Dreams of Bread and Fire

by Nancy Kricorian

  The mother said, “Well, Ah-nee, we’re thrilled to see you. Just in time. John and I are leaving on a trip to Vienna and Budapest tomorrow morning. We’ll be back on Tuesday. Sydney has been looking forward to meeting you, haven’t you, honey?”

  The child grimaced. Ani guessed it was a smile of some kind. She knew the Bartons had another child, a boy named Kyle who was at boarding school in Connecticut. Ani had negotiated with Tacey Barton over the telephone: in exchange for room, board, and one hundred and fifty francs a week Ani would see Sydney off to school each morning and watch the child four afternoons and three nights a week. This arrangement with the Bartons would supplement Ani’s meager student fellowship and leave plenty of time for classes at the university.

  “Drop your bags by the door, Ani, and I’ll show you around.” Tacey turned on the heel of her lime flats.

  The apartment had twenty-foot ceilings and French windows overlooking the Palais-Royal garden. Although it was bigger than any house Ani had ever been in, she pretended that it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

  Sydney accompanied Ani to the top floor of the building to the servants’ quarters under the eaves.

  “Do you spend much time up here?” Ani asked the child, as they made their way down the windowless hall.

  “No. But I always take the au pairs upstairs on the first day.”

  “Have you had a lot of them?”

  Sydney shrugged. “I don’t know. About six, maybe.” The child pointed to a door on their right. “This room is for the housekeeper. But right now we have a lady who comes four mornings a week and lives someplace else. Her name is Beatrice.”

  They turned a corner and faced a door at the end of a short hall.

  “This is your room,” Sydney said.

  Ani inserted the long jagged key in the lock and turned it once. The door wouldn’t open.

  “That’s the wrong way.” Sydney pushed Ani’s hand aside and turned the key twice in the other direction.

  It was called a chambre de bonne, and it appeared to Ani that the maids in the Palais-Royal had lived pretty well. The room was spacious and airy with white walls and a high ceiling—­especially for a garret. On the twin beds under the dormer windows the white sheets had been cuffed neatly over yellow wool blankets. A couch and two armchairs were grouped on one side and a small round kitchen table with two stools sat in the far corner. There was a washbasin in a tiled alcove in another corner of the room.

  “Where’s the rest of the bathroom?” Ani asked.

  “Out here,” Sydney said, opening the door and pointing to the hall.

  Sydney and Ani stood on one of the beds so they could look out the window at the long rectangular garden below. A fountain cast up sparkling jets of water as couples strolled along the tree-lined allées.

  Sydney asked, “You know how to make pancakes?”

  “Sure do,” Ani answered, making an effort to sound cheerful. She needed a shower and a nap.

  “Our last au pair was this nasty English girl who smoked cigarettes and always had a hangover. She made pancakes one time and burned them. One night she was supposed to be ­baby-sitting when she left me alone in the apartment to go meet her boyfriend. My mother fired her.” Sydney stared at Ani expectantly.

  “That’s too bad,” Ani said feebly. Her energy level was dropping precipitously.

  Sydney asked brightly, “Are you poor?”

  Ani had no idea where this question came from or where Sydney was heading. “What do you mean?”

  “What class did you fly on the airplane?” the child asked ­eagerly.

  “Coach.”

  “You’re poor.” Sydney nodded with satisfaction, a small smile on her lips. “We fly first class. We’re rich. But I suppose it wouldn’t make sense for an au pair to be rich. I mean, why else would you work as somebody’s servant unless you were poor?”

  As Ani examined Sydney’s fine symmetrical features, she under­stood that this was one of those animal moments where if she didn’t assert her authority she’d suffer for the rest of her tenure with the Bartons.

  “Listen, Sydney,” Ani said, “let’s get this straight. Your mother hired me, but she doesn’t own me. I’m bigger than you are and you have to do what I say. You got it?”

  Sydney stared. As Ani turned back to the scene outside the window she saw from the corner of her eye that the child’s small pink tongue had flickered out and in with defiance. Ani pretended she didn’t see the gesture.

  “So, you know how to make pancakes?” Sydney launched the conversation anew.

  “Sure do,” Ani repeated.

  “I love pancakes,” the girl said.

  At dusk, when the sky was blue-gray nearing black, Ani went down to the garden. The fountain was idle and the place was empty except for two boys kicking a soccer ball. After righting a metal chair, Ani sat in a pool of light with brittle leaves skittering at her feet. A woman’s heels clicked historically along the tiles of the lighted arcades. Ani propped a stiff-backed notebook on her lap and pulled out a thin sheet of writing paper.

  Dear Asa,

  I wish you were here right now so the dark garden would be romance instead of loneliness. Missing you is like the deep ache in my bones I have with a fever. When you get here in December I’ll show you the garden and the streets, and everything that seems like shadow now will be vivid and solid because we’re seeing it together.

  Ani crumpled the paper, tossing it into a nearby trash can. She wanted to be cheerful and resolute. I hate it when you’re clingy and dependent, Asa had said to her. Pretend you’re a sunflower, Ani told herself, instead of a grapevine. But the face of a sunflower couldn’t help but turn toward the sun. And wasn’t that a bit much: making Asa out to be a celestial body at the center of the solar system and herself to be a lowly plant?

  Early the next morning Ani leaned against the sill of the Bartons’ kitchen window. Under the glowing red and white TABAC sign on the corner store, a gaunt African in royal-blue coveralls swept the flooded gutters with a twig broom. Ani turned from the window to forage in the cupboards and the refrigerator. She wondered where in Paris Tacey Barton had managed to locate individually wrapped slices of Kraft American Cheese. There was no flour, but Ani found a box of pancake mix, some milk, and a carton of eggs.

  By the time Sydney padded into the kitchen in her fluffy slippers and quilted bathrobe, Ani had a stack of pancakes to offer her. The child was on her second plate when her father burst into the room in his running clothes. He was a trim, handsome man with the energy of a coiled spring.

  “Je vous en souhaite bienvenue, Ani,” John Barton said, with a strong American accent. Not waiting for Ani’s reply to his welcome, he turned to his daughter. “Comment ça va ce matin, Sydney?”

  “Assez bien, merci.” The child’s response was barely audible.

  “Qu’est-ce que tu as dit?” the father barked.

  Sydney carefully wiped the maple syrup from the corners of her mouth with a napkin. Ani saw a flicker of disdain pass across the child’s otherwise impassive face.

  “Je t’ai demandée une question,” he snapped.

  Sydney pulled at a thread on her robe’s cuff.

  Ani sat frozen in her chair, hoping that the man she had instantaneously christened Le Con wouldn’t address her again. The father’s face grew redder and the child looked more miserable and obstinate by the second.

  Ani had envied the kids she knew with the good fortune of having a father. When they made Father’s Day cards in elementary school, Ani addressed hers to her grandfather. Occasionally there were father-daughter events at school or at church, but Ani felt self-conscious about Baba’s filling in so she stayed home. Now, watching Sydney and The Asshole, Ani knew there were worse things than having lost your dad at a young age.

  “What are they t
eaching you at that school?” John Barton ­demanded. “At your age you should be speaking French like a ­native.”

  “Starting so early in the day, John?” Tacey appeared, puffy and pale in her yellow dressing gown. “Go take your run. The driver will be here in two hours.”

  Tacey poured herself a cup of coffee and washed down an assortment of vitamins and pills. “I’m going up to put my face on.” As she reached the kitchen door, Tacey turned and said, “By the way, Ani, you should sleep in the guest room while we’re gone. Also, it would be a big favor if you ironed a few of John’s shirts. The housekeeper uses too much starch and I scorch them. Be careful if you run the washing machine. It’s overflowed three times and the Comédie Française Library is below us. They’re suing us for zillions of francs.”

  Later in the day Ani took Sydney to the Tuileries Gardens for a ride on the carousel. After watching a puppet show they bought sandwiches and Orangina from a kiosk. An old woman with a grizzled lapdog about the size of a loaf of sandwich bread sat down next to them on the bench. The old woman struck up a conversation with Sydney, who chatted in flawless French.

  In the late afternoon, Ani and Sydney made their way back to the Palais-Royal garden.

  “I’m bored,” Sydney whined. She was dragging her feet across the gravel, intentionally scuffing the toes of her red leather shoes.

  The muscles in Ani’s neck tightened in response to the pitch of Sydney’s voice, but she made an effort to be pleasant. “If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”

  Sydney replied, “I don’t know. Go to a ski resort. Or go on one of those big cruise ships. There are stores and lots of kids around. And swimming pools. And a movie theater.”

  “Do you want to pretend we’re on a cruise ship?” Ani asked.

  Sydney brightened. “Okay. We’re on a cruise. And I’m the princess and you’re my maid. I yell at you because you’re stupid and never do anything right.”

  Ani forced a smile. “I have a better idea, Syd. How about we pretend I’m the evil stepmother who forces you to scrub the ship’s deck with a toothbrush and then locks you in a broom closet for the night?”

  “I don’t think I like that game,” Sydney said doubtfully.

  “Oh, no,” Ani said, “I promise you’re going to love it.”

  In the kitchen that evening from a cabinet lined with all ­manner of American canned goods, Sydney selected SpaghettiOs for ­supper.

  “You know, Sydney,” Ani said, as she stirred the congealed mass in the pan, “if my grandmother saw this stuff she’d say, ‘Food not fit for no dog.’”

  “I guess your grandmother can’t speak English very well, can she?” Sydney sneered.

  “Geez, Syd,” Ani said, “we’ve managed to have a pretty nice time here today. Why do you want to go and say something rotten like that?”

  “You’re the one who insulted my dinner,” Sydney said ­defensively.

  At bedtime Ani offered to read Sydney a book, but the girl said she wanted a story.

  “What kind of story?” Ani asked.

  “A true story. About when you were a little girl,” Sydney said.

  She was lying in her bed with her newly brushed hair gleaming on the white pillow. She was sleepy and the pinched look was finally gone from her face.

  “Okay,” said Ani. “Let me think.” She paused and shuffled through her catalog of memories. “My Rabbit Mr. Babbit” was the one she chose.

  “There was once a little girl named Ani Silver. That was me. My grandfather came home one afternoon near Easter with a ball of fur hidden in his jacket pocket. It was a small white and brown rabbit with a pink nose. I named him Mr. Babbit. Baba built a cage—”

  Sydney interrupted. “Who’s Baba?”

  “My grandfather,” Ani said. “He built a cage out of wire mesh and wood and put it next to the garage. Baba would help me take Mr. Babbit to the basement, where we let him hop around. He liked to sniff everything, just to see if it might be delicious. I tried to get him to chase a marble, but once he found out you couldn’t eat it he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He liked to hide behind the furnace and sit on old newspapers. Wherever he went he left a little trail of poops behind him.”

  “That’s disgusting,” said Sydney.

  “That’s a rabbit. One morning a girl from across the street came over to play. Her name was Brenda O’Malley. She brought some carrots for Mr. Babbit. I told her not to open the cage because Mr. Babbit wasn’t allowed out in the yard. She could drop the carrots through a hole in the top. But Brenda O’Malley was stubborn and she opened the door. Mr. Babbit shot out and rocketed across the garden. We chased him around and around until he bellied under the hedge into the neighbor’s yard. I called for Baba and my mother, but it was too late. The neighbors’ dog growled and then I heard a weird scream. Not a person’s scream. I didn’t even know rabbits could make a sound like that. My grandfather pushed through a gap in the bushes and then he yelled, ‘Ani, go to the house now.’ I shouted at Brenda, ‘Murderer!’ Then I ran into the house and slammed my bedroom door.” Ani paused.

  “Is that the end of the story?” Sydney asked.

  “There’s a little more. Baba hammered together a wooden box and put Mr. Babbit inside. He nailed the cover down so I never saw the blood. But even without seeing it I knew poor Mr. Babbit was in wet scraps of fur. I hated that dog. His name was Wolfie and he had great big teeth. My grandmother’s cousin and her grandson were at the house for the funeral. Van and I—”

  “Who’s Van?”

  “The grandson. He was a friend of mine. We dug a grave behind the garage with a big spade. Baba played ‘Taps’ on his harmonica. Van and I painted a sign on a piece of plywood. It said, HERE LIES MR. BABBIT. A GOOD RABBIT. WE SHALL MISS HIM.”

  Sydney yawned and rubbed her eyes. Ani turned out the light.

  Classes at Jussieu, the university’s science division, met for the first time on the day of the Bartons’ return. Ani was enrolled in the Department of the Science of Texts and Documents, but her afternoon started with a modern dance class in a drafty gymnasium. In the locker room after class she changed quickly and dashed to a building a few blocks from the central campus. She slid into a seat in a large amphitheater filled with long benches and tables anchored to the floor.

  Professor Sofia Zed, the world-famous semiologist, swept into the hall wearing a voluminous black cape. She stood at the lab table searching through a black leather bag from which she pulled a compact and a gold tube of lipstick. The entire class watched in rapt attention as Zed applied a coat of lacquer red to her mouth.

  Then the lecture began. While Ani scribbled notes on the ­social context of Mallarmé’s work, the students around her unwrapped sandwiches and candy bars. Someone threw a paper airplane across the aisle to get a friend’s attention. Several women in the back row were carrying on an animated discussion, and a student seated a few feet away from Ani fell asleep with his head on his arms. Ani was surprised that Zed didn’t reprimand the class.

  At the end of the lecture, Ani rushed to the campus for a seminar with Michel Sondage. The professor sat at a small table in the front of the classroom shuffling through yellowing lecture notes, his gray wirelike hair a stiff wreath around his head. The room was crowded with pale thin students dressed in black. Everyone was smoking, including the professor, who lit each cigarette from the butt of its predecessor in a long train of nicotine and smoke. Sondage let the ashes droop on the end of his cigarette until gravity pulled them to the desktop. Then he brushed the ashes from his papers to the floor.

  “The Infinite, what is the Infinite?” moaned Sondage. He tugged mightily on his hair as though trying to pry the wreath from his head. His cigarette dangled from his mouth as he spoke through a blue haze. “We will see, my dear students, we will search together for the Infinite. We will
define its lack of frontiers. Where will we find the Infinite? It is in the poetry of Baudelaire, this we know, and the work of ’Opkins. We will be reading these poems. But it is also in the films of Joseph Mankiewicz. All of you, I would like you to go see Suddenly Last Summer. There you will come face-to-face with the Infinite.”

  As Ani left the classroom her clothes and hair reeked of smoke. On the WC door someone had scrawled, We are all prisoners of the state. In the pitch-dark bathroom—the lightbulb had burned out—Ani searched in vain for toilet paper. She thought wistfully of the white clapboard buildings at the college she had attended.

  When Ani arrived back at the Bartons’ apartment, Tacey called for her to come upstairs. Sydney was at a friend’s house for a play date.

  “Give me that sad little thing,” Tacey said, unknotting the handkerchief-sized cotton scarf at Ani’s throat. “You can’t do anything with that.” Tacey pulled open a dresser drawer that held a colorful array of neatly folded scarves. She extracted a scarlet one. “This is the perfect color for your dark hair and fair skin.”

  As Tacey demonstrated eight different ways to tie the scarf, Ani tried to appear attentive although she had absolutely no intention of arranging a scarf even two different ways. Tacey Barton was a grown woman of reasonable intelligence who spent most of her days shopping, lunching, and doing tricks with scarves. Ani thought of Asa’ s mother, Peggy, who was a woman of the same social class as Tacey Barton but with different inclinations. Peggy wore a floppy straw hat and leather gardening gloves while pruning her prized roses.

  One evening when Ani was visiting the Willards on Cape Cod, Peggy had invited Ani to join her in the garden. Seated amid the hydrangeas and wisteria vines they had discussed, among other things, Peggy’s decision to drop out of college in her junior year in order to marry Ben Willard, Asa’s father. She had explained. Ben’s five years older than I. He was done with law school and ready to settle down. If I hadn’t married him right then he would have found somebody else.

  There it was again, the algebraic theory of love. It ran in Asa’s family.