TRANSFORMATION D'UNE BOURGEOISE - 9

We had a hearty meal accompanied by some red wine. We were chatting
and giggling like two schoolgirls. At one point Conchita got more
serious and said to me : "I know that Monique will be able to change you
physically, it is already happening, but you have to try and change the
way you speak. You speak too correctly, too properly if you know what I
mean. You have to develop a coarser way of speaking, to make mistakes,
use more vulgar words, try and copy my way of speaking. You have to
sound uneducated like me that I wasn't even able to finish the primary
school." She stopped and looked at me as she was sipping some of her
wine then she continued : "For instance when you speak of Monique you
can't use her first name anymore, you should refer to her always as
'Madame', she is your employer now. I know you will be able to do it if
you try, then we will become true friends." She said the last phrase in
an intimate manner insinuating all sorts of future amorous adventures
or at least this is the way I imagined it.

I decided to drop my small secret bomb. I started talking Portuguese
to her : "I agree with you Conchita but probably I would sound more
authentic at least to French people if I speak Portuguese, then they
will accept me more as what I appear to be at the moment!"

She opened her mouth in astonishment : "Wow, how on earth you can speak
Portuguese, Monique didn't mention anything to me?" I looked at her in
a conspiratorial way and continued in the somewhat childish Portuguese
I was speaking: "I never mentioned it to Monique..eh.. I mean Madame,
you see until this morning I never was close to her, she was simply 'la
bonne' for me." I stopped this time for a sip of my wine and continued :
" You see I spent 4 years in Portugal as a teenager, my father was the
French ambassador there and I went to a french school in Lisbon but we
had to learn Portuguese as a second language and of course I had quite
a few local friends. I know that at the moment it sounds a bit spastic
the way I speak, but with a bit of practice everything will come back."

She looked at me still astonished but she recovered quickly and said
always in Portuguese : "Well my dear Maria, this little revelation of
yours makes things a lot easier for the transition to your new status
in life. Wait till Monique hears the news, she will be thrilled!" She
said that last phrase with an emphasis that took me by surprise. I don't
know why, but I was thinking more and more that my whole transformation
as it started in the morning and continued in great leaps was not as
spontaneous as it appeared to be. Was something behind the whole story
that I didn't know? But did I really care? I decided that at the moment
I was enjoying what I was doing and I couldn't care less if there was
a dark conspiracy behind it.

Conchita interrupted my thoughts : "Come on Maria, lets clean the table,
then you can do the dishes and tidy up the kitchen. We have to rush now,
you still have a lot of work to do out in that staircase."
(9 - a suivre)