Walking with the Muses

by Pat Cleveland

  The next morning we went back to our village, where I made friends with one of the Maasai young men who appeared with me in some of the photographs. I loved posing in the tree with this slim beautiful Maasai warrior. It was a bit odd to realize that though we were around the same age, our worlds could not have been more different. He was expected to kill the lion; I was expected to pose prettily for the readers of Harpers & Queen.

  A group of Maasai girls came along to our next location. They sang all the way in voices that reached pitches several octaves higher than any I had ever heard. Their songs had no words, or at least none that I could discern; they were just sounds, pure and joyous. This transcendent music must have soothed Barry’s and Peter’s spirits, too, because they actually stopped squabbling for a whole day.

  Three days later, with many more photos under our belts, we were back near Mombasa, in a village on the Indian Ocean. Barry and Peter had a huge row—again—so Peter and I decided to go to the beach to give Barry some time to calm down and come to his senses. We went into the water and floated peacefully. The villagers had warned us not to go any farther than the reefs, because beyond them were sharks. After a while, Peter got out of the water as I drifted out some more, doing the backstroke. I went pretty far, but well short of the reefs. I looked up dreamily at the big blue sky, and then at Peter, who looked like he was getting smaller, like a dot on the shore. Then I heard a dog barking before I spotted it running at the edge of the water. The dog was barking at me, telling me to come back. Slowly, I backstroked toward the shore, following the sound of the bark. When I got out of the water and petted the dog, whose tail was wagging wildly, I swear I felt an almost electric current flowing between us—and with it, the certainty that the dog had saved me from the sharks.

  Barry finally arrived at the beach, evidently recovered from yet another temper tantrum. He and Peter were talking calmly as I danced on the beach by myself in the soft, fading daylight, relieved to see them walking together in silence. We’d worked long and hard for this fragile moment of peace.

  We stood on the shore, looking at the horizon. We could see the reefs, far out in the water, and just beyond Barry spied a small fishing boat coming in. When they got closer, I could see three tall, skinny Kenyans.

  One of the men jumped into the water, pulled the boat closer to the shore, put a basket on the sand, and went back to the boat. They were about to shove off again when Barry waded into the water and spoke with the young men. They nodded at whatever Barry said, and he got into the boat before gesturing to Peter and me to join him. When I got near, he said, “Jump in—they offered to take us out.” The African men smiled at us.

  The boat looked like a long dark wooden salad bowl. I couldn’t imagine how it ever stayed afloat. “They made it out of a single tree trunk,” Barry said.

  Great, I thought.

  “Really authentic,” he said. “Hand-carved.” Barry loved stuff like that—ordinary objects to the locals that to us are extraordinary. It was like something you’d see in National Geographic.

  The moment I put my foot on the boat, though, the Africans’ attitude changed. “No women! No women!” they said to Barry, who was able to understand a little of their language. There was a horrified look in their eyes. But I smiled in a really friendly way, and they relented and let me on. Then Peter climbed aboard. The tallest man said something to Barry, and Barry translated. “The fishermen have a superstition about women on boats. They think it’s bad luck.”

  I didn’t exactly feel welcome, but once we arranged ourselves, the three African fishermen at the back and the three of us at the front, the fishermen started to relax about my being on the boat, and began to sing or, more accurately, chant rhythmically as they paddled.

  The boat was sitting low in the water, and I didn’t feel safe at all as we went up to and over the waves, one after another. The water out there—we were well past the reefs—seemed to want to push us back to shore, and it was rough. Then we got to a section where the water was still but much darker—almost black. It was close to sunset, about nine in the evening. I began to feel okay as we moved along in the water, though how far or how deep we were going, I did not know.

  Barry said they were going to get more fish. Ugh, I thought, the boat smells fishy enough already. But I loved the sound of the chanting, especially the call and response from one man to the next. The rhythm was almost hypnotically soothing. I glanced behind me at one of the men, thinking that perhaps if I looked at his mouth, I might understand how to pronounce the words. All three of the Africans smiled at me as they sang, and in that moment one of the men got out of step with the others’ rowing. The second man’s oars hit his, and then the oar of the man behind him. There was a strong jolt, then a moment of confusion. I looked around and saw one of the men let go of his oar. As he bent into the water to retrieve it, the boat tipped slightly. One African started talking fast to another one, and that was when I realized the boat was filling with water. One of the African men jumped into the water, causing the boat to dip and the water to rush in.

  “Oh my God,” Barry said, sounding slightly hysterical. “It’s true—women are bad luck.”

  Peter didn’t say a word but shot me a sympathetic look. The boat was sinking, and I didn’t know what to do. Barry jumped into the water. Peter let go of the side he was clinging to. I stayed on that tip end of the boat; I just could not bring myself to jump into that deep, dark nothingness.

  The last one left on board, I stood as tall as I could on the front tip of the boat. I was running out of options, but I knew panicking was the worst option of all. I started to pray and chant “Om” with as much vigor as I could muster. Then I saw a star in the sky and attached my soul to it. As I was doing so, I heard one of the Africans yell in English, “Shark!”

  There was big game in the water, and it was coming directly toward us. The shark started to circle. There was a look of terror on Barry’s face, and Peter began gripping the boat’s edge again. Meanwhile, the water was so high that my feet were getting wet. I must have looked like a flagpole on the tip of that boat as everyone else was dodging the shark’s fin, which had punctured the surface of the water. Not knowing what else to do, I stood perfectly still and chanted and put out a call to God.

  Against all odds, my call was answered. I saw a sailboat in the distance and flagged it down. It arrived in the nick of time and scooped all five guys out of the water. They flopped on board like wet fish. One of the sailors on the big boat threw out a rope; I caught it and he and another sailor pulled me in and hoisted me up into their boat. Just in time. All but the very tip of our little boat was now underwater.

  Peter was relatively calm, but when I looked at Barry, he was shaking all over, a total basket case. The shark had come closest to him. The Africans were basket cases as well, talking loudly and pointing at me in an accusing way. I may have saved their lives, but the sinking of their ship was all my fault. Nothing I could say or do would convince them otherwise. So that was what I said and did: nothing.

  chapter 41

  A HOT TIME IN THE OLD TOWN

  Salvador Dalí (left), Juan Fernandez, and me at Dalí’s apartment, Paris, 1974.

  After three years of jetting (and boating!) all over the world for bookings and basically living in hotels—including months over a fish market at Paris’s fabled La Louisiane, in a room so tiny that my trusty pink suitcase doubled as my dining table—I was starting to feel a bit too nomadic. I wanted a place to call home, somewhere to put down roots (or my version thereof). The Americans’ little coup d’état at Versailles had aroused in me more warmth than ever toward France (paradoxically, perhaps, but there you have it), so I settled on Paris, renting my very first apartment ever on Rue Saint-Martin in the Châtelet neighborhood. Today, with the nearby Pompidou Center and several big shopping areas, that area is a beehive of activity, but back in those pregentrified days, it was dangerous and not really residential.

  At night, when I’d walk home by
myself, tired to the bone, I’d see the local “ladies of the evening” with their stockings, garters, and corsets (like something straight out of Toulouse-Lautrec), looking even more tired than I felt. They were my protectors, accompanying me to my front door; if someone followed me, they’d get aggressive and chase off the would-be assailant. Sometimes they’d even wait outside for me while I stopped at a little Moroccan restaurant for my take-out dinner. They were always interested in my clothes and often asked for fashion and beauty advice. I’d sometimes buy inexpensive scarves or cosmetics for them and then show them how to wear them. They were my very own welcoming committee, and in their unorthodox way, they made me feel safe and comfortable in my new community.

  My apartment, on the top floor of a six-story building, consisted of a tiny living room that overlooked a lovely Catholic church (in the entire time I lived there, I never saw the inside, because the door was always bolted shut to keep thieves out), a kitchenette, and a skylit sleeping loft, reachable by a stairway with a rope banister. I loved my little home, but I was often lonely—I longed for a romantic companion, of course, but nothing was happening in that department—so I was happy when my old high school friend Juan Fernandez (the fellow raccoon-coat wearer) became my roommate.

  Juan had been in Paris for several months when we reconnected. Until he moved in with me, he’d been living in one room filled with portraits of himself painted by Salvador Dalí. I’m not sure how they came to know each other (though Juan’s father was a diplomat from the Dominican Republic and at one point had been based in Spain, Dalí’s homeland), but Juan was one of the great artist’s many muses and often accompanied him to Spain. When Dalí was in Paris, he stayed at a venerable old hotel near the Place Vendôme, where he had a special apartment with a wraparound terrace.

  One fine early-autumn day, Dalí invited Juan to high tea on the terrace, and Juan asked me to come along. When we arrived at the apartment—which was very grand in the French style, with red velvet curtains with gold tassels and ornate gilded furniture—I expected to see a horde of hangers-on, but it was just Juan and me. From another room, we could hear a couple bickering in Spanish mixed with French. Juan whispered that the voices were those of Dalí and his wife, Gala.

  There was a silence, the bedroom door opened, and out came Dalí, who didn’t even realize we were there until Juan said something to him in Spanish. The artist immediately opened his arms to Juan, and the two embraced and began talking in very animated Spanish. I felt like a hothouse flower left in a vase with no water, until Dalí noticed me out of the corner of his eye and came over and embraced me, too. He was about my height, dressed in a velvet smoking jacket, and smelled deliciously of Spanish oranges and sandalwood.

  It turned out that we were an hour early for high tea, so Dalí asked his maid to get us biscuits and tea. Gala never emerged from the bedroom. As we sat down to have the biscuits, Dalí asked if I would come into another room with him. I followed him into a makeshift studio with a large table full of all sorts of canvases, brushes, paints, and other art supplies. The smell was heavenly and instantly evoked some of the happiest moments of my childhood, when I’d sit and watch my mother paint. Then Dalí surprised and delighted me by asking quietly, “Would you pose for me?” Would I? The great Salvador Dalí? I simply nodded, dumbstruck. He pulled out a very large sheet of copper and a tool for etching into the metal. He asked me to stand on the table and gently helped me up. Then he asked, “Do you mind to be nude?”

  I hesitated for no more than a second. “No,” I said, and quickly removed my dress.

  He walked around the table, twirling his trademark handlebar mustache, looking at me from every angle. “I have to get the perfect pose,” he said. “Can you get down on all fours?” I dropped into the doggie position, on my hands and knees. “Now can you arch your back?” I did, and he walked around me again. “Now can you stick out your tongue like this?” he said, demonstrating. I was beginning to feel embarrassed and rather silly but did as he requested. “Yes, perfect,” he said. “Hold it right there.”

  He got busy etching, first from the front, then from the side, digging with his tool into the copper. Then he went around to the back of me, where I could no longer see him. I had no idea what he was doing back there for so long, and I began to wonder, Is he just a dirty old man, taking a good long look? Then he said, “Yes, I’ve got it! Perfect!”

  He didn’t show me the picture. I slipped my dress on. Back in the living room, it was as if nothing had happened, and I began to feel as if I’d been had. But then I reminded myself that one of the greatest living artists in the world had just done my portrait (though later, when I told Juan what had happened, he laughed and said, “Yup, that’s Dalí—dirty old man”). I was sipping my tea when Dalí left the room. He came back a minute later and pulled me onto his lap. “Here’s a present for you,” he said. “I gave this opera purse to Gala, but she has so many that I want you to have it.”

  I was quite honored to receive a gift from the master (though I did hope that he’d gotten the okay from Gala to give away her purse). Juan snapped a Polaroid of Dalí with me on his lap, holding the purse. That was when I saw Gala for the first time. She was tiny, very compact, and old-seeming. She walked straight toward us out of the bedroom and, without saying a word, grabbed the purse out of my hand. Dalí jumped up, nearly knocking me off his knee, as Gala stomped back into the bedroom and slammed the door. He went after her, came back thirty seconds later with the purse, sat me back on his knee, and handed me the purse again. “Don’t mind her,” he said. “She’s just jealous.”

  I didn’t know what to think. I hadn’t even met this woman properly and already she hated me. Then Dalí said, “To me, the most creative thing a woman can do is have a baby; that is the greatest creation, and one that men are incapable of.” I knew he had no children, and his words touched me. On the way back to our apartment that day, Juan said Dalí had told him that he wanted to have a baby with me. I shook my head in disbelief. In any case, I never saw Dalí again, though I did hear that he put the copper sketch of me on display in his home in Spain. And I still have the purse he gave me.

  Juan had almost no money during that long winter we spent together in Paris, when the cold and damp were nearly unbearable. In the wee hours of morning, as we walked home from a night of dancing at Club Sept, we’d pass the closed bakeries and food shops where bags of supplies would be delivered and left outside the doors. Juan, who had an oversize raincoat with lots of pockets, would say, “Let’s go shopping,” and he’d load up his coat pockets with baguettes, milk, and any other food he could scrounge, and we’d walk away as quickly as we could in the direction of the apartment. I always felt guilty (though not so guilty I couldn’t eat), but Juan said it was a gift from the gods.

  At home, we’d spread a blanket on the floor, picnic-style, and dine on café au lait and our stolen bread with jam. God forgive us, but honestly, even though I was working regularly, there were times when I could barely afford the rent, which was surprisingly high, given the iffy neighborhood. Just before dawn, we’d tuck ourselves into the loft right below the skylight and count the stars until we fell asleep. Or we’d read to each other from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, partly because Juan wanted to hear English, since we had no television or radio. Our friendship was completely platonic, but we told neighbors that we were married because if the landlord found out that a non–family member was living in the apartment, he would jack up the rent.

  One day Juan, who loved playing host, decided it was time to entertain our friends. So we threw a big glamorous party, the likes of which the Rue Saint-Martin had never seen. For atmosphere, we decided to illuminate the space with lit candles—two hundred in all, lining the floor of our apartment, the ledge of our window, and each of the narrow steps leading directly to our front door. That staircase led only to our apartment, so we didn’t see the harm.

  We had talked the owners of Club Sept into giving us free champagne and
a cook for the evening, and we flung open our doors. In all we had about a hundred people coming and going. The music ranged from Latin, R&B, and jazz to Edith Piaf and Josephine Baker. Jerry Hall arrived with Antonio, followed by some photographers I knew, including Helmut Newton, whose studio was nearby, and my great friend Hans Feurer. How we all fit in that tiny space, I’ll never know.

  It was about midnight when Valentino, with whom I’d just done a photo shoot on the Spanish Steps in Rome for Vogue Italia, dropped by with his longtime partner, Giancarlo, and I experienced that over-the-moon feeling a host gets when she knows her party is a success. Not a minute later, I had a crisis on my hands: The rope banister to the loft bedroom, which was being used for posing and playacting (a Thai transsexual was doing a striptease to end all stripteases), broke just as Jerry and Valentino were descending the narrow steps. They came crashing down on the guests below. Jerry landed flat on top of Valentino—they looked beautiful lying there together—and Giancarlo went running over to help, saying, “I wish it was me that Jerry fell on.” They all laughed, but I was scared to death they’d been hurt. They were all so drunk, though, that nobody felt a thing.

  Suddenly, there were flashing lights and the sound of fire sirens. Before we knew what was happening, several firemen were crawling through the window with hatchets. Apparently, someone had reported a fire in the building, probably because of all the candles. And with that, the party came to an abrupt end, even though we invited the firemen to join us. I actually think they were tempted, but there were just too many people on the premises. Everyone had to leave. A fire hazard is a fire hazard, and the law is the law.

  chapter 42

  WALK ON THE WILD SIDE