Last Lovers

by William Wharton

  ‘I went to the washhouse up on Place de la Contrescarpe. I’d learned from some of the other clochards that this was the best place. I rubbed and scrubbed myself with my clothes and a small sliver of soap I found on the floor. I tried to get my filthy cracked hands clean, ran my fingers through my hair over and over to get my hair clean and my fingernails somewhat cleaner. I wrung out my wet clothes and put on my sweat suit, now filthy, and my other pair of shoes. I put the wet clothes in a plastic bag. I wrapped my blankets around me and went outside. I was wearing a wool knit cap I’d found in a gutter some days earlier. The wind was blowing and I was freezing cold.

  ‘I went to a self-service laundry. It was warm and steamy. I washed everything except what I was wearing, including my blankets. I washed my first pair of jogging shoes, the ones I’d been wearing all this time. I sat there watching my clothes spin, wash, then dry, and I tried not to think of wine. I nibbled on a baguette.

  ‘I took out my clothes, put the clean ones on my clean body, then shoved in my sweat suit and hat to be washed. This total washing used up seventy of my francs, but now I looked more or less decent.

  ‘I borrowed a pair of scissors from one of the resident clochards on the Place and cut my hair myself, the best I could. I was beginning to smell again, that’s active ‘smell,’ not passive. The smell of those clochards, which I hadn’t noticed before, was horrible. I don’t think you would have liked to smell me then, Mirabelle, when I was under that bridge or at any time during those months. I smelled of my own juices, of alcohol, filth, vomit.

  ‘On the rue Mouffetard I bought an orange and a banana. I meandered down the hill eating them. I walked in the cold sunlight, with snow still in the corners of buildings, across the river to the Marché d’Aligre. I knew I could buy a warm coat there with the little money I had. I found one, a heavy, wool-lined, three-quarter denim jacket which I still wear. It felt good to be warm without alcohol.

  ‘It was Sunday and I walked through the marché looking for anything cheap and nutritious to eat. My appetite was definitely coming back. It was then I discovered there were other people of the streets, artists and students, waiting until the market closed so they could pick through what was being thrown out. I waited with them. In the struggle I managed to get some slightly moldy oranges, some very dark bananas, two brown-spotted apples, some spongy onions, battered carrots, a bruised artichoke, and several soft potatoes. I put them in the plastic bag I’d used to carry my wet clothes from the washhouse.

  ‘We scavengers didn’t speak to each other much but there was a certain comradeship. It wasn’t vicious, the way it was under the bridge, where nothing was safe. These were people without money trying to survive. I’d joined a different kind of life.

  ‘I began looking up at the windows and into the courtyards of the buildings in the neighborhood. As you probably know, Mirabelle, over there, in the eleventh, it’s a neighborhood of artisans, ébénistes, tapissiers, vernisseurs, making furniture for the furniture stores on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

  ‘I began wandering into various courtyards, up the stairs, avoiding concierges, searching, sniffing around for some place where I might hide out of the cold. It was this way I found my attic. It was in a dark hallway on the top floor of a building which was mostly used as ateliers for those furniture makers. In my wanderings, I discovered a key hanging on a rafter over the door to one of the attic rooms.

  ‘When I entered, I knew right away this was an unoccupied place, probably never used. There was dust, untouched, over everything. There was a layer of dust on the floorboards so thick I left footprints when I walked. I put down my few things and moved in.

  ‘Now, I had very little money but I still needed something on which to sleep. I didn’t want the hardness and coldness of the floor to drive me to wine again.

  ‘I went to the marché on Tuesday when it opened. For ten francs, I found an old WW II army-surplus sleeping bag, only slightly torn, with a broken zipper I knew I could fix. I also picked up a piece of foam rubber which had been torn out of a rotten mattress. I didn’t ask, I just took it. I don’t think anybody wanted it anyway, it was only trash in the street.

  ‘I watched carefully for the concierge and, when she wasn’t looking, dragged my things up to my little attic. It was nice having a place I could call home. I spent the rest of that day trying to figure how to cook my vegetables. I wound up, in desperation, eating them raw. I was down to under a hundred francs now. I’d also need to think up some way I could earn money. I definitely didn’t want to beg, that would be like going back to alcohol.

  ‘The next morning I felt full of energy. I broke out my second pair of running shoes and pulled on a T-shirt, slipped on a pair of shorts I’d foolishly packed when I left and had been lugging around all this time.

  ‘I snuck down the stairs and started running. In about two hundred yards I had to stop. I was impossibly out of condition, my heart was pounding. I was a physical wreck, both from the years working at a desk for MBI and the months I’d spent letting myself sink to the bottom. But I started up again.

  ‘I ran around in the little park on the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. I’d run a lap and walk a lap. There was no one there, but the policeman in the guard box in front of the police station kept an eye on me.

  ‘Then I ran through the rue de la Main d’Or and home. I was sweating like a pig. I ate one of my moldy oranges and a brown banana. They tasted great and the sugar went directly to my blood.

  ‘So it started, Mirabelle. I kept increasing the distance I ran and my soft MBI-clochard flesh started hardening. With some of my last francs, I bought a small tablet and a crow-quill pen. I began doing small, detailed drawings all over Paris of the things I’d found and loved. It was a week before I sold one. I sold it for twenty-five francs. At that time, my total resources were twenty. The next week I sold two and put the price up to fifty francs. I made a small sign and stood it beside the collapsible chair on which I sat when I drew. I’d found the chair at the marché for five francs. The canvas seat was torn, but I mended it, using thread and needle bought for another four francs. I was really counting my sous.

  ‘At night, I began looking forward to my days. I found, abandoned in the street, a small butane heater. The canister was empty, but I bought a new one for thirty francs. The jets were clogged, and I cleaned them out with one of my needles. For sixty centimes, I bought a box of matches, and for five more francs, a box of candles. I was beginning to have the elements of a more comfortable life.’

  ‘Jacques, it could make me cry to hear you tell all this. Did you need to make it so hard for yourself? Were you so guilty, so depressed, you felt you had to punish yourself? It is impossibly sad.’

  ‘No, Mirabelle. It was only carelessness that let me sink so low. I didn’t care anymore. But now I was learning to care again. I wanted to care for myself, make the most of my life.

  ‘And I must say, my life seemed so beautiful. Spring was beginning to come but it was still cold. My hands would be stiff when I drew, but I was truly concentrating, trying to be part of something both inside and outside myself for the first time in many years.

  ‘Also, I was beginning to have a little money. By the end of March, I could purchase a larger pad of watercolor paper, also a green folder with black ties and a box of watercolors with a good brush. I really began to feel like an artist. I put another, bigger sign on my green folder saying the watercolors were for sale.

  ‘And these watercolors, which took no longer than the drawings to make, I could sell for a hundred francs. I sold almost every one I did. It was wonderful for my morale. I enjoyed meeting people and talking with them. I didn’t feel quite so alone. I came to a time when I had over a thousand francs. I had a place to live, food to eat, clean clothes. I was clean myself and I was painting. I don’t think I was ever so proud of myself.

  ‘Then, one Sunday, I found an easel and paint box, chevalet, in the marché. It cost me three hundred francs; a new one would’ve been fiftee
n hundred. I had the money and I bought it. I spent three nights nailing in new nails, screwing in new screws, wiring together broken parts, scraping off the old palette.

  ‘Days, I painted my watercolors until I had made enough money to buy oil paints, some turpentine, varnish, linseed oil, and canvas. I built stretchers from the wood in my attic, using ancient tools which were also up there. I used glue and house paint to size my canvas after I’d stretched it on my stretchers with tacks.

  ‘Now I could go out with my chevalet on my back and paint. You’ll never understand how good it felt to walk along, the weight of the box on my shoulders, ideas for paintings running through my head. I was feeling well, healthy, almost young again.

  ‘I began painting my first oils since student days. I did two paintings, but it was discouraging. How could I sell these paintings for enough to buy new canvas and paints? Also, I was finding it difficult to express the deep feelings I have about Paris. The watercolors and the drawings were decorative, descriptive only, a light brushing of what my eyes could see, not what my heart felt. I wanted to do more with my oil paintings, something important.

  ‘But I wasn’t totally discouraged yet. I knew something of what was holding me back. I was too tight, too afraid to show my feelings, it was the old problem, the weakness which had ruined my life. I couldn’t stop myself from closing down, protecting myself as if I were in danger, danger from something I didn’t understand, couldn’t know. Now, when I wanted to let loose, to be vulnerable, put my heart and soul out on the canvas, I couldn’t do it. But I was willing to keep trying.

  ‘The rest of the story you know, Mirabelle. I was painting my third oil painting when we had our collision, our crash, our encounter; we met each other. I was prepared to finish that painting of the church and then go back to painting watercolors in order to buy more paints.

  ‘At home in my attic, I cook my food once a week on my tiny cooker. I have candles and can open the small, hinged window in the roof. I hide everything when I leave so no one will know I’m there. I’m actually living as an artist in Paris. It’s the dream of my life. I have nothing to complain about.

  ‘And, now, even more, I sold the painting of the Place Furstenberg we painted, for more money than I ever dreamed, and you’ve commissioned me to paint your portrait. I have money enough to paint maybe five or ten more paintings in oil. You see why I’m so enthusiastic? Also, I am happy because I’ve gotten to know you, Mirabelle. It is such a joy.’

  Mirabelle has taken the chair across from me at the table. She gets up and reaches into the high shelf for the bottle of Poire William. She brings over two glasses and sits down again.

  ‘Please, Jacques, would you pour some for the two of us? We should drink to our good fortune. Is there enough in the bottle for us to drink? Usually I can tell by the weight and the sound when I shake a bottle, but with the pear inside it is difficult.’

  ‘There’s just enough for the two of us to have one last drink, Mirabelle.’

  I take the bottle from her and pour into the tiny, fragile, decorated glasses. I hold my glass up to her. Only then do I see that tears have wet the entire sides of her face. Her face is constructed so the tears do not come down the front in the runnel beside her nose, but down the outsides. Her eyes are slanted and perhaps this is why, or maybe it’s a part of her blindness. She makes no effort to wipe the tears away.

  ‘To good times, Jacques, for us.’

  We clink glasses and let that wonderful aroma of pears surround us, bring us closer. I close my eyes and try to enjoy the whole of the experience the way Mirabelle does.

  ‘I should like to do something for you in return for your painting my portrait.’

  ‘You’ve already paid, Mirabelle. It’s yours.’

  ‘No, it is yours, Jacques. I wanted you to paint it for yourself. I can never see it, only as you have seen me is it important. And that can only mean something to you.’

  ‘But, Mirabelle …’

  ‘No. I know what I am doing. I want to be with you, I want to be with you through your painting. But that is not what I want to talk about. I want to share with you a small gift in return for what you have given me.’

  She’s holding her drink against her chest again, as before. She has her eyes fixed on mine, as if searching.

  ‘I should like to play some music for you, Jacques. It is one gift I can give. This has been an entirely personal pleasure and I should like to share with you.’

  She stands and indicates for me to follow her. She leads me to one of the doors which has never been opened when I’ve been there. She opens the door. It’s dark. I reach in for the switch, but, naturally, there’s no bulb. She must sense what has happened, heard the switch and felt nothing.

  ‘Oh, I forgot about that, Jacques, but it does not matter. Perhaps it is better so. Give me your hand.’

  She reaches her hand to me and leads me into the dark room. Some dim light is coming in from the light in the main room. She leads me to a chair and motions me to sit down. Then she goes back and closes the door through which we’ve come so we are in total darkness. If there is a window in the room, the drapes must be drawn.

  ‘I hope you do not mind, Jacques. Forgive the vanity of a blind old woman, but I hope you will find it all worth the effort.’

  I hear her moving around in front of me. I hear the sliding of something clicking into place, there is the sound of panels folding or closing against each other. I think I hear Mirabelle sitting down. It is such a different world when one is blind. But then the blindness is over.

  The resonant, clear, vibrant, intense sounds of a harpsichord come out of the darkness. It is the music of Louis Couperin and it is one of my favorites, the Thirteenth Suite. Music is the one delight of my life I have kept close to me through all the MBI years. I play no instrument but have a passion for music, especially Baroque. In general, I prefer Bach to most of the French. However, the Couperins are in close competition. Stereo equipment was where I spent more money than on any one item. It was a constantly expanding improvement in my life.

  It is incredible, magical, that Mirabelle would know this of me, without my having said anything, perhaps it was only because I loved the bells’ ringing. I listen. I don’t think I have ever heard the precision blended with passion, which is the heart of Louis Couperin, played so well. In unmeasured music such as his preludes, the performer is very important, must find the harmonics, the timing, almost by instinct. I don’t remember this particular rendition, the recording seems exceptionally clear, practically no white noise. It could be Ton Koopman, or maybe even Scott Ross, but it’s different, slower, more delicate.

  I find myself relaxing into a state of poised tension. The room is filled with sound. I’m astounded by the quality of the speakers, they’re better than mine!

  Then I realize, dumbfounded, that it’s Mirabelle who is playing, playing in the dark, playing in the permanent darkness of her life, playing for me!

  She finishes the Prelude and there is a moment of silence. I find tears in my eyes, I want to move toward her, to thank her. But then, before I can stand, she starts the Allemande. I can’t believe it. I try to do as I did with the bells, just lie back in my mind and wait, make my heart seem to stop, listen to the music. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so enthralled.

  She follows with the two Courantes and then, with just the right pause, so I can breathe again, she begins the beautiful Sarabande. I know I’ve never heard it played so tenderly, with such vivacity. It could well be one of the most beautiful pieces ever written for the harpsichord. It lasts less than three minutes but it seems to fill my life.

  Then, almost without a real stop, she goes into the Gigue. The change of pace, the grace of this sprightly dance are in beautiful contrast.

  She plays the Chaconne and finishes with the well-known ‘Tombeau de Monsieur Blancrocher.’ I’ve never heard such a beautiful concert. Altogether, it couldn’t have lasted thirty minutes. When the last note fades away, she doesn�
��t move. I want to applaud but that would be a violation. I sit there totally overwhelmed.

  ‘Thank you, Mirabelle. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Couperin played so well. I can never tell you how much I’ve been moved. You are a genius.’

  ‘You know the music of Couperin? I would never have thought it of an American painter. Jacques, you surprise me all the time.’

  I surprise her! She must be kidding.

  ‘Would you like to hear something of Johann Sebastian Bach, Jacques? Most Americans seem to prefer Bach, at least those who like harpsichord music. It is difficult for me because of the many voices, so I shall play something simple.’

  I sit silently. She begins a series of measured dances. There are several kinds, menuets, polonaises, marches. Her Bach is very good, but not quite as impressive as her playing of Couperin had been. She stops.

  ‘You know, he wrote those for his second wife, Anna Magdalena. He must have been very kind to his wife, but he was always teaching. I enjoy playing them very much. It must be like dancing. I have never danced, but with this music, my whole body starts moving to the music.’

  Then she plays a short prelude in C major that Bach wrote for his son Wilhelm Friedemann. Then an invention, number 4 in D major. I know it. It is one in which I can pick up the theme, sometimes carried in the right hand, sometimes in the left.

  Although her Bach is not as good as the Couperin, it is still outstanding. This time I do applaud, and walk through the dark room, not so dark now my eyes are accustomed to it. Maybe blindness is becoming accustomed to the dark. I walk up to where she is still sitting. I lean over her fragile body and kiss her on the cheek. She turns her head toward me and I kiss her on the other cheek.

  ‘It was the most beautiful gift, Mirabelle. How did you know I love music so, especially Baroque music? This is more impressive than even your usual magic.’

  She reaches with her hand and touches my face.

  ‘You have been crying, Jacques. Are you so sad still? I wanted to make you happy.’