Tu and Vous
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
I was living
in Paris in 1978 and loving my life there. My
regular cafe/office for meeting clients was La
Palette, the famous bohemian cafe on the corner
of the rue de Seine and Jacques Caillot in St
Germain, 6em.
One day I was inside the cafe in the back room
having a coffee with my vintage corkscrew client.
Bernard Bosquet was looking through my new
treasures while I was listening to his love life
with two mistresses, when an unusual looking
woman in her early 60s pounced explaining that
her son was a wine wholesaler and he, too, had a
corkscrew collection.
Thus Marie Claire Duisand entered my life. She
excused herself for the spontaneous intrusion and,
as she was a collector of Grotesques, would like
me to find her in London the missing object in
her collection - the dentist! She demanded my
name and number. I presented her with one of my
52 limited edition playing cards with my
handwritten name and French phone number.
Although Marie Claire spoke fluent English she
had the wisdom to know that I loved to speak to
the French in French and so never spoke to me in
English. She invited me to her home in the chic
16em district of La Muette that I knew so well as
I had gone every day there to work before
becoming a collectables dealer, stepping over dog
shit, when I worked at the OECD for 10 months.
She lived in bliss with her distinguished husband
Henri, a retired diamond dealer. Marie Claire
always wore elegant but discrete diamond earrings
and a beautiful diamond eternity ring. I noticed,
because Maria an Italian Portobello Road dealer
in London allowed me to borrow and wear about 8
Victorian diamond, sapphire, ruby, pearl and
emerald 18 Carat gold rings and take them to
Paris on commission to sell to Helene, a
jewellery dealer in Marche Paul Bert, who did not
put the rings through her books nor have them 'poinsonee.'
Henri had a pacemaker and his doting wife would
always talk about how she would cope alone after
his imminent death.
Their's was a gracious flat in the best of taste.
The salon was really a private museum with the
walls lit up with bespoke show cabinets specially
made for their large bisque Grotesque collection.
I was informed that the unglazed bisque ceramic
was made in Germany pre-World War 1 and imported
into England to be sold mainly at seaside
destinations. The objects were comic, exaggerated
facial features. The couple had the best
collection in France and were in touch with a
German collector believed to be connected with
the original factory. But they needed 'the
dentist' to complete their life's work. The
factory stopped importing these humorous objects
when the war broke out in 1914.
There were Erte original ballet paintings gracing
their living room wall which did not have
showcases. The salon was an odd shape with steps
down to the seating area so in fact the built in
showcases were on a raised level. Their dining
room housed a magnificent oil painting with
touches of gold leaf paint of a Pierrot/clown/harlequin
by a known Italian artist.
I don't recall money changing hands but Marie
Claire would phone me in London without fail just
before the Foire de Vieux Papiers at Port de
Champeret to ask if I had found anything for her.
She was obsessed with the collection. Her
children had grown up so their collection was
their 'baby.' Sadly both their children were not
interested in the collection. I am sure that is
why she gravitated towards me because I enthused
and was a dealer of dreams into my clients'
passions.
I was passing Boots one day and thought of Henri
and his love for the sugar free Bonbons. That
cemented our friendship! Madame was so touched by
my gift that I was invited for seafood lunches in
restaurants quite often. She even taught me how
to daintily eat moules. Somehow the topic of
commercial Xmas came up and I told her I had
never celebrated it because I was Jewish. She
exclaimed she thought so from my personality and
confessed she and Henri were too. That the name
Duisand had been changed from the Dutch or
Flemish name. That they had been hidden in the
countryside during the WW2 but she didn't want to
talk about that tragic dark period in their lives.
One day I was invited for lunch in their home. A
formal event with their housekeeper serving a
traditional lunch. I had always addressed Madame
as vous and was getting fed up with the grammar.
In the antique and collectibles world everyone
was addressed as 'tu' and so I asked her if I
could 'tutoi' her. I was horrified when she
refused and so was Henri, coming to the rescue
saying that I could 'tutoi' him!
After that episode I continued with the formal 'vous'
address out of respect but I never felt the same
about her after the 'insult.' She immediately
began to address me as 'tu' but never gave me the
permission I craved for. She came to London to
visit old friends but always stayed in a nearby
hotel. 'Friends were like fish, she would say,
they go off after two or three days!' I
photographed her in a Notting Hill cafe and
realised, on exposure, that she looked a bit like
a younger version of my mother.
The day before I was leaving Paris for London,
she failed to turn up at her chosen restaurant.
Marie Claire was a punctual lady so I sensed she
was not well. We didn't have mobile phones in
those days of course, so there was no way of
communicating. The next day I called from an
airport payphone only to find she had fallen in
the street and hit her head on the pavement on
her way to meeting me, was concussed and died in
hospital days later never coming round from the
coma she had fallen into.
Henri wrote to tell me how sad and devastated he
was. They had been married about 50 years. How
ironic she always thought of life when he was no
more and here was the role reversal. I wrote on a
lovely greetings card with a silhouetted man
waving goodbye to a woman leaving on a train.
Henri wrote back that it was the nicest card he
had received and asked me to think of him as his
father and should I need anything he would always
be there for me using 'tu.' I offered to send him
the photo I had taken of his wife because he said
he only had early ones. It took me a long time to
find it and get a print but I managed in the end.
He was thrilled and placed it in an ornate silver
frame gracing his dressing table in his bedroom
so he could always see her first thing in the
morning.
Some time later I was back in Paris as I was
coming less and less due to work commitments with
my archive/photo library 'Retrograph Archive'
back in London and my husband, bien sur. I rang
Henri who invited me to his home for lunch as he
rarely left the house. It was a grey rainy day
and I arrived 15 minutes too early as it was hard
to judge the metro timings. He opened the door
himself dressed in a dark red smoking jacket. The
housekeeper had gone shopping and he had not yet
taken his shower. He was inflexible, not pleased
that I had come too early and actually asked me
to go away and come back later at the given time.
Not very fatherlike! I refused because of the
rain and I had nowhere to go as his flat was in a
residential part of the 16em. Begrudgingly he
allowed me to wait, like I was at the doctor's,
in the salon until he was ready for our meeting.
I politely got through the formal lunch of
grilled fish with vegetables, an excellent dry
white wine and a good camembert with a heavy
veloute red wine but it was not the same without
Marie Claire. I took a photo of him next to the
lovely harlequin painting but never saw Henri
again who must, now, be reunited with the love of
his life in the heavens above.
Written
in Casa de los Bates, Motril, Spain on 12/2/17.
|
