Amy woke to the sound of an alarm clock from her uncle's room, early that Monday morning. He must have been a heavy sleeper for the alarm rang for quite a while before he stopped it. Amy got out of bed, back aching. The mattress was much less comfortable than it looked.
Amy dressed in nice clothes and went went downstairs to find something for breakfast. There was a bit of French bread in the dingy kitchen and some strong-tasting cheese to eat, but not much else. She made sure she left some for her uncle and resolved to get a few groceries with what little money she brought with her.
Soon after she finished her small meal, her uncle lumbered out of his room, rubbing his puffy face. He plopped in a threadbare living room chair and sighed heavily. Amy didn't know where to start looking for work in a city like Paris especially since the language was strange to her and he was her only help. She went out the the living room and stood in front of her groggy uncle.
"I was wondering if you had any suggestions on where to start looking for work here in Paris." She said politely.
Her uncle grunted and sat up in the chair, scratching his chin. "I don't pay much attention to jobs for young ladies, but that opera place up the road a way just re-opened. They might be hiring some help." he said. He flopped back into their chair as if the words were quite an effort.
Amy turned away and strode towards the door where her purse and coat hung. She put her purse on first and covered it with her coat to keep her small stash of francs her mother had saved back for a vacation someday safe. With her bonnet and scarf securely tied, Amy ventured out into the cold. Paris was a little bit warmer than England and the ice here was thinner, but the wind blew all the same, whipping what yellow hair Amy hadn't tied back around.
She walked down the street, looking for a sign or landmark that might tell her where this opera house was. After about a half an hour of walking, Amy stopped at a shop and stammered through her clumsy French to ask for directions. With much difficulty and a bit of miming, Amy found that she had passed the street she needed two blocks ago, so she turned around and took the right street this time. At the end of this street, there was a great building with golden statues and a tall colonnade with a short flight of stairs leading up to three bronze-faced doors. She was so taken with the sight of the building, she didn't notice she had stopped walking.
The wind picked up again, chilling Amy through her coat and she continued on her way. She opened the heavy doors with a slight nervous shudder and stepped into the grand foyer. The sight awed her, leaving her jaw slightly agape. The staircase seemed like something from a dream or fairy tail, crafted from dark wood, lined with marble and studded with great gold statues. The room itself was so big, Amy thought she might hyperventilate. The amount of light that flooded the room was also a stark change from her uncle's dim house and the cloudy winter outdoors. Amy ran her hand along the side of the staircase, the intricate marble carvings gleamed with many polishings. She had never seen anything so beautiful in a building in her short life of 23 years. Not even the State building back in England matched the beauty of Paris.
"Excusez-moi, mademoiselle." said a voice from above her. "Vous ĂȘtes perdu?"
Amy jumped at the sound. Above her, a man dressed in a good suit and short top hat looked over the banister. "Quoi?" was all she could think to say.
"Vous ĂȘtes perdu?" he asked again, spacing out his words more. He started coming down that stairs towards her and she backed away from the banister to meet him.
"Je ne comprends pas." She said to him. She twisted the ribbon of her bonnet nervously. "Je suis Anglais."
"Oh, I see. I thought so, by your accent." said the man. "I was asking if you were lost. Anything I can help you with?" His French accent was rather light despite his fluency in the language.
"Oh, er, I-" Amy stammered. "I am l-looking for work and I heard you m-might be hiring." She managed.
"Yes, actually we are. Anything in particular you can do? Can you paint, sculpt, sew?"
Amy's face lit up when she heard the last item. "I can sew." she said quickly.
"Perfect. We have an opening for an assistant seamstress just now. If you'll come with me, you can get started right away. Lots of work to be done." He started walking away, towards a small wooden door to the right of the front doors. "I'm Edgar Leclair by the way. I'm the manager and owner of the Opera Populaire."
"It's a pleasure, Monsieur Leclair." said Amy.
Leclair led her through the door into a hall filled with costumes, masks, cloth, people, wafts of wine, powder and wooden scaffolding. Some people were dressed in what looked like stylized soldier uniforms, others wore sparkling fairy costumes and still others dressed as Arabs or Chinese people. She was led past the sparkling ballerinas and soldiers to a good-sized room filled with costumes, other seamstresses and actors having their costumes mended.
"Here is where you'll be working, Miss..." Gestured to ask her name.
"Amelia. Amelia Lucia." she squeaked. She hardly noticed he was speaking before, as she was looking about the room and costumes.
"Well, Miss Amelia. You can start work immediately. Hang your coat wherever you need, these ladies will tell you what to do." He motioned to the four or five other women who either carefully sewed tears in costumes of bent over gleaming coats. One woman put down the crimson coat she was sewing and came over to her.
"Madame Janvier, elle est en Anglais." Leclair told her.
She pursed her dark lips and seemed to be think very hard. "Mademoiselle Lucia, you can start by take off that bonnet and tie your hair back." she said in a thick French accent. She said the word 'bonnet' as if it rhymed with 'May'.
Leclair left the room and Amy did was she was told. She took off her bonnet and coat and used a spare ribbon from her purse to tie her wavy hair back. Her pallor, hair and dress were starkly different from the other women in the room whose hair was dark with olive-tinted skin and their pale dresses. Amy felt like a daisy among roses, fickle and garish.
"Over here." Madame Janvier said, walking to a far corner of the room. Draped over a small chair were blue English-looking military coats with pins in them. "You can finish sewing these, yes?" she asked.
Amy picked up a coat and looked at the seams. They were of a simple stitch she knew well, but were unfinished in awkward places like underarms and waistlines. "I think so." she said.
"Then you can start." Janvier turned and went back to sewing the crimson coat .
Amy sat down and took up one of the many blue coats. The threaded the needle that was stuck in the waist of one coat and began sewing. The job reminded her of home and she thought of her mother. She would probably be doing the same thing about now and Mrs.. Gill would be picking up her dress that day. As the thrust the needle in and pulled it out of the fabric, she tried to put herself back in her mother's shop, but the air here smelled of face powder, roses and sawdust, nothing like her home that smelled of baking bread, soup and clean cloth. The light in the opera house was also brighter than her home, which was good, but it made her homesick.
"Faster!" Janvier called back to her. "Sew fast or you will never finish it!"
Amy noticed herself slowing and pushed the needle in more quickly. She would have to become used to the professional atmosphere quickly or else lose her job, which she could never do.
The rest of the day dragged on, Amy finishing a coat every hour or so. Once in a while, Madame Janvier would call back an order to work faster or sew in a straight line and soon two other seamstresses join in her mocking, but called to her in French. Amy could tell by the tones of their voices that they were cursing her, but she couldn't understand them. Instead, she just tried to ignore their jeers and snickers.
By the end of the day, her fingers and eyes ached and she longed for the uncomfortable bed at home. She had also foolishly neglected to bring a lunch and went hungry while the other took a break to eat. Everything felt like lead on Amy as she left the opera house. The evening walk was long and she slipped a couple of times, once falling and tearing her skirt. When she reached her uncle's house, she heaved open the door and a wave of alcohol hit her. Her uncle had been drinking.
She ventured inside to see that there were two broken bottles and an overturned chair in the living room and her uncle was sitting on the floor, head slumped over as if he were dead. She shut the door and lit the lamp near the door. She crept over to her uncle who sat motionless as she approached.
Amy came almost close enough to touch him and he exploded into motion. He sprang to his feet, sending Amy sprawling on the floor. Yelling like a barbarian, he swung around the remnants of a broken wine bottle. He charged her as she tried to rise and she screamed and jumped out of the way just in time to miss the glass he threw. She ran upstairs, bumping into the dusty wall on her way up and slammed the door behind her. Luckily, her uncle wasn't coordinated enough then to brave the stairs, so he stomped to his room and audibly flopped onto his bed, sending a small quake through the house.
Amy slid down the door, breast heaving. She wondered to herself whether she would be able to live like this, but she knew she could not return to England. The strain on her mother would be too great with their house, store and feeding the two of them on the meager money they received from the store.
She took a deep breath and cautiously opened her door and tiptoed down the stairs. Quietly, she gathered some semblance of a dinner consisting of half a fresh baguette, some cheese her uncle seemed to have bought that day and a pitcher of water. She tried to eat slowly, but ended up gobbling her supper like a hog. She took off her ripped dress and put on her pajamas, making a mental note to mend her skirt whenever she found time. She knelt at the edge of her bed and folded her hands in prayer for the first time in perhaps months.
"God Almighty, you hold the Earth in your hands and you see the good and the bad of everyone everywhere. I know I do not deserve the life I am living, for there are others out there less fortunate than myself who would switch me places in a heartbeat. I thank you for this life and I hope I can stay strong through the situation you have placed me in. God, I ask for strength in this time of strife. Help me to do the best I can at the Opera Populaire that I might bring glory to your name, and I know that my torment, no matter how severe is your test and that you work in mysterious ways. I merely pray, God, that my suffering brings salvation to someone else. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen." Amy blessed herself and climbed into bed, suddenly thankful she was not sleeping on the floor. Her eyes drifted closed and she slept, and, for once, she slept without nightmares.
