If You Are There

by Susan Sherman

  “Where are you going, ma fille?” the cook asked, putting on her gloves.

  “I thought I might visit the shops and then go to vespers.” Lucia had been thinking of going to the Polish shops in la Villette, not to buy—she didn’t have any money—but to be among her countrymen, to hear Polish and be reminded of home.

  “Vespers? On your day off? Surely, God wouldn’t mind if you had a bit of fun.”

  Lucia dropped her gaze. “I like going to Mass,” she said uncomfortably. She had never crossed Madame Clos before, at least not to her face, and that, and the cook’s changed appearance and her heresy, were making Lucia nervous. She vowed to include the woman in her prayers that night. She had grown fond of the cook over the past few months and didn’t want to see her burn in hell for all eternity.

  “Listen, you come out with me, my girl. I’ll show you a proper Saturday. You like to dance? Ever been to a guingette?”

  Lucia let her eyes wander out through the open door to freedom. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. She didn’t especially want to come out with Madame Clos. It seemed somewhat terrifying, as if they were friends as Lucia and Ania were once friends. She admired the woman, admired her talent and her starchy capability, but they were not friends. Even so, Lucia didn’t see how she could refuse.

  The guingette happened to be on a dance hall boat moored near a bridge on the Marne River not too far from Nogent-Sur-Marne. The deck of the boat was protected from the sun by a blue-and-white-striped canopy decorated with flags and streamers. A boisterous crowd sat at round tables covered with white tablecloths and ate fried fish. Fishermen stood on the bank nearby catching more to keep up with the orders. Men in baggy trousers and straw boaters and women in sudsy lingerie dresses reeled around the floor to dance tunes played on an accordion and a guitar.

  Madame Clos led the way up the gangplank and eagerly stepped aboard, where she was greeted by one couple after another. She seemed alive, humming with excitement, kissing cheeks, hugging, calling out and waving to friends across the room. One large man in a sleeveless undershirt clapped his arms around her back and nearly lifted her off the ground. A family across the deck hailed her over.

  It wasn’t long before the cook was on the floor dancing with a man with a nose like a spatula, a careful dresser in a dark blazer with a stiff collar and tie. Someone had given her several strings of cheap beads and they bounced about her neck as she whirled around the room. With her cheeks flushed, her gaudy beads flying, her skirts lifting halfway up her calves, she looked like a different Madame Clos. This one held little resemblance to the vinegary woman Lucia had been working under all these months. This Madame Clos threw her head back and laughed out loud. She had friends. She had a first name.

  “Isabelle!”

  Lucia stood at the railing and waited for Madame Clos to return. She wished she had gone to the Polish shops in la Villette. She caught the eye of two men sitting at a nearby table. They sat at one end, their wives and children at the other. The little girls were playing with the streamers, draping them in their hair, while their mothers regarded her with suspicion. She was a stranger. She was not wanted there. She did not belong.

  Later, Lucia and Madame Clos got a table and were joined by Madame Clos’s cousin, who brought a chair over and sat down next to Lucia. His name was Arnaud, and he delivered ice to the cold cupboard on Tuesdays and Fridays. Usually he wore a work shirt and a leather apron, but today he was dressed in an undershirt and baggy trousers and wore a straw boater over his thinning hair. While the sun slipped behind the plane trees and the swallows swept over the glassy surface of the river, they ate a stew of eel and river fish and drank two more bottles of muscadet. Arnaud accused Madame Clos of being a flirt in her day, of breaking hearts and dancing with all the boys. Names were brought up, one in particular.

  “You chased him away, remember?” Madame Clos said to her cousin. “You scared him half to death. He told me you threatened to kill him if he came around again. How was I supposed to have a romance with a moule like you chasing all the boys away?”

  “Not all the boys, Izzy. Just him. He was no good for you, remember? He would’ve broken your heart. Where would you be now if I hadn’t chased him away?”

  The cook fingered her glass and let her eyes wander out over the river. Her gaze followed a small boat chugging upstream, trailing a smudge of blue smoke. A muffling fog seemed to descend on her spirits and for a moment Lucia recognized the cook she knew. “Sometimes I ask myself that very question,” she said. Then she shrugged, grabbed a waiter by his coattails, and ordered another bottle.

  While the waiters lit the paper lanterns and the bats took to the sky, a woman from the audience stepped up to the platform and sang a song about a dead girl. Lucia listened to the song and leaned back in her chair, watching the reflection of the lanterns on the river shimmer and dance, breaking up whenever a fish surfaced to feed. It was late and the families with children left hours ago; now only slow dances were being played.

  Madame Clos leaned across the table, dragging her sleeve through a puddle of wine, and took Lucia’s arm. Her voice cracked with emotion as she tried to hold back tears. “When I look at you I see little bits of myself. Little tiny bits. Like when you make a mayonnaise or vol-au-vents. You are going to be a wonderful cook someday,” she said, her voice fervent and damp. “They will come from all over just to eat your brioche.”

  Lucia sat there for a moment, watching the cook dab her eyes with a corner of the tablecloth. She wanted to believe her, but she knew the woman was drunk and drunks often said things without thinking. The cook held on to Lucia’s arm, her eyes brimming with tears: “You are so young, ma fille. You do not know anything. When it is your turn and you are a cook in a grand house with all the responsibilities, just remember you are not part of the family. They will tell you otherwise. Maybe they will even believe it themselves. But you are only a servant and in the end you will mean nothing more to them than the brioche you bake.” Her eyes began to droop. She struggled to keep them open for a few moments longer, but soon gave up. Once they closed for good, she dropped her chin until her cheek came to rest on Arnaud’s shoulder. When she started to slip off the chair he slid his arm around her back and kept her from falling.

  In the fall Madame Babineaux decided to give a dinner party. It wasn’t an important event, not in the usual sense. The guests were not clients of Monsieur Babineaux, nor were they influential or powerful in the government. The evening was important to Madame because the guests were her friends from school. It was something of a reunion—a time to show off her family and her home and everything she had achieved since graduating from Lycée Julie-Victoire Daubié. For this reason everything had to be perfect, the house, the food, and the service. The menu was carefully arranged, five footmen were hired for the night, and the house was filled with flowers. For once, the husbands of her schoolmates, successful lawyers, doctors, and men of business, were entirely superfluous.

  The timing of the event was troublesome, however, because Lucia had been seeing signs lately: a window that cracked for no reason, a picture frame with a piece of broken glass, a crow on a chimney pot—all these pointed to a dark outcome. Something she did not like to think about. She kept the signs to herself, until that morning when she cracked open an egg and found blood in the yolk. That was a warning, darkly prophetic, and she could not ignore it. She quickly crossed herself and muttered a hasty prayer to Saint Lucyna.

  When Lucia told Madame Clos about it, the cook said, “Well, that can’t be good. What does it mean?”

  “An ending.”

  “What kind of ending?”

  “Not a good one.”

  When the time came for lunch Madame Clos insisted that they have the lobster bisque left over from the night before. It had been on the hot stove all morning and Lucia wasn’t sure it was still safe to eat. Madame Clos insisted that there was nothing wrong with it and to prove it she sat down and ate two hearty bowls, proclaiming it to b
e “delicious” and “greatly improved” for its time on the heat.

  Madame Clos had a strong constitution, so it took her nearly an hour before her stomach began to pitch and roll. She reached for a mixing bowl just in time. Fortunately, it was a large mixing bowl, big enough to accommodate even her second helping of bisque.

  Lucia, who had not touched the soup, followed her into her room with a bucket and a wet towel. She helped the cook unbutton her collar and loosen her stays. Madame Clos’s face was the color of baking soda and glistened with sweat as she hung her head over the bucket and waited for the next onslaught. “It’s up to you, ma fille. You have to carry on without me.” She said this with some difficulty, like a general breathing his last on the battlefield.

  A prick of fear and Lucia could feel herself going as white as Madame Clos. “There is no one else we can send for?” She struggled for breath in a rising tide of dread. “What about Madame Fournier? She is just down the street.”

  Madame Clos leaned over the bucket and retched again. The smell was rank and biting but with a hint of the sea. “No,” she said, catching her breath. “No one comes into my kitchen.”

  “But how will I manage? I cannot do it alone.”

  “Iris and the charwoman.”

  “What do they know?”

  “Teach them.” She retched again.

  Lucia tried talking sense to her. She reminded her of all that still had to be done, how precise the preparations had to be, and how difficult they were even for a seasoned cook.

  Madame Clos collapsed back onto the pillow and waved Lucia off, saying that she was wasting time.

  When Lucia told Iris what had happened, the parlor maid laughed and said the old cow got exactly what she deserved. When Lucia asked for her help, she declined, saying she had enough on her plate. “And besides I do not take orders from the bonne de cuisine.” She helped herself to a boiled egg and began to peel it with a complacent dedication.

  “I would never presume to give you orders,” Lucia said evenly. “I will be very nice to you and request most respectfully.”

  “Besides I don’t know anything about cooking.”

  “The dishes are simple. And you are so bright and accomplished. You will be able to do them easily. And they will keep you in the kitchen.”

  “Why would I want to be in the kitchen?”

  “You have not heard? The footmen are coming.”

  Iris lifted her head. “From the Hôtel du Rhin?”

  All afternoon the three of them labored over the meal while Madame Clos slept in her bedroom. The charwoman, Almandine, was given simple tasks like chipping ice or scrubbing mussels, anything that didn’t require skill or concentration. The girl was from the countryside, newly arrived from Brittany. She was a tall, big-busted girl with a wide, honest face, who tried to appear small by slouching. She spoke with the singsong accent of a Breton farmer with its rolling r’s and wet vowels. She often pretended to understand her tasks, rushing through her work so she could ask for more, thinking that was the best way to gain favor. As a result her work was reliably sloppy and, more often than not, had to be done over again.

  Iris, on the other hand, was careful in her work and treated every potato, carrot, and leek as if it were a saint’s relic. If time hadn’t been so short, her precision would have been appreciated. As it was, the effort she lavished on the leeks, chopping them with a somber devotion, made Lucia’s jaw ache.

  At two o’clock Lucia completed the marinade for the brill, while Iris chopped the potatoes and onions for the boeuf á la Bourguignon. By three the brill was marinating and the sauces were finished. At four the Bourguignon was bubbling on the stove, while Almandine forced the soup vegetables through the food press. Iris cut out dozens of perfect puff pastry squares and stuffed them with pork forcemeat. By six o’clock, three dozen petits pâtés garnis were arranged on a baking sheet awaiting the oven. By six thirty the footmen arrived and everything fell apart.

  They came in wearing starched white shirtfronts, pink bow ties, black cutaway coats, and gold-and-pink-striped waistcoats. They filled the kitchen with their easy jocularity and the smell of their pomaded hair. The room rang out with the thump of polished boots and three conversations going on at once: Joël, the maître d’hôtel was stealing tips again; football; and the dancer Adèle.

  It was an invasion of sorts, an onslaught of masculinity penetrating the feminine realm of precise scales, flour sifters, and aspic molds. Iris, and to a lesser extent Almandine, met the invading army with a fidgety, pink-faced excitement. Chestnuts were left boiling on the stove. Sesame seeds lay abandoned in the mortar. Iris flitted about, serving them dinner, while Almandine hovered nearby looking eager and apologetic. Only Lucia remained at her station working pieces of lobster, mushrooms, and truffles onto the skewers.

  At some point between the soup and the hors d’oeuvre, Madame Clos rose from her bed, shaky and pale, and like a censorious specter floated into the kitchen to have a look. Lucia watched her inspect the brill smothered in mussels and the kidneys trimmed and cleaned and waiting for cognac and then drift back to her room.

  By the time Lucia slid the partridges into the oven she was pretty sure that everything would be all right. She closed the oven door, straightened, and looked around at the fresh chicory salads, plated and ready to serve, at the blini, the mussels, and all the rest, and took an easy breath for the first time since that morning. She stood back and marveled at all that she had accomplished. If she were perfectly honest, she would have to say that Madame Clos could not have done a better job.

  Madame Babineaux was an exceedingly generous person, especially when it came to showing gratitude. After the last guest had gone home, after Monsieur Babineaux had gone up to bed, while the footmen were still putting things right upstairs, she came down to thank Madame Clos, as she usually did after every dinner party. She was lavish in her praise that evening and, since she liked to talk, and did so at every opportunity, particularly to her own servants, who were always an appreciative audience, her speech went on for some time. She gushed over the attereaux, which she called cosmic and divinely inspired; the partridges were spirited; and the brill was nothing less than a revelation.

  Lucia was filled with a swelling pride that she knew to be a sin. She wanted to run, leap in the air, and swoop down from the rooftops like an eagle soaring over the Carpathians, like the picture in her dictionary. Instead she stood there quietly, quelling any outward signs of the jubilation sparking through her body. She waited, wondering if Madame Clos would say anything. Would there be a suggestion, a hint that her aide de cuisine might have helped a little, might have even been valuable in some small way?

  Madame Babineaux seemed to be running out of steam. In a moment or two she would be saying good night and then it would be too late. If Madame Clos were going to say something, it would have to be now—a word, a gesture, a small token of gratitude. Lucia would’ve been happy with almost anything. Instead the cook stood there with her eyes fixed on the food grinder, her face smooth and distant.

  After Madame Babineaux went upstairs, Madame Clos gazed at Lucia for what seemed like a long time, her eyes steady and remote. Then she turned and went back to her room. That night Lucia went to bed still loving Madame Clos, but perhaps loving her a little less.

  The next morning Lucia was already down in the kitchen when Iris came flying down the stairs waving an envelope like a flag. She was half dressed with her hair in a wild tangle around her sharp little face. Her shirtwaist was fastened one button off.

  “It was on the floor by the door.” Her round eyes were alight with keen amazement. The envelope had been opened. Lucia lifted her head and frowned at her. “I had to open it,” she protested.

  At first when Lucia separated the flap and found the money inside she thought it was some kind of gift. “I do not understand.”

  “It’s three months’ back wages. She’s given you the sack!”

  Lucia stared at the money as if she had
never seen a French franc before. “I do not believe you. You are having fun with me.” Iris tried to argue with her, but Lucia dismissed her with a wave and went back to blacking the stove. She worked all that morning, never stopping, not even when the egg man arrived and wanted to gossip, not even for the dairyman, who came with his butter and cream and told her, as he did every morning, that he loved her.

  CHAPTER 4

  September 1902

  Lucia had nowhere to go in exile from rue de Logelbach, so she spent the first night in a hotel that she could ill afford. All night long she went over the events of the previous day: the bad soup, the frantic preparations, Madame Babineaux’s appearance in the kitchen. She had done something terribly wrong. She had hurt Madame Clos in an unforgiveable way. She had sinned.

  It finally came to her, in the frayed morning light, that all the signs were there. God had been trying to warn her and she had ignored him. She remembered standing in the kitchen that night, looking at all she had accomplished and thinking that she could be the cook there, that she was as good as Madame Clos. It was pride that brought her down, the exhilaration, the heady triumph of the moment, and knowing at the time that it was wrong, that it was a sin, and yet not asking for forgiveness. That’s what did her in. Vanity.

  She did not wait for the morning to begin. She packed up her things and went to look for a church. She didn’t think it was an accident that she found one nearby, an enthusiastic testament to God Almighty, complete with Doric columns topped by angels and saints flanking a large blue clock. She bounded up the steps and crossed to the one door that was propped open. Lying before the threshold was a little coir doormat that was meant for a private home or a flat. It seemed wholly inadequate to protect the floors of the massive cathedral and yet there it was. Lucia was diligent in her use of it. She wiped her feet again and again, until she was certain her shoes were clean. Then she walked into the vestibule where she dipped the forefingers of her right hand into the stoup and made the sign of the cross. Inside the nave she joined the line of old women, frail and wan sinners in their heavy winter coats, standing in line for confession. She tried to imagine their tender sins, closeted away in some perfumed corner of their conscience. She liked being among these women of unwavering faith, steeping in their resolution, in their implacable certainty, like a sponge cake soaking in rum. She did not mind waiting to receive absolution. Waiting would be part of her penitence, and she was grateful for it.