Part 8 (1/2)

I am sorry, I've got family coming round (blatant lie). (blatant lie).

My cat is ailing, I can't leave him alone (sentimental). (sentimental).

I'm sick, I'd better keep to my room (shameless). (shameless).

Ultimately, I steel myself to say: thank you but I have people coming over this week, when suddenly the serene affability with which Monsieur Ozu stands before me opens a meteoric breach in time.

3. Beyond Time.

Snowflakes falling inside the globe.

Before memory's eyes, on Mademoiselle's desk-she was my teacher until I reached the older children's cla.s.s, with Monsieur Servant-is the little gla.s.s globe. When we had been good pupils we were allowed to turn it upside down and hold it in the palm of our hand until the very last snowflake had fallen at the foot of the chromium-plated Eiffel Tower. I was not yet seven years old, but I already knew that the measured drift of the little cottony particles foreshadowed what the heart would feel in moments of great joy. Time slowing, expanding, a lingering graceful ballet, and when the last snowflake has come to rest, we know we have experienced a suspension of time that is the sign of a great illumination. As a child I often wondered whether I would be allowed to live such moments-to inhabit the slow, majestic ballet of the snowflakes, to be released at last from the dreary frenzy of time.

Is that what it means to feel naked? All one's clothes are gone, yet one's mind is overladen with finery. Monsieur Ozu's invitation has made me feel completely naked, soul-naked, each glistening snowflake alighting on my heart with a delicious burning tingle.

I look at him.

And throw myself into the deep, dark, icy, exquisite waters beyond time.

4. Spiders' Webs.

Why, oh why on earth, for the love of G.o.d?” I ask Manuela, that very afternoon.

”What do you mean?” she says, setting out the tea things. ”It sounds lovely!”

”You must be joking,” I moan.

”You must think practical, now,” she says. ”You can't go like that. Your hair is all wrong,” she a.s.serts, looking at me with the eye of an expert.

Do you have any idea of Manuela's notions on the subject of hairdressing? She may be an aristocrat of the heart but she is a true proletarian when it comes to hairstyling. Teased, twisted, puffed out then sprayed with a wicked concoction of chemical spiders' webs: a woman's hair, according to Manuela, must be architectural or nothing at all.

”I'll go to the hairdresser's,” I say, trying to act un-precipitately.

Manuela looks at me doubtfully.

”What are you going to wear?”

Other than my everyday dresses, my concierge dresses, all I have is a sort of white nuptial meringue buried beneath layers of mothb.a.l.l.s, or a lugubrious black pinafore which I use for the rare funerals to which I am invited.

”I'll wear my black dress.”

”The funeral dress?” Manuela is dismayed.

”That's all I have.”

”Well, you'll have to buy something.”

”It's only a dinner.”

”That's as may be,” answers the duenna lurking inside Manuela. ”But don't you dress up when you go to have dinner with other people?”

5. Of Lace and Frills and Flounces.

Now things start to get difficult: where am I to buy a dress? Ordinarily, I order clothes by mail, even socks, underwear and camisoles. The idea of trying something on in front of an anorexic virgin-something which, on me, will look like a sack of potatoes-has always deterred me from going into boutiques. It is most unfortunate that it is now too late to order anything by mail and have it delivered in time.

If you have but one friend, make sure you choose her well.

The very next morning Manuela bursts into my loge.

She is carrying a clothes-bag, and hands it to me with a triumphant smile.

Manuela is a good six inches taller than I am, and weighs at least twenty pounds less. I can think of only one woman in her family whose figure might be comparable to mine: her mother-in-law, the formidable Amalia, who has a real penchant for frills and furbelows, although she does not strike one as being the sort to indulge fantasy. Portuguese-style pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie has something rococo about it: nothing imaginative or light, just a delirious acc.u.mulation, where a dress ends up looking like a straitjacket made of lace, and even a simple blouse like an entry in a seamstresses' ruffles and frills compet.i.tion.

So you may imagine how worried I am. The dinner is already promising to be an ordeal; this could also turn it into a farce.

”You will look like a movie star!” says Manuela, as I feared. Then suddenly feeling sorry for me: ”I'm joking,” as she pulls from the bag a beige dress that seems to have been spared where flounces are concerned.

”Where did you get it?” I ask, examining the dress.

At first glance, it's the right size. It also appears to be a pricey dress, in wool gabardine, with a very simple cut, a s.h.i.+rt collar and b.u.t.tons down the front. Very sober; very chic. The kind of dress Madame de Broglie would wear.

”I went to see Maria last night,” replies Manuela, pleased as punch.

Maria is a Portuguese seamstress who lives right next door to my savior. But to Manuela she's more than a mere compatriot. The two of them grew up together in Faro, each of them married one of the seven Lopes brothers and came with them to France, where they managed to have their children at almost exactly the same intervals, only a few weeks apart. They even share a cat, and similar tastes in refined patisserie patisserie.

”You mean it's someone else's dress?”

”Mmm,” answers Manuela, pouting slightly. ”But you know, she won't come to collect it. The lady died last week. And by the time it takes them to realize she left a dress at the seamstress's ... you'll have time to have ten dinners with Monsieur Ozu.”

”This dress belongs to a dead woman?” I say, horrified. ”I can't do that.”

”Why not?” asks Manuela, frowning. ”It's better than if she were alive. Just think, if you got a spot on it-you'd have to rush off to the dry cleaner's, make up some sort of excuse and what a ha.s.sle that would be.”

”Morally ... I can't do it,” I protest.

”Morally?” says Manuela, p.r.o.nouncing the word as if it were something disgusting. ”What does that have to do with it? Are you stealing? Are you harming anyone?”

”But it is someone else's property, I can't just appropriate it for myself.”

”But she's dead! And you're not stealing, you're just borrowing it for the evening.”

When Manuela begins to embellish on semantic differences, there's not much point putting up a struggle.