A case of curiosities (21 page)

Claude shot back, too forcibly perhaps, "I am not seeking employment here. I was hoping that your knowledge of watchmaking and mechanics — the Abbe informed me that you have published on such matters—could provide me with an introduction to a master craftsman in search of an eager and competent worker."

"As the Abbe must also have told you, I switched my attentions some time ago. I currently limit myself to the philosophical."

Claude stated his desires openly. "I wish only to be an engineer."

"Nonsense. No guild acknowledges such activity. I doubt very much the word even appears in the dictionary." Livre consulted a massive tome on a mahogany bookstand. "You see. No entry."

But Claude knew otherwise. He had stumbled upon the word long before, during his Tournay studies. "You might look under the entry for 'machine.'"

They read together, one from memory, the other from the text. "Machine, of Greek origin, meaning invention, art. And hence, in strictness, a machine is something that consists more in art and invention than in the strength and solidity of materials; for which reason it is that inventors of machines are called ingenieurs, or engineers."

"How very ingenious of you, Claude Page." Livre did not appreciate being challenged and was intolerant of correction. "Young man of genius!" he declaimed. "You were undertaking the watchmaker's craft when I was in Tournay. If you are now a journeyman, show me the documents to prove it. If you are not, grant your future master the respect he deserves."

For the next hour or so, the bookseller lunged and withdrew, piercing Claude's youthful hopes, wounding his youthful pride. He wished to humiliate Claude, to leave him with the belief that Paris would offer him nothing, a conclusion he had reached independently.

"The Count's superficial teachings will not feed you," the bookseller argued. 'The only trade* you have started to acquire—and I must emphasize the pathetically rudimentary nature of that acquisition—is in Bibliopola, the city of books. That is what I told you when we first met; that is what I tell you now. I cannot help you with your mechanical aspirations."

Claude had nothing to say.

The bookseller softened his tone, "For some, Claude, the state of being unemployed is a life at leisure, a mode of idleness. Here it is different. Unemployment in Paris consumes more time than any job."

Desperate search for work had confirmed the aphorism, and so by the end of the conversation, Claude Page had agreed to apprentice at the Sign of the Globe.

The first order of business was the laborious act of formal registration. The bookseller took Claude to the back rooms to change into the livery—a velvet vest with twelve ivory buttons and a pair of kidskin gloves. The vest hung from the frame of a thin woman who had one of Livre's oversized wigs on her head. Otherwise, she was naked.

"The demoiselle," Livre said.

The demoiselle had three arms, which held out a mirror, a washbasin, and a sconce. She was a bizarre piece of furniture, a cross between a hatrack and the lay figure Claude kept in his garret niche. She had a wheeled base and a helical pole, which reached up to the barber's block that held the wig. Livre told Claude to take the vest from the wooden dress dummy, then pulled a pair of kidskin gloves from a pegboard on which a half-dozen other pairs hung limply. He ordered Claude to put the gloves on. They did not fit his long fingers, but Livre did not care. "Your malformation is to be covered at all times."

As the two walked to the notarial office, Livre discoursed on the unsteadiness of mankind and the need for the contractual formalities of indenture. Claude, recalling the Abbe's resistance to anything that smacked of apprenticeship, was willing to accept whatever conditions Livre imposed.

They passed under the royal escutcheon of the notary, and Claude was asked to swear, before witnesses, that he was who he said he was, the son of Michel Page, watchmaker, deceased, of Tournay, and Juliette Cordant. He did so. Then Livre had to swear, before witnesses, that he was who he said he was. Livre did so as well, thus revealing that he was the scion of a scullery maid from Loudeac and an unnamed father of unknown ancestry.

The bookseller paid the notarial fees and took Claude to the guildhall, where all had been prepared. To have the university rector overlook Claude's ignorance of Greek and currencies, Livre was forced to pay out a small sum. This he marked down in his booklet, along with the incidental fees levied by the assistant to the lieutenant general of the police. There was also the matter of "the consideration," the sum Claude was to provide Livre for the bounty of knowledge he promised to bestow. This, too, was registered in the booklet for payment at some future date. No proviso for accommodations appeared in the serving papers. In that, Livre supported the prerogatives of the age. Claude was to work in the store, but where he slept was his own concern, not his master's. The papers also stated he was to pay for his own laundering, lighting, and food, though he would share one meal with his master each week. The last clause was inserted to extend his hours of labor. Grave oaths were taken, grave bits of paper were signed. The ritual ended with affixed testimonies and the smell of sealing wax.

To celebrate, Livre invited his new apprentice back to the shop for a supper served promptly at eight. Until then, Claude's Parisian meals had been dominated by the tasty economies of Madame V. This meal was different, the first in a succession of encounters that both fascinated and repelled him. Livre's gustatory habits in Tournay had been memorable enough; long after his departure, Marie-Louise had been furious over the demands for overcooked turnips.

Livre was, if anything, even more persnickety in Paris. There were some significant changes, however. Instead of turnips, potatoes now dominated the menu. Livre explained he had consulted an English empiric who had convinced him of the intestinal virtues of Parmentier's favorite tuber.

Etiennette doubled as a serving girl and brought out the various platters, then excused herself quickly. Livre's nose hovered, sniffed, snorted, and sniffled. He inspected the food suspiciously, cursing under his breath. The reasons for his fears were never stated openly. He spat into a handkerchief left prominently on the table, then itemized the menu. There was boiled potato, mashed to the consistency of an enamel paste Claude had once pestle-pounded with Henri. There was potato skin, uncooked and looking like discarded belt leather. And there was potato bread, leaden and crumbly in texture.

"I will forsake my Seltzer tonight. The festive nature of the occasion calls for a truly special treat." Livre poured out the murky contents of a bottle. "It is known in some parts as mobby." Claude did not need to taste the drink to guess its principal ingredient.

The food was not spiced, nor were salt and nutmeg placed on the table. The only garnishment was the gurgling that came from the bookseller's throat. Something damp and globular seemed forever trapped in the deep of his chest. The cough and the phlegm rolls of Tournay were only a prelude to the impressive efforts to which Claude was now treated. At his own table, Livre felt free to hack away, to gasp and wheeze and smack his lips. The sounds tested both Claude's stomach and his symbolic annotation. He made a mental note to compare Livre's repertoire to the effect of a saturated loaf sponge thrown against the wall.

Livre launched into monologue: "The word 'indenture,' Claude, comes from the toothlike marks of a torn piece of paper. The dents." He tapped a greenish tooth in a mouth still filled with potato mash. "Half the contract held by master, and half by apprentice, to protect against forgery."

Claude's thoughts wandered. How different this was from Tournay. Work with the Abbe had been activated by nothing more than a smile, a touch, and a challenge. What had the Abbe said? "I will teach you to teach yourself." Now he was to be bound by a ripped piece of paper.

"Order, Claude, is essential. One of my pearls states, 'A place for everything and everything in its place."' He uttered the adage the way the faithful recite a paternoster. "Everything has its place. Not just the books on the shelves, or the gloves on the peg board, but the apprentice in the shop, the peasant in the village, the king in the court."

Claude considered the credo. "A place for everything and everything in its place" was a phrase spoken by a man uncomfortable with change. And yet Livre was equally ill at ease with his own position, a nasty irony that made him at once a purveyor and critic of the status quo.

"Your predecessor was, I might add, worthless when it came to our better patrons," Livre said. "He did not tecognize that the sale of books is an act of seduction. Patrons are less concerned with what's in a book than what is around it. We can provide calf, full and half, morocco, and other leathers besides. And, of course, false covers for the works in the back."

Claude was again distracted until he heard Livre say, "It is all a matter of proportion. Folios were meant for rooms of grandeur, but now that rooms are often built at reduced scale, book dimensions must diminish accordingly. Which is fine for our profession. With smaller books, we turn a nicer profit. If, that is, we are careful about the margins. Children's primers are especially good business. Small books for small eyes yield big profits. Oh, that has a making of a pearl." Livre took out his booklet and wrote down the observation.

The talk and gurgles ceased and the meal was pronounced over. Livre turned back to his booklet and went through the list of clothing he expected Claude to wear: the velvet vest when inside the shop, the frock coat when outside tunning errands, the coatse black gloves when cleaning external dirt, the coarse brown ones for internal dirt, the white ones fot book dust, the gteen ones when polishing the copper and the btass.

"I will deduct the vest and gloves from your wages. The errand frock you must buy yourself." Livre totaled up Claude's debts. Feeling generous, he said, "I will bear the cost of today's meal and supply you with the pair of gloves you are now weat-ing."

It was now Claude's turn to sputter. "I do not have the funds to pay for the other items."

"Nonsense. No genius leaves a man of such woeful generosity as the Count of Tout nay without tecompense."

"I have spent what I had."

"Do you still have your tools?"

Claude nodded.

"Then it's quite simple. Sell them. They will not be needed anymore. Just sell your tools."

There is in the pawnbroker's shop a profound and illicit sadness, a concentrated dose of private failure. One looks around and wonders: What were the circumstances that forced the musician to sell his violin? The nobleman his favorite watch? And what of the copper bedpan, or that doll of human skin? The tragic mood is suggested by the method of display. In hanging the objects by bits of rope or by placing them in cages, the pawnbroker suggests that there is a certain criminality associated with transacting business in his shop. After all, hanging or imprisonment is the destiny of the turnpike thief.

Claude tried to make the choiceless choices of the ruined dreamer. He had to decide which objects to pawn and whether he should reserve the right to future redemption, in all that redemption implied. He could dispense with the old traveling wig the Abbe had given him; he had no sentimental attachment to curled and shellacked horsehair. He would keep The Mechanical Christ because its obscurity would stimulate little interest from brokers. The lay figure, too, would be kept. It was much more than a reminder of his first encounter with the coachman. Ageless, sexless, and even timeless, it accepted whatever expectations were directed its way.

Claude put the rest of his material wealth into his satchel and lugged it to a small street dominated by the ancient and disreputable profession. He went alone. Plumeaux could not be found. Besides, the hack disapproved of the new apprenticeship. Claude entered and left a number of shops, shocked by the sums he was offered. He eventually chose to conduct his business in an ill-lit establishment that had a gambler's silver point counter and, in a dish beside the door, a pile of worthless brothel tokens.

He looked around with morbid interest. A fat, ugly watch was granted a place of honor near the cashbox. It was missing its hour hand. Behind the cashbox sat a frail and myopic broker, who compensated for his handicaps by surrounding himself with firearms. A thirty-year-old blunderbuss with a breech trigger and short stock, and an even older flintlock with a chicken-necked cock hung above his head. Out of view was a charged horse pistol that could calm even the most unsatisfied of customers.

Claude brought out his portable holdings and showed them to the broker. He was unimpressed. Out of kindness, if one were to take him at his word, he offered a shockingly low price for the Portrait in Little and the tools. Claude explained the virtue of the latter—the handles of lignum vitae, the hardest of the hardwoods, lathed at an angle that pleased the grip. He described the composition of the tempered steel and the precision with which each implement had been crafted.

The pawnbroker was still unimpressed. Claude could have produced the Holy Grail, and the fellow would have offered him the same price, allowing that it was a pretty mug but an old one and dented, and claiming that interest in old, dented mugs was minimal. The broker knew his job. He discerned the desperation in Claude's nonchalance. The only thing that prevented him from taking even greater advantage was the missing finger. He assumed it promised future booty, stolen objects that would require quick sale. Like so many before him, the broker attributed an ignominious legacy to the amputation and so added a few sous to the price he was willing to pay. In Claude's estimation, the Portrait was significantly undervalued. He chose to keep it but sold the tools outright, receiving one fifth of their value and what was, surely, one tenth of the price at which they would later be sold. Coins were counted out on a piece of green baize, and Claude left the prison of bankrupt dreams.

As he walked to the rag-and-cloth market to find an errand frock, he wondered whether he had sold his aspirations along with his tools. He spent the afternoon in front of flimsy stalls piled high with old bone lace, ribbon, and lustrine that had lost its luster long before. He joined some seamen in eyeing torn petticoats and broken corsets and the women who displayed them. Near a stand filled with cabbaged strips of tailor's cloth, Claude bought a sober black frock. He then returned to his lodgings, stopping to talk with Piero. The Venetian had fashioned a gift for Claude, a finger in.flax and twine that could be stuffed into the gloves of his new uniform.