It
was in Paris that Elinor Perrin and I saw again, by chance, our former
museum intern Maxine Carpenter. Elinor and I have been colleagues for
years at the Orleanian Institute and are very close friends. Leaving Jack
back in New Orleans to take care of his business affairs, I had gone to
France on one of my research trips; she and her husband, Roger, had traveled
to Paris for an international law meeting. We'd met for lunch or dinner
more than once, just the three of us or with some of Roger's legal acquaintances.
One evening when Roger had a dinner with colleagues at a restaurant on
the rue Ste-Geneviève, near the law school, Elinor and I accepted an invitation
from George Clements, an American art historian from New York whom I'd
known in my student days and run into, to accompany him and his wife,
Grace, a painter, to an event in the 14e arrondissement.
A bizarre event it
turned out to be, and not solely because it offered a new stage in our
acquaintance with Maxine-one of those moments of revelation that expose
previously-hidden aspects of a person and thus tell us about private tensions
as well as society's strains. What is still sometimes called "the social
fabric," especially the codes of manners and mores, has been pretty well
worn, of course-frayed, even attacked directly like a museum tapestry
by a vandal with scissors and knife; one more instance of unraveling shouldn't
surprise anyone. Yet we were taken aback, though later Elinor blamed
it mostly on herself for her ingenuousness.
Before he married
Grace, George had been invited by a wealthy American whom he knew vaguely,
long a resident of Paris, to one of his regular open houses. Not really
private parties, but not quite public events either, these soirées
were gatherings of expatriates and others at the host's hôtel--almost
like a suburban villa--where he entertained, so to speak, on Sunday evenings.
"So to speak" because one had to pay for one's drinks and food (served
cafeteria-style and, George had warned, not particularly good); but we
were to suppose that the varied company (George remembered a curious collection
of human fauna) would compensate largely for the out-of-pocket costs.
On the evening we went, some fifty or sixty people seemed to be there,
speaking mostly French or English, with various accents. They were not
all acquaintances of the host, by any means. In fact anyone was welcome;
the only requirements, besides paying, were to have been there before
and thus be permanently on the list of eligible guests or to have gotten
an "introduction" from someone and to submit to the house rules, which
I found out about later.
The September evening
was mild, with a refreshing touch that felt especially welcome as we got
out of the métro. Elinor, Grace, and I followed George as he led
the way along a boulevard, then down a dark street, into a side garden,
partially lit by Japanese lanterns, where numerous guests had already
gathered, a few seated on flimsy garden chairs, the others standing. Moving
through them, we entered the house itself, a modern structure with lots
of glass, not at all in the characteristic Parisian style. The buffet
was not yet ready, but there was a bar, at which George got tickets for
our dinner from someone acting as majordomo and ordered wine for us, served
in plastic cups. A crush of people made the rooms seem small, and the
din was considerable.
Not expecting to
see any acquaintance, and not glimpsing someone who might be the host,
I occupied myself, between sips and an occasional comment to my friends,
with looking around. No paintings on the walls--a disappointment; but
that was because there was no visible wall space, its entirety being covered
with shelves packed with video tapes, hundreds and hundreds, as a gentleman
of a previous century would have collected books. I noticed a few titles
of classic films: "Casablanca," "Jules et Jim," "Citizen Kane," "Orient
Express" and "Chien andalou." But what about all the others among which
these were scattered? I didn't want to let my imagination work too much
on what they might be. A staircase leading upstairs was similarly lined
with shelves and videos. Furniture was sparse but not altogether lacking;
on a sofa sprawled a young woman, heavily made-up, in a rather Odalisque
pose, and light-weight chairs were available here and there to allow for
free-form conversational groups. Few couples were visible: I wondered
whether it wasn't customary to come with an escort or spouse, though perhaps
leaving with someone wasn't ruled out. The number of unknowns--not just
to us but, apparently, to the other unknowns--created an ambiance of superficial,
random contacts, as in a street crowd; but, since it was, after all, a
party, with a social rationale, there was also a sense of expectation:
of discoveries cultural, ethnic, culinary perhaps (I didn't know what
would be put out on the buffet), and--I thought of the Odalisque girl--sexual.
After further moments
of loitering and drinking, George, with us in tow, set about to find the
host, thinking that the required introductions should be made. After breasting
a wave or so of human flesh, we found him in a small room off to one side,
receiving, in a very casual way, among further elements of his video collection
and, this time, some books. It was plain that despite his previous visit,
George was not really a familiar of the place; he had to identify himself
before introducing us. Jim McCready, a man of fifty or a bit less, acknowledged
Grace politely, then inquired of Elinor and me where we were from, whether
we knew Paris well, and so on. A native Southerner, from South Carolina,
he appeared particularly pleased to hear us mention New Orleans and expressed
great affection for Dixie, though I reflected that, to judge by his way
of life in Paris, he doubtless had been desperate to get away from the
conservatism of his native state. He struck me as a hedonist more than
an aesthete; with his large frame and untidy hair, he appeared to have
little of the connoisseur.
He then announced
to us, pleasantly, the house policy: no further introductions by him (as
we had expected, we were to make our way socially as best we could); no
lingering in the toilettes, given the number of guests; videos
could be examined and borrowed at some future date; singles were expected
to meet other singles; and we must fill out a questionnaire before leaving.
All right, I thought, as we moved away to make room for others;
when in Rome, when in Paris, when in this particular bohemian expatriate
society of Paris . . .
George bought us
another round of rather indifferent red wine, probably from Algeria, and
we slipped among some solitary guests, including loners at the wall, just
looking, and a small group, and then moved toward the door: the garden
was appealing, since none of us wanted to mingle with singles if that
meant looking for love--all of us married and utterly conventional by
the old measures. At that moment, a voice from behind us announced that
"le dîner est servi." We had just gotten our refills; it was a bit too
early for us. But the happy result was that some garden chairs were immediately
vacated by those ready to eat, and, as soon as we elbowed our way out,
we found a quartet of seats not too crowded in by greenery and on moderately
flat ground. It was shortly after we'd sat down that someone appeared
whom I took, correctly, in the strictest sense, to be Maxine Carpenter,
stepping from the shadows near us right into the yellowish light of a
Japanese lantern. And that mixture of illumination and obscurity seemed,
I reflected later, just right for the person, for her strange and difficult
relationship with Elinor, and for her subsequent change.
It's at such times
that one sees suddenly how imperfect past knowledge of others was; and
one's mind, obliged by the circumstances, sets out to correct it, falling
occasionally no doubt into new imperfections, like our previous judgments
the product of time and circumstances and inevitably to become past truths,
or errors. Perhaps, upon seeing us at McCready's soirée, Maxine
had a similar thought: that we were out of place--or, more strangely,
in place, our true selves revealed in that heteroclitic society. But no,
I reflected: Elinor and I had as witnesses for us our age, our careers,
our general respectability; I, in particular, could be expected to move
in expatriate circles, since my field is French art and I go to Paris
often. We should not be thought of thus as "slumming," but simply sampling
Paris; I never feel compromised anyhow, no matter what the company. Maxine,
on the other hand, was, or had been, an unpolished, diffident young woman,
judgmental, intolerant of Europeans and esthetes, and apparently the sort
who would scarcely have set foot at such a gathering. Perhaps, though,
as I had time to reflect, it's just such people, a bit tight-lipped and
corseted, who turn up in unusual settings, where they can shed their habitual
selves and, among unknowns, assume a role.
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