Cooking for Picasso

by Camille Aubray

  Meanwhile Peter was giving Aunt Matilda a sly look. “Care to have a go at the casino?”

  What a perfect pair, I thought as she nodded enthusiastically.

  “Want to join us for lunch, Céline?” Aunt Matilda asked.

  “You guys go ahead. Think I’ll do a little shopping,” I fibbed, feeling Picasso’s eyes staring down at us, as if he were reminding me of my true purpose in coming to the Côte d’Azur.

  I was still clinging to my theory about why my mother had been so keen to return to the Riviera, based on what she’d said at Christmas. Certain words of hers now resonated in my thoughts, loud and clear: Grandma told me that Picasso once gave her a picture. What if Mom had chosen this guided tour as an excuse to come back and take one last look at Grandma Ondine’s café—and maybe to search for her lost Picasso painting?

  A long shot, perhaps. But up and down this Blue Coast, gamblers were dealing with tougher odds than this every day. Invigorated by all the energy emanating from these surroundings, I was now ready, willing and able to take a chance for Mom.

  In fact, last night I’d gone online and tracked down a shop in Antibes where I could rent a bike. Now, feeling excited, I hurried over there, hopped onto a sturdy bicycle, and rented a GPS for cyclers. It told me precisely how to cut across the peninsula of Antibes—straight to that little town on the other coast called Juan-les-Pins, where Grandmother Ondine once lived.

  Lost in Paradise: Céline in Juan-les-Pins

  “YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION,” my GPS announced after leading me into the heart of Juan-les-Pins—a bustling but smaller town with jazzy clubs alongside simple, tiny eateries, all mixed in among souvenir and clothing shops, yet not far from elegant old hotels and residences. Baffled, I found a small low-walled turnaround at the end of a main road where I could park my bike and lock it on a rack.

  Then I set off on foot, heading for the smaller enclaves of narrow streets, secretive and sequestered, with no visible numbers on the buildings. The stone houses were huddled together, casting a cool shade, their first-floor windows shuttered tightly against prying eyes like mine, so impenetrable that I began to worry. For all I knew, Grandma’s café could have been razed to the ground.

  Hastily I dug into my bag, pulled out Grandmother Ondine’s notebook and consulted the letter she’d sent Mom that was tucked in a back leather flap. The words Café Paradis were embossed on the envelope and so was the street name, which was how I’d gotten this far. The printed drawing on the letter’s stationery gave me a fairly good idea of what Grandmother Ondine’s café looked like.

  I took it out now and studied it more closely, noting how the triangular dining terrace, with its pretty striped awning saying Café Paradis, was angled against the charming building, making it distinctive. I walked on, and then, right around the corner, I thought perhaps I’d found it. A small neighborhood café occupied the ground floor of a honey-colored limestone house, and had a triangular terrace.

  But something was different, I thought. Then I saw that it was because these tables had umbrellas over them, instead of that big striped awning that said Café Paradis on it. Still, this could be it.

  I sat at a table and used one of Gil’s vouchers to order lunch. The waiter studied it, then showed it to the maître d’, who shrugged and nodded. My fellow diners looked like locals, with only a smattering of tourists. There was no menu; you got the lunch of the day, served in simple dishes of pale yellow pottery trimmed with bright blue, and little roosters and hens decorating the outer edges.

  As I waited there, the dappled sunlight crept across the terrace and sneaked under my umbrella in a friendly way. The first course was a small bowl of curried mussel soup, for which I had no great expectations. But when I ate it, I couldn’t help a small gasp of pleasure; I never knew a mussel could be so tender. An older man dining at the next table heard me and smiled, then returned to his newspaper.

  The second course was a “blue lobster” which seemed more like a big shrimp. It came dressed in a mushroom gratin, accompanied by a row of thin haricots verts. I felt as if I were tasting my first string bean and my first lobster and my first mushroom. My mother had tried to tell me about this more than once. She’d said, There is a thing called “terroir”. It’s the soil, water and air where the vine, vegetable, bird or animal put its feet when it grew up. If you take the same vine or seed to another country, it simply will not taste the same, under another land’s sun. I found myself wistfully wishing that Mom could be here with me to enjoy this meal.

  The next plate contained a slice of duck confit with a sweet-and-sour orange sauce; followed by a delicate salad and a modest-looking assortment of tiny rounds of cheese, one of which was a goat’s cheese wrapped in freshly ground pine nuts. I had my own little half-carafe of house wine, a chilled pale rosé with hints of peach and berry. Again and again, I felt my taste buds reawakening—after a long, Rip van Winkle–like slumber of grabbing indifferent take-out food at work. Even though Mom had cooked these recipes, the French ingredients had their own distinct character. And so this meal kept surprising me, enhanced by the atmosphere of salty sea air, a seductive sun, and wine as cool as a hidden stream.

  Maybe I was gripped with gourmet delirium, or maybe the wine just went to my jet-lagged head. Whatever it was, I felt emboldened to resume my mission. I’d noticed an alleyway alongside the café, where a few deliverymen came and went, carrying boxes. As I rose to leave, something compelled me to go back there, bypassing the front entrance.

  I found a cozy yard where a tiny patio was dominated by an enormous pine tree whose big twisty arms reached out so far, they embraced the whole garden; and its gnarly roots were popping out of the ground, bringing up some patio stones with it.

  “Look at the size of that thing!” I marvelled. I had seen a smaller version of such a tree back at the mas, when the concierge gave us a tour. He’d said it was called an Aleppo pine.

  A small grey cat sat on the stone wall that encircled the tree, and I paused to pet its inquisitive head. When a breeze rustled softly through the pine’s boughs like a whisper, I was gripped by a strange familiarity that gave me goosebumps. Was it déjà vu? I’d certainly never been here before, yet there was something about that big twisty tree, the low stone wall bordering it, and the silky cat purring beside me.

  Suddenly a chef flung open the back door to relieve the heat, and I heard the clatter of dishes being washed. The chef, a short, red-faced, sweaty man dressed in stained whites, was taking a cigarette break. He puffed away, gazing at the sky, until he spotted me, half-hiding behind the big tree.

  “Mademoiselle?” he called out, looking faintly alarmed.

  Quickly I went over to him and praised his excellent cooking. Then I explained that my grandmother had once cooked here in this very café. “J’aimerais voir la cuisine de ma grand-mère,” I said as winsomely as I could. The chef was clearly one of those guys who doesn’t expect younger women to give him a second look, so he seemed immensely flattered by my interest in him and his kitchen. With a pleased shrug, he threw down his cigarette, opened the door and let me in.

  The kitchen was blanketed with hot, moist air. Waiters and cooking staff rushed in and out, dodging around each other in the crowded space, which was smaller and much more modernized than I expected. There was an industrial stove and oven, and shiny open aluminum shelves all stacked with pots and pans, bowls and other cooking apparatus. I saw at a glance that there was really nothing here that could ever have belonged to Grandma Ondine. And certainly no place to hide a Picasso.

  The chef ushered me out now to the front of house, a formal dining room, which, while empty of guests, had busboys already laying out white tablecloths and gleaming silverware for tonight’s dinner service. “C’est bon?” the chef asked. I nodded and thanked him, and he disappeared back into his kitchen. Looking for an excuse to linger, I asked the bartender for an espresso from the great gold machine he had there.

  Sipping my coffee, I glanced acro
ss the room at a lovely antique framed mirror in which my own image looked a bit ghostly, as if I, too, had stepped out of the past and could disappear right back into it.

  When I’d first hatched this scheme back home, I’d been filled with maniacal confidence that finding Grandma’s Picasso would be a simple matter of strolling into town, locating her café and casually ransacking it. Now the whole thing seemed extremely quixotic, to say the least.

  But what about the upstairs rooms? I’d seen their windows from the street, decorated with wrought-iron grillwork, just like the picture on Grandma’s letterhead. That would be where she’d lived. As I glanced across the dining room, the maître d’ wandered into the kitchen, giving me an opportunity to get past his abandoned podium; so that was the moment when I decided it was now or never.

  “Where is the ladies’ room?” I asked the barman. He pointed to a red Exit sign at the far corner of the room. With this excuse I headed that way, where two restrooms had framed signs for Les Dames and Les Messieurs. As I’d guessed, a short nearby hallway led to a staircase, roped off by a red velvet sash with a sign hanging in the middle of it that said Private in three languages.

  I glanced over my shoulder, then quickly stepped over the rope and climbed the stairs, my heart pounding with guilt. I paused at the second-floor landing, until I heard the heavy tread of footsteps coming up the stairs behind me. The only way out is deeper in, I thought. I scampered up a shorter flight of stairs to the third-floor landing just seconds before a heavyset woman appeared in the hallway below, panting from the effort of carrying something. I ducked into the attic room and froze, listening to the mechanized droning of a vacuum cleaner as the maid dragged it noisily all around the second-floor corridor. She was going to be awhile, which meant that I was trapped on the third floor.

  This attic room was being used as a storage area, with old, rolled-up café umbrellas, and wicker chairs stacked in a tower. Other boxes contained extra plates, cups and saucers that looked as if they’d come from a restaurant closeout sale. There was absolutely no Picasso here, nor anything that could have belonged to Grandmother Ondine. It felt lonely, as if an altar’s candle had been blown out.

  Several minutes passed before the maid below switched off her machine for good and, breathing heavily, went down the stairs taking the vacuum cleaner with her. Cautiously I descended to the second floor, and dutifully peered into a small, very simple guest room: bed, table, lamp, shelves, no closet at all.

  I moved on to the master bedroom, which was more opulent, containing a king-sized brass bed and a large flat TV screen mounted on the opposite wall. I kept hearing my mother’s voice ringing in my ears: Grandma did have her little hiding places for her valuables—and I remember a secret storage area under a closet floor, where during the wars her parents hid the café’s best champagne from the German soldiers.

  But there wasn’t any closet here. The only antique piece of furniture was a large walnut armoire. I discovered it was nearly empty, with just two pristine red terrycloth bathrobes on padded hangers; and on the shelf above were a few spare pillows and blankets. I checked carefully for any trick drawers or secret compartments, but found none. The thought struck me that if Mom was wrong about a closet, she could have been wrong about a Picasso, too. Maybe this whole trip was just a fantasy, after all.

  For in the brilliant Riviera light, it seemed as if the present day was obliterating the past; not only Grandma Ondine’s world, but Mom’s, too. I’d wanted so badly to rescue her that I’d pinned all my hopes on this wild quest. To my surprise, I gave a little sad gulp and my eyes welled up with tears.

  It was just reality finally setting in, I concluded. Maybe I had to cross an ocean to face it.

  Then I heard a loud, authoritative male voice on the stairs. I glanced around wildly. There was no other exit, so I had no choice. I ducked into the armoire, and pulled its door closed after me.

  I barely made it in time. A man entered the bedroom and walked right past my hiding place with such a heavy tread that everything shook a little as he passed—including the armoire with me in it. He must have snapped on the TV, because suddenly the room was filled with loud romantic music sung in French. I thought I heard water running in the bathroom. As the minutes ticked by, I was agonizingly trying to decide if I could slip out and make a break for it.

  Just as I was preparing to peek out, the door of the armoire was abruptly yanked open. Blinding sunlight poured in from behind a tall man with a big belly who stood there stark naked, dripping wet.

  “La-LA!” he exclaimed, taking a step backward in astonishment. He was a bald fellow with a high forehead that made his face look like a fist with eyes. His large stomach was overhanging, and therefore slightly obscuring, the rest of his equipment. He hadn’t even bothered to grab a towel from the bathroom; he’d simply made a beeline for the terrycloth bathrobes hanging beside me.

  “Bonjour,” I said, idiotically handing him a robe as I hastily stepped out of the armoire.

  “Qui êtes-vous?” He frowned suspiciously, grabbing my arm with a grip like an iron clamp. Then Mr. Naked—he still hadn’t put on the damned robe yet—threw back his head and shouted, “Au voleuse!”

  “I am not a thief!” I objected involuntarily. Even when I said it again in French, he shouted once more. Now the maid reappeared with a slew of restaurant workers behind her, including the maître d’. Mr. Naked had finally put on that bathrobe and he screamed at his staff what sounded like a French slang version of “You deal with this!” before he stomped back into the bathroom and slammed the door.

  Apparently, I had just met the owner of the café. The maître d’ was exclaiming into a tiny mobile phone, and although I never heard him say the word Police, it wasn’t long before I heard the wail of sirens outside the café. Still, the whole thing had the quality of a bad dream, so I couldn’t believe I was truly “in the soup”—not until the maître d’ said curtly to me, “Mademoiselle, follow me, please.”

  We marched downstairs past the velvet rope, into the dining room, where two uniformed cops were waiting for me. “Oh, God,” I said to myself, hastily reaching for my phone to call Aunt Matilda.

  She didn’t answer. I remembered that she was at the casino with her newfound boyfriend. She’d probably shut off her phone to save money overseas. After a moment’s hesitation, I called the number Gil gave us in case we got lost. Maurice, the concierge, answered.

  “I’m in trouble,” I confessed. “I think I’m about to be arrested.”

  Céline and Gil in Juan-les-Pins

  NOTHING CAN PREPARE YOU FOR the terrifying experience of being accused of a crime—especially when you can’t tell anyone the whole truth. I came here to steal a Picasso, Officer. I tried to convince the French policemen and the café owner that I’d trespassed upstairs simply to see the room where my grandmother lived. I don’t think this convinced anybody, least of all Chef Gil, who showed up just in the nick of time—looking really, really pissed off.

  He said he’d been in Antibes checking in with a restaurant-supply shop which was going to provide him with new uniforms for his waiters. So when Maurice frantically called him, Gil hopped onto his motorcycle and came zipping over here to do damage control, because, as Aunt Matilda later put it, “It wouldn’t look so great for Gil if one of his cooking students got thrown in the clink.”

  He argued valiantly on my behalf. For awhile it looked pretty bad for me, since the police viewed Gil as a flashy English chef with a troublemaking girlfriend. Apparently, just a week before, a busboy from this café had been arrested for selling drugs. So the owner of the place—the naked guy who found me in his armoire—naturally assumed the worst. They even searched the rooms upstairs looking for—what? Drugs, diamonds, counterfeit money?

  “They don’t really think I’m some kind of drug mule, do they?” I asked, horrified.

  As we argued, the cops kept making impatient gestures toward me as if ready to put me in handcuffs. But Gil persevered with calm rea
soning that enticed the older cop into an animated discussion of my actions in particular and foreigners in general.

  “C’est une vraie Américaine—naïve!” Gil insisted, pleading with the fat, still-damp owner of the café to be raisonnable. Finally the owner threw up his hands in disgust, ordering us to never set foot in his café again. The police looked as if they were still considering hauling me off in chains, and I pictured myself locked in that prison fort on an island off Cannes where the Man in the Iron Mask was sequestered.

  “Come on, let’s go before they change their minds,” Gil hissed. We had to walk past the sidewalk terrace where curious onlookers were thronging, aiming camera phones at us as we left.

  Gil quickly put on his sunglasses, looking exactly like what he was—a local celeb caught in a bad scene. He jumped on his motorcycle and I stalked off, heading for the spot where I’d parked my rented bike. I heard Gil start up his Ducati, but I didn’t realize at first that he was following me.

  “Now where do you think you’re going?” he snapped when I paused to unhook my bike. The little stone cul-de-sac was like an oasis, shady, cool and calm. I put up my kickstand and wheeled my bicycle out, still breathing hard but trying to calm down as I sat on it.

  “I have to get this bike back to the rental shop in Antibes,” I said, not bothering to hide my irritation. Gil had a bossy attitude which was really starting to grate on me, even if he had just saved my neck.

  “Hold on! Once you drop the bike in Antibes, how are you going to get back to Mougins?” he demanded, grabbing the back wheel of my bicycle as I began to pedal away, causing me to clutch at the handlebars. Immediately the whole bike lurched to one side, and my bag slipped out of the basket.

  The outer compartment fell open—and out dropped Grandmother Ondine’s notebook, which I’d stuffed back in there hastily after consulting it for her letter with the café’s address. Now the whole thing lay open, right there on the pavement.