The new service

The proprietor of Le Vieux Cinema, the antique store where I picked up my Art Nouveau tea and coffee service, was reading a book about a bureaucrat in South Vietnam who goes wandering in North Vietnam. I told him about Word of Honor, the book about a Vietnam massacre by Nelson DeMille that I am reading. Transactions are more than business in this store, but are about relationship building.

The atmosphere of the building makes it possible to picture in place of the antique tables, chairs, beds, cupboards, dishes and bric brac, movie seats and filled with people waiting for the show to begin.

Although it is only a short walk to my nest, I carried the box gingerly looking around to make sure my footing was sure on the uneven pavement. Johnny Halliday’s music was blasted over the public speaker systems as other tourists selected melons, fresh tomatoes, chicken and bread for their lunch from the boulangerie, chacuterie and green grocer’s. I made it without a clumsy move. Whew.

Upstairs one-by-one I shed the newspaper wrappings, glancing at the stories as I did. Nothing earth shaking. One-by-one I washed the tea pot, the coffee pot, the sugar and creamer, the two saucers and the cups. I had rearranged my china cabinet and experimented with the best arrangement.

The set meets my buying criteria: It is beautiful, useful, and brings up memories not only of the nice buying transaction but a trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts when they had an exhibition of Art Nouveau and Art Deco pieces as well as a night at the Hotel Radio last year in Clermont-Ferrand where everything made me think I had changed eras to the 1920s. I wonder who owned this set before me and who before them. What did they discuss as they poured milk into their coffee and stirred sugar into their tea?

I will put new memories into the porcelain.