G: The Secret Life of Madame F
By barenib
- 738 reads
I have a very public kind of job. It's nothing special, just a part
of everyday life in my country, but I'm very good at it and I've been
doing it for longer than anyone else I know of. Most women can't stand
it for more than a few months, but I've been here for two years now,
and I don't mind admitting that I enjoy it. I really enjoy it. What is
my wonderful job? Everyone is surprised to learn that I'm an attendant
in a men's public toilet near the Tuileries in Paris.
Normally when you see attendants in public toilets, the first thing you
notice about them is that they look bored, so bored that they might die
of it at any moment. I can understand this. When I first took the job I
thought I wouldn't last the week. In fact on my first Friday, my fifth
day, I'd already decided to leave, but that afternoon something
happened that made me change my mind and I've been here ever
since.
I have another job which is rather more private. I took the public job
partly because I knew I'd be able to pursue my private job at the same
time as fulfilling my meagre duties in the toilet. I have a secret
career as an artist, you see, and I can work on my sketches in pencil
very easily while I'm sitting at my little table. No-one notices as I'm
very discreet and it's the last thing that they'd expect to see.
At first I was a little uncomfortable with this idea. Taking my paper
in there seemed sacrilegious to my art somehow - made a stain on the
sheets, so to speak. But I quickly got over this prejudice once I'd
made my discovery. We're all slaves to our bodies, after all. The
atmosphere doesn't affect the shades and hues, my proximity to the
plumbing doesn't sully my art. In some cases, as it became apparent,
quite the reverse.
In the evenings I work at home in my little studio, a spare room in my
apartment, pursuing my portraits in oils. My current project has been
going on for a while. I'm trying to capture a whole range of human
expressions using the same face. My first canvas was joy - that was
relatively easy and my patron, who runs the little gallery where I
exhibit and sell, was delighted. I chose a man at random from a crowd
watching some buskers by the Eiffel Tower and took his photo, without
his knowledge of course, as he responded jovially to the performance. I
did that one entirely at home before I started my job at the toilet.
For some reason I next chose frustration. This was not so easy. I had
taken some other photos of the man while he had a more neutral
expression, but now I had to impose frustration on him. Somehow I had
to find this from somewhere else.
I keep my art a secret because, apart from my patron who I met by
accident, no-one has ever taken it seriously. My father thought I was
crazy, my mother thought I'd fall in love and forget it, my friends
thought I'd never succeed. This was in Nevers, a town in the middle of
France that's squashed around the elbow of the Loire, where artists
like myself will forever founder and die trying to paint the gentle
banks of the river. So I did the stereotypical, romantically idiotic
thing and moved to Paris. I told myself that I needed to paint the
drama of lovers by the Seine with the towers of Notre Dame raising hope
and despair behind them. I needed to walk the streets of Montmartre in
the footsteps of all my heroes and then go and stand on my own in front
of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre when all the tourists had gone home. I
needed to escape mediocrity.
I started out in a shabby bedsit of course, working as a waitress with
barely enough time to do any painting. One Sunday, the only day I got
completely to myself, luck intervened as I really couldn't have
expected it to just as I was near the point of giving up and returning
home. For some reason I decided to try a head and shoulders portrait,
something I'd never attempted before. I got one of the men from the
restaurant kitchen to sit for me in the Tuileries gardens, my bedsit
was much too small, and made him swear to secrecy. Half way through my
work a lady came over and asked if she could look at what I was doing.
She picked up the canvas and inspected it closely, then told me she
thought it was excellent. She told me to bring the painting to her
gallery when it was finished and she would display it. This was the
start of a relationship which began slowly to change my life.
The portrait sold, so I did another for her, that sold too, so I gave
her a third. The money enabled me to rent the apartment I'm in now with
the spare room studio. I had hoped that I'd be able to give up my job
altogether and just paint, but it was difficult to get out of the
cycle. I could only finish a painting so fast, then it might be several
months before the gallery could sell it. I didn't have the confidence
to take the risk, I didn't want to lose my apartment. But at least I
was building a reputation, or rather Madame F was, this being the
deliberately mysterious signature that I put on each canvas.
Then quite suddenly the restaurant owner announced that he was moving
to Provence, where he was sure he could get rich from the English
tourists, so the restaurant would be closing. That was when I found the
job in the public toilet and my fortunes improved once again. I thought
I'd only be there a few weeks, I considered it a stop gap until I could
find another waitressing job. Had a man not happened to drop a coin
onto the floor on that first Friday afternoon, I'd have left by the end
of that day.
It was at this time that I was working on frustration and I had so far
been frustrated in finding the inspiration for it. It was by far the
most difficult thing I'd attempted, and on top of this I didn't like my
new job. Now this stupid man had dropped his coin on the floor which
rolled under my little table, under my chair and spun to rest just
behind me. I dragged back in my chair to pick it up, then as I sat up
again an amazing sight caught my eye. Just by the partition there was a
mirror on the wall for the men to inspect their appearance on the way
out. But just at the angle from where I now sat I could clearly see the
head and shoulders of a man standing at the end urinal. Much to my
astonishment, his face was a picture of frustration. The very picture
I'd been searching for.
I discovered later that he had prostate trouble, but right at that
moment I couldn't have cared less what the source of his frustration
was. I picked up the coin and returned it to its owner, then took out
the sketch pad that I always carried and began to draw the expression
of its poor owner. There was nothing improper in this, please
understand, I could see no further than the man's shoulders, his
privacy was intact, except for his expression of course. My memory is
fortunately quite photographic, so I didn't have to carry on staring at
his image in the mirror, a couple more glances were enough - I had my
sketch. I was able to take it home and super-impose the frustrated
expression onto my original model.
You can imagine how delighted I was at this discovery. By moving my
little desk and chair back just a short way I had a permanent and
discreet view of whoever chose to stand in the end urinal and whatever
expression they wore. You'd be amazed at the range of expressions you
can find in a public toilet! There are the obvious ones, relief of
course and concentration. Then there are the more interesting ones;
pride, envy, pain, disappointment, alarm and one or two others which
it's probably better not to go into - I've no wish to be
unprofessional.
It took me a while to collect all these expressions, you understand.
Sometimes I'd go for months without encountering a new one. Some days
no-one chose to stand in the end urinal at all, but each time a new
expression came along I knew I had another painting in the making to
provide to my gallery. None of them have ever found me out, though some
of the regulars talk to me and sometimes inadvertently reveal the
reason for their expression, like poor old prostate.
I won't be working at the public toilet for much longer. Madame F has
begun to earn a reputation in the world of portraits and is on the
verge of making a living from commissions. She'll be able to move to a
better home, have a proper studio instead of a spare room and finally
convince her father that she's not crazy. I'll be Madame F full-time
instead of that strangely contented young woman in the public toilet
who sits and waits patiently, day after day, for the next expression to
come along.
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