Cooking for Picasso

by Camille Aubray

  Ondine considered this, imagining what the final effect would be, and she decided that he was surely right; after all, she didn’t want to look like a martyr on a holy card.

  “Don’t smile. And, you’re still not sitting properly,” Picasso said in exasperation. He stood with his arms folded across his chest as he thought it over quietly. Ondine waited.

  “Take off your culottes,” he said decisively.

  Ondine was startled. Then she gave him a cynical look. “Hah!” she said.

  He glanced up quizzically until he realized what she thought he wanted. “Foolish girl. Do you think I’d seduce a woman with a line like that? Do as I say!” he exclaimed. “And if you don’t understand what we’re doing here, then you can pack up and go home. Hurry up, you’re making me wait too long.”

  Picasso had returned to his canvas and stared at it, brooding. Ondine sensed from his tone that he really was all business. Her mother’s voice popped into her mind: If Monsieur Ruiz asks for something different, don’t pout or try to be the boss. Just give him whatever he wants!

  Feeling more fascinated than frightened, she crept over to a big, battered upholstered chair that looked as if it had seen better days. Crouching behind it, Ondine reached under her dress and pulled off her underdrawers without ever lifting her skirt. It was easy enough to do, but where on earth would she put them now? In a minute he might glance up, and she did not want to hear that irritated tone again.

  Quickly she tucked her culottes under a chair cushion, then she quietly slipped back into position in the corner on the floor, arranging her legs just as he’d instructed. She felt strangely liberated, and she was sitting differently, more naturally somehow, though she would never admit it to him. Yet she had a moment’s panic, realizing that without underwear, her crotch in this position might be clearly visible.

  There is no way on earth I will let him paint that, she thought. Then she had an idea. Casually she draped one arm across the place between her thighs. If he didn’t like it, too bad. She gazed in the mirror at her moist, panting reflection. Her defiant eyes stared back at her, and told her to hold firm.

  The room fell silent. Picasso glanced up, registering everything she’d just done. He looked at his wristwatch, then put down his brush with a sigh. Ondine’s heart sank; he was giving up on her already!

  “Silly girl,” he said, shaking his head in amusement as he moved forward.

  She felt the warmth of his breath as he bent over her, unstrapped his wristwatch and draped it round her right wrist, which remained poised protectively between her legs. He gave the watch a final tug, then reached for her bare left foot and firmly pushed her toes flatter on the floor. He paced backwards, step by step, critically assessing the effect. Finally, without a word he moved behind his easel and picked up his brush. She couldn’t believe her ears when she heard his quick bristly wet strokes on the canvas.

  He’s really doing it! Ondine thought in awe. The great Picasso is painting me, of all people!

  Ondine discovered that she’d been holding her breath. Now she let it out slowly. A new, perfect silence hung in the air over their heads like a soft cloud. The wristwatch, heavy and masculine, was still warm from his arm and she felt her own pulse throbbing against the weight of it. The watch seemed to contain all the passing minutes ticking inside it like little insects buzzing in a jar on a hot summer day.

  Then one by one, each moment seemed to become released from the watch, only to hang in the air like bright wet soap bubbles, each taking its lazy time drifting off into oblivion…as if this strange enchanted afternoon could go on forever. Soon Ondine felt that she herself was floating inside one of these magical bubbles. Time had now expanded into an eternal tranquility composed of the most profound silence she had ever heard in her life.

  Picasso remained quiet for a long while, becalmed by his own vision. Finally, he spoke.

  “Femme à la montre,” he grunted.

  Woman with a watch. Ondine had to hide a smile of pride that someone was finally referring to her as a woman, not a girl.

  She did not dare look up again. But she knew that Picasso was smiling, too.

  Céline, Spring 2014

  AFTER NEW YEAR’S AT MY mother’s, I spent the winter in Germany, doing the makeup for a very scary vampire movie. We were shooting on location in an ancient castle with crenellated towers, surrounded by a dark forest straight out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The nearest town was an obscure village of cobbled streets and old stone shops that looked like the illustrations on a Christmas cookie tin.

  I was glad to have such a demanding makeup job—lots of bloody mouths and eyes against unworldly-white and deathly-green skin. The actors showed up in my makeup room before dawn each day, because it took so long to do their faces and hands. I was like a wild-eyed mad scientist in my white smock, surrounded by jars of brushes, paint boxes of rouge and brown contourers, purple shadows and kohl-black crayons; boxes of tissues and sponges, buckets of water and oil and soap to remove smudges and do quick changes.

  “Céline, you do create the most terrifying ghouls in the business,” the leading actress exclaimed, sitting in her chair before a brightly lit mirror, her bib tucked under her chin while staring at her own ghastly image. She widened her rouged eyes and mouth, baring her teeth and hissing, making all kinds of horrible faces with utter childlike glee. “How do you do it?”

  I couldn’t tell her, I just show what I see. Most people, when they gaze into a mirror, simply want to look younger and more conventionally attractive, so they never see their faces as I do: the incredible circles, diamonds, triangles, curves and angles that make each one so fascinatingly unique. I suppose that’s why my specialty is these horror films and costume dramas, where I can freely use pencil, paint and powder to unmask both their noblest and ugliest aspects. I can look at anybody and find the monster that lurks within.

  —

  JUST AS I was finishing up in Germany, my brother, Danny, called. “Mom’s gone into the hospital in Nevada,” he announced. Quoting the doctors, he described it as an “episode” that may have been a series of strokes. “We tried to reach you earlier, but Deirdre had only an old phone number for you,” he said, as if it were my fault somehow. “We had to go through Mom’s records to find you. Don’t worry; Deirdre chose good doctors for her, and a nursing home that got high ratings.”

  He sounded so oddly matter-of-fact about this unexpected turn. I felt truly alarmed, for my mother had been in spry, perfect health when I left her, and I’d been looking forward to our planned reunion in New York, where I intended to spend time with her doing all the mother-and-daughter things that both of us would enjoy. I’d even imagined having her stay with me awhile in California, a place that fascinated her but which she’d never been able to convince Dad to visit.

  So I returned to the States and headed straight out to the care home in Nevada. As soon as I walked in the door, I was hit with that inevitable smell of disinfectant, stale coffee, sweat and medicine. Despite the staff’s efforts at cheeriness with bright reception furniture and flowers, my deepest impressions as I walked down the corridors were of the sad-eyed, white-haired women nodding in wheelchairs parked in forgotten corners; old men in hospital gowns and slippers creeping down the halls with their walkers; carts stacked with trays of uneaten meals alongside laundry carts yawning with soiled linens; and world-weary attendants pretending they didn’t see any of this. It was the last place I’d think of for Mom, with her impeccable standards of order and cleanliness.

  When I found her room I saw that she looked tinier than ever in a bed with metal railings to keep her in place. She was heavily sedated, therefore unable to walk, eat, bathe, or go to the bathroom unassisted. She just lay there, silent and terrified, unable to speak, staring at me with those big dark eyes; but she saw that I was worried, and she raised a hand to stroke my cheek and console me before sinking back into sleep. So I knew she’d recognized me.

  “She may improve once she’s ready f
or rehab, but with stroke, it’s hard to predict,” the doctor told me. I sat with Mom for hours, murmuring soothing words and holding her delicate-boned hand. She slept a lot. I thought she looked like fine porcelain sitting on a bargain-basement shelf. When I saw the food they brought her, I had to suppress a shudder, remembering her own excellent cooking.

  I spent two weeks in Nevada as Mom improved only slightly. I tried to help, but she required specialized care and still wasn’t speaking. I did manage to make friends with the lady who came to shampoo Mom’s hair once a week, and I got her to agree to keep an eye on my mother for me, and report any new developments which I felt instinctively that Deirdre would never tell me.

  Because the twins had made it very clear that they were now in charge. They insisted on taking me out to lunch at the end of my stay, as if we were all celebrating something. They had the air of children who’ve been given an unexpected day off from school. Deirdre’s job was managing a chain of spas in several resorts out West, while Danny worked for a bioengineering company in Boston.

  Being around them shot me right back to childhood. As a kid I’d always wistfully hoped that Deirdre and I could be like other sisters I knew; but because she was much older and had her own room, there were no girlish whispers confided, no playing dolls together. Besides, the twins were an impenetrable team; my most vivid memory was when they tricked me into hiding in the laundry hamper, a place they promised would be safe if a murderer ever broke into the house.

  Go on, try it, they’d said, and I did, because I was so happy that they wanted to play with me. But as soon as I was inside the hamper, they promptly sat on the lid and refused to let me out unless I came up with “the magic word”. I tried every word I could think of, but none were magic enough. Finally exhausted with tears and terror, I decided to go silent and let them think I’d suffocated to death.

  Céline? Céline? Deirdre had demanded in panic. I’d stayed smugly quiet, and when they jumped off the hamper, flung back the lid and scooped me out, I kept my eyes shut tight and my limbs limp. Danny laid me out on the floor and smacked me on the cheek, saying angrily, Wake up! Come on, Céline!

  I waited excruciatingly, then, very dramatically, let my eyelids flutter open. I parted my lips and they had to bend close to hear me. Water, I said weakly. They were immensely grateful when I revived.

  —

  NOW AS I sat down to lunch with Danny and Deirdre at a trendy health-food restaurant that they both liked, I still felt as if playing dead was the safest option. “Where are you headed now?” Deirdre asked with studied casualness, poking at her turkey and avocado salad.

  “I have some work to do in L.A.; then I thought I’d go back to New York and pack a few things for Mom,” I said, sipping my white wine a little too fast.

  “Oh, we took care of that already,” Danny replied smoothly. “Anything Mom needs is on its way here. Before she left New York, she asked us to put all her valuables in a safe-deposit box. There wasn’t much; just her jewelry. What wasn’t valuable was disposed of. Was there anything in particular you wanted to know about?”

  I already didn’t like the sound of this. So I threw them a curveball. “Sure, plenty. For instance, Mom has a striped pitcher from Grandma she’s especially fond of.”

  They had to think for a moment. “Oh, that. We threw it out. We had all the contents assessed by a professional,” Deirdre assured me. I could no longer hold back my feelings of utter disbelief.

  “That was an heirloom!” I objected, glancing from one impassive face to the other in a familiar, fruitless search for a more human response. They looked impatient as they always did with what they considered mere sentiment. But I thought things were moving too fast and I said so.

  Danny looked up, suddenly interested. “Why? Do you think that pitcher is valuable?”

  “Mom might get better, you know. The doctors said it’s not impossible. Why not let her sort things out herself when she goes home?” I said, putting down my fork, unable to eat another bite.

  The twins exchanged a glance. Danny took a deep, regretful breath. “There’s no point being in denial, Céline. Even if she recovers, she can’t be alone anymore. You know, you weren’t very helpful after Dad died, egging Mom on to be independent. She’s so naïve and trusting, someone might take advantage of her. Dad knew this; that’s why the house was in his name only, so when he went into the hospital he gave me permission to sell the house if he didn’t survive the surgery. We already have a buyer. We got a good price.”

  “You sold Mom’s home already?” I asked, astounded. “I’m sure she’d never sign off on that. We can’t make these decisions behind her back! We should sit down with her and give her some other options. You know how much Mom loves her kitchen and all her cherished, familiar possessions—and that’s so important to an older person’s sense of security and identity.”

  Danny said coolly, “Fortunately we had that conversation with Mom before she got sick. We explained it all to her, and she agreed that it was time for her to move out of New York. In fact, she and Deirdre were going around looking at assisted-living apartments here in Nevada for her. She wanted to move out here to be closer to Deirdre and, of course, to you, since you’re in California.”

  “She never said anything to me about moving out West,” I said, feeling odd. It crossed my mind that this “episode” might have been distress caused by the twins pressuring Mom to give up her home. And if my mother had mentioned the little pep talk I gave her after Dad died—about taking time to figure out what she liked—then she surely must have felt conflicted about giving up her house in New York.

  “Well, the point is, now we have to sell the house to pay for Mom’s care,” Deirdre said.

  “Even if that’s so, she could still live with one of us,” I suggested. The twins hooted at this impossibility, as if I were being a dopey younger sister. “I don’t mind having her stay with me,” I said more firmly. “We can hire home care for her.” Instead of considering this, they looked alarmed now.

  “The doctors don’t really think she’s going to improve,” Danny said with a finality I felt didn’t quite match the prognosis. “And our lawyers—including Mom’s—assure me that this is what’s best for her. It’s all been done properly, and it will all be in the Trustees’ Report, which you’ll get,” he added, sounding rehearsed. “If you have any questions, I suggest you contact our lawyers.”

  I caught my breath in shock, as if truly seeing the twins for the first time. It finally dawned on me that they thought of Mom’s money as theirs, not hers; and nothing I might say about Mom’s rights or feelings would make any difference to them whatsoever. It was a dismaying, sobering revelation.

  So after that lunch I packed up, returning to Los Angeles for a short assignment; and I met with my lawyer, who obtained all the documents he needed, made some phone calls, then sat me down in his office, shaking his head sadly. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why are my siblings talking like some law-and-order TV show? And how come they think they can sell Mom’s house right out from under her?”

  Sam sighed and said, “This sort of thing happens all the time, when it comes to wills and trusts. Look at it from the twins’ point of view—they may resent your mother having replaced their own, and they probably think that you’ll try to influence your mom to change her will and give you all the money.”

  “That is not what I’m after!” I said, outraged. “I only want to ensure that Mom has a real say in how she spends her money and where she lives. Danny and Deirdre are dead-set on keeping her all doped up in a nursing home. She’s delicate and sensitive; she’ll never get well being treated like that.”

  “Well, your parents’ wills do not quite say what your mother told you they would. Apparently, before your dad died he got her to sign papers authorizing the twins to do exactly what they want in the event that she ‘becomes incapacitated’. As long as she doesn’t recover and change her mind, the twins have control. I’m afraid your relatives comp
letely stitched up your mother legally—and you as well.”

  He looked at me pityingly. “Perhaps your mom didn’t understand the papers she signed, or she didn’t imagine they’d use them to do this to her. But she didn’t leave you any money or power to fight on her behalf, so she can’t really expect you to throw yourself in front of this train. Take my advice. It’s not like on TV. This kind of battle could take years in court, and the twins can gut your mother’s estate to defend their interests. And trust me, you don’t want her to be without funds to pay for her care.”

  —

  WHEN I LEFT his office, I retreated to my apartment in a state of shock and sorrow. I reached for my key but instead grasped something else that had been rattling around in my purse. It was the key to my mother’s house that she’d pressed into my hand at Christmas.

  And suddenly, every mysterious thing she’d said to me seemed to take on more significance, like when she surreptitiously gave me this key. Dad had the locks changed last month. I recalled the conspiratorial way Mom showed me that hiding place she had in the laundry room. She’d said, To me, it’s better than a vault! Oh, I guess I’m just like my mother, after all. Your Grand-mère Ondine…did have her little hiding places.

  “Why did Mom keep Grandma’s notebook in there all this time, and then suddenly give it to me?” I wondered aloud. I had it with me now, because my lawyer had told me to “bring everything” pertaining to the case when I met with him. He naturally wasn’t much interested in a cookbook.

  But what else did she put in that hiding place? I remembered the twins saying, What wasn’t valuable was disposed of. Yet Mom’s laundry room was surely the last place they’d search; she’d probably picked it for that reason. I didn’t want anything she secretly cherished to be found by some new owner of her house.

  Since I was in between assignments now I decided to take some time off, and I caught a flight to New York. When I arrived at JFK Airport, I rented a car and drove to Mom’s house. Nobody was around, not even that neighbor across the street. The house stood there like a candle that had been blown out. Silent. Lifeless. Wrong.