Madam Vivionette’s Shoes

The disappearance of Celeste Wilson, a local poet was mysterious, incompressible, understandable and not surprising. This conflicting statement was at first dismissed by the police officer and detective assigned to the case of Celeste’s disappearance, but it was a statement they received over and over again. Eventually they came to realize that their progress on this case would depend on their ability to absorb and make sense of the conflicting responses given by the local Washington Square Village residents. Remarkably however, the more they chewed over the responses to their questions about Celeste and her disappearance the more the whole story tasted like nothing.

The one person who might have given these inquisitors an insight, if not a clue, was Madame Vivionette, who seemed to appear and disappear herself and was known only by a small group of M.V.’s highly qualified and targeted clientele. The police had label M.V. a person of interest because Celeste was last seen with her. She was identified by the police through interviews with M.V.’s clients, who were themselves iconoclasts living on the fringes of society but who nevertheless felt completely understood by Madame Vivionette.

The policeman and the detective learned that M.V. was a skilled seamstress and designer of fine apparel who would custom design and make clothing, or shoes, or pillows or coverlets for various persons who frequented Washington Square Park. She would give the item she created for the person as a gift without charge. She told the recipients of her gift, who she called clients, that it was a pointless gift. Additionally, she explained that her creations came from her observations of them in the park and because the gifts were pointless and without motivation of any kind they had an unusual quality that they could discover. Furthermore, she informed these individuals that they were chosen to receive her gift because she had observed that they were ready to discover what their gift would reveal. Additional research by the police revealed little knowledge about M.V.’s past. They did learn, however, that she is an immigrant whose father was a French cobbler and whose mother was a mystic of sorts who abandoned her husband and daughter to seek knowledge in the east. The most alarming thing that the Police learned during their research was that a few other residents thought to be clients of M.V. were missing.

All the scant information and the few leads that the police had led nowhere as to the whereabouts of Celeste, M.V. or two other of M.V.’s clients. Finally, during an interview with Celeste Wilson’s only close friend, who had been out of town until now, the Police learned that the friend had spoken to Celeste on the phone just before she had disappeared. She told the police that during the phone conversation Celeste got terribly excited about receiving a gift of a wonderful pair of shoes from a strange acquaintance she had met in the park. They were delicate silk shoes covered in black satin petals that fit her perfectly. They not only fit her physically precisely but they fit her character, her style and even the way she felt. In fact, she said, that they seemed to enhance her perception and lift her emotionally and even spiritually. Then, her friend said, she became so excited and thrilled that she said she had to put down the phone and take a walk in the park.