Secrets of Paris_ A Novel - Luanne Rice [25]
You want to know how we live, my child? Alas, like this.
—TO FRANÇOISE-MARGUERITE, SEPTEMBER 1689
IT WAS SATURDAY afternoon, and Kelly was peeling cloves of garlic to scatter around the leg of lamb. Didier liked a lot of garlic. Tonight Lydie and her husband were coming to the d’Orignys’ for dinner. Kelly’s back ached. She felt a little sad. Tonight would point out to everyone the differences between Kelly and Patrice and Lydie. The differences were, of course, already understood by all, but tonight they would be crystal clear. Kelly had seen the dress Patrice was going to wear because Patrice had laid it across her bed for Kelly to iron. It was beautiful: a sheath of rose silk. Just touching the dress with one hand as she passed the cool iron with the other had brought tears to Kelly’s eyes.
“That garlic smells heavenly,” Patrice said, startling Kelly.
“Hello, Mum,” Kelly said.
Patrice leaned against the sink. She started munching some haricots verts that Kelly had already trimmed. She wore a white tennis dress; her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, but her makeup was perfect.
“Did you have a good tennis match?” Kelly asked.
“Yes, we did. We beat the shit out of the Dulongs. And it’s so beautiful outside. Nice and hot. Summer’s coming on, even if you’d never know it in here. This building holds on to winter until mid-July, doesn’t it? Aren’t you chilly, Kelly?”
“I’m fine, Mum,” said Kelly, who was sweating.
“At least we don’t need air-conditioning. Those ancients really knew how to insulate a place. Are there places as old as Paris in the Philippines?”
“Oh, yes,” Kelly said, thinking of one street in her province said to be older than Christ.
“When you were born and raised in America, you think a place two hundred years old is practically medieval.”
“Is America really modern?” Kelly asked, surprised by how wistful she felt. She would trade old for new any day.
“In some ways, yes,” Patrice said. “But the attitudes can be as backward as anyplace else. Listen, speaking of backward attitudes,” she said, standing up straight, “I came to tell you that Didier wants you to wear your uniform tonight. It’s here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kelly said. She had already planned to wear it.
“Do me a big favor. Press it and have it on when Didier comes downstairs.”
“Okay, Mum,” Kelly said, placing the knife in the sink, wiping her hands on the linen towel. Patrice left the kitchen. Kelly could not hear where she went. The massive stone architecture kept sound, like heat, from penetrating the walls. Garments she had yet to iron hung in a small closet off the kitchen. Taking down her uniform, Kelly realized that of all her household chores, she disliked ironing most. And she realized the irony of that dislike, considering the pleasures ironing had given her in her early life.
When she was young, five or six years old, the whole family worked for Pan Am. The great American airline hired Kelly’s parents to launder their linen. White napkins, tiny pillowcases, aprons, summer-weight cotton blankets. Kelly’s father and brothers would drive to the airport in Manila to pick up the soiled linen and deliver the clean; the women would wash and iron it.
Sometimes they worked inside the house, but more often outdoors, under the hot blue sky. She remembered the three large iron cauldrons boiling over coal fires, steam wisping into the hot air. Annette and Ingrid had charge of stirring the laundry with clean sticks. Marie-Vic, Darlene, and Sophia would wring it out with their bare hands and pin it to clotheslines. In the rainy season they strung lines inside the house and fanned it with paddles.
Along with Pan Am’s laundry they washed large white sheets to lay on the dirt—the floor of their house and their entire yard had been dirt then. Kelly’s sisters would toss the clean linen on one sheet, and her mother would sit cross-legged on another, a large pillow on her lap. And she would iron on that pillow. Kelly had loved watching her.
Absently Kelly lifted the iron she was now using,