by Zoe Valdes
In the end, they decided to go to Milan, they visited several museums, and from there they crossed the mountains and reached Zurich. They took in the beautiful scenery and admired the lakes, but above all the hills brimming with pines that so delighted Dora. Basel saddened her; lately it wounded her spirit to see so many paintings at once. There they marveled at a few Holbeins and, as might have been expected, a few magnificent Picassos.
She was unsure whether painting was still an art that was evolving toward new forms of painting. Of painting, not of successive swindles.
They resumed the journey.
Around midnight they arrived at the chateau in Nièvre where Balthus lived. The painter wasn’t expecting them, of course.
Bernard and Dora stayed in the Renault; it was James who, after determining that the doors of the chateau were open, went inside in total darkness, turned on the lights, and called out to the artist.
Balthus emerged from Frédérique’s room half-dressed and somewhat tipsy; in a rather bad mood, he insinuated that it was not the best time to receive visitors. Leaning against the table, his wandering eyes could only focus on one spot: Dora’s face, and his eyes lit up only to dim immediately. As soon as he saw his friend, he started whispering wheezy, incoherent words about her while ruthlessly ignoring her companions. He missed her so much, so much, he endlessly repeated.
“I should have called you, should have called! I missed you so much, my little friend, so much, my Dora!” And with his long, thin hand he caressed her face.
Dora remained stiff, showing no sign of relaxing sentimentally. Stoical and seemingly indifferent, she listened to the artist’s laments and even wiped away his tears with the corner of a rumpled handkerchief she pulled from her purse.
“Don’t be a baby!” she whispered into the ear of the most babyish of painters.
They decided to turn in, and the following morning Balthus’s behavior toward Bernard and James was less gruff, but elegant, as if sleep had afforded him calm and good counsel.
They agreed to have lunch with him. Fortunately, the atmosphere lightened over the course of the meal. Bernard kept trying to force the situation by trying to show himself more sensitive and devoted to Dora than the others. Balthus then leaned away, settling into the back of the chair, half-closed his eyes, and peered slyly through the half-open slits at Bernard, who in turn seemed pleased to see that his grandmother’s rug, which he had once given to Balthus as a present, lay in the center of the room. Though Balthus was fond of Bernard, he had gotten to where he didn’t trust a soul.
It seemed like Dora didn’t want to let go of Balthus, as if the last truly valuable part of her memories of youth were stored up in his company.
But they had to move on, it was getting late; “It’s getting beyond late,” one of them pointedly noted. And they left.
On the remainder of the trip nothing important happened. During the rest of their journey silence reigned.
On May 8, James and Bernard brought Dora to the front door of her home, where they hurriedly took their leave of her. Though they had agreed to meet during the next few days, they didn’t. Thirteen years passed before she and the young American soldier, who had some time before turned into a middle-aged man, dazzling and worldly, saw each other again face to face.
Bernard Minoret, for his part, confessed to me that he didn’t know how he had let time slip, just like that, and today he wonders how it could have happened that he never longed to visit her again, that he never again thought about her.
On the other hand, on returning from New York James tried to meet her. After several phone calls, he was bent on going to visit her, but Dora refused to set a day. She didn’t do it directly or rudely, no. Quite the contrary, she always brought up a banal or meaningful pretext: her health. James gave up. She was different now, one more woman about to enter the litany leading to old age. She’d been ambushed by the whole string of tumultuous memories piled one on top of another. And to all appearances, she preferred to withdraw into her solitude.
Nevertheless, despite her constant subterfuges, after a long while they unexpectedly agreed, at last, to meet on several occasions. The occasions were few and fleeting, the fleeting imaginary kiss of expectancy.
6–18 Rue de Savoie. January, 1995. December, 1997
I had just gone into exile in Paris. My daughter was not yet a year and a half old, my husband was a year shy of thirty. I would be turning thirty-five on the second of May that year, 1995. Numbers sometimes hold more mystery than words; I mean, there’s a quantum enigma to the coincidences in our fates. Born in 1959, I thought of my exile in 1995 (note the last two inverted digits) as a second birth.
I woke up very early that morning, didn’t write anything. I was having trouble regaining my drive to write at daybreak.
I thought about our luck in being able to move here and live in Le Marais, though we weren’t exactly renting. At first we house-sat in a painter friend’s flat while he was off traveling. Though we had the small apartment all to ourselves, we kept to the front room to avoid making ourselves too at home in a place we couldn’t think of as ours, despite our host’s insistence that we should spread out. We slept on a black IKEA sofa-bed, old and secondhand, my husband and I on either side, the baby in the middle; we had to be careful about how we got out of bed, because if we both stood up at the same time the little one could get trapped, since the sofa-bed was missing a spring and had a dangerous habit of folding shut all at once.
I stood up gingerly and, trying to make no noise, took the few steps to the small, cramped bathroom. I finished washing and dressing, bundling up perhaps more than was called for. In the cluttered, greasy kitchen I had coffee, no sugar, and after a bit wrapped a scarf around my neck and went out swaddled in a thick overcoat.
It was bitterly cold out, but the sun painted the winter day a pearly hue, lending it a sudden exotic joy. I took a deep breath and my lungs froze, I felt like I had a Russian razor, one of those Astra brand shavers the Soviets used to send us in Cuba, coming in through my nose and slicing its way down to my lungs, slitting them mercilessly with its rusty edge. Nevertheless, I breathed deep and instantly felt optimistic and happy because I was free, not thinking with fear and hand-wringing about the future. If I allowed myself to think, I’d be letting in fear.… A fear that could settle in like an old friend and become destructive, a writer’s block.
I didn’t have a penny, not even enough for a metro ticket, so I walked along the Seine toward the Pont Neuf, then turned down Rue de Savoie to number 18, where I was to meet my editor as well as a photographer, since they were going to take an author photo of me for my novel.
When I got to his office I greeted everyone timidly. The press secretary offered me some tea from Mariage Frères, the teahouse a few doors down from the office; she promised to bring it good and hot, for she’d noticed my hands shivering and teeth chattering from the intense cold. Natalie was always so nice to me, she soon had a piping-hot cup in my hands and some cookies on a separate plate.
The photographer was all set, and he decided to go outside to scout for a good location. A few minutes later he came back in to get me so he could take the photos outdoors, since space was so limited inside the office he could barely turn around. We set up right on the corner of Grands Augustins and Savoie, the sun bathing my cheeks, the frozen wind off the Seine tousling and mussing my hair.
Down the opposite sidewalk walked the only pedestrian who shared the deserted street with us at that moment: an old, stooped woman with a pronounced hunch. She halted for a moment to see what we were doing, but not for long. Shaking her hunch as if disgusted by what her eyes were taking in, she shrugged and hurriedly directed her slow steps along Rue de Savoie; she disappeared into number 6. I learned it was number 6 not only because I’d been calculating how far down the street the building was, but because a young editor from Arles who was passing through the city took it upon herself to inform us. “The lady who stopped to watch us is none other
than Dora Maar. She lives in number 6 on this street,” she whispered fearfully, as if the woman could still hear her.
I jumped up, stunned, it couldn’t be true—Dora Maar, living in that house, practically next door? Oh, wow, I couldn’t believe it, I’d been that close to Dora Maar—one of my idols! And my mind went back to the afternoon in Havana when I’d tried to act brave, along with Lena, Apple Pie, Lefty Sotera, the time we took part in an impromptu demonstration against the regime; that was the day I showed them Dora Maar’s photos.
“And here, around the corner, is the atelier where Picasso painted Guernica and where she photographed that extraordinary work of art,” added Aline, the editor.
“Do you think I could maybe, I mean, just see…?” I asked, feeling foolish, then added as an excuse and a pretext, “I’m a huge fan, such wonderful artistry.”
“See Guernica, you mean? No? Sorry. Oh, of course, I see, you meant you wanted to see Dora Maar. Well, of course, you might cross paths with her again. She normally goes to Mass very early, to Notre Dame, but I warn you she tends to be quite rude, though she always returns greetings, she has impeccable manners, as the grande dame she is.… But I once tried to start a conversation with her and she brushed me off, saying she was too busy to let me become part of her life, that I shouldn’t expect her to bear the luxury of wasting her time on banalities, given that she had her paintings waiting for her. That was our entire conversation. I didn’t have time to get a single word in, so it was really more of a monologue.”
We finished the photo shoot and I went back home as soon as I could, rushing, my mind absorbed with Dora Maar and the tasks that awaited me: I had to cook, since it would soon be lunchtime, and finish a translation that I was getting paid 500 francs to do, of a preface several pages long for an art catalogue. I’d make something light to eat—anyway, without money I had no other choice—and then devote the rest of the day to working.
Yet I could barely concentrate. All day long I kept thinking about that hunchbacked old woman with the face wizened by age and the clear eyes, dressed in black and carrying a purse slung from her shoulder that was almost bigger than she was. That’s how the great Dora Maar first appeared to me, who could have guessed?
The next morning I returned at the same time with the sole objective of bumping into her again. As I left the run-down old hotel where I was temporarily residing, I ran right into another painter friend of mine, also Cuban; we exchanged impressions of our plunge into exile, and he gave me some pointers. I asked after Yendi, who had been his girlfriend in Havana in the eighties. “Oh, her, yeah, a real exaggerator, she made me miss a trip and ruin my life for no reason!” I told him I was sorry, and we agreed to meet for dinner some night.
I hurried on to my imaginary appointment, afraid of getting there late.
Positioning myself near the main door, I got a clean view inside her building when the concierge came out to collect the empty garbage cans. She asked me, as she looked me over uneasily from head to toe, if I was waiting there to meet one of the tenants. From her accent, I realized she was Spanish or Portuguese. I was just about to ask after Dora, but I stopped myself because I suspected she would shoo me off with the broom in her hand, which she held at the ready.
“I’m waiting for someone from the publisher’s.”
“The publisher’s office is at number 18; this is number 6,” she growled.
I apologized, pretending I’d made a mistake, and made as if to leave.
After a while, no more than ten minutes later, I caught sight of the little old woman, who was almost back to the building, which had to be her apartment building. Coming from the other direction I almost ran toward her, while she barely noticed me, being so completely wrapped in thought, perhaps more worried about falling and hurting herself than about crossing paths with someone like me.
When I was almost on top of her she looked up, and those beautiful eyes that changed color like the weather rested on mine. The look in them was private, sad, yet not at all dull, but rather sparkling and full of zest.
I wanted to say a few words and introduce myself, but she drew back, opened the door, and entered the building, faster than I reckoned. As the door swung slowly shut behind her fleeing figure, I managed to watch, not without deep sorrow, this scrawny bundle of a woman fearfully crossing the courtyard and disappearing up a stairway that led to an apartment with colossal picture windows. She firmly shut the door facing the street.
I told myself I’d have really loved living in a building like this and being Dora Maar’s envied neighbor so I could interview her about her life and work and make friends with her; yes, I even began to feel the peculiar and unexpected need to become her friend. Then nostalgia once again seized me, something that shouldn’t be happening, given my still brief separation from the island and my nonexistent desire to go back. But I was gripped by a nostalgia that had nothing to do with my own past; instead, it was about hers, a longing to have been a part of this great woman’s era and the days of her youth.
After this took place, for the next two years I kept on crossing paths with Dora Maar—because I had set my mind to do so. Finally, toward the end of our furtive encounters, she began to greet me with a smile and a gracious nod of her head, and I would be overcome by a wild, barely controllable desire to hug her, to confess to her how much I admired her, and to tell her I had even begun to love her with an indescribable, constant, and despairing tenderness.
One spring morning I bought some carnations that I hoped to give her. I offered her the bouquet when we greeted each other, and she accepted them ceremoniously, simply wishing me, in her embarrassed little voice, slightly cracked, still hinting at the verve she had in years past, a happy summer. We never strayed, however, from our strict routine of maintaining a respectful distance.
On another morning in 1997—a morning when I arrived fatefully late—Dora set out for the cathedral but never made it. She fell stricken in the middle of the solemn esplanade in front of Notre Dame. I suppose the hands of strangers picked up her dead body there.
That day I’d been waiting for her as usual, but due to my unforgiveable lateness and seeing that she wasn’t coming back, and of course never imagining the worst, I decided to go home and resume my translation and editing work, which I was behind on.
I learned of her death the following day. Early that morning I got a call from a journalist friend who knew how much I admired the artist. It was a hard blow, not easy to recover from. My first hard shock in exile. My first loss.
All these years, not a day has gone by that that I haven’t thought about her, read about her life and her work, though so little has been written about her in comparison with the grandeur that defines her; I’ve done this quietly and sadly, not daring to share with anyone.
When I walk past a bookstore and catch sight of books by Man Ray, the covers of which are most often adorned with his beautiful photo of Dora Maar, all I can do is regret not having the courage to approach her and talk with her, beyond what little I did, about whatever might interest her. About herself, perhaps, about her paintings, about her photography, about the era she lived in. About Picasso. She would have picked the topic, after all.
Yes, it was a shame I never dared; it would have helped me so much at the time, during my first months of definitive separation from my country, to have been able to count on her help, as a friend, as the foreigner she had been, if she had accepted my friendship. Because, though it might seem that a vast historical abyss separated us, in truth that chasm, which the remains of the century were beginning to brim over, instead brought us together.
Notes from the last litany about the beyond. Paris, 2011
I will never truly understand why a woman like Dora Maar loved Picasso, beyond his art, but I’m not interested in delving into it too deeply. The time she spent with the painter isn’t what attracts me—unlike James Lord—to the story of her life. Frankly, I’d rather investigate why she kept up her friendship with Lord himself,
which was also complicated and damaging to her later artistic career; and on the more irrational side, I’m interested in why Lord put so much effort into that trip to Italy, which ultimately led to her total withdrawal from social life.
Perhaps surrounded by the tumult of memories invading her solitude, she hoped and dreamed that the “decaying scenery of Venice,” in the words of Terenci Moix, would allow her to “exorcise the ghosts” of her life with Picasso, and later with Lord, and that the trip would distance her from her youthful indiscretions in Paris.
Yet such a prudent desire to blot out an entire life with one trip, to seek refuge in solitude through an ordinary friendship with a gay man instead of remaining shackled to love for a genius, is hard to believe. I’d find it more plausible if she’d stuck with the nasty ogre, given the way Picasso treated her, since he did his best to destroy her as a woman and disparage her as an artist. And, naturally, in most cases we women opt for the ogre.
Even if I can begin to understand Dora’s fascination with the Master, with the Genius, and how she transferred her admiration into a demonic and possessive love, what I’ll never get is her slavish dependence on him to the end of her days. I guess having the platonic, yet equally complicated love—rather than a simple friendship—that she had with James Lord afforded her a breath of freedom, a taste of excitement, and a gutsy decisiveness, that lasted longer than she could have imagined.