Cocktails, Caviar and Diapers

by Duke, Renee

  “It’s cheaper, too. Big canvas and paint costs so much.”

  “Yes, this is true. One big sheet of paper, good paper, pen and ink, keeps me busy for days.”

  “It’s pretty cold up here, Johann. Do you think my heater would work? Perhaps we should find some old rug to cover the tile floor. It’s freezing already. I like the navy blue and chocolate color scheme. That’s one the Palais Royal never saw before!”

  “The heater will blow the fuses. I can pick up some charbon[30] from a friend. Maybe some small sticks. The little stove holds three pieces of coal. It will be like Greta’s house, where we met. Remember the big Austrian stove in the living room? Ah, I am so glad to be gone from Austria. But not Greta. I miss her.”

  “Why don’t we get her to come and visit us before her winter season of guests begins in Kitzbühel? She has friends in Paris. It would be fun to have her here and show her around.”

  We both think affectionately of Greta, whose artistic integrity has kept us all going. Thanks to her, I have seen that creation requires time and love and the will to continue. The creator is forever young. Through the Nazis and exile in England, she kept on her artistic path and now her little guest house is a small international center for painters and people interested in the arts. She still has a hard time making ends meet but she never compromises with what she wants to do.

  “I’ll write. Such a room as this will please her. What do you think of red above the little stove? I can paint pretend bricks.”

  “Whatever you want, Johann. You can be sure my landlord will never climb five long flights of stairs to see what it looks like. He’d be glad it’s clean. How are the Spanish maids down the hall?”

  “Not very pretty, Andrée. Also, I think they must have their whole family in with them. They work in shifts. Some sleep on the floor, some in rows on the bed.”

  “Good Lord, Johann! If it gets noisy, tell the concierge.”

  “Life is hard for them. There are few places to live in Paris. The poor must be content. I will say nothing. Besides, the police will soon catch them as they have no work permits. At least they will have been able to send some money back to their families in Spain. You do not know what real poverty is, Andrée.”

  “True. I’m happy to say, I don’t. However, there is all kinds of poverty and in some ways I am poor.”

  “Not you, dear friend. I see you change each day, get stronger. You had no way of knowing about life.”

  “You know,” he continues, “I have some friends that live in one room on the Left Bank and they are giving a couscous party tonight. Would you like to come and see how well the poor can live?”

  “I’d love it. Come for me when the boys are in bed.”

  I jump up and move quickly out to the smell of onions in the thick walled hall. The heavy tiles dip in a hollow from three hundred years of servants passing over the floor. A big bucket stands under a slanting window in the roof to catch the spill from the leaks when it rains. I can see the clouds skidding across the sky. As I close the heavy door to the stairway behind me and climb down the thickly carpeted stairs, I feel lucky. My life gets richer every day.

  ***

  “Shall I take my car, Johann?”

  “No. We walk. The metro is for the poor.” Seems to me there’s a lot of discussion about the poor. I suppose he is determined to educate me. It’s true, I never take the Metro at night. We pass under the Arcade of the Comédie Française Theatre. Johann waves to the ticket seller, pats the little old lady selling violets, greets the ticket seller at the bottom of the stairs leading into the Metro.

  “Johann, you seem to know everybody.”

  “I only seem to. I know them no better than you. I see you pass sometimes when you’re on your way to school. Why do you look so sad in the street?”

  “I didn’t know I had an audience. Besides, my canvas and paper and paintbox end up by being pretty heavy.”

  “You must look happy on the street.”

  “Why? What if I don’t feel happy. Besides, who cares?”

  “That is a very bad attitude to take. It is poor. You must look happy and successful, then people will want to be near you and you will have a good time in life.”

  As we hang, swaying, from the subway strap, he jokes and laughs with me. I have no time to think, now I feel happy. My reflection catches my eye, with Johann. Do people realize I’m older? Do they think I’m a student out with another student? It seems possible. I really look like everyone else. I don’t feel so separate from people. I laugh loudly and a few people turn around and smile. A serious, wealthy looking woman continues to stare out the window at nothing. Just like I did.

  We change at station after station and I get thoroughly mixed up. Smell of electric wires and people in overcoats. We finally surface. The streets look narrow and dark. Unfamiliar. It is cold but the air closes in around us.

  .Johann’s friends live in the back of a courtyard in a surprisingly modern apartment. The golden wood floors are bare, a group of people are sitting against the wall or cross-legged around an octagonal table with a pot of couscous on top. We come in.

  “Just in time! Jeanine, this is my friend, Andrée.”

  Johann pushes me forward.

  “Welcome!” Jeanine is very tiny and dark. She must be Algerian. She hands me a plate full of couscous; golden meal bubbling with tiny pieces of lamb. Johann abandons me for a curly haired blonde girl with a cheerful face. She looks familiar but I don’t want to interrupt and spoil Johann’s efforts.

  I turn to the only other American there, a black man, sitting on the floor.

  “Haven’t I seen you someplace?”

  “No.”

  He smiles vaguely and then very pointedly turns his back. I must look like bad memories. What to do? I rather stiffly get down on the floor and concentrate on the couscous, trying to look happy. The wallflower complex begins to come over me. There is a great deal of animation but I am not included. I decide to make mental notes for a future novel, look mysteriously serene.

  “Andrée, what are you doing, sitting there? Why haven’t you gone over and introduced yourself?”

  “Oh, Johann, I feel too shy to do that!”

  “When will you learn! Here’s Diane, she met you in Venezuela.”

  Venezuela! She gives me a smile of merry complicity. I blush, remembering my life there, very little of hers.

  “Well Diane, you finally got here, this is quite amazing after all these years. How did you ever get out?”

  “The revolution. I was worried about my safety. I got my French husband to bring my daughter and me to Paris. He’s Algerian and we broke up during the crisis but my daughter and I stay on. You look marvelous, so thin and elegant. I have never seen a woman of your age look so young. Look, you have no middle-aged roll.”

  I look down. What a reverse compliment! Most South American women are fat cows at thirty, it’s true, but where does she get off on this middle-aged thing? I can’t help but smile.

  “Thank you. Come by and see me some evening. We can gossip about times.” Don’t know what I can gossip about. My only association with her is that we discussed Bali bras one night. Nothing else. My God, will I ever learn to talk to people.

  A girl gets up and does some sort of belly dance. I notice there is no furniture in the room. Applause. Algerian music whines nasally from a record. The American goes over to the record player and among general laughter, puts on The Beatles. Johann takes Diane off to dance. The host, Jean-Marc, comes over.

  “What do you do?”

  “I go to the Beaux Arts.”

  “Why didn’t Johann say so. I didn’t realize you were one of us! Let me show you some drawings I just did of Jeannine.”

  My world slips back into place. Look at the mass of his drawings! Like an exercise by the teacher, Nicolaides. I’m lost in admiration.

  “You have enormous talent!”

  “I think so too but we can’t eat off it. My brother has loaned me this apartm
ent while I try and get work doing advertising drawings. In the meantime, I’m painting houses with Johann.”

  “I’m glad you’ve found something. What do you want to do with your work?”

  Our talk takes on the long complicated process of dreams retold. We talk of Käthe Kollwitz[31], of new painting processes he’d like to try with his brother. I find the conversation very exciting.

  The black man smiles and comes over. A painter too! We talk of life for him in Paris, how much kinder the French are to blacks. His beautiful black girlfriend comes over. She seems to be a militant racist, against my race. Curious feeling.

  Someone brings in a bottle of red wine, so raw that I feel my tongue turn purple. We’re sitting on the floor again. My knobby knees feel bruised and I shift my legs back and forth. I look up and there’s Johann.

  “Time to go! We’ll miss the Metro. There aren’t many trains after one o’clock.”

  Jean Marc hands me a beautiful little drawing of his wife, Jeanine. I’m touched. It’s a small treasure that makes me feel accepted. I may never see them again and it doesn’t matter. The moment is perfect.

  “Let’s walk, Johann. The city looks beautiful.”

  “Why not? I’ll race you to the light.”

  We run and dance through the soft night. Puddles of water stand in the long spaces of the Louvre palace. The lamps hang like shining plums.

  “I’m Ginger Rogers and you’re Fred Astaire!” I leap across the puddle and run up a small flight of steps.

  “We sing while we’re dancing!” Johann bellows out the words of “The Continental” and we leap and leap over the puddles, feeling in perfect time as we make huge waltz steps on the pavement. The night and the setting are perfect.

  Giggling, we cross, under the black arches, to the Rue de Rivoli. We cross past the shuttered theatre and try and hush our breathing so that the concierge will not hear us. It would never do for her to feel that we are having an affair.

  “Good night, Johann. It was a wonderful evening.” He smiles and waves as he goes upstairs to the maid’s room …

  Paris, several weeks later

  Greta is here. Johann persuaded her to leave her loved Austria and come and see us. Greta is full of enthusiasm, argues with us about our plans, tells us of her work. To see her walking down the street, another would think she is a Jewish mother, bundled up against the cold. However, her sensitive face, intelligent eyes and her wide smile, her alertness, give her style.

  The days have passed so quickly. I get the children out of the house for school, organize the baby’s day, the household life and get out by 8:30. Then I run through the Louvre, across the wide stone bridge to the Left Bank. I paint or draw in the atelier all morning, think about art all day, paint the children and draw all day and night and think about art some more. No, not only art. I think about Etienne, we’ve had not-so-chance meetings and been out twice.

  Last night Johann and I decided to talk. We put a candle in the middle of the scrubbed wooden kitchen table. The enormous room and high ceilings glowed while we smoked Gauloise cigarettes and drank tea. What did we talk about? The skeleton, movement, color. Who would believe me that we talked until four in the morning?

  Greta wants to bring Dali over tonight. Dali. How did she meet him? Through one of her guests. How exciting. He is an amazing technician. The doorbell rings.

  “Hello, I’m Dali’s assistant. I have come to prepare the house.”

  Prepare it? He’s not going to change anything, is he?

  “He has come to see the house, the location is famous. He may make a movie here.”

  I suppose he wouldn’t come to see me, still ...

  I notice that he is carrying a Caribe Indian mask, which I recognized from my time in Venezuela.

  “What are you doing with the Venezuelan mask? It’s very rare, you know,” I say.

  “I think I’ll put it on the dining room table with a candle behind it. Dali likes candles. I have some here, we will put them all over the apartment.”

  “How can he see out into the Palais Royal with the reflection of the candles? “I feel a bit blank and stupid.

  “It’s the atmosphere he wants.” He continues to put candles all over the house.

  “When am I supposed to light the candles?”

  “I’ll do it, as he comes in. Dali must not see electric light, he hates it.”

  “What else does he hate? I’d better be prepared.”

  “He can’t stand children. You had better ask yours to stay in the back of the apartment.”

  “But I want them to meet him. He is a great man,” I reply, surprised.

  The assistant continues to re-arrange my house. If Dali weren’t coming with Greta, I’d say to hell with this. Where does he get off? I suppose greatness has its price. When I’m a great painter, I’ll see.

  “What should I wear then?”

  “It doesn’t matter. He won’t notice you anyway, you’re too old.”

  “He knows Greta, she’s older than me.”

  He smiles. What do I do now?

  We wait, having lit the candles in the living room. It’s pleasant. I have nothing against candles. The room looks enchanting. Too bad the landlord has blocked up the chimney until he can comply with the fire regulations. That would be even more artistic.

  The doorbell rings.

  Dali!

  Cleo dances over to receive the guest in her poodle way. As I open the door, I see Greta, her face strained, artificially joyous. Dali, in a big black cape, swirls past me, sweeping his cane in front of him like a mine sweeper.

  He hits Cleo and she bolts off, unused to such a reception.

  Eric appears, shining clean and quiet.

  “May I take your coat,” he asks, smiling.

  Dali sweeps around with his cane and pushes him away.

  “I hate children.”

  His first word of greeting.

  He then wheels on me and kisses my hand gracefully.

  I think it would be better for me to talk Spanish with Dali and I greet him. A glimmer of appreciation. I shall observe and feel nothing. He is part of my education. Once I had dinner with a King and watched another play golf and I found they were eager to be treated like men. Perhaps Dali is the same.

  The corridors of the apartment and all the rooms glow with a warm light from the candles. Enter the living room, honored guests. Dali sinks into the low velvet sofa, still holding his cane. I offer him a drink.

  In the middle of a general conversation, he turns to me.

  “I had a brother and he died.” Did he say twin brother? My Spanish is weak after so many years of French.

  “My family then named me for him and so I am two people. My brother and myself.”

  “That must be difficult.” I murmur. Does he mean he is a split personality?

  “My family adored me. My wife adores me. We have a wonderful house which never seems to be finished, in Spain. There are new views from every window. I have planned it that way.”

  “Would you like to see my apartment? It is three hundred years old and there is history all around it.”

  He rises, twirls the famous mustaches and looks at me intently. I am willing to like the man. He looks over the room.

  “Yes, this room will do.” Ah.

  He sweeps into the small room next door. There are old screens on the walls in soft green and rose, crazy painted perspectives of Italy. He glances briefly at then, admires the garish mask sitting in the middle of the round table with a candle behind the grinning features. It is inappropriate here.

  “This will be good, in the movie.”

  Now the bedroom, where the crystal chandelier sparkles and all my makeshift furniture is hidden in the shadows except for the huge bed, covered in a garden print.

  “This is perfect. We will cover the bed with feathers. The bed is fine. I assume we can cut off that wing so the children will remain in their rooms?”

  “Yes.” The bed with feathers? What’s goin
g on here?

  “Fine. We will film the lesbians making love in the feathers.”

  Sudden total rage.

  “Greta, would you show Dali the front part of the house? There’s something I must do.”

  And now for the assistant. Grab him.

  “What is this?” Twirl the creep around twice for good measure. He runs to the other side of the bed, protected by the wide expanse of flowers.

  “I don’t know, I promise, I don’t know.”

  “Well, when you leave here with that man, just tell him that it’s impossible. Say I am too stuffy. Say anything you want but you two are not ever coming near me or my children again. Do you understand that?” My voice shakes with the effort of holding the volume down. I would willingly bash him over the head. With one startled look he sees I am not joking.