Rue des Rosiers

by Rhea Tregebov

  At the end of the lesson, speaking in English as a reward, Marie-Claire tells Sarah that she’s done very well, she’s already made excellent progress. When Sarah sets up another lesson for next week – she feels obliged to do two lessons at least – Marie-Claire smiles, tells Sarah that she is so very pleased that Laura introduced them. Might they follow up on Laura’s suggestion that the three girls meet up for drinks this Friday, say 6:00, and perhaps then Michael, and Marie-Claire’s beau, Henri, will join them afterwards, for dinner? That would be so pleasant. She would love to have further conversation, in French of course, Laura speaks so beautifully, and Sarah will have a chance to demonstrate how well she’s already doing.

  ~

  Laura teases Sarah until she agrees to have their Friday drinks with Marie-Claire at the bar at the Ritz in Place Vendôme. The people-watching is stupendous, well worth the price of admission of one stupidly expensive drink. Laura promises that they won’t need to buy more than one drink. Pretty pretty please? Sarah can’t say no. It’s very hard to say no to Laura, who says yes to so much.

  The Ritz. Sarah can’t really believe it’s a real place; it seems like another fairy tale from her mom’s black-and-white late-night TV movies. Puttin’ on the Ritz. Fred Astaire tap dancing in a top hat and tails. She can hear Pat humming along with the silly, sparkly tune, Rose joining in with her fine soprano, adding a few tap-dance steps to match Astaire.

  Sarah walks into the quiet of the glittering lobby and is immediately, politely, accosted by a groomed officiary. Can he help her? When Sarah starts to explain, her French stumbling, that she’s meeting some friends at the bar, before she can complete the sentence the man smiles, replying in English that the bar is just to her left. She nods, smiles back, taking the requisite left and then stands, immediately hesitant, at the entrance, wondering when the next interrogation will begin, when she’ll next be identified as an imposter. What on earth is she doing at the Ritz? She can’t help fidgetting as she waits for someone to come up, probably to inform her that she’s improperly dressed and must leave immediately. Is she standing in the right place? Has she done something wrong yet again? Why isn’t Laura here to rescue her? Sarah turns and sees an elegant man just ahead of her poised at the periphery of the bar itself. The maître d’? She touches his arm and, in shaky French, explains again that she’s joining two friends.

  A look of shock registers just for a moment on the man’s face, and then is supplanted by a broad smile that he quickly covers with a more subdued polite one. “I am terribly sorry, Mademoiselle,” he says in lightly accented English. “I’m afraid I don’t work here.” The broad smile breaks out again, then is again immediately suppressed. The maître d’ hurries up, as though his social antennae have detected the faux pas as it is occurring, and he hustles Sarah to an oval table close to the bar where Laura is sitting, a welcoming grin on her face. Sarah’s shoulders begin to shake and when the maître d’ leaves, she has to hide her face in her hands, ripples of laughter running through her. It takes a while before she finally gets over the fit and can lean in to Laura to explain what happened.

  “The guy is probably president of some corporation – or maybe a count,” Laura says, keeping her own voice low. They haven’t dared look around to see where he’s seated. “I’m bloody sure it’s the first time in his life he’s been mistaken for a waiter. And by a girl from the North End of Winnipeg –” Laura can’t finish the sentence, she’s laughing too hard, neither of them can stop themselves, though they do manage to keep the volume down.

  “I put it on sometimes,” Laura says when they’ve recovered.

  “What?”

  “That hauteur, that eyebrow-cocked look, so you get good service. I remember the first time I tried it here in Paris, setting my shoulders back, looking faintly irritated. The waiter couldn’t hustle over to me fast enough, oui, Mademoiselle, what could he do for me, where would I like to sit? I just took on that self and it worked. Instead of the golly-gee, don’t trouble yourself with me, I’m from Saskatoon self. I just hope I can shuck this bit off when I need to, when I go home.”

  “Will you go home?”

  “I always think I will. Not necessarily home to Saskatoon, but Canada, yes. But not soon. Not till I’ve conquered Paris.” Laura raises her glass. She’s joking, but she’s not. Sarah wants Laura to win, to learn everything she wants to learn, take on whatever self she’d like to take on. It doesn’t mean she has to erase Tobago and Saskatoon.

  By the time Marie-Claire joins them, twenty minutes late, Sarah has made Laura promise, cross your heart and hope to die, not to tell Marie-Claire about her blunder, though Sarah’s dying to tell Michael all the gory details.

  The drinks have been served, and Laura and Marie-Claire are chatting away in rapid French. Sarah is back to feeling out of place and under-dressed amid the red velvet and polished wood panelling, the sleek hush and murmur of the place. Marie-Claire is decked out in a slightly fussy but impeccable outfit, and Laura is her usual understated fashionable self. Sarah has on the new frock – she can’t think of it as anything but a frock – that Laura helped her buy. They’d gone shopping together, and Laura spotted a dress in creamy cotton with a pattern of poppies scattered over it, the waist nipped in for a full skirt. “Here you go. Gorgeous. This dress actually gives you some curves, who’d a thunk it?” Laura told her when Sarah tried it on.

  They’re carefully sipping their kir and Sarah is gobbling the dishes of olives and nuts set on their little table. She’s starving, as usual. The waiter has already come by once to quickly refill the nut dish, smiling widely and kindly at her, and she can’t remember if he’s the one who witnessed her gaffe at the entrance. Surely the bon chic bon genre clientele endlessly obliterate the memory of the endlessly lesser beings these waiters come across… She hasn’t been paying attention to the conversation and she needs to, because Marie-Claire is saying something in French about les juifs.

  Mort aux juifs.

  Of course that’s not what Marie-Claire has said.

  “Sarah, dear, have you done the complete tour?” Marie-Claire asks in French. “Of the Marais? It’s very colourful, very charming, if a bit insalubrious.”

  Sarah shakes her head.

  “I know Michael’s been bugging you about seeing the Pletzl,” Laura says. “I do think you might like it.”

  Sarah hasn’t yet been to the Pletzl, the correct term Laura gave them for Michael’s ‘Pretzel.’ The first synagogue in Paris was built in the Pletzl; a famous yeshiva was based there way back in the twelfth century.

  Marie-Claire nods. “The square’s actual name is Place Saint-Paul, but since the late nineteenth century, when it became a centre of Jewish immigration, people have been calling it the Pletzl. Diminutive of place or square. From the German of course.”

  “There are these neat little shops packed with menorahs and mezuzahs, souvenirs from Israel, that kind of stuff,” Laura says. “And there’s that famous deli. The restaurant owner – Rosenberg’s, I think it’s called – his family were Holocaust survivors.” Laura takes a nut from the dish. Pauses. “I don’t know if you’ve already looked this up, Sarah, but I’ve read that over half the Jewish population of the Marais was deported and died in concentration camps during the war.” Laura polishes off her kir, takes a look over at Marie-Claire.

  Marie-Claire sighs. “What you don’t mention is that three-quarters of the Jewish population in France survived the Occupation. That is the other side of the statistics. But is it necessary, so many years later, to dwell on the experiences of the war?”

  Sarah can understand perfectly every word that Marie-Claire says, her enunciated, polished French honed by the years she’s given lessons to visiting Anglophones. Sarah looks over to Laura, who is grimacing into her empty glass, who seems uncomfortable in her seat.

  Marie-Claire nibbles at one of the olives, places the bald pit in its special receptacle. “I know it was very sad, Sarah.” She touches Sarah’s arm, a light stroke. �
�And of course you’re not one of those types.” She’s using the informal tu; she explained to Sarah that since the language classes are being given on a casual basis, there’s no need to maintain teacher-pupil etiquette and use the formal vous. Their primary relationship is social, so the tu is just fine, completely appropriate. Sarah felt vaguely honoured as well as miffed. “It is just that there are others, certain people who feel they must go on about the war, how they suffered. The other night I was having dinner with a friend at Dominique’s, a truly lovely Russian restaurant. The cuisine was delightful, but sadly, the dinner was ruined by the clientele. The place was just full of those people, very noisy, very rude, people elbowing past our table. They were so loud I could hardly think, much less enjoy my meal.” Marie-Claire stops to cover her ears as a demonstration. “Where are people’s manners? It makes one very uncomfortable. Sarah, really, don’t you find that these types – the hostility and aggression – it’s unpleasant, no? No wonder we have such a hard time getting used to this continual intrusion into civil society.”

  “What did you say? Civil society? I don’t understand,” Sarah asks.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah. Yes, civil society. I’ll try to speak more slowly.”

  “No, no, you don’t need to translate, that’s not what I meant. I’m astonished,” étonné, the word étonné comes to Sarah, “I can’t, I don’t understand how you can be so harsh...” She needs the French for harsh – sévère, “so harsh speaking of people you know nothing about.”

  “But really, Sarah,” Marie-Claire is smiling still, “I have so many dear friends who are Jews. And of course there’s chère Laura, who is so very special…”

  Laura is drumming her fingers on the table. “Marie-Claire, really...” She looks ready to pounce.

  Marie-Claire sighs, shrugs. “I suppose they must feel they were badly treated. But really, there is no excuse for their behaviour now. They have developed a certain style of complaining, very elaborate. They are aggrieved, in a permanent fashion, and perhaps this is where the rudeness comes from.”

  Grossièreté, this is the word Marie-Claire is using, the French filtering into Sarah’s brain. Grossness, rudeness, the crude consistency of these loud Jewish voices, unpleasant Jewish thoughts.

  “Especially,” Marie-Claire continues, “when you think how well you people have done since the war, your successes everywhere – banking, the press, entertainment – well, you see, it is very hard to be tolerant of this continuous grumbling on top of the rudeness.”

  “But,” Sarah is searching for the words in French, “but the Jews were treated badly in France, from what I’ve read. As Laura says. The deportations –”

  “Sarah, it was the Nazis, not us, who deported the Jews. The Gestapo. You exaggerate. You always exaggerate, Cherie.” She’s switched from tu to vous: Vous exagérez toujours. The plural, not the formal. All you people exaggerate. She strokes Sarah’s arm again. Sarah involuntarily flexes, her bicep twitching. “You’re such a strong little thing,” Marie-Claire laughs. “And what about the Resistance fighters who sacrificed their lives to save all those Jews?”

  Laura, who has kept opening and then closing her mouth, at last has the chance to say something in French that Sarah can’t quite follow. “Pardon?” Sarah asks in English. “What was that, the raffle of the velodive?”

  Laura answers in brisk English. “I was talking to Marie-Claire about la rafle du Vél’ d’Hiv. Vél’ d’Hiv is short for Vélodrome d’Hiver, the Winter Velodrome. It was a stadium for bicycle races. Not far from the Eiffel Tower.”

  “Yes, yes,” Marie-Claire says. “They took it down in the late 1950s, I think.”

  “There was a raffle there?” Sarah asks. Were they raffling off bicycles? What does this have to do with French anti-Semitism during the war?

  “Rafle means round-up or raid, something like that,” Laura explains, her mouth working. “This is in fact an established event during the war; no one, Marie-Claire, no one questions that it happened. Though you don’t hear much about it in so-called polite circles.” She looks at Marie-Claire. “Jewish civilians were arrested en masse. During the Occupation. 1942, I’m pretty sure.”

  “I don’t believe they were French,” Marie-Claire says. “They were foreign nationals.”

  “My understanding is that many long-term residents who were Jewish weren’t in fact allowed to become citizens. People were kept in the Vélodrome under barbaric conditions,” Laura says. “I’ve heard only bits and pieces because it’s been very nicely hushed up. I need to learn the full story.” Laura’s still drumming her fingers on the table.

  “Is that so? I really don’t know anything at all about that incident, whatever it was,” Marie-Claire says in French, gently pressing on Laura’s hand so the drumming stops. “Once again, people do tend to exaggerate, you know?” She smiles lightly at a passing waiter.

  “How do you spell that?” Sarah asks in English. She’s done with French.

  “Spell what?” Marie-Claire asks.

  “La rafle du Vél’ d’Hiv. I’ll look it up.”

  Marie-Claire takes a pen out of her purse, carefully prints the words on a paper napkin, ever the instructor, hands it to Sarah with a gentle flourish. “Soon my little student will be teaching the history of Paris to me.”

  Sarah fingers the napkin, reads Marie-Claire’s elegant hand: la rafle du Vél’ d’Hiv. Vélodrome d’Hiver.

  Mort aux juifs. The grossièreté of the mannerless juifs, their intrusion into civil society.

  She doesn’t want to be here. “I have to go,” she says.

  “But we were going to order another kir,” Marie-Claire says.

  “I’m sorry,” Sarah says, picking up her purse. Why is she apologizing? Gail wouldn’t apologize. Michael wouldn’t apologize. Every other sentence she says is an apology. Non, rien de rien. Non, je ne regrette rien.

  Marie-Claire stands, pecks her on each cheek. Sarah doesn’t return the pecks.

  “I haven’t upset you?” Marie-Claire asks.

  Sarah can feel her cheeks hot. She hardly ever blushes.

  “You are very sensitive,” Marie-Claire says, touching Sarah’s shoulder. “Perhaps we can talk about this again?”

  Sarah shakes her head, walks away. She can feel someone following her.

  “Sarah?” It’s Laura. She catches up with Sarah, reaches for her elbow. “It’s crap, Sarah. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think she’d go off like that, though she has bloody done it before, just not about Jews. I’ll talk with her.”

  “It’s okay, Laura. I just don’t want to see her again. I’ll send her a note. I don’t need lessons from her.”

  “Of course not. I understand. I’m sorry…”

  It’s not Laura’s fault. Marie-Claire is the one who owns these opinions. Those types who are so very hostile and aggressive. Those people. Those people who exaggerate things. Those people who were not treated badly. Marie-Claire, who owns her proud heritage, her endless apartment full of rubbish. The history of Paris.

  Sarah walks out into Place Vendôme. A couple get out of their chauffeur-driven black Mercedes, head up the red carpet into the hotel. Behind them, a man in uniform is brushing invisible bits of trash into an elaborate monogrammed dustpan. The Ritz. How does he feel about the Ritz, how much is he earning working at the Ritz? She doesn’t even know what minimum wage is here in Paris. And what on earth is she doing at the Ritz, what is she doing in Paris? What does she want from this city?

  Right now what she wants is to walk away. Walk it off. This is what her tough body can do for her, take her places she wants to go, let her leave places where she doesn’t want to be. Place Vendôme. She doesn’t want to be here. This ornate, artificial glitter. She walks quickly down the short block to rue Saint Honoré, then down rue Royale to the Métro station, heads down the stairs. Concorde is big and she’s not paying attention, forgets which Métro line she’s looking for. The floors down here are made of some hideous grey-black material – is it cement?
– a colour that seems as if it were itself just the product of decades of grime. The walls are plastered with ugly shit-brown ceramic frames for the movie ads, the shampoo, department store ads, as if the idiotic ads were works of art.

  She’s down on a platform, starts to sit on one of the harsh, inhospitable plastic seats that discourage, no, make it impossible for anyone to stretch out and sleep on them. As if anyone would want to sleep in the Métro. Unless they had no other place to sleep. Enormous steel beams support the ceiling, the machinery of the Métro made clear. How far down has she gone? She loses all sense of direction, depth, when she’s in the Métro. As she hears the train approaching she suddenly realizes that she’s at the wrong platform, waiting for the wrong train. She gets off her awkward chair, heads down a tunnel, up a set of stairs but she’s not heading for the right line, and she can’t see any signage at all to tell her where to go. That doesn’t make sense, why can’t she find any signs? She has the feeling she’s going the wrong way down one-way hallways, but that can’t be right, the corridors aren’t one-way.