by Abha Dawesar
He had discussed this too with Pascal who, resolutely practical, had refused to see his point of view. “You’re inventing a concept that doesn’t even exist. Consciousness is a function of the individual self, not the community, not even a community of two. The Marxist analysis of consciousness is useless for the appreciation of art and eros.”
Maya had moved closer to the pastel. Prem looked at the nuque de la femme and then at Maya’s neck and brought his hand to the spot on Maya’s cervical column corresponding to the spot in the pastel where he had imagined Degas’ hand had focused; chalk in its grip. Maya’s back tensed immediately. Prem kept his hand firmly on the spot looking from one to the other. Her neck slowly relaxed. A group of tourists walked into the room and made their way through the pastels at rapid speed until they reached Prem and Maya and clustered around them to see what they were looking at. Prem felt Maya exhale.
“I’m done with art. I can’t take any more today,” Prem said.
Maya didn’t respond. She wanted to see Puvis de Chavannes, Bonnard, and the statues on the two terraces.
“Walk me to the sculptures. I’m going to sit down while you look at the rest.”
They took the escalator to the level of the terraces, their bodies at a distance. Prem felt a force field emanating from Maya that resisted him and pulled him in at the same time. She was like a hot glowing metal about to melt.
“Where do you want to sit?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“By Maillol.”
“Of course.” She smiled distantly as they walked on the Lille Terrace.
“I’m going to be right here.” Prem pointed to a bench. “Take your time.”
Maya nodded and walked away without looking at him. As she gained distance from Prem, her heartbeat returned to normal. After he had let go of her neck, Maya had felt an irrational rejection, a separation from him. On the escalator when she had stood a step lower than him, it took all her will to resist the infantile desire to bury her face in his stomach.
In Salle 11 the monochromatic sepialike renditions of the back of a woman with a hot-air balloon and the front of a woman with a pigeon returned Maya to herself.
“But what happened just now? What am I feeling or not feeling?” she whispered aloud to the dark outlines of another Chavannes, a panneau décoratif of girls by the seaside. The outlines were dark, and the texture of the painting was gritty. It would be easier to be the model of an aging artist who routinely sleeps with all his girls than this situation with Prem. What does he want? Do I know what I want?
Maya was unable to hurry through the paintings. She needed time to face Prem again. She climbed back up to the pastels, careful to avoid Degas. She stood in front of the nocturnal scene of a park in Brussels in which the lamps between the trees looked like diffused moons that had descended into the blue-gray-green palette. As always, van Gogh pulled her back for one more view. She walked back rapidly going through the other rooms, blocking out all the American voices and the Japanese cameras.
Maya stood facing La Chambre de van Gogh à Arles, 1889. More than one hundred years later it had come in her dream when Thomas dumped her; it was in this room that Maya saw her life end up: austere, alone, and loveless. It was where her father’s life had ended up. And her mother’s. For several nights after the end of the relationship, Maya suffered from insomnia. She was no longer used to sleeping alone; the night without the sound of Tom’s breath was like a coffin. She would come home as late as possible and fall asleep finally at four in the morning, only to dream of this lonely hermit’s room and its bed for one. The painting took her back to the smell of her sheets after the breakup. Tom’s scent was strong, and Maya had not done the laundry for weeks so that she could preserve his odor. The memory of Tom no longer hurt, but the painting was still a coffin. Prem was in that coffin. Hermetically sealed. Dying alone. Lonely. She rushed out of the room and flew down the escalators, practically running on the strange partial glass corridors that eventually opened onto the terrace.
Prem had been staring with unfocused eyes at one of Maillol’s bathers without really seeing her. Years ago he had been in the Louvre, with the Goyas and Velázquezes, waiting for the downpour outside to end, so that he could join Pascal for a dinner party in the Marais. The long day in the museum had given him a backache, and he sat down in a bench in a small recess in the Spanish art section. It overlooked the end of the Tuileries. In the gray-white light of the thunderstorm, Prem saw the statues in the garden outside. The rain ruthlessly beat down on their bronze bodies, sending a shiver down his spine. It had been a cold summer; he had needed a coat and an umbrella most days. Prem wanted to run down and throw his gray tweed coat over La douleur, who rested her head resignedly on her hand. He got up from the bench and left the museum. Back outside he walked with his umbrella over his head past the Place du Carrousel, toward the hedges where the statues were placed. He found himself in front of Flore and the nymphs. These Maillol girls didn’t need to be saved—they were strong and upright under the rain, their breasts rising in response to the cold, their stiff nipples causing an erection to press against Prem’s pants. He rubbed his eyes to see if their breasts had really risen. They were still rising. He felt gooseflesh over his body, and his manhood stiff as iron.
As he made his way to the party exhilarated by the vision of the statues, the excitement that had been concentrated in his crotch diffused through his entire body, filling him with the sensation of flight. After he had removed his coat and given his umbrella to Cavalier, the host, he was introduced to the two goddaughters of the host: Julie and Valérie.
“Are you sisters?” he asked. They didn’t look alike, but they laughed with ease and gave the impression of gliding past each other’s intimate spaces like two Maillol statues gamboling together.
“No. Monsieur Cavalier is Valérie’s godfather as well as mine.” Julie answered in an almost impeccable English accent. “We have spent many vacations together in his house in Provence.”
“I present the guest of honor, Mr. Prem Rustum,” the host officially announced just before dinner. Pascal had tendered the invitation to Prem as a favor to Cavalier, a childhood friend. Prem had never met Cavalier before.
Prem was invited to sit on the other end of the table from the host. He asked the two girls to sit on either side. Pascal sat beside Julie, but he had just come out of an appendix operation a few days before and was not in good form. Over dessert Prem told the three of them about the statues by the hedges. The presence of the girls led him to gloss over the details of his excitement. As he spoke, his eyes turned inward, back to the moment in the Louvre when their force had assaulted him. Graced him.
“The Dina Verny Foundation supports a Maillol museum,” Pascal said. “She was his muse. You can see the similarity between her face and the statues, his twentieth-century statues.”
After dinner Julie jumped up and asked her godfather’s permission to play music.
“Do as you wish, ma petite,” he said with an indulgent smile.
Julie skipped back and grabbed Valérie with one hand and Prem with the other.
“Non,” Prem objected, resisting the soft pull of Julie’s white alabaster arm, which reminded him of Bartolini’s Dircé in the Louvre and not of Maillol’s full curvy girls.
“Si, si,” they cried out together as Valérie grabbed him from the other side.
“Mais vas-y!” Pascal said with a look that was at the same time jealous and incredulous.
Sixty-five-year-old Prem Rustum, in Paris that year to receive the Legion d’honneur from Mitterand, moved his still-energetic upright frame easily across the wooden dance floor. He held their hands above their heads and twirled the girls, first Julie, then Valérie, then both. He grabbed their waists and unfurled them as if they were rolls of satin. When he tired, he kissed their delicate hands and said, “Merci, mademoiselles.”
Pascal watched the proceedings from a sofa in the corner of the room. Prem came and threw himself onto the couc
h beside him after the dance.
“I need to go to the Maillol Museum. Will you take me?”
“Why do you want to see statues when you have these girls right here?”
“There’s nothing here. They’re just girls.”
“I don’t think so.” Pascal almost hissed as he bared his teeth.
“What are you talking about? They’ve not even finished their bac.”
“Et alors?”
The two Ps said goodbye to the host and the other guests. Valérie and Julie stood by the door and kissed Pascal’s cheeks. Then they turned to Prem. Julie, gathering her courage, asked him if they could see him again.
Prem looked uncomfortably toward the other guests, wondering who had heard.
“Listen, petite, we’re going to the Musée Maillol tomorrow afternoon. Both of you can meet us there,” Pascal responded rapidly without looking at Prem.
The girls got on tiptoes and planted two slightly wet kisses on Prem’s cheeks.
Later, over a digestif in Pascal’s apartment, the friends quarreled.
“But what is your problem when they are the ones interested? They’re legal, they’re old enough to make this decision, and you haven’t been inappropriate.”
“Legal? They’re just sixteen.”
“Here fifteen is legal.”
“What is Cavalier going to think? He invites me to his house as guest of honor, and I make a pass at his goddaughters?”
“This is France. You keep forgetting this is France. I’m going to give you something to read tomorrow morning before the museum.” Pascal handed Prem a yellowing old copy of Pierre Louÿs’ Manuel de civilité pour les petites filles à l’usage des maisons d’éducation.
The next morning over his coffee Prem laughed at the dark sex-saturated humor of the book, even less sure than before about how he should comport himself with the girls in the afternoon. In his heart of hearts he knew that Pascal was encouraging him, because it just wasn’t all that acceptable even in France.
The next day the girls were waiting for Prem and Pascal outside the museum. The girls and Prem made their way ahead of Pascal past the special exhibit on the ground floor to the paintings and sketches on the second. The girls walked quickly, and Prem followed them to a sunlit room with twelve statues. Julie and Valérie immediately positioned themselves next to a 1930s piece called La nymphe. They were almost the same size as the statue. Julie clasped the right hand of the statue and Valérie the left. They made a circle with their thumb and index fingers enclosing the statue’s thumbs. Then Valérie, bored, walked away. Prem stared at Julie, who cupped the statue’s hand within her own.
It all happened naturally. Julie and Valérie invited Prem to their godfather’s house in the southern countryside. Cavalier had called too and extended a warm invitation to Prem to pass a few days in his villa near St. Tropez before the official award ceremony at the Élysée Palace. Prem accepted, relieved that there would be adults around, glad to be able to see the girls without risking any trouble.
On his arrival at the train station, the girls received him.
“Are you sure you have a driver’s license?” he joked from his seat in the back.
Julie pushed her hand into Valérie’s back pocket, and Valérie, who was driving, lifted her bum an inch off the driver’s seat. Julie thumbed the wallet, found the license, and showed it to Prem.
They were prepared for all his questions: Godfather Cavalier had a last-minute appointment but would arrive the next day with his family. There would be a dinner party on Saturday. Prem had an independent cottage to the side of the old mansion. The girls had their own rooms in the house.
Julie showed Prem his cottage, and Valérie carried his bags.
“We will be right by the swimming pool when you want to join us,” Julie said.
“We will be in the swimming pool,” Valérie modified.
A brand-new pair of swimming trunks with the label intact had been placed on his bed. He was told that lunch would be served, in the gazebo by the pool, whenever he felt hungry.
It was almost noon, and the heat had mounted. A splash in the cold pool followed by an afternoon of Flaubert by the poolside sounded marvelous. Prem changed into his trunks and walked over to the pool. The girls were splashing violently at each other, generating so much foam and swimming-pool fizz that he couldn’t even tell them apart. He settled on a pool chair under an umbrella. They stopped and waved, their small bare breasts making minor arcs in the water. For a second he felt he was seeing Meher. Then he waved back to them and settled into Madame Bovary. He was attempting it in French for the first time.
Sometime later they waded to the shallow side of the pool. Their bare breasts emerged from the water, followed by their torsos, and then their behinds—encased in small girls’ bikini bottoms, a modest red schoolgirl design—slid out into the sun. Prem could not help but look at them. Meher at eleven had had that body, before she had got her period.
One day, without an exchange of words, Prem felt something change with Meher. A strange kind of fear grew in him all evening. Meher had been in consultation again and again with their mother; the two of them had whispered and locked themselves repeatedly in the master bedroom. Prem’s father sat reading his newspaper in the living room as if life were as usual. Prem sensed that his father knew what was happening but was pretending otherwise for Prem’s benefit. It was obvious that the person they were trying to keep in the dark was him. Prem therefore couldn’t bring himself to ask his father what the matter was. At night Meher was very silent when she shut off the light. Usually she touched his head and asked, “My Premi Prem, are you sleepy sleepy?”
Prem apprehensively edged closer to her in bed and then reached out his hand blindly in her direction. He felt her stomach.
“No. We can’t anymore,” she whispered.
The sound of her voice, its familiarity, infused him with courage. “Why?”
“I’ve grown up.”
“Are you having your period?”
“Who told you about that?” She grabbed his wrist authoritatively and pushed it away.
“I know.”
“It’s over. Our childhood is over. My childhood is over,” Meher said in a dazed voice, as if she were repeating something her mother had said.
Prem brought his hand over her mouth to shush her and came closer. He didn’t insist on touching her stomach—he was squeamish too. Blood everywhere, he thought, feeling faint. Then he hugged her and fell asleep.
The next day Prem begged and whined all day. “But it was you who always said that we would never hide anything from each other. You said we would never have secrets.”
Meher finally acquiesced to changing her pad in front of Prem.
“I’m warning you again, it stinks.” She pulled her thick cotton underwear down.
Prem made a face and pinched his nostrils.
“I told you it was awful.”
Meher’s period only lasted three days, and when it ended, she triumphantly stated, “Over.”
As though the end of the war had been declared, they rolled jubilantly toward each other, reaching under her flimsy nightie and his small T-shirt. Prem put his hand over the small mound of her underwear, feeling as if a precious possession had been returned to him. Whatever this fearful, grown-up bleeding business was, it was thankfully temporary and had left her unmarked and intact.
“Some melon?” Julie was squatting beside his beach chair with slices that were a deep orange color. Her accent had slipped, and she’d pronounced melon the French way, the n light and nasal.
“That looks good.” Prem reached out for a slice. Julie grabbed one and sat carelessly on the Flaubert that he’d placed face down. Prem looked down at the spot where her ass touched the book. It was a small round ass.
“You remind me of my sister when she was young.” He did not avert his eyes from her bare breasts, and he did not stare. His glance was equanimous. Grandfatherly.
“Is she like you?�
�� Julie bit into the melon, holding it in both hands.
“Was. She died a long time ago.” Suddenly he was overcome. Tears welled up.
Julie licked her fingers and dried them on her thigh before wiping the tears from the corner of Prem’s eyes.
“I’m sorry it makes you sad to think about her,” she said.
“I’m just nostalgic.” Prem laughed self-consciously. He had forgotten she was sixteen. He hadn’t even spoken this way to his wisest mistresses in recent years.
“We’ll cheer you up today.” Julie looked beyond him in the direction of the gazebo.
“We’ll make you feel young,” Valérie said, walking toward them with a plate full of apricots. She laughed nervously, her voice huskier and deeper than Julie’s.
Prem finished his slice of melon and ducked his head to see the sky beyond the umbrella. “It’s beautiful here.”
A sudden breeze blew across the swimming pool, causing Prem’s thick graying hair to whip about his face. His long, curly salt-and-pepper strands fell over his eyes. Julie brushed aside the hair from his face.
“Your hair is so thick. I have thin hair,” she pouted.
Yes, fine and blond.
“Mes minettes, go play in the water. I’m reading,” he said aloud.
“I’ll let you read after you taste this apricot. It’s so good.” Julie brought an apricot to his mouth. Prem obediently opened it and bit the fruit in half. Some juice unexpectedly squirted on the side of his lips. Julie looked at Valérie, who was hovering around the head of Prem’s beach chair. She covered his eyes with her hands from behind him.
“My eyes are fine,” Prem laughed. He felt a tongue on the side of his lips licking what he imagined was a smear of apricot. The tongue withdrew, and the weight pressing his book down lifted. The hand was removed from his eyes. The two girls ran at top speed and jumped into the pool. Prem covered his sudden erection with Flaubert and popped the remainder of the apricot that had been left on the plate into his mouth. He sucked the pit, rolling it many times between his tongue and cheeks, till there was no more flesh on it. Then he spat it out carelessly and eased himself into a supine position, waiting for the erection under Madame Bovary to ebb away. He fell asleep.
