Pardon My French

by Allen Johnson

  “The feeling is not wrong,” Armelle continued. “It is how he feels, and that is perfectly all right. You may not agree with him. That’s your right, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Allen’s experience.”

  “Thank you, Armelle.”

  Armelle said nothing more. She just gave me one of her beautiful Armelle smiles.

  The other students turned, shaking their heads, not out of disgust or even disagreement, but out of incomprehension.

  The image of Renoir’s Nude in the Sun came to me. I saw the woman’s face in soft, undefined strokes of pink and blue, shadow and light, rendering an elusive, enigmatic illusion. And, yet, the model for Renoir’s study was no illusion. She was real. Her name was Anna-Alma Henriette Leboeuf. She was born in the village of Chenoise, fifty miles southeast of Paris on February 11, 1856. In 1879, three years after posing for Renoir, she died in Paris at 47 rue Lafayette. She was twenty-three years old. A letter has survived, written in Renoir’s hand to a Dr. Gachet—a friend to Renoir, Van Gogh, and other French impressionists—asking him to see the ailing model.

  Other than those scant facts, no other details of Anna’s life remain. But I can imagine:

  Anna-Alma Henriette Leboeuf was a beautiful child. Although she left school when she was ten years old—she was too valuable doing chores on the small family farm—she was naturally bright and vivacious. But the winters in Chenoise were cold and wet, and she could feel her passion for life draining like the sand in an hourglass. She longed for something more, something new, something exciting. She longed for Paris. She left home in the middle of the night with nothing more than a round loaf of bread wrapped in the only thing she valued, a silk scarf that her papa had given her on her sixteenth birthday.

  Life in Paris was not easy. She worked for one year in a textile sweatshop, but the work was long and tedious and the money a pittance. At night she would go to a neighborhood café where young university students would flatter her and buy her drinks.

  One night a particularly good-looking young man asked if she might like to see his apartment. She agreed. Before the sun had risen, she lay with him, naturally and without guilt. She felt overwhelmed, even giddy, with passion. The act of lovemaking with such abandonment was so sublime that she was sure that she had finally found her reason for living. But the next morning when she awoke, the man was gone. There was a note, a key, and a few francs on his pillow where his head had rested. She read the note slowly once and then again.

  Chère Anna:

  Merci. Please take these few francs with my gratitude.

  Lock the door and slip the key under the door.

  Perhaps we will meet again.

  Jean-Claude

  Anna sat motionless for a long time on the side of the bed, and then she cried. When she had stopped crying, she was a different woman. She took the francs—it was more money than she could make in a week at the textile factory. She got dressed, snatched the key from the pillow, and whisked out the door. She bent down to slip the key under the door but suddenly had another idea. She stood with the key still clutched in her hand. Then she turned, descended the stairs, and walked directly to the nearest bridge that crossed the Seine, le Pont de la Concorde. At the crest of the bridge, she tossed the key into the river.

  After that there was another boy and another and another. And with all of them, she made love, and with all of them, she was paid. In time, Anna stopped working at the sweatshop.

  One night she slept with a Paris art collector, a Monsieur Choquet, who knew of an artist who was looking for a model.

  “Would you be interested?” Choquet asked.

  “Perhaps,” Anna said. “What is the artist’s name?”

  “Pierre Renoir.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar to Anna and so on sheer impulse she said, “Pourquoi pas?”

  When Anna met Renoir for the first time in his Paris studio, she was immediately enchanted. There was a gentleness in his eyes that she found disarming. She felt that she had known the thirty-five-year-old artist for a lifetime.

  Renoir was himself not a stranger to adversity. Before becoming famous at the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, Renoir knew what it was like to go without eating for a day or two. In some ways he was not so different from Anna. They were both seeking a mode of self-expression. He was sure that Anna felt as he did: One’s destiny was not invented, it was revealed.

  Anna felt an uncanny kinship with Renoir. He was unlike the crude university students she knew so intimately—boys who were boisterous, arrogant, and relentlessly sardonic. In stark contrast, Renoir was soft-spoken, pensive, and what Anna found most charming, compassionate. From the start she felt at home in his presence.

  As for Renoir, the artist was delighted with Anna. When he was nineteen years old, he was given permission to copy in the Louvre. The first painting he adored was Bath of Diana by the eighteenth-century mythological and pastoral artist François Boucher. The luminescence of Anna’s face reminded him of that cherished painting.

  Anna loved sitting for Renoir. For the first time in her life, she felt like she counted for something. She did not understand art—she had never even stepped into a museum—but somehow she knew that what Renoir was doing was important, and she was part of it.

  Anna posed for Renoir for three days. It was then that Renoir was commissioned to do portraits for a wealthy family in Paris. Renoir said that he would contact Anna on his return. He did not. One commission led to a long sequence of projects. He lost contact with Anna. Nearly three years later Renoir heard from his good friend, Claude Monet, that Anna was deathly ill. He decided to visit her in her one-room apartment at 47 rue Lafayette.

  Renoir knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He placed his ear close to the door. He was sure he heard a small voice. He turned the doorknob and stepped into the room, which was nearly bare. There were only empty wine bottles, a single straight-back chair, a small table, and finally a cot where Anna lay. At first Renoir thought he had the wrong apartment for he did not recognize the woman lying on the cot in a slip that was torn along the hem and stained with wine. She was gaunt, nearly skeletal—the body of a grotesque imposter—with a yellow pallor that smelled of death.

  Renoir set the chair by the cot and sat down alongside Anna. He placed her hand in his. It felt like a collection of brittle twigs.

  “Anna,” Renoir said, “it’s me, Pierre.”

  Anna looked at Renoir—at least looked in his direction—but the artist was not sure she recognized him.

  “It’s me, Pierre,” he said again.

  “Monsieur Renoir.”

  Renoir strained to recognize her voice, which was distant and airy, like a winter wind whistling through bones.

  “My friend, Claude, told me you were ill, but …” Renoir felt the emotion building in his throat. “But I never imagined.” He slowly stroked her hand.

  “I have been very stupid,” Anna said.

  “Yes,” Renoir said, “but that is over now. You will get better.”

  “You are very kind, Monsieur Renoir, but …”

  “Si, si.”

  Anna suddenly began to cough—a deep, barren cough. She covered her mouth with her hand, which was now spattered in blood.

  Renoir scanned the room with his eyes, searching for a pitcher of water. There was none. “Anna, my dear Anna,” he said.

  The woman got control of her cough. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and with the other she unconsciously stroked her hair, which lay flat and matted against her head.

  “Oh, Monsieur Renoir,” Anna said, “please don’t trouble yourself for me. I know I’m dying.”

  Renoir shook his head. His eyes downcast and his face blanched, he realized that he was speaking to a dead woman. The guilt and terror of that thought made him sick to his stomach.

  “Yes,” Anna said, “I’m dying, but that’s all right.”

  Renoir could see a thought play in Anna’s eyes.

  Ann
a smiled. “After all,” she said, “I have done something good. I have posed for the great Pierre Renoir. How many farm girls can say that?”

  “And you were the best,” Renoir said. “You were the very best.”

  When Renoir left Anna’s apartment, sick with grief, he went immediately to his studio and composed a letter to Dr. Gachet, pleading with him to see the girl who, just three years earlier, was the radiant and sensual figure in his masterpiece, Étude, Torse, Effet de Soleil.

  A few weeks later, the woman from Chenoise was dead.

  Like Anna, the nameless woman who sat for us in the studio above the police station in Pérols was a real person. She had a history and she had a future. She also had a soul, and, consequently, she was sacred. I will always be grateful for the gift of herself to me, a plodding artist in the long, long shadow of Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Holidays in the South of France

  A FEW DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, the townspeople of Pérols met at the church square. The air was crisp and the sky perfectly cerulean. In the middle of the square was a sled—an elongated tricycle with a small flatbed—and six huskies. It was Santa’s sleigh.

  The children, bundled in scarves and bonnets, introduced themselves to Santa’s dogs, who stood quietly, seemingly impervious to all the attention. Then Santa, decked in the traditional white beard and red suit and not so traditional Air Jordan basketball shoes, stepped onto the tailgate of his sleigh and shouted a command to the huskies. “Allons-y.” Let’s go.

  The huskies sprang to life, their tails swishing, happy to be on the road. The townspeople fell in behind, chatting with their neighbors about the morning frost as they wove through the narrow streets of Pérols. The parade had begun—a two-mile stroll to the beach at Carnon. It was an annual tradition: a fundraiser for “Restaurants of the Heart,” an association that distributes meals and groceries to the needy—an example of France’s social conscience.

  By the time we had reached the sea, our small band of Santa’s helpers had swelled to a crowd of eight hundred. This was going to be a party. A tall, slender man with white hair and a New York Yankee’s baseball cap was tending a six-foot-diameter sandpit grill. He leaned over the fire and expertly flipped the steaks, sausages, and slabs of pork, occasionally pausing to rub the biting smoke from his eyes.

  A dozen booths were set up around the perimeter. Vendors were selling pizza, elephant-ear pastries, and spicy hot wine—all you wanted for just two euros.

  Four white horses from the Camargue—the same horses that would guide the bulls through the streets of Pérols during the summer abrivado—were tied to the fence where the beach shrub turned to sand.

  An announcer strolled through the crowd with a wireless microphone. “Look to the sky,” he blared. “Here come the parachutists!”

  And, true to his word, out of the sky eight, nine, no, ten skydivers with rainbow-colored chutes sliced left and right and landed perfectly on their target and into the arms of a jovial Saint Nick.

  “Don’t forget,” the announcer boomed, “all those taking the ‘polar-bear plunge’ must sign up at the registration booth.”

  “That’s me,” I said to Nita.

  “You’re really going to do it?” Nita asked.

  “Oh yeah. It’s the French way.”

  After adding my name to a list of one hundred Christmas swimmers, I walked to the nearby bathhouse to change. The room was jammed with bathers—both men and women—and I, being somewhat modest, slipped out of my blue jeans and into my trunks in a flash while other men moved more leisurely, evidently unconcerned about dropping their drawers among a mixed crowd.

  On the beach again the bathers circled up near the water’s edge, whacking their arms to generate heat.

  My friend, the ebullient and irrepressible Roger, was the swimmers’ self-appointed cheerleader. He faced the bathers on stick legs, his arms undulating at his sides like a manic hula dancer. “Are we ready for a swim?” he shouted.

  “Yes!” the bathers called back.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” the bathers roared.

  “Then let’s go!” Roger hollered, leading the pack.

  And with those words, all swimmers—men and women, boys and girls—rushed for the sea.

  There is something unsettling about stepping into water that dips just below fifty degrees Fahrenheit. It is rather like a sharp wet-towel snap to the behind—not life threatening but definitely galvanizing.

  Most of the bathers sprang swiftly from one wave to the next, hooting their approval of the frigid brine. Meanwhile, I was more tentative (distinguished, I thought), wading in oh so slowly until the water slapped against my chest. I took in a deep breath, closed my eyes, and dropped to my knees for—how long was it?—oh, yeah, long enough to register agony. The water lapped over my head, which qualified me as a genuine member of the Polar Bear Club.

  As I headed back to shore and the admiring crowd, I tucked in my gut ever so slightly and pulled back my shoulders, the conquering hero, returning triumphantly from the frigid baptism of honor. When I reached the shore, my friend, Henri, greeted me.

  “Bravo, Allen,” he said. “I want to introduce you to the mayor of Carnon.”

  I looked at the short, balding man standing next to Henri. He wore a dark blue suit and a solid red tie against a starched white shirt. He looked like the French flag and completely out of place among the crowd of holiday beachcombers.

  “This is my American friend,” Henri said to the mayor.

  “Bonjour,” I said, shaking the soft hand of the sartorial town official.

  “How are you?” the mayor said in English.

  “Very well.”

  “What part of the United States do you come from?” the mayor asked, still in English.

  “From the state of Washington. Not Washington, DC, you understand, but the …”

  The mayor’s eyes drifted away from me, and I realized that the interview was over in mid-sentence. Ah yes, politicians; they are the same the world over.

  After the dip, Nita and I paraded home, my teeth chattering like castanets. When we arrived, Nita led me to my favorite chair, propped up my feet, wrapped me in a blanket, and gave me a cup of hot chocolate. I was asleep before the chocolate was half drained and dreamt about swimming in the Mediterranean with Santa Claus and six huskies.

  On Christmas Eve we had dinner with the Ducros—another fabulous five-course spread—watched a movie at a local theater and then drove into the village center for the Christmas Eve midnight mass.

  We filed into the nineteenth-century church and found an open pew (a simple, straight-back bench) toward the front of the church. There was a yellow glow on the old stone walls. Within the alcove to the left, the pianist played a hymn, accompanied by two teenage girls who coaxed a timid melody from flute and clarinet.

  There was an anthem from the choir and a brief and rather thin message from the priest about a mouse who lived in the church. But the highlight for me was the children’s choir. Twenty boys and girls, ranging in age from five to twelve, stationed themselves on the altar steps. I was immediately drawn to a seven-year-old boy who held a tinfoil star over his head. There was something in his eyes that said, “I’m trouble.”

  As the children sang praises to the baby Jesus, the star became a heavy burden for the youngster. Slowly the silver star slipped from the sky and then, for reasons that only children can understand, the boy thought the star made a wondrous sword and started slicing the weapon into the arm of his neighbor, who, as you can imagine, was not at all keen on the idea. There were whispered words spoken by someone in the front row, which must have been sufficiently stern, for the boy snapped to attention and lofted the bent star overhead again.

  Later in the service (after the message about the church mouse), the same children’s choir entered singing from the back of the sanctuary, marching slowly to a simple hymn of exaltation. Leading the procession was a small boy clutching a ma
nger the size of a large shoebox. I was so moved by the pageant—the combination of procession and children’s voices—that, for an instant, I dared not breathe. And then, miracle of miracles, I realized that the boy who so proudly bore the manger was the same star-flailing rapscallion of yore. I knew it was he because I recognized the mischievous glint in his eye.

  At the end of the service, the parishioners filed out of the church, each greeted by the priest with “Bonsoir, bonsoir, bonsoir.” I stepped into the night air and smiled at the sight of the clear, glowing Christmas lights strung from the oak tree that adorned the church square. And there, among the twinkling bulbs, was the seven-year-old boy, perched in the grand oak like a mountain cat with a taste for fresh meat.

  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

  Christmas day was proof to me that the French are the masters of family, friends, food, and folly. Our Christmas was a gastronomical marathon: a rampage of champagne, foie gras, smoked salmon, lobster, shrimp, roebuck, rabbit, asparagus, potatoes, beets, carrots, zucchini, red peppers, assorted cheeses, and two traditional log-shaped cakes called bûche de Noël. It took me three weeks to lose the extra tonnage that I had packed on in less than twenty-four hours. I realize that so much food sounds inconceivable, but we were invited to three homes on Christmas day—a great honor—and no host was willing to hear the words, “No, thank you, I couldn’t possibly eat another bite.”

  The day would not have been so ruinous (speaking from a dietary sense only), except for a small miscalculation on our part. Our third engagement of the day—after breakfast at Armelle’s and lunch at the Ducros’—was planned for 8:30 p.m. Because the evening affair started so late, Nita and I were certain that our hosts—Georges and Monique—would be serving hors d’oeuvres and nothing more. So, to tide us over, we had a sizeable Christmas dinner in our little apartment before setting out for the soirée. We were mistaken; it was a full-fledged dinner party for twelve guests.

  Indeed, the Christmas party did start with hors d’oeuvres (champagne and caviar), but from there we sat down to an elegant table and a five-course dinner. I exchanged a glance with Nita. She surreptitiously shook her head, her warning to say nothing of the dinner we had just eaten.