by Dana Gynther
Man nodded, pleased. “It’ll be an interesting show.”
The cab pulled up in front of a colorful crowd, which had already spilled out of the small gallery and onto the street. Heads turned as they got out.
“Regardez! C’est Man Ray!”
He was immediately swept away by admirers and fellow artists. Lee smiled at Tanja. “Everybody loves him.”
The two women made their way through the mob of well-wishers and acquaintances, greeted by kisses, compliments, and inquiries about Man, and squeezed into the gallery door. Once inside, a man in a silver top hat handed each of them a glass of wine.
“À votre santé, mes belles filles.”
Lee lifted her glass to him. “Tchin-tchin!”
Tossed around by the spirited crowd, unable to see the pictures, they finally came to a stop in a corner of the room. Lee lit two cigarettes and handed one to Tanja.
“Let’s catch our breath. Here we have a good view.”
“Who’s that short man in the middle of everything?”
“The man in the brown suit?” Lee asked. “That’s Pablo Picasso.”
“No! With that terrible comb-over?” She stifled a giggle. “He’s tiny.”
Lee nodded. “But when you’re with him, he somehow grows tall and powerful. It’s the strangest thing. I’ve actually wondered if he’s a hypnotist.”
“And that furtive-looking fellow?”
“The skinny one with the thin mustache? That’s Salvador Dalí, the Spanish painter. I’ve only met him once, but he seemed a complete neurotic. Hey, let’s try to edge over to the canapés. I’m starving.”
Lee ate three vol-au-vents in quick succession, and as she was pouring herself another glass of wine, Man joined them.
“What do you think?” He was beaming.
“It’s a great success, darling. What a turnout!”
“I wish I’d brought my camera. It’d be great to have a shot of everyone here. Do you like the show? Picasso told me that he made that guitar with one of his old shirts. Which is your favorite?” Before she could say anything, a man in a monocle tapped him on the shoulder and led him away.
“Let’s elbow our way to the pictures. I’m dying to see them,” Lee said, “even if we have to start a brawl.”
The first canvas they saw was by Picabia. Here, a string made a curved line ending in a party invitation. At the top he’d painted the words Chapeau de Paille?
“What does that mean?” asked Tanja.
“A straw hat?” Lee exaggerated the inflection with wide, uncertain eyes, then giggled.
“I don’t get it.”
“It questions what you see,” Lee said. “What’s there and what isn’t.”
“If you say so. But I wonder what our old art instructors would say about it.”
“I don’t know about you, but when I think back on it now, I can hardly believe I ever went to the Art Students League. I mean, they claimed to be the most progressive art school in the country, but it was all so traditional. These things were unimaginable.” She gestured to the various abstract collages in front of them. “Remember the classes we took? Life drawing, antique drawing, constructive figure drawing . . .” She recited the list of classes like a death toll. “It was all so tedious.”
They stopped in front of Picasso’s Guitar: a rectangular rag with a hole torn out, two strings stretching over it.
“Jesus, Lee. I don’t know about this.” Tanja’s mouth bunched to the side. “I mean, I’ve seen copies of Picasso’s early work. It was wonderful! When he was a kid—and I’m sure he took those same tedious classes we did at some point in his life—he could have a painted a perfect guitar standing on his head.”
“Who cares about a realistic representation of a guitar? This is the essence of a guitar. A guitar at its most primitive state. And if this is his shirt,”—she leaned in to inspect it—“he’s put a bit of himself in it. His Spanishness, his song. I love it,” she decided. “Let’s get some more wine and make a toast to it.”
“Maybe you’d be happy with just the essence of some wine? I think there’s a wine stain on Picasso’s shirt there.”
She gave Tanja a condescending smile—“Such a card!”—but remembered having similar conversations with Man when she’d just arrived to Paris. Although she had immediately loved many of the paintings she saw—the mysterious visions of Magritte, say, or de Chirico—he had helped her understand the hidden beauty in some of the more difficult pieces, their challenge to think in a different way.
They weaved their way back to the refreshments, past women in outlandish makeup and collage dresses and men with strange accoutrements: homemade hats, a nose tie pin, a live iguana. When their glasses were refilled, Lee turned back to her friend.
“It was actually the art history class that made me want to quit painting. Studying Michelangelo, Durer, Delacroix, Goya—it seemed that all the possible paintings had already been painted. I thought, what could I possibly do that was new? Then I came here and saw what Man and his friends were doing. Turning art upside down and on its head.” She took a long sip. “And I think it’s more than just interesting, funny, or what have you. It’s necessary.”
Tanja nodded. “That, I understand. To necessary art!”
They raised their glasses and everyone around them chimed in. “Hear, hear!”
“So, do you think you’ll keep up with photography?” Tanja asked quietly. She had seen Lee enthusiastic about a variety of things over the years, from screenwriting to modern dance.
“Absolutely! It’s mechanical, chemical, magical, wonderful.” Lee gave her a tipsy smile. “I can’t imagine why I’d stop.”
At the end of the evening, they were outside the gallery with Man and a dozen newly close friends: artists, poets, and the last to leave. While laughing and drunkenly singing the essence of a song, Lee stepped into a rain puddle under the street lamp. In her wet shoes, she skipped and danced, making a design with her tracks on the sidewalk. Then, with her open-toe, she topped it off with a light splash. Man Ray gave her a hug.
“That’s the finest collage I’ve seen all night,” he declared.
XIV
“I’ve got a great idea. I hope I can make it work,” Lee told Tanja one morning, radiating nervous excitement as she adjusted the lights and tripod. “Look, stand behind the table and put your chin on that big book.”
Lee watched as Tanja bent forward and obligingly rested her head on the book. George was also using Tanja as a model for Vogue, but he liked to deck her in youthful fashions to emphasize her fresh-faced good looks. Man preferred to shoot her with Lee, exaggerating their intimacy: holding each other spoon-style, double portraits, photos of near-kisses. When Lee worked with Tanja, she tried out experimental shots with her old friend, using her as an accomplice.
“No, crouch down—I don’t want to see anything but your head. That’s right.” Lee put a large bell jar in front of the book, then checked the image through the viewfinder. “Fantastic! It looks like your head’s inside the jar.”
“Oh, lovely.”
“Close your eyes. Right, now open your mouth a bit. Like you’re having trouble breathing in there.” Lee snapped several pictures. “You look like a laboratory specimen. Or like something out of Metropolis.”
“Can I get up now? My knees are killing me.”
“Just one more. Hold it.” Lee looked through the camera with a smile. “These are going to be great.”
That afternoon, Lee ran through the rain to Man’s studio; she wanted to use his darkroom, which was better equipped. She was still shaking her umbrella when Man handed her a new photo of his own.
“Have a look at this one.” He gave her a cocky grin. “I just printed it this morning.”
In it, Lee’s head was thrown so far back, all that could be seen of it was the tip of her chin, transforming her long neck into something else entirely.
“It’s amazing, Man.”She held the photo at arm’s reach and squinted her eyes. “
It becomes a big prick right before your eyes.”
“You would see that, Lee.” He laughed. “Hell, I guess anyone would. I call it Anatomies. Most of the other ones weren’t as good.”
“Do you mind if I use your darkroom? I took some interesting shots of Tanja today.”
“Marcel’s coming over for a game of chess anyway.” He motioned toward the table, where the board was already set up. “Not that I have a prayer of winning, but he always teaches me some new move.”
As she was mixing the vinegary chemicals, Duchamp rang at the door. Murmurs came from the living room and Man put on a record. Lee stretched. Alone in the darkroom, the space seemed almost roomy. Gathering the trays, she noticed that Man had thrown a plate away. It was a three-quarter profile of Lee, but turned away from the camera. It must have been taken the same day as the neck-prick. She washed it off and inspected it; Man had obviously found the negative flawed. She’d work on this one, too. The rain beat a pleasant, erratic rhythm on the outside pane of the boarded window; in the soothing darkness, she lost all track of time. It was night when she emerged. She found Man on the sofa, by himself, smoking a pipe and reading.
“I was beginning to wonder about you. I thought maybe the chemicals had done you in.”
“You look really worried, too.” She was holding two prints, pleased with herself. “So, do you want to see the latest Lee Miller sensations?”
He looked at the back of the photos, with the bland smile of a father waiting to see his child’s finger-painting. Along with the photo of Tanja, she’d made a fine print of the plate he had chucked in the bin. Cropping the image, she’d changed it entirely: the neck looked elastic, the facial features too small. With an excited grin, she turned it around first, saving the bell jar shot for last.
“What the fuck!” he spit out, jumping up. “That’s not your work! I took that shot.”
“You threw it away.” Lee frowned, surprised at his reaction.
“That doesn’t make it yours, you crook.”
“What?” She stared at his reddening face, his clenched fists; it was like looking at a stranger. “Man, you obviously didn’t like it. Either that, or you couldn’t be bothered to fix it. I’ve spent hours working on this print, reframing it, bringing out the shadows, enhancing the tones.” Her voice was rising to fever pitch. “And now it belongs to me.”
“You cannot lay claim to my work, Lee Miller. Jesus, what a greedy little assistant you’ve become. I’ve given you everything, but it’s never enough.” She could feel his hot breath on her face; his dark eyes looked poisonous. “You’ll be after my brain soon, you little bitch.”
“Christ, you’re an egomaniac. Take your fucking work!” She threw the prints at him; both images fluttered to the ground. “Show your friends your swell new photo. But we both know it would still be in the garbage if it weren’t for me.”
Lee grabbed her coat and marched out. Shaking her head, her jaw tense, she tore up the boulevard, passing Man’s favorite cafés. She did not want to be surrounded by a rowdy gathering of his friends, Kiki or anyone else. She finally decided on la Rotonde—he’d said only poseurs went there these days—and ordered a whisky sour at the bar. Pulling on a cigarette, she glanced around the dining room; off-hours on a Tuesday, only a few couples were scattered around the large interior. Lee breathed out, relieved, and fished the lemon wedge out of her drink. She bit down and sucked the liquor out of it, still shaking her head. Who was that man back there? She couldn’t understand how that photo could have stirred up such rage and resentment. She thought Man would be pleased to see the image recuperated, that he would admire her painstaking work. What an idiot he was! She dabbed tears from her eyes with her cocktail napkin, hurt and disappointed, then quickly finished her drink.
“Une autre, s’il vous plaît,” she said to the bartender, tapping her empty glass.
As he whisked together the bourbon, lemon juice, and sugar, Lee looked him over. Unlike most of the men who ran the bars in Montparnasse, he was not a discreet-looking older gent, balding and well-padded; this man was young, about her age, and strikingly handsome. She wondered if the phony artists who frequented the place asked him to model. She rolled her eyes, sick of the idea of posing.
He handed her his cherry-topped creation and she raised it in a small toast. “To la Rotonde! Where bartenders need not be portly and old to fix a good drink.”
With a slight cock of his head, the bartender gestured down the counter. There stood a classic Parisian barman, overly wide, formal, and mustachioed, talking to the other solitary customer at the end of the bar.
“I’m just the assistant,” he said in a mock whisper, leaning over the bar.
“Yeah, I know what that’s like.”
“In fact, it’s so dead tonight that I’m about to get off. Would you mind if I joined you for one of those?”
“Better yet two. Or three.”
After another hour at the bar, they teetered back to his place next to the Montparnasse station, climbed four creaky flights, and collapsed onto his narrow bed. A night train whistled, then chugged off, making the room tremble. He didn’t bother with the light; a street lamp cast a dull glow on the opposite corner of the room. She put her cold hands up into his shirt and rubbed his smooth skin, so much tauter than Man’s. He smiled as he unbuttoned her dress, his teeth a shiny white, then brought her into his arms. She wriggled up to his mouth—he was long and tall—and gently bit his lip.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered in her ear. “So, so beautiful.”
She stopped his mouth with a kiss; his youthful body pleased her, but his words were unbearably boring. Under a half-dozen thin blankets, they tossed and rolled; he struggled to hide his lack of finesse behind energy and bravado. She tried to slow him down, to guide him, but it was soon over. Afterward, entangled and no longer cold, they lay unnaturally still in the dimness of the room. She looked into his handsome face—his hair now fell into sleepy eyes, his mouth spread out in a silly grin—and sighed. No matter how promising they seemed at the outset—good looks, wit, talent—one-off, nameless sex partners were often unsatisfying and, in the dark, remarkably similar. It was time to go. She kicked off the covers, ready to abandon the well-knit arms of youth for the experienced ones of middle age. Surely Man’s tantrum was over and he was ready to make up.
Twenty minutes later, when Lee unlocked his studio door, she saw the photo she’d printed tacked up on the wall in front of her. She gasped aloud. Man Ray had slashed her neck with a razor. Red ink ran like blood from the image of her long, white throat.
XV
At breakfast, Man let himself in with his key. Tanja was in the bath and Lee was having toast when she heard the lock turn. She looked up at him and said nothing.
“I’m sorry about last night.” His rough voice made a play at tenderness; his angular face was hangdog and sad. “When you didn’t come back, I just got madder and madder. I was worried about you.”
“Worried like Jack the Ripper,” she said with a snort. “I don’t like seeing my throat slit, Man.”
He came to the table and stood behind her, massaging her shoulders, running his fingers through her hair. “I don’t know what came over me yesterday.” He bent down and grazed her neck with his lips. “I could never hurt you, Lee. You know that.”
She believed him—although he had a temper, he wasn’t a violent man—but was still nettled about his vicious words and the murdered portrait, the bloody warning about his work. She was tempted to ask if he might still reconsider forfeiting ownership of the photo she’d redone, then sighed. It was too early in the morning for a theoretical discussion—Did pushing the button make him the artist?—or worse, another nasty row.
Still behind her, talking into her neck, he continued. “Maybe it had something to do with your other photo. Lee, that bell jar shot is amazing. Your best work yet.” He cleared his throat gruffly. “It was so damn clever, so accomplished; well, it almost made me jealous.”
&nbs
p; She turned around to look him in the face. He looked honest and apologetic. Humbled. It was the greatest compliment he’d ever given her. She bit her lip, moved. Lee stood up and brought Man into a tight embrace; his body went slack with relief.
Tanja came out of the bathroom bundled in a large robe, a turban teetering on her head. “Good morning.” She waved at the two of them, unaware of the trouble of the night before. “Is there any coffee left?” she asked, poking her nose in the pot.
The three of them took their usual places around the small table, crowded, as ever, with coffee bowls, marmalade spoons, crusts, and fruit peels. Surrounded by ordinary things, the high emotions from the night before quickly fell away.
“I met someone I really like yesterday,” Tanja began shyly, glancing at both of them. “An American named Henry. Just my luck, though. In a week he’s off to Syria, on an archaeological dig.”
Lee did not mention her own encounter, but teased her friend instead. “You’d better watch out for that one. Archeologists are usually mummy’s boys.”
Man joined Tanja to boo and hiss, then patted her on the back. “That’s great.”
“Of course it is,” said Lee. “You can have an unforgettable week here in Paris, then, for the next few months, receive love letters from exotic places. What could be better?”
“We’re having lunch together today,” Tanja said. “And dinner.”
“In other words, I won’t be seeing you for a while. I would like to meet him sometime. See if he’s worthy.”
Tanja smiled stupidly, then hid her face in her coffee cup, pretending she had a sip left.
“I’ve got a bit of news,” said Man, offering cigarettes around the table.