She felt like throwing herself out the window then and there, into the storm that was raging relentlessly, and she didn’t care if the wind picked her up and blew her straight out to sea. This sudden urge for self-annihilation felt so real that it frightened her. Feeling momentarily lightheaded, she swayed slightly, and looked around for a chair or something to catch hold of.
“Zzzz-zhzz!” A snoring noise came from down the hallway, puncturing the silence. The dark, brooding morning must have discouraged Picasso from getting out of bed. Only a city man could indulge in the luxury of sleeping so late. Ondine marched over to the room where his snores were coming from, and peered in the open doorway.
Picasso slept peacefully in his bed, oblivious to the storm. She crept closer to the foot of the bed, then stopped and stood there, staring. He’d kicked off the covers in his sleep, like an infant, and was lying on his back naked, blissfully snoring away, his body completely exposed, right down to his wiry pubic hair, from which sprung his penis, perkily alert, like an arrow.
“Here lies the Minotaur,” Ondine murmured, horrified and fascinated. “He devours all the women who enter his labyrinth. Do they die of pleasure, or agony?”
She’d never looked at a man’s zizi before—not even Luc’s when he stole into her bed; she’d only felt his friendly arousal nudging against her under the covers in the dark. Yet even with Luc’s tender love, sex had involved an invasion that made her bleed.
“I may as well throw myself on the Minotaur instead of out the window, and I don’t care what he does with me after this!” Ondine imagined herself impaled upon him—bloody, spent, yet somehow, triumphant. She felt a surge of something else besides rage swelling inside her, arising from all her pent-up, frustrated desires for love and independence and the power of a better destiny.
“I want to be the one who is rich and happy. I want to be the one who takes all the pleasure!”
Defiantly she slipped off her underdrawers beneath her dress, just as she had when she posed for him. But now she wanted to rid herself of this blue dress, too, that she’d worn so many times for Picasso—and in church for Monsieur Renard.
“You don’t see me as I really am,” she whispered to the slumbering figure as she unbuttoned her dress. “Nobody does!” With an outraged gesture she yanked it up over her head and hurled it to the floor.
“There. Look at me! Am I not beautiful?”
The thunder crashed directly above now, like a cannon reverberating through the house to its very foundation. It woke Picasso, and with a shocked gasp he sat up suddenly.
“Who’s there?” he said in a low voice, squinting and automatically pulling up the sheets. “Ondine? Is that you? What’s the matter?”
“Everything,” she said, coming to the side of the bed.
“What do you want?” he asked in surprise, still trying to see her.
Ondine didn’t answer but trembled as she stepped out of the shadows. He saw that she was naked, and he studied her face, assessing the situation. Then suddenly he opened his arms to her. When she rushed in, he enveloped her in an embrace that surprised her with its welcoming warmth.
“Chère Ondine,” he murmured soothingly. “Why have you come to me now?”
“Because I want—” Ondine began, then found that she could not speak. She tried again. “I want to know…I want to feel. I want—I want—”
“Yes, yes, I know,” he said, softly stroking her hair away from her cheek. He pulled her closer to his chest, and his arms around her made her feel as if, like Zeus, he could cloak her in something that the storm could not touch. At the same time, his persistent stroking ignited a spark that unleashed the hunger seething inside her—for, having tirelessly served the appetites of so many people who came and went from the café, Ondine suddenly realized she’d been starving for love all along. Now, instead of working hard to please this man and her parents, it felt like finally somebody wanted to please her.
And although she could not say exactly how it began, she found that he was kissing her and she was kissing him, and her heart was beating faster, faster, faster, as she’d once felt when she was a child climbing up a great tree, higher and higher, her limbs growing taut with strength, her blood like a fire urging her on, and her mind dizzy with the risk—how high could she go without falling?
He was kissing her breasts as she clung to his strong neck; and to Ondine’s surprise her body told her that for quite some time she’d been living in an aching state of arousal, stimulated by each visit into his world, each picture he painted—her flesh already so exquisitely pliable that she felt triumphantly indestructible as he thrust himself inside her soft wetness. Nothing could stop her now, not even when he began to withdraw while he was still hard; she only seized him hungrily and held him long enough to take what she needed for her pleasure before he, too, surrendered. And for once, her own greedy strength triumphed over everyone and everything—over anger, over sorrow, over death itself.
—
LATER, SHE HEARD the rain, like the distant rushing of an Alpine stream pouring down from the heavens in a benediction, washing away the thunder and lightning, whispering and soothing through the trees, making them toss their heads like ladies shaking their hair dry after a day of bathing in the bright blue sea.
Ondine felt fearless now; all the rage was spent from her limbs, and her muscles and bones were relaxed and strong again. She sat up and took a folded blanket from the foot of the bed to open up and wrap around her. She liked its looseness; she did not want to be restricted by clothes yet.
She would have gotten out of bed and gone to the window to drink in the fresh air, but now Picasso stirred and gave her a smile like sunlight. Ondine experienced this perfect moment as an acute grace, so peaceful that she knew, no matter what happened afterwards, nothing could ever take it away from her. I am alive. I am a creature to be prized. He has given me this recognition and I will take it.
Picasso leaned close to her now and picked up a long spiral of her hair that had fallen over her forehead, gently putting it back into place with the rest of her curls.
“Belle Ondine,” he murmured in admiration. She sighed.
“Beautiful,” she repeated. For a moment she remained silent, letting the word reverberate in the air. Then, without reproach she said, “I saw the paintings you made of me.”
“Ah,” he commented. “Well, you don’t even have to say it. I know what most women think. ‘Is that how you see me? I don’t look like that at all!’ Am I right?” His alert dark eyes were watchful for an answer.
She mulled it over, then offered the only explanation she could honestly come up with.
“I guess it’s very difficult,” she said thoughtfully.
“What is?” he asked, looking wary now.
“To paint people’s souls right into the flesh on their faces,” she offered. “Like Rembrandt.”
At first, he howled with laughter. Ondine smiled uncertainly, then shrugged.
“Humph!” he exclaimed, taken aback. “What do you know about Rembrandt?”
“I’ve seen a picture of his,” Ondine explained. “Just a girl looking out a window.”
“Oh, that one!” Picasso nodded.
“You’ve seen it, too?” she asked eagerly. “I see it every day in the café. And yet she is a mystery to me. Isn’t it incredible—to make a person look real and yet so much more than ordinary?”
“You think I couldn’t do it?” Picasso said abruptly, sitting upright and reaching for his clothes. “Come with me to my studio, right now.”
Calmly, still partially wrapped in her blanket, she followed. The soles of her bare feet seemed to feel every grain of the wooden floor, like a healthy animal stalking through the forest.
“Go to that window where the sun is,” he ordered, for indeed, the sky was clearing now. She hesitated until he said challengingly, “You want to be my immortal Girl-at-a-Window, don’t you? Then pose like her, but leave your shoulders bare.”
Sh
e could not resist saying, “Look, there’s a rainbow out there! What perfect colors.”
“Hmm,” he observed gruffly, “you know, you’re not like most females, especially when you make love. You’re too…aggressive, like a man. A woman can be strong—but not in bed!” A faint tone of paternal disapproval crept into his voice. “You’re not a virgin, are you?”
Ondine looked away defiantly and warned, “Don’t spoil it.” She didn’t want a father or a priest lecturing her now.
“Then turn your head more this way and be still,” Picasso growled, picking up his brush.
For a long while, all was quiet. Then she asked curiously, “What’s Paris like?”
“Dirty and wonderful,” Picasso replied, still looking preoccupied.
“If I came to Paris would you—” Ondine began, but he looked up so sharply that she said hurriedly, “—introduce me to people who run the restaurants? I want to be a great chef there.”
“Everyone always wants the glory, but nobody wants to do the work,” Picasso muttered. “It takes years to learn a trade, any trade. Assuming one has the talent to begin with.”
“Hard work doesn’t scare me. I’ve worked hard for years!” Ondine exclaimed. “Whatever I don’t know, I’ll learn fast. You can see that. You know I have the gift for cooking,” she said, matter-of-factly.
Picasso conceded, “You do. But in Paris all the head chefs are men. They won’t give a top job to a woman. Besides, a big restaurant kitchen is no place for a girl. They’re full of bad men working there. They’d rape you in the basement the day you arrived. What’s the matter with you? You belong here. Why do you want to run away from lovely Juan-les-Pins?”
“My parents are planning to marry me off to a man I can’t possibly love!” Ondine cried passionately. “I must get away and cook on my own.”
He stopped painting momentarily. “Listen to me,” he said sternly, “Paris is no place for a sweet country girl like you. They’ll eat you alive. You can’t just find a job. You have to know somebody.”
“I know you,” Ondine pointed out. But she could see that he looked fairly alarmed at the idea, and clearly he had no desire whatsoever to have her turn up in Paris looking for favors. Remembering what the nuns sometimes did to place their students in positions of governesses and ladies’ maids, she said softly, “Won’t you at least write me a letter of recommendation, saying that I am an artiste in the kitchen, just as you told Miss Dora Maar? I could use that anywhere.”
Picasso wore the trapped expression of a small boy ensnared by his own boasts. He returned to his canvas, muttering, “Of course, of course. I’ll do it tomorrow. But don’t blame me if you hate where you end up! Those kitchen jobs pay shit. You’ll die an old, hardworking peasant unless you learn to take yourself seriously.”
“What do you mean?” Ondine asked, intrigued.
“If you want something in life,” Picasso said, looking hard at her now with those fearless black eyes, “you don’t ask nicely and politely for it. You don’t write letters. You have to kill for it.”
“Kill?” Ondine echoed. “Kill who?”
“Anyone who gets in your way,” Picasso answered. He saw her doubtful expression. “You think I’m wrong? Listen, every time you cook something for me, you have to kill it first. It doesn’t matter if it’s a carrot or a pig,” he said bluntly. “You have to kill something, every day, just to live.”
Ondine pondered this. She could think of people she’d like to kill. The postman, for one.
“So you might as well stay home in Juan-les-Pins,” Picasso said, putting down his brush now, “and let a man do the killing for you, while you have his babies.”
But Ondine smiled defiantly to herself. One thing she’d already learned today, to her surprise, was the strength of her own ravenous appetite, the discovery of her own powerful teeth and claws.
“Can I see my portrait now?” she asked, observing that he had stopped painting.
“It’s not finished,” Picasso said, “but yes, you may look.”
Ondine padded across the floor and peered at it. “Oh!” she cried. “It is beautiful!”
Like the other canvases it was stretched upon wood, but this one was smaller. It was indeed A-Girl-at-a-Window—and it was a Picasso, but what sort of Picasso? More tender, natural, eternally human. She’d never seen him paint this way before. This girl in the picture had Ondine’s face, of that there could be no doubt. Her flesh glowed with the radiance of youth, health and vitality. Her eyes were alight with curiosity, her mouth just hinting at her innermost thoughts, her hair in all its colors seeming as if every expressive strand was an echo of her spirit.
“It’s so different from anything I’ve seen you do,” she said quietly.
“Oh, well, the critics will say I’ve gone back to my Rose Period,” Picasso said ruefully.
“What does that mean?” Ondine asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” Picasso answered. “It’s what they’re born to do—chatter like squirrels. Then the dealers will convince some cautious businessman, who’ll buy it to decorate his new house so he can tell his friends, Here’s my Picasso! Don’t worry, it’s not one of the ugly ones!”
Ondine stood before the portrait, her hands clasped. “Oh, how can you bear to sell this painting to people who only want it because you’re famous?” she asked softly. “If I made this I would never let anyone take it away, unless I knew that they loved it and understood what makes it beautiful.”
Picasso looked truly touched. “Fine! It’s yours,” he said impulsively, with a sweep of his hand.
Ondine was thrilled. “Really?” she asked, awed. “I would love to have it! It would bring me luck, I am sure.”
“Ah,” he said sagely. “But—what kind of luck?”
“When will it be finished?” she asked eagerly.
“Tomorrow, perhaps,” Picasso said vaguely. “And now, chère Ondine, I’m hungry. So, feed me!”
Céline and Aunt Matilda in Mougins, 2014
WHEN I AWOKE ON MY first morning in the South of France, at first I couldn’t remember where I was. The windows were shuttered, the room was dark, and I was still fuddled by the time zone change.
But Aunt Matilda solved this by jumping out of her bed, thrusting her long, narrow feet into spa slippers and padding over to the window to fling open its quaint shutters. Instantly, our room was flooded with brilliant sunlight and the heady scent of flowers borne on a mild but persistent breeze.
“Mmmm,” I sighed from my bed, eyes still closed, “what is that wonderful scent?”
“Jasmine, I believe,” Aunt Matilda said, peering out to the shrubbery below. “Some of the best perfumes in the world are made from these flowers! Oh, get up, Céline. Look at the view!”
“I saw the view from the airport ride yesterday,” I mumbled sleepily. We had been picked up by the hotel minivan and driven along the coastline before climbing high up into the hills of Mougins. “Blue sky, blue sea—no wonder they call it the Côte d’Azur. And no wonder Mom wanted to come back to the French Riviera! The real question is, why would she ever have wanted to leave it?”
“Well, it’s one thing to be a tourist. It’s quite another to be a local gal working and growing up here. Small towns are the same the world over,” Aunt Matilda said philosophically, turning away from the window. She was wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, trimmed with lace on the collar, front and cuffs. She reminded me, dimly, of Mary Poppins. “For instance,” she continued, “on the plane I was reading my Picasso book, and I found out that his housekeeper in Paris was a jasmine-picker from this very town, Mougins! You might not think jasmine smells so wonderful if you’ve been picking it all day. So who wouldn’t want to work for Picasso instead?”
When I heard the name Picasso, that got me out of bed, for it reminded me of why I was here. I found my mother’s predicament so deeply haunting and unbearable to think about, that the only way I could fight off the gnawing sadness in my gut was to stay focused on carryi
ng out her mission for her. From my map I could see that it was about a thirty-minute drive to Juan-les-Pins, where Grandma’s café was located. As soon as there was a break in the schedule I’d go there.
“You can shower first,” Aunt Matilda said. “Let’s not be late for our first day of class.”
We hadn’t met Master Chef Gilby Halliwell yet; that was going to happen today. Last night we’d been greeted by the concierge, a lanky Frenchman named Maurice who gave our class a tour of this chic Provençal boutique hotel, a mas or large L-shaped farmhouse whose older wing was in the final stages of renovation. We’d been given a supper of lobster and zucchini ravioli in a citrus and caper sauce, served on a terrace overlooking impeccably landscaped grounds and terraced fields.
With my first forkful of that meal I had an instant sense of our chef’s talent; in fact we all stopped chattering to say the same thing: Wow. Gil had brightened up a local dish with a wizardly new combo of Provence’s very own herbs, spices, lemons and orange peel.
During this meet-and-greet we got to know our fellow classmates, who’d all flown in from far-flung cities, all of us in varying stages of jet lag. They were very much like Aunt Matilda—elderly but vigorous, well educated, comfortably retired but still curious and eager. We were assigned rooms where we bunked two to a chambre. The “gentlemen” in our group were housed in the older, far wing of the mas, while we “ladies” were upstairs in the already-modernized bedrooms that were elegantly decorated.
“Not too shabby,” Aunt Matilda had commented, looking pleased. Our room had two nice beds with red damask bedspreads, an upholstered chair covered in brocade near a desk piled with books, brochures, and a generous basket of fresh local fruit. I popped into the bathroom, which was flooded with light, and stocked with an array of small, paper-wrapped Provençal soaps and little bottles of shampoo. Two white bathrobes and spa-slipper packets were neatly laid out.
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