Cooking for Picasso

by Camille Aubray

  At that moment, Pablo spotted a young girl with dark-russet hair, sitting at another table with her girlfriend, accompanied by a man Picasso knew. Every time Pablo caught the eye of the russet-haired girl, she grinned back at him. So he kept telling more jokes and showing off, just to see that girl smile again. Finally, he rose from his table, leaving Dora Maar behind, and carrying a bowl of cherries.

  “Well?” Picasso said to his friend who was sitting there with the young ladies. “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

  He set down the bowl of cherries right in front of the russet-haired girl, then listened attentively as his friend made the rounds of introductions.

  “And, this is Françoise Gilot,” said the man. “She’s been a law student at the Sorbonne, but now she thinks she’d rather be a painter.”

  Picasso laughed. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day,” he said. “Girls who look like that can’t be painters.”

  But Françoise was no shrinking violet. She was the well-educated daughter of a very successful businessman who’d taught her how to think, debate and compete. So she jutted out her chin and informed Pablo that it just so happened that she and her girlfriend were not only painters, but this very week they were having a joint exhibition at a well-respected gallery. Perhaps Picasso ought to have a look. Then she smiled, and popped a cherry into her mouth.

  “Is that so?” said Pablo. “Well, I am a painter, too. You must come to my studio and see some of my paintings.”

  “When?” asked Françoise. She was only twenty-one years old, but she knew how to heed the call of fate.

  “Tomorrow. The next day. When you want to,” Picasso replied.

  Very seriously, Françoise and her best friend put their heads together and reviewed their schedule. “We can come next Monday,” Françoise announced.

  Picasso bowed. “As you wish.” He shook hands with everyone; then he picked up his bowl of cherries and returned to his own table.

  And Dora Maar wished, with all her heart, that they had picked a different café to have supper in that day.

  Ondine in America (Part Two), 1952

  BY JULIE’S FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY, CHEZ Ondine was so profitable that Ondine and Luc were able to enroll their daughter in a private well-regarded girls’ high school. Ondine’s little family had long since moved out of the room above the florist’s shop, and they now rented a nice Victorian house with a wraparound porch, in an enclave by the sea called Sans Souci, where mute swans glided majestically along the shores with their fuzzy babies, hoping for tossed pieces of old bread.

  In the summertime on their day off, Luc would take Ondine and Julie out in a little rowboat. They’d paddle across to Glen Island Park, an elegant public resort with nineteenth-century beachhouses, a colonnade and a casino. They’d picnic on the crescent-shaped beach and splash about in Long Island Sound until the sun went down. Then they’d sit on the seawall to hear big-band music wafting out from the casino, with Julie and Ondine watching to see what gowns the women wore.

  One evening, on Ondine’s thirty-third birthday, Luc surprised her by booking a table for two at the casino. They dined on “lobster casino with saffron rice” and sole amandine. Then they went into the enormous second-floor ballroom with French doors that opened onto private balconies overlooking the sea and sky, where a golden moon gazed down at its own rippling reflection in the darkened waves.

  “See? Our stars are still there,” Luc said, pointing, and taking her into his arms. She pressed her cheek against his as they listened to “Moonlight Sonata” and “Walkin’ My Baby Back Home.” Humming to each other they danced late into the night to their swing-time favorites.

  “Where’d you learn these steps?” Luc demanded when Ondine tried a slightly new variation.

  “Julie taught me,” she said. “The girls do our dances a little differently now.”

  “Someday we’ll go back to France with her, and show her to your parents,” Luc promised.

  It was a dream of theirs, even a plan, for although Ondine’s letters home still went unanswered, Luc felt sure that Ondine’s parents wouldn’t be able to resist welcoming their only grandchild.

  Julie was pretty, but she was still diminutive which made her seem younger than her age. Like other children of immigrants, she’d grown up speaking English in school but her parents’ language at home—never quite knowing which language to think her own private thoughts in. Although her parents were full of love, they were secretive and given to certain dark and worried moods. She knew that their stress had to do with business, yet they never told her exactly why, so even on good days there was still a persistent, uneasy undercurrent, a lurking, unspeakable anxiety, beneath all their success.

  But at school, as Julie gradually overcame her innate shyness and began making friends, her confidence grew. She began acting more like an American girl, imitating the optimistic exuberance of her friends. Ondine liked hearing Julie chattering with other girls her age when they came home from school in their identical wool blazers and pleated skirts, their arms full of books, their hair pulled back with bright ribbons or sparkling clips.

  One Sunday afternoon when Luc was out at a card game, and Julie was in the backyard with her friends looking at fashion magazines, a well-dressed man in a suit came into the yard bearing a box of chocolates for Julie and a bouquet of flowers for her mother. He wore cologne and had a silky, elegant demeanor as he patted Julie’s cheek and then went inside to speak to Ondine.

  After he left, Julie asked, “Who was that nice man with the good manners?”

  “He’s not nice, and don’t ever speak to him again. If you see him, tell your father immediately,” Ondine retorted sharply. She’d been unnerved by the visitor, who had noiselessly let himself in the unlocked back door, walked through the house and appeared at the threshold of her parlor, like a phantom. His voice was so soft that at first, Ondine could not believe she’d heard him properly. She would never tell Julie what that man had said:

  You have a lovely daughter. If you want her to live to see her own wedding, you’ll pay what my men have been asking your husband for. If you don’t, she might have a terrible accident and you’ll find her bones scattered all over town.

  “Tell your friends to go home,” Ondine told Julie in a low voice. “And come inside at once.”

  “I can’t just chase them away!” Julie objected.

  “Find a nice way to do it, but do it,” Ondine said more sharply than usual. Julie sighed, aggrieved, but obeyed. Once Julie was safely inside, Ondine locked all the doors and windows.

  When Luc came home he was beaming with self-confidence, announcing, “I’ve found us a new fish supplier! He’s just like the man I worked for in Juan-les-Pins—honest, no-nonsense, salt-of-the-earth. We can trust him.” Ondine managed an encouraging nod before she described her visitor. Luc instantly knew who it was; the boss behind the men who came to collect the protection money.

  Luc was furious. “That bastard actually came to our house?” he exclaimed, scowling. “He threatened our child? By God, I’ll handle him!” He jutted out his chin with that dangerous look of pride and fearlessness, which Ondine had first seen at the train station with Monsieur Renard the day they left France, and which, lately, she was seeing more frequently. Luc had, as people here said, “a long fuse”, but once aroused he could be a hothead. Yet he listened to Ondine whenever she intervened.

  “What exactly does this man want from us?” she asked quietly as they went into their kitchen.

  Luc shook his head with a dark look in his eyes. “That’s just it. He says ‘more’—always, ‘more’! But he’ll never really be satisfied until he gets it all. He runs a string of greasy diners and he’s losing customers to people like us. He offered to buy us out for an insulting amount.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Ondine reproached him. Lately it had been difficult to tell the difference between Luc’s allies and his foes; they were all tough men. Luc shrugged and sat down.
<
br />   “I didn’t want to worry you; it seemed like just big talk. But now that he sees he can’t own us, he only wants to put us out of business. Well, there are bigger fish than him, in the Bronx. I met one today who can protect us from these puny local sharks. Enough is enough. I’ll have to deal with this tonight.”

  Ondine gave Luc his dinner, which he ate calmly and methodically at their table that overlooked the tranquil Long Island Sound. “What will you do?” she asked, sitting beside him.

  “We’ll have to take on this Bronx boss as an ‘investor’ in our place; but that’s okay,” Luc said, as if he’d already been considering this for some time. “Because he’s a real businessman. He can provide us with better suppliers for everything but the fish, and as I’ve said, I’ve got that taken care of now.”

  Ondine put a hand on his arm. “Don’t go out tonight,” she urged. “Wait until morning. It’s safer to do things in the light of day.” Luc’s tense expression abated, and he nodded. When they went to bed she pressed close against his warm chest and he fell asleep quickly, exhausted. Ondine slept fitfully.

  —

  THE NEXT MORNING Luc left early, first to see Julie safely off to school, and then he headed out for the Bronx. Ondine handled the lunchtime service, but when Luc didn’t return in time to pick up Julie, she went to the schoolyard herself. Luc had told her to meet Julie if he was delayed.

  “Oh, Maman, what is wrong with you and Papa today, escorting me to and fro like a child?” Julie groaned. “You’re both embarrassing me in front of my friends.”

  Ondine and Luc had agreed not to frighten the girl by telling her of the kidnapping threat. So Ondine said only, “Chère fille, take your schoolbooks to Mrs. O’Malley’s house and stay there, do your homework, until I come for you.” Mrs. O’Malley was a kindly neighbor whose husband was a retired baseball coach. Ondine had told them about the threat to Julie and they’d agreed to keep a protective eye on her when Ondine was at work. The O’Malleys had two handsome sons, so Julie didn’t object.

  When Ondine returned to the restaurant to prepare for the dinner service, the telephone was ringing as she walked in. The caller was one of the waiters from the restaurant who often accompanied Luc to the freight yard to pick up fresh food supplies. And for the rest of her life Ondine would remember, word for word, what that man said: “Ondine, I’m so sorry. There’s been a fight down here by the railroad tracks. A lotta men injured. But Luc…Luc is dead.”

  “No,” Ondine said vehemently. “Not Luc. You must be mistaken. He didn’t go down there today—he went to the Bronx.”

  “Yes, I know that. But then they all came here to a big meeting down by the railroad cars. I wasn’t around when it happened, but I’ve talked to people who were. The rival gangs were supposed to come to terms, but there was a showdown of some kind and a fight broke out. I don’t know if the bosses here were planning to kill your husband all along, or if he just got caught in the crossfire,” the man said in a rush, as if to get it over with as quickly as he could. “They called a doctor who says that in Luc’s case—it was a blow to the head.”

  “I’m coming there. I have to see him,” Ondine said immediately, taking off her apron, still hoping it was all a mistake, as in Juan-les-Pins when everyone insisted that Luc was gone for good.

  “Don’t do that, Madame,” the man warned with such conviction that she froze. “This is an ugly scene today, no place for a lady. Believe it or not, some people are trying to say the whole thing was just a terrible accident—that a tower of pallets packed with heavy boxes fell on the men standing below it. And the cops, well, some of them are in the pockets of the bosses. I’m handling it for you, believe me. You may get a call anyway from the police, but just tell them the truth—that you know nothing.”

  “I want to see Luc!” Ondine cried passionately.

  “I know. I called the undertaker. The body is already on its way to the funeral parlor.”

  The telephone receiver slipped from Ondine’s hands and clattered to the floor. She felt her body sag against the doorway. And even to her own ears, the cry that came from her throat sounded so much like a wounded animal that she pressed both hands to her mouth for fear of hearing it again.

  —

  THE UNDERTAKER SOLICITOUSLY ushered Ondine into the dimly lit room in the funeral parlor where Luc lay on a table. When the assistant pulled back the cloth, it was obvious that they’d worked carefully to make the body presentable. Luc’s beautiful hair was combed perfectly with pomade—something he never used. And it was parted differently because, she later found out, they’d had to clip away the hair that was matted with blood from the mortal wound on his head. His face, strangely, betrayed no sign of duress; it was pale, but he still wore that determined expression which was so familiar—as if he’d been waiting for her and was about to speak in an ordinary way on an ordinary day.

  “Luc,” Ondine whispered, sinking into the chair beside him. “Don’t leave me.” She couldn’t stop herself from thinking what she always did when faced with a problem: I’ll ask Luc about it when he comes home. Her mind could not give up believing that they could overcome this difficulty as they always did—together, giving each other strength. She wanted to tell him what happened this awful afternoon after she got the phone call.

  A police officer had indeed come to the restaurant and asked his perfunctory questions. How old was Luc? What business was he in? Was he a citizen? Ondine answered automatically. After he left she moved about like a sleepwalker and put up the Closed sign, turned off the lights, locked the doors.

  Then she’d hurried off to Mrs. O’Malley’s house, where Julie was waiting for her. The poor girl became so distraught when Ondine told her about Luc that Mrs. O’Malley had to call a doctor, who’d come and sedated Julie. She was sleeping now. So Ondine had gone to the funeral parlor alone.

  Now, sitting in this darkened room beside her husband’s body, she heard, through the numbing haze of her grief, a bell from a nearby church softly tolling the hours as if counting her sorrows. Ondine took Luc’s cold hand in hers, and it was this awful chill that finally convinced her that she’d lost him. She felt as if she, too, were locked in a cold block of ice. Yet she wanted to remain here forever beside Luc in this silence—waiting, perhaps for him to awaken like a hero from an ancient myth who could somehow overcome even death.

  But Luc lay still and silent. Ondine closed her eyes, too. She thought of that letter he’d sent her when he had been away at sea but then got sick with typhoid, and he’d written to her asking her to keep a small corner of her heart for his soul to come to rest there. “Yes, stay with me,” she whispered.

  But she could not let herself weep. Tears seemed like a luxury she could not risk, for she might just let herself drown in them. Later, when this danger for my daughter is past, I’ll go to pieces, she thought.

  The thought of Julie finally roused Ondine and brought her to her feet. But now there was a polite knock at the door, and the undertaker said she had a visitor who insisted on seeing her. “Do you know a man named Sal Miucci?” he asked.

  “No,” Ondine said, and yet the name sounded vaguely familiar.

  The man was waiting at the back door. He was a tall, young fellow, holding his cap in his hands. “Can we speak in private?” he asked, eyeing the undertaker. “Outside, perhaps?”

  “I’ll be in my office if you need assistance,” the mortician said meaningfully.

  Ondine and the man stepped out into the parking lot behind the funeral home. “They call me Big Sal,” he said, twisting his cap, his face full of sympathy. “Maybe your husband told you about me. I bring the fish on my boat. I’m based in Boston. Luc asked me to look out for you if anything happened to him.”

  Ondine said nothing, just listened to his voice for clues of which side he was truly on.

  “Luc was afraid that without him here to protect you, the local toughs might try to scare you into giving them the money that he wouldn’t let them have,” the man contin
ued. “He said it wouldn’t be safe here for you and your daughter anymore—and he’s right. He told me to get you out of town. He says you already know the emergency plan.”

  Ondine had been wary that this man was here to trick her into trusting him, but when he said “emergency plan” she now believed that Luc had confided in him. For, back when the gangsters first started demanding protection money, Luc sat her down at their kitchen table and said they must talk about exactly that—an “emergency plan”.

  With an unflinching gaze he’d looked deep into her eyes to make sure she was listening as he said firmly, If anything happens to me, you know where our cash is. Take Julie away immediately—do you hear me, Ondine? Don’t delay. Don’t even go to the bank looking for more. Put the money you have in the lining of your coat, and don’t pack anything more than you can carry in one bundle. Just go, tell no one where you’re going, and don’t look back.

  “I have a way to get you out of town, quick and quiet,” Sal said. “I can take you on my boat to New York Harbor. From there, you can get a ship to France. Luc said you could get ready fast.”

  “I can’t leave him,” she whispered. She discovered now that she’d been trembling for some time and couldn’t stop. She clasped her hands together to hold them still.

  “Let’s not give anybody time to kidnap Julie and try to shake you down,” Sal was saying. “Tell the undertaker you don’t want a funeral. Tell him to deal with me; I’ll get Luc’s ashes for you. Then go do whatever else you have to do to get ready. But don’t sleep in your own house tonight. Do you have a neighbor you can stay with? Good. Early tomorrow morning, my boat sails.”

  Ondine did as Sal suggested and gave instructions to the undertaker. But before she left the funeral parlor, she returned to the back room and kissed Luc’s cold lips once more. Looking at him now, she felt she knew what he would say if he could speak. Follow the plan.

  Quickly, she slipped outside. Moving through the velvet darkness she went to the restaurant and entered by the back door, but she didn’t dare turn on a light. She felt her way around the familiar kitchen as a blind woman might until she found the right spot. Crouching, she removed a cloth-wrapped bundle of money hidden beneath the false bottom of the pantry shelf. There was much more here than there had been the last time she’d checked it, only a few days ago.