by Zoe Valdes
“You didn’t need to pick me up in a car, we’re just a few steps away; we’ll walk,” he grumbled, refusing to get into the cab.
I paid the driver. We strode to a building that was relatively nearby. I could tell that Bernard was rattled; he also kept up his cool tone, expressing his obvious displeasure.
“I’m warning you, James Lord has not been in a good mood lately,” he remarked as he rang the doorbell. “And, to top it off, we show up late.”
The door opened, the door latch pulled by a cord running down from the upper floor. We climbed up an exceedingly steep set of red, worm-eaten wooden steps. In one of the hallways we were greeted by distinguished portraits of our host painted by Picasso, readily recognizable images that had been reproduced in any number of art catalogues.
“These are the originals. It’s crazy to keep them here, I’m surprised no one’s stolen them yet!” Bernard finally gave a little smile as his friend opened the door of the apartment.
James Lord wore a brown jacket, and pants a shade lighter than tan. He looked haughty, attractive, very attentive to his studied gestures, aware of his own elegance, and quite similar to Bernard in style. A style that evoked a whole era. With poorly concealed arrogance, he shook my hand, displaying a studied curtness while avoiding my gaze. His face was serious and, I think, even a little tense; he was clearly annoyed with me for arriving late.
I apologized profusely, but he made sure that I realized he had lost forty-five minutes of his life waiting for some stranger who was—putting it bluntly—about to stick her nose into his private dealings with Dora Maar.
James Lord, the anxious target of my anxious hopes, sprawled back on one of the side couches.
I waited until he’d finished making himself comfortable, though he did so by sitting up very straight, and then I sat on an impeccably white sofa. On the wall behind me hung a portrait of our host by Giacometti. After this visit, I watched a number of documentaries and clips on television, YouTube, the Internet, that show James Lord talking about his relationships with Picasso and Dora Maar, and he always appears sitting on the same white couch where I had comfortably parked my behind. Him and behind him, his portrait, protecting him, glorifying him. Sitting down so casually, without asking first, without waiting for permission, in what was clearly and undeniably his usual seat, was a heedless error, one I wouldn’t have committed had I known better. Bernard remained on his feet, nervously pacing from wall to wall, pretending to scrutinize the various paintings, which I am sure he had looked at more than once and already knew by heart.
I explained why I was there. I was interested in the trip to Venice, of only eight days, that the three of them had taken together. I wanted to tell the story, “Preferably in a novel,” I stammered. He didn’t bat an eyelid, nor did he look straight at me, staring off into space, at some vague point in front of him.
“What was Dora like?” I inquired.
He gave me no specifics.
“Dora was a great artist. It’s all in my book,” was his entire answer.
I pulled his book Picasso and Dora out of my handbag and handed it to him.
“Would you please sign it for me?”
He took no notice of the passages I had underlined. He scrawled a few lines. Now, with the passing of time, I realize that he showed more kindness in his inscription than in the way he behaved, or tried to appear, when I was there with him on that afternoon:
Pour Zoé, avec ma pensée cordiale, en attendant de voir moi-même vu par vous!
JAMES LORD
Paris, le 3 janvier 2007
To Zoé, with my kindest regards, looking forward to seeing me seen by you!
JAMES LORD
Paris, January 3, 2007
A bit later, Bernard came up with an excuse to leave, saying he had to meet someone and was in a hurry. He said this in a way calculated to emphasize his fake hesitation. I suspect he actually felt uncomfortable being around Lord and me.
Before he left, Bernard made a point of praising me, adding some very flattering opinions of his own, repeating the kind remarks others had made about me and playing up all the most positive parts. Then he was off like a shot, out the door and gone for the rest of the afternoon.
James and I remained alone. He kept quiet, still staring fixedly at the empty spot in front of him, while I didn’t dare ask another question, afraid to break the spell that had settled on us. Yes, there was a bit of magic, perhaps the enchantment of my flimsy excuses. And so we sat in silence for some twenty minutes.
“There was already one lady who came around to investigate us,” he said with a gentle sigh.
“I’ve read her book, too.” This was the biography by the Argentine journalist and writer Alicia Dujovne Ortiz, Dora Maar, prisonnière du regard, published by Grasset. “It’s an excellent biography. I’ve read it carefully and I’ll gladly use it as a reference. Reading that book was what put me on the trail of the Venice trip.”
That last sentence was barely audible. He shrugged.
Finally, I dared to ask, “James, did you love Dora?”
Another silence fell on us, even deeper than the first. All my attention was concentrated on the face of the man sitting at an oblique angle to my left. His eyes, reddened, grew moist; he began weeping discreetly.
“Dora was the most beautiful thing that ever happened to me. I loved her dearly,” he finally answered.
I don’t know why, but I doubted what he was saying. His tears seemed theatrical, and I felt annoyed by his excessively dramatic weeping. In his book I read his self-portrait, his view of himself, and he had not exactly made himself out to be a loving angel; instead, he rather betrayed himself by giving a straightforward description. The relationship of Dora Maar and James Lord was overshadowed by Picasso. They were united in their enormous adoration of the artist, hers being greater than his, of course. It is no accident that Lord titled his book Picasso and Dora.
“How did you get my book? It’s out of print, you know.”
“I found one copy left, published by Séguier. I bought it at the exhibition at the Picasso Museum about both of them, Dora and Picasso.”
“Please, do you think I’m going to forget who published the book? You’re telling me things I already know,” James regained his authoritative tone.
Once more silence returned, so thick we could have cut it with hedge-trimmers.
After a while he started speaking to me in English. I interrupted him. “Excuse me, Señor Lord.” I purposely called him both and “Lord” and señor, which means “lord” in Spanish. “I understand English well enough but can’t express myself fluently in it. I’d rather we continued speaking French.”
He spoke French with a strong American accent, much stronger than my accent, and I figured it was worse when he was upset. Just then that’s what happened: he mangled and butchered the language.
“Dora was a great woman, a tremendous artist. Why are you so interested in telling the story of that five-day trip, plus three days on the road, that we did with her, that she did with us, with Bernard and me, in Venice? Yes, it was really eight days, if we count the trip back and the night we spent at the painter Balthus’s house.”
I recognized that he hadn’t mentioned his relationship with Bernard and that he had emphasized that bit about “the painter Balthus,” as if I didn’t know who Balthus was.
“I know who Balthus is. And again, I’m interested in the trip, in that special moment, because it was the last time she fulfilled an illusion. I’ve always been drawn to those turning points in lives of artists, of Surrealists and pure souls like her. Dora was, without a doubt, a key ingredient in the precious alchemy of Surrealism.”
I wasn’t telling him the truth.
The truth was that I felt as empty as she had, scraping the bottom of my barrel of illusions, that I didn’t even have any illusions of God left, much less of freedom. Or that my god was poetry, and poetry barely consoled me. And that I was also very far from believing that ei
ther Dora or I had been pure.
“Do you feel sad?” he asked disconsolately, and without waiting for my reply he went on, “I do too, very sad.”
“I was born sad. And this exile has lasted too long. I get the impression that few people understand us. Besides, a few imbeciles have tried to crush me; I feel alone, so alone.”
“We’re all alone. Let time do its work.” He paused. “You’ll get used to it. Dora did. Forgive me for mixing up tu and vous when I talk with you. Time heals all wounds.”
I shrugged, though I won’t deny that I felt uncomfortable whenever he addressed me informally, as tu, since it forced me to treat him in kind, but I wasn’t going to try and stop him.
“Is that the only possible solution: let time do its work?” I searched his face. “Time passes, and then along comes death, and suddenly it’s all over for us.”
“The only solution is to go with time’s flow, accept isolation, let forgetfulness bear it away. The rest is merely last illusions, lost illusions.… Death is natural, it’s part of life.” He smiled at the allusion he’d made to Honoré de Balzac’s famous novel, one of the longest in La Comédie humaine, without directly citing it.
When he noticed that I made no comment and had no intention of making one, he felt obliged to ask me, “Have you read Balzac?”
“Yes, of course I’ve read Lost Illusions. Having lived under a totalitarian regime doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ignorant; the regime imposes ignorance, of course, but on the other hand, you can superimpose yourself and get an education under the table. My education is vast but chaotic. That’s the downside: under a totalitarian system you can’t be educated in a natural, organic way.”
“Well, if you’ve read Lost Illusions, you’ll know what I mean. That’s life: a long, lonely journey, and a sky heaped with sorrow-laden clouds all around.”
A short time went by in silence.
“Please excuse me. I leave early tomorrow, very early, to go skiing in Switzerland, and I need to pack my things. It’s seven o’clock now. We should call it an evening.”
I had arrived at 5:45. He stood up from the couch, walked over, and lifted my chin in his hand.
“You may wonder why an eighty-year-old dares to go skiing and put himself at such an irresponsible risk. Oh, I like the look you’re giving me,” he said, pausing. “You have such honest eyes, beautiful, sweet, and at the same time there’s a feline spark behind your pupils, a tigress’s eyes.”
I smiled. “No, Señor Lord, I wasn’t wondering anything of the sort about you. Exercise is good for older people.”
I made this trite remark as I gently freed myself from his hand and put on my overcoat.
“My body needs the exercise: skiing, hurling myself down that icy, white mountain. Plunging right into it, losing myself in the cottony depths of the snow. I also long to breathe mountain air. Yes, you’re right, well, that’s what I am: an older person.”
I realized that we had nothing left to say to each other, but that he was trying to be polite, well-mannered, to the end. James Lord had already written everything he was going to say in his book, and I could tell he was reluctant to stir the memories of his years with Dora.
I ran my eyes once more across the paintings, the white-washed walls, the white-upholstered furniture, the bone or ivory carpeting. Everything in that apartment elicited a nauseating sensation of immaculate perfection.
The strict orderliness, the whiteness, the fastidious, bleach-scented cleanliness made me slightly queasy; still, I held my breath for a few seconds, overcome more by feelings than by fumes, then quickly recovered.
James Lord shook my hand; I searched his eyes as he clasped my hand in his. His eyes seemed melancholy. We smiled and said goodbye. I never saw him again.
I came home feeling I’d just gotten back from a trip in a time machine, but a trip to the future. My daughter was over her fever; I sent the nanny home. My husband had left for work. I got into bed with my daughter, both of us worn out.
In the wee hours of the night I was awakened by my vibrating cell phone. I answered the call as soon as I was out of my daughter’s room.
“Hi, this is Yendi. I just got to Paris. It’s my first time here! Can you believe it? I hope you remember me! I’m a huge fan of yours! I’m Renán’s wife.”
I wasn’t at all thrilled about getting a call so late at night, especially not from this Yendi, who I knew fleetingly from Cuba. I also knew Renán, but at least he was an amazing musician, composer, jazz pianist, and he’d been the boyfriend of a dear friend of mine on the island.
“Thanks for calling, Yendi.” I went for polite. “How’s Renán? Listen, it’s so late here, you must realize it’s nearly morning. Call back tomorrow. Please.”
“Renán? Great, he’s great, but we’re kind of separated.… Yes, yes, I understand, it’s late. I’ll call tomorrow and tell you the whole story.”
I took a shower. Her call intrigued me; I couldn’t imagine what in the world that woman was doing here, in Paris. And why had she called us in the middle of the night? What on earth for?
I staggered back, perfumed and clumsily disrobed, into bed. My husband arrived a bit later. He left his bags with the camera and tripod in the living room, washed up and got into bed beside me, and gave me a back rub. “His hands work wonders,” I thought.
“How’d your day go?” he whispered.
“Fine, but I didn’t get much from talking to James Lord. I don’t think he found me interesting at all, or at least not very much. So he didn’t open up, and I didn’t get any useful information. But still, I got the experience of being with him, he signed his book for me, and I took a good look at him close up. He’s still an attractive man.”
“An eighty-year-old man, attractive?” He stopped rubbing my back.
“Yes, because he’s refined, persuasive, charming, and all that gives him the air of a great lord. Sure, he’s a bit pretentious, that’s to be expected. He’s also very American, though he pretends not to be. That’s the way Americans who have hangups about being Americans act.”
“Anything else?”
“Keep rubbing my back, come on, please.”
He strummed a steady beat on my shoulder blades with his fingertips.
“Anything else?” he insisted.
“No, nothing else. Oh, I forgot, Yendi called a little while back, Renán’s wife. She came to Paris alone, without him.”
“Yendi alone, without Renán, in Paris?”
“I thought it was strange, too. She called maybe two hours ago, late, real late. She said she’d give us a call tomorrow.”
“Did you ask her what she’s doing here or why she called?”
“No, that’s all she told me, and I didn’t know how to react, you know? She caught me by surprise. I didn’t know how to deal with it.”
“Doesn’t matter, we’ll find out tomorrow what her deal is.”
We hugged each other for a while, until I started breathing deeply and he did too. He turned over. So did I.
I woke up around eight in the morning. My husband had taken our daughter to school. I had a headache, so I took an extra-strength Ibuprofen, and at that moment the phone rang.
“Bonjour. I couldn’t hit the trail as early as I wanted, but I’m about to leave. I got a ticket for a more reasonable departure time. Bernard gave me your number since you forgot to give it to me.” It was James Lord.
“Oh, Señor Lord, forgive me, it was an unpardonable oversight.” I was trying to be as polite and formal as possible. “How fortunate that Bernard Minoret corrected my mistake.”
“The only thing I wanted to tell you is that you should never forget I loved Dora, perhaps even more than I loved Picasso. But I did love Picasso very much, and I will always love him. Sometimes I would fall asleep in front of a blank canvas, and when I awoke Picasso would be there, already painting. Then I spent whole days watching the work unfold, watching him work, in a state of total devotion. We only left to get a bite to eat, then g
ot back to the canvas. He got back to the canvas, that is. On returning, I’d curl up like a puppy on a few cushions to admire the artist at work, I’d drift off again and dream that all the figures were stepping out of the canvas and talking to me, flirting with me. And we’d seduce each other.…”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Lord. I won’t do anything inappropriate. I tend to write only about what inspires the truth in me, even if it’s a lie. Literature, you know, is a lie that tells the truth.”
“Nicely put, I’ll quote that one.” He cleared his throat. “Is your daughter feeling better?”
“Much better, she’s back in school today. Thank you for asking, Señor Lord.” I didn’t tell him that the phrase he’d found so nicely wasn’t mine but by the Mexican writer Juan Rulfo.
We said goodbye with some affection. Again I wished him a wonderful winter holiday and hung up the phone.
My cell was vibrating again. It was Yendi with her nasally, squawking voice. She said she’d be by in fifteen minutes. All I could do was agree; she’d taken me by surprise again and once more I acted like an idiot.
I dressed in a hurry; I only had time to drink a cup of coffee and change purses. In the elevator I felt dizzy, never a good sign, and a twinge of pain ran up my back, like a chill deep inside me, and lasted longer than it should have. I was trembling when I go to the front door.
Yendi was already mashing the doorbell. I noticed the disappointment in her face. “Oh, you came down. I thought I might go up and see your place.”
“I’d rather take you out for coffee, I’ve got some guys painting upstairs, and it’s not really a good time for visitors,” I lied badly.
We went to a café on Rue Francs Bourgeois, in Le Marais. On our way there, Yendi told me she was in Paris because she’d won a grant. I asked her which one and she couldn’t remember, or didn’t want to tell me. Then she said she was writing a novel about Anaïs Nin and it was coming along nicely. She showed me a folder full of paper, but when she opened it there was nothing written there, just a lot of blank pages and a birth certificate, which Yendi said was evidence that Anaïs Nin had been born in Cuba. Yet as I remembered, Anaïs Nin had often said, whenever anyone asked her, that she was born in Paris. You can read it in her books and even see her saying it in an interview posted on YouTube.
