As she started in on her usual rant, Monsieur Sorbonne found it impossible to contain himself. “That’s right,” he said, a little testily. “You do not know what’s happening and it’s none of your business! You think the whole world revolves around you, your objects and schedules—the way that you want everything. But it doesn’t! Everybody has circumstances. Everybody’s going through something. Don’t be so self-centered. Don’t be so controlling. You’re mean and judgmental and selfish and spoiled! Things change. People change. Reality …” He could feel himself revving up, moving toward or standing up on a sort of invisible soap-box, and although he was slightly surprised at himself, he pressed on …
“I’ve changed. You’ve changed. Everything’s changing for everyone. Nothing is what it used to be. I used to think life was all about things—artifacts and cornices and balconies. But it isn’t. It’s about people. It’s about the inner things. I learned that myself yesterday, taking all those photographs—that vanished—of Madame Métier.”
Beside him on the couch, Mademoiselle Objet had slightly calmed down, or perhaps he had subdued her with his speech. Never before had he been so outspoken to her about herself, and never before had she been so receptive to his words. “Stop trying to run the world. It’s not your job!” he said, finally. “Your job is to think about somebody else! To be patient. To serve. You’re working for Madame Métier and she’s giving something to the world. Stop criticizing and get to work!”
He paused for a moment and gathered his breath. “Besides,” he added, “you do not know what’s happening. And maybe it’s something wonderful for our dear Madame Métier.”
CHAPTER 5
Madame Métier Is in Love
It was well after noon when, finally, Madame Métier got dressed and made up the bed. The fragrance of Monsiuer L’Ange still lingered ever so slightly in the sheets, and as she smoothed them out, in a distinctly non-utilitarian way, her hands received from their fine cotton threads a remembrance of the sorrow and the beauty which only last night she had experienced in their midst.
She was utterly unable to work. She wondered, in fact, if she would ever again be able to work. She had been upended by Monsieur L’Ange, by his quiet strength, his purity, his knowing, mysterious words, the sorrow wrapped like wings around him. He had opened her to the joy of herself. She had fallen in love with him.
She had never before been in love, but now, finally, she felt in love. She could feel the deep sweetness of something so endlessly longed-for having at last been given to her, a joy quite separate from achievement, from even the sacred satisfaction of her work. The slow, tight-folded petals of some ancient beautiful flower had started to blossom within her. She could think only of Monsieur L’Ange, how he had come to her, how he would leave, what they would do in the meantime.
As in the wake of the doctor’s death, though now for different reasons, she decided to go shopping. She wanted to bloom, to be beautiful for him. As she walked through the streets, she walked right past the Flowers Stand. Nothing, especially the wilted flowers, seemed to be of interest to her. What before had tantalized and intrigued, reminded her of her father, caused her fingers to itch, her imagination to scheme, now seemed to hold no attraction. In fact, except for some long-stemmed red roses, it seemed that her passion for flowers had almost entirely vanished.
Madame Métier had finished her shopping. She had bought black and red and pale ivory-colored lingeries, three matching sets, each embroidered with flowers and cut-out fine lace. The red was for joy, the ivory for her pale skin, and the black—she didn’t want to think about what the black was for. As she stood at the counter, paying for all her new lingeries, she noticed a pair of silk emerald-green stockings. When would she ever wear them, she wondered? She had no idea, but something about them enchanted her, and so, impulsively, she bought them.
“You look so beautiful, picking out lingerie,” said a voice. Madame Medtier had just picked up her pacquets and was walking out of the store, when out on the sidewalk, Monsieur L’Ange accosted her. In his right hand, wrapped in green florist’s paper, he carried a huge bouquet of long-stemmed red roses, which, kissing her tenderly on the lips, he handed to her.
“I thought you might like some fresh flowers,” he said. “Flowers not to make cremes with, but just to enjoy.”
CHAPTER 6
Madame Métier and Monsieur L’Ange Have Another Encounter
She felt strange, later, when they were lying in bed. They had gone out to dinner and then had come home. They had had some tea in the living room and then they had walked up the stairs. In the half-light, in a crystal vase, she had arranged the red roses and placed them on the dresser.
Wordless, then, they slipped into the bed, the light of a half-moon shadowing the curtains, ever so faintly quicksilvering the room. In the shimmering stillness she stretched out beside him, laid her head on his chest while he wrapped his enfolding arms around her and lovingly clasped her to him.
It was there, lying ever so close to him—she could feel the poetry of his heartbeat through the bony cage of his ribs, iamb after iamb in the dark—it was there, as she lay still beside him, breathing out, breathing in, feeling the feel of his hair, inhaling the sweet sharp fragrance of his skin, that once again she began to see certain things:
On a desert, yellow sand, and sand clouds up-blowing in the wind. The forward charge of hundreds of horses, pale horses with red embroidered blankets, moody dark eyes. Hoofs pounding, stampeding, stamping three-quarter-round imprints in the sand. Now galloping toward them, and him riding on at her side, his face so close that for a minute she could see him, read his blue eyes beneath the burnoose. Then, out of nowhere, off to the right, a javelin hurled, steel glinting, inches from her, flying through air. But he had fallen already, pierced from behind, and then she fell too, and from where she had fallen and lay on the sand, hooves pounding above her, around her, on every side—on her chest, on her arms, on her eyes, bloody eyes—she looked up from the floor of the desert to see his body arch backward, receiving the charge, then watched him crumple, then fold, then fall forward, then backward again, then sideways, then down altogether, until he was lost in a forest of horses’ legs pounding, galloping over him, trampling, crushing, until his body was nothing more than a carpet of blood on the sand.
She twitched, half-dozing, and let out a small little scream.
“You’re dreaming,” he said. “Don’t worry. I’m here. I’m right here with you.” With his great hand he smoothed and smoothed out her hair, until she slept once again. And dreamed once again.
A river by moonlight, arched over by still almost winter-bare trees, their branches atangle with buds of spring green, and she in a blue velvet dress, lace petticoats lifted, sitting there on the banks of the river, sitting there on her dapple-gray horse. The smell of wet woolen blankets, pressed leaves, crushed violets in the rain. She could see the white trillium, bent-over hats of striped jack-in-the-pulpits, tri-partite leaves of spring wintergreen, and the river so deep, so blue-black with huge rocks up-jutting. And him—he was there too, in a fine suit of armor, sword harsh-clattering, horse’s hind end up-rearing against the fast-rushing current, as he kept crossing and trying to cross the wide river, rocks churning up against his horse’s dark legs, battering them, battering him. Then in the sky, thunder and lightening. Then, against the white-foaming current, him trying again to cross the wild river, to come to her there, where she waited for him, there on the banks, far down on the opposite side of the river. And minute by minute, him becoming more distant, the current more raging, dragging him farther and farther downriver, until in the black night welter of water, chain mail dragging, armor loud-clanking, she watched as he fell down and into and under the surging black water, the great brown mound of his horse’s hind end rising up like a brown huge stone in the roiling black water. Then the horse’s loud whinny and moan. Then more lightening and her scream.
She screamed then. In her sleep, she started again.
“I’m here, I’m still here,” he whispered, holding her now, again, more closely, her head on his chest, her folded-up hand gathered into his folded-up hand until she slept once again.
She was in a hospital—or was it a cathedral?—so high were the walls, so high to high heaven, and the windows jewel-like. And there was a vaulted high ceiling of blue, painted over with little gold stars, and a long walking aisle from the front to the doors. There were people beside her, a man all in black—a doctor perhaps, or a priest, with a cross—or was it a stethoscope?—around his neck, and a plain white tablet on which were written no words. And he, Monsieur L’Ange, in the front of the church, was laid out on a catafalque—or was it a bed?—she couldn’t tell. But there was a woman, older, with white-blonde hair who stood beside the man all in black—the priest? the doctor?—and she was weeping. A younger woman, holding a white lace handkerchief, and a younger man were standing there also, next to the woman with white-blonde hair, who was quietly weeping, who was wearing green stockings and a red dress.
Then, with the beautiful woman behind him, the doctor? the priest? stepped over to—the catafalque?—the bed?—and placing the—stethoscope?—the cross?—on the heart of the man laid out, he listened, then removed it. Then, gesturing to the woman, who stepped up beside him, he set two coins on the dead man’s eyes and pulled the sheet up over his face. Then, as if they had all enacted this before, as if it were all just a play in which, for the hundredth time they were starring, he lifted a pen and wrote some words on the plain white tablet. Then he turned to the empty long walking aisle and pronounced the words: “The King is Dead.”
In her sleep now, quietly, tears, a small rivulet of sobbing. “I have watched you …” she said, extricating herself from his arms, sitting up a little on the pillows, and touching his living face beside her, which, in the moonlight now was waxen, immemorially familiar, “I have watched you …” she said it through a soft well of tears, “… I have watched you die so many times before.”
“I know,” he said. “And you are so beautiful, always, when you watch me die.” He laughed a little and, unexpectedly, she laughed, too. Then she fell back on the pillows and into his gathering strong embrace, until dreamless, in his arms, she slept.
CHAPTER 7
Mademoiselle Objet Has An Awakening
Penitent the next morning, Mademoiselle Objet arrived on time for work. She had been set straight, as it were, by Monsieur Sorbonne, and she was determined to squelch whatever outbursts might try to rise up within her. He was right—things had, and must—change, and her need to control everything, to always have things be her way, that also needed to change.
Monsieur L’Ange had already left. He had risen early, and kissing Madame Métier on the cheeks and lips, had quietly stolen out of the room. Having slept a strange sorrowful sleep, Madame Métier had awakened surpringingly refreshed. It was as if through the strange tableau of her dreams she had been given to see everything—Monsieur L’Ange and the many times she had already lost him. And seeing that she had lived through the loss and that he was still here—was here once again—she felt strangely at peace.
So affected though was she by what she had dreamt, that now everything and nothing mattered. She no longer cared about what Mademoiselle Objet would think, how she might react or even if, in a fit, she would leave. In her body, now, she felt a strange new energy. Inspired, though just beneath the surface, sad, she moved through her room with a studied peacefulness, picking things up, quietly making the bed.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Mademoiselle Objet a few minutes later when, dressed in blue silk, her hair nicely combed, her face suffused with radiance, she entered the workroom. “I’m very sorry about not coming to work yesterday. I know I’m difficult. I know that every day everything’s different—and I know all that’s the worst for you—someone like you who likes everything perfect—it’s just that …”
But Mademoiselle Objet interrupted her. “It’s just that you have your own circumstances, and something wonderful’s happened for you. I already know! That’s why you’re acting so strange. And it’s none of my business. I know that, too.”
Hearing this, Madame Métier was amazed. “Yes, yes, actually it has,” she said. She wondered whether, in detail, she should explain, but when she looked at Mademoiselle Objet, she saw in her eyes a quite unfamiliar composure, and she knew that explaining was unnecessary. The actual facts were unimportant, because clearly, Mademoiselle Objet had changed.
Madame Métier was amazed. For a minute she didn’t know whether or not to believe what she had just seen, but when she looked once again she could see it was true. Indeed, it was as if every cell in Mademoiselle Objet’s body had taken on a slightly different coloration. Her entire being now gave off an air of acceptance—of willingness and openness and thoughtfulness and calm.
Taking in the miracle of Mademoiselle Objet’s quite obvious transformation, Madame Métier was quietly overjoyed. There were moments in life—and this she knew was one of them—of infinite grace, when suddenly, for no apparent reason, a conflict is resolved, when, from the back room or the basement of another person’s consciousness, a new awareness arises, so that all the pains of the past can be laid down, and a whole new chapter can begin.
“I’m sorry, too,” said Mademoiselle Objet, confirming Madame Métier’s perception.”I’m sorry I’ve always been so impatient.”
“It’s true,” said Madame Métier. “You haven’t always been patient with me, but you have always been most unbelievably helpful; and for that I am infinitely grateful.”
“Well, I’m glad that at least I could help, even though I’m so willful and selfish.”
Madame Métier was stunned, and was about to disagree, but Mademoiselle Objet barreled on, “And impatient and controlling and self-centered and judgmental and mean! That’s what Monsieur Sorbonne told me last night. I want things my way and no other way. I’m spoiled!”
“You have been,” said Madame Métier quietly, “but you’ve changed. Today, just now, in saying these things, you have gone past your old self. Last night you listened with your heart and recognized the truth, and today, already, the light of compassion has started to come in.” She smiled at Mademoiselle Objet, and embraced her, and for a moment Mademoiselle Objet could feel in her brain a tingling molecular effervescence, the derangement, it seemed, of the last of her discontents.
“I am sorry,” she said, a few minutes later, joining Madame Métier at the workroom table, “truly sorry for the way I’ve been, but now that I’ve changed,”—she laughed a little, then became suddenly almost parental—“I have a few things to say. You do need to work. I know you don’t want to. I know that you’re tired. I know you just want to be a free spirit, but you can’t be. You have a great work—a great métier,”—and here she laughed a little again—“and you have no idea how many people are going to be transformed by it. You need to listen! You need to hear me once and for all! You think it’s your cremes, all this calla lily and saxifrage nonsense that heals everyone. But it isn’t. It’s your presence, your essence. It’s you!”
CHAPTER 8
Monsieur Sorbonne Is Content
Having claimed the new strength in himself because of how he had spoken to Mademoiselle Objet, feeling the residue of light in his body from having photographed Madame Métier, and having received the onslaught from the Curator Chief in a state of composure, Monsieur Sorbonne was also changed.
No longer did anything matter. Or rather, it all now mattered differently. What no longer mattered was his work, his gainful employment, the endless demanding and boring particulars of it. He had no passion for it anymore, no overweening concern. Instead he saw it simply as a job, and he did it. No longer enslaved by Etruscan crumbs or Peruvian pot shards, now when his eight hours were done, he quietly locked up his crypt and went out walking with his camera, his third intelligent eye, until he could see—that is to say, be moved so deeply by something—that he felt compell
ed to record it.
He found a great satisfaction in this, and each time his photographs were developed—a beautiful face, a body elegantly in motion, the encounter of two lovers, children imagining things—he made a large portfolio of them. In time, he showed them all to Mademoiselle Objet, who was quietly astonished by them. And when he saw the pride in her eyes as she admired his work, he felt moved once again, to photograph her. So it was that often, on a Saturday or Sunday, in the pale gray light that fell in through the high curved windows of their little house, with music playing in the background, her eyes to the sky, her hands to her cheeks, sitting, knees folded, arms wrapped around her legs, he would once again capture the soul of the lovely Mademoiselle Objet.
Such joy did he feel in all this, such a quiet refined contentment that Mademoiselle Objet in his presence also always could feel it.
“You’re happy now, aren’t you?” she asked him one night before they went to sleep.
“Yes,” he said.
“Why are you happy?” she asked.
“Because you love me. Because you have found peace. Because from time to time I can photograph Madame Métier and sit in her presence. Because at last I have found a life’s work with meaning.” So saying, he reached out beneath the soft blankets and sheets and took hold of her hand. Then, blissfully, holding her pretty hand, he fell asleep.
CHAPTER 9
Madame Métier Confesses
Basking in Mademoiselle Objet’s new peacefulness, Madame Métier became more organized. Now every morning she came in on time to the workroom. Each day she had sort of a plan, an overview of what needed to be done. Rather than always running off, disappearing at noon in her red bathing suit, she attended to her work. She could attend to her work, she knew, because in the background hours after work, she was enjoying Monsieur L’Ange—walking and talking, waking and sleeping, making love with him.
The Magical World of Madame Métier Page 18
