1.13 Cleo and Olympe: Aspirations
1.13.1 Alenby and Ada Take Lunch, with Cleo in Attendance
Restaurant Les Dhuits, Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises
1:30 pm Wednesday 2 April 1987
Installed in the comfortable dining room of Restaurant les Dhuits, they had every reason to suppose all was well with the universe. Early-afternoon light flooded in through the window wall behind them, illuminating the white napery and setting the glasses and cutlery aglitter. Ada smiled, relaxed. No one seemed to have taken any notice of them. Apparently no one had remarked companion's unusually husky physique, which to the suspicious-minded would seem sure signs of a user.
Alenby relaxed too, but that was the Paxitin taking effect. He picked up the menu.
It was very short--just dulse soup and a salad of wintered-over greens--spinach, Swiss chard and beet leaves fresh from the restaurant's garden--tossed with diced avocado and lemon juice and showered with coarsely grated daikon. Following Ada's suggestion he decided to decline the soup and order a double portion of salad.
"Ah, how delightful to take lunch at a charming country restaurant in company with one’s favorite lover," said Ada. "May I say grace?" And without waiting for an answer:
Gaea, earth mother from whom wellness flows:
We thank you on tippy toes,
For nutrients phyto-chemical,
Whose benefits immune-systemical,
Shield us, health-mavens vouch,
From CHAOS AND OUCH,
Menopause stayed, and PMS,
All with a content of Calories, less.
"Less is less," she concluded, making the sign of the circle.
"Amen," said Alenby resignedly, but also making the sign of the circle. "Or I suppose I should also have said, ‘less is less'? And what’s that about tippy toes?"
"‘Less is less’ means that small things are better than big things, low things better than high things, and so on," Ada explained. "And tippy toes, that’s the élévation, a gesture of respect—symbolically making yourself taller than another person so as to acknowledge her more worthy status. Of course there are exceptions to ‘less is less.’ In certain situations," she smiled meaningfully—"big is definitely better…." She allowed herself a brief reverie.
"But as a rule," she resumed, "small is best. Small people suffer less lower back pain and fewer joint problems, for example, and they use less of our planet's finite resources. Small women suffer less from PMS—that’s premature menarche syndrome—and tend to emerge from high school better educated than women in general and consequently of more value to society."
"Be that as it may," Alenby rejoined, "your small-is-best rule has important exceptions. Take football, the mainstay of funding of our American institutions of higher learning. Coaches concur that eleven big men are better than eleven small ones."
"That may be true," said Ada with an annoying know-it-all chortle, "but in u, the rules of football specify, not a fixed number of players on each side, but a maximum aggregate weight. Coaches agree that a ton of small men is better than a ton of dimensionally disadvantaged ones. Anyway, the big college fund-raiser these days is women's synchronized swimming….
"Incidentally," she added quietly, "our impressively short waitress is coming with our green salads—on tippy toes, notice."
The waitress was indeed of small stature—physically a mere child, it seemed to Alenby—yet with her supple carriage and demure smile she appeared as poised and self-possessed as any adult. As she came close he noticed that her dark-brown skin was not simply dark brown, but of a translucent black underlaid by the blush of youthful well-being. She placed the salad bowls on the table with perfect aplomb, and stepped back, still on tip-toe. "Your lownesses are served: Hyper-salade les Dhuits, bon appétit," she said in a soft voice.
"Please, Mademoiselle, resume your normal pedal configuration," Ada urged politely. "While we appreciate your gesture of respect, we are not worthy of a sustained élévation. We are not members of the lower classes. My companion is not even entitled to be addressed as 'lowness.' 'Excellency' will be perfectly adequate. May I ask, what is your name?"
"My name is Cleopatra Kirwan, Your Lowness, and I am, like, a senior at Bennett High in Buffalo, New York, and I am in France to learn how to talk French and how to be a waitress and stuff—"
"An admirable vocation," said Ada, "and may Gaea bless you!"
"Lowness, Excellency," murmured the girl, backing away two steps with another élévation. She spun around and headed back to her post.
In the sinuous movements of the retreating figure Alenby fancied a legacy of the pride of the statuesque Masai of Tanzania, albeit in a pygmy-sized package.
"Yes," said Ada, reading his thoughts, "she’s small and cute, at sixteen or so still a child, physically—definitely not now or ever a sufferer from PMS. And in all likelihood, she’s smart. Since they are relatively free from distracting reproductive urges, late-maturing high-school girls tend to excel at their studies. ‘To learn French,’ my foot! I’d wager she is already fluent in all three foreign languages in the standard American curriculum, and in a few others as well....
"She’s smart," Ada repeated after a pause. "And she's disingenuous. Did you notice what I noticed? That slight overemphasis on the favorite speech filler of inarticulate youth, 'like,' used in this case apparently to give the impression she's 'cool,' as they say when they mean 'nonchalant.' Trying to look dumb, and it's not quite working. She’s up to something… But let’s enjoy our lunch. Bon appétit."
"Bon appétit," Alenby responded politely but with less gusto than he normally invested in that phrase. He contemplated the salad, attractive but dauntingly plentiful—seemingly an entire lunch in one bowl. Bon appétit indeed, he thought. One would need an extremely good appetite to consume this gargantuan mass of verdure. But following Ada’s lead, he set to, and in the fullness of time he had disposed of every leaf, and with no negative reaction beyond an uncomfortable sensation of bloating.
Just as Cleo returned to clear the salad bowls, Alenby’s distended feeling suddenly shifted out of the discomfort range into actual pain, and before he had time to select the most suitable medication for his symptoms he loosed an audible burp. He covered as well as he could with a couple of simulated coughs, but neither Ada nor Cleo were deceived. Involuntarily, they exchanged knowing glances of recognition of a user’s most common reaction to a sudden switch to a legal diet.
Cleo knew Alenby was a user, and Ada knew she knew it.
Ada broke the awkward silence: "Mademoiselle," she said in a penetrating tone, "when we take our digestifs in the salon, we will require absolute privacy. Kindly set up a screen around the canapé."
"Certainly, Lowness. We have tapestry screens decorated in the manner of Fragonard—"
"Very good," said Ada, and she added quietly, "Scenes of amorous dalliance in a hollyhock garden will do nicely."
1.13.2: Olympe Contemplates her Past and Future
The kitchen of Restaurant Le Gardon Frit, Pouzay
About 2 pm Wednesday 2 April 1987
While behind the Fragonard screen Ada gave free rein to her erotic inclinations, the other woman destined for a major role in Alenby’s life in u was engaged in a less romantic activity—preparing a prohibited substance for use, not in her own modest law-abiding restaurant Le Gardon, but in Le Cèpe’s decadently luxurious Le Gardon Frit.
Olympe breathed a sigh of relief—Le Cèpe hadn’t noticed that errant lock of hair, now tucked safely back out of sight under her snood. The slightest sign that a hair might turn up in the sauce hollandaise she was preparing was enough to send him into one of his stupid fits....
She continued to stir melted butter into the beaten egg yolks, her balloon whip describing endless figure-eights in the thickening yellow mixture. The whip brushed softly across the bottom of the tinned-copper bowl. Assez-assez, assez-assez, it seemed to whisper.
Le Cèpe and his stupid fits of rage—they were getting to be insupportable!
It wasn’t always so. He was once a humble, gentle artist of the kitchen. That was before he’d acquired the bulbous shape that inspired the mocking sobriquet, Le Cèpe. Back then, he’d had the talent, energy and ambition to propel Restaurant Le Gardon into the Guide Michelin. His occasional tantrums amounted to nothing more than the venting of frustration at some minor set-back: a pea pod left too long on the vine, an over-steamed cabbage....
She saw that the egg-yolks had taken up all the butter they could absorb. She began to beat in a little water: assez-assez, assez-assez,....
Back then—that was before he became a user. Before he started showing the telltale symptoms, the "danger signs" of excessive protein and fat they display in the Métro: obesity, indigestion, constipation, foul personal odors, irritability....
Irritability was the worst. Olympe cringed inwardly at the mere thought of the glare of his little red eyes, the angry jut of his fat chin. She tried to be charitable, told herself his fits were not a true expression of feelings, it was just the substances speaking….
She stopped beating the hollandaise mixture. She would have folded in a little béchamel to ensure that it didn’t separate, but she knew Le Cèpe would not allow it. Sauce hollandaise, he liked to proclaim, is sheer unadulterated goodness—nothing, absolutely nothing but salt, lemon juice, egg yolks and butter. She set the balloon whip in motion again, a rhythmic framework for her thoughts.
Unadulterated goodness? She knew the entrapment business was helping the War on Substances. Le Gardon Frit had helped PROFATPOL catch a number of major users. But for her to be close to this operation seemed wrong, somehow. The health aspect, for one thing; weren’t they talking about it on HV, the danger of exposure to second-hand excessive protein and fat? And to be at the disposition of a man—the beckon and call of a man as they say in the English—that was unnatural. As the MA'AMs so often proclaimed, a woman ought to be the leader in any partnership. Take charge, or say: Assez, enough! Go on without me.
Her thoughts raced along a well-worn path, to crash at the same dead end: She could switch to some other restaurant, some other phase of the restaurant business. With her record as a careful manager, and plenty of contacts, she would likely succeed in a modest way. But of what use success, if it entailed no benison for humankind, for all life on Earth, for Gaea Herself?
As she had already done many times, Olympe turned back to a bolder option: Make a complete break, and renew a bold aspiration of her youth--to live the prestigious and virtuous life of a priestess in the service of Gaea!
She had tried to enter the priestesshood at age sixteen, and had completed the required course of field training involving visits to convicted users in prisons, hospitals and substance- use rehabilitation centers throughout the Touraine. But in the end her height had told against her--in the training period she'd grown a full two centimeters over the limit. To qualify now, she'd need help from someone with local clout, someone capable of quietly raising the bar. Her Extreme Lowness, Madame Cava? No, she shuddered at the thought of appealing to that personification of sleaze.
Another idea came to mind—perhaps she could take a lover! It wasn't a new idea--she'd thought of it many times--but she'd never made any progress toward making it a reality. Ballroom dancing of the South American genre was her area of proficiency--in early youth she'd had expert tuition and encouragement--but somehow she'd always failed to link up with desirable partners. It seemed she lacked the ability to loosen up and let her positive feelings flow in lightweight chatter. How might she learn those things, at her age?
The answer came to her in a flash--from Dr Lynch! Surely Dr Lynch would be able to instruct her in the art of la coquetterie, the art that Tante Ada had practiced with such aplomb in Parc Monseau! Yes, she’d somehow bring up the subject with her at the earliest possible moment....
Olympe noticed she’d picked up the rhythm of her figure-eights. Nerves, she admitted inwardly. Trying to anticipate the outcome of her meeting with Ada put her in a nervous state. Drops of sweat dripped off her chin and punched tiny dark holes in the otherwise perfect sauce. She tried to relax, adjusting tempo to stroke the fragrant cream in a sulky, sinuous, sexy Latin beat....
A few more figure-eights and the sauce was done. It would hold for sure. Nothing to do now but lay a damp towel over the bowl of unadulterated goodness.
Assez! The word resonated more and more insistently.