Blow-Up (18 page)

F
or some time now it’s been a problem lighting the fire. The matches are not as good as they used to be, now you have to hold them head down and hope that the flame has some force to it; the kindling arrives damp, and no matter how often I tell Frederic to bring me dry logs, they always smell wet and do not take well. Since my hands started shaking, everything is more of a problem. Before, I could make a bed in two seconds, and the sheets would look and feel as though they’d just been ironed. Now I have to make my way around and around the bed, and madame Beauchamp gets irritable and says that if they’re paying me by the hour it’s not to waste time
smoothing out one wrinkle here and another there. And all that fuss because my hands shake, and because the sheets today are not like they used to be, not so solid and heavy. Doctor Lebrun says there’s nothing wrong, only I have to be very careful, not to catch cold and to go to bed early. “And that glass of wine every now and then, eh, madame Francinet? It would be better if we eliminated that, and the pernod before lunch also.” Doctor Lebrun is a young doctor and his ideas are very good for young people. In my day, nobody would have said that wine was bad for one. But after that, I don’t drink, not what you’d call drinking, like that Germaine on the third floor, or that animal Felix, the carpenter. I don’t know why that reminds me now, that poor monsieur Bébé, the night he made me drink a glass of whiskey. Monsieur Bébé! Monsieur Bébé! In the kitchen at madame Rosay’s apartment the night of the party. I used to go out a lot then, still even while I was working house to house. Mr. Renfeld’s place was one, at the sisters’ who taught piano and violin, a lot of places, all of them very nice houses. Now I can hardly make it three times a week at madame Beauchamp’s, and it looks like that’s not going to last long. My hands shake so badly, and madame Beauchamp gets irritable with me. These days, madame Rosay would never give me a recommendation, nor would madame Rosay come herself looking for me, now monsieur Bébé would not talk with me in the kitchen. No, especially not monsieur Bébé.

When madame Rosay came to my house it was already afternoon, and she didn’t stay more than a few minutes. To be frank, my house consists of a single room, but I have a kitchen in the back and what I have left over of the furniture from when George died and I had to sell everything, it seems to me I have the right to call it my house. In any case, there’re three chairs, and madame Rosay removed
her gloves, sat down and said that the room was small but pleasant. I wasn’t very impressed with madame Rosay, though I would have preferred to have been better dressed. She took me by surprise, and I had on the green skirt that the sisters had given me. Madame Rosay was not looking at anything, I mean that she looked and immediately looked away, as though to disengage herself from what she’d just seen. Her nose wrinkled a little; probably the onion smell bothered her (I love onions) or the smell of cat-piss. Poor Minouche. But I was pleased that madame Rosay should have come, and told her so.

“Ah yes, madame Francinet. I also am very happy to have found you, I’m so busy …” She screwed up her nose as if housework smelled bad. “I would like to ask you to … that is to say that madame Beauchamp thought that perhaps you might have Sunday night free.”

“Well, naturally,” I said. “What can you do on Sunday after attending mass? I go to Gustave’s for a while, and then …”

“Of course,” madame Rosay said. “If you’re free Sunday, I’d like you to help me around the house. We’re giving a party.”

“A party? Congratulations, madame Rosay.” But that seemed to offend her somehow and she got up suddenly.

“You would help in the kitchen, there’s a good deal to do there. If you can come at seven, my butler will give you the necessary instructions.”

“Naturally, madame Rosay.”

“This is my address,” and she gave me a cream-colored calling card. “Will five hundred francs be all right?”

“Five hundred francs.”

“We’ll say six hundred. You’ll be free at midnight and there’ll be time to catch the last metro. Madame Beauchamp told me that you are to be trusted.”

“Oh, madame Rosay!”

When she was gone I near had to laugh, thinking that I’d almost offered her a cup of tea (I would have had to look for a cup that wasn’t chipped). Sometimes I don’t pay attention to who it is I’m talking to. Only when I go to a lady’s house I hold my tongue and talk like a maid. It must be because I’m nobody’s maid in my own house, or because it feels as though I were still living in our little three-room backyard house, when George and I were working in the factory and never lacked for anything. Perhaps by dint of scolding at poor Minouche, who makes pee-pee under the stove, it seems to me I am also a lady like madame Rosay.

Just as I was going to go into the house, I almost lost the heel off one shoe. Right away I said, “Good luck come, hum, hum, wanton whoreson devil begone.” And I pushed the bell.

A gentleman with grey side-whiskers like in the theater came out and told me to come in. It was a very, very large apartment that smelled like floorwax. The gentleman with the side-whiskers was the butler and smelled of benzoin.

“At last,” he said and hurried to make me follow him down a hallway that led to the servant’s quarters. “The next time you’ll call at the door on the left.”

“Madame Rosay didn’t tell me anything.”

“The lady doesn’t have to think about those things. Alice, this is madame Francinet. You’ll give her one of your aprons.”

Alice brought me to her room on the other side of the kitchen (and what a kitchen) and gave me an apron that was too big for me. It looked like madame Rosay had given her the job of explaining everything to me, but at the beginning the business about the dogs seemed to be a mistake and I stood looking at Alice, Alice had a wart right under her nose. In crossing the kitchen everything in
sight was so lavish and shiny that just the idea of being there that night shining up the crystal and preparing the trays of hors d’oeuvres that they eat in such homes, seemed to me it was better than going to the theater or to the country. Probably that was why, at the beginning, I didn’t understand the business about the dogs, and I stood there looking at Alice.

“Mmm, yeah,” Alice said, she was from Brittany and you couldn’t miss it. “The missus said so.”

“But why me? That gentleman with the whiskers, couldn’t he take care of the dogs?”

“Mr. Rodolos is the head butler,” Alice said, with holy veneration.

“Well, if not him, then anyone. I don’t understand why me.”

Alice suddenly grew insolent.

“And why not, madame …?”

“Francinet, at your service.”

“…  madame Francinet? It’s not strenuous work. Fido is the worst, Miss Lucienne has spoiled him terribly …”

She went on explaining to me, all friendly again, like jello.

“Cube sugar every minute and holding it in her lap. Monsieur Bébé ruins him too, whenever he comes, he pets and fondles him a lot, you know … But Médor is very good, and Fifine won’t budge out of her corner.”

“In that case,” I said, so my astonishment wouldn’t show, “there are a lot of dogs.”

“Mmm, sure, a lot of them.”

“In an apartment!” I said, I was indignant and couldn’t hide it. “I don’t know what you think about it, madame …”

“Mademoiselle.”

“Pardon me. But in my day, mademoiselle, the dogs
lived in the dog kennels, and well might I say so, because my late husband and I had a house next to a gentleman’s villa where …” But Alice did not let me finish the explanation. Not that she would say anything, but you could see that she was impatient and that’s something I notice very quick in people. I stopped, and she began to tell me how madame Rosay adored dogs, and that her husband put up with all her tastes. And, too, there was their daughter, who had inherited the same leanings.

“The young lady is crazy about Fido, and sure as anything, she’ll buy a female of the same breed so they can have puppies. Now there’re no more than six: Médor, Fifine, Fido, Tiny, Chow, and Hannibal. Fido is the worst, Miss Lucienne has spoiled him terribly. Don’t you hear him? Absolutely sure that’s him barking in the reception hall.”

“And where will I have to stay to take care of them?” I asked with an unprejudiced air, so that Alice shouldn’t think that I felt offended.

“Mr. Rodolos will take you to the dogs’ room.”

“Unhuh, so the dogs have their own room?” I was as natural as possible. It was not Alice’s fault, really, but the truth of the matter is I would have liked to have boxed her ears a couple of times, then and there.

“Of course they have their own room,” Alice said. “Madame wants the dogs to sleep each one on his own mattress, and they’ve fixed up a room for just them. We’ve already brought up a chair so you can sit and take care of them.”

I fixed the apron as best I could and we went back to the kitchen. Just at that moment another door swung open and in came madame Rosay. She had on a blue dressing gown trimmed in white fur and her face full of creams. She looked like a piece of pastry, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. But she was very friendly and you could see that my arrival was a relief to her.

“Ah, madame Francinet. Alice will already have explained to you what your duties are. Perhaps later you’ll be able to help out with some other light duty, drying glasses or something similar, but the main thing is to keep my darlings quiet. They are luscious dears, but they don’t know how to behave together, and especially not all by themselves, and I cannot
tolerate
the idea that Fido might bite poor little Chow, or that Médor …” she lowered her voice and came a little closer. “Besides, you must watch Tiny very closely, she’s a Pomeranian with lovely eyes. It seems to me that … well, the moment is coming when … and I wouldn’t want Médor or Fido … do you understand? Tomorrow I’ll take her out to our estate, but until then I want her watched very closely. And I wouldn’t know where else to keep her except with the others in their room. The poor darling, so delicate! I couldn’t stand having her away from me all night. They won’t give you any trouble, you’ll see. On the contrary, you’re going to have a good time, you’ll see how intelligent they are. I shall come up now and then to see how everything’s going.”

I realized that was more of a warning than a friendly offer, but madame Rosay continued smiling under the flower-scented cream.

“My daughter Lucienne will come up also, naturally. She can’t be without her Fido. She even sleeps with him, can you imagine …” But this last part she was saying to someone she’d just thought of, for at the same time she turned around to leave and I didn’t see her again. Alice, leaning against the table, was looking at me with an idiotic expression. It’s not that I despise people, but she was looking at me with that idiot expression.

“What time is the party?” I asked, realizing that without thinking I was continuing to speak in madame Rosay’s tone of voice, her way of putting questions a little to one
side of a person, as though she were asking them of a coatrack or a doorway.

“It’s going to begin now,” Alice said, and Mr. Rodolos, who was coming in at that moment brushing a speck of dust from his black suit, agreed to this with an air of importance.

“Yes, no time to waste,” he said, with a hand-sign to Alice to get busy with several lovely silver trays. “Monsieur Fréjus and monsieur Bébé are already here, and they want cocktails.”

“They always come so early, those two,” said Alice. “And they drink, too … I explained everything to madame Francinet, and madame Rosay told her what had to be done.”

“Ah, perfect. It would be best, then, that I take her up to the room where she’ll be staying. Then I’ll go bring the dogs up; the master and monsieur Bébé are playing with them in the salon.”

“Miss Lucienne had Fido with her in her room,” Alice said.

“Yes, she’ll bring him to madame Francinet herself. All right now, if you would like to come with me …”

So then I found myself sitting in an old, high-backed chair, right in the exact center of an enormous room, the floor filled with mattresses, and where they had a little doghouse with a straw roof, just like an African hut, and according to Mr. Rodolos’ explanation, it was a caprice of Miss Lucienne’s for her Fido. The six mattresses were thrown down every which way, and there were bowls with food and water. The only light in the room was a bulb hanging just over my head that gave off a very weak light. I mentioned it to Mr. Rodolos, and that I was afraid of falling asleep with nobody there but the dogs.

“Oh no, you won’t fall asleep, madame Francinet,” he replied. “The dogs are very affectionate but they’re spoiled,
and you’ll have to pay some attention to them the whole while. Wait here a moment.”

When he shut the door and left me alone, sitting in the middle of this funny room, with the smell of dogs (well, it was a clean smell) and all the mattresses on the floor, I felt a little strange myself because it was almost like dreaming, especially with the yellow light over my head and the silence. Of course, the time would pass quickly, and it wouldn’t be too disagreeable, but every minute I felt as though something were wrong. Not exactly that they’d called on me for this without telling me in advance, but something strange about having to do this work, or maybe I really thought that it just wasn’t right. The floor gleamed with a real luster, and the dogs, you could tell that they did their business somewhere else, because there was no smell except of their own which isn’t terrible once you’ve been there a little while. But the worst thing was sitting there alone and waiting, and I was almost happy when Miss Lucienne came in carrying Fido in her arms, an awful Pekingese (I can’t stand Pekingeses), and Mr. Rodolos arrived yelling at and calling to the other five dogs until they were all in the room. Miss Lucienne was lovely, all in white, and had platinum hair that fell to her shoulders. She kissed and fondled Fido for a long spell, paying no attention to the others, who were drinking water or playing, and then she brought him over to me and looked at me for the first time.

“You’re the one who’s going to take care of them?” Her voice was a little shrill, but you can’t deny that she was very pretty.