Lessons in French: A Novel Read online

  I put my clothes on wire hangers on a bare metal bar, next to the single futon on the floor.

  “We bought the futon for the last assistant because the springs in the old bed were simply gone,” Lydia had said. “It’s so comfortable that I’m a little jealous. Maybe we’ll get one for Portia. Can you imagine? Portia on a futon on the floor? She’d probably love it. She’s always saying she hates her bedroom in Paris, that it’s too precious.”

  My bathroom was tiny and strange, a shower stall with a curtain that didn’t quite reach the floor and an electric toilet that made an alarming suction sound. The door was plastic and folded like an accordion. The sink was outside, next to a camping stove and a tiny refrigerator. In the cupboard by the refrigerator, I found a few dishes and a box of verveine tea bags. There was still sugar in the sugar bowl, but otherwise there was no sign of the disastrous assistant who had preceded me.

  The string of events that led me to this garret was so tenuous that I believed it might snap at any moment and send me hurtling back across the Atlantic to the nothingness from which I’d come, to Peter, the noncommittal boyfriend who finally called it off, to the professors who told me that I had to outgrow my delusion that

  accurate contour drawing was art, to the mother who said she would hire me an LSAT tutor if I promised to get my act together.

  It was only this past May that Lydia called me at school to say she had gotten my letter and résumé. She liked the fact that I had been a volunteer lifeguard in Nicaragua. Was my French really fluent? She needed to fire the assistant she had in Paris because she wasn’t working out. “I am far from uptight, but this girl has no morals.” Her voice was hoarse and breathy. So could I take the train into the city as soon as possible to meet with her? “I’m in the Village,” she said.

  “Of course. I’ll come tomorrow.”

  I was stunned that she had responded to me.

  One of my college roommates had told me about the job with Lydia Schell. “I used to be friends with her daughter, Portia. They’re both kind of crazy, mother and daughter, but pretty brilliant. She always needs an assistant in Paris and it’s probably an interesting gig. Write to her. You can use my name.”

  So, I had gone to the library and found books of Lydia Schell’s photographs. I had quickly learned that she had been a part of everything that mattered in recent history. I had written to her.

  Lydia had made her name photographing the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War protests. Now she traveled all over the world, but she was based in Europe as a magazine correspondent, mostly for Vanity Fair of late. She was famous for a framing device whereby her pictures looked like they were from the point of view of one of their own subjects. They felt very intimate, but they told far-reaching and important stories.

  After initial skepticism, Mom had been suitably impressed by my reports of Lydia Schell’s fame to support my effort. This was why she had sacrificed to send me to a good school, so that I would have this kind of opportunity. But I shouldn’t simply drift on it. I should make sure I always knew where the opportunity was taking me because people like us could not afford not to be practical.

  “So, you’re telling me she’s in the big leagues,” said Mom, with the beginnings of approval.

  “Mom, she probably won’t even answer my letter.”

  “Well, then it won’t have been for you, will it? And you can use your French in a law firm. Max said he would be able to get you a paralegal job in any major city in the world in a heartbeat.” She took a rare pause. “But they do say,” she went on, “that law schools are looking for variety these days. Think about how that week in Nicaragua helped you get into college. You wrote such a great essay about it, remember? So your law school application may end up stronger if you work for this woman.”

  “Is that why you let me go to Nicaragua? To give me a better shot at college. Well, Mom, don’t get your hopes up.”

  But when Lydia did answer me, I took the train from New Haven into New York City the next day and found my way from Grand Central Station to the Christopher Street subway stop. I had only been to Manhattan a handful of times, had no mental map of it, and did not picture it this cozy and leafy. The streets were sun-dappled and people looked friendly.

  Lydia’s New York home was a four-story townhouse. I rang the bell and was let into a foyer by a maid who turned quickly away. It smelled like wet paint.

  “Hello! Is this color terrible?” Lydia came toward me, hand outstretched. She swallowed audibly and looked alarmed at the lavender walls. There was a slight bulge to her eyes that made them catch light like fruit in a still life. They glistened with the sheen of the fresh paint. Although I did not know what color the insides of townhouses were supposed to be, my instinct told me that she was displeased with the lavender and that I should be too.

  “It might be a little too Eastery,” I ventured, “for a first impression of such a great house.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. My husband has no eye for color. But this is far from the worst of it. You have to come see what he’s done in here.” She led me into a living room with tarps over the furniture and gestured to the walls. “This looks like a melon, doesn’t it? The man wants me to feel like I’m living inside a melon.”

  “You think it’s on purpose?”

  “So you agree that it looks like a goddamn cantaloupe in here? We see eye-to-eye on this? I have to know so he doesn’t think it’s just me being difficult.”

  “Well, it’s definitely fruity. Maybe a little darker than a cantaloupe, though? Maybe you could tell your husband it looks like a papaya.”

  “Don’t get me started on papayas. Have you heard about this papaya diet? The enzyme that’s supposed to make you lose weight? I’m going to start again as soon as I get back to Europe. Have you ever done it? It’s disgusting, but it works.”

  “I like papayas.”

  “Well maybe we can do it together, then. You and me and Portia. We’ll do it when she comes during her school breaks. Then it won’t be quite so miserable. Anyway, I’m sorry the place is such a shambles. Let’s go into the dining room and sit down. They haven’t started on this room yet. It’s not going to be green anymore. Green is supposed to be an unappetizing color. I don’t know what we were thinking. We haven’t painted in about ten years. We’re going to do red this time. Maybe you could take a look at the swatches on the table. And there’s a menu there. I hope you like Chinese food. I was going to order lunch.” She began rummaging through papers on the dining room table. “God, I can’t find it! No one puts anything away around here.” She walked to a doorway and yelled up a mahogany staircase. “Joshua! Joshua! Where’s the Excellent Dumpling House menu?”

  No answer from Joshua. Lydia’s eyes shone a sad pale green. “I think I know what happened,” she said. “The maid is on the rampage against us ever since Portia’s boyfriend started sleeping over. It’s breaking her heart. She’s been with us since before Portia was born, and suddenly I’m a terrible mother in her eyes and my lovely daughter is turning into a slut. It’s more than she can take, I think. She can’t keep track of anything. And she’s throwing stuff out right and left as though she owned the place.”

  “Is this the menu?” I asked.

  “You godsend, you. So have a seat and tell me what you’d like and then we’ll get down to business.”

  Not wanting to seem indecisive or difficult, I read out the first dish I spotted under the lunch specials. “Beef with broccoli.”

  “Are you sure? The orange beef is better.”

  “Orange beef is probably more interesting. I’ll try it.”

  “It comes with spring rolls. Do you want spring rolls?”

  “Absolutely!”

  “Because if you don’t want them, my son Joshua will eat them. I’m going to give him mine. Spring rolls are one of the few things he’ll eat. He’s in a phase.”

 
“I’m sure I don’t need my spring rolls. Chinese food is always so big.”

  “Yes, but in a few weeks we’ll be living on papayas, remember? Give me a second.”

  She went through a swinging door into a kitchen with a big island in the middle, stacked with magazines and newspapers. Cast iron pots hung dangerously over her head as she dialed the Excellent Dumpling House.

  I looked around the dining room. An arrestingly pretty and delicate blond looked out at me from a red-leather-framed picture on the sideboard. This must be Portia. I took a step toward her, saw that she had her mother’s overround eyes and that there was a bitter undertone to her smile. She had a golden dusting of freckles, which made me think the picture had been taken during the summer, on some exotic vacation. I had always wanted freckles.

  Lydia ordered our lunch without ceremony and came back to me.

  “So I take it you know nothing about photography, which is good. I’m not looking for an apprentice. That’s part of the problem with the girl I have now. She wants to be me and she can’t believe it might take a little work. That and she acts like she was raised by wolves. Wakes up with a different boy every morning. But anyway, you’re a painter? You have an eye?”

  “Not really. Not that kind.” My eyes skidded over the green walls. In my letter to her, I had written that I was interested in fine arts, in all that Paris had to teach me. I hadn’t been specific. But she had paint on the brain, and besides I was twenty-two and I ought to have an ambition by now. Something beyond the simple love of drawing. By this point in life, you had to want to be something, even if it was going to change. You needed direction.

  “I do dream of being a painter,” I stammered. “But I love photography too. I mean I appreciate photography. I could never do it myself. I’m inspired by it though. I think your work is amazing. And your writing about photography. Your books. Everything. I grew up with Changes and Human Landscapes. So, I feel like I know you. And through you, ever since I was little, I feel like I knew Martin Luther King.”

  “What a lovely thing to say. So, were you really a lifeguard in Nicaragua? I was down there, you know. I did some great work on the Sandanista Literacy Campaign.”

  “I saw your photo of Ortega getting the Nobel Prize for vaccinating so many children.”

  “You liked that shot? My family hated it. They thought it was creepy.”

  “I thought it was moving. And something about the angle—I can’t explain it—it felt like it was taken from the perspective of a young child.”

  “Nice to know somebody notices things. Anyway, what about your French? It has to be good, you know. All my business in Europe is done in French. All the important agencies are French now. I need you to promise it’s decent.”

  I thought about breaking into French, but decided not to because something told me that hers might not be so great, even though she was a genius.

  When our lunch came, we ate on Limoges china that she said she had just inherited and was on the fence about. The china was kept in a piece of furniture that was called a hutch, I learned. I did not touch my spring rolls.

  “I’ll put these away for Joshua,” she said, then she yelled up the stairs again, “Joshua!” In the ensuing silence, she cleared her throat. “He’ll be down to forage after dark. So, do you have any questions about the job? As I say, it’s a little bit of everything.”

  I had no idea what she meant, but I wanted it. “It sounds fantastic.”

  “But I haven’t told you about the money yet, have I? Condé Nast is so cheap—and they’re my only steady client these days, because you can’t count on the agencies for anything—that I’m embarrassed to say this is the kind of job you can’t take unless you have another means of support. Jesus, it’s so elitist to talk like this I should be shot, but you know how it is.”

  I nodded.

  “So, they give me a hundred and fifty a week for an assistant. But they only pay part of the rent on my Paris apartment and the assistant has to rent the maid’s quarters, you know the chambre de bonne up on the sixth floor. It’s a great little garret, very romantic, with a sublime glimpse of the Luxembourg through a dormer window. You’ll love it. That’s about four hundred a month, which doesn’t leave a whole lot. So, you’ll need help from your family.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem,” I lied again.

  Lydia told me the house in Paris was being painted too and would surely look like Beirut. She might not be there when I arrived in September to begin work, but her husband, Clarence, surely would because he was taking a sabbatical this school year to write in Paris. She hoped I would stop him from doing anything too hideous with the walls.

  five

  It was ten-fifteen. The phone was beside me on the kitchen table. I kept touching it.

  I sweetened my tea with Olivier’s honey.

  With my first sip, the kitchen grew a shade homier. The Washington marchers lowered their eyelids toward me, less imposing than intimate despite being on the cover of Life. I felt the flicker of their benevolence. Even Jim Morrison was beginning to know me. But my place in this wonderful web was tenuous. If I messed up this phone call, I might “not work out,” and then what would I do?

  It was ten twenty-two.

  The phone rang. I picked up and gave my cheeriest, “Allo?”

  “Listen, Katherine, I’m pressed for time, but you arrived okay? Was Olivier still there when you showed up?”

  “Just barely.”

  “Madame Fidelio was decent? She takes a while to warm up. The last girl quite threw her. I’ve told her you’re vastly different, but she’ll take her sweet time. Anyway, I have a meeting in two minutes, but here’s what I’d like you to do. Can you clip and précis anything in Le Monde or Libération on Germany for the next few weeks? There’s a box of petty cash in the far right drawer of my desk to buy the papers with. Don’t forget to put all your receipts back in the box. Start today. I have to keep a time line for the photos.”

  “A time line? What exactly—”

  “Use the files in my office. Start a new one for the Wall. And you can clip Le Canard enchainé too, but only if you see something interesting. I find it so hard to follow, don’t you? Oh, and did Olivier mention a package for me?”

  “There’s a bag in the kitchen with your name on it.”

  “Could you look inside?”

  “It’s a bottle of what looks like vitamins.”

  “What does the bottle say?”

  “Extrait de papaye.”

  “God, that’s a nice accent.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m going to have to have you make all my French calls. Anyway, you’re sure that’s what it says? Good. What about the paint?”

  “It looks like the entryway and the living room are about half-done.”

  “Listen, do me a favor. When Clarence shows up tomorrow, do a walk-through with him and get him to tell you the names of the colors. He won’t tell me, but I’m sure he’ll tell you and I need to know what he’s up to.”

  “The names of the colors?”

  “Yes. Find out what he thinks the colors are. Find out what is going on in his mind. Then you can tell me what they really are, but right now I have a very important meeting. I don’t mean to be abrupt, but you’re fine, right?”

  “Great, I’m great. Thanks for everything.”

  “Your chambre is clean? She didn’t sabotage it?”

  “No, she left me tea and sugar.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t mean to. Anyway, Olivier didn’t say anything in particular? Nothing going on?”

  “I barely saw him. He had to leave right away.”

  “Well, good. I’m glad you’re settled. Now, call your mother. She’ll want to know you’ve landed. Do you know how to make a collect call from France?”

  “Sure. I just have to wait until it’s late
enough in California.”

  “Listen, my German translator has shown up. Tell Clarence, when he gets there, to expect a call from me tomorrow evening, around five.”

  • • •

  Clip and précis. Knowing the definition of the words didn’t illuminate Lydia’s meaning. How did one keep a time line? How could she trust me to synthesize international events and to fathom her husband’s ideas about paint color? And which part of my job was the more important? All the tasks she listed sounded equally urgent. “A little bit of everything.”

  I went into Lydia’s office, off the main hallway, to investigate. The room’s two windows framed the small interior garden, one degree further removed from the street than the quiet courtyard, the gem within the gem. Almost no one ever saw this garden, with its pleasantly overgrown geometric plots, outlined in pale stone, and its wrought iron table with a glass top where someone, Olivier surely, had left a china cup that must be full of rainwater by now.

  Despite its harmonious view, the office was unsettling. Its topography was like nothing I had experienced. There were piles of papers everywhere. There were file cabinets, an enormous desk with a giant computer, an armoire full of supplies, a Rolodex. There were envelopes from Condé Nast and from a photo agency called Maxim. There were proof sheets full of people I had never seen and places I did not recognize, all marked up in white china marker, in a mysterious and beautiful code of circles and X’s and arrows.

  I picked up a magnifying glass from Lydia’s desk and looked through it. At first, all I saw was a close-up of a boy in a knit hat with a faraway look in his eyes. Then I noticed a guitar strap over his shoulder, then a tank rolling behind him. There was a Post-it above the boy that read, “learning English from Bob Dylan records, hopes to go West.”

  There was another sheet of soft circles of light over shadowy-colored backgrounds. It proved to be a candlelight vigil on the West Berlin side of the Wall. A bearded man held a white candle up in front of a silver-gray vulture with clenched claws and an alarmingly focused downward glare. A baby in a pouch slept in the glow of her mother’s candle, behind them the word TRACE spray-painted a ghostly outline over layers and layers of bold block letters. There was a couple sharing a candle by a soaring Japanese manga boy, with a lean muscular chest, white wings and red hair whipped upward by the wind into the shape of a flame. There were German names and cartoon animals bathed in candlelight. An old woman smiled behind her candle, her teeth sparkling from the depths of her shawl. So this was how people looked in Berlin.