Cooking for Picasso

by Camille Aubray

  When Ondine brought the tray into the dining room, Picasso and his female visitor were immersed in conversation. He leaned forward to gaze at the food on its platter, giving it a quick nod of approval, and Ondine set to work with her serving fork and knife, lifting the bones entirely off the fish in one expert maneuver before arranging the meal on individual plates.

  “The world is full of hypocrites,” Dora was saying. “Headlines all screaming about Herr Hitler reoccupying the Rhineland—but still the politicians do nothing. They all know it’s a blatant violation of the Treaty of Versailles! And yet those same journalists have orgasms about the Nazis hosting the summer Olympics. An outrage, to award Germany the honor, instead of Spain!”

  “The fascists have more money. They can always outbid the leftists,” Picasso answered calmly.

  “Yes, but where do the Nazis get all that money?” Dora said meaningfully. “Who gave Hitler enough funds to build his monster stadium—oh, how he loves stadiums, and this one’s going to have a hundred thousand seats! And such sophisticated sound devices, just so that foul little man can broadcast his glory to over forty countries around the globe. The world’s gone mad.”

  Despite the frightening things they were talking about, Ondine couldn’t help noticing how lovely Dora’s voice was—melodic and mesmerizing, all the more so because she radiated high intelligence and a serious mind; and she spoke with passionate conviction, as if she’d thought about it deeply and cared personally about world events. Her gaze was sharp and clear, and Picasso seemed impressed with her.

  “The world’s been seduced by a man of force, as it always has and always will,” he replied.

  Ondine could scarcely believe that a woman was discussing money and politics with a man. She certainly hoped Picasso wasn’t going to ask Ondine her opinion on Germany. She was suddenly aware that Dora was watching her every move, not directly but out of the corners of her eyes, like a cat.

  Meanwhile Picasso was watching Dora’s attitude toward Ondine with a look of supreme amusement.

  This woman must be a reporter, come to interview him, Ondine thought uncertainly as she returned to the kitchen. Perhaps that was why Picasso was showing off about having a Provençal chef.

  She was surprised to find herself feeling strangely possessive of Picasso. She’d never been bothered by the other, blonde woman, who’d seemed more like a phantom because she hadn’t directly intruded on the special, weekday solitude that Ondine had been sharing with her Patron.

  Later, when she re-entered the room to collect the plates, Picasso and Dora had moved on to an animated discussion of Parisian artists and art dealers. He looked up only to say rather grandly, “A fine meal, Ondine. We’ll have our tea in the parlor,” as they rose from their chairs.

  Ondine, who this afternoon was feeling like his servant for the first time, returned with a tray bearing the tea he liked and an apricot tarte she’d made this morning specially for him. She placed it all on the low table beside the sofa in the parlor, where Picasso was sitting with his legs crossed.

  Ondine poured the tea. When Dora reached for her cup, Ondine briefly glimpsed a black-and-blue bruise on Dora’s forearm. Some instinct made Ondine avert her eyes. Dora rose gracefully and moved around the parlor to view the paintings that Picasso had haphazardly placed here and there.

  He drank his tea, then got up and stood beside Dora, murmuring in a playful tone, “Want to come upstairs? Last time you were here, we were so busy, I forgot to show you ‘my latest etchings’.”

  Ondine, having sliced the tarte and put it on the dessert plates, straightened up just in time to see Picasso place a hand on one of Dora’s buttocks and give it a firm squeeze.

  Hastily Ondine returned to the kitchen and began washing the dinner plates as fast as she could. Why should she feel so blinded by—if not tears, then some sort of rage? She didn’t realize that she was clattering the dishes with more vigor than usual and perhaps making a noticeable noise, until Picasso entered the kitchen and laid a hand on her shoulder.

  “Dora can’t make up her mind whether she wants to be a photographer or a painter,” he said in a low, confidential voice. “She’s a professional photographer, you see. But I have advised her to be a painter, because every photographer has a painter inside waiting to be released, anyway.”

  Ondine said nothing. “You know how I met Dora Maar?” he continued conversationally. “It was at a café in Paris. She was playing ‘the knife game’ with herself. Do you know it?”

  He took Ondine’s hand and placed it, palm down, on the cutting board on the kitchen counter. Then he put his own warm hand on top of hers, and separated her fingers so that there were spaces between them. He picked up one of the kitchen knives that Ondine had just washed.

  “One, two, three, four, five, six!” he counted aloud gleefully while poking the knife into the board in the small spaces between their fingers, starting at the outside of the thumb and going between each finger until he reached the outside of the smallest one. Then he went back more rapidly, chanting, “Five, four, three, two, one!” Ondine gasped but refused to squeal because she sensed that that was what he wanted.

  “The idea is to go faster than anyone else, without chopping off your fingers,” Picasso announced when he stopped. “Dora did it wearing a glove. By the time she was done, it was stained with her blood.” He sounded impressed. “I keep that bloody glove on a shelf in my studio.”

  Then you’re both crazy, Ondine thought, but she waited quietly until he removed his hand from hers and set it free. When Ondine looked up, Dora was standing in the doorway, watching again like a black cat, but then she put her cigarette to her lips, exhaled a plume of smoke and drifted back to the parlor without having uttered a word. Picasso went out after her, and Ondine hurriedly returned to her dishes.

  Presently she could hear them climbing the stairs. The house grew quiet, but soon she heard strange animal grunts and thumps and cries. Ondine paused in alarm, then realized that it was lovemaking—of a sort. There came a particularly loud, rather alarming thump—as if someone had fallen to the floor or against a wall, followed by a woman’s unmistakable cry of anguish. For a moment Ondine imagined having to call Rafaello the policeman to intervene. There were more cries from both of them, but these subsided into low murmurs. Ondine picked up her hamper and slipped out the kitchen door.

  As she was attaching the hamper to her bicycle, Picasso threw open a window upstairs, and Ondine could see him standing before his easel, speaking calmly to his guest. Ondine knew that stance.

  “Now he’s painting her,” she muttered, shaking her head as she pedaled away fast. All the way home she rode with a furious, violent energy. “Who was he trying to embarrass today—Dora or me? He seems to want to make both of us miserable. But why? Why? And what has become of the blonde lady in his paintings?” she wondered. “Well, why should I care, anyway?”

  Even to herself, she could not explain the anxious, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. All this time while he’d been painting her he’d made her feel like the most important woman in the world, and his pleasure warmed her as if she were lying on a beach basking in pure sunlight. Now, without warning, it was as if the moon had just eclipsed the sun, blackening it out and leaving her shivering in a day as dark as night, fearing that the sun would never return to warm her up again.

  Ondine à la Plage

  ONDINE ALMOST DREADED GOING BACK to the villa on the following day. Undeniably, she was eager to cook for Picasso, to talk to him, even to pose for him—but only if they could resume being together in that companionable, quiet way she’d grown to cherish.

  “I’m certainly not going to cook for that Dora woman again,” she told herself stoutly. “If she’s still there, why, I’ll leave his lunch hamper on the front stoop, and he can ask her to serve him!” Of course, in her heart, Ondine knew she was not really in a position to refuse him anything. Her mother had said so, right at the onset of this arrangement. Feeling rather glum, Ondin
e set off on her bicycle.

  It was an unusually hot day for this time of year. That, plus the fact that it was a Friday was causing people to spill out onto the streets with an excited, festive air, as if they could hardly wait to finish work and enjoy their weekend. The breeze that filled Ondine’s lungs no longer smelled solely of fish, seaweed and salt; now it was mingled with the perfume of flowers that were already tumbling over the high walls of the villas; and Ondine could hear, all around her, the heartening chirp of joyful birds.

  But when she cycled up Picasso’s driveway and parked her bicycle at the side of the house, she heard an entirely different kind of twittering—from two females evidently having an argument, their agitated voices clearly wafting out of the open kitchen window.

  “You have no business being here with Pablo. He’s my man!” said the first voice, very soft and feminine, yet raised with righteous anger.

  “No woman can seriously believe that she can own a man like Pablo Picasso!” scoffed the second woman in an ironical, amused tone, but one that had a sharp knife-edge to it.

  Ondine, who had been about to unhook her food hamper, thought she recognized this voice as Dora Maar’s and paused. She was certainly not going to burst into the kitchen and interrupt a scene like this.

  “I am the mother of his child!” the first woman shot back proudly, as if she’d played a trump card. “It is my place to be with Picasso. So you can just pick yourself up and get out of here, at once!”

  “Whether or not I have a child makes no difference whatsoever. It’s utterly irrelevant,” Dora said dismissively, as if engaged in a philosophical debate with someone she considered her intellectual inferior. “I have a perfect right to be here. It is you who doesn’t belong with Pablo anymore!”

  The soft-voiced woman must have crossed the room, for now her words grew more audible and, for a moment, Ondine could see her face as she passed by the window. Ondine recognized that distinctive nose, and the almost sleepy expression in the eyes. Yes, it was the blonde girl from all those paintings—the one Picasso had called Marie-Thérèse.

  It was Ondine’s first real glimpse of her, at last, so she could not help straining to see better. But even this docile, gentle woman had become moved to exasperation and indignation.

  “Well, Pablo?” the blonde demanded, as she drifted out of sight again. “Why do you just stand there, so calm and trop innocent, as if it’s all none of your concern? For heaven’s sake, this situation is intolerable and you know it. So make up your mind. Which one of us stays, and which one must go?”

  Ondine heard a chair scraping loudly on the floor, followed by a male snort of disgust.

  “Pah!” Picasso responded. “I don’t have to decide anything! I’m fine with things as they are. But how is a man to get a day’s work done, with a pair of hens each pecking an eardrum? If you two have a problem with each other, well, then, you’ll just have to fight it out yourselves! I’m going out for some air!”

  From inside came the sound of a sudden scuffle and the shrieks of both women. Before Ondine could move away, the kitchen door was flung open, and Picasso came storming out in exasperation. Dressed only in shorts, an open shirt, and thick, rough leather sandals like shepherds wore, his nearly naked body gave off the heat and scent of his fury, as if he might breathe fire with his next word.

  Ondine stood quaking, not knowing what to do. But to her astonishment, Picasso gave her a broad smile of delight. “Ah! Thank God, a sensible woman!” he exclaimed. “Well, there’s no point in bringing your basket inside, Ondine; not with those two harpies in my kitchen. They’ll end up flinging the food like bombs, and they’re sure to tear each other’s hair out before they’re finished,” he proclaimed with exaggerated horror. “Still, I suppose I could sell tickets to this fight.”

  He was performing for her benefit. With a sly look of feigned dread he added, “Just suppose my wife showed up now? She’d tear them both to shreds. You and I would have to bury their remains in the garden here.” He looked as if he quite enjoyed the idea of having a bickering harem.

  It occurred to Ondine that Picasso might have even staged this whole confrontation today. In fact, perhaps he’d even timed it deliberately for the moment when he knew Ondine was sure to show up. There was a strange streak of the prankster in him.

  But now he was surveying the sky and fine weather, and he said impulsively, “This is no day to be stuck indoors playing referee. Let’s go for a swim and have a picnic lunch! Come on, take your bicycle and follow me.”

  He stalked off, surprising Ondine by seeming to know a shorter route to the sea, taking a beaten-earth path through his neighbor’s flower fields. She followed him uncertainly, her bicycle wobbling perilously whenever she rode over a rock half-hidden in the ground. But she managed to keep up with him as he marched on—down, down, down to the sea.

  They stopped at a small cove whose beach was mostly pebbles, tucked in a pocket of pine trees flanked by stone walls for shelter. Ondine leaned her bicycle against a wall. Picasso had already taken off his shoes and shirt, but kept his shorts on. His feet were surprisingly delicate, his skin so creamy and smooth that he reminded Ondine of an ivory statuette of Buddha that she’d seen in a shop window.

  Now he glared at the sea as if it were a beast that he intended to conquer, and, sticking out his chin and chest, he marched purposefully toward it. When he reached the water’s edge he just kept on going, stomping into the sea until he was up to his waist.

  “Well?” he called out to her, trying not to gasp from the shock of the cold. “What are you waiting for? Aren’t you an ondine, a little mermaid? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the sea!”

  Ondine had already removed her shoes and unbuttoned her dress, but she’d hesitated at pulling off her clothes. Now she decided that the faster she got into the water the more she could protect her modesty. She yanked the dress over her head, keeping her chemise and culottes on, then she rushed into the water several paces away from him. As soon as she could, she dove right in.

  She began swimming immediately and rapidly in order to swiftly warm up her muscles. Luc had taught her how to swim by alternately exhaling into the water and then coming up for air, while stroking and flutter-kicking steadily. She ducked under the first thrusting waves, and she swam and swam, concentrating on her breathing while blinking her eyes open and shut like a lighthouse, on-off, on-off, so that the salty sea didn’t sting them too much.

  Then, gasping, she turned over and came up for air, recovering her breath, lightly treading water while glancing about to get her bearings and to see how far out Picasso had gone. But she couldn’t find his head bobbing among the waves.

  “Where is he?” she said, bewildered. “Did he go very far?”

  Squinting in the sunlight, she paddled farther out, scanning the horizon. She turned back and finally spied him near the shoreline. He was splashing determinedly in a straight line, moving parallel to the shore, keeping rather close to the beach. When he saw her he waved grandly, then made a great show of stroking methodically while turning his head above the water, first left, then right, then left and right again. Ondine dove down and swam straight toward him.

  As she came closer she could see his legs underwater. At first she couldn’t believe it. But as she watched she saw that he’d been standing and walking the whole time! She popped up for air and saw that he was still stroking and splashing and turning his head dramatically. Then Ondine understood.

  Picasso doesn’t know how to swim! He’s been faking it, she realized, astonished. She swam to the other end of the cove so she wouldn’t embarrass him. He climbed ashore now, and she hurried up the beach, ducking behind the trees to take off her wet underclothes and spread them on some rocks to dry in the sun. She used just the skirt of her dress to dry her torso before pulling the dress back on.

  By the time she emerged from the trees, Picasso had dried himself off with the shirt he’d left on the beach. As Ondine drew near, he reached out and grabbed h
er arm, yanking her closer to him.

  “That hair of yours is still dripping wet,” he said. “I don’t want your mama telling me I made you catch pneumonia.” He began to vigorously rub the top of her head with his shirt, but worked more gently as he dried her long, long curls all the way out to their delicate ends.

  “You’re hardly more than a schoolgirl!” he teased as he rubbed her dry. “You barely know how to tie your shoes and blow your nose. Were you a good student or a bad one? Hah, I bet you were one of those little girls who know all the answers. But now, you have only questions for me. Am I right?”

  Ondine unexpectedly felt flushed with an all-encompassing warmth, stimulated by his hands resting heavily on her head through the shirt, which gave off an exciting whiff of his masculine scent as it flopped around. Yet, at the same time she felt strangely overpowered, as if she could hardly breathe in his presence, as if, even here in the great outdoors, he was sucking in all the available oxygen around her.

  “I was a terrible student, you know,” he confided. “All I ever wanted to do was draw. Numbers and words were of no interest to me whatsoever. I tried to concentrate on the things they wanted me to learn, but when I was supposed to be adding up numbers, they just looked like bird’s eyes and claws.”

  Having finished drying her off, he surveyed her critically. “You look good when you’re wet. Good enough to eat.” He sat down cross-legged on a very large, warm flat rock, closed his eyes and raised his face to the sun, looking more like a Buddha than ever, saying, “Well, what have we got for our picnic? Did you bring raw fish that we must cook over a campfire? Should I rub two sticks together?”