CHAMPAGNE BLUES

by Nan

  “I see. You wish an inspection tour.”

  “Yes.”

  “You wish to observe the staff.” The phone rang.

  “Yes.”

  Marie-Thérèse continued without taking her eyes from Lily. Seemingly, she had no intention of answering the phone. “But most of all you wish to observe me.”

  “Yes.” Brring. Brring. “Do feel free, Mademoiselle, to go about your business as though I were a mere speck on the wall.”

  “With pleasure.” Brring. Brring.

  Lily shrugged and finally took her eyes from Marie-Thérèse to glance at the phone. “Someone might be out of Kleenex.” Lily leaned back in her chair. Brring. Brring. “Mmm. Perhaps an overflowing commode. I’m just dying to find out.”

  Marie-Thérèse reached for the phone. “Well, Madame, as long as you are dying.” She brought the receiver to her ear. “Oui?”

  If only she weren’t so young. So clever. The others had all been pretty, but they had lacked the sophistication of this supersonic Mrs. Bridges. Lily smiled as Marie-Thérèse put down the receiver. “You look unhappy.”

  “An early arrival. They are so bothersome. The room is not yet ready, but the guest is impatient.” She stood up. “I am pleased for you, Madame. You will be able to judge us in a crisis situation,” she said sarcastically.

  Lily stood up. “Bombs away, darling!”

  “FIRED?” Dwight asked in horror. “Marcel Oriole was fired?”

  Fernand Duprat, the newly promoted Premier Maître d’Hôtel, sighed. “I could not believe it either. He was like a father to me.”

  “Good heavens.” Dwight pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. L’Alouette Ancienne, the main dining salon of the Louis Q, was not yet open to the public. “I’ve known Marcel for years. He was a superb maître.”

  Fernand sat down. “Would you like some coffee?”

  Dwight shook his head. “Marcel knew I don’t drink coffee.”

  “Mon Dieu.”

  “Marcel knew,” he said sadly.

  Fernand leaned over to Dwight. “I am only forty years old. I am not yet ready to be Premier Maître. I told them that.”

  “But why was he fired?”

  Fernand stiffened. “Perhaps you would care for something from the bar?” He knew from Dwight’s look that he had again made the wrong suggestion. “Just to help you get over the shock?” Dwight shook his head. “You see,” Fernand confided, “there is no chance for me in this job. As a maître, I was fine. My tartare, my crêpes”—he put his fingers to his lips and kissed them—“were superb. The best. I can filet a fish like a surgeon.”

  “Yes, Fernand. You have always served us beautifully.”

  “But I am not ready for the big step to Premier Maître. Mon Dieu, do you know that Marcel was forty-four when he took over? And that was only because Roger Abadie had a massive coronary while boning a squab for a Swedish prince. Marcel, like the great maître he was, picked up the knife almost before it had fallen to the floor. He snapped his fingers. They removed Roger’s body, and the carving continued without missing a beat. The squab was saved, and Marcel became the youngest Premier Maître in the history of the Louis!”

  “An extraordinary tale!”

  “Someday they will make a film of Marcel’s life. Le Maître des Maîtres. A fighter in the Résistance. A hero at the carving board. For such a man to have fallen! To have fallen because of the . . .” Fernand took a deep breath.

  “Because of the what?” Dwight asked.

  “Because of the man who fired him,” Fernand said nervously.

  Dwight took a long look at the pubescent Premier Maître. He narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice. “I am here today for a surprise inspection.”

  “Mon Dieu!”

  “Surprise!”

  “But it is my first day!”

  Dwight reached across and held Fernand by the shoulder. “You may have come on duty as a maître d’hôtel de rang, but you’re coming back a Premier Maître d’Hôtel!”

  “Do you think I can do it?”

  Dwight stood up. “The entire restaurant is depending on you. They who must chop and stir but cannot serve.”

  Fernand stood up. “So be it.”

  Dwight walked to the door as though he were just entering the restaurant. “Bitte, Herr Ober,” Dwight began in his most arrogant German accent. “Haben sie einen Tisch am Fenster?”

  “If you were German, I would instead seat you near the radiators in the corner. The British go between the radiators and the windows. The window tables are reserved for the Italians. The French—we do get one or two a week—are of course given the best tables up front, as are movie stars or anyone who is beautiful.”

  “And the Americans?”

  Fernand shrugged. “Anywhere. Either they do not complain or no matter where you seat them it is wrong. Of course, we try always to seat them next to their own kind.”

  “In the ‘pigpen,’ ” Dwight said.

  “Marcel told you? Well, I too believe a restaurant is like an art gallery. It is the maitre’s art to arrange the patrons as though they were paintings. That is why you always put the little gray people in the back. They do not add to the élégance parisienne of the room.”

  “May I ask you something, Fernand?” Dwight looked deep into his eyes. “Am I not the leading expert in this field?”

  “Oui. To be recognized by you is an honor for anyone.”

  “Fernand, I am beginning to recognize you.”

  “But Monsieur, I have only just begun.”

  “That is what makes me an expert. Any fool can tell how the dinner was after he’s eaten it. I sense a unique talent for one so young.” He held Fernand’s arm. “Consider for a moment the first time Mozart’s teacher heard him play.”

  “Monsieur.”

  “What happened to Marcel will never happen to you.”

  “It will not?”

  “Never. You would never do anything as foolish.” Dwight looked at Fernand and waited. It took only a moment.

  “You are right. I would never have served the Mandarin Orange!”

  “My God!”

  “Mon Dieu!”

  “So that’s what we did to dear Marcel!”

  “What will happen to me?”

  “All because of the marmalade!”

  “It is the end for me!” Fernand whimpered.

  “And for me too, goddamn it!”

  THE chambermaid was smoothing the bed pillows. The valet stood on a ladder in front of the marble fireplace cleaning the mirror. “Bonjour, Annette. Bonjour, Georges.” Marie-Thérèse stepped across the vacuum-cleaner cord and entered Room 355.

  “Mademoiselle la Gouvernante,” Annette said, smiling nervously. She looked at Lily. “We have not finished.”

  “Bonjour, bonjour,” Lily said brightly. “Please don’t concern yourselves about me. Just go right on with whatever it is you’re doing to those pillows.” Lily’s voice changed dramatically. “I’m sure you have your reasons for slapping instead of plumping. I don’t want to disturb you either,” she said cheerily as Georges looked down from his ladder. “Else you’ll forget to clean the absolutely evil streak on your left. See it, there, darling? A vôtre gauche? Oui! Bravo!” She turned back to Marie-Thérèse. “As long as they’re in here, why don’t we girls go to the bathroom?”

  Lily walked into the pale blue tile room. She inhaled deeply and began nodding her head. “Pleasant. Very fresh. Bon!” Marie-Thérèse folded her arms and leaned against the door frame. Lily smiled with the good cheer one reserves for greeting terminal patients. “Now on to the waterworks! After all, isn’t water what the bathroom’s all about?” Lily turned on the faucet in the sink. She counted aloud as she waited for the water to warm. “One peccadillo, two peccadillos, three peccadillos . . . fine, just fine. You know,” she said, turning off the hot water and switching on the cold, “nothing upsets Dwight more than having to wait for the hot water.” She walked to the tub and turned the hot-water
faucet. “One meaningless fling, two meaningless flings, three . . . there! We were in Ravenna, having an absolutely glorious time. Dwight had pinched the chambermaid a few times, and so the service was extraordinarily good.” Lily raised her voice to be heard above the water running into the sink and tub. “Of course, once she began changing the linens twice a day, I suspected it had gone a bit further than usual.” She laughed. “Then one morning Dwight got orange water when he turned on the faucet. Well, that was the end of poor what’s-her-name.” Lily walked over to the toilet and flushed it. She nodded approvingly at the pressure. “Still, he always sends lovely things to them once we get home.” Lily turned off the tub faucet and then the sink. “You’ll see.” She unfolded the towels and sniffed them. “Did I say Ravenna? What could I be thinking of? The orange water was in Rapallo.” Lily was examining the hems on each towel for rips. “You must forgive me, it’s so hard keeping track. Ravenna was the chambermaid Dwight promised to marry.” Having finished water and linen, she moved on to paper. First, she took a facial tissue and rubbed it between her fingers. Then she snapped off a piece of toilet tissue. “Poor dear. Pity is, he believes what he says at the time.” She crumpled the tissues and dropped them onto the floor. “Ah, the curse of Thespis!” She opened the medicine chest and began unwrapping the bathroom glasses. “I suppose I should be furious with him.” She ran her finger around the rim for chips. “But he really suffers more than they do.” She unfolded the shower cap to make certain there were no holes. She felt the hot towel rack. “You’ll see.” Lily turned on the lights around the makeup mirror. She turned on the infrared heat lamp in the ceiling and the ultraviolet sun lamp. “Goody,” she said, walking out of the room. “Now everything can be seen for exactly what it is.”

  Marie-Thérèse stared at the chaos. The sink and tub had puddles of water around them. Towels lay crumpled on the floor. Shredded tissues littered the bath mat. Glasses were overturned on the shelf and their wrappers strewn on the counter. Bars of soap lay melting in the sink. An open shower cap was tossed over a makeup light. That was exactly the way it was.

  AN abstract painting titled Céleri et Laitue hung on the wall behind the rosewood-and-chrome desk at which Alphonse Menard, the Louis Q’s distinguished Directeur de Restauration, sat eating an Egg McMuffin. Dwight sipped a glass of champagne as the dapper Alphonse brushed a crumb from his waxed moustache. “What a fool Ponce de León was!”

  “What?”

  “It is true.” He pointed to the greasy waxed paper. “This is the fountain of youth. Learning to accept change. Learning each day to be moderne.” He leaned across the desk. “I tell you, Dwight, as we were brought up on Carême and Escoffier, and today they worship Bocuse and Point, tomorrow it will be McDonald!”

  “Dear boy, that thing has gone to your head.”

  “As it should. It is food for thought. I eat one of these dreadful things every day to remind me. Food, like couture, changes with the times. Those who do not change with it become old very quickly. Outmoded. Passé. The replaceable parts of society.”

  “Would you, then, discard the great masters? Close the Louvre?”

  “Jamais! The great masters are where they belong. But the sweet young girls in miniskirts who visit them will think nostalgically about their Big Macs as Proust thought about his Madeleines.”

  “You’re really serious about this.”

  “Mon ami, did you ever think you would see women without brassieres walking down the Champs-Elysées? Mais, non. Did you ever think we would go to the cinema to laugh at comedies about the war?” Alphonse shook his finger at Dwight. “If we have no inhibitions about tits or Nazis, why fight against margarine?”

  Dwight walked around the pedestal on which sat an enormous bronze green pea. He peeled back the movable metal stem. “Then what must you think of me? On an expedition to ensure that the Philistines have not invaded the kitchens of the Louis?”

  Alphonse shrugged. “I think, dear Dwight, if I were a rich American I would be very fortunate to have someone like you en garde for me.” Alphonse cleared his throat. “Of course, that presumes I would be obsessed with the quality of the toilet paper and whether the ashtrays were emptied at sufficiently frequent intervals.”

  Dwight turned angrily. “Or whether I preferred the Dark Seville to the Mandarin Orange?”

  He looked up. “That too.”

  “How could you have fired Marcel?”

  “I could not. I did not. It was Pierre.” He smiled. “Le Directeur has never eaten an Egg McMuffin.”

  “I feel dreadful about it. There have been hundreds of waiters and clerks we’ve insisted be fired.”

  “And now you are so famous, they fire maîtres and chefs. Congratulations.”

  “You know, dear boy, there are times you’re quite dislikable.”

  “Oui. It is one of my saving graces. But stepping out of character for just one moment, let me assure you not to worry about Marcel. He has found an even higher-paying position.”

  “It’s not Marcel I’m worried about.”

  “Then at least both of us have not stepped out of character.”

  Dwight absently fingered the plastic petals of the cauliflower sculpture that stood in the corner. “I’ve known you a long time, Alphonse.”

  “Be careful,” he said warily, “I am not yet ordained.” Alphonse smiled. He anticipated what Dwight wanted to say. “She is very lovely. I envy you Marie-Thérèse.”

  “You know?”

  “A hotel is like a circus. Everyone watches the bareback rider. You must give us credit for being at least as interested in your sex life as in your marmalade preference. How dull you must think we are.”

  “I am in love with her.”

  Alphonse raised his eyebrows. “Then you have indeed found your own Egg McMuffin.”

  “Yes.”

  “But you find it too rich a diet.”

  “Clearly I’m not as sophisticated as I thought.”

  “Certainly not, if you are considering giving up the entrée for the hors d’oeuvre.”

  “You think I’m insane.”

  “No, of course not. It is merely the upbringing. Americans have never known how to eat properly. I do not mean which knife to use. You have never understood the composition of a meal.”

  “Alphonse, I do not like my work anymore.”

  “That is clear from what Xavier and Fernand tell me.”

  “You have spoken to them?”

  “We sometimes discuss things other than the price of artichokes.”

  “I still love Lily.”

  “But your book has become Mrs. Simon Says.”

  “It doesn’t seem important anymore.”

  “You do not trust your old values.”

  “You seem to have a grip on the realities of life, Alphonse. What do you advise?”

  Alphonse sat back in his chair. “I think you do not have the correct perspective. It is like the joke, Dwight. A man goes to his doctor and says, ‘Doctor, I have a terrible problem. For breakfast, I eat fraises de bois, croissant and coffee. After breakfast, when I go to the toilet, out come fraises de bois, croissant and coffee. For lunch, I have salade niçoise. I go to the bathroom and out comes salade niçoise. For dinner, I have caviar, rack of lamb and a soufflé. When I go, out come caviar, rack of lamb and a soufflé. Doctor, what should I do?’ The doctor looks at the patient, he thinks for a moment and he says, ‘Eat shit’!”

  LILY stood in front of the open closet. Annette was remaking the bed after Lily’s devastation. Georges was putting back the papers that lined the drawers. Marie-Thérèse sat on the sofa, almost not hearing the steady patter coming from the closet.

  “You know, darling, if truth be told, I love it when there aren’t enough hangers, as there aren’t nearly enough now. It gives me an immediate opportunity to call the chambermaid and let her know precisely what my requirements are.”

  Pierre stormed into the room. He looked at Annette and Georges and, to his horror, saw Marie-T
hérèse sitting on the sofa, one leg swinging languidly back and forth. “What is going on here? Why isn’t this room ready? I have the Baroness Frieda Krupp von Wittenberg downstairs getting drunk in the lobby, compliments of me.”

  “Fat Fritzi?” Lily called out. “Here?” Pierre’s mouth dropped open as she stepped from the closet. “Well, what a hoot that is!” She looked at Marie-Thérèse. “Darling, why in the world didn’t you include her name on the list?”

  Marie-Thérèse watched Pierre’s eyes bulge. She looked at Lily, smiled and nodded. “Madame, you are very good at this game.”

  “Gouvernante!” Pierre shouted. “You were the one?”

  “Pshaw,” Lily said, pronouncing the “p.” “There I go again. Now listen to me, Pierre.” She took him by the arm. “I must have your oath, on Chevalier’s grave, that you will do nothing nasty to our little Marie.”

  “I cannot believe she was the informer!”

  “A little harmless collaboration. You French are so paranoid over that concept it’s a wonder Moët and Chandon ever made it!”

  Marie-Thérèse stood up. “Madame, will you at least allow me to defend myself?”

  “Oh, you poor, sweet thing,” Lily oozed. “If only you could!” She walked to Marie-Thérèse with outstretched arms and grabbed her firmly. “Don’t you think I know what you’re going through?” She turned to Pierre. “I tell you this in the utmost confidence.” She looked back at Annette and Georges. “Do you hear, everybody? In the utmost confidence!” Lily smiled benevolently into Marie-Thérèse’s blazing eyes. “She was forced to do it! The poor girl has the hots for my husband. He persuaded her to be a traitor. Ah, that naughty puss. He could have convinced Gertrude Stein a rose wasn’t a rose!” Marie-Thérèse pulled away. Lily walked toward the terrace. The lighting was better there. “I suppose,” she sighed, standing in the doorway so that the sun would catch fire in her hair, “if I weren’t so accustomed to it, I’d be terribly embarrassed. But what am I do do? The man is a sexual kleptomaniac.”

  There was a pause as Pierre looked from Lily to Marie-Thérèse. “I do not know what to say,” he said.