Madame Des Mazarey

The key to Mme Des Mazarey's apartment has six prongs on it; the door is blue, and in the center of the door, the round, silver handle. The stairwell smells like old books and dusty carpets and peeling wallpaper. Just like the rest of the furniture in the apartment, the wooden floor is old, and it squeaks every time I walk, and it squeaked consistently that one time when I tried to do an ab workout on the floor next to my bed.

The first night we ate dinner with her was a disaster, but since then it has gotten better. Last night she told us about how her son's french chairs with wide seats and skinny arms need to be reupholstered, and that it is difficult to find fabric that will look good. Oh, yes, difficult. I said.

Her living room has a yellow couch, and a light brown beautiful grand piano, and blue and white porcelain near the old fireplace and her hallway has a shelf full of old, beautiful leather-bound books. Later I told her that I went to Versailles. Very beautiful. We rode bikes. Yes, very pretty. Versailles is so pretty. Yes, just in the garden. Too expensive for the chateau. She told us she would do our laundry. I said, you will do it? thank you, where should we put our clothes? And she told us.

There are some pretty good spans of time where I look at Cami, and back at my food, and at Madame, and none of us say anything. Madame looks over the table with concerned eyes to make sure that both of us are enjoying our food, and if we are running low, she continually asks to replace it. No thank you, is all we say, and we smile and give awkward trying-to-be-polite laughs. I remember when she gave us our keys to the apartment, and the code to the building. "Here is your key to your house," she said. Here is a key to everything I own, and you will be living in my house and sleeping in my house, and I will cook for you three times a week, and dinner is at eight. Merci, Madame I answered. And I tried to squeeze every bit of gratitude I could into those two words.

Yes! Thank you! It's delicious. Thank you! Yes! Very beautiful. That's too bad. Yes, it works. Very good. That's good. Yes! Very pretty. Good weather. That's good. That's very funny. We had macaroons. Thank you so much! Thank you! Thank you! Thanks! Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes thank you, yes.

Last week, during one of those great pauses, Cami turned to me and asked how to ask if Madame wanted to go on a walk with us after dinner. I told her, and she repeated it to Madame, who responded saying, "oh, you are going for a walk tonight?" and I said, do you want to come with us? And her eyes lit up behind her gracefully sagging skin and the bags under her eyes, and she rubbed her face, considering if she could come, and told us it is much more fun to go out and see Paris in the car, and she called her friend and the next night her friend came over for dinner, and also her daughter, Claude. Cami and I were so happy that we only had to say a few things to be polite. Claude was kind but brisk, and helped out in English when our lack of french deterred the flow of conversation. And I listened as Claude and Madame's friend shifted from talking of the differing times between train stations, and swine flu. They talked over each other, and at the same time, like they were playing a duet, instead of having a conversation. And Madame sat between them, hardly entering the conversation, but she held out food for her friend, and for Claude, and she made sure we each had enough to eat, and she got more plates for everyone for fruit, and she crouched under the other french women's arms and conversation to make sure that we had enough salad. And I finally realized something. Madame Des Mazarey is quiet. She lives alone, and talks to herself while she's cooking, and she invites college girls to stay at her apartment every semester, and we struggle to converse, like we're wading through wet concrete, but she still asked us to put our laundry outside of our doors tonight, so that she doesn't wake us tomorrow when she plans to wash our dirty clothes. I liked it when she took us on a ride through Paris at night. She called her friend because her friend did most of the talking, because Madame is not a tour-guide type, and she knows that, and so she asked her friend. And tonight she showed us the fabric she picked out for her son's chairs to be reupholstered, and it was classic, and french, and linen and cotton, and she said "it suits a man's apartment, doesn't it?" and I agreed. It was perfectly beautiful for a single man living alone, like her son Pascal. I imagined her going today by the Montmartre to pick it out, and going to the boulangerie around the corner where I bought bread yesterday, and she bought the bread for dinner tonight. And I thought of how she prepares dinner by herself in the kitchen, talking to herself, and banging pots and pans, and that she will be doing all of my laundry tomorrow, and that she wades through my terrible french with me everyday. And I say, "merci beaucoup, Madame," because that's all I can say, and she says, "il n'y a pas de quoi." It's nothing.