Anne Ryan, Perfumeria

2953 Anne Ryan, available writings index

Anne Ryan. “Ludvica.” The Paris Review 5 (Spring 1954) : 116-121
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paragraphs numbered for ease of reference

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After two years as a servant in the family of a leather merchant it was settled that Ludvica was to be dismissed. The decision was already three days old, numb and stiff now from three days of fright having rolled over it. Mrs. Glemby, her mistress, who had often threatened, scolded and relented before, this time had wired two lines to a newspaper where she had an account, two small and insignificant lines which Ludvica could scarcely read. The newspaper had a circulation of a hundred thousand. The bell of the terrace door was ringing all day. This was the winter when people walked the streets looking for work; women were desperate, shivered, had red rims around their eyes and a thin trembling on their lips. One old woman had even walked slowly into the river and had drowned deliberately.
Fully twenty servants applied. The lady of the house had resigned herself to interviews. She brought a small basket of children’s mending into the living room so she would appear occupied as she talked. As each servant appeared she was uncertain about one after another and sat there like a judge, stiff and final. But she made no decisions. A fantastic composite took shape in her mind, the appearance of one, the strength of a second, the amiability or low price of others made a sort of paragon and always at the end she was annoyed to realize that she could not have a creature that she had built for herself, perfect in everything. She ended each interview with the same sentence and there was always a tired hinge in her voice. “I must talk to my husband,” she [117] said coldly. “Tomorrow I shall decide, tomorrow.” And as Ludvica opened the final door for each applicant she made a little scratching sound of impatience on the panel with her forenail, exactly like the sound of the thin claw of a bird or a mole digging in and fashioning the walls of its house.
—
At dinner time the two little girls ran in. They were boisterous, pettish and indulged in all sorts of extravagances; they ate nuts before meals and picked icing off the cakes. The younger was delicate looking yet inclined to play the comedian; even the light airy way in which she threw her wraps in the corner holding them at arm’s length and winking and whistling was amusing and nonsensical. Ludvica was fond of her, walked after her with great ungainly steps, picking up, smiling and bending over the frail shoulders. Every once in a while she would touch the-thin shoulder blades. “Your wings are sticking through,” she would say. But the child with a smile in which there was something of impishness, disgust and shrinking, would curl away and this made a dull rage fume in Vica’s heart, made her look and peer a moment intensely without understanding, then walk back quickly to her stove where the pots were sizzling and sputtering. Everything became upset in a moment, the spoons hid themselves, the silver dishes in their place over the oven grew too hot. She nearly dropped them. Her nails, rounded, horny and thick as strong claws, could not hold on to anything.
Serving at table she was nervous, in a panic because she realized that again and again she had made some mistake. Once she had forgotten the stuffing of the capon and at the last minute when it was half done had put two peeled apples inside so the white meat would not dry out. Her cooking was always the same; she could scarcely get a whole dinner together; either the gravy was missing or the egg sauce was left in the kitchen. When anything like this happened her mistress would say, looking helpless and angry, “I’m through. I give up,” and to cover the slatey silence would begin at once to talk French to the children. At luncheon French was always the language but when anything unpleasant happened [118] at other meals their mother thought she could distract her husband by making him slightly curious about these sharp, crisp sentences in another tongue which anyone could understand. He simply looked over the tops of their heads with his clear blue eyes. The children were only too glad to show off. This would go on for five minutes and then suddenly he would put a stop to it briskly. “Not at dinner, no French,” he would say. “Subside, subside. Don’t be boisterous, girls.” All the time Vica walking around the table was helping and serving and her excitement and anxiety made her pant a little.
“Did you see any applicants today?” asked Mr. Glemby, and his voice sounded as though he were talking into a hollow bowl. “People are walking the streets. There must be many who want work.”
“I’m simply exhausted, done up,” and his wife let her arms sink down stiffly like two sticks of wood. All the paragons she had interviewed melted together. Her husband asked about the price, the cleanliness and whether each one could bake well. He liked rich cake and soufflé.
“If it’s only cleanliness, Vica is clean,” said his wife looking at him with wide-open eyes in which showed her faintheartedness and her dread of a new servant. The changing of maids was like a warped wheel in her mind, a wheel running over and over monotonously.
“Yes, but this pudding —” said Mr. Glemby positively.
“And she’s kind... I see all her kindnesses now, one after the other...”
“Don’t relent, don’t be soft...it’s too late... You’re always ready to give in.” He was simply a hard man.
—
At nine o’clock Vica went to the door of the living room to see if there was anything further needed. It was quiet in there; the gray heart of the fire had made a drowsiness in the room; behind the newspapers which they held up sleepiness gathered in their eyes. This was always a moment when Vica was overwhelmed. The silence, the dozing and the sound of the words she must speak to say good night were [119] like stones in her throat. She waited outside the door looking up at the black well of the servants’ stairs which she was about to mount. At last she poked her head into the lighted room. Cordiality smeared her face like a putty and she heard her voice issuing dully. Her mistress gave a jump, startled, as though a weight had been dropped or a wall in her house had opened. But Mr. Glemby was not disturbed; a wrinkle of scorn stained the corner of his mouth as he answered “Good night, good night.”
When she reached her room Vica felt relieved; here she could be untidy for once, throw stockings under the bed and when she lay down smell the wet wood where there was a leak in the corner from a broken eave.
The silence of her room was a figure of the silence of her life. Only at intervals when she lost her temper would she speak out and then a sputtering, strongly accented English came to the surface.
Vica sat down now wrapping her mother’s shawl around her. It was a square of bright flowers which she used to wear over her shoulders when she first came to work. Even about the shawl she had been confused. One day her mistress said to her, “Why do you wear that loud color? Aren’t you warm enough? It spoils your neat dress.” And Vica could see her eyes watch the fringe swishing over the water in the pan. Two drops were already clinging to two threads. The smallest mistake seemed important to Mrs. Glemby. Only at night when Vica stepped out of her tight, plain uniform had she time to remember her home, distant and lost... the freedom, the sunniness and the clear river where she bathed in summer under the drooping branches. How strong she felt then surrounded by rocks with her long hair floating silkily on the water and the morning willows dipping against the icy nakedness of her breasts! The only sound was her wide stroke splashing rhythmically. The sagas of her country had come easily to her lips... “I will ride into the north wind... eagles’ wings are a soft bed under me...” She sang and sang loudly in the water and now softly in the close dark of her room...
[120]
She sang “Odin awoke and he warned the four giants to avoid his kingdom and keep his holy cornerstones... The frost giant lived in the fantastic snows... The east giant rushed in the storms... His wild clouds reared like horses over the black beaches... The fire giant sparkled in the south... When it was winter he burrowed deep into the earth to keep warm... So that spring could sleep well in his arms...” The old words soothed her, leaped at her, seemed a new cover for her, fragile and deeply past. That was what she sang and remembered.
—
It was understood that when her mistress was at home she could go out if she wanted, could take the time off. Another servant lived two doors away between the open yards and the hedges. But if she had gone tonight she would have to admit her fears and uncertainties. It would only have weakened her, she could not keep the words back. She had worked faithfully and truthfully... A few days remained in this house. She would wait until her mistress was satisfied with someone else, wait patiently, meekly; then she would start all over again somewhere else and for beginner’s wages.
She would go to her aunt’s house. It was dull there. People were lazy and indifferent and poor. Her aunt was an old woman with no ease in her life. Every day she talked about what had worn out. When threadbare sheets tore in the night over her shoulder she could not find a dollar to replace them and simply sewed up the rents; every cover had a double rib in the center. Vica thought of the cards they played on the oil cloth table. The old aunt was so naive that one could tell all her tricks beforehand; when she knew she would win she would snap down the cards with a little click but when she was sure of losing she would cast the card out with a little airy loop which everyone understood.
The uncertainty of her life sank into Vica’s mind. She was so lonely that she felt like going up to people when she passed on the street and saying something to them. She had a sense of injustice as though these strangers should divide with her. At the smallest word she would have opened her heart to anyone, anyone who sat beside her in a bus or walked [121] beside her with their heels clicking the pavement. And now she sat still looking into the black night, a night with faint stars where the near sky was netted with the naked motionless branches of winter trees.
—
Next day as a last good behavior she resolved to keep out of the way of the children. She did not know whether to smile at them or to help them when they looked in the box for their arctics. All the time her temper was rising. She finished everything quickly and afterwards walked from room to room even picking up the sewing Mrs. Glemby had put down. Her mistress could not look at her. She was ashamed but she was firm, free now and decided.
In the afternoon she called Vica to her. She had accepted a servant and wanted Vica out of the house before the other girl came so the two could not compare orders. Sitting on the sofa with her head turned aside and her face covered with wrinkles she said sorrowfully, “Well, what will you do!” and exclaimed, making a small twist in her neck, “I have taught you all you know... but where will you go?”
Vica’s aunt came after her. She secretly wanted to take a last look at the elegant house in which she had some remote sense of possession. She was as bewildered as Vica when Mrs. Glemby told her that her niece was a good servant, that she loved the children, but that all was swallowed up in a clumsiness, uncouthness and a sullen temper.

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