Grief, Memory, Three O'Clock in the Morning: Mother's Day Edition, 2023

"The tourist's Paris and the Paris of Parisians might well be two different cities..."

Mavis Gallant at work, The Montreal Standard. (note ashtray. those were the days.)

My mother, Peggy, doesn’t sneak up on me any more, not often. She visited me in a dull dream the night before last, a cameo appearance. Peggy looked good, youthful, which is not the image that most immediately comes to mind when I deliberately summon her up. In this dream I was primed to climb a staircase. On two succeeding steps were two different brooms. I understood I had to pick one over the other — there wasn’t much to choose between them — and she was watching, critically, to see on which I’d settle. Alive, she was less transparent.

I’m thinking about her now because we’re coming up on Mother’s Day; about such Hallmark occasions, their commercial imperatives, Peggy was cynical. As am I. And it was on this day, May 13, seventy-three years ago — she was twenty-two — that she and my father were married, smack dab in the middle the Winnipeg flood of 1950. By the time she was my age, sixty-seven, Peggy was a couple of years into the attenuated, Hydra-headed illness (cancer, congestive heart failure, osteoarthritis, a truly nasty grab-bag of pathologies) from which she suffered for a decade before decamping the flesh at seventy-five.

(I observed her decline mostly at a distance, busy as I was with my interesting career of faking it on the radio at public expense. At Christmastime, in a flimsy, compensatory gesture, I would send round absurd baskets of delicacies that were gathered up on my behalf by a kind lady at Deluca Fine Foods, whose number I had on speed dial. Cleaning out the apartment after my father’s death I unearthed jars of chutneys and tapenades with “best before” dates of 2002. Now and again, of course, I’d parachute in to lavish on them my particular brand of acidic cheer. Chief among the many things of which I am ashamed — oy, such a gallery! — is that I was insufficiently attentive in a time of evident need; that I took their “everything’s ok, don’t worry,” reassurances too much to heart, didn’t take into account, in a minute-by-minute kind of way, how agonizing a stretch that was: for her, of course, but likewise for my father, her caregiver. The accruing stress of all that driving to appointments, of all that cleaning and bandaging of her many persistent, weeping wounds, of all that dealing with crises beyond his scope of competence, of having to call 911 where the intransigent operators did not comply with the clearly-stated wish that one single ambulance be sent, that there was no need for an accompanying firetruck, lights flashing, sirens blaring, causing a fuss, giving the neighbours something to talk about; all that took a toll that was far from minor. I’m sure the roots of his own illness were nurtured in the rich, dank loam of that anxiety. Which metaphor a more restrained writer would excise. When it comes to shame, I am self-generating. Perhaps whatever AI replaces me will be more temperate.)

I always forget, when the warm weather comes and I start to cavort about in flip-flops — which we called thongs when I was a child, long before there was Victoria’s Secret, and when an agency called Only Fans would have been a brick and mortar joint where one would have gone to buy a, you know, a fan — that my heels will dry and crack and walking will become painful. As I write this, I’m soaking my feet in a warm and salty bath which is contained in the one vessel I have on hand (also on foot) which is wide enough for this mercifully rare purpose, which happens to be the drip tray from my oven. Whatever greasy remnants adhere to it are no doubt  antidesiccant, and therefore beneficial.

For this reason, too — I mean, the rehydrating of my fissured podal extremities — I am thinking about my mother, thinking of how, on my 16th birthday, August 11, 1971, we went to Winnipeg’s outdoor theatre, Rainbow Stage. We saw Fiddler on the Roof;  I remember it starred some local stalwarts, Cliff Gardner as Tevye and Doreen Brownstone as Yentl. Returning to the car, in the dark of Kildonan Park, Peggy twisted her ankle stepping off a curb. It seemed a relatively minor mishap in the moment — a painful but passing inconvenience — but whatever injury she sustained to ligaments or tendons or musculature or whatever component parts make possible the ankle, proved enduring. It pained her for the rest of her life, a demonstration of fragility that was, as now I see, an early sentence in the writing of her third act; a genesis moment in her accruing, eventually crippling, immobility.  I feel no responsibility for this; I’m susceptible to guilt but am not so blame-absorbent as to be utterly stupid. Still, it would not have happened in the way it did were it not for my 16th birthday and my tell-tale, predictive fondness for musicals.

This mother - son historical connection is Oedipal, in a literal way, given how baby O’s ankles were pinned together (have I got that right? it’s what I remember from Dr. Gold’s “Ancient Epic and Drama,” course, University of Winnipeg, 1974) and how that injury marked all his ensuing days. Writing this just now — I should probably be more filtered about this untrammelled spillage — I remember seeing her laid out in the funeral home, January 2003, and feeling such relief at the absence of pain from her face which, freshly abstracted from the spirit, was unlined. Her hair still had most of its colour. She looked impossibly young, looked, as now I see, as she did in my recent dream of the stairs and the brooms.

On August 11, 1971, Mavis Gallant (MG) would have marked her 49th birthday and would certainly — for who would not? — have thought about the impending sixth decade, the half-century mark waiting in the wings. She was, by that time, 21 years into her expatriate life and absolutely in her prime as a writer. I spent a lot of time reading and thinking and writing about MG last year, on this site, by way of marking her centennial year. Mothers are a recurrent theme in her many stories  — in what writer’s work is this not so?  — and they are often, though not inevitably, callow, self-absorbed, damaged, faithless, almost witless women, lavishly visiting their sins upon their children.

I’ve spent the last six weeks or so reading MG’s early journalism, the columns and features she wrote for the Montreal Standard between 1944 and 1950, when she left Montreal for Europe, eventually settling in Paris. (She also published a few subsequent pieces in the Standard, and then in Weekend Magazine, as the Standard became, over the next couple of years.) She was, I believe, largely self-assigning during her time at the paper, and it’s fascinating (to me, at least) to see how, as a very young woman — she had just turned 22 when she published her first work at the beginning of September, 1944  — how much concern for, and interest in, she showed for children and their rearing; for children as hostages of fate: a recurring preoccupation over the course of her whole, long career, as even a cursory read of the stories demonstrates.

Next year, 2024, will be the tenth anniversary of MG’s death, and the eightieth of the beginning of her professional engagement as a features writer: an apprenticeship that served her well, as she would always acknowledge. There’s so much of enduring interest in what she wrote, but anyone who wants to seek it out really has to work to find it. So,  I’m happy (to say nothing of astonished) to be working with Marta Dvorak and Neil Besner — a pair of well-known and truly accomplished writers, Marta in Paris and Neil in Toronto, both of them Gallant scholars with many publications to their credit — on a collection of these Montreal Standard columns and features which will — the good lord willing and the creek don’t rise — be published in 2024 by Montreal’s Véhicule Press: an excellent independent firm, now fifty years in the business. This is with the co-operation and support of Mary K. MacLeod, a longtime friend of MG and the executrix of her estate, and who will be contributing a foreword. It’s going to be, I feel sure, a rich portrait of an emerging talent, and also of a vibrant, complicated city at a particularly vibrant, complicated time in its history.

I hope to post occasional samples and teasers of this work in progress here; what follows seems appropriate for Mother’s Day. Originally published on July 14 (Bastille Day!), 1951, it’s the first of the several columns MG wrote with a Canadian audience in mind after leaving her position as a staff writer at the paper, and leaving Canada. If you wanted a companion story to go along with it, fiction from the same time, I’d recommend “The Other Paris,” which is a wry examination of the storm systems that develop when expectation — about the City of Light, in that instance  — collides with reality. My thanks to Mary K. MacLeod and the estate of Mavis Gallant for permission to publish this here. And my thanks to you for reading. And, of course, Happy Mother’s Day.

Don't Envy French Women

“Everything in Paris is what I'd expected to find,” a Canadian visitor remarked recently, “except for one thing. Where are the Parisiennes?”

The girls he saw in Paris, he went on, were not as well dressed as the average stenographer in Toronto. Many were shabby. Most were untidy. Where, he demanded, were the elegant creatures of song and fiction, the combined Vogue models, women of the world, and Can-Can dancers? Like many tourists, he had expected to find the cafes and restaurants full of the fabled Parisian women, and he was, reluctantly, deciding that they didn't exist.

He was partly right. There are women in Paris who live up to the myth but you don't see them in cafes. They exist in the same proportion as they do in any city, given a combination of wealth, reading, and leisure. And even in Paris, it's a diminishing group. Paris, like most of Europe today, is hard up, and the women reflect it.

The average Parisian isn't well-dressed. In the fashion capital of the world, clothes are one of the most expensive items in the high overall cost of living. The Parisian girl hasn't a large, ready-made supply of clothing to choose from. She must pay a great deal, perhaps more than she can afford, for something smart, after which she must wear it for years, or be satisfied with something that looks and is rather shoddy. Her biggest worry isn't the latest flash from Fath or Dior. It’s how to live on her salary, or run a home on her husband's pay cheque. The tourist's Paris and the Paris of Parisians might well be two different cities.

The Parisienne of today is, by many standards, not to be envied. If she works, her salary is usually so low that it allows for little besides eating and paying the rent. If she is married, she has not only the worry over salaries and the ever-rising cost of living, but her housekeeping chores are made so difficult that managing a small apartment can be an all-day job.

Then there is the ambiguous position of women in France, accentuated since the war. Even though many French girls work, the idea of the working woman is not fully accepted. By tradition, the French girl is trained for marriage and not for a career, not even a temporary one. Now, however, she finds herself forced out into the business world for economic reasons, while at the same time every social custom for family and class is against the idea.

In the long run, working does not make her more independent, for Paris is a feminine city, but Europe is a man's world; and to the average Frenchman, the idea of an independent woman is very distressing. Even if she is financially independent, she must act as if she isn't. A French housewife may be forced to take a part-time job to help out the family income, but it would rarely occur to her husband that he might in exchange, or in a spirit of fairness, help with the dishes.

A twice-married Parisienne, in a mood of understandable disillusion, said recently, “A French husband is selfish and demanding. Even when he can afford to give his wife a large allowance, he will give her as little as he can decently get away with. On this she must run the house and dress herself and her children.

“The house must always be immaculate, and the children must be quiet and well-mannered. All the meals, whether or not his wife has domestic servants, must be prepared with care and on the dot. She is not supposed to have a headache or be tired or ill-tempered. She must not have too many opinions contrary to his own in private, and never, under any circumstances in public. If she is ill, his only remark is likely to be, ‘Why isn't dinner on time?’ And do you know what her reward for all this is? His approval.”

It is difficult for a Frenchwoman not to accept this role. Unprotected by law, she was for generations forced to be entirely dependent on men: first her father, then her husband. The path of an independent woman was, and is, socially perilous. Whereas in North American fiction and popular films the tendency is to glorify women who achieve something through their own efforts, the popular heroine in France is still the one who makes a good marriage.

The idea of the male as a social and functional buffer is still so persistent that some professions pay low wages by tradition, it being taken for granted that the young actress or model will have a wealthy suitor. A Paris fashion photographer, in all seriousness, gave this as the reason for fashion model salaries of $100 a month. Wages, generally, for women are low, and career opportunities at a minimum, so it is understandable that the young Parisienne looks toward the male as a way out, either through marriage or some other form of financial security.

But the economic plight of France, the contradiction between tradition and opportunity, places the Parisienne in an unenviable role, at least in North American eyes. Even if she marries (and that, by and large, is her goal) she may be forced to work, for her husband's salary will only rarely meet the cost of living. But at the same time, she will still be expected to turn out the perfect meals, the ideally-run home. Her husband, except in exceptional circumstances, will not shop, carry groceries, make a bed, or dry a dish.

Married or single, the Parisienne is not welcomed in the business world. The men she works with resent her, the rest consider her unfeminine. This may cause her acute unhappiness, for in her background in the history of her country there is no pioneer tradition. Women have never been the equals of men; they never had to be, as they did in North America.

The Parisienne’s salary will always be low, as if no one wishes to admit she is working not for fun, but for a living. A secretary who is tops in her field may earn $70 a month, $90 if she is excellent, $100 once in a blue moon. And it will cost her every franc of it to dress, eat and pay the rent or contribute to her family. Indeed, it is much more usual to meet a girl who manages on $50 or $60 a month, so low is the average.

Men's wages are not high either, compared with the cost of living, so that the married Parisienne’s life may be a long struggle to pay the bills. Then she may find after marriage that not only does social custom demand that she stay in the home, but the French government, anxious to increase the birth rate, encourages large families by paying very high bonuses for babies and banning most contraceptives. One way or another, a French wife becomes an economic asset.

The Parisian housewife's day consists, as one of them described it recently, of running errands. There is no such a thing as ordering groceries by telephone, or having milk and bread delivered. And since most shops are closed between noon and 4 PM, the shopping must be done in the morning. And it can, and frequently does, take most of the forenoon.

A housewife in Paris sets out around 9 AM armed with a basket or a pair of sturdy shopping bags — this is a necessity, for nothing is wrapped, and she must carry her vegetables and groceries in bundles of newspaper unless she has some conveyance of her own. If she is trying to economize, she will buy as much as possible in the public market, even if it means a long walk or a bus ride. The markets, charming and picturesque from a tourist's point of view, can be a bore and nuisance for someone who has to shop in them several times a week.

Having done her fruit and vegetable shopping in the market, the Parisienne must make several extra stops on the way home. She goes to one shop for milk, butter and eggs, to another for cooked meat and salads, to still another for uncooked meat. She stops at the baker for bread, and makes an extra detour for the daily table wine. If she has to pick up staples, it means an extra trip to still another shop. If she is late, she may find a queue nearly everywhere, and she must remember that the butcher is closed all day Monday, the baker all day Tuesday, everything else closed some other day, usually Monday.

She is quite unlikely to own a refrigerator unless her husband is extremely prosperous. She keeps her butter and perishables on the kitchen window sill, which usually faces the courtyard of the apartment block, and on which will be shaken the debris from countless mops, dusters and mats. Her kitchen, even in a fairly new building, is apt to be badly lighted and a marvel of inconvenience. She may not have constant hot water, nor a washing machine, but she probably has a vacuum cleaner.

Her husband and children come home for lunch nearly every day, and lunch must be a full meal. The time-saving canned goods and prepared mixes that are constant aids to the Canadian housewife are almost unknown to her. So that while she prides herself on her cooking, she exhausts herself over it and frequently is bored with her kitchen and all it entails.

The average Paris wage for a maid is $30 a month, for which she is expected to do everything. Many apartment houses have domestic quarters on the top floor of the building, rooms which are often without heat and sometimes even without electric light. As each tenant has the right to one of these rooms, the housewife who can't find or afford a maid of all work will try to rent the room, and the rent she receives, sometimes as little as $6 a month, will supplement her household budget.

If she is the wife of a professional man, say a doctor or a lawyer, she must be careful of her appearance and be constantly ready to entertain and be entertained, and she must at all costs seem well dressed and rested. She must be careful of her hands, which must never look as if she had been grubbing around the kitchen or the market. Her husband's success or failure will be judged by her appearance and that of her children. It is here that the traditional ingenuity of the French woman has full scope. She makes and remakes her own clothes, never leaves a light burning or a faucet running, never wastes a crumb of bread or a lettuce leaf, and frequently manages to look as if she had been reading a novel all day instead of running errands.

If she has leisure and the income with which to enjoy it, her interests usually lie along certain specific lines. She will visit fashion shows and art galleries, attend teas and inspect antique furniture. Only rarely does she discuss, or appear to know anything about, history, politics and current events. These preoccupations have long been considered unfeminine and distasteful. If one of her friends becomes active in politics, welfare work, or makes a professional career for herself, she will be interested, a little amused and a little envious.

By retaining her femininity and her subordinate role, the Parisienne believes that she is, in reality, the power behind the throne. For generations, she will tell you, French women, while apparently having no voice at all, have really been running things, in their own way. It may be the case but, as one Canadian girl, an economist at UNESCO remarked, "It's an imaginary power behind a non-existent throne. Frenchmen never listen to women. In fact, they don't know how to talk to them."

Frenchmen, discussing this, always retort that the French woman is in reality much happier than her North American contemporary because she has accepted her role in life (this in spite of the thousands of girls who fill the offices, shops, and factories);  stays in the home; and is not so quickly prone to divorce.

There are, it is true, fewer divorces in French homes. Religion plays a role in this,  as well as social custom. Then, a Frenchwoman’s home and children mean a great deal to her. She has few outside activities, lacking both time and opportunity so that her family, even if she is unhappy, becomes the centre of her existence. Divorce, for her, means social and financial suicide. Only two things can make her life as a divorcee tolerable: an independent income, and an unassailable social position, and few women nowadays can boast of both.

Divorce itself is a long and expensive business. Virtually unprotected by law, she may have a battle on her hands to force her husband to support their children, even should he abandon her. Recently, one young married woman whose husband had deserted her was able to force him to contribute to the support of their two children only after a long and costly proceeding. His contribution: $9 a month. Sometimes, discussing marriage, a Parisian woman will say half-jokingly, "When I married, I put a rope around my neck,” which, after it has been repeated a few times, sounds more ugly than funny, less light than significant.

But the truth is that the married Parisienne may see very few people. Open hospitality, as it is known in North America, is virtually unknown for her. Her husband will rarely bring strangers or new people to dine. He may, for years, meet a business friend in cafes, but it would never occur to either of them to visit each other's homes.

“I sometimes feel,” said a Parisienne, interviewed for this article, “that I am in a sort of harem, except that there is only one of me in it!”

She will have few friendships with men, and only slightly more with women. Parisiennes are less friendly with each other than are North American girls. Not only is there a shortage of men, but the shortage of eligible men is acute. Only in middle age does the Parisienne forget the competitive habits of years and custom, and relax.

It is then that she comes into her own. For the most elegant women in Paris, the best dressed, the most attractive, the most worldly, interested, and interesting, are usually over 40. The American “mom” with her apple pie and homely wisdom would be a joke in Paris. Hence, the Parisian mother, having passed her apprenticeship and outlived her frustrations and sacrifices, finally takes over the field. She becomes a matriarch. She is free from prejudice and tradition. She is on her own. Her wishes are respected. The advantages are obvious, but from a Canadian point of view, it's a long time to wait.

PS

Please pay no mind to blandishments and inducements to pledge your financial support! I’m grateful to those who have done so — I’ve taken no one up on it! — but this is strictly hors de commerce.