Walking with the Muses

by Pat Cleveland

  “You are our Blue Angel tonight,” Karl said, grabbing his gentleman’s purse, which he always had with him. (God only knows what he had in there, because he guarded it with his life.) Then we were out the door and into the car that was waiting in the courtyard, on our way to La Coupole, the largest restaurant in Paris and “the” place for people in the fashion world to see and be seen. As the driver maneuvered through the narrow streets on the way to Boulevard du Montparnasse, Juan, Karl, and Antonio discussed the rich artistic history of La Coupole, which had opened in 1927. “There are thirty-two paintings on the sixteen pillars that support the ceiling of the main dining room,” the ever knowledgeable Juan said. “Léger did one of them,” he added for Antonio’s benefit, since Léger was one of his favorite artists.

  We pulled up to 102 Boulevard du Montparnasse and the restaurant—or, technically, brasserie—was bathed in a rosy glow emanating from the sign spelling out “La Coupole” in script above the long red awning that stretched for nearly half a city block. There were lots of people sitting at the small tables outside, sipping wine and eating oysters. The driver opened our car door, and as we got out, the very act felt like the unveiling of a precious piece of art. Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but that’s how the fashion world feels sometimes when you’re all dressed up and go out on the town.

  I was swept along through the glass doors, which were open wide for summer, with the boys and Karl in front. As we entered the main dining room, I noticed the art deco motif on the tile floors. My electric-blue chiffon hem was dragging on them a bit, so I lifted the fabric slightly. Above me, the chandeliers on the ceiling cast an amber light over the open dining area full of hundreds of Parisians. I could see the sixteen pillars, lit up with the painted frescoes that Juan had mentioned. Abruptly, the sound of silverware clinking against china plates brought me back to reality and the date: June 23, 1971. Today is my birthday, I realized. I’m twenty-one years old, I’ve been in Paris for twelve days, and I’m wearing the Blue Angel. This is the dream I’ve had since I was five years old—and I’m living it.

  I whispered to Antonio, “Today’s my birthday,” and he promptly announced it to the group after planting a big kiss on my cheek. Just as the host was about to seat us, Donna and Corey showed up. “It’s Pat’s birthday,” Antonio said.

  “Wow, girl!” Donna was so happy that she kissed me in the French style, on both cheeks, and so did Corey. If nothing else, being in Paris had taught us the art of kissing.

  I felt enveloped in love as the host took us to our table. I glided along in my high heels until, weirdly, I felt stuck. My hem had caught on one of the mosaic tiles and was pulling on the train of my dress, so that the length of it extended behind me like a wedding gown. My God, the whole bloody thing is going to come off! I thought in a panic. So I lifted my arms to pull it back on my shoulders, and the dress opened up in front. And there I was, moving forward in my birthday suit (it was my birthday, after all), the Blue Angel chiffon trailing behind me. Actually, the feeling wasn’t dissimilar to that of walking the runway.

  A great silence descended on the restaurant, as though the sound had been turned off. There was no talking, no tinkling of glasses, no waiters bustling around. It was if I’d dunked my head under the sea. And then, in a crash of sound, a wave of applause rolled over me. The Parisians were shouting, “Brava!” and forks were tapping on crystal glasses, and the waiters were all gathered together, cheering.

  I heard Karl’s voice in my ear. “They’re applauding for you, my empress, my Josephine.”

  It was Karl’s words that did it. Somehow they beckoned my regal alter ego, who arrived grandly on the scene and elbowed the shy New World bumpkin out of the way. I lifted my arms higher, gathered the train of chiffon, and wrapped it around my body like a veil as I walked to the table in what was unquestionably the longest thirty seconds of my life. When I finally sat down to dine, the entire restaurant lifted their glasses in my direction.

  Karl raised his own glass. “Miss Cleveland, you are the toast of Paris,” he said.

  chapter 36

  I COULD HAVE DANCED ALL NIGHT

  Antonio and me dressed up to go out to Club Sept, the hottest nightclub in Paris, 1971.

  One of the paradoxes of being a model is that you’re constantly surrounded by sexiness—sexy people, sexy clothes, sexy talk—but when it comes to actual sex, a lot of the time you’re batting zero. Yes, it’s true. A model’s life seems libertine, but the operative word is “seems.” You almost “wear” sexy people like sexy clothes, but at night, after you take everything off, you’re all alone, questioning whether you’ll ever find true intimacy with anyone.

  At least that was my experience during those first weeks and months in Europe. I was totally over Matthew; I knew I’d been lucky to escape the destructiveness of that relationship, and having three thousand miles between us made the breakup that much easier. A lot of my current abstinence had to do with my preoccupation with Antonio. In those days, my emotional attention was focused pretty exclusively on him. Tragically, he was claimed by the AIDS epidemic in 1987, and even now it can be almost unbearably painful for me to think about him, especially the way he was in Paris in the early seventies—in his prime, his genius going at full throttle, and with me completely under his sway, almost giddy at being allowed into his inner circle. Believe me, I wasn’t the only one he had this effect on.

  We loved each other but weren’t lovers. The energy between us, however, was undeniably sexual. Instead of openly acknowledging that fact, we danced around it—verbally, of course, with our relentless provocative sparring, but also literally. Our dance partnership, which became something of a local legend (if briefly), was born at a hot new club at Sept [7] Rue Saint-Anne, called simply Club Sept. Our dance of choice was the Apache tango (Apache is a highly aggressive, almost violent dance style that supposedly originated among Parisian street gangs and is said to simulate a fight between a prostitute and her pimp). The first time we did it resembled something out of a movie. Think the rumble scene in West Side Story.

  We got there at around ten in the evening. Taxis were dropping off well-dressed groups of people in front of a small door with a square peephole and a single light over it. (Like Le Club from my high school days and so many other exclusive nightspots, Club Sept had no sign outside announcing its existence; only those already in the know could go there and expect to be let in.) Inside, a huge, ornate gold-framed mirror blocked off the dining area from the bar. When our little gang—Antonio, Juan, Karl, Donna, and me—came in that night, Fabrice, the manager, greeted us with a glass of champagne at the bar. But as soon as I heard the sounds of Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me” sweeping up the stairs from the basement down below, I knew I had to go to where the music was. I had all this excess energy to burn; besides, I loved to dance.

  The disc jockey at Club Sept was a Cuban fellow named Guy Cuevas who had a way of spinning the vinyl, blending and mixing sounds from all styles and periods of music, that was way ahead of its time. When he saw Antonio enter the room, Guy put on the most exciting music he could find—in this case, the theme music from Shaft, the new blaxploitation movie directed by the famed photographer/filmmaker Gordon Parks (the same Gordon Parks who’d booked me for that first issue of Essence), which had just opened in New York. Antonio disappeared to dance with the flock of beautiful French boys who instantly surrounded him. I stood for a moment with Karl, watching the bodies writhe on the minuscule dance floor. “You should dance, too,” Karl said. I nodded and threw myself into the middle of the action.

  Before I knew it, I was doing a heavy-duty bump-and-grind with some not so shabby French boys. When Antonio saw me dancing with them, he stopped dead in his tracks. And then good old Guy, with his impeccable sense of musical timing, put on a gypsy tango record. Antonio looked at me from across the room and—this is the straight-out-of-West Side Story piece of it—the crowd on the dance floor parted to make room for us. In a split second, Antonio gr
abbed me and pulled me so close to his body that I almost fainted. I wrapped my leg completely around him, and he threw me down on the floor. Oddly enough, he had worn a black-and-white striped T-shirt under his shirt that night (those striped shirts are associated with Apache dance), and he ripped off his outer shirt, grabbed me by the arm, dragged me across the floor, and once again pulled me close to his body.

  Now I got what he was doing: He wanted to show off. Okay, if that’s the game you want to play, Mr. Lopez, you have met your match, I thought. Nobody throws me across the room and gets away with it. So I grabbed him back and held his body tight to mine—so tight I felt like I was nearly squeezing the life out of it—and I whispered in his ear, “So you want to dance?”

  “To the death,” he whispered back. Everyone else on the dance floor had stopped and gathered around to watch our choreographed battle. Antonio would drop me on the floor, then pick me up and embrace me passionately. I even slapped him in the face and he came back for more. By the time we finally stopped (out of sheer exhaustion), we were both dripping wet, and my dress was ripped up the side and nearly torn to rags. I didn’t mind. A little ditty kept running through my head: In the heat of passion / Who cares about fashion?

  Call it symbolic sex, because that’s clearly what it was. And that was all fine and dandy, but sometimes . . . well, ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.

  A week after that night at Club Sept, I moved out of Rue Bonaparte and into a nearby hotel. It was time; I’d imposed long enough on Juan and Antonio’s hospitality. Besides, they were moving, too—to a bigger place nearer to Karl’s. Now, loaded down with the large piece of luggage I’d brought with me to Europe (the hotel refused to hold it for me until I got back), I was in a taxi on my way to Gare du Nord to board the night train to Berlin. I’d accepted one of those last-minute bookings a model gets when another model doesn’t call the agent back. It meant that I would miss the first few days of our holiday with Karl in the South of France, which was disappointing, but I needed the work because my savings were running low.

  Luckily, the jobs were starting to trickle in. Antonio had been calling some magazines for me—L’Officiel, Lui, Ambre—and Donna had introduced me to Christa, her agent in Paris. As soon as Christa learned that I was represented in New York by Wilhelmina, I was in because the two agencies worked hand in hand. That was a huge thrill; half the time, I still couldn’t believe people paid me for doing what I did. And the deutsche marks I’d make on this booking would be enough in French francs for me to live on for two months.

  My reservation was for the 8:46 train, second class. I was running late because it was raining hard outside, and as the driver maneuvered the cab through the traffic like a pinball, I fretted about getting to the station on time. We got there at 8:42 and I raced to the platform, ran into the first car I saw, and collapsed into a seat. It was my first time on a European train. My destination was a town a few stops before Berlin called Potsdam. I repeated the name to myself several times so I wouldn’t forget it.

  “Mademoiselle, le billet s’il vous plaît,” the conductor said. I handed it to him and he shook his head. “Sorry, you are in the wrong coach,” he said, switching to heavily accented English. “You must move.”

  What did I know? I was just glad to be on the train. Hoisting my heavy pink suitcase, I followed the conductor into a section with wee subsections called couchettes running the length of the car. I could feel my old back injury give a ping; suitcases didn’t have wheels on them in those days, so you needed strong arms and back muscles to carry them.

  I had just settled into my new seat when in wandered two bouncy little boys of about three and four. They were followed by their pregnant mother, who was holding a small girl who looked very sleepy, and their father, who was loaded down with bundles that looked like they would double as a tablecloth. They both spoke to the children politely in a language I’d never heard but eventually discovered was Turkish. I helped them settle the children, and they made themselves a little picnic, which they sweetly offered to share with me. But I decided to go to the dining car, whose delicious smells I could detect from six cars away. I shared my table with a Swiss businessman who spoke several languages. We ate goulash and talked about art, and he paid for my meal, which was lucky for me, because I’d overtipped the cabdriver and didn’t have enough cash to cover the whole cost.

  When I returned to my car, the children and the father were asleep, and the mother was singing a beautiful Turkish lullaby to her daughter. I had just gotten comfortable and was happily snoozing when the lights came on full blast and the train stopped. Two East German policemen stepped into our coach and asked to see our passports. I got mine out quickly and handed it over. They looked impatiently at me and then at the family. They probably thought we were all together until the father handed his papers to the police and spoke to them in German. They gave me back my passport and we were at peace again. The train was soon humming along the tracks on its way to Berlin. The children had slept through it all, and I, too, fell into a deep sleep with my temporary family.

  It must have been about two-thirty in the morning when I was abruptly awakened by a stopping of the train followed by a backing up. I figured we were changing tracks, the way trains did in America. But when I looked out the window, I saw that we were stopped in the middle of nowhere. They must know what they’re doing, I thought, and nearly dozed off again. Then I realized something was wrong. We had been motionless for at least half an hour, and the train’s motor was turned off. Even the lights in our cabin and hall were off. It was pitch black, and the only source of light was the waxing moon. We’d made other stops along the way, but they were quick. This was weird.

  In the corridor of the coach, other passengers were leaving the train with their suitcases. In the middle of nowhere, with no station in sight? I thought. How strange. Then a new conductor appeared and knocked loudly on our cabin door. “Last stop,” he said in English.

  What? Is he serious? I asked him where we were, but he didn’t answer. He just said that we had to take our luggage and leave the train. Immediately. The mother and father started whispering, looking frantic. I didn’t know what was happening as I watched the exodus of passengers. The father said to me in English, “I believe we are in a train strike.”

  “Strike?” I said. I remembered being at a party in New York before I left for Europe, where a guy had told me, “You’ll know you’re in Europe because there will be some kind of strike every other day.” I guessed this was what he’d been talking about.

  “Yes, the train will not go,” the father said, gesturing with his hands to amplify the point. I looked around and realized that we were the last people on the train.

  Then we were out on the tracks, with the children and all our baggage, looking (and feeling) like refugees in the second book of the Bible. I held one child’s hand, and in my other hand I clutched my heavy suitcase. The gaps between the train rails and timber slabs were vast chasms, deep and rocky. Thank heaven for the cork soles on my high-heeled Goody Two Shoes; they provided a little cushioning.

  I was freezing cold in my light summer dress, but what could I do, open my suitcase and rummage around for a sweater? I wanted off those tracks, but there was no place else to walk. Plus, I was now carrying one of the little boys, who’d fallen asleep, on my hip. “Mind over matter,” I kept repeating as the muscles in my arms started to shake and my back felt nearly ready to give out. “Mind over matter.” I’d lift the suitcase and step over the sharp stones onto the slabs of timber again and again, praying I wouldn’t sprain an ankle in the process. Pretend it’s a game of hopscotch, I thought cheerlessly.

  We walked probably a mile to the station platform, a mass of other luggage-carrying passengers paving the way. One nice man came to help me with my bag, bless his soul, so now I had only the little boy to carry. I thanked God for that man, the stars in the sky, and the fact that it wasn’t raining. When we finally reached the station, the sign was lit
: Potsdam. It was my stop! At least I wouldn’t have to get on another train.

  We had to climb up on the platform, which was about six feet above the tracks. The men helped the mother and her children first, then the baggage, then me, then one another. We were all exhausted, but a local train had arrived on the other track, and the passengers were directed toward it. It would take them to Berlin. Everything seemed to happen in a flash. Suddenly, the family was gone and it was just me and my pink suitcase, all alone at the station. Not a single other person remained.

  I thought I’d sit in the waiting room until dawn, but no such luck: The station was locked. I made my way around the side toward the street, where one light at the end illuminated a taxi stand. I dragged my suitcase toward it and wondered where the cabs were. There was no sign of activity whatsoever. I was trying to figure out what to do next when my body made the decision for me: I fell asleep on my suitcase. I awoke to the sound of a man’s voice, speaking in English with a German accent. “You are waiting for a taxi, but you will not find one at this hour in Potsdam,” he said. He looked like a decent kind of guy, so I took his word for it. “I will take a room at the hotel over there.” He pointed across the street. “You are welcome to stay in my room.”

  Although I would have given practically my right arm for a decent bed just then, the red alert went off in my head: Danger! Danger! Strange man plus hotel room equals dead girl. So I politely told the man a little fib, saying that one of the other passengers had gone to the parking lot for his car and was giving me a lift to my hotel. I must have been a great actress, because he fell for it, and walked across the street to his hotel with no hard feelings. That was when I realized I should have simply said, “No, thank you,” because I could have gone to the hotel and sat in the lobby. But having told the lie, I was afraid he might catch me in it. That’s what lying gets you: nothing.