Luncheon of the Boating Party

by Susan Vreeland

  “To keep you off the streets until Saturday, just in case.”

  She’d made no promise, but she wouldn’t mind it.

  He kissed her forehead. “It’s nice to think I’m of some use.”

  “For me too. A tit for a tat.”

  He hailed a horse cab and paid the driver to take her home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Allons! To Work!

  Under the maple tree, Auguste watched Angèle’s eyes flash with zest.

  “Close your eyes and open your hand,” she said.

  “But then I can’t see you.” Or Aline as soon as she was on the bridge, he thought, but he obeyed and Angèle dropped into his hand two three-franc écus, then a louis.

  “If this came from where I think it did, it won’t make me happy.”

  “Never no matter, that.” She dropped another louis.

  “I don’t like to think—”

  “Shush up. Give me a clean hand.” He clenched his fist and she forced it open and dropped the Napoléon III.

  He opened his eyes. “Angèle! No! I can’t accept this.” He tried to give it back but she put her arms behind her and backed up against a tree.

  “It’s my painting too.”

  He wasn’t so bourgeois yet that he couldn’t appreciate Angèle’s brand of lusty nobility. And she wasn’t so loose that she would do this for anyone else. She probably reveled in doing it for him.

  “Slice it however you like, it wasn’t earned the way you think. It was given fair and square at Jardin Mabille without having to use a hôtel de passe. Such a good sort, he was. So don’t take the shine off the apple. It’s good for a woman to know what she’s worth once in a while. It perks me right up to think I’m of some use.”

  He felt his resistance melt into gratitude. “You’ve given me something no one else could do.”

  “Pocket it quick. Antonio’s coming.”

  Antonio leapt down the steps from the footbridge. “Did you get a new model or is l’enfante terrible coming back?”

  Auguste grinned. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Aha! That means there’s someone new.”

  In a few minutes Pierre and Paul arrived. Pierre held up a bottle of anisette. “A peace offering,” he said.

  “No need, but we’ll enjoy it.”

  They sat on the lower terrace and drank the anisette until Charles and Jules came. Still no Aline. No Ellen, and without Ellen, he had no hope to see Émile again. When Gustave and Raoul arrived in their boats, Auguste sent everyone off for a sail. He paced the bank and crossed the bridge and came back to help out on the dock—something enjoyable to keep himself occupied. Couples and families rented yoles, young men rented triplettes, périssoires, or monotypes with one sail. Coucou, Lutin, Mouche, Sans Souci—one after another the boats went out, about twenty of them. Still no Aline.

  Père Fournaise brought the steam excursion launch out of the boat garage and sounded the whistle. He’d mounted a banner prow to stern: Fêtes Nautiques, le 5 septembre. Auguste helped the ladies and children board and Alphonse managed the lines. Fournaise rang out a tune as the launch pulled away.

  “You’re providing an important service here,” Auguste said.

  In the channel, two jousting barques with eight rowers each bore down on each other, the jousters standing on their platforms with lances in position. One jouster was sent flying into the water.

  “That’s Hugo who knocked him off,” Alphonse said. “We call him The Bull. He’ll be my strongest competitor.”

  Auguste squeezed Alphonse’s biceps. “Then what do they call you? The Elephant?”

  “Hippopotamus. My first name is really Hippolyte.”

  “I’ll put my money on you, so you’d better get out and practice, but not today. I need you for positioning the new model in front of you.”

  “Next week. I’ll practice next week.”

  “There are only two weeks left.”

  And still holes in his painting. Still the problem of the flying terrace and the thirteen figures. He rolled and lit a cigarette and took a few puffs.

  Alphonsine was chatting with the group under the arbor, the friends of the sailboat Le Palais. When their meal was served, she came over to him.

  “I felt sure she’d come,” he said.

  “Go upstairs. Paint something. I’ll watch.”

  “You don’t know what she looks like.” He snuffed out his cigarette.

  “Oh yes I do. I know a Renoir girl when I see one.”

  “You’re a Renoir girl, top to toe.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Aline Charigot. She may have a little dog with her.”

  Upstairs he rolled the easel out onto the terrace. He had repainted Alphonsine’s face and Alphonse’s hat during the week which made him feel a little better. Light. Ah, light. Pure radiance. It made the river lavender and pale ocher and aqua and white. It made the sailboats shimmer. It made the grassy hillock on the opposite bank glow a yellow-green. It softened the lines of the railroad bridge and made everything vibrate with life. With this brilliance of heaven come down to earth, how could he have thought to abandon this painting?

  The Nana and the Iris returned and everyone came upstairs.

  “Eek! What happened to my face?” Angèle said in mock horror. “And my hat! After all my bargaining at the Marché du Temple!”

  “You’ll get it back,” he said. “I need you to turn more toward Gustave.”

  “If I looked at him any closer, I might devour him.”

  “I’ll give you your eyes and mouth back today too. Don’t worry.”

  Louise came upstairs. “Shall I have Anne serve the entrée now? It’s terrine de caille with radishes.”

  He looked toward the bridge. “Can you wait awhile?”

  “If I wait too much longer, the dining room will fill and she’ll have to put you off and that will cut into your painting time.”

  “Just a little longer.”

  “The man doesn’t know what’s good for him,” Louise muttered to Alphonsine. “Paint the fruit today. It won’t last,” she said on the way down.

  “Another anisette all around?” Pierre said and began pouring.

  “Who is this girl we’re holding lunch for?” Paul asked. “Anyone I know?”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t want to talk about her in case she didn’t show up.

  “Maybe she’ll bring a man to be our fourteenth,” Pierre said.

  “You said she might bring a dog?” Alphonsine gestured subtly to a middle-aged woman all decked out in a mauve dress weighty with ruffles promenading with a bulldog on a leash. A child chased a duck right in the dog’s way and the dog let out a deep bark. The child screamed and ran off, but the duck just waddled on methodically down the bank and into the water.

  “No, Alphonsine, that’s not her.”

  Alphonsine giggled. “Lucky for us.”

  Another barking commotion erupted at the steps of the footbridge. The lady tried to hold back her bulldog and, on the end of a little terrier’s leash, Aline tugged and shouted, “Jacques Valentin Aristide, mind your manners.”

  The little dog kept up his ferocious yapping and lunging at the bulldog until the big dog backed away.

  Auguste leapt down the stairs and bumped into Anne. “You can serve the quail now,” he said as he ran outside.

  Four leaping steps took him to Aline. “You gave me a scare, you know.”

  “I’m sorry. Jacques has a shrill bark when he gets riled up.”

  “I meant when you didn’t come and didn’t come.”

  Color rose to her cheeks. “I’m sorry about that too. I would have come sooner if I’d known how to do buttonholes.”

  “You mean you…?” He watched her pirouette, showing the drape in back, pins everywhere. “The dress of a canotière through and through. You look like a picture, except for one thing. You rode third class, on the open-air deck. You’ve got specks of soot—”

  “Oh, no! After al
l my good washing.” She stamped her foot.

  He took out his handkerchief, dipped it in the river, and dabbed it on her cheeks and forehead. It reminded him of Alphonsine washing his face. No doubt she was watching this from the terrace.

  “There. All clean.”

  He turned toward the restaurant. Ten heads in a row inclined toward them like tenpins, watching. Twenty hands gripped the railing.

  Aline scooped up the dog in her arm and they went upstairs. Everyone was awkwardly silent, staring at her until Auguste, raising her hand, said, “Messieurs-dames, I present Aline Charigot, our new model and friend.”

  Everyone welcomed her at once. Jules pulled out a chair for her.

  “And our second new friend, Jacques…” Auguste added.

  “Jacques Valentin Aristide d’Essoyes sur l’Ource,” Aline announced.

  “A mighty big name,” Gustave said, “for a mighty small dog.”

  “But mighty is as mighty does,” Aline said.

  “A toast.” Charles held up his glass. “To Mademoiselle Aline. Savior of the painting.”

  Pierre refilled their glasses, and everyone chorused, “To Aline.” Aline’s peachy cheeks turned rosy.

  “Que le tableau vive!” Angèle shouted. “Vive le tableau!”

  “Vive le tableau!” everyone shouted, including Jacques, in his own way.

  “Vive nous,” Alphonsine added.

  Louise and Anne swept in with the quail terrine, and Aline said, “I’m so glad I got here on time.” She took a thick slice and began eating before everyone was served. “Excellent, madame.”

  Louise folded her hands across her ribs. “Ah!” she said and left.

  “You should have started this painting with her a month ago,” Paul said.

  “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  “Did you have to go to the country to find such a wholesome lady?” Raoul asked.

  Auguste and Aline looked at each other and laughed.

  “No, I only had to go twenty steps across the street from my studio.”

  “You have the distinct accent of a Burrrrgundian, lady,” Raoul said.

  “I come from Essoyes, just across the line in Champagne. My family owned a vineyard. Paris may be the jewel of France, but Champagne is the heart.”

  “Huée! Listen to her roll those r’s,” Gustave said.

  “Give me one week with her and I’ll have her speaking like a Parisian,” Angèle said.

  Auguste chortled. “You’ll have her speaking like you!”

  “Maybe I don’t want to speak like a Parisian,” Aline said. “Maybe I want to speak like myself.”

  Deftly she broke off a morsel and lowered it to the dog. Gustave noticed and smiled. Watching his friends welcome Aline, Auguste saw that there was a greater harmony than that of color. Now everyone was there for him.

  When Anne was about to clear the platters, Aline held up her fork with a “Tut tut,” and took another slice. “Tell Madame it was too good to pass up.”

  He exchanged delighted looks with Alphonsine, knowing this would puff up Louise.

  Evidently Louise wanted to get another look at Aline because she served the main dish herself, announcing, “Côtelettes d’agneau à la forestière,” and placing one platter right in front of Aline.

  “Oh, là là! With mushrooms, potato balls, and bacon,” Aline said. “It smells delicious, madame.”

  Louise flicked Auguste on the shoulder. “You can bring her here anytime.”

  “If you had come earlier, we would have been pleased to take you out for a sail,” Raoul said.

  “Oh, I wanted to, but my buttons and hems wanted sewing. As it is, I’m all itchy with pins,” she said and dropped a morsel of lamb in front of Jacques Valentin’s nose which he gobbled up before it reached the floor.

  “You mean to say that you made that dress by yourself?” Angèle said.

  “I know it’s plain, but Auguste told me I needed a dark blue dress and I didn’t have one.”

  “Child, you should have gone to the secondhand clothing stalls in the Marché du Temple near Les Halles. It’s the saving grace of the Jenny l’Ouvrière class. Why, most every thread that touches my lily-white skin is a reach-me-down from rue du Temple.”

  “You mean rue du Crime?”

  “The same,” Angèle said.

  “I thought it wasn’t safe.”

  “Oh, kitten, they only call it that because of the crime dramas in all the theaters along that street. Don’t let it scare you none. Bargaining with the marchands is an art. Some merchants think people are dumb enough to believe them when they say, ‘Would you look at this pink satin gown, now. It was worn at Versailles only a fortnight ago by the Duchesse de Poulemouillé.’ It’s a game. You oughtn’t to care, if it’s a right pretty frock.”

  The color went out of Aline’s face. “All this work and worry for nothing!” she wailed, collapsed a little, and let out an “Ouch!”

  “Your dress is lovely,” he said quickly, “and I greatly appreciate you making it. And suffering through pinpricks too.”

  “Don’t go at night,” Angèle went on. “Gaslight makes everything look better. You look at it the next day and it’s a rag. Let me take you so you don’t get lost in the maze. There are five alleys of frippery and another dozen of hats. You can’t reach for them yourself, though. You say to the marchande, all polite just like you were on rue Saint Honoré, ‘S’il vous plaît, madame, would you take that off the peg? Let’s have a squint at it.’ Most like it’ll set you back six francs, but Mesdames Pauline of boulevard des Capucines and Zulma of Millefleurs on the rue de la Paix won’t even hand you one for a try-on for less than thirty.”

  “Oh, I forgot about a hat!”

  “It goes like this,” Angèle said. “‘Here’s a sweet little duck of a white velvet toque for seven francs fifty,’ one marchande said. After my act of hemming and hawing, I slapped four in her hand and that’s what you see on my head this very minute.”

  “Does it make a difference that I don’t have a hat?” Aline asked Auguste.

  “You should have a canotier for the painting.” Auguste looked from Aline to Alphonsine.

  “I’ve got an extra one you can use,” Alphonsine said.

  “There. See? No need to worry,” he said.

  She tipped her head at him. “You look a far sight better than the last time I saw you.” She turned to Gustave across from her. “He looked roughed up awful on Tuesday morning.”

  “That reminds me. Angèle, you don’t happen to know a fellow by the name of Jimmy, do you?” Auguste asked.

  “You mean Jemmy? Jemmy and Picklock. Picklocking is their talent.”

  “So is mugging. I came into their acquaintance up at place du Tertre, and stumbled down the Butte with an empty wallet.”

  “I didn’t think they would sink so low. Wait till I see them. I’ll sic Aline’s pup on them to tear flesh from bone.”

  “Actually, you already saved me from a worse fate. They recognized me as your friend, and left me beaten in the gutter.”

  “Another sign that the painting lives,” Paul said triumphantly.

  It would be more likely to if he got to work. He barely lived through the meal, and then Alphonsine served wine-soaked cakes called galettes in the shape of pinwheels like the ones sold under the windmill in Montmartre. He knew why. To remind him of his success with Bal au Moulin de la Galette. To urge him on.

  “Merci, Alphonsine. You’re a true collaboratrice.” He hoped she knew that what he meant was, I love you for thinking of this.

  After the dessert Aline lifted Jacques Valentin onto the table and practically kissed him, which shocked Charles into a paroxysm of Russian epithets. Amusing to see Charles unable for once to control his surroundings.

  A delicious little being, this Aline. A sprite. He imagined taking those first luscious strokes that would put her in Circe’s place. He couldn’t stand it any longer. “Allons! To work!”

  When they assumed their po
ses, he watched her fluff up her skirt to show the poufs drawn across her hip. She winced when a pin pricked her. The drape was the only decorative detail on her dress, and the borrowed canotier was plainer than plain too. He adjusted her shoulder so that it was in line with Alphonse’s hand on the railing. It was the first time he touched her and it felt momentous, that little bone on the top of her shoulder under the fabric.

  He sketched in her shoulder, arm, and torso. Her cool blue dress showed well against the warm washes of pink, lavender, and pale ocher of Alphonse’s singlet, and her turned-up nose was well defined in profile against his belly. His brush flew from palette to canvas by instinct, from Aline’s face to Angèle’s and back to Aline’s, from her dress to Alphonsine’s skirt to Charles’s coat and back to her.

  There was only one thing wrong. The dog kept distracting her so she couldn’t keep still. Trying to catch her when she resumed the pose after each interruption was as irritating as trying to catch Circe. Was there some jinx on the chair?

  When a crowd of people came back on the launch, carousing on the lower terrace, the dog went into a fit of barking and Aline had to hold him in her lap to quiet him. When that didn’t work she stood him on the table cooing to him until he calmed down. It was an endearing pose and would make an appealing genre painting in and of itself, even if a tad sentimental.

  He had sworn after painting Madame Charpentier with one of her children sitting on their snoring hound that he’d never paint another dog. Confound it. That just might be the solution.

  “Can you hold him like that on his hind legs?”

  “Depends. Will he get a model’s fee?”

  “I think he’s already eaten it,” Gustave said.

  “I’ll try. What if he piddles? It would be a shame, such a nice cloth.”

  “Just watch him.” He had a thought that amused him. “Figures, still life, landscape, and an animal! Zola, eat your hat!” he bellowed.

  He liked the way the tips of her fingers were buried under his fur to hold his wiggling body, like fingers thrust into a man’s hair. And her interaction with the dog gave Gustave something to adore. The composition was working better now, with sight lines connecting people. He painted in a fever of excitement until he realized he was holding his breath. He put down his brush and palette and gazed at her. He caught Alphonsine looking at him instead of at Raoul.