Fit The Mold

This letter is part of Nina's epistolary blog 'Nina's Diary', where she shares letters with her inner circle of close girlfriends. They overthink films, books, and heritage sites to make sense of life.

This is a carbon copy of a letter written by Nina to Billie

Paris, February 22, 1958

Has my first letter reached you yet? I sincerely hope so. At the post office, I was assured that international airmail is reliable these days. You really should have received it by now. Please do write back the moment you get a chance.

A lot has happened in the past two weeks.

Thanks to one of Carmen's close friends, Fred, who works as a clerk at the embassy, I secured an interview with Mrs. Miller, the head of telephone operations at the OEEC* - a massive organization coordinating European economic trade and cooperation.

From the start, I felt her reluctance to hire me. "How could you possibly move to Paris while your French is so poor?" she said. And when she found out that I had no switchboard experience, she could barely hide her astonishment. She even rolled her eyes and sighed two or three times.

Fred had warned me about her strict hiring standards, but her department was short-staffed, and apparently, she preferred to boss American girls around instead of "unruly and insolent French girls," as she called them.

Even though I’d rehearsed my answers, I was still nervous. I needed a steady paycheck to stay afloat here. Nodding repeatedly and saying mindless phrases like "Yes, Mrs. Miller," "Of course, Mrs. Miller," and "I'm a fast learner, Mrs. Miller," worked like a charm.

Easy to work with. Manageable. Docile.

That's all she was interested in seeing in me, and I delivered. Just like Fred told me: "Fit the mold, and you'll get the job."

And that's how I'll make 38,000 francs a month. Oh, Billie, don't let those many zeros fool you! It’s barely ninety dollars. It's not much, I know, but it will cover my basic expenses for food, transport, and rent.

On the bright side, headquarters is in a grand Parisian estate built to look like an 18th-century château... no less! Everyone just calls it Château de la Muette. La Muette literally means "the silent woman," which feels pretty ironic considering they're paying me to talk all day.

I looked into the history of the building, and it’s quite something. The Germans seized it from its aristocratic owners during the war, and about a decade ago, the OEEC bought it and filled it with offices and meeting rooms.

But given its history, wouldn't you think a place like this should belong to the public, as a monument open to all?

After signing my employment contract, I noticed a bulletin board on my way out, pinned with all sorts of staff ads and offers. One ad practically begged for attention, written on bright pink paper with little hearts drawn all over the margins. It read like it was written by a twelve-year-old, looking for a roommate to split a sunny room in a neighborhood just a twenty-minute bus ride away. The price was 6,000 francs, which felt fair.

I hesitated at first, but I couldn’t resist the absurd amount of effort that had gone into such an elaborate ad. And that is how I met Lilly... a twenty-one-year-old fellow American.

Everything else happened in the blink of an eye. The moment we were introduced, Lilly insisted we take the bus straight to see the place.

The apartment is on the top floor of an old building in an untouched pocket of the Latin Quarter, which miraculously resisted the city's massive modernizations a hundred years ago. We'd be sharing a room, while two other young women occupy the second, one of whom is a French seamstress at Dior.

Do you remember Gregory Peck’s apartment in Roman Holiday? The layout looks remarkably like that, with its slanted ceilings, wooden floorboards, and exposed beams... but much more grounded in reality, with peeling wallpaper and worn-out furniture. There's even a rather nosy concierge downstairs who keeps meticulous track of who comes and goes. Naturally, she seems particularly interested in keeping track of the women.

The bedroom is spacious enough for two, with single beds and a writing desk. Lilly was kind enough to clear out half the wooden wardrobe for me, and she’s taking me later today to one of the best spots in Paris for affordable sheets and towels. What truly sold me, though, was Lilly offering to talk to the other girls about my photography. She suggested I take over the tiny storage room off the hall for a darkroom, when needed. It's cramped, but it'll do.

We’re heading out now to grab those linens and explore the neighborhood.

Expect another letter very soon.

Nina

(*) The OEEC: The Organisation for European Economic Co-operation.

💌 Read Millie's Letter to Nina: A Streetcar Named Desire - Blanche vs Stanley

If you want to get a sense of Lilly and her artistic eye, take a look at her work here: Lilly's photography collection & reading notepad (FR).