The Missing Matisse

by Pierre H. Matisse

  “Good!” I say. “Where is this job?”

  “In Montrouge. Théo Schmied, a friend of mine, has a printing shop there, and he has agreed to take you on. He specializes in fine rare books, limited and numbered editions. You’ll like it because the books are very artistically done.”

  Work! Something new. Books! Instantly, I like it. Books make me feel close to Tata. My mind is finally coming out of its hopeless stupor.

  “When do I start?”

  “Soon, but first you have to move again,” Maman says.

  “From now on, Pierre, you are going to have to live by yourself. It is becoming too difficult and too dangerous for all of us to stay together,” Papa adds.

  MAMAN AND I wait until after the curfew to begin moving me to my new home two miles away. As we walk, Maman tells me a little more about where I will be living. “You are going to like Monsieur and Madame Rateaux. They have a son, Jules, who is a couple of years older than you and studies at the Sorbonne.”

  We enter a comfortable house in Issy-les-Moulineaux. Madame Rateaux meets us at the door and lets her husband know that we have arrived.

  “Speak louder,” he roars. “I can’t hear you!”

  “He was in the artillery during the last war,” she explains to me as her husband enters the room. “The big gun explosions ruined his ears.”

  Maman and I greet Monsieur Rateaux and quickly fall into conversation.

  “I was just released from jail yesterday,” he tells me.

  “What for?” I ask, curious what kind of trouble he got himself into.

  “What?”

  “What for, Monsieur Rateaux?” I repeat loudly.

  “I stole from the Boches and got one year,” he declares proudly.

  “Stole what?”

  “Everything I could from these disgusting Krauts. I specialize in everything that is against them.”

  “You are lucky that they didn’t shoot you,” my mother admonishes him.

  “I hope that you have learned your lesson and that you are going to behave now,” his wife says.

  “I’m going to be an angel,” he says, laughing and flapping his arms.

  “And you, my friend, welcome to the riffraff outfit,” he says to me with a twinkle in his eye. “I’m going to teach you to steal without being caught.” He gives me a strong tap on the back and laughs again.

  Madame Rateaux shakes her head. “He’ll never change,” she confides to Maman.

  It takes us three trips and the better part of the night to move a mattress and a few minimal pieces of furniture that belong to Maman and Tata to the Rateauxes’ home, making a small first-floor room relatively comfortable for me.

  “I like Monsieur Rateaux,” Maman says to me. “Overall, he is a very good man.”

  “I think I’m going to like him, too, Maman.”

  “I’m glad. But, please, stay out of his dangerous schemes,” she advises.

  On our last trip to the Rateauxes’, I am carrying a bag full of miscellaneous things, and Maman has a small cardboard box containing some books. All of a sudden, a flashlight is aimed in my face.

  “What are you doing here at this hour?” a sour French voice asks. Two French policemen are blocking our way.

  “We are moving, and we are late,” my mother replies.

  “There is a curfew, Madame. You are lucky that we are not a German patrol.”

  Maman thanks them, and we finish our business quickly.

  A day or two later, Maman takes me to the print shop and introduces me to Théo Schmied, my new boss.

  MY WORKDAY begins at six o’clock in the morning after I’ve eaten a small breakfast prepared by Madame Rateaux. Next, I walk a half hour to the subway, which I ride to Montrouge, and then walk another half hour to the print shop. I work until five or sometimes six in the evening, without anything to eat.

  Twice a week after work, I take the subway to Montparnasse, where I attend les Cours du Soir de la Ville de Paris, free adult art classes. On Saturdays, I spend the entire day at l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière, studying drawing. I eat my meager midday lunch while I draw.

  I am learning the intricacies of anatomical classical art by drawing a live model. I learn by doing, but almost as much by discreetly watching older, talented artists creating masterpieces around me. Many famous artists, such as Marc Chagall, have sat on these very benches. By nine o’clock in the evening, I am back in my room at Issy-les-Moulineaux, just before curfew.

  This routine goes from Monday to Saturday. I never see the daylight during the week. On Sunday, weather permitting, I treat myself by taking the subway at Les Invalides and head to Versailles. There, I recharge my creative batteries in its magnificent gardens. I study the sculptures and architecture and fill my sketch pad with drawings.

  Sometimes, when I can’t make it to Versailles, I spend time in Notre Dame Cathedral, which is much closer to where I live. I slip inside and draw the sculptures and the intricate carved woodwork.

  I want to learn as much as I can and do it as fast as possible to earn money and be totally independent after the war. I study the basics of photography, engraving, illustration, decoration, and antique furniture at l’Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Learning and work restore my sanity.

  I am not allowed to go to our family’s apartment. If someone wants to see me, arrangements are made. Once when I meet Papa in Paris, he seems glad to see me, and after looking me over, he says kindly, “A button is missing on your coat, Pierre. You should wax your shoes. Look at your collar. Don’t you think that you could wash it?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  His words are kind and concerned, not critical. I believe that he wants to help me, but he doesn’t know how.

  We don’t talk about any of his underground activities, so I don’t know if he is still active or not. I guess we are all still at risk from the Antibes business.

  I WORK AND STUDY and am tormented by hunger again. Every week, I use my whole pay, minus my subway fare, to indulge once or twice at a black market restaurant. I buy two meals each time, stuffing myself silly. For the rest of the week, I mostly starve. There are a few exceptions. On the way to the print shop, I pass Tata’s apartment building, and from time to time, the concierge invites me in for a bowl of soup. Other times I find a note on my bed that my mother has left for me, saying to meet her at such a place and such a time so that she might pass some food on to me.

  I wait an hour, then another. Sometimes she comes, sometimes she doesn’t. When she makes it, she usually gives me a loaf of bread, a pot of jam, a saucisson (dry sausage), a can of sardines, and sweetened condensed milk.

  A few times when I have a little money and am lucky, I buy a black market potato or a smoked herring in the subway. At Montrouge’s town hall, the Red Cross sometimes distributes vitamin cookies to the J3s, donated by American Quakers. I go there a couple of times and wait in line for hours, only to be told that the last box has been given to the person just before me.

  I am getting taller and skinnier. My clothes are a hodgepodge of hand-me-downs from my family: My pants, shirts, and jacket belonged to Tata’s father, who lived under Napoleon III; my coat is Grandfather Milhau’s, which I have turned inside out to give it a new lease on life. My dress style is circa middle of the last century. My shoes worry me the most. They are starting to fall apart because of all the walking I do.

  I ENJOY WORKING in the print shop, and six to eight weeks after I start, I find out just how interesting this business is. We have fake plates and ink to make forged “official” documents, and I become a specialist in forging official signatures. There is one problem: the availability of paper.

  The Vichy government, in partnership with the Boches, prints all the official documents and passes here in Paris. I know the place well because I have passed it many times. The entrance is guarded by two German sentinels armed with menacing MP 40 Schmeisser submachine guns. Not far from the government printing house is a small bistro where the Frenchmen who w
ork for the Boches take their coffee breaks.

  I have been asked by one of Monsieur Schmied’s master printers, Monsieur Adventure, to join him in solving our paper problem. He has visited the bistro to see if one of the Frenchmen could perhaps smuggle a few sheets of paper here or there. Monsieur Adventure reminds me of my father, and I am happy to help.

  Finally, Monsieur Adventure receives word to be at the government printing house on such and such a day, at this exact time and location, with the biggest cart that two men can handle. The specified location is right in front of the two Boche sentinels!

  When the two of us arrive with the cart, the sentinels look at us and we look at them. They say nothing, we say nothing. All the time I am screaming in my head, Act natural! Act natural! A few agonizing minutes later, two French workers come out, carrying a stretcher full of paper that they load onto our cart. Later, Monsieur Adventure is informed that this was a onetime deal and is warned not to show up at the bistro ever again.

  AT THE PRINT SHOP, Monsieur Schmied seems to be pleased with my work. One day he asks, “Would you like to do some extra work for me on speculation? It could be a challenge.”

  “I’d love it,” I reply.

  “I would like you to design a cover for an illustration for the opening page of a book of Arab poems called L’Agneau du Moghreb (The Moghreb’s Lamb).”

  When my cover illustration is accepted, I proudly show it to everybody I know, including Monsieur Rateaux.

  He seems genuinely impressed, then says, “I understand that you are learning engraving.”

  “Oh, yes,” I say at full volume, “and I am getting pretty good at it.”

  A little time passes, and one Sunday when Madame Rateaux is out and the bad weather is keeping me from my usual trip to Versailles, Monsieur Rateaux says he has an interesting proposition for me.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Do you recognize this paper, Pierre?” With an exaggerated theatrical flourish, he hands me a few sheets of colored paper.

  My eyes widen. “It looks like alimentation paper, Monsieur Rateaux.” This special paper is used for all of the Boches’ official documents.

  “If it looks like alimentation paper, it is alimentation paper,” he says with that certain air that only a true conspirator knows.

  “Yes, but the color is wrong. Besides, they change the color every month,” I reply.

  “Let’s assume that I can obtain the right color paper,” he says. “Could you do a little discreet engraving, say, um . . . printing a few food coupons?”

  “Food coupons would be nice. I can try,” I reply enthusiastically.

  “Wonderful. What can I do to help, Pierre?” he asks seriously.

  “What about finding some heavy paper, the type that the Boches use for IDs?”

  “Ausweis? Yes, I have connections. I think that I can get that.” My partner’s eyes are twinkling.

  “We could sell those on the black market for extended leaves from the obligatory work in Germany.”

  “Make doctor certificates too,” Monsieur Rateaux adds.

  “Yes, and train station certificates with missed connection excuses to get back late, signed by the stationmaster.” The possibilities seem endless.

  “Good! Good! We’ll set up shop in the basement right away, Pierre. My son, Jules, has some friends who can use some of those extended leave passes as soon as possible to escape being sent to Germany for work detail.”

  We are in business—monkey business.

  FOR THE TIME BEING, my leisure time at Versailles and La Grande Chaumière is put on hold. But my newly acquired skills are paying off like gold. I engrave official stamps, forge high dignitaries’ signatures, print false papers—any kind of official documents you are looking for, we have them all. I particularly enjoy reproducing high-ranking Boche signatures for passes and goods for Frenchmen. It makes me feel like I am more active in the cause. I requisition the ink from my job at Monsieur Schmied’s and deliver it to Monsieur Rateaux’s private printing shop. I don’t feel guilty because we all have the same goal.

  After a while, Madame Rateaux discovers what we are doing. “This time you are going to get us shot,” she shouts at her husband.

  “Alice, can you detect the official coupon from the fake one?” he asks.

  “This is false; any idiot can see that!” she says, waving one of the coupons in his face.

  “Alice, which one of these passes is an imitation?” Monsieur Rateaux would be an excellent poker player, I think.

  “Only a fool would accept these,” she replies, holding up a handful of passes.

  “So, my dear, you are both an idiot and a fool because you have chosen the real ones as fakes.”

  Madame Rateaux is flabbergasted.

  “They sell like hotcakes,” my business partner tells her.

  “The police are going to find out, Albert.”

  “Alice, the police aren’t going to do a thing about it because we supply them with all kinds of fake papers for their own use—free of charge. They are some of our best customers!”

  “Be careful,” his wife warns.

  After a few days, even Madame Rateaux gets into the act by using some fake food coupons at the store. We eat a little bit better, but not by much. The food situation in Paris is getting so bad that even with the coupons we can’t get what we need.

  One day, my partner surprises me with a pair of new leather shoes. I am astounded and grateful, especially since I need them so desperately. My feet are growing fast as I sprout up. Monsieur Rateaux confides that he did business with a German soldier who was about to head to the Russian front, exchanging an extended leave of absence pass for two pairs of leather shoes—one for me and one for his son. Yes, even some of the Boches were thankful for our operation.

  AT NIGHT THE AIR RAIDS keep me awake. The Allies have intensified the bombing in the Paris suburbs, where they know French factories and repair shops are under German control.

  I don’t see Maman often, despite the fact that she is working on her pottery at the Matisse estate, which is not very far away. One day I receive a note to meet her at one of our usual rendezvous places.

  As usual, I see the worry on her face. “Pierre, the conditions in Paris are getting worse. It is not safe for you here.”

  “I’m all right, Maman. Besides, I have no other place to go!”

  She hesitates, then says, “Pierre, there is something that I’ve never told you. You have grandparents living in Normandy whom I have contacted. It’s possible that they’ll consider helping you.” I should have been surprised by this news, but by this time nothing about my family surprises me.

  “I’m doing what I think is best for you. Next Thursday, be here at eight o’clock to meet Grandfather Leroy,” Maman says hurriedly. Maman has always been in a hurry, even before the war.

  The mention of that name sends a bolt down my spine. As much as I don’t want to say it, I reply, “I’ll be here, Maman.”

  THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY is gloomy with a steady cold drizzle. I wait in the hallway of a friend’s building. The time is exactly eight thirty. I am on time, but I know that the air raids have been disrupting the already mediocre transportation system so I am waiting a little longer, at least until Maman arrives.

  The door opens. “Ah! Maman. I am so glad you are here.”

  She hugs me and then begins giving me some background on my out-of-the-blue grandfather.

  “Your grandfather was an attorney, but he got mixed up in a few bad cases that turned sour and got him disbarred, so he is retired now.”

  An hour later, the door opens and a gentleman enters the hallway. I estimate he is probably in his early seventies and is impeccably dressed in an expensive three-piece suit.

  “Louise, I’m glad to see you,” he says, taking my mother in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. “How are things with you, my dear?”

  He talks to her, but he avoids looking at me.

  “Not too bad, excep
t for the war problems. How is it in Normandy, Louis?” she asks.

  “We’re surviving, but it’s getting worse. The Boches are turning the screws a little tighter every day.”

  Suddenly, to get to the point of things, Maman pushes me under the only lamp in the dimly lit hallway. “This is your grandson, Pierre.”

  Grandfather Leroy gives me a strange look.

  Maman says nothing. The silence is embarrassing, and I want to run out.

  She reads my mind. “Please, Pierre. Stay put,” she says quietly.

  Monsieur Leroy is now slowly walking around me, sizing me up from head to toe.

  “Hum!” he says, appearing to be clearing both his throat and his mind.

  He is now walking around me a second time. I glance at my mother imploringly, who looks like she has had enough, too. At that moment Monsieur Leroy’s eyes meet hers.

  “He’s my grandson, Louise,” he states simply.

  I didn’t hear anyone asking me my opinion, I think angrily.

  Then he turns and hands me a piece of paper.

  “I am your grandfather, and this is my address. Write to me and your grandmother. Her name is Mathilde.”

  “I am so pleased,” Maman says happily.

  “Mathilde is another story, Louise! Mathilde is going to have to be convinced.”

  Why does she need to be convinced? I am starting to get suspicious.

  “What if Pierre and I come for a visit?” my mother suggests.

  “Good idea, Louise. What about next week? Would you come with Pierre to see us?”

  “Yes, Louis, I’d like that.”

  Maman seems relieved, but I can’t say the same for myself. Still, I will keep my mouth shut. She has too much on her mind these days.

  The well-dressed gentleman gives me another curious look and says to my mother, “Yes, he is my grandson.”

  He shakes my hand, kisses my mother, and leaves. The whole episode lasts maybe fifteen to twenty minutes.

  I don’t know if I like him or not. Now I have three grandfathers. I have an affinity with my first two. But this one?

  Maman interrupts my thoughts. “Pierre, you are going to have to be nice to them. They can help you.”