Cocktails, Caviar and Diapers

by Duke, Renee

  “Okay, okay.” He skitters from the room.

  Some deep breaths. Now to say goodbye to Dali. As I come into the living room I see the nice Israeli boy has come in with Johann.

  “Andrée, Dali wants to go to an orgy,” says Greta. “Johann thought he’d come too.”

  “I don’t want to go Greta–I can meet you later.”

  “I’ll keep you company,” the Israeli, Aram, says, smiling at me. His thick glasses reflect the light of the candles.

  “I’ve never been to an orgy, neither has Johann. Dali says from a painter’s point of view, it is fascinating–I think a painter should be open to all experiences.”

  Sweet Greta. Dali’s just a dirty old man, getting his kicks, as far as I can see.

  Finally they coordinate the details. Dali smiles benignly. He will observe the orgy from the balcony? I have never heard of that. Thought you had to participate. Perhaps I’m being dull but I just can’t get interested.

  Aram agrees with me. “Why don’t Andrée and I wait for all of you at a café on rue de Sèvres?” he says. “I want to go there to see if there are any messages for me at the desk.”

  “Let’s.”

  Dali, Greta, Johann and the assistant melt away.

  ***

  I have never done so much walking. These artists keep themselves exercised! The whole expanse of the Paris sky is above us and we walk over the cobblestone streets and along dark alleys. The café is not what I expected. I hoped for a cozy nook, this blares with neon and music. The long copper bar reflects blue and the seats are broken plastic.

  “We’ll sit by the desk, as all my calls are left here.”

  “You live with the rich old lady. Why don’t you have her take your calls?”

  “I feel freer this way. She doesn’t know who my girlfriends are, it makes it simpler. Do you see the pretty Swedish girl over there? She was my fiancée last week.”

  “Do you change each week?”

  “Sometimes, day by day.” He smiles widely. No more handsome than anyone else but a tremendous magnetic charm.

  “Look, Andrée, I want to make an arrangement with you.”

  Ah, a proposition! He’s very attractive but too young. No, I don’t need to have anything going with this nice young man except friendship.

  “I have lovers all the time but I would like to have you as my real friend. We are in the same painting class, I plan on being in it for four years or more and I think you do too. I want to be able to talk to you about what is really happening in my life, no bullshit. I want to introduce girls to you, see what you think, have you in my life like a sister. You can tell me everything too but we must be completely honest or we won’t be able to help each other. What do you think?”

  “I couldn’t ask for anything better. I am doing so many new and confusing things and I have no one to talk to. If only Evans and I could be totally honest with each other, it would be much easier. Oh, Aram, I just want to talk and talk to you.”

  We look at each other, his eyes sparkle small behind the reverse telescope effect of his glasses. Another step into a new world. We laugh over nothing.

  “Look, there is Greta with Johann.”

  I turn to the door. Sure enough! But they look like frightened sheep, eyes naked.

  “Come over and have a coffee with us!

  “No, my dears,” answers Greta, “Not tonight. I can’t. I just want to go home, take a sleeping draught and forget tonight.”

  “Greta, what happened to you?”

  “Dali had us all sitting in the balcony. The management would have nothing to do with it, they insisted we come down and join the group festivities. I said no. I have never seen so many old, lecherous men and so many beautiful young girls. It was a sight I’ll never forget. Revolting. Where has the world gone when love has gone?”

  “Andrée, we left,” says Johann. “He may still be there for all I know. The sight will haunt me for years. And do you know, Dali plans on emptying the pool at the American Center, filling it with straw and have people jumping around in it naked. The he will set fire to the straw and they will all jump out.”

  What a sad story. If you keep company with a perverted man, you will see perverted things. I’m more innocent than they are, so how come they never figured that out?

  ***

  Coming back to the apartment is harder today than it’s been for a long time. When I leave the Left Bank I feel that I leave life behind. Aram catches up with me.

  “What gives with you?”

  “Let’s stop by the bridge and look at my favorite view.” In the hazy winter sun, the Ile de la Cité bears down on us like a ship. An anchored island. On the quai beneath us, fireman are practicing with their hoses, struggling to control the jets of water.

  “I’ll never get to be a painter. Did you see those horrible things I did today? I feel like giving up and going away. Maybe I’ll do better in New York.” It is hard to be serious, watching the firemen.

  “You haven’t gone enough yet.”

  “I go every day, isn’t that enough?”

  “It has to be part of you. If you really want to become a painter you must do it all the time. You should paint at home, come over and draw when you can, stretch canvases, prepare them, clean your brushes, read books, go to the museum.”

  “I never thought of it that way. I was painting to keep my mind off my sorrows, not to become professional.”

  “You must try and become professional. You should take pride in your craft. Why do you want to leave Paris?”

  “I feel alone in a foreign city?” I look sideways at Aram, his Hittite profile. He turns and smiles and looks homely and Jewish, very much a friend.

  “You stay here. Running around the world won’t help you. You grow up, here. The boys are happy and you will get back to Evans. You have time to find yourself.”

  “Oh, I’ve had enough of Evans.”

  “It doesn’t seem to me your story is finished yet. He’ll get tired of his girlfriend and come back. You must be ready. After lunch, come meet me at the classic studio. We’ll draw the nude and have coffee. Then I want you to paint pictures of your children every afternoon when they come home from school.”

  “Aram, I’m beginning to be hung up on this Etienne. He hasn’t called and I think about him.”

  “He’ll call you when you aren’t thinking about it. You know, it’s a love affair. It’s nice but it shouldn’t last.”

  “How can you say such a thing! Perhaps he’s the love I’ve been looking for!”

  “Andrée, you’ve been married so long, you don’t see that every time you go to bed with a man, it’s not for life. He’s married, he’s French. You’re married with a big family. Enjoy it, and be prepared for it to end.”

  “You are too wise for me, Aram. I’ll see you later.”

  It’s good to have a friend who says what he thinks. Still, Etienne hasn’t called. I pass under the arch and look at the Three Musketeers entrance into the Louvre. They could have been standing right there. I smile at some students passing by. I hope I never forget how wonderful Paris can be. A tourist bus is passing, I will look authentic with my big black portfolio and paint box. It really doesn’t matter where you live. It’s just a stage set. Some stage sets seem more familiar than others.

  I think I’ll set up a studio in the laundry in the back of the apartment. I’ll pin things on the walls and start to be professional. I can paint the children in the kitchen, the light’s good there in the afternoon. I hate the northern light, so dreary. I like the sun streaming in.

  ***

  By the time I’ve got into the day and changed my schedule, it’s as if I’ve been given a whole new day. The light is different as I cross the Seine.

  The studio is different from ours, it’s warm and we can work hard. Two Chinese students are talking softly behind me. There’s music and the students sing snatches of opera. We would never do that in our studio, each in our private torture chamber of self- expression.
Here the students have been assigned a classic pose. The light is clear and white. The model copies an Ingres pose, soft, white, indolent. Her shoulders sag, slope into muscle-less arms. The hands hang loosely, her enormous breasts and untried stomach are briefly fascinating.

  The pen tires of such soft lines. Under a mane of black hair, curving in, a marvelous face but no fire. The depth of the eyes is remarkable. The arch of the nose begins high up by the eyebrows and is a strong line to the soft mouth. Cheekbones rounded, shadows perfect, lackluster eyes.

  Damn! How can I capture this flaccid virginity? I’ve tried plastic paint in bands to frame the skull, crayon to show softness, black to show coming lines of fatigue. Aram stabs and scratches next to me. He has a direct, passionate approach that creates a universal nude.

  Please, crayon, learn faster, faster than the others. Please hand, break through and communicate universal thoughts. Why can’t what I feel get on the paper?

  Aram smiles at me, bending over his paper.

  “It gives?”

  “It gives a lot of things, but not enough.”

  “I worked well. I’m happy with today. Let’s find Johann and plan a party at your house. You need a party.”

  Wrapping up, we shuffle out together and his mind, untouchable but direct, carries me down the stairs.

  “It must come directly from you. It’s like coming to the office, click on the light at nine and leave at twelve. For the rest of your life, every day. I did it for a year and suddenly I had it. I knew where I was going and what I wanted to do and it was a different direction. But I came every day. You must too.”

  “I want to draw perfectly and then go beyond. I want to do it today. I long to break through.”

  “You cannot learn that fast, you just must work and it will come. The nude is enough, it’s the work. Then you think about it. When you paint, you mix the colors and the thoughts of the day and the training of the eye come together. You must paint without conscious thought and the way you go will show through. I want to paint a picture a day. Maybe two are good in the week. Pfft. I don’t care. I work and it comes. You see?”

  “I hope you’re right.” The cobblestoned court yard of the Beaux Arts does not look its best. Dirty puddles, cigarette butts and broken Greek statues.

  We wait at the light, then cross together. What is there about crossing a street that shows the man? Evans rushes ahead, leaving me to fend for myself, Johann walks with big mountaineer steps and smiles back, Etienne rushes the cars like bulls and Aram takes my arm and talks on.

  “I’m having trouble getting a visa for London. I put student. Stupid. Should have put painter. They don’t want me for long.”

  “The English still care about the Israelis?”

  “There was Palestine, you know. They cared about that. Many people died.”

  “Yes I remember. There haven’t been many terrorists in London. Students aren’t suspect.”

  “Students do the fighting.”

  “Not now, in London.”

  “Look, Shelia vouched for me, here is what she wrote.”

  “Let’s read it by my view.” The rough stone bridge over the Seine has flat resting places to lean on. It rubs through my coat. He is vouched for. In London he will be able to get his money from Israel. He will see new paintings, stare at the David Hockneys and Francis Bacons and come back rich. I’m happy he has good friends.

  Chapter 10: Coming Back

  1965

  I hardly know what to expect. Before he left Evans made me promise to go to business dinners with him. Tonight we’re going to be a couple again.

  The enormous house, set back from the street in its own garden, dominates the fashionable street. Charming, with old paneling of rubbed green wood in the entrance hall. We come into a huge reception room, grandiose and gold. Gold borders all available wood, all the carvings. The huge crystal chandelier blazes down unmercifully on the beige walls and the frozen guests. A Pissarro, its subtle colors drowned out by the yellow light, is hung at the head of the stairs. Greek statutes, obviously genuine, are tucked into odd spots. The host is Levantine.

  Hello, hostess. A harem beauty. We coo, she coos gently back, resplendent in white brocade so tightly cinched that all available bosom is pushed up and out.

  “Darlings, how good to come, how sweet, do meet...”

  We stiffen. We must be their American dinner; an attaché, a minor minister, a buyer, nicely assorted and unoriginal.

  I have the feeling of laughter welling up. I think this will be an amusing dinner! Everything is overly lush, curiously planned. The big armchairs at the dinner table have a scratchy brocade on them. They must be signed originals. Worse, some are higher than others and the men are placed lower than the women.

  Like a walking etiquette book, I change the person I’m talking to after each course; to the left for the shrimp and rice, to the right for the meat, to the left for the cheese, to the right for the sweet, to the left for the fruit.

  Conversation starts out disease and medical. No! Not after all I’ve been through, I won’t permit anyone to be this dull. Switch to the right. Torture! He looks pleasant enough but two hours of conversation is impossible. If I drink the wine, I’ll fall over in a stupor.

  “I went to the discotheque ‘La Princesse’ last night and saw that dress designer, Mia Farrow, dancing in a pair of pants that showed more than a bikini,” says my conversation partner to the right. “It’s taken me all day to shake the thought of that rear gyrating in front of me!”

  Well, he’s promising.

  “Why did you go?”

  “My son’s sixteenth birthday. What an education he’s getting here!” We laugh. He has a pleasant face, agreeably lined. Nice blue eyes. Maybe I can get a conversation going here after all.

  Look at Evans! Half hidden by the massive candlesticks, being served by the white gloved waiter, he casts his eyes to heaven. We laugh. Ridiculous, we’re still aware of each other. We could have such fun together.

  I’m glad Etienne exists in my life. I telephoned him today, once is enough. His turn next, kill or cure me. How unimportant women are to men, how women love the small daily intrigues. Who would believe a telephone call is so important.

  Dinner, brandy, cigars for the gentlemen, the ladies clustered by the fire … we’ll make it through the evening at opposite sides of the room. Then Evans will take me home, kiss me goodnight in a fraternal way and leave. I’ll empty the garbage and take out the dog. Will we ever get back together again?

  ***

  Why did I say I’d meet Evans to ski for a few days in Italy? It’s strange how the mountains are the same kind of mountains as in Austria. They seem so different. There’s more sun and the skiers are dressed in bright colors, recklessly dashing down the hill.

  It’s beautiful. Blazing sun on white snow, Alps as far as the eye can see, charming chalet-restaurant at the top of the mountain. Ever since Evans has left, I feel remote when I talk to him. Contact is difficult to make and I fall into the camaraderie of the Left Bank. He likes it.

  How did we ever get so old-acting? Why did we get stately and self-conscious? I feel as though I’ve learned so much truth. Staring at a model every day, the human body has become as familiar as a chair. Old or young, it’s the grace with which it moves, the life in the flesh, that counts. I feel thin and French and fashionable, as if I carry my world with me.

  Etienne, I’d like to be making love to you now. I suppose Evans and I will soon be having some sort of confrontation. I dread it, yet he’s my husband.

  Last week we went to a worldly, witty play with business visitors from Spain. It shocked our guests, the Spanish being provincial.

  For us, it struck at the root of our problem. Our unhealthy and consuming passion for each other has been diverted. A concentrated attention on any one person destroys that person, just as a glass concentrates the sun and burns the paper underneath. In witty Gallic phrases, the solution for this problem was to have three different types o
f love. It was logical. We saw how fond we were of each other and decided to talk again about ourselves to each other.

  Is it logical to love three people? Love each one differently and in this way have more of yourself?

  Johann, the friend. He sits in my old fashioned kitchen late at night with a candle glittering on the table. The servants have gone to bed and we have the deep shadows, reflections from copper pots and the furnace in the corner, to ourselves. He draws the world of Picasso and Braque, analyzing Surrealism, discussing the nude. He drew an eye with heavy sockets, a Marlene Dietrich eye.