A Christmas miracle

The second sofa

I have a calling: mover. More precisely, Paris mover. In the last two days, we have almost successfully moved two sofas from a Paris apartment in the 15th to our house, and I have only one injured finger. The sofas did a little bit less well.

Audouin did lots of mental math to figure out if we could get the sofas into the Voyager. I didn't bother following him through the contortions (it was very complicated; I suggested drawings). One would fit, and we had the roof rack. That was good enough.

Except.

On Christmas eve, we loaded the Christmas presents, luggage, sleeping bags and pillows, three kids, two dogs, my husband and myself into the Voyager and set off for my inlaws' home 2 hours south of us, not far from Châteaudun, on the edge of the Beauce, France's Great Plains. We were sailing along uneventfully past the château d'Anet, de l'Ormes' hunting palace built by Henry II for his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who rather cunningly happened to share the same name as the great goddess of the hunt, and had cleared the uphill climb to the straight-away through his hunting domain, perhaps having passed the lunch pavilion, which one must circumnavigate to continue tout droit, before Audouin started muttering, and then swearing.

"Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" I asked, as he pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, upset that it was a lousy place to have to pull over, with cars approaching from behind. Not my main concern at that particular moment.

"Merde. Merde."

"Qu'est-ce qui se passe?"

"Ca chauffe. Le moteur chauffe depuis un moment. J'ai gardé un oeil dessus depuis avant la côte, mais ça chauffe." Vapeur, or smoke -- a more alarming possibility --, was streaming from under the hood. He got out of the car to go do what you do in such situations: open the hood and look at the radiator. His son had the not so brilliant impulse to follow him, which meant not one, but two Labrador Retrievers jumping from the door at the same time, into the dark night along a road cars travel at speeds upwards of 90 km per hour. His sister and my son lunged for the leashes.

Everyone, stay calm. Please regain your seats and remain calm.

I called my mother-in-law.

We sat and waited for the motor, and our heads, to cool.

"Ca va être difficile d'avoir un taxi le réveillon de Noël," I shared, "et pire encore, on n'est même pas 50 km de chez nous. Tu n'as pas changé l'assurance d'assistance sur ce véhicle quand tu as fait les autres, je pense." Our equivalent of AAA only kicks in once we are more than 50 km from home, but he changed that recently for the two cars we drive the most frequently, although this one is by far the least reliable. The last time it broke down, on the way to his parents' home (for Mother's Day, no less), we were 51 km from home.

We'd have pushed the damn thing a kilometer if we'd had to.

This time, by our calculations, we had about 17 km to push, right past Dreux. Not an option. Think fast. Stay cool. Audouin thought we might be able to make it back, in short hops, between the boiling points, if we sat and waited long enough each time it overheated. A light cold rain was falling in the winter night, a major plus.

"Il y a un McDo à l'entrée d'Anet. Tu penses qu'on peut y arriver et demander de l'eau?"

"Peut-être."

"Je ne sais pas s'il a été encore ouvert, mais ça vaudra le coup, et au moins on serait un peu plus près de la maison." As if being 8 km closer to the house, when we were still some 27 km away if we couldn't get any water would help. I was trying to be positive and encouraging. I do that when the situation is grave and calls for it. He nodded.

"On peut toujours essayer. On attendra que ça refroidisse, et puis on le tentera." We waited another 10 minutes, the kids settled down, playing DS or listening to their music. Baccarat, who had been upset and whimpering, had calmed, too. She must have smelled the hot metal and fone into high alert. It didn't help when his kids started imploring, "Non, Papa! Ne fait pas ça! Ne fait pas ça!" Dogs don't like anxiety in small, enclosed spaces.

"Ca doit être ce qu'on sentait à la Chaussée d'Ivry." La Chaussée d'Ivry had smelled very bad. We couldn't fathom why.

Now, it all made sense.

"J'ai senti quelque chose avant de quitter Mousseaux," added Sam. Why he didn't mention it is beyond me. Actually, he always says that Mousseaux stinks, so.

Let us just say that coasting as much as possible (the big uphill was a lot easier on an overheated engine heading back down), stopping once again in Anet for 15 minutes with the hood open under the December drizzle, and the great good fortune of the cleaning guys letting Audouin in and giving him a bucket of water, although one looked none too happy about breaking the rules to do that, and we made it home. Two and a half hours after we left it, we were unloading the car and carrying everything back inside. My stepson turned on the TV, and there, having only just started, was Ratatouille, right on cue.

Never was domum more dolce.

I called my mother-in-law, who could barely contain her disappointment, while I could barely contain my joy and relief, "Je suis désolée," I apologized, "j'ai de mal à vous communiquer la déception que je ressens quand je suis si soulagée d'avoir pu regagner chez nous au lieu d'être toujours au bord de la route, le réveillon de Noël."

I was nearly giddy with happiness, and she was nearly in tears, however, she could understand that my joy and relief trumped any disappointment I might have been feeling when we weren't still sitting on the side of the dark road, smoke pouring out from under the hood, the car loaded with everything precious, on Christmas eve.

However, this also meant that we wouldn't have the benefit of the minivan sans benches in and upon which to transport the two leather and wood sofas. The BMW was going to have to fit the bill, and make two trips.

And that, friends, is another story, for another day.

PS: The car doesn't have a big nose. It just looks that way.
....

One person's encombrants is another person's --

The hideous ottoman, melting in the rain

Trampoline.

Which is to say that the sofa and the dimestore, rock-bottom, price-slasher discount outlet compositional sofa and ottoman set that (dis)graced the petit salon did not leave the premises as foreseen, which is to say in the special garbage truck for discarded over-sized stuff. I missed that. It doesn't come in the evening, but at 8 am, or thereabouts. Yesterday evening, my neighbor rushed forward to offer his and his son's assistance in helping us get it all off the sidewalk and back into the house, which I politely declined.

No way was that stuff ever coming back into the house.

I told him my son would help me find a way to get it to the dump, forgetting that my husband's over-sized motorcycle (with reverse) was blocking the Voyager, which had broken down on the way to my inlaws' Christmas eve, and headed off to Paris to pick up a chair I had bought on eBay for 29 euros. That's when it occurred to me that my husband had the station wagon, since there was a bit of ice -- enough to make a motorcycle a poor idea -- Monday, when he left for the hospital. I had images of my son, furious, telling me that there was no way it was going to stay lashed to the Fiat Uno all the way to the dump, but what I didn't imagine was that I wasn't going to have to deal with it at all.

All except for the ottoman.

It was nearly 1 am when I heard noises coming from where I had dragged them, further back against the wall of the France Telecom utility building. Dared I hope? I called the dogs, attached Baccarat's leash and took them out to pee, and I surprised four young guys trying to figure out how to lift and carry a damp leather sofa in the drizzle. They all looked up at the same time.

"Bonsoir," I smiled, asking them what they were doing with the sofa and immediately wishing I hadn't said it that way; they might think I wanted to keep it. Nonsense, I corrected myself. They found it in the middle of the night in the rain, of course they aren't going to think that.

"Euh, on se disait qu'il ferait un bon trampoline." They were going to jump on it right there? In the rain in the middle of the night?

"Ah, ça oui. Allez y. Le plus de morceaux le mieux pour le charger dans la voiture et l'amener à la déchètrie." They looked at me, puzzled. That's when I realized that they weren't going to turn it into matchsticks jumping on it right there. No, they were carrying it somewhere to do that, or to use it. I hurried the dogs off to pee, afraid I'd say something even stupider in my embarrassment.

What is wrong with me? I find 4 guys carrying away my old furniture, and I get nervous?

Another came up as I was hurrying the dogs back through the still unfinished gate. He picked up a piece of the discount compositional sofa, leaving the other and the ottoman by our garbage cans, and they made their way up the street in the rain. I watched them, hoping they didn't need that furniture. Hoping they really only wanted to jump on it for the fun of it.

This morning, I went back out to check, afraid I'd find it all returned, a thousand bits of wood and leather and stuffing to load into the car and take to the dump, but all there was was the ottoman, tossed over the wall and sitting in the unfinished courtyard.

Let us hope the town caretaker wasn't aggravated with me for leaving it there.

The chair, has it happens, also has a destiny to fulfill. I pulled up in front of 238 rue Faubourg Saint Antoine at the appointed hour, and its owner brought it down for me. I was standing in the dark in front of the door when it opened, and there he was, the chair in hand. He set it down next to him and extended his hand, into which I attempted to place the 30 euros I had taken out of the machine on the way in. He laughed, and I turned crimson. He was offering his hand to shake. I took his, and missed his thumb. He laughed again, and I just wanted to sink into the sidewalk and disappear.

"La voilà, la chaise," he said. I smiled. I felt like he was introducing me to his dog, his dog that I was about to adopt.

"Je l'aime beaucoup," I said.

"Moi aussi."

"Bah alors, pourquoi vous vous séparez d'elle?" He smiled.

"Ma copine l'exige. On n'a pas beaucoup d'espace, alors elle a dit que je dois la vendre, et elle vend la sienne." I nodded.

"Sachez qu'elle sera très appréciée."

I started to leave, when he asked, "Vous êtes de quelle origine? Vous avez un accent."

"Je suis américaine, mais je suis française, aussi."

"Je suis norvégien." He said it as though this meant that we had something very important in common; the fact of being here, from somewhere else. He is also a composer of classical music, ballets and music for film, based on mythology, Khazak and other. He has Joseph Campbell on his bookshelves. His girlfriend is a writer.

I see, he said, the chair is in good hands. The chair, as I said, has a destiny to fulfill. We'll see where it goes next.
....

Les encombrants, Dolce domum

Waiting for the collection of "les encombrants"

I went to sit down on the broken-down, hand-me-down leather sofa and realized right before my hind-end hit the terracotta tile floor that there wasn't any sofa there anymore. It was out on the sidewalk, waiting for the truck to come and collect our and everyone else's encombrants. The things we don't want anymore that won't fit easily into our cars to go to the dump, but that encombrent -- "Occuper à l'excès au point d'embarrasser, d'obstruer; être source de gêne par le volume, le nombre", or to occupy excessively to the point of blocking movement; to obstruct; to be a source of bother in their volume or number -- our homes, garages, attics and basements (for those fortunate enough to have such a thing) and our esprits.

The floor was hard, and cold. Sam laughed, over where he was working at the dining room table, at the same time I did.

"I forgot the couch wasn't there anymore," I said. He grinned and bent his head to his notepaper, or his iPhone and text message. I was almost giddy with delight, remembering that it is gone, never to cause me embarrassment in the English sense of the term ever again.

It was once a lovely leather sofa. Buttery yellow with navy blue edging. It came from La Maison Cap, a chic furniture store not far from the Etoile in the 8th. Its companion, the same model with a bed inside, went to the Versailles dump near my sister-in-law's home years ago, not long after she offered us this one, to "tide us over". A seven year tide.

I scrubbed it clean, but the worn leather still showed black in the cracks. It had an overall grayish cast, except the back, the part never seen. Forever dingy. But I knew it was clean, until it wasn't anymore. I gave up when the back cushion nearest to the television collapsed entirely from the weight of kids trying to get as close to the screen and make themselves as comfortable as possible. The other back cushion was nearly perfect. It only made the scrunched one, the entire sofa, and the living room look that much worse.

I covered it with a lovely chenille throw the cats ruined with their claws. That was a year ago. It helped me for a few weeks, until it didn't anymore.

I put the ruby wine red chenille throw over the back of the other hand-me-down armchair, like the brown one the cats slept on and covered with their fur, collapsing the back cushions of the armchairs under their weight.

I worried about the renovation and talked bravely about the planned interior renovations and getting rid of "that", gesturing to the ruined sofa, with the air of transforming it and the entire living room into La Maison Cap's or Roche Bobois' showroom, all for me and a flow of friends coming to enjoy the effortless mastery of casual elegance. Inside, I knew: it was likely to be far less impressive, and not soon enough, nor would it be so easy as I implied, not even kidding myself.

Nor did I entertain hopes that I would ever be able to maintain the living room of my dreams; it would soon be covered in pet hair and vomit, beaten and worn down by people whose only interest is comfort in front of the television, trodden through in motorcycle boots and sneakers covered with wet leaves and sand from the workers' never-ending construction site. The cats would scratch it. The younger dog would make herself comfy on the furniture just as soon as we were out of sight, or she thought she was out of sight. The spiders would continue their home building projects, the dust would settle, endlessly, ever thicker, and all I'd see would be my compromises and lack of inspiration and confidence, as through the perpetually dirty windows darkly.

I stopped entertaining. I couldn't bear it any longer.

I sent a Facebook message to my stepson, after thoroughly perusing the Roche Bobois Internet site. He promptly replied with the prices. I typed "eBay.fr" in the address line of my Internet browser.

The compromise was on.

I found thousands of sofas, and followed them over two weeks, showing the contenders to my husband. He was game. He'd already accepted the piano (due in January) and turned it into my Christmas present in his mind (one very major Christmas present). He knew the sofa had to go. We decided which ones we liked best, and I wondered at myself for filling the house with furniture before I emptied it and plastered and redid the woodwork. I continued to scan the new arrivals on eBay every day, and then we found the paired wood and dark leather sofas from Roche Bobois, some years before.

"J'ai trouvé quelque chose que tu aimeras." He looked up from his game of Solitaire or Mahjong on his laptop over the tops of his supermarket-bought reading glasses, the eyebrows expressing interest. Probably relief, too, that I was in the used market with such enthusiasm.

"J'arrive," he said, not sounding at all put out by my request for him to cross the room and join me, where I sat at the good end of the sofa. His promptness and courtesy, I thought, were promising, and he looked down at my computer screen.

"J'aime ça," he declared, sounding every bit like I had found just what he liked. "Attends, il y en a deux?" I nodded. There were two. He asked me to follow them, and less than a week later, they were ours; tomorrow evening, they will be in our living room. I will have to cover them with plastic when I finally tear out the ceiling and plaster the walls, but without them, I might never have gotten motivated. With them in place, I have an idea of where we are going and of what the interior might ought to look like. Without them, all I had was a feeling of defeat, like the old sofa that's out by the street, waiting for les encombrants to come and take it away.

I don't even mind the dog vomit on the rug so much, although I really do need to clean it up now.

If you will excuse me.
....















Wind in the Willows
Chapter 5 - Dolce Domum

Excerpts

The Mole subsided forlornly on a tree-stump and tried to control himself, for he felt it surely coming. The sob he had fought with so long refused to be beaten. Up and up, it forced its way to the air, and then another, and another, and others thick and fast; till poor Mole at last gave up the struggle, and cried freely and helplessly and openly, now that he knew it was all over and he had lost what he could hardly be said to have found.

The Rat, astonished and dismayed at the violence of Mole's paroxysm of grief, did not dare to speak for a while. At last he said, very quietly and sympathetically, "What is it, old fellow? Whatever can be the matter? Tell us your trouble, and let me see what I can do."

Poor Mole found it difficult to get any words out between the upheavals of his chest that followed one upon another so quickly and held back speech and choked it as it came. "I know it's a — shabby, dingy little place," he sobbed forth at last, brokenly: "not like — your cosy quarters — or Toad's beautiful hall — or Badger's great house — but it was my own little home — and I was fond of it — and I went away and forgot all about it — and then I smelt it suddenly — on the road, when I called and you wouldn't listen, Rat — and everything came back to me with a rush — and I wanted it! — O dear, O dear! — and when you wouldn't turn back, Ratty — and I had to leave it, though I was smelling it all the time — I thought my heart would break.— We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty — only one look — it was close by — but you wouldn't turn back, Ratty, you wouldn't turn back! O dear, O dear!"

...

Encouraged by his inspiriting companion, the Mole roused himself and dusted and polished with energy and heartiness, while the Rat, running to and fro with armfuls of fuel, soon had a cheerful blaze roaring up the chimney. He hailed the Mole to come and warm himself; but Mole promptly had another fit of the blues, dropping down on a couch in dark despair and burying his face in his duster. "Rat," he moaned, "how about your supper, you poor, cold, hungry, weary animal? I've nothing to give you — nothing — not a crumb!"

"What a fellow you are for giving in!" said the Rat reproachfully. "Why, only just now I saw a sardine-opener on the kitchen dresser, quite distinctly; and everybody knows that means there are sardines about somewhere in the neighbourhood. Rouse yourself! Pull yourself together, and come with me and forage."

They went and foraged accordingly, hunting through every cupboard and turning out every drawer. The result was not so very depressing after all, though of course it might have been better; a tin of sardines — a box of captain's biscuits, nearly full — and a German sausage encased in silver paper.

"There's a banquet for you!" observed the Rat, as he arranged the table. "I know some animals who would give their ears to be sitting down to supper with us tonight!"

"No bread!" groaned the Mole dolorously; "no butter, no — — —"

"No pate de foie gras, no champagne!" continued the Rat, grinning. "And that reminds me — what's that little door at the end of the passage? Your cellar, of course! Every luxury in this house! Just you wait a minute."

He made for the cellar-door, and presently reappeared, somewhat dusty, with a bottle of beer in each paw and another under each arm, "Self-indulgent beggar you seem to be, Mole," he observed. "Deny yourself nothing. This is really the jolliest little place I ever was in. Now, wherever did you pick up those prints? Make the place look so home-like, they do. No wonder you're so fond of it, Mole. Tell us all about it, and how you came to make it what it is."

Then, while the Rat busied himself fetching plates, and knives and forks, and mustard which he mixed in an egg-cup, the Mole, his bosom still heaving with the stress of his recent emotion, related — somewhat shyly at first, but with more freedom as he warmed to his subject — how this was planned, and how that was thought out, and how this was got through a windfall from an aunt, and that was a wonderful find and a bargain, and this other thing was bought out of laborious savings and a certain amount of "going without." His spirits finally quite restored, he must needs go and caress his possessions, and take a lamp and show off their points to his visitor and expatiate on them, quite forgetful of the supper they both so much needed; Rat, who was desperately hungry but strove to conceal it, nodding seriously, examining with a puckered brow, and saying, "wonderful," and "most remarkable," at intervals, when the chance for an observation was given him.

....

The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple — how narrow, even — it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

....

Listen to Jennifer Mendenhall read it all aloud on NPR.