Belle Epoque (2 page)

There is a shuffling of feet outside the seamstress’s room and I hear women’s voices floating by. “You’d better get a move on and join them in the salon,” says Madame Leroux. “Just one finishing touch.” She opens a jewelry box and fishes out a hideous swan brooch. It’s gaudy for my tastes, but maybe I don’t understand Paris fashion. She pins the brooch to my dress with a grin, eyes twinkling through her faded wisps of hair.

I look once more at my reflection and decide that she couldn’t have tried harder to make me look a fright. And then a dark realization begins to creep and spread like spilled ink on white parchment. I blot it out of my head.

The chorus of women’s chatter rises as I approach the salon, and nerves dance in my chest. I take a quick breath and push open the mahogany door. There must be at least twenty
women and girls squeezed into the room. Every seat is taken—it’s standing room only as I step around them to find a space. I feel conspicuous in the new dress. A couple of women give me sidelong glances; they can’t be judging my outfit too harshly, for it looks like they’ve also been subjected to Madame Leroux’s handiwork. I’m uncertain where I should position myself until a pudgy, red-faced woman gives me a smile. I smile back, noting that her putrid, mustard-colored dress is worse than mine. I stand beside her. Maybe by comparison I look less terrible.

A trill of laughter turns my attention to the door. Durandeau enters with two rich-looking society ladies, and a hush falls over the room. My new colleagues freeze and remain motionless, staring into the distance. I study the rich ladies, who look like dolls—painted, perfect and delicate—at home in a well-furnished room. They walk among us slowly and with a deliberate ease. One lady is wearing a striking black and white dress. Her dark hair is rolled in a tight chignon. Her expression is self-satisfied: the cat that got the cream. The other lady’s gown is iridescent pink like the lining of a shell. She has an easy laugh and keeps catching her reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Durandeau scampers between them like an excited spaniel.

“Madame Vary.” Durandeau addresses the lady in pink. “I have just the thing for you this week.” He draws her attention to a woman with a hook nose and pointy chin. “This one’s severe profile will greatly accentuate your perfect proportions.”

Madame Vary steps toward my unattractive colleague, scrutinizing her closely.

Durandeau turns to the lady in black and white. “Countess
Dubern, your fine eyes would captivate next to the piggy eyes of this one.”

I flinch at Durandeau’s words. The countess merely flashes a smile at his suggestion. The salon women remain stoic, and I’m shocked. Why don’t they react to these insults?

“Madame Vary,” the countess calls to her friend. “Look at me with this one? What do you think, better than the one I rented last week?”

“They’re both so hideous I can’t decide,” Madame Vary says. “Although maybe the piggy one shows off your figure better.”

That unwelcome thought is pushing through again. Panicked, I scan the room, taking in the faces of my new colleagues, until it hits me. The women differ in age, height, shape and coloring, but they do share one common characteristic: they are all, without exception, extremely unattractive—some outright ugly. My cheeks blaze; my heart combusts with shame at the realization that
I am one of them
.

Durandeau spies me across the room and breaks into a trot.

“Now, Countess, here’s what I thought for your daughter.” He gestures for me to come forward. “A light ornamentation of plainness. She would complement Isabelle very nicely, I think. Nothing too flashy for her Paris debut at the Rochefort ball.”

I do as he says and step forward, gripping the folds of my dress. The countess glides toward me with a languid step. She is beautiful and imposing, like an actress on stage.

Durandeau continues dissecting me. “Note her hair, the color of wet straw; the upturned nose; the tarnish of freckles
on the complexion; and the unremarkable eyes—bovine in expression, dull in color. Lastly the bony angles of the figure.”

My heart, recovered from its initial shame, is now pierced by the barbs of his words—this inventory, this list of human flaws,
my
flaws, so casually delivered.

Her eyes smirk as she looks me up and down. “Yes, I think she’ll do. It’s hard to tell until we see them side by side.”

Durandeau claps his hands. “Perfect. I will arrange a meeting once we’ve finished with her training. It’s a match, I’m sure.”

“You’re red as a beet,
ma pauvre
!” My mustard colleague is grinning at me. I don’t respond. I can’t move, much less speak. Durandeau, the countess and Madame Vary have since quit the salon, and the women around me have picked up their conversations again. No one else looks bothered by the preceding selection process.

“Countess took quite a shine to you, eh?” Mustard goes on.

I look at her, aghast. “What is this job?”

She places a hand on her ample hip. “We are repoussoirs, of course. No one told you?”

I hesitate. “Repoussoir? I don’t understand.” But then it dawns on me. Could the name come from the verb
repousser
? To push away, to repel or repulse. “Re-pou-ssoir,” I repeat. It stings when I roll the syllables over my tongue. The notion is impossible to absorb. “We are meant to repel, to repulse?” I say, horrified.

Mustard chortles. “Just your luck, getting singled out the
first day.” She takes my arm and guides me across the salon, following the others, who are filing out of the room. “This way,
ma grande
. The dining room’s just next door. Looks like you haven’t seen a hot meal in a while.”

Food is the least of my considerations as I’m led along the hallway with the train of salon women and girls. The only thing I can think of is getting out of this place. I pull away from her hold on my arm. “No, no, I can’t. I have to be on my way now. I just came for the interview.”

I can smell lunch; a waft of meat stew makes my stomach clench and burn with emptiness. I can hear the clatter of cutlery, the clink of glasses and the scraping of chairs. Under any other circumstances, I would welcome a free meal—but not here.

“Did Laurent recruit you?” she asks. “Handsome devil, isn’t he? I would have signed up for the Prussian front if he’d asked me!” She lets out a snort of laughter.

My head is spinning and I can barely concentrate on my surroundings. I wish she’d stop asking me questions. “No, I saw a notice in the paper.” The announcement—my mind’s racing back to the wording of it. How could I have misunderstood?

“Well, that’s bold of you. I like that. Yes, you’ll fit in soon enough. Not all the younger ones make it past training.”

I’m appalled; I’m not like her. I’m not like any of them.

She goes on. “I can tell you’re made of stronger stuff. Or you will be, once we fatten you up a bit!”

I press my hands into my stomach, trying to suppress the cavernous growling. The temptation of food threatens to overcome my sense of pride.

“I can’t stay. But thank you.” I take a step back from the entrance to the dining room. I’m jostled and bumped as I push against the last girls heading for their lunch. “I really have to be going.”

“It’s rabbit stew today. Sure we can’t convince you?”

“No, thank you. I’m not hungry.”

She looks at me with pity, as if she can see through me. “Well then, until next time.” She smiles kindly.

I nod a goodbye and practically fly down the corridor back to the seamstress’s little room. I knock on the door and poke my head in. It’s empty—thankfully. Trembling with hunger and humiliation, I wrestle my way out of the dress; the buttons on the back force me into some contortionist moves. I just want this damn thing off. Nothing helps me unlace the corset any faster, but what if that awful little man charges in here demanding his five francs back? That’s food for a week. I can almost taste what I’ll spend the money on: crusty baguette, salty ham and tangy mustard, washed down with a bowl of thick hot chocolate so rich I have to scoop out the dregs with a spoon.

I leave the borrowed clothes in a heap on the worktable—I don’t care to hang anything up. Pulling my own dress over my head, I feel safe and like myself again. I slide a hand into the pocket of my dress and feel the weight of the gold coin and wonder: if I keep the money and never come back, is it stealing?

So what if it is. I decide it’s compensation for the most humiliating experience of my life. Nestled in my pocket next to the coin is the job notice. I take it out, smoothing the crumpled newspaper. Where I ripped the page, I can see that the first
word has been cut off. On the edge of the tear I can make out the letters
l
and
y
. I fill in the missing letters myself.

U
GLY YOUNG WOMEN WANTED FOR UNDEMANDING WORK
.
P
ROPRIETY GUARANTEED
.
A
PPLY IN PERSON TO THE
D
URANDEAU
A
GENCY
,
27 A
VENUE DE L
’O
PÉRA
, P
ARIS
.

B
RIGITTE MARCHES UP TO ME
across the black and white tiled floor. She’s brandishing a shirt I ironed, and her narrow eyes are fixed on me. I look down, anticipating her reproach.

“Is this how they do things where you’re from?” I glance up to see her pinched face. “Look at this.” She’s shaking the shirt at me. “As creased as my gran’s face. You’re in Paris now, mademoiselle, and we do things properly at Bromont Laundry.”

I put the pile of linen I was sorting to one side and take back the shirt without complaint. Her
grand-mère
must have the smoothest complexion in Paris. But I have learned the hard way that arguing with my new colleagues makes things more difficult. I keep my head down, work hard and say little.

Brigitte stalks back to her linen. I smooth out the offending shirt and pick up the iron, carefully pressing the garment a section at a time. My colleagues are as hard on me as the soap and hot water are on my skin. Agnès, Brigitte and Clémence remind me of the squawky hens we used to keep when I was
little. They are as thick as thieves, and pecking at me has become the highlight of their day. They like to spend their time gossiping, making me bear the brunt of the work. I can hear Clémence launching into one of her stories now.

“So I saw this
beau mec
at the dance hall.” All her stories begin like this. “So I says to him, I says …” And continue like this. I shut out their chatter, which is as rough as their chapped hands.

Hot steam rises into my face as I press the shirt. In the two weeks I’ve worked here I’ve realized that a Parisian laundry is tantamount to a torture chamber—my muscles ache and I have burns on my arm from the iron and a staved finger from the wringer handle. It’s hot and stuffy, with no end to the constant cycle of wash, dry, iron and fold. The vast room is populated with piles of dirty laundry, clean white linens strung up to dry and racks of ironed sheets ready to be sorted and returned to their owners. A system of pipes runs overhead like bars of a cage; it connects the sinks to a water source. Permanent condensation fogs up the windows. Even if I could see out, there’s only a view of the alley and no time to daydream.

Upholding my resolution not to return to the agency of ugly dresses and uglier people, I set about trying to find an honest job. I thought with my experience in our village store that I would easily find work in one of the thousands of Paris shops. But after being turned away from shop after shop, I realized that young girls dressed in country clothes with no letters of reference can’t sell chic fashions or fancy cakes. Underneath the lack of experience, the real deficiency I felt was the shame of the Durandeau interview. The memory taunted me, weighing
down my confidence. I’d rather be an invisible worker than be thought of as ugly.

I hear a chorus of cackles from across the room. The coven breaks apart and they retreat to their chores. Brigitte saunters over to me and dumps a basket of clean laundry on my ironing table. I’ve finished re-pressing the shirt and carefully fold it in front of her, aware of her studying me.

“Maude, take this basket of linens to Restaurant l’Académie on rue de Rennes.”

Respite from the henhouse. I nod briefly, trying not to look as relieved as I feel. Picking up the basket, I move swiftly to the door. I grab my shawl from the row of hooks and throw it around my shoulders.

“And remember to take back the dirty linen while you’re at it,” Brigitte calls after me.

“Yes, I will,” I reply, my voice betraying a quiver of enthusiasm as I grasp the door handle.

It’s late afternoon, when the sun is golden and casts long lilac shadows across the neighborhood of Montparnasse. After the monotone white and gray of the laundry, the outside world is a vibrant rainbow of color and light. I ended up living in this area because it’s the arrondissement surrounding the train station where I first set foot. I didn’t realize it was a hub of artists and writers. That doesn’t mean that it’s beautiful or that inspiration hangs on every tree; it just means the rent is cheap.