Madame Bovary's Daughter (19 page)

“No, madame, you can have it.”

Madame Lisette picked up the turnip and dropped it in her pot.

“Excuse me, madame, is it possible to get another blanket for tonight?” Berthe asked. The landlady tilted her head as if Berthe had posed a philosophically complex question.

“I gave you two blankets, didn't I?” she finally said.

“Yes, madame, but the room is quite cold.”

“That cannot be. You are on the top floor. And as everyone knows, heat rises. You receive all the heat from the rest of the house. It should be quite warm. And if it isn't you can always throw another log onto the fireplace.”

Berthe didn't bother to remark that there was no fireplace. Seeing that Berthe was not going to respond to her joke the landlady said again, in a louder voice, “You can always throw another log onto the fireplace.” The room burst into delayed and somewhat forced laughter. “Yes, take the roasted mutton off the spit and throw another log onto the fire.” Madame Lisette gave Berthe a little poke in the arm. “You are not laughing, mademoiselle,” she observed.

“No, madame, it's not funny. It's cold.” Berthe felt her cheeks flush with irritation.

“This is the coldest winter in memory,” said Madame Lisette, as if it was a fact to be proud of. “Except for last year. That was the coldest winter in memory.” Everyone laughed again. “My dear girl, you must learn to laugh more. Laughter is what warms the body and satisfies the soul.”

“Just like the pissin' soup,” someone shouted.

“Watch your filthy mouth,” Madame Lisette said to no one in particular. “Well, dear mademoiselle, tomorrow is your first day of work. So be sure to get a good night's sleep.”

“As if that will make a bloody difference,” someone said. A few people laughed. Others were too tired to even look up from their soup bowls. Berthe had never seen a group of more exhausted people. Even the farmworkers at the end of harvesttime hadn't seemed so enervated. She suddenly worried:
Am I up to this work?
But of course she was. She would be working with fabric, wouldn't she? It was what she was meant to do.

Berthe was surprised to see that there was again no sign of Hélène either at supper or when she entered their room some time later. She took off her clogs and got into bed.

Her teeth were chattering. It was too cold and she was far too
nervous about the next day to sleep. Maybe Madame Lisette was right about the laughing. She tried it.

“Ha ha ha ha.” She pushed the air out of her lungs. And soon she began to feel warmer, albeit a little foolish. Just as she began to fall asleep, she heard Hélène stumble into the room. She was moaning and groaning. At first, Berthe tried to ignore her but the moaning continued.

“What's the matter?” Berthe said, sitting up.

“Nothing. Go to sleep,” came the slurred reply. Berthe lit the oil lamp. She gasped. Hélène's face was covered with bruises. Her upper lip was split and swollen. She was spitting blood into a dirty rag.

“What happened to you?” Berthe asked.

“Leave me alone,” Hélène said, falling back on the bed. As she lay there, she unwrapped a napkin. In it were four soft white rolls. She took one and began eating it, chewing gingerly on one side of her mouth.

“Where did you get those?” Berthe asked.

“I stole 'em from our dear landlady, Madame Private Pantry,” Hélène snarled.

“Who?”

“How do you think our Madame Lisette got so fat? Not by eating oatcakes. She's got a secret larder filled with food.”

“Did she beat you?”

“No, her watchdog of a son beat me. But I bit him hard. And I can tell you”—she held up the roll—“this was well worth it. And don't be looking at me. You're not getting any of this. You can steal your own.”

“I already have,” boasted Berthe. “I stole an apple tart from the
boulangerie
across from the church.” She felt that Hélène was looking at her with new respect. Perhaps they could be friends, she thought.

It seemed Berthe had just closed her eyes when the morning bell rang from downstairs. She lifted her head and peered out the window. It was still dark outside. After a hurried breakfast of watered-down coffee and stale bread she was given a supper pail which contained her ration of oatcake—oats with a dollop of fat covered by boiled milk and water.

She followed the other children and adults down the hill toward the cotton mill. She had a hard time keeping up with them as they hurried along the street. Her clogs kept slipping off her feet. She had felt breathless and anxious from the moment she had opened her eyes that morning.

Roucher, the mill manager, was standing in the doorway of his office watching the workers file in. He stopped Berthe.

“Bovary, come here.” He handed her a piece of paper and a pen. “Just put your mark here.”

“My mark?”

“Put an
X
here,” he said, pointing to a space at the bottom of the page.

“You mean my signature?”

“Oh, fancy that, she knows how to sign her name,” he announced to the workers as they filed past.

She signed her name at the bottom, then summoned up her courage and said, “Can I please read what I signed?” He was taken aback. Berthe was proud of the fact that she had been reading her mother's books since she was a small child.

“It's nothing. Just a standard work agreement. Do you want to get paid?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then don't be wasting your time reading what doesn't concern you,” he said, snatching the paper out of her hands.
“And you don't need to be going around boasting about the fact you can read and write. We don't need any of your airs here. Now for the rules.” He motioned a group of workers who were just entering the mill to stop where they were.

“But, Monsieur Roucher, we be late,” said one of the girls.

“I said, now for The Rules,” repeated Roucher in a louder voice.

The workers recited in unison:

“Do not leave your workstation without overseers' permission.

“If you are late you will not be paid.

“Workers who produce poor quality work will be discharged.

“There will be no talking except what is necessary to the work.

“Those who fail to obey the orders will be punished.”

“Well done,” said Monsieur Roucher. “Now, stop dawdling and get to work.” He turned back to Berthe. “Bovary, go inside and report to Clothier, the Master Carder.”

Once inside Berthe was amazed at the size of the factory, a long, high-ceilinged space that seemed to go on forever. As large as the room was, it was crowded from end to end with what Berthe took to be spinning machines. She was assaulted by the odor of rancid animal fat. This was not at all how she expected the factory to smell. She had expected the scent of the lavender sachet her mother kept hanging in her armoire. And where were the lovely fabrics? All she saw was spool after spool of dirty white thread. The noise in the room was deafening. She had to shout the words “Monsieur Clothier?” to one of the workers. He pointed out Clothier, who stood on a high wooden platform. From his vantage point the Master Carder could view the activity on the entire floor. Berthe stood at the base of the platform and looked up.

Noticing her for the first time, he bent down and shouted, “See Marnet. He's the Overlooker. He'll show you what to do.” Clearly, the Master Carder was too exalted a position to have to deal with training a new hire. Clothier pointed to a man who was wiping down the parts of one of the machines with a greasy rag. Berthe made her way over to him. There were several men who seemed to be in charge of maintaining the machinery, and they turned from their work to ogle her. A few of them whistled.

“Ooh, là là! What a beauty,” shouted one.

“Enjoy it now. Your looks won't last long,” said another.

Marnet was a huge man who was missing part of his right arm up to the elbow. With his left hand he dipped the rag into a bucket of what turned out to be just what it reeked of: animal fat. Berthe assumed there was a nicer part of the factory where they made the finer fabrics. The smell was beginning to nauseate her. She couldn't imagine working in this odorous room.

“Come here, miss. Tell Marnet your name,” the one-armed man said.

“Berthe Bovary,” she said, trying not to breathe through her nose.

“Ever done this kind of work before?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her stomach seemed to have dislodged from its moorings and was nervously moving about as if looking for a place to re-anchor.

“Ah, I got me an authentic virgin,” he roared. Some of the men snickered. Marnet led her through the narrow aisles between the machinery. His stump was wrapped thickly in rags and he used it almost as if it were a hand, pushing levers and gears, wiping down machine parts, occasionally giving the young workers a friendly pounding on the head.

“Don't cross him or he'll stump you,” one of the older boys said as they walked by.

“This ain't no game,” Marnet said, suddenly getting very serious. “This here's your life's work.” He stopped and turned to her.

“Here comes the grand indoctrination,” someone announced.

“Every time we get someone new, he acts as if he's the bloody heir to the cotton throne,” remarked another.

“Do you know how long I been gainfully employed at this here fine establishment?” Marnet asked Berthe, gesturing with his good arm to the large room around them.

“No, sir, I have no idea.” Her mouth was dry and her eyes felt as if they were made of tissue paper.

“Twenty-nine years, come this February. There's not a day that goes by that I don't thank my lord Jesus Christ for the honor. It's what's kept bread in me mouth and allowed me the glorious life I have today.”

“He calls this a life?” shouted a boy next to her who was unwinding tangled thread from a bobbin.

“He thinks he's one of the
fils
,” said someone else. Clearly Marnet heard the other workers' comments but he acted as if he didn't care. He was too caught up in his own somewhat uneven rhetoric.

“I would give me right arm for Rappelais et Fils.” He looked down at his stump as if noticing it for the first time. “Uh-oh, looks like I already did,” he said, roaring with laughter. He tapped Berthe's shoulder with his foreshortened arm. She pulled back in horror. “Follow me, Mademoiselle Beautiful Bovary, and you shall see the wonders of cotton-making revealed before your very eyes.” Her head had already begun to ache from the loud clatter and whirring of the machines slamming back and forth as he led her over to one of the huge contraptions.

“This here is the carding machine. After the cotton gets beaten up the carders line up the fibers to make them easier to
spin. You got to watch your hands here. I can surely testify to that.” He waved his stump merrily. “These rollers have lots of small teeth that get closer and closer together and that makes a sliver, which is this here.” He held up a thick rope of fibers. “Now slivers get separated into rovings. And rovings is what we got to deal with. This here is the roving.” He showed her a long thin strand of cotton which was about the thickness of a pencil. “This here spinning machine takes the roving and twists and turns it into yarn.” Marnet motioned her to follow him through the huge, noisy, greasy-smelling mechanical structures.

Berthe noticed that no one looked up from his or her work. They seemed chained to their machines. Even the men and boys who had previously looked at her with admiration were now intent on their work. She felt as if she were walking through someone else's nightmare. Even in her wildest imagination, she could never have dreamed up this factory.

“Here you got the spinning area. These glorious machines take the roving off their bobbins and feed 'em through more rollers so that the roving gets to be the same size yarn. Then the yarn gets twisted and twisted and rolled onto the spinning bobbin. After that you got the plying,” Marnet said, pointing out yet another machine. “The plying gets done by pulling the yarn from two bobbins and twisting it together in the opposite direction that it was spun in. Then after all that spinning and plying it goes to a warping room. And this,
chère
Mademoiselle Bovary of the soon-to-be-cotton-making Bovarys, is where you come in.”

They came to another large area where there were racks and racks of bobbins set up to hold the thread that was ready to go onto the loom for weaving.

“Now the warping and the weaving and the thread count—that's for another time. Too much information will fill your
pretty head with lint. The important thing is this—” Marnet held up a large bolt of plain cotton muslin. “Feel it,” he said.

Berthe ran her fingers over the white rough-textured fabric. She hated the feel of it. How hideously different this was from the smooth fabric she had expected.

“Of course, this isn't the fine stuff. That's in another factory. We just do the basics here. But it's a God-given, glorious trade. One that will keep you fat and happy for years to come.”