The Post Office Girl (7 page)

“But Aunt,” Christine whispers, startled and shaken. “What did I do to deserve this…You shouldn’t be spending so much on me. And this room is much too expensive for me, really, a plain one would have been fine.” But her aunt just smiles and looks at her appraisingly. “And then, child,” she declares dictatorially, “I’ll take you to our beautician, she’ll make you more or less presentable. Nobody but one of our Indians back home would have a hank of hair like that. You’ll see how much freer your head will be without that mop hanging down your neck. No, no argument, I know what’s best, leave it to me and don’t worry. And now get yourself together. We have lots of time, Anthony is at his afternoon poker game. We want to have you all fixed up to present to him this evening. Come, child.”

Soon boxes are flying off the shelves in the big sports shop. They choose a sweater in a checkerboard plaid, a chamois belt that cinches the waist, a pair of fawn walking shoes with a pungent new smell, a cap, snug colorful sport stockings, and all sorts of odds and ends. In the fitting room Christine peels off the hated blouse like a dirty rind: the poverty she brought with her is packed out of sight in a cardboard box. She feels oddly relieved as the horrid things disappear, as though her fears were being hidden away forever. In another shop a pair of dress shoes, a flowing silk scarf, and yet more wonders. Christine
has no experience of this kind of shopping and is agog at this new marvel, this buying with no concern for cost, without the eternal fear of the “too expensive.” You choose things, you say yes, you don’t think about it, you don’t worry, and the packages are tied up and on their way home, borne by mysterious
messengers
. Your wish is granted before you’ve even dared to make it. It’s strange, but intoxicatingly easy and pleasant. Christine surrenders without further resistance and lets her aunt do as she pleases. But when her aunt takes banknotes out of her bag she averts her eyes nervously. She tries not to listen, not to hear the price, because what’s being spent on her has got to be such a fortune, such an unimaginable amount of money: she’s made do for years on less than what her aunt’s gone through in half an hour. She contains herself until they’re leaving, then seizes the arm of her gracious benefactress and gratefully kisses her hand. Her aunt smiles at her touching confusion. “But now your hair! I’ll take you to the hairdresser’s and drop in on some friends while you’re there. In an hour you’ll be freshly done up and I’ll come get you. You’ll see what she does for you, already you’re looking completely different. Then we’ll go for a walk and tonight we’ll try to have a really good time.” Christine’s heart is thumping wildly. She lets herself be led (her aunt means her nothing but good) into a tiled and mirrored room full of warmth and sweetly scented with mild floral soap and sprayed perfumes; an electrical apparatus roars like a mountain storm in the adjoining room. The hairdresser, a brisk, snub-nosed Frenchwoman, is given all sorts of instructions, little of which Christine understands or cares to. A new desire has come over her to give herself up, to submit and let herself be surprised. She allows herself to be seated in the comfortable barber’s chair and her aunt disappears. She leans back gently, and, eyes closed in a luxurious stupor, senses a mechanical clattering, cold steel on her neck, and the easy incomprehensible chatter of the cheerful hairdresser; she breathes in clouds of fragrance and lets aromatic
balms and clever fingers run over her hair and neck. Just don’t open your eyes, she thinks. If you do, it might go away. Don’t question anything, just savor this Sundayish feeling of sitting back for once, of being waited on instead of waiting on other people. Just let your hands fall into your lap, let good things happen to you, let it come, savor it, this rare swoon of lying back and being ministered to, this strange voluptuous feeling you haven’t experienced in years, in decades. Eyes closed,
feeling
the fragrant warmth enveloping her, she remembers the last time: she’s a child, in bed, she had a fever for days, but now it’s over and her mother brings some sweet white almond milk, her father and her brother are sitting by her bed, everyone’s taking care of her, everyone’s doing things for her, they’re all gentle and nice. In the next room the canary is singing mischievously, the bed is soft and warm, there’s no need to go to school,
everything
’s being done for her, there are toys on the bed, though she’s too pleasantly lulled to play with them; no, it’s better to close her eyes and really feel, deep down, the idleness, the being waited on. It’s been decades since she thought of this lovely
languor
from her childhood, but suddenly it’s back: her skin, her temples bathed in warmth are doing the remembering. A few times the brisk salonist asks some question like, “Would you like it shorter?” But she answers only, “Whatever you think,” and deliberately avoids the mirror held up to her. Best not to disturb the wonderful irresponsibility of letting things happen to you, this detachment from doing or wanting anything. Though it would be tempting to give someone an order just once, for the first time in your life, to make some imperious demand, to call for such and such. Now fragrance from a shiny bottle streams over her hair, a razor blade tickles her gently and delicately, her head feels suddenly strangely light and the skin of her neck cool and bare. She wants to look in the mirror, but keeping her eyes closed is prolonging the numb dreamy feeling so pleasantly. Meanwhile a second young woman has slipped beside her like
a sylph to do her nails while the other is waving her hair. She submits to it all without resistance, almost without surprise, and makes no protest when, after an introductory “
Vous êtes un peu pâle, Mademoiselle,
” the busy salonist, employing all manner of pencils and crayons, reddens her lips, reinforces the arches of her eyebrows, and touches up the color of her cheeks. She’s aware of it all and, in her pleasant detached stupor, unaware of it too: drugged by the humid, fragrance-laden air, she hardly knows if all this is happening to her or to some other,
brand-new
self. It’s all dreamily disjointed, not quite real, and she’s a little afraid of suddenly falling out of the dream.

Her aunt finally appears. “Excellent,” she pronounces to the salonist with the air of a connoisseur. Before they leave for their walk she requests that they pack up some additional packets, pencils, and bottles. Christine avoids the mirror as she gets up, only touching the nape of her neck lightly. From time to time as they walk along she looks down surreptitiously at the taut skirt, the brightly patterned stockings, the shiny elegant shoes, and senses that her step is surer. Pressed close to her aunt, she allows everything to announce itself: the landscape with its vivid green and the panoramic sweep of the peaks, the hotels like castles of luxury at challenging vantages high on the slopes, the expensive stores with their provocative, extravagant window displays, furs, jewelry, watches, antiques, all of it strange and foreign next to the vast desolate majesty of the glacier. The horses in their fine harnesses, the dogs, the people are marvelous too, their own clothes as bright as Alpine flowers; the entire atmosphere of sunshiny insouciance, a world without work or poverty whose existence she never dreamed of. Her aunt tells her the names of the mountains, the hotels, points out prominent hotel guests as they pass by; she listens and looks up at them in awe. It seems more and more marvelous that she can be walking here, that it’s permitted, and she feels more and more uncertain that she is the one experiencing this. At last her aunt looks at her watch.
“We have to go back. It’s time to get dressed. We only have an hour till dinner. And lateness is the only thing that can make Anthony angry.”

Christine finds her room already tinged by dusk. The early
infiltration
of dusk is making everything in it seem vague and silent. The sharp oblong of sky behind the open balcony door is still a deep, saturated blue, but the colors inside are beginning to dim at the edges, fading into the velvety shadows. Christine goes out onto the balcony, facing the immense landscape with its swiftly unfurling play of colors. First the clouds lose their radiant white, gradually reddening, subtly at the beginning, then more and more deeply, as if provoked despite themselves by the
quickening
sunset. Then shadows well up from the mountainsides, shadows that were weak and isolated during the day, lurking behind the trees, but now they’re massing together, becoming dense and bold, as though a black pool from the valley were rushing up to the peaks, and for a moment it seems possible that darkness might inundate the mountaintops too and the whole vast sweep turn suddenly black and void—in fact there’s already a slight breath of frost, an invisible wave of it rising out of the valleys. But now the peaks are glowing in a colder, paler light: the moon has appeared in the blue that’s far from gone. It floats like a streetlight, high and round, over the space between two of the mightiest peaks, and what was just now a real scene with colors and details is becoming a silhouette, a solid black-
and-white
cutout, sprinkled with small, uncertainly flickering stars.

Unaccustomed to this dramatic transition, this vast
unfolding
palette, Christine gazes at it numbly. She’s like someone used to nothing more than fiddle and pipes hearing the roar of a full orchestra for the first time: the sudden revelation of natural majesty is too much for her senses. She clutches the rail in awe, gazing with such concentration and losing herself so
much in the view that she forgets herself, forgets the time. But luckily the ever-considerate hotel has a timekeeper, the
relentless
gong that reminds the guests of their responsibility to ready themselves for their extravagant meals. The first metallic swell gives Christine a start. Her aunt was quite clear that she was to be on time for dinner.

But which of these splendid new dresses should she choose? She lays them out again side by side on the bed, glistening like dragonflies. The dark one glints seductively from the shadows. Finally she decides on the ivory-colored one for today, on the grounds that it’s the most modest of the three. She picks it up carefully, amazed at how light it is in her hand, no heavier than a handkerchief or a glove. She quickly strips off the sweater, the heavy Russia leather shoes, the thick socks,
everything
stiff and heavy, impatient for the new lightness. It’s all so delicate, so soft and weightless. Just handling these sumptuous new underthings makes her fingers tremble, the feel of them is wonderful. Quickly she takes off the stiff old linen
underthings
; the yielding new fabric is a warm, delicate froth on her skin. She has an impulse to turn on the light to look at herself, but then takes her hand from the switch; better to put off the pleasure. Perhaps this luxuriously sheer fabric only feels so filmy, so delicate in the dark, under the light its spell will evaporate. After the underthings, the stockings, then the dress. Carefully (it’s her aunt’s, after all) she puts on the smooth silk, and it’s marvelous, streaming freely down from her shoulders like a glittering cascade of warm water and clinging to her
obediently
, you can’t feel it on you, it’s like being dressed in the breeze. But go on, go on, don’t get lost in delectation too soon, finish quickly so you can see! The shoes now, a few quick
movements
, a couple of steps: done, thank goodness! And now—her heart thumps—the first look in the mirror.

Her hand flips the switch and the bulb lights up. The room that had faded away is again dazzlingly bright; the flowered 
wallpaper, the carefully polished furniture is there again, the elegant new world is back. She’s too nervous to bring herself within range of the mirror right away. A sidelong peek from a sharp angle shows only a strip of landscape beyond the balcony and a little of the room. She lacks the final bit of courage for the real test. Won’t she look even more
ridiculous
in the borrowed dress, won’t everyone, won’t she herself see the fraud for what it is? She edges toward the mirror as though humility might make the judge more lenient. She’s close now, eyes still downcast, still afraid to look. Again the sound of the gong comes from downstairs: no more time to waste! She holds her breath with sudden courage like
someone
about to take a leap, then determinedly lifts her eyes. Lifts her eyes and is startled, even falls back a step. Who is that? Who is that slender, elegant woman, her upper body bent backward, her mouth open, her eyes searching, looking at her with an unmistakable expression of frank surprise? Is that her? Impossible! She doesn’t say it, doesn’t pronounce the word consciously, but it has made her lips move. And, amazingly, the lips of the reflected figure move too.

She catches her breath in surprise. Not even in a dream has she ever dared to imagine herself as so lovely, so young, so smart. The red, sharply defined mouth, the finely drawn
eyebrows
, the bare and gleaming neck beneath the golden, curving helmet of hair are new, her own bare skin as framed by the
glittering
dress is completely new. She moves closer to the mirror, trying to recognize the woman that she knows is herself, but her temples throb with fear that the exhilarating image might not last, might vanish if she came any closer or made some sudden movement. It can’t be real, she thinks. A person can’t suddenly change like that. Because if it’s real, then I’m…She pauses, not daring to think the word. But the woman in the mirror, guessing the thought, begins to smile to herself, at first slightly, then more and more broadly. Now the eyes are quite
openly and proudly laughing at her, and the parted red lips seem to acknowledge with amusement: “Yes, I am beautiful.”

It’s a strange and wonderful feeling to admire her own body, the breasts unconstrained beneath the close-fitting silk, the slender yet rounded forms under the colors of the dress, the relaxed bare shoulders. Curious to see this slim new body in motion, she slowly turns to one side as she watches the effect: again her eyes meet those of her reflection, proud and pleased. Bolder now, she takes three steps back: again the quick movement is lovely. She ventures a rapid pirouette, making her skirts twirl, and again the mirror smiles: “Excellent! How slender, how graceful you are!” She has a restless, experimental feeling in her limbs, she feels like dancing. She races to the middle of the room, then comes back toward the mirror; the image smiles, and it’s her own smile. She tests and inspects the image from all sides, caressing it with her eyes, smitten with herself, unable to have enough of this alluring new self that smiles as it approaches from the mirror, beautifully dressed, young, and remade. She feels like throwing her arms around this new person that is herself. She moves so close that the eyes almost touch, the real ones and those of the reflection, and her lips are so near their counterparts that for a moment her breath makes them disappear. She strikes more poses to get different views of her new self. Then the sound of the gong downstairs comes for a third time. She gives a start. My God, I can’t keep my aunt waiting, she must be angry already. Quickly, on with the jacket, the evening jacket, light, colorful, trimmed with exquisite fur. Then, before her hand touches the switch to turn out the light, an eager parting glance at the beneficent mirror, one last look. Again the shining eyes, again the happy smile that’s her own, yet not her own. “Excellent, excellent,” the mirror smiles at her. She hurries down the hallway to her aunt’s room; the cool silky fluttering of the dress makes the quick movement a pleasure. She feels borne along, carried by
the wind. She was a child the last time she flew like this. This is the beginning of the delirium of transformation.