Luncheon of the Boating Party

by Susan Vreeland

  But no. He danced only with Aline. Alphonsine stood there with hope, angry with herself for having that hope. Despite feeling so dispensable, she wanted him to come to her. She waited through a gavotte, but when people started a chahut, she stepped onto the launch to go back. At that moment frivolity didn’t suit her mood. As Titi ferried her back she watched each dancer imitating an animal. Kangaroos, gazelles, horses, cats all moved in a frenzy under the colored lanterns.

  She found Maman sitting at a table on the lower terrace, and gave her a kiss on her temple. “This must be the first time you’ve sat down all day.”

  “Alphonse was magnificent,” Maman said in a dreamy way. “Why aren’t you dancing?”

  “Oh, I was.”

  “Then go back.”

  “I’d rather watch from above.”

  “You’ve given up, then?”

  “Maman, I would marry him if he asked. I would forget being a widow faithful to my husband’s memory. I would even live with him without marriage. But I won’t stand on that barge another minute.”

  Maman’s hand grabbed hers. She squeezed it, and went upstairs. There was only one winner in a joust.

  A few people remained at the tables quietly enjoying the evening. She stood where the terrace railing wrapped around the building away from the customers. Lights on the dance barge vibrated when the orchestra played a polka. Their colored reflections in the water shook in time to the pounding feet. In between each dance, the music of crickets, the water like black satin, the lights on small boats winking like fireflies, the stars, no moon. Somewhere in the winking night, all the models danced. Darkness enveloped them as light had done when Auguste painted them, and she among them. Who would be hurt if she just went on loving him?

  Fireworks shot up, illuminating the sky like stars that couldn’t contain themselves, and rained down on the water in shards of light.

  Gustave came upstairs and stood beside her. “You have the right idea. This is the best place to see the fireworks.”

  Oil lamps lit up couples gliding in yoles. Others without lights slid along in secret until a burst of sparkles gave them momentary form and life.

  “Did you enjoy the day?” he asked.

  Yes and no.

  “I always do on the day of the Fêtes. This year especially.”

  The no had to do with waiting on the barge. Not even one measly dance. Everything else was a yes.

  “You were a fine race official.”

  “I liked doing it.”

  After watching the last of the fireworks spring wide in a fan of glowing sparks, Gustave said, “The river has something here it doesn’t have for me in Paris.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Peace.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  À l’Atelier

  Aline forked three green beans into her mouth.

  “Delicious, Camille. Aren’t they good, Maman? They taste like home.”

  “Oui.” Her mother made it sound like it cost her something to agree.

  “Straight from the Aube,” Camille said, “grown the Burgundian way, like vines in stony soil. Every so often I can get them at Les Halles.”

  “And cooked with bacon too,” Aline said.

  Maman didn’t respond. Ever since she hurt her by saying that it wasn’t just painters who abandon women, but men with vineyards too, her mother refused to talk about home. She felt awful about it, but kept trying.

  “Well, now, look who’s here,” Camille said, putting her hands on her hips and looking out the window of the crémerie.

  Auguste! And Maman right here. She swallowed without chewing. He walked in and pulled up a chair to their small table without waiting to be invited. Maman stiffened, set down her fork, and gave her a warning look.

  “What are you doing in Paris? The painting isn’t finished,” Aline said.

  “I came to give you your modeling fee. You left without it Saturday.” He laid two five-franc pieces next to her plate. “And I came to invite you to see my studio. It’s just across the street. I have some paintings there I’d like to show you.”

  She glanced at her mother’s icy look of command. “This is my mother, Madame Mélanie Charigot.”

  “Enchanté, madame,” he said, taking off his boater.

  Why did he have to do that? Now Maman would think he looked old enough to be her father.

  “And you, madame. I would be honored if you would come to have a look.”

  “A painter’s studio? Never. And neither will my daughter.”

  “I will, Maman. Monsieur Renoir might want me to pose again. I daren’t lose the chance.”

  “No, Aline. We will not be going.”

  She had been waiting for just the right moment. She reached in her drawstring bag. “Hold out your hand, Maman.”

  Maman gave her a look of suspicious annoyance.

  “Do it, Mélanie,” Camille said.

  Maman didn’t move. Aline took her wrist and turned her hand palm up, and put something small in it. Her mother stared down at the newspaper wrapping. Since Maman wasn’t going to unwrap it, she tugged the edge of the paper herself. A thimble rolled out onto Maman’s palm. “Silver. You always say your brass one turns your finger green. I bought it on rue du Temple. Put it on.”

  “You shouldn’t be spending money frivolously.”

  “Why, that’s a proper thing for a daughter to do,” Camille said.

  Aline put it on her mother’s middle finger. “There. It fits good and tight.”

  She finished her meal, and said, “I am going to Monsieur’s studio.” She picked up Auguste’s two five-franc coins and set down two one-franc coins of her own so that they made two clicks, for her mother’s meal as well as hers. “It would be nice if you came too.”

  She felt Maman’s hand squeeze her knee under the table. She gave her a moment, stood, and walked out the door on wobbly legs, leaving Auguste to make amends. Stepping off the curb and crossing the street, she felt as though she were crossing to a different land.

  Auguste caught up with her. “Well played,” he said and walked up to the concierge’s wicket. “Bonsoir, monsieur. S’il vous plaît, my mail?”

  The man looked her over like he was peeling an onion and she felt cheap.

  “The higher in the building, the less respect from the concierge. Take a deep breath. I’m on the sixth floor. That’s how they designed these apartments. Painters’ studios on the top, with large windows for light.”

  He paused at the third-floor landing and ripped open an envelope. “Aha. Finally.” He snapped a banknote against his palm. “From a friend named Deudon. For the painting.”

  “He’s buying it?”

  “No. For the painting’s expenses.”

  The higher she climbed, the more anxious she felt. She’d been cruel again to Maman. She hadn’t meant to be. Maman’s fear for her was like a tendril on a vine. If she let it grow, it would strangle her.

  He opened his door. She stopped in the hallway. Maman’s warnings about painters blared in her mind. This was a mighty big difference from being with him at the river where there were other people around and she could scream if she needed to. All the confidence she had felt at the river left her.

  He chuckled in an understanding way. “Come in. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I promise.”

  How many times had he said that to women he lured up here? Stepping across the threshold might mark another cleft in her life.

  “I can’t. I shouldn’t have come. Jacques hasn’t been out all day.”

  “Your sweet mother can tend to Jacques Valentin Aristide d’Essoyes sur l’Ource.”

  Hearing him say the whole name softened her. From the doorway she looked into a large dark room empty in the middle. An easel to hold paintings. She knew the name now. Two sunken armchairs and two cane chairs against a wall. A table. A low divan. She drew back. That must be where he made them lie, his naked women. She grasped the doorframe. Vaguely, as if from a distance, she he
ard him say something. He put his arm around her waist and eased her inside and shut the door. It closed with a click. Maybe it locked. She was trapped.

  He raised the shades of a whole wall of windows. The room became filled with light, much lighter than any apartment she had ever been in. Now she could see paintings hanging without frames and leaning in stacks against the walls. Some were pictures of the country and the river, but more were of beautiful women in elegant dresses that even Madame Carnot would be proud to have made. How could he want her?

  He turned the paintings outward, leaned them against the furniture, and laid some on the floor. He moved about like a grasshopper, springing from one to the other. She couldn’t make her feet move, couldn’t say a word out loud.

  But to herself, she said, Mon Dieu. My life has just begun.

  Another cleft. She wanted it at the same time that she was afraid of it. Modeling was a good bit better than being a seamstress. If Maman kept to barking about her running with a painter, she wouldn’t turn over one franc of the money she earned, but she’d be sure to tell her the amount.

  “You don’t have much furniture for so big a room.”

  “I only want what is strictly necessary. Light is necessary. Furniture is not.”

  She saw a painting of the Flower Pot island with people on the plank bridge, near where they had lain on the grass. The easy feeling she had then came back. He had listened to her tell about Papa and the vineyard, and then he had to go and make her nervous by crawling his fingers over her ankle.

  “The floor won’t cave in if you step on it. See?” He hopped from one foot to another in a funny way. “Come. Have a look.”

  Slowly, she circled the room and stopped at each painting. The women were so chic. She saw one of a woman sewing. She could pose for one like that.

  “Who is this?”

  “Nina Lopez. She didn’t have a father either.”

  “I have a father. There’s a difference.” Her annoyance carried over to how she asked about a model in a blue dress in the next painting.

  “Henriette Henriot, an actress I knew a long time ago.”

  “What about this one in a rowboat?”

  “Lise. I painted that near Chatou.”

  “Why didn’t you ask her when you needed someone in your painting?”

  “I don’t know where she is.”

  Abandoned. She saw again her mother’s arm flung backward. All these women, one after another, abandoned. He had used them up. He may even have left some with children.

  There was one of Alphonsine with her shift off her shoulder. That made her nervous. Did she really want to be his model with her shift off her shoulder? She couldn’t remake herself. She wanted to be something to him, but she would never be more than second to his love for painting. She would never have all of him. He couldn’t keep painting her the rest of his life.

  She saw a painting of him folded up with his feet on the chair. “This is my favorite. Because it’s of you,” she said.

  He stepped behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. “A good friend painted that. Frédéric Bazille.”

  “Once you were walking right down the middle of rue Saint-Georges with two men, and you were all carrying paint boxes. All of you wore your hair long, which caused a stir in Camille’s crémerie, where Géraldine and I were watching out the window. We pretended to place bets on which of you would be famous. ‘The middle one,’ I said. ‘He has a serious look.’ That was you. Maybe the man who painted this was one of the others.”

  “How long ago did you come here?”

  “Five years ago. When I was fourteen.”

  “Then it wasn’t him. He died in the war.”

  “Oh.”

  She circled the room a second time. “Did you love these ladies?”

  “I love all the women I paint, in some measure.”

  That wasn’t what she meant. She stopped at one of a man and a lady cozy together reading a book. That cut her out. This same lady was trying on a hat in another painting. “Who is she?”

  One of his eyebrows curved. “Margot Legrand.”

  She took a risk. “Did you love her?”

  She waited, frozen, until he answered.

  “Yes.”

  There it was. The truth of Maman’s fears. Every painting of a woman in this room made every minute she stayed here more dangerous. She darted to the door.

  “Wait! Stop!” He took hold of her shoulders. “Fifteen minutes. That’s all I ask. Please, stay.” He took her hand and led her toward the divan. “Sit.”

  She felt her knees bend.

  “Your mother has a powerful hold on you,” he said.

  She traced the stitching on the upholstery with her fingernail.

  “Is she a seamstress too?”

  “Yes.”

  “So is mine. You can tell her that. She’s as strong as steel, just like yours, but soft as swansdown inside. And my father was a tailor.”

  “But you’re not. Did you ever want to be anything other than an artist?”

  “Don’t call me that. I’m a workman of painting. It’s a trade, something humble. Artists think of themselves as intellectuals. They follow rules of schools. I trust my hands and eyes more than my mind.”

  “But did you always want that?”

  “For a while I thought about being a singer. I used to sing in a choir at church and the choir director thought I should study opera. He became a famous composer. I love his Ave Maria. You can tell your mother that too.”

  “Sing me something.”

  He blushed in such a sweet way. He looked like he was trying to think of the perfect song.

  “Some other time.”

  “But you didn’t want that? To sing for a living?”

  “My parents thought painting china would be more steady. They were from Limoges, the porcelain-making city, so they were more comfortable with that.”

  She looked again at the paintings. “Didn’t you ever study how to do this?”

  “Oh, yes, at the École des Beaux-Arts, like everyone else. I was always the last one to leave the studio so I could pick up discarded tubes of paint in the hope to squeeze out a dab. You can tell your mother how thrifty I was.”

  “She would only think you were poor.”

  “A group of us left because we wanted to find a new way, and new subjects.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes, but the group is splitting up. There’s a lot of turmoil about art in Paris these days. Gustave is in despair over the arguments.”

  “Are you?”

  “They’re hurtful.” He stared at the paint-spotted floor. “Sometimes I don’t know who I am as a painter. I don’t know whether I should paint what I want to or paint to make a living.”

  “Can’t you do both?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  That shut her out. Another way of saying she was too simpleminded to understand.

  “I’m like a cork in the river, bobbing every which way, not knowing what I’m looking for.”

  She pictured what her mother would say: I forbid you to tie yourself to a painter without a sou to his name, a confused one at that.

  “Just paint. Whatever way you want to. You make it too hard with all that thinking.”

  “At what point is a painter ready to free himself from influences? I need to go away somewhere to think hard. Maybe after this big painting.”

  “Papa was made that way, not content to live out his life in one spot. And look, he abandoned us.”

  “This is traveling for a purpose. I need to see the Titians in Venice, the Raphaels in Rome, and to discover the sources of Delacroix’s colors in Algeria. That’s the way it has to be.”

  “So paint.” She flung out her arm. “Go to Italy. Go to Algeria. America. Wherever. I don’t care.”

  It came out harshly, and he looked stunned. Of course she did care. She saw that he had to paint to live. He had to paint to breathe. He was made to paint just as grapevi
nes were made to produce wine, and if this traveling was part of being a painter, she had to let him be him. That was something her mother never learned about her father. She would rather have Auguste go away now, before anything happened. If he came back, he might be more likely to stay. She didn’t want an unhappy man pining for another place.

  “If you come back, you might want to paint in Essoyes. Mother still owns the farmhouse. It would be a nice place for you to paint. You can paint whatever you want there. The quiet is so lovely. The peace. You won’t be bothered by painters’ arguments. Just paint what you see. The trees, and the rows of grapevines climbing over the hills. Streams. Waterwheels. Wild violets and lilies of the valley.”

  If she could get him to come to the Aube, then she’d be there if Papa ever came home. Otherwise, Papa might never find them.

  “The Seine isn’t the only river,” she said. “The Aube is twice as wide and of a green so whitish and shimmery you would swear it was lit from below.”

  “You knew that would intrigue me.”

  He rubbed the side of his nose. “To be so isolated, one has to be strong.”

  “You are strong.”

  “I wouldn’t be able to do without Paris. I’d feel cut off from my friends, the cafés, the entertainments, the boulevards, the galleries. The Louvre. The pulse of city life. Our movement.”

  “You won’t have the pulse of city life in some African desert.”

  “But I’m coming back.”

  That’s what she wanted to hear. She studied his face and couldn’t find in it any hint of deception.

  “Write me a letter, and I’ll be at the station.”

  What had she said? She would have to learn to read it! She watched his eyes moving slowly to every part of her face.

  “Kissing you in the water was lovely,” he said.

  “So was swimming.”

  “We can do that again.” His eyes and his voice were so serious.

  “I’d like that.”

  Even if she only had a part of him once in a while, it would be better than nothing. She had to give in order to receive. That was true, city or country.

  He pulled away. “I promised your mother you would be home in an hour.”