The Missing Matisse

by Pierre H. Matisse

  “I’m coming!”

  But Monsieur Effel sees a certain smile on my face and says more loudly, “You’re not thinking about trying this small boat in this kind of sea, are you, Pierre?” He has read my mind. How does he do that?

  “No, sir!”

  He doesn’t believe me. “The Med can be deadly, you know. It is absolutely forbidden to use the dinghy in any waves, however small. Strictly on a calm sea and only under adult supervision. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  This time I try to be more convincing, while saying to myself, We’ll see about that.

  But I will need the right conditions. No Gérard, no adults, lots of wind, and the sea like a boiling pot. How exciting! I have to know if I am a real sailor, one who has courage and fortitude. I am growing up and getting stronger, but I need to measure up. Surely Papa and Monsieur Effel will understand.

  13

  ADVENTURES ON THE HIGH SEAS

  Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be too smart.

  PIERRE H. MATISSE

  ONE STORMY SUMMER AFTERNOON, the right conditions come. The Med is cold, and a gale is blowing furiously from the southeast. No one is around to stop me. This day is all mine.

  Sheltered between two short headlands of sharp rocks is a tiny cove, around twelve feet wide by twenty feet long. Full of confidence, I get in the dinghy and pull away. Nothing to it, I think, as I begin to row. Now let’s get to the real thing—the sea and me.

  In the open Med, holy mackerel! Up I go! Down I go! It’s like riding a wild horse. I feel like a lion has me in its jaws and is shaking me savagely left and right. I realize that I am in serious trouble. The wind is pushing me out of control, the current is too strong. I can’t possibly row against that.

  The dinghy is taking on water by the bucketful. I have only a small tin can to bail it out. It takes all my limited skills to keep the boat from capsizing. My heart is in my throat, and panic sets in. It’s all too clear—I am going to die.

  I call for help. Only God can get me out of this situation, and now would be a good time.

  “God, it’s me, Pierre. I have disobeyed my parents, and I am a very bad boy. I have never asked You anything, but today I am stuck. Please help me.”

  A few moments alone with God can accomplish miracles. My panic is replaced by God-given courage. If I have to die, at least I’ll die like a man. I don’t have time to be afraid. The fight is on.

  I pull on the oars as hard as I can. Deftly, I turn them parallel to the waves in an effort to keep the wind from tearing them out of my hands. A piece of jetsam a few yards away floats nearby. It’s now drifting between land and the dinghy, heading back toward the Cap. The current! It’s following the current. I have to follow the piece of debris.

  I row with all my body and soul until my heart is pounding. The jetsam is going to shore, but for some reason I am not. I am caught in a trough between waves, and I can’t see anything. The dinghy is like a spinning top, and I am disoriented. Abruptly, I am propelled on a wave’s crest, and the wind hits me with such force that I can’t breathe.

  A big wave throws me sideways. Fortunately, I correct myself just in time to avoid capsizing.

  “I lost the jetsam!” I cry out of frustration, not fear or despair—there is no time for them. My adrenaline is running full blast.

  “Where is the stupid jetsam?” I scream loudly to no one but myself.

  Then, I hear a banging on the hull of the dinghy. I can’t believe it. The jetsam, remnants of a wooden crate with German lettering, is on the starboard side. I am getting closer to the shore, and I row like a madman. “Thank You, God,” I say, “but don’t leave me just yet, please? Maybe You can send a guardian angel to protect me.”

  Every time I am on a wave’s crest, I can see Monsieur Effel’s villa, so I aim for the cove. Am I making progress? Slowly, slowly, yes! The shore is coming closer.

  Suddenly a big breaker takes me by the bottom of my pants and throws me brutally onto the rocks. The dinghy shatters into a thousand pieces, like an eggshell hitting a wall. I lie on the rocks half-drowned, covered in blood and chilled to the core.

  I whisper a prayer through my chattering teeth. “Thank You, God! A million thanks. I’ll never do that again.”

  I think that I hear a voice respond, “Really?” Is that heavenly ridicule, or is it the wind? It’s only my imagination . . . right?

  Somehow I manage to drag myself home. Fortunately, nobody is there. While I’m in the bathroom cleaning myself up, I hear Maman screaming. “No! It can’t be him. He was told not to take the boat out in bad weather.” She is getting hysterical. “No! No! He is not dead. Jean, tell me it’s not true.”

  Some neighbors had spotted me in the cove. According to them, I had disappeared in the raging sea. They had run to the bistro for help to find my body. A half dozen people are running up to the Cap. This is not going well at all. Completely bewildered, I run out of the house to my mother.

  “Maman, it’s me. I’m here.”

  My mother almost faints, and everybody looks at me strangely. I quickly realize the problem—I am completely naked.

  “What happened to your clothes?” Papa asks.

  “They were wet!” I answer, shivering in the wind. “I took them off in the house.” I turn and make a quick exit back inside. Once I am fully clothed again, it’s back to work with Papa. Busyness keeps the lid on me.

  I am grateful that I have survived, but how in the world am I going to explain to Monsieur Effel what happened to his dinghy?

  “The good thing is, Pierre always inflicts his own punishment upon himself,” Papa tells my mother.

  “Until he kills himself!” is her curt reply.

  “Don’t worry. From now on, he’s going to respect the sea.”

  LATER, MONSIEUR EFFEL ARRIVES at our house. When I apologize for the fate of the dinghy, he says, “I was going to give you the dinghy anyway, Pierre. So it’s not a loss to me; you just lost your dinghy.”

  “Thank you. I think it is the nicest gift anyone has ever given me,” I say, as the realization that I have destroyed my boat before I ever owned it sinks in. He laughs.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asks, appearing quite interested in my next move.

  I wait until Maman leaves the room.

  “I am going to build a kayak,” I tell him in confidence.

  FOOD IS GETTING SCARCER BY THE DAY. The government has instituted ration coupons for everything: sugar, oil, butter, meat, bread, potatoes, rice. In fact, everything we need for living is rationed. If you need it, it is rationed. Sometimes, even with the coupons, you can’t get goods. Even the black market operators are having difficulties. Papa has to be content with a small ration of cigarettes, which is the worst ordeal, reflected in his mood. I do my best to stay clear of him when I know he has no cigarettes.

  We are all hungry. At night I can’t fall asleep because my stomach hurts so much. The rationing system becomes more abominable: coupons are allocated by human classification. Babies receive little food. Children are allowed a little of that, so many grams of this, and not much more. Adults are on a slim diet, and seniors are receiving barely any food at all. But teenagers. Ha! Teenagers are classified J3 and are given the most, even more than adult workers doing physical labor. J3s are taken care of because when they come of age—about fifteen or sixteen—they will either be drafted into the army or be sent to Germany for forced labor. After all, Europe can’t afford to run out of soldiers, or “gun meat” as Tata used to say. Even with the added ration coupons, I am always hungry, and the coupons aren’t worth much when there is nothing to use them for.

  The food coupons allocated every month don’t cover much fresh fruit, which is nearly nonexistent. Who can remember what a banana or orange looks like? How do you describe the taste to a child who has never seen one? The unfortunates of war are sometimes fortunate. One day a British submarine torpedoes a German freighter close to Nice’s harbor. Boom! The Boches’ rusty bucket
blows sky high. Among other things, the freighter is loaded with oranges on their way to Germany. Kindly, the current delivers the oranges, some still intact in crates, to their rightful owner—me—thirty miles away in Antibes.

  I am constantly walking in the cove, looking for escargot and crabs, any fresh food from the sea. When I spot the oranges, I am enticed. But getting to them is tricky. The rocky shore is terribly slippery, and the weather has turned nasty. The sea can be mean—that much I have already learned. Yet I can practically taste the sweet, juicy fruit.

  Apparently nobody else has noticed anything in the water, so I keep the secret to myself. I swim out to the crates and manage to salvage a few full crates, which I bring home in a wheelbarrow. I eat some at the beach and savor their taste, so refreshing compared to our usual diet of fish and beans. When I have retrieved them all, I will surprise my family with this treasure from the sea.

  I go back the next day, and the next, snatching one floating orange at a time.

  The weather remains foul, but I am obstinate. I have to get those last oranges. Who knows when another “orange boat” will be sunk? Between the swells is a nice batch, floating only a few yards away. I try to reach them for an hour or so with no luck. That’s it! I’m going to swim for them. Tomorrow will be too late; they’ll be gone. I can already envision Papa, Maman, and Gérard enjoying my spoils and sharing them with our friends and neighbors.

  There is a lot of oily wreckage drifting all around me. I have a little net bag for my catch attached to my belt. The current is strong, but I get to the prized fruit and fill the bag almost full.

  As I turn to swim back, something is in my way. It’s like a big bag of rags. The material is a pale blue gray color. I see something red—a cross, then an arm and beautiful long hair. A dead nurse! I am horrified and swim as fast as I can back to shore.

  When Papa asks me where the oranges came from, I explain how I got them. Some of the oranges last only a few days because they are waterlogged, while some last up to a week. Everyone enjoys the bounty, but I politely refuse the oranges when they are offered to me.

  When Maman asks me why, I simply say, “I prefer bananas.”

  “I told you,” a neighbor says. “It’s the same story all the time. They are spoiling those J3s. He has oranges but he wants bananas. Typical!”

  “If only they could sink a boat full of cigarettes,” Papa adds wistfully.

  I never tell anyone what else I saw in the water.

  However, I accept my lone responsibility for having found this dead nurse, and I ask God to accept this angel of mercy into heaven with open arms.

  14

  A DARK STORMY NIGHT

  Everything is permitted, but don’t get caught.

  FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION SAYING, SIDI-BEL-ABBÈS

  PAPA HAS NEVER really been a keen fisherman, but in the late summer he suddenly takes an interest in fishing. Not from the shore, but from a boat. He has made some friends among the fishermen in the community, and they often lend him a solid heavy rowboat with oars. It is large enough for us to attach a temporary short mast with a small lateen sail.

  On one fishing trip, Papa, Gérard, and I row to a certain spot before Papa says to stop. Since I have been fishing these waters for a while now, I offer my opinion. “Papa, we are not going to catch any fish here. It’s no good.”

  “We are fishing here anyway,” he replies.

  “But I like to actually catch fish,” I say impatiently. “Look! There is not even a crab to eat the bait.”

  “Be patient!” Papa drops a sounding lead into the water to measure the depth.

  What’s wrong with him? I can’t contain myself. “Papa, the east side of the Cap is the deepest point of the entire French Mediterranean, close to the coast.”

  “Pierre, you are getting on my nerves. Shut up and take a few bearings on the white house with the red roof over there and another one from the tip of the Cap.”

  I do as I am told. When he checks my nautical calculation, he smiles. “Right on the money. Our numbers match. Perfect!” When he nods in approval, my momentary irritation with him disappears, and I feel proud.

  “I have a surprise for you, Papa.” I pull out a sealed brown envelope from my pocket and pass it to him.

  He opens it carefully. “Tobacco!” he says happily. “Where did you get it?”

  “I requisitioned it from that farmer who charges exorbitant prices for his vegetables. He grows it secretly between the rows of tomato plants.”

  Papa’s expression darkens immediately as the boat rocks on the waves. Gérard, sitting in the middle of the boat, glances at Papa, then me, then back and forth.

  “So,” Papa says to me, “it is not enough to steal dinghies from Jean Effel. Now you have graduated to grand larceny, eh?”

  I begin my defense. “Monsieur Effel was going to give me the dinghy. And Monsieur Jacques said that requisitioning is the term for gaining necessities during wartime. Besides, that farmer will not notice a few missing plants.” My eyes are riveted on the floorboards of the boat. I’ve been anticipating this lecture.

  “It’s not a legitimate excuse. You are strictly forbidden to steal or requisition anything. Do you hear me? You’d better shape up, Pierre. We went over this with the flowers in Beauzelle. I will not tolerate a thief under my roof.”

  His look burns into me as he waits to see if I have gotten the message. Once he’s satisfied, he seems pleased with himself and, as the expression on his face indicates, perhaps even with me. I am certain that, deep down, he’s very glad I helped myself to the tobacco leaves.

  “By the way, where exactly are these tobacco plants located?” he asks with a grin, rolling a cigarette with my contraband.

  Two hours pass without a single bite. I am bored to tears, and so is Gérard. Papa is spending most of the time smoking. No one says anything because sound carries too well across the water. We have packed water and a little bread, cheese, and onions, but this is emergency food only.

  I have to do something. “Can I go for a swim, Papa?” I finally ask.

  “Yes.”

  This is strange. Papa never lets me swim around the boat when we are fishing. But then again, we usually are catching fish.

  “Can you swim under the boat?” Gérard asks me, looking over the edge of the boat. Although I have been swimming since I was a small boy, my brother has never wanted to learn. I love showing off for him.

  “Sure!” I dive, splashing water on him and Papa. Gérard laughs, enjoying watching me disappear on one side of the boat and pop up on the other.

  Papa bursts into thunderous laughter. What is the matter with him? He’s not fishing seriously. Something is definitely fishy here.

  As I climb back into the boat, he says, “Let’s move out of here, Pierre. Go straight, one hundred and forty degrees.”

  “There are no more fish in that direction than here, Papa.”

  “As I said, one hundred and forty, my boy,” Papa insists.

  This doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Gérard gives me a shrug and trails his hand in the water.

  “This course leads directly to Corsica, Papa.” I want Papa to realize that I know what I’m talking about.

  “I know, Mister Pirate, but keep on going anyway.” My father is going batty, no doubt about it. The lateen sail goes up and catches a light breeze that pushes us steadily along. The sky is cloudy, but here and there the sun’s rays break through openings in the white cotton above us.

  “Now put the bow toward the Cap, Pierre.”

  “That is even worse for fishing,” I grumble. With this strategy the fish are safe. What a waste of time.

  “I know,” Papa says.

  “When we get back, those fishermen will laugh at us, Papa.”

  “Let them laugh. Now, Pierre, do you know exactly where we are?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Could you get us back to the first place where the fishing wasn’t good? I mean exactly.”

  I s
tudy his face. “Yes, Papa.”

  “Go!”

  When we arrive at the initial fishless spot, I finally ask Papa, “Is this a game?”

  “Yes, it’s a game,” he says, “but a very serious one.”

  Now I am extremely curious. “Tell me about it.”

  “Not now.”

  THE THREE OF US play this game a few times over the next week. We pack water and a lunch, and we “fish” in places where there is no chance of catching a thing. I have a good time swimming, and the navigation drill with my compass is fun. I wish Papa would try some other spots, but he seems obsessed with these two positions.

  Finally, one day Papa and I go out alone. Gérard doesn’t mind being left behind. Although he liked the first excursions, the truth is that he hasn’t been too enthusiastic about water or boats since he saw me battered and bloody after the wreck of the dinghy.

  When Papa and I get to the usual spot, he says, “Do you think you can get to these exact spots at night, Pierre? Right on the nose?”

  He is calmly packing his pipe with some tobacco leaves that look very much like the greedy farmer’s. I’m wondering if we have two thieves in the family instead of one. Papa notices the questioning look on my face.

  “After further consideration of your actions, I asked the farmer for forgiveness and offered to pay for the tobacco. You were right; his prices are exorbitant. So I convinced the farmer that if he shares the tobacco with me, he has my friendship and silence on the secret crop.” I should have known Papa would find an honest way to keep his supply chain going.

  I grin and then answer his question. “With a little bit of moon, we can see the Cap. Then if the white house has a light in a window . . .”

  “Correct; that’s what I thought. We’re going to try, but not a word to anyone. This is just between you and me.”

  “But Papa, the fishing is not better at night, you know.”

  “I know,” he says. “We are not after fish, my son. We are after Adolf Hitler.”