Cooking for Picasso

by Camille Aubray

  “At least we’re not leaving here totally empty-handed,” he said wryly.

  We retraced our steps, yet when we reached the door of the vault, I noticed for the first time that it didn’t have a handle on the inside.

  “How do we get out of this cracker box?” I asked. But as I moved closer to the door, its automatic sensors responded, and it obligingly, eerily slid open. We glided down the carpeted hallway just like all the other visitors, never uttering a word even when we rode down in the freight elevator to the lobby. I held my breath as the guard stopped Gil, but the box from the mas was bar-coded under his name, so Gil signed out his pots and pans and we sailed on. He hoisted the box into the van and climbed into the driver’s seat, looking singularly unimpressed by this whole episode.

  “Go ahead and say it—you think I’m a crazy fool,” I said morosely.

  “No, you’re just desperate to help your mum,” Gil said resignedly, as if now, out in the stark reality of daylight, he was adjusting his expectations. “Let’s face it—maybe your Gran cooked for Picasso, but it just doesn’t look like she ever got one of his paintings.”

  “I absolutely believe she had it,” I insisted. “I still feel that she did.”

  “Well, then how come you can’t feel wherever the hell it is?” Gil asked a bit testily. I thought of Madame Sylvie again, and decided that Gil was right; relying on intuition at this point seemed just plain delusional.

  For the rest of the trip home he remained moodily silent, staring straight ahead as he drove, lost in his own thoughts and no doubt returning to the stark fact that he was going to have to swallow Rick’s deal or surrender his restaurant to the loan shark.

  When we entered the mas we found Maurice looking frantic, telling Gil he had a ton of messages. I slipped upstairs to my room and threw my handbag on the chair.

  “Well, Grandma,” I said aloud, “looks like my goose is cooked.”

  I knew I should stop talking to my dead grandmother. And I knew I should stop obsessing about that Picasso. And yet…and yet…

  “Damn it, I know that was Mom’s striped pitcher in the still life,” I muttered. “I know that was Grandma’s long curly hair in those other two paintings. And I know she cooked those fabulous meals for him. So why would she bother to tell Mom that she owned a Picasso if she’d already sold it or given it away or lost it? Come on, Grandma. Where did you put it?”

  And then my mind landed on a terrible thought; one that had been lurking in the shadows all along, but which I had resolutely pushed away until now.

  Dad had been staying at Grandma Ondine’s house when she died, I realized with a chill. What if it was Dad who found the painting, after all?

  Ondine at Notre Dame de Vie, Mougins, 1967

  “AH BON? THEN I’VE GOT to go see Picasso and get him to sign my portrait!” Ondine declared as the art dealer rewrapped the picture. Urgently she asked him, “Pierre, where is Picasso living now?”

  “Hmm, he changes house as often as he changes women!” Pierre commented. “I heard that his Russian wife died, so he was free to marry a woman who worked in the pottery studio; and they live in Mougins, near a church called Notre Dame de Vie.”

  Pierre took a pencil and drew a rudimentary map. Picasso’s villa wasn’t very far from Monsieur Renard’s mas, where Ondine went every day to check on the farm. This time, when she finished her rounds at the mas, she packed up a small gift basket for Picasso, containing a wheel of Banon cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves, along with a jar of fig-and-star-anise preserves freshly made from the fruit of the mas. Then she set off for Picasso’s place on foot, carrying the wrapped-up painting under one arm and her basket in the other.

  But tracking the Minotaur to the center of his labyrinth wasn’t so simple. Using Pierre’s crude map, she followed a single, unassuming road. At first she wasn’t even sure she had the right path, until a truck came rumbling along and an electrical repairman who was driving it called out to inquire if she was lost. She hesitantly asked for the house of Picasso.

  “Straight ahead. I’m going there myself to do some work on the place,” the electrician said, then added curiously, “What’s your business there?”

  Ondine thought quickly. “I am his new cook.”

  The man said, “Ah! Come, then, I’ll give you a ride.” Ondine sized up his open, honest face and agreed to join him. When they approached the imposing, secluded villa set high among terraced layers of olive and cypress trees, she saw that it was protected by a very tall, forbidding-looking fence, and the driveway was barred by a fancy electronic gate. The repairman pulled up close enough so that he could now lean over to press a button.

  “Who goes there?” growled an unfamiliar voice over an intercom.

  The repairman said to Ondine in a low, knowing tone, “That’s the gardener. He watches out for Picasso.” He leaned toward the intercom and shouted his own name. Slowly, the gates creaked open.

  “Not many people get into this place,” the man commented as he drove in and the gate swung shut behind them. “Workers like us—no problem. But to his children and grandchildren, his gardener says, ‘Sorry, Picasso is too busy’ and ‘No, he won’t have any time for you tomorrow’.”

  Ondine wasn’t sure whether this was idle gossip, or a warning from the gods. “Why won’t he see his own kids?” she asked apprehensively, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

  The man shrugged. “They’re young, and he’s eighty-six years old! He doesn’t like to be reminded of that. Besides, his wife, Jacqueline—she’s less than half his age, you know—she’s very protective.”

  He parked the truck expertly among other cars. The villa was a big, elegant white house with arched doorways and wide windows with pink shutters. When they entered the bright interior, the repairman set off in one direction but nodded toward another, saying, “The kitchen is through there.”

  Ondine pretended to go that way, but as soon as the man was out of sight she turned back, not wanting to collide with kitchen staff. She needed to find Picasso’s studio. She hesitated, then boldly went up an elegant staircase. At the landing she spotted an open door and cautiously peered inside.

  An old dog was curled up on a chair, snoring. He smelled quite bad and did not look particularly friendly. The bed was made, but someone was letting water out of the tub and moving about in the nearby bathroom.

  Ondine backed away from the dog and bumped into a chest of drawers. She saw that on its lace-covered surface lay two scissors, a small one for fingernails and a longer one for hair. Nearby lay tissue-paper packets, both neatly dated today, their contents labelled—one for Picasso’s hair clippings, and one for his nail clippings—which, instead of being discarded, had been reverentially saved.

  “Dieu!” Ondine exclaimed, recoiling. Why would he want to keep such things? Then she recalled an old superstition that if such personal effects left your possession, they could fall into the hands of an enemy or evil spirit who would then use a lock of your hair, for instance, to cast spells and make you sicken and even die. Was Picasso actually bedeviled by such superstitious fears?

  The bathroom door opened now and a maid came out with an armful of rumpled towels. Ondine said hurriedly, “Where is Picasso’s studio? He said I must personally deliver this picture to him.”

  The maid said indifferently, “He works downstairs. Follow me.”

  They went down to the lower level again and along a corridor. When they reached the end, the maid pointed to an enclosed area that was originally an outdoor terrace, but had been turned into a workroom, filled with canvases, easels and tables crammed with paint pots and bottles of brushes.

  The artistic clutter was immediately familiar to Ondine, and now she knew she was moving closer to the heart of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. But at first she hardly recognized the little shriveled, stooped figure when he emerged from behind an easel, hunched over his canvas, his back to her.

  “Bonjour, Patron,” Ondine said softly; then, when she realized that h
e had not heard her, she raised her voice when repeating her greeting. He turned his head and peered at her through large black-framed eyeglasses.

  “Maman, is that you?” he asked in a tone that was loud enough to indicate he was perhaps a bit hard of hearing. “Why weren’t you back from shopping when I woke from my nap? You promised you would be here for my bath and my haircut!” he said as plaintively as a child, peering through those big eyeglasses. Then he paused reflectively. “You are not my wife,” he observed, puzzled.

  “I am Ondine from Juan-les-Pins,” she said, setting down the wrapped painting.

  The old man shuffled forward, looking wary and confused as his gaze searchingly took her in, almost a fragment at a time. She wondered if he’d become senile. But when he saw the food basket she’d brought, a childlike smile of delight spread across his face. “Did you bring me something good to eat?” he asked eagerly. Ondine was uncertain that he really knew who she was.

  “Cheese and fruit confit fresh from my farm, which you can eat whenever you please,” she said.

  He nodded approvingly. “That’s good. I had some stomach surgery, did you hear?” he said regretfully, patting his belly. “They gave me quite a goring. I’ve got a scar as big as a bullfighter’s. I checked into the hospital under the name of Monsieur Ruiz. You remember that fellow Ruiz, don’t you?” he joked. Ondine smiled indulgently as Picasso continued, “I had to use that name again just to throw the reporters off the scent. Otherwise they’d have stood over me waiting to hear my famous last words. To hell with them, I’m still here! But I don’t eat as much as I used to,” he said sadly. “They won’t even let me smoke my cigarettes anymore!”

  Did he really know her? She still couldn’t be sure.

  “And yet you are painting as much as ever, I see!” Ondine said encouragingly.

  “I’ve got a house full of paintings. They breed like rabbits,” he commented mischievously, with a broad sweep of his arm; and she saw that his skin hung in wrinkled folds, as deeply tanned as leather, but fitting him like a suit of clothes that was too big for his frail frame now.

  “My wife got a special deal on sixty canvases at a closeout sale. Now I have to fill them all up! Go ahead, have a look,” he said, gesturing.

  Ondine tried to steady her nerves as she took a brief tour of the colorful paintings. The subjects were all men in seventeenth-century garb with white ruffs and jaunty broad-brimmed hats. They had long noses, twirling black moustaches and pointy beards, and romantically long curly black hair; and they brandished their antiquated swords in endlessly quixotic ways. It was all so utterly playful, done chiefly in primary colors of red and yellow.

  As Picasso opened Ondine’s basket he explained, “While recuperating from my surgery, I was reading Dumas in the hospital—have you read Dumas?”

  “The Three Musketeers,” Ondine said. She could not help admiring his indomitable verve and zest for life; the Minotaur had put her under his spell, once again.

  He nodded. “Dumas’ musketeers reminded me of Rembrandt’s soldiers. Then I came home and began painting my own, and they just keep coming and coming!”

  “They’re beautiful,” she said with a smile of comprehension, for perhaps this was Picasso’s private army of mythological bodyguards bravely attempting to help him fend off Death. “They look like the soldiers a boy conjures in his head when he fights his imaginary foes,” she observed.

  “Ah, yes. It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child,” Picasso said, nibbling on the food like an old bird. He smacked his lips in satisfaction, then nodded at the brown-wrapped package she had set down. “Well, why have you brought a painting to show me? Don’t tell me that you paint pictures now!”

  He may be old and doddering but he still doesn’t miss a trick, Ondine thought, awakening from the enchantment and steeling herself now. Determinedly she unwrapped it and went ahead with her prepared speech. “It’s the portrait you made for me, your Girl-at-a-Window.” She kept her face as neutral as possible, dreading that he’d finally recall he’d never actually handed it over to her. She searched his face, looking for clues but finding none. The only way to pull this off was to plunge ahead.

  “But, nobody believes you painted this portrait of me, because you forgot to sign it!” she said as casually as possible.

  “Did I?” he said vaguely, perhaps a shade too innocently. “Well, let’s see, is it worth signing?”

  Ondine held her breath as Picasso peered at the picture through those big glasses. Thoughtfully he pursed his lips. “Hmm,” he said slyly, “not bad, my Fille-à-la-Fenêtre. Not bad at all, really. But I don’t know if I feel like signing pictures today,” he added with an impish, challenging look.

  How much did he remember? Ondine stared at this diminutive old man in his shorts and slippers. Refusing to take the bait, she said calmly, “Now, now! This is for our daughter, and it’s important to keep the promises we give to the young.”

  Picasso gave her a sharper look now, but she kept a steady smile. He looked grudgingly impressed by her resolve, then commented, “Well, I signed for Tony Curtis—you know that actor? American. He bought one of my unsigned ones and came here asking me to mark it. Gary Cooper visited me. Famous people and movie stars, you know. They’re hard to resist.”

  Ondine understood that Julie was neither a movie star nor an international celebrity, but she rallied, and now it was she who put on an innocent expression to play her last card. “I have friends who are art experts, but when they saw this picture, they said, ‘No, Picasso couldn’t have painted this! It’s too beautiful. Why, this is as good as a Rembrandt.’ ”

  “Hah! That just shows you how much the ‘experts’ know,” Picasso snorted indignantly. He stared at the painting, then made up his mind. Agitation had given him a sudden burst of energy, and he strode over to his worktable to make a great show of selecting just the right brush. This he dipped in just the right pot of paint. “Well, come on, bring it over here,” he said, looking determined now.

  Carefully, as if it were the first time in his life that he’d ever written his signature, the great man leaned over the canvas, his hand trembling slightly; and in his inimitable, expert flourish, he painted a single word at the bottom with unmistakable lettering.

  Picasso.

  “I don’t remember the date that I painted this,” he said, pausing. “Then again, I don’t even remember today’s date. Do you recall?”

  “Yes, I remember,” Ondine said softly, for just this morning she’d looked at her leather-bound notebook with all the meals she’d cooked. Now she told Picasso the date he’d created it and he leaned forward again, concentrating like an earnest schoolboy in a way she found unexpectedly touching.

  He painted 7 mai XXXVi. When he was done, he straightened up, looking satisfied, and patted the top of the painting as if it were a pet or a child. “If you want it that badly, Ondine, you may as well have it,” he said, looking at her cunningly. “One cannot resist courage.”

  She caught her breath. He knew she’d taken it! How long had he known? Was he playing with her the entire time, or did it just dawn on him?

  But then there was a sudden slam of a door in another part of the house, and a woman’s voice called out in a strange, shrill birdlike trill. “Monseigneur, where are you?” she cooed.

  Picasso had the face of a schoolboy caught with the cookies. “Jacqueline won’t like this,” he warned. “She’ll try to stop you. If you want to keep this painting, go out that side door!”

  Ondine picked it up carefully, for his signature was still wet. Unsentimentally, Picasso looked her straight in the eye now and said, “It will be worth more when I’m dead, you know.”

  It was unlike him to mention death, yet he did so with courage, like a warrior prepared to confront the inevitable battle ahead. “May God grant that day to be far away,” Ondine said tenderly; and just before leaving him, something compelled her to kiss him on his warm, leathery cheek.


  “Adieu,” she said softly, then added, “A Dios.” He raised a gnarled hand to her cheek, as if carving her from clay—a gesture she remembered, but today he made it new, one more time.

  “Yes, yes.” Picasso’s face had become very gentle, almost mournful. “Now, go!” he admonished.

  Indeed, the new wife’s sharp footsteps were tap-tapping on the hall floor indicating that she was coming closer. Ondine hurried to the side exit, but cast one last look over her shoulder at the small man, still standing before his easel, surrounded by the paintings that he simply could not stop making.

  Picasso had picked up his brush again, and with it, he waved goodbye.

  —

  WALKING BACK TO the mas, Ondine felt as if she were encased in a soft, sacred glow, like having been in the presence of a holy man who’d finally, at long last, given her his blessing.

  And for once, she could provide her daughter with a much better future, she reflected happily. She took a ride with the farm’s delivery boy, whose truck was making its last run of the day from the mas to the café. Ondine burst inside the café, excited to show the painting to Julie.

  But she found only Monsieur Renard waiting for her in the kitchen, wringing his hands. “Julie is gone! She sneaked out without a word to anyone. Can you believe it, she eloped with that Arthur! She left us only this very short note.”

  Ondine’s breath came out in one hard gasp. She sat down at the kitchen table and allowed Renard to read it to her—a brief, hasty goodbye from Julie, who’d obviously written exactly what Arthur had dictated, assuring them in somewhat legalistic language that she was perfectly certain about marrying him and going to live in America, and asking them only to be happy for her.

  At first, Ondine did not believe it. Her fingers had turned to icicles and even her heart seemed frozen, for she could not feel anything. Only when she raised her eyes to the blue cupboard did she realize that something else was missing—the pink-and-blue striped pitcher which she’d kept atop it for Julie’s bridal trousseau. Julie must have taken it with her, and now Ondine comprehended that her little daughter really was gone for good.