Madame Picasso, page 27
“It won’t be tedious to me, because it is us.”
He watched as her eyes narrowed, and her cheeks colored. He understood what she was thinking, and he smiled for how tentative they still were with each other’s fantasies.
Picasso walked over to his easel, took up a pot of paint and a brush, then returned to her. He dipped the brush in color, handed it to her and slipped his hand over hers. Touching her warm, soft skin kindled not only ardor but Picasso’s creative passion.
“Help me paint this one,” he bid her.
She laughed. “My name is not Picasso, I can’t do that!”
“Soon enough, it will be. Jolie Eva Picasso. Now, let’s begin our masterpiece.”
* * *
Over that summer, Picasso tried to smoke less because he could tell Eva did not like it, although she never complained. He took up smoking a pipe instead of cigarettes because it was all the rage for people their ages who were trying to add some gravitas to their youthful images. Picasso would clinch the small burl-wood pipe on the side of his mouth, then study himself in the mirror. When Eva giggled at him, Picasso would push the pipe between her lips and make it into an erotic game between them.
They had only become more deeply besotted with each other in Provence.
In July, Picasso’s wish came true. Braque and his wife came to Sorgues. Braque told Picasso that they were on their way to the cooler coastline to buy a summerhouse there. But the Braques stayed as their guests in the Sorgues house near the town square until August. Then the Braques invited them to go to Marseille for a few days.
Still Eva said nothing to Picasso, nor did she confront Marcelle about the conversation she had overheard between her and Alice in Céret. But she would be on guard from now on. She was not a fool, but she was a realist. This was Picasso’s world, and she was determined to remain at its center.
What she kept from him he would never know.
But what she was to him, she meant for him never to forget.
One of the things she could not tell him yet was about the wave of nausea she had begun to feel the past few days. At first Eva thought she had eaten something bad. But as the days went on, the nausea kept returning. She would worry Picasso if she told him so Eva kept silent.
At dinner one night, Braque told Picasso about an area in Marseille along the waterfront where they sold African tribal art. Picasso had a collection of masks that fascinated him at his former apartment in Paris. He had used them as inspiration for many pieces, particularly his favorite, a canvas that he called Les Chicas de Avinyó. Kahnweiler wanted him to change it to a more respectable title, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, so for now artist and dealer were at an impasse and Picasso refused to sell the bold and shocking canvas.
“Is it all right if we go with them to Marseille?” Picasso asked her as the heavy sound of the cicadas filled the warm night air.
“‘Wither thou goest,’” Eva said.
“Trumping Verlaine with the Bible, are you?” Picasso chuckled.
Eva missed the church—the smell of incense, of candle wax and the great sense of restoration when she was sheltered inside the walls of a maison de Dieu.
When they returned to Paris in September, Eva would find a parish near wherever they lived, and she hoped Picasso would go to Mass with her. It would be good for him to find some peace through God about some of the things that still haunted him, like the deaths of Casagemas and his little sister Conchita. And she had been praying again privately. She prayed for Picasso and for her own health, as well. Eva had never felt so ill in her life, and it frightened her. Most days, the nausea was unbearable. There was little else to conclude but that she was pregnant.
She wanted to tell Picasso, yet a sliver of doubt remained. Would he be happy about it? Did he even want children at this demanding and challenging time in his career? Would he resent her for burdening him? Until she knew the answers for certain—and until he formally proposed marriage, Eva meant to keep it a secret. But when they arrived back in Paris, the first order of business would be to see a doctor.
Chapter 26
Picasso and Eva stood together inside the foyer of Villa des Clochettes, with Frika dutifully by Picasso’s side, as they prepared to leave for Paris. There were tears in her eyes, and Picasso’s, as well, as a cold and unforgiving mistral stirred up the dust and leaves in the courtyard beyond the open front door. Eva had come down with a deep rheumy cough, which did not help the persistent nausea. Her mother always said she had a weak constitution. She had certainly developed enough cases of petite angine in her youth to know it was true. But she did her best to suffer this episode alone. Picasso’s earlier declaration about illness made her wary.
“I’m sad to leave this place,” Eva said softly, not wanting to ignite another fit of coughing, since they were becoming particularly difficult to hide from Picasso. So far, he believed her when she said it was a reaction to the dust that the wind had stirred. “This has been a wonderful home.”
There was a car waiting for them out past the rusty iron gate, with their luggage stowed inside, but Eva needed a moment more here.
As she looked over at the fresco he had painted for her on the wall in the foyer, she thought of a dozen other small touches they had added to make this place special. There were the gauzy curtains with the delicate lace edges she had sewn for the kitchen, and the set of locally made crockery they had bought on an excursion to Tarascon, proudly set out on the antique sideboard. The walls in the sitting room had been adorned with the wonderful masks they had bought in Marseille, ten days earlier, along with several of Picasso’s papier collé creations that Eva had inspired—and two new Cubist canvases.
A number of the works contained the words J’aime Eva. Or Jolie Eva. Most of the messages were hidden, however, so only she might know they were there. Picasso told her that he envisioned them as a tribute to the woman who once had been hidden in his life. He told her he was pleased with the irony, since he could proudly proclaim her now.
“I thought I would like that the mural would remain here after we’d gone,” she said, for the last time touching the words Ma Jolie painted there.
“Yet now it’s like leaving a piece of us.”
“That’s it, exactly.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “I’m sorry for being so hopeless.”
“You’re not hopeless, you’re sentimental. Among the many qualities about you that I adore. As it happens, my father might actually like you.”
That had sounded so strange and intimidating. “Oh, dear,” she said.
“We have had a difficult relationship for most of my life. When I was growing up, he wasn’t a particularly likable father. Mainly, he was self-centered and neglectful.”
“The relationship with fathers can be a challenging one,” Eva said, thinking of her own father.
“There were times I actually hated him. But I learned to paint from my father and he completely invested in me as an artist. He believed in me from the beginning. Too much of him is deeply rooted inside of me to deny that what he thinks still matters to me. Being with you here has made me reflect, and to think of family.”
“Love does many unexpected things,” Eva said.
“He is getting old now, and lately I find, in spite of our troubles, that I would like to see him.”
“You were worried he wouldn’t like me?”
“Don José doesn’t like many people. At least he is set against showing it, if he does. He has become a gruff, self-centered old bull, but you will need to meet him, anyway. My mother and my sister Lola, as well. Don José won’t tell you to your face, but he will like your softness because he will think his son has finally found a woman over whom I will become both master and slave at last.”
She wiped more tears away as he kissed her. “That sounds positively medieval.”
“No, just Spanish.” He chuckled. “But you will see for yourself when we get to Barcelona.”
“When will we go?”
“I was thinking at Christmas, if that’s all right. My sister will adore you, and she will be quite open about it. She is recently married, so I think she would value a sister’s companionship from you, since she will never have Conchita for that. Her husband is a well-known surgeon in the city, quite a wealthy man, so Don José caters to him as if he were King Alfonso himself.”
A silence fell between them as Picasso kissed her again. The word married had made her hopeful, in that moment, for the natural progression of the conversation which she hoped would again turn to them. Although she had heard him speak to Matisse of their marriage, it had not yet manifested into a proper proposal. With the prospect of a pregnancy, Eva’s fears only grew stronger.
But Picasso said nothing more about it.
Was it his father, she wondered, or perhaps it was really that he still had feelings for Fernande that caused him to delay asking for her hand in marriage? She knew she was being overly emotional lately but Fernande was, after all, so beautiful and sophisticated. The fleeting thought brought a new wellspring of tears to Eva’s eyes, which Picasso assumed was about leaving the villa.
“Don’t worry any more about the fresco, mon amour. Besides, you need to concern yourself with our new apartment in Paris. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I learned just this morning that Kahnweiler has found us a flat in Montparnasse, and he says it has plenty of room for my studio. You remember him?”
Of course she remembered him. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler was the ambitious young art dealer who had brought her the gift of Picasso’s painting and turned the tide of their relationship.
“Will you see Fernande when we return?”
Eva pressed a finger to her lips, as though the words had escaped accidentally. And she had truly not meant to ask the question. Picasso’s eyes narrowed. A new wave of nausea swept over her so strongly that she was certain she would be ill or faint, or both.
“Apollinaire and Max Jacob are sentimental types, as you are. Max found her a job at the Maison de Poiret, assisting one of the dress designers. She also has the paintings and sketches I did of her that she can sell, so she is no longer my problem. You are the only woman in my life now. You and Frika, of course.”
Eva could not help but recall, with a pitiful sense of irony, that first lunch with Fernande Olivier a year ago now. Fernande had seemed to Eva that day the most elegant creature on earth, with her trendsetting hobble skirt from the Maison de Poiret. Now she would be required to work for the very establishment where once she had been a valued client.
But Eva could not think about that as she tried to steady herself in the doorway, and to smile as if nothing was wrong. Picasso wanted to marry her. They would marry. She knew that. Now that she felt confident about the tie being broken with Fernande, there really was nothing stopping her from being the real Madame Picasso.
* * *
The first surprise for Eva was an evening at the theater. On the night they arrived back in Paris, Picasso took her as a guest to the very show at the Moulin Rouge behind which she once had toiled with needle and thread. The change in her circumstance was not lost on Eva.
“I thought you would enjoy a front-row seat from now on, instead of the view from backstage.”
Picasso squeezed her gloved hand as he helped her from the car. She was wearing a new dress he’d had waiting for her in their hotel room. It was a fashionable empire waist creation made of burgundy silk, complete with a faux jeweled hair band, fox stole and silk gloves.
It also did not go unnoticed that, for their first night back in Paris as a couple, Picasso had booked them a room at the same elegant hotel where they had once met to telephone her mother. Hôtel le Meurice was a place of princes and kings, so she knew even this one night would have cost him a veritable fortune. “It is my dream to have our wedding dinner here in this place,” he had told her.
For so much male bravado, Picasso really did have a tender heart, and she knew that he intended to spoil her, little by little, as he could increasingly afford to do. Just a few more sales of his art, he promised, and they would live a life of unimaginable luxury together. He was on the cusp of that; he told her that he could feel it. And Max Jacob’s horoscope readings had foretold great success and wealth beyond his wildest imagination. But Eva didn’t need any of it. All she needed was Picasso. When she told him that, he just smiled indulgently and kissed her cheek. Their fate, he had said, and his success, was already written in the stars.
A moment after their arrival, as they stood beneath the bright lights outside, they were greeted by several of the costumed players: Mado Minty, Maurice Chevalier, Mistinguett...and Sylvette, back at work.
In that moment, leaning protectedly against Picasso, Eva tried to take in all of the changes life had brought her. She did not feel like the same girl who had first come here to the Moulin Rouge to plead for a seamstress job. That was a day that had changed her life forever in so many ways.
Sylvette was first to plunge forward from the group and embrace Eva as they arrived. “Welcome back!”
“The same to you, mon amie.” Eva smiled.
“It’s so good to be back,” Sylvette said.
Eva saw that her spirit was dampened, but her lovely eyes still had their spark.
“Hello, beautiful!” Mistinguett beamed. She was the next to draw Eva into a hearty embrace. “L’amour certainly agrees with you, can we say! Such a wonderful little minx, you are! None of us had a clue. Did you have a clue, Sylvette?”
“Yes, Mistinguett, I had a clue,” Sylvette drawled as she rolled her eyes.
Everyone laughed.
The crowd beyond the rope line was swelling and spilling out into the cobblestoned place Blanche. They were excitedly cheering as more of the actors gathered with Picasso and Eva out in front of the theater with the great defining windmill overhead. Only celebrities gathered with the actors and dancers near the door like this before a show.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Sylvette whispered to Eva as they linked hands.
“Oh, me, too. You have no idea. You must come to dinner next week, promise me. I’m not sure yet where we will live, but I will send you a formal invitation when I have our new address.”
Sylvette smiled but Eva noticed how much weight she had lost. “We never had formal invitations at la Ruche. Why start such an antiquated system now? Just tell me when and where, and it’s a date.”
Madame Léautaud came out of the theater then. Still such a stiff, intimidating presence. Eva did not see her until she was standing beside Mistinguett. She was wearing the same severe black dress as always, her posture ramrod straight.
“Monsieur Picasso, it is an honor to have you back with us,” she fawned as her frosty exterior thawed. In this light her lined cheeks were like a pale road map, edged with too much rouge. “Monsieur Oller will be so happy to know you are returned to Paris.”
Madame Léautaud then turned to Eva and their eyes met. She had held Eva’s entire future in her hands, and she had given her a chance. Instead of feeling intimidated, as she once had, Eva now felt only gratitude.
“Mademoiselle Humbert,” she said with a curt nod.
“It is Mademoiselle Gouel,” Picasso corrected her firmly. “Eva Gouel is this beautiful woman’s real name.”
“You’ve got a real jewel there, Monsieur Picasso, let me tell you. She is a girl who surely knows her own mind, and has the focus to get whatever she likes.”
“It does take all of my effort to keep up with her, but I enjoy the challenge.”
“I don’t mind telling you that we would take her back here in a heartbeat, so be good to her, will you?”
“Thank you, madame,” Eva said proudly, feeling invincible.
After the show, Eva and Picasso joined everyone for drinks at la Rotonde. Eva could not bear even the smallest hint of wine just now, as the nausea that began in Provence never quite fully left her—nor did her accompanying cough. The pregnancy must have weakened her system and brought about another petite angine. This baby was certainly taking most of her energy. She needed to find a doctor in Paris to confirm what she already believed, but it must be someone discreet, until she was ready to tell Picasso.
“You’re what?” Sylvette gasped.
She and Eva sat with their heads together as the music and laughter in the busy brasserie swelled around them.
“I’m not certain. That’s why I need to see a doctor.”
“Some of the girls have seen the one over on the rue Frochot.” Eva knew the doctor Sylvette was referring to. He was notorious in Montmartre. One of the dancers had even died after his procedure. She had bled to death.
“Sylvette, if I am pregnant, I plan to keep this baby,” Eva declared with conviction.
“You’re not even married.”
“I will be. You’ll see. He loves me.”
“He loved Fernande Olivier, too.”
“That was cruel.”
“I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean it to be. I just want what’s best for you.” Sylvette covered Eva’s hand on the glass-strewn tabletop with her own as Picasso sat across from them, puffing a cigarette, and conversing animatedly with the young art critic he had introduced as André Salmon. “Picasso has quite a reputation in Paris. You must be careful with your heart, chérie. That’s all.”
“It’s far too late for that. I am fully devoted to his happiness,” said Eva. “No risk would be too great to keep him happy, I’m afraid.”
* * *
Picasso was so eager for them to go to Gertrude Stein’s salon the next evening that he couldn’t stop talking about it. He considered Gertrude one of his dearest friends in the world, even more so now, after what had happened—first with Apollinaire, then with Ramón and Germaine Pichot—and he was anxious for her and Eva to get to know each other.
