Bird Man and the Lap Dancer Close Encounters With Strangers

ARLETTE AND MADAME PERRUCHE It was a warm summer evening when I met Arlette. She was an old woman by then, but in good health. She still wore red lipstick and obviously took pleasure in dressing in a simple but elegant way. Valerie Tatiana von Braunschweig, a former dancer with the Bejart Ballet, and I were driving from Monaco to Juan-les-Pines to spend the summer of 1989. As a way to extend our meandering journey and for me to meet Arlette we decided to take her to dinner at L'Estaminet des Remparts, a small, unpretentious restaurant in Mougins, which is a quaint hilltop village in the south of France. As we settled at our table on the outdoor terrace, Arlette apologized that her companion was too ill to join us. The waiter cleared away the fourth place setting and returned with a bottle of chilled rose. He poured the glasses and set the bottle on the table as Arlette began the story of how she met Madame Perruche. For nearly forty years, Arlette had lived in a modestly furnished apartment in the hills behind Cannes. She was once a principal dancer for the Marquis de Cuevas and the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo, where she had danced with Valerie's mother fifty years earlier. But when the company failed Arlette was too old to join another company. And so she became a teacher at a local ballet school which catered to well-to-do families with young daughters of average talent. She lived in reduced circumstances as the Cannes of her youth succumbed to the traffic and featureless concrete monoliths that began to dominate the older hillside neighborhoods of summer homes covered in blooms of ancient bougainvillea. But she lived frugally and managed to get by on a modest salary from the ballet school. Arlette drove an ancient motor scooter and on most mornings she went to a small park near the train station to feed the stray cats. There was a street woman who frequented the same park. She was known as Madame Perruche (Madame Parakeet). The woman was given her name because she fed the birds, but also because of her frail body and hooked nose. She owned two sweaters. One blue and one black, to go with her blue skirt with the white polka dots. No one knew much about the woman or where she came from. She slept on a park bench and used poste restante at the main post office to receive mail. No one could remember when she first appeared in the neighborhood, but it had been years ago and by the time Arlette met the woman Madame Perruche was more or less accepted as a permanent fixture in the park. Arlette usually smiled or said hello to the woman during her visits to the park, but Madame Perruche rarely replied and when she did it was with a vigorous shake of her head or a brusque huffing sound. Her years on the street had made her wary of strangers and it was clear that she wanted as little contact with people as possible. She preferred the company of birds. Several mornings each week Madame Perruche could be found seated on the same park bench. Birds would flutter around eating seed and dried bread at her feet and occasionally one would perch on her hand for a brief conversation. Wild birds would take sunflower seeds from her lips. Then one autumn day, as she was feeding the cats, Arlette thought about how odd it was that most people felt uncomfortable about giving food to humans but not to animals. Arlette brought the woman a fresh baguette and a small wedge of cheese. "Merci, madame," said Madame Perruche sharply, as she snatched the food from her hand and walked away. The following week Arlette persuaded the woman to go to a local cafe for a cup of coffee and a pastry. The regular patrons, hunched over the zinc bar sipping their mid-morning pastis, appeared to take scant notice of the women. But as soon as the women were out the door, there must have been words, because their cruel comments were later passed on to ArlettHansen, Eric is the author of 'Bird Man and the Lap Dancer Close Encounters With Strangers', published 2004 under ISBN 9780375421266 and ISBN 0375421262.