Nearing Eighty

In that first year scores of house-guests descended upon us. All were anxious to visit Paris while the getting was good (translation: free room and board, free tour guide, free transportation, and free language help.) Besides Ursula we welcomed Grandma and Grandpa Schwartz, Emily and Lab, Frank and Mary Alice Babka, Deena and Joel, and a slew of IBM business associates passing through. By late fall I felt overwhelmed by juggling so many responsibilities. So I put out word that I was looking for a housekeeper. Maybe it was Eliane who suggested Madame Jorge d’Almeida. The latter was a short, fat, middle-age Portuguese lady who lived alone in a one-room apartment at the far end of the village. I didn’t ask Madame many questions nor did I get recommendations from former employers. I was just happy to have someone sign on for the job. Madame agreed to come once a week and clean as much of the three-story house as she could in the six hours I paid her for. At first, I made it a point to be in the house when she was there. But I soon discovered that Madame liked to use me as her sounding board. She talked and I listened for a half hour before she began her work. For a few months I listened patiently, serving as her pro bono therapist. It was no easy job to translate Madame Jorge’s conversation in Portu-French. But I did understand that her chatter was mostly about health issues. Those included aches, pains, and digestive problems. “Je suis gonflée,” loosely translated as “I have gas,” was a common grievance. Sometimes it was impossible to extricate myself from Madame’s monologue. In time I gave up and simply planned to be elsewhere on her scheduled work day. When that happened, she saved the complaints until I got home. Either way, Madame Jorge needed to have her half hour (minimum) to vent. In the three years we lived in France, Madame became a part of the family. She enjoyed the kids and loved to joke with them. One time, she accused Eric of peeing around the base of the toilet. Chasing him down the hall with scissors, she threatened to cut off his “pee-pee.” Eric was NOT amused. Thereafter, he stayed out of Madame’s way. But Greg loved to tease her back. One day, he told her he was going to sing a song he’d written about her. Grinning ear to ear, Madame pulled up a chair and motioned him to begin. “Madame Jorge, she’s our maid. She’s the funky woman who’s never been laid,” he crooned, looking her straight in the eye. Madame, blushing like a teen-ager, tapped her feet and swayed to the tune. Good thing the old girl didn’t understand a word! One more Madame Jorge story deserves mentioning and it happened toward the end of our time in France. On a weekend trip Bill and I took by ourselves, we couldn’t find anyone to stay with the kids. In desperation, we hired Madame Jorge. It must have been a nightmare scene, with the boys taking advantage of the woman who’d had zero experience with children. Today what the kids remember is that their caretaker peeled, quartered, boiled, and mashed enough potatoes to feed an army platoon. And that after eating left-over mashed potatoes for three days, they staged a revolt.