” she laughed not quite tinkingly, “until I allow them to go through me.”

  Beside her, Monsieur Sorbonne was transfixed. A great tranquility had settled in him. He put down his tea. He felt actually strange, as if all the wind of his intended assault had been knocked out of his sails, and yet he felt strangely whole, almost elevated for the moment. He could feel why being in Madame Métier’s presence was an absolute necessity for Mademoiselle Objet.

  “Your powers are from beyond the stars,” he said. “And you must never doubt them.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I thank you most greatly. My soul also thanks you most greatly.”

  It was clear to them both that their conversation had ended. Together, as if it had been choreographed in advance, they both stood up, and with the moon ascending like a shimmering coin in the window, Madame Métier showed Monsieur Sorbonne to the door.

  “By the way,” she said as she opened it for him to leave, “be sure to hold Mademoiselle Objet’s pretty hands tonight while you sleep.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Monsieur Sorbonne Has a Crisis of Faith

  Upon arriving at work the next morning, Monsieur Sorbonne felt strangely dep
rived. Having spent such a remarkable time with Madame Métier, everything he was doing seemed useless. What difference did it make if he sorted out and cataloged pot shards? Who cared if he could definitively distinguish an Anglo-Saxon from a Gaelic razor blade? Would people, en masse, stop filling the sky with burned oil or learn to keep their trash off the road? Would anyone’s spirit be lifted? Would anyone’s broken heart be healed?

  It seemed suddenly all so ridiculous, what he was doing—of no merit whatsoever. He felt utterly despairing. He had found a job that he thought would have meaning only to discover now its total meaninglessness.

  He was having, he realized, as he stared at the thick gray walls of his cell in the basement of the Artifacts Museum (which, suddenly, looked like the walls of a prison), a crisis of faith of his own. What was it Madame Métier had said to him only last evening? That each doubt must be encountered, alchemized, and transformed so that in its place there would come an even clearer vision of one’s calling.

  Well, here, certainly, was his doubt, a doubt of existential proportions, a dilemma with gigantic horns. But how could he, as she suggested, encounter, transform, let alone “alchemize”—to use her mysterious word—his own doubt? He hadn’t the slightest idea. Affected as he now was, he found himself completely unable to work. Therefore, although it was barely eleven o’clock in the morning, he closed up his room and went out on the streets for a walk.

  Outside, remarkably, the sun was shining. Monsieur Sorbonne had been in the dungeon of the Artifacts Museum for so long that he had forgotten about the sun. Now, as he walked down the boulevard crunching dry chestnut leaves on the sidewalk, it penetrated the threads of his blue woolen blazer, deliciously warming him.

  The sky was exquisitely blue. The clouds, their myriad shapes like a crowd of mysterious animals happily playing, were floating and rolling above him. He tried to encounter his doubt, but having escaped the confines of his cell, it now eluded him. He thought, too, of his darling, the ever-exquisite Mademoiselle Objet, of how sweet and childlike she was, of how innocently and completely she adored—on her good days—Madame Métier. He thought even of how delightfully explosive she was, of how her hands would always tell all, and her heart, therefore, was forever a wide-open book. Her vicissitudes affected him deeply. She had meaning to him.

  So too, now, did Madame Métier. He thought of the way that last night she had moved from deep speaking to laughter to tears, the way she had poured out the tea like a woman, and then stared off at the trees like a seer, the way she had spoken—and listened. He had never, he thought, been listened to so deeply, nor had he come forward himself with such striking, unusual words. He felt slightly disarranged now, as if he had somehow misplaced the map of his life and no longer knew where he was heading. But he did know one thing at least, something which only yesterday he had not known, and that was that whatever his life was really about, it was not about pot shards and old razor blades.

  Having rooted this new truth in himself (this, perhaps, was what Madame Métier had meant by “alchemizing” things), he felt remarkably calm. He walked back, acceptingly, to the Artifacts Museum, determined that somehow he would find a way to weave meaning into the fabric of his life.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mademoiselle Objet Is Happy to Return to Work

  Mademoiselle Objet was more than happy the next day to find herself back at work. It was amazing, the way her hands had become almost all better in the night. Monsieur Sorbonne really is so wonderful, she thought, the way he had made her the chamomile tea and put her to bed. She did get all too excited, over almost everything, and he did have a wonderful way of leveling her down.

  She was thinking all this as she sat, legs folded, pencil tap-tapping at the still-orderly table in the workroom when Madame Métier, looking refreshed and lovely herself, and bearing a tea tray, came in.

  “I am so very sorry,” she said, pouring two cups of lemon grass tea, “about yesterday. I have bad days, too. I had one yesterday—with my crisis of faith—but I do want you to know that your being here means the world to me. I couldn’t go on without you, and I do believe,”—she said it with a crinkle of hesitancy—“in spite of the monsters of doubt yesterday, that this is what I am meant to be doing.”

  “I’m so happy, so very, very happy to hear that,” said Mademoiselle Objet, “because I know it too! Your cremes are helping so many people—way more than you know. Why, I gave my landlord a jar of lily creme for his little girl last week. He always used to scare me with his ugly cut-off finger and his weird blue-mirrored glasses, but when I gave him the lily creme, he practically burst into tears. As long as I’ve known him, he’s been worried sick about his daughter. I think he was scared she was dying. He’d taken her to dozens of doctors, and still she could hardly breathe; but when he put your creme on her chest, she started breathing right again for the first time in six months.

  “Besides,” she went on, “I couldn’t stand it, not being here working with you.”

  Having finished their tea, they set to work. Madame Métier dictated while Mademoiselle Objet wrote out, in her delicate script, the answers to all the fan letters. She called, under Madame Métier’s direction, the TeleVisions station and scheduled, as she called it, “a calla lily appearance,” the first in a possible series about medicinal flowers. Together they organized the new tins, recorded several new recipes, and at the end of the day—where had all the hours gone?—they stopped for a final cup of raspberry tea and a plate of nasturtium leaf sandwiches.

  “You know,” said Mademoiselle Objet, refreshed and encouraged by having accomplished so much, “you really should have a plan for the future. We’re doing all these things every day, keeping up with the mail and the phone calls, and all the new recipes; but more people than just the To-Be-Seens should know about your work. You ought to go out and make speeches, have a TeleVisions series or write a book with all your recipes and teachings.”

  Madame Métier, sipping her tea, looked doubtful, but Mademoiselle Objet went on. “You’re a genius about inventing your cremes, but frankly, you live on a cloud. You don’t have any idea, just sitting up here in your workroom, sorting out your petals and twigs, what a hard time everyone’s having. People out there are desperate. People need soothing. Just look at me—my hands fall apart the minute I’m out of your presence!” She paused for a minute, gathering steam, but Madame Métier interrupted.

  “You’re talking about doing more,” she said, “I was just thinking about doing less.”

  “You can’t do less! You can’t have a crisis of faith! This is your calling! Stop doubting yourself and get back to work! You’re not just eccentric! You’re selfish!”

  Madame Métier was taken aback by this attack-like outpouring bordering on attack. But maybe Mademoiselle Objet was onto something. Perhaps writing or speaking could be a sort of external alchemizing of her doubts, and Mademoiselle Objet’s emotional outbursts the crucible in which her reluctance could finally be fired to gold.

  “Thank you,” she said, quietly. “I needed to hear these things.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Mademoiselle Objet Is Happy and Monsieur Sorbonne Is Unhappy

  Mademoiselle Objet was happy, but Monsieur Sorbonne was not happy that night when he headed home from work. In spite of his attempt at “alchemizing,” he had, in fact, had to return to the Artifacts Museum, where, as on all days before, all things remained the same. It was fine, he thought, to contemplate a change, to want it, hope for it, and even to expect it. But when, pray tell, did the alchemical results occur? Meanwhile, one went on mindlessly working.

  The lovely mademoiselle was poaching a poisson and carving up fleurets of carrots when, a little later than usual, he finally walked through the door. First silent, then pacing and fretful, he put away all his things and started changing his clothes. “What’s the point of it all?” she heard him mutter under his breath. “You work, you get paid, you buy suits, you pay your rent, you come home to the house you have rente
d, you get up and do it all over again. But what does it mean?”

  He was fuming, still pacing like a lion when he sat down to partake of the lovely poached poisson. But instead of taking so much as a bite, he said, “This is a beautiful dinner, but I can’t eat. I’m having a terrible day. What does it all mean?”

  “What does what mean?” asked Mademiselle Objet.

  “What does it mean that the work I do every day has no meaning? Nothing changes because I have done it. The world is no different. So what if the urns are all glued back together, if the razor blades are all organized and displayed,” he was now practically shrieking, almost in the manner, he noticed, of Mademoiselle Objet.

  “The things I once thought I loved—all the beautiful things, the artifacts and tools and equipments and esoteric machines—even they, when you really stop to think about it, even they don’t have any meaning.”

  “What do you mean by meaning?” asked Mademoiselle Objet, feeling a somewhat out of her depth, but deeply distressed by his deep discontent.

  “Meaning,” he said, exasperated. “You know what I mean! Value. Purpose. Permanence. Effect. The capacity to change the way things are. You know what I mean! Something that changes the way you feel, the way that you see things, something that lifts you up out of the pit of the daily. Something that ties you to the eternal. Something that touches the human heart.”

  He paused, as if finally he had said it all. He seemed relieved to have delivered all his words. He heaved a great sigh. “You give me meaning,” he said. “Just looking at you gives me joy. Discovering you at the Exposition of All Objects …” and here his voice became dreamy and distant, “was a miracle of meaning. When I found you I knew that my life would have purpose, but now, aside from looking at you”—and here he paused to look at her very deeply, to apprehend the sweet soul that lived behind her eyes—“I have no idea what that purpose might be.”