by Tessa Lunney
“No trapeze?” asked Tom to a passing waiter-clown.
“I believe the tree’s branches are in the way, monsieur, and cannot be cut down,” said the clown with his poker face.
But we were here to work. In this caravanserai I had to find the two English princes with their fascist cousin and somehow charm them into leaving the party with me. In a café that would be easy; riding an elephant above an acrobat with a cocktail in my hand might take a bit more skill. I also needed abundant photos and pithy quotes for a double-page write-up in the Star; if I didn’t do that, then even Prince Felix the Bearded Lady might work out that I wasn’t just a gossip writer. I grabbed two fruity pink concoctions from the bar and presented one to Felix.
“They just called this fruit punch, Felix, but I think we can come up with a better name.”
“Pink!” He sipped. “And tart. How about Young Love?”
Bertie sipped my drink. “Soho Sweetheart?”
“Whore’s Secret?” I ventured. Felix clapped his hands in delight.
“No, Kiki, it needs to be something that tastes of tonight,” said Bertie.
“Then it has to be the Bearded Lady,” I said.
“I taste like tonight,” said Felix. “Yes, please.” He kept one hand on Bertie’s arm, only moving it to stroke the snake puppet at his hip.
“Speaking of tonight, are your German cousins here?”
“Charlie and Phi? Oh… they’re coming. They’re a bit straight for this sort of thing, you know, a bit… Prussian.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Nikita is bringing them—Prince Nikita Alexandrovich, the youngest of Irène’s brothers. Irène, darling!”
The lady side of his wife turned toward us.
“Is Nikita here yet?”
“Not yet! What are you drinking?”
Irène promised to introduce me to her brother and his guests when they arrived. Both the English princes loved a party but were notoriously unpunctual. Irène assured me I probably had hours until they showed up.
I moved through the party sometimes with Bertie and sometimes with Tom as my cameraman. I kept losing and finding and losing people in the ever-growing throng. People lounged on giant silky cushions and smoked enormous hookahs. A dance competition started up, couples locked in an embrace. The Marchesa Casati was both an aristocrat and an artist, so the place was not only full of princes and duchesses, but also of painters, sculptors, writers, Dadaists, anarchists, and assorted avant-garde.
“They tell me you’re Cordelia King’s daughter,” said a dark woman in a tattered red satin gown from the Belle Epoque era. She looked me up and down. “I can see the resemblance.”
“So can I,” said her spangled companion. “Juan Gris, painter.”
I shook his hand. “You painted my mother?”
“No, I never did.”
“But we saw her often,” said the woman. “At the cafés, the clubs… everyone pointed her out. Just as they point you out.”
“She is here. In your… your expression.”
“Yes, in the eyes.”
“No, Charlotte, nothing so bourgeois. It’s the air of this woman, it’s just Cordelia. Vivid and brilliant.”
“Remember that time she danced at the Lapin Agile?”
“Those high kicks!” Juan smiled.
“My mother danced… on stage?” I couldn’t believe it.
“Only the once, that I saw,” said Charlotte.
“It was for… Kisling?” Juan turned to Charlotte.
“No, it was for Amadeo.”
“Yes, that’s right, she was always helping Modigliani.”
“He always needed help, that’s why.”
“A franc for every kick. After her performance, he ate like a king.”
“If only he’d used it for medicine.” Charlotte scoffed.
Tom took a couple of pictures of the scruffy pair before a high tumble from the acrobat stole their attention.
I moved over to where Bertie was chatting to a tall, thin, grizzled man dressed as a peacock. His suit was black and blue with painted feathers. From his back stood a big fan of peacock tail feathers attached to his elbows on strings so that the fan moved with him. Standing next to Bertie, it looked like the two animals were trying to hypnotize each other.
“Kiki darling, Rupert Peacock here—”
“Bunny.”
“No, it’s Bertie.”
“Bertie, I know—no, I’m Bunny. Rupert Bunny.” He shook my hand. “I’m Rupert Bunny. I’m a painter, that’s how I fit into this circus.”
“I think I prefer Rupert Peacock.” Bertie jiggled his snake puppet.
“So do I.”
They were definitely trying to hypnotize each other.
“Rupert says he knew your mother.”
“I’m so sorry we’re saying ‘knew’ and not ‘know.’ Until a few minutes ago I would have said I know your mother. Such a beautiful woman.”
“Everyone says she was beautiful… is that because you’re all artists and that’s all you care about?” I tried to sound sweet but the words soured on my tongue.
“Kiki…” Bertie put his hand on my arm.
“Everyone comments on her beauty, sometimes her charm, but never her wit, her politics, and I can’t find out that she did any kind of work at all.”
“I didn’t think her kind of woman did any work,” said Rupert.
“What kind of woman is that?”
“Wealthy bohemian muses.”
“Is that all she was?”
“Clearly not, if you’re here. But that’s the role she played whenever I saw her. She played it superbly. I never saw one tantrum, one sulk, one moment when she demanded more.”
“I’m clearly not my mother’s daughter, then.”
“None of your generation are. Not that I’m especially sorry about it. I’m always more in favor of good work than good posing. But there was a particular moment, at the end of last century, when women were free enough to come to our studios and sing and dance and debate and love freely, but they hadn’t yet picked up their pencils en masse. And there was Cordelia King, the uncrowned queen.”
The elephant trumpeted and a cheer rose into the bunting. Rupert’s face was tinged green and blue with the lights from the lanterns. My mother felt both very close and very far away.
“I heard she did pick up her pencil, just a little bit.”
“If she did, she did so very quietly. But I got the sense that she treated her profession as muse seriously, you know… professionally.”
“Did you know her long?”
“Oh God yes. She was only about eighteen or so when I first met her. I was living here, in Paris, when she walked into the Café Royal in London and picked up her first sitting. I don’t remember who discovered her… but she was one of John’s first models.”
“John?”
“Augustus John. By the time I met her, it was as though she’d been born to that milieu. She was sweet but not cloying, she was patient but not passive, she could listen for hours and ask intelligent questions, she loved to drink champagne and dance until dawn, but knew when to leave one alone.”
“She doesn’t sound real.”
“When an artist dreams of the perfect model, they dream of Cordelia King. In that sense, she wasn’t real, she was the embodiment of a dream. Even when she became Cordelia Button and disappeared for months at a time, always returning a little heavier, she was still perfectly in tune with what you needed. That was her genius, really—to intuit what you wanted and provide it without fuss or fanfare. Have you had everyone tell you how much they loved her, how much they miss her, all the rest?”
“Not even one snarky sneer.” Bertie took the camera from my slack hands and turned away to the spangled women and jugglers that swirled around us.
“I can believe it. The only people who didn’t like her were jealous models, and once she married, their jealousy evaporated. She should have stayed in Europe, though. I have no idea why she went off to Australia
.”
“No one does.”
“It wasn’t the right place for her—and I would know, I grew up in Melbourne. What on earth was she thinking?”
“You don’t have any idea?”
“I had some idea that it was due to a failed love affair and some family business, complicated Victorian-morality nonsense that seems so foreign now, after that bloody war. But still… if London was too claustrophobic, she should have just come to Paris. It’s amazing how much space the Channel provides. She knew that.” He shrugged. “Still, she was here almost every year. For us Parisians, it was as though she lived in London. For the Londoners, it was as though she lived in Paris. She was the only person who could make Australia seem not that far away.”
“Who was the failed love affair with?”
He shook his head. “She was never one to boast—about anything, let alone a lover. But I always suspected that it had some link to Australia. Otherwise, why flee down under? There were plenty of Americans about, even some Canadians, there was no need for her to go to the other side of the world.”
“Unless she was proving a point.”
“Quite, though it wasn’t like her to be spiteful like that. She was… determined, though, in a very feminine, subtle kind of way. She stuck by her beliefs.”
“Which were?”
“People first. Art above all.” I must have looked bewildered, as he put his hand on my shoulder with much tenderness, his feathers stroking my arm. “We never really know those closest to us. Especially not our parents. When they go… it can only ever be tragic.”
Finally, I met the Marchesa, the hostess, Luisa Casati. She was tall and thin, with a sudden savage laugh that scared the parrots off their perches. Her huge round green eyes overwhelmed her pale face. Her hair was a mass of writhing green snakes, made from some kind of rubber, and she wore a shimmering skin of green.
“Marchesa.” I bobbed a curtsy.
“Ah yes, Cordelia’s daughter.” She took my hand and looked me up and down. “I’ve been hearing of you all night, and the news of your lovely mother too.”
I had wanted to interview her for the Star, but all I could do was stare.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To ask about her?” A chorus of gold bangles tinkled down her arms as she spoke.
“No, actually, I’m a society reporter, I’m here to…”
“I knew her, of course.” The Marchesa took two green drinks from a passing waiter and passed one to me. “Not well, you understand, but our circles overlapped. They were all in love with her.”
“Who were?”
“That group who went down to Belle Île all the time. Monet, Matisse, Rodin, all of them. They couldn’t stop moaning when she married. Are you your father’s daughter?”
“Yes…”
“Hmph.” She looked at me skeptically and sipped her drink. “I heard otherwise but I could be wrong. I also heard that she married for love, only it wasn’t the love of Signor Button. She was such an open, genuine person. That marriage was perhaps her only false action.”
She reached over and took my drink from me; I hadn’t touched a drop. I had to remind myself to close my mouth as we stared at each other. Her look was appraising, even amused, and mine could only have been dumbfounded. I could not imagine my mother next to this fierce woman, so vibrant and costumed, with snakes in her hair, on her bangles, painted on her dress… one of the snakes in her hair caught my eye as it seemed to be moving. It was moving—it was a live python. She saw me watch it and flung forth her harsh laugh, picking up the bright green snake and crooning to it. Tom was next to me, taking photos and asking all the right questions, leaving me to smoke and pick up the pieces of my wits.
44
“say it while dancing”
This party was proving to be much more work than I’d anticipated, and as I was completing a mission for Fox, I had anticipated violence. The festivities lent a Dadaist, almost nightmarish edge to these revelations about my mother. I caught sight of a tattooed Theo and my first impulse was to run up to him, but he kissed Princess Irina’s hand and I drew back. I could see Bertie introducing Rupert to Felix, but Tom, despite his height, had disappeared into the crowd. It didn’t matter anyway, as Theo had seen me.
“Golden one.” He bent low and kissed my hand.
“So… is your mother a good matchmaker or is that fortune-teller just another royal bore?”
“A royal chore… but not a bore and not unpleasant.” He shrugged. “It’s duty.”
“I thought I would be the only one on duty tonight.”
“And your photographers.” He kissed my hand again and didn’t let it go. “Darling Kiki, we both knew that duty would call us soon.”
“Yes, but…”
“Your British photographer and Australian strongman only confirm that ‘soon’ is now.” He smiled sadly. “I’ll miss you too.”
“Will you still be around Montparnasse? Because I couldn’t do without you completely.”
“Nor I you. I’m not sure you’d like Irina, she’s too… sweet.”
“So I’m your bit of tart?” I grinned. “As long as I don’t have to be sour or bitter, I’m happy to oblige. Salty is just to my taste.”
“Button.” Tom appeared beside me, a little flushed, a little rushed, a little square around the shoulders as he squared up to Theo. “Are they here yet? The princes.”
“Only this prince.” I switched to French. “Did I introduce Tom earlier tonight?”
“Only to say hello.” Theo spoke in English. “I had an English nanny.”
“I had a French mistress,” said Tom.
“So did we all,” I said and they both laughed. Please, I thought, let them keep laughing. “But Theo, are your English relations here yet?”
“Irène always knows what everyone is doing.”
He looked around and spotted her over by the band. He grabbed my hand and I grabbed Tom’s and together we snaked through the crowd. Irène was dancing with her other half, her brother Dmitry, but very happily let Theo cut in, so that all three were dancing together in a kind of hoppy jig.
“Does he really drive a taxi?” Tom asked.
“How else could we have met?”
“My imagination runs rampant.” A fleet of acrobats ran across our path. A bear danced with a lion and a swan sipped two cocktails at once.
“Felix knows Hausmann, Tom. That’s why we’re here.”
“Hell. Button, last time with Hausmann I ended up bloody and bruised. Is this going to be the same?”
He was watching the Romanov siblings laugh as they danced, but exchanged a quick look with me, clear-eyed and open. It was unmistakable: yes, I’ll go anywhere with you too, Tom, at any time. The party-goers cheered but I wasn’t paying attention.
When I turned back to the Romanovs, I could see Felix and Bertie had joined them, Felix handing out kisses with abandon. Theo waved us over.
“He’s over by the elephant!”
“Who is?”
“Our brother Rostislav,” said Irène. “He’s the escort for the European cousins.”
“I won’t join you,” said Felix. “Charlie’s like a splash of cold water and Phillip like cold porridge, when tonight is for warm brandy and petit fours. Besides, Bertie promised me a dance.”
Bertie winked at me and took Felix in a tango hold. I saw Tom go hunting for the camera, to be my photographer, as Irène took my arm.
“Have you met Slava?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s a sweet boy. Mama is hoping he might get along well with Natalia Paley. Slava!” She waved her suited arm and a slender body in a tuxedo bounded over. His entire face was covered in hair so that all I could see were his eyes and lips.
“Oh, Slava, it’s even worse than I imagined! I can’t see your face at all!”
“Here.” He lifted his beard to reveal a sweet smile of white teeth, and kissed his sister’s cheek. “But it’s good, isn’t it? I look like a real wolf!�
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“It’s marvelous,” I said.
“This is Mademoiselle Kiki Button, society reporter,” said Irène as Rostislav held out his hand. “She is one of Theo’s Montparnasse friends.”
“I keep asking him to take me to the Café Rotonde and introduce me to everyone but he won’t. He says he’s too busy.”
“I’d be happy to oblige,” I said to his hungry look. “I know most of the bohemian layabouts there. But in return, I need you to do something for me.”
Irène raised her eyebrows but Rostislav bowed.
“Did you accompany some of your German and English relatives here tonight?”
“Oh God yes. The English are great guns, but the Germans!” He rolled his eyes. “They laugh in shock at the most ordinary things—a lady’s knee, a rude parrot. It took them ten minutes to calm down after seeing me, and then they couldn’t shut up about it the whole trip! They clearly haven’t been to Berlin recently.”
“And when have you?” asked Irène in a big-sisterly tone. Rostislav grinned.
“With Felix, silly Rina!” He pretended to growl when she put her suited arm into a boxing stance. “You had better say hello too, Rina, or Charlie will be offended.”
“Oh, is he like that?” I asked.
“Yes, only more so.”
Rostislav moved us through the party to the throng under the tightrope. Even I recognized the Germans from behind, both standing far too straight in the midst of such louche gaiety. They wore the most paltry costumes—Charlie wore only a carnation in his buttonhole, like it was 1890s London, and Phillip had an old-fashioned Venetian mask tied to his head with a black ribbon. They greeted us with much laughing and leering.
“A moustache, Princess Irène! How extraordinary!”
“How did you get half a suit onto half a dress?”
“And where is the other half?”
“Oh yes, the other half!”
“Mademoiselle Button, your outfit leaves almost nothing to the imagination!”
“I expect you up there on the tightrope any minute!”
And more of this sort of anemic wit. Irène, I could see, was bored by it, her voice even more languid than usual. Tom came up with the camera and the Germans allowed him to take their photo. Rostislav was almost hopping up and down with impatience at this polite chit-chat. I smiled at Rostislav, to invite him to speak.
