The Age of Light

by Whitney Scharer

  “I haven’t.” The drink is already gone and Lee is finding this man too intense. She looks over at Man and when she catches his eye she makes a subtle help expression and flicks her eyes in Cocteau’s direction. Man realizes what is happening, stands up, and comes around the table to her.

  “Jean!” he says. Lee feels a rush of pleasure at having him come to her rescue.

  “Hmm—mm—mm,” Cocteau hums through closed lips. He doesn’t even look up at Man.

  “Jean,” Man says again. “It’s been a long time. I don’t think I’ve seen you since our last session.”

  “Mm,” Jean hums again, and it is clear that he is humming a little tune, as a child might do. Lee feels deeply uncomfortable and wonders if she can move to a different table.

  Just then everyone starts applauding. They turn their chairs to face the stage.

  Kiki appears through a side door and walks primly up to the stage, moving exaggeratedly in what is almost a waddle. She sets one foot on the stair and then pulls it away, laughing. The room is silent. She sets her foot back on the stair and sticks out her arms as if she is walking a tightrope, then slowly and carefully steps up. The stage is empty except for a café chair, which she turns away from the crowd and straddles. Her dress is short, and even from the back of the room Lee can see her knickers. Kiki laughs again and everyone laughs with her, including Lee, though she isn’t sure why she is laughing. From a small bag sitting next to the chair Kiki takes a mirror and some makeup, and proceeds to do her face. It is fascinating to watch her. She picks a red lipstick and traces her lips, then presses them together to blot them. She takes a bright blue eyebrow pencil and draws two arches above her eyes, almost an inch above where she has shaved off her real eyebrows, then gazes out at the crowd with her mouth in a surprised O. Her eyelids she paints green, the apples of her cheeks get coated with vivid pink circles, and then she slowly and painstakingly puts all the makeup and the mirror back in the bag and sets it on the floor.

  Throughout all this, which takes about five full minutes, Lee keeps glancing at Man, who rolls a cigarette and presses it to his lips, taking short full drags and keeping the cigarette only inches from his face as he exhales. Behind Lee, Jean directs his complete attention to the stage.

  The piano starts, and Kiki leans forward into the curved wooden frame of the chair so that her breasts are pinned against it and her legs are spread even wider than they were before.

  There is no longer any doubt in Lee’s mind: Kiki is ferociously ugly. Her nose is wide and flat; her mouth, even with all the lipstick, is too small; her hair is pulled back so severely Lee can see the skin of her forehead stretching; and the view up her skirt reveals thighs rippled with fat. And yet when Kiki opens her mouth to sing, Lee begins to understand her appeal. Kiki’s voice is high-pitched but gravelly, as if she has just woken up from a too-long nap, and the sound of it makes Lee think of the bedroom. It is almost as if Kiki’s ugliness makes her more sensual. The song she is singing is as louche as her appearance. It is some sort of French limerick about a boy in school and a circle of desks and a mean old teacher with a whip. Kiki performs so well that Lee doesn’t even need to follow all the words. When Kiki says the word whip, she shoots up one of her sky-high eyebrows, which curls on her forehead before snapping back into place. She sings a song called “La Connasse” and grabs at the rolls of fat on her belly before reaching down provocatively between her legs. She commands the room with these gestures, and when she lowers her singing voice to a whisper, the room goes silent to hear her.

  After a dozen songs, Kiki announces that she will sing one more and then be done. Moans go through the crowd. She shakes her finger in the air, non non non, and tells everyone not to be sad. Then, coming to the lip of the stage, she looks pointedly in Man’s direction and says in French, “This is a song for the great Man Ray, who is here with us tonight and gave me many years of happiness.” And she smiles sweetly while everyone claps and turns to look at him, raising their glasses to the lover of Kiki, the lover of Montparnasse.

  Lee thinks she adores Kiki for a minute then. She looks so sweet, standing in the bright light on the platform, and Lee is glad Kiki found happiness with Man. Perhaps Lee will be able to as well, real happiness that lasts for years and years. It pleases her to hear Kiki praise him, pleases her more to see all the people in the bar toast him while he sits there looking neither embarrassed nor self-congratulatory. He has a small smile on his face and relaxes in his seat as if this scene is nothing out of the ordinary. And perhaps it isn’t; maybe this happened to him all the time when he was with Kiki.

  Kiki begins to sing again. At first it seems fine—cats in the moonlight or something along those lines. As the song continues, though, Lee sees Man stiffen and cross his arms and look over at her worriedly. Lee smiles at him to show she is having a fine time. Man gets up and walks over to the bar, where he orders a drink and stands smoking and staring at the stage.

  “One for you Two for you There is only me and you,” Kiki sings, and, leaning forward, begins to undo the buttons on her blouse. There are many buttons, and some ribbons as well, but soon enough she has it open to her midriff. Looking directly at Man where he stands next to the bar, she reaches into her shirt and pulls out one of her breasts, letting it swing exposed like an udder as onlookers rap on their tables with their knuckles and cheer. She does the same with her other breast and then squeezes them with both hands, singing, “Not for you Not for you Not since you went away.”

  The reality of Kiki is much worse than Man’s photos of her. She is so much more, well, real, and Lee realizes that this has been a mistake. She can’t look at Man. She doesn’t want to see his expression. Instead, she shifts around and looks at Jean, who is not paying attention to the stage anymore and is instead jotting something down in a small notebook. He glances at Lee and says, “Shameful,” dismissing the half-nude Kiki with a shake of his head.

  Lee laughs. It is nice to see a man undistracted by a pair of exposed breasts. She pulls her chair closer to him.

  “Everyone seems quite taken with her,” Lee says. People are whooping and cheering, leaning forward in their chairs and rapping their knuckles on their tables even louder than before.

  “Pigs. Are you here with him?” Jean gestures toward Man.

  “Yes.”

  Jean rolls his eyes. “I want you to come see my studio, where I am making my films.”

  “Now?”

  Kiki is still singing and gyrating onstage, but Lee does her best not to look at her.

  “No, during the day, when the light is good. Perhaps tomorrow?” Jean says. “Would he allow it?”

  “Man?” Lee straightens in her chair. “Of course—I mean, I don’t ask him what I can and cannot do.”

  Jean leans forward and whispers, “He doesn’t like me.”

  “He was pleasant enough when he said hello to you.”

  “He thinks I am someone worth knowing. Which I am.”

  While they’ve been talking, Kiki’s act has ended. Demurely, she does up her blouse and then concludes as she began, stepping slowly and exaggeratedly from the stage. Lee expects her to walk over to Man, and she steels herself for this, but instead Kiki starts wending her way through the crowd, coming closer and closer until she is standing right in front of Lee. Up close her makeup is lurid, meant for the stage and not for such close proximity.

  “I know who you are,” Kiki says in stilted English, and a small piece of spittle shoots out of her mouth and lands on Lee’s cheek. Lee flinches, reaches up, and wipes it away. The people around them murmur and shift in their chairs.

  “Who?” Lee says, and stands up. She is a good six inches taller than Kiki, so Kiki has to tip back her head to keep looking at her.

  Man starts moving toward them, holding out his arm as if he is trying to hail a cab.

  “Putain!” Kiki shouts, loud enough that dozens of people look over. Man is still halfway across the room. “You are Man’s putain. Tu es fille d’un
gay et d’une pute. Je te pisse en zig-zags à la raie de cul!” She reaches up and slaps Lee across the face and is just going for a second slap when Man grabs her hand and stops her. Lee can feel heat throbbing in her cheek.

  The café is quiet. Man holds the writhing Kiki and pins her arms to her sides. Jean has stood so quickly he has knocked over his chair. He comes over to Lee, dipping a napkin in a water glass. He holds the napkin to her face. Kiki starts shouting again, her eyes narrowed, her mouth a red circle of fury. “Don’t come here, don’t ever come here, you bitch, you whore, you ugly little cunt.”

  Lee’s body goes cold. She cannot believe how quickly Kiki has gone from her stage persona to uncontrolled anger. It is as if her rage is another kind of performance, and perhaps it is: Lee feels every eye in the café trained on their table. She has never been slapped before. She wants Man to do something, to comfort her, to do absolutely anything besides what he is doing, which is holding Kiki and whispering to her to calm down. To someone who didn’t know what was going on it would look as though they are lovers wrapped in an embrace.

  “You shouldn’t stay here,” Jean says. Without thinking much about it, Lee lets him push her through the café. Lee turns and exchanges a last look with Man, who drops his arms from around Kiki and starts to move toward her. But Lee just keeps going, letting Jean steer her toward the front door, which has a small bell over it that tinkles cheerily as they go out into the streets, still crowded with people, the night air cool on Lee’s hot face. Together they walk up Boulevard du Montparnasse and turn left on Boulevard Saint-Michel, where they head into the Jardin Marco Polo.

  It is late, and unlike the sidewalks, the gravel path they walk along in the park is practically deserted.

  “How is your face?” Jean asks.

  “It hurts.”

  “You should put meat on it. A steak.”

  “A steak?” Lee thinks maybe her translation of his French is incorrect.

  “Yes. It will take the bruise away.” He makes the shape of a slab of meat with his hands and then pretends to press it against his cheek.

  She can feel the gravel through the bottoms of her shoes, crunching with every step. Above them, elms rustle in the breeze.

  “Ah, here is what I wanted to show you,” Jean says, and points to the large fountain at the edge of the formal gardens. The base of the fountain has bronze horses leaping out of the splashing water, their bodies turned to fish tails and their eyes rolling in fear. At the top, four women hold a globe aloft and stare up at the sky.

  “See that woman there? That is the one who reminds me of you. She’s why I think you should be in my film.”

  “You want me to play that statue in your film?”

  “Not her, no. You’ll be Calliope, the muse of art for the poet. But this is what you’ll look like. A gorgeous, untouchable statue. But then you’ll come to life—you’ll see. It will be brilliant. All my films are.”

  His confidence should seem obnoxious, but Lee is only half focusing on him. She can’t stop thinking about how Man went to Kiki instead of her. Her mind replays the scene over and over; she’s trying to understand what he was thinking, but she can’t make sense of it. He abandoned her—and after their conversation about jealousy, it makes her especially angry.

  They stare at the fountain for a while, watching the water pulse up and seem to hang suspended for a bit before splashing down into the marble bowl below. Lee tries to stop thinking about Man, and wishes she had her camera—she would take a picture of the horse’s eye with the arc of water surrounding it, and the long exposure time would make the water a smooth blur against the stone.

  “I need to go home,” Lee says, breaking the silence. “I feel exhausted.”

  “Where is home?” Jean asks. “With him—with Man Ray?”

  “Yes.”

  “The two of you are in love?” Jean asks.

  Lee nods but doesn’t say anything at first. Of course she loves Man, but after the scene in the café, she doesn’t want to discuss her feelings with a stranger. What do the words mean, anyway? She and Man have barely said them to each other: just the time when they were doing the solarization, and later in bed. She dislikes the formality of the phrase, the weight of the history of all the other couples who have said it before them. Or maybe she doesn’t like how vulnerable the words make her feel: how they show her to be a person who feels deeply and demands reciprocation of that feeling.

  The water rises up and slaps down, rises up and slaps down. Lee could watch it forever. She is not sure what to say to Jean. Finally she decides to be honest—he is so earnest, so intense, he brings it out in her.

  “Sometimes I worry I don’t even know how to be in love with someone.”

  Jean gives her an appraising stare. “There is very little how involved. It is like breathing. As simple as that.”

  “Yes,” Lee says, but there is hesitation in her voice. There have been moments when it has felt that easy—lying in bed, her body twined with Man’s, so close Lee felt they were one creature—but often, especially lately, she has found herself observing their relationship from a distance, narrating her love for him: There is the man I love. Look at us, how we care for each other. What a lucky girl to be loved so deeply. Lee knows this isn’t normal, but sometimes it is the only way she can feel grounded in the moment. But she is not going to tell Jean this. Instead, she says, “Is that what your film is about? Is it a love story?”

  “Ah, not so much love as a story about art. But these two are connected, no? The film will be an exploration of art and dreams, of the struggle between life and death. A grand experiment.”

  “I have always, always wanted to be in a film.”

  “And now you shall! I knew the moment I saw you that you would be perfect.”

  Lee is flattered, but then her thoughts go back to Man—where he is right now, what he would say if she told him she was going to do the film—and just as quickly, she thinks that he should be happy for her. He should want her to have this opportunity. And if he doesn’t—well, maybe he’s the one who doesn’t fully understand what loving someone means.

  “You know I have a job, as Man’s assistant.”

  “And I imagine he is paying you in…knowledge?” Jean smiles wickedly. “We have plenty of that at my studio. Film is the future. And I will give you one hundred francs a day as well.”

  “How much time will it take?”

  “One week, maybe two? Not every day each week. All the days are money.”

  Lee looks up at the statue and pictures herself covered in delicate gold leaf, breaking free and emerging radiant in a goddess’s robes. “I want to do it. I just have to tell Man and make sure it’s all right.”

  “Wonderful!” Jean bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, and his enthusiasm makes Lee laugh. They move away from the fountain and head up the path that leads farther into the gardens. They walk for a while, making small talk, until finally she stifles a yawn and tells him again that she needs to get home.

  “Where is home?”

  “Rue Campagne Première.”

  “I know where it is. It’s near his studio. I’ve been there a few times for him to take my portrait.”

  “You didn’t seem as though you liked him at the Jockey.”

  “People often don’t like other people. It doesn’t stop them from working together.”

  Jean starts to walk her home, but then she stops him. Lee imagines getting to the apartment and seeing it dark and empty, imagines Man still out somewhere with Kiki.

  “Where is your apartment?” Lee asks.

  “Just there, two streets over.”

  “Is there any way I could sleep there tonight…just sleep?” Lee feels she has to clarify.

  Jean stares at her under the dim streetlight. “If you had a beard, and a cock, I would be interested in you. Otherwise, you do not need to worry.”

  She laughs out loud, tucks her arm through his, and lets him take her to his home. For one night,
Lee thinks, let Man worry that he has lost her.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  In the morning Lee wakes up in Jean’s big white guest bed, in a high-ceilinged room with soft morning light streaming in through the tall windows. It is a beautiful room, white and spare. Lee thinks how good it would be for pictures. She lies there for a while, luxuriating in the cool hand of the lemon-scented sheets. At home, she thinks, Man is waking up too, perhaps just realizing she never came back. Or maybe he isn’t even there—maybe he went to Kiki’s. Lee can’t decide which scenario seems more likely. If he is home, he is surely furious with her.

  Jean has left her a note saying that he had to get to the studio but that she should make herself at home, so Lee takes a quick bath and inspects her cheek in the lavatory mirror. It doesn’t appear bruised, but it feels tender and hot to the touch. Nothing can be done about her hair. There is not a single sign of a woman’s presence in the entire bathroom, not even a comb. Lee picks at the tangles with her fingers before giving up completely.

  When Lee gets home the apartment is empty. She goes from room to room but there is no sign of Man. The previous night’s events come rushing back to her again. The song, Kiki’s fury, Man soothing her as Lee left. She goes into the kitchen to make an espresso on the stovetop, lighting the burner and measuring out the coffee as she has learned to do. The grounds froth up and the kitchen fills with their acrid smell.

  Their space. In the bright morning light, after being in Jean’s apartment, Lee finds this place small and unkempt. The table where she sits to drink her espresso is cluttered with unsuccessful prints, empty glasses, a plate crusted with brown gravy. Lee is no housekeeper. Until this moment she has not noticed what a mess she has made—she and Man, for he is not exactly tidy—and all the piles of dishes and clutter remind her of the time they spent together, how easy it’s been, over the past months, to ignore the simple chores of everyday life. Now she is disgusted by the mess they have created. She begins gathering things up, arranging them in tidier piles and filling the sink with dishes.