Last Lovers

WILLIAM WHARTON

Last Lovers

To my wife, Rosemary

This tale takes place

between April and November 1975.

Location: Paris, France.

Believing is seeing.

—W.W.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter 1

Blind Reverie

Chapter 2

Blind Reverie

Chapter 3

Blind Reverie

Chapter 4

Blind Reverie

Chapter 5

Blind Reverie

Chapter 6

Blind Reverie

Chapter 7

Blind Reverie

Chapter 8

Blind Reverie

Chapter 9

Blind Reverie

Chapter 10

Blind Reverie

Chapter 11

Blind Reverie

Chapter 12

Reverie

Chapter 13

Also by William Wharton

Copyright

About the Publisher

1

ZAMBO!! Suddenly I’m on my hands and knees down on the asphalt next to a bench near the statue of Diderot in the small Place beside the boulevard Saint-Germain, across from the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

My precious thirteen tubes of paint are scattered all over the place. My prize easel, my hundred-franc easel I bargained for in the Marché Aligre, is knocked all galley-west with one leg bent under and another splayed out like a spavined camel trying to stand up in a windstorm.

Shit! This is just what I didn’t need. I’m still holding a paintbrush in my hand, the top of it is snapped off about three inches above my knuckle. Luckily the canvas landed with the painting side up, so it could be worse.

Then I notice. There’s an old lady all dressed in red on her knees beside me. We must look like two elderly clochards chasing after the same butt someone just flipped. My first reaction is, this whole thing is her fault; why the hell doesn’t she look where she’s going?

So, still on my knees, trying to ignore her, I start scooping the tubes of paints toward me, before some other idiot steps on one of them. That’d be a real mess, colored footsteps tromping through the Latin Quarter, yellow, green, alizarine crimson. I scramble over to pick up my canvas and lean it against the bench, no serious damage I can see. Next time I’ll cozy myself up in the lee of that bench, safe from kooky old gals wearing red costumes.

Then, finally, I go over. She’s swung herself around and is sitting on her duff rubbing one knee. Both her stockings are ripped where she hit the ground. One knee is bleeding and she’s licking her finger and rubbing it, the way a cat would. But she’s not looking at her knee. She’s looking at me.

‘Est-ce que vous êtes peintre, monsieur, artiste-peintre?’

What the hell else does she think I am, a surveyor taking measurements of Saint-Germain-des-Prés so we can make a copy and build it out in the desert for some Arab prince to convert into a mosque? Hey, maybe they’d let me house my chevalet there, a horse turned camel. The French call easels chevalets for some reason, sounds like something to do with horses, at least to my semiliterate French-American ear.

I lean down and try straightening my box up, lengthening the collapsed rear leg, slowly twisting one side leg that’s sticking out all cockeyed. Nothing seems to be broken, thank God. It could just possibly end my budding career as artist. Maybe that’s ‘grafted’ career, more accurate, probably.

‘Oui, madame, je suis peintre, artiste-peintre.’

‘Ah, and you are American, too. That’s very interesting.’

Then I see the cane. It’s white. I feel like a real asshole. It’s the kind of insensitivity, unawareness, that’s my greatest problem. I get down on my knees again beside the old lady.

‘Est-ce que je peux vous aider?’

She seems to look right through me. I realize only then she’s spoken in perfect, practically unaccented English-English.

‘Ah, ha, you have seen my cane. I can tell by the change in your voice. Yes, you may assist me. Would you help me pull myself to my feet? If I try getting up myself, I shall need to roll onto my knees again and that would be rather painful.’

She stretches out her hands. They’re small and smooth. I gently pull her to her feet. Actually, she more pulls herself up, using my hands as support. She has strong arms for an old gal.

I lean over, pick up her cane, give it to her. She brushes herself off, all over, not knowing where she’s dirty, with the thoroughness of a blind person. Then she starts swinging her cane in arcs around her, close to the ground, like a radar scanner or somebody hunting for money at a beach with a metal detector.

I see what she’s looking for, a purse, more like a satchel, about two yards nearer the church. I go over and pick it up. I step inside the radar sweeps and touch her hand, push the leather straps of the satchel out so she can grab them.

‘Ah, sir. Sometimes it is difficult being blind. Thank you for your kindness. I am very sorry I bumped into you. Or should that be crashed? Anyway, I am sorry. You see, I have my little private paths where there is the least chance I will stumble into anything or anyone, and you were in the middle of one; I did not expect you, you fooled me.

‘You must work very quietly, monsieur, or I would have heard you. Of course, there is the noise of automobile traffic out there.’

She waves her cane at the boulevard Saint-Germain.

‘But I should have smelled you, at least, the wonderful smell of turpentine. I should have smelled that. Yes, I must be getting old, it is hard to realize.’

‘Perhaps the wind was blowing the wrong way.’

She leans back, smiles, looks me in the eye, that is, if a blind person can look someone in the eye.

‘Ah, an American, an American painter, with a sense of humor. This is very interesting. It is something I did not expect, a pleasant surprise. There do not seem to be very many pleasant surprises left in this life.’

I notice then she isn’t completely in red, not anymore, anyway. She is wearing a red pillbox hat, the kind Jackie Kennedy was wearing in Dallas, only red, not pink; a bright Santa Claus-red skirt, sweater, and coat. But now the coat is well dabbed with several colors from my palette. It must have brushed against her in the cataclysm, bump, crash, or collision; whatever it was.

‘Excuse me, madame, but there is paint on your coat. If you would stand still I can take it off now with my turpentine. If I don’t, and it dries, it will stay there.’

‘Is it a good design, the paint on my coat? If so, I should like it to remain. It would be lovely having a hand-painted coat, painted by an American artist here in Paris, n’est-ce pas? Even though I could not see it, would it not be exciting?’

‘I’m afraid, madame, it is only a smear of burnt sienna, yellow ocher, alizarine crimson, and a touch of ultramarine. Even in the Salon de Mai it would not be considered much of a composition.’

I’m not usually so flip, so verbal. Perhaps it’s because I don’t get to speak much English these days and I’m enjoying the freedom of my own language, but I think it’s the nature of this woman, the situation. I want to continue our wordplay, our game, practically a flirtation.

Or maybe it’s because I sense she’s lonely, too, wants to talk with someone, practice her English.

‘Then perhaps, monsieur, it would be best if I take off the coat so you can obliterate, transform, or remove your work of spontaneous art. At least, then I shall have the smell of turpentine following me around for a day or two, a souvenir of our meeting. I think I should like that.

‘I am sure definitely it will be better than going into one of the art galleries. I always feel so unwanted there. Some painters seem to feel a blind person staring at their paintings is an insult; perhaps it is. I am only looking for something I should want to see. From what my sister, Rolande, has told me, it would not make much difference if I could see; I am not missing much. Oh yes, sometimes there are advantages to being blind.’

She starts to unbutton and shrug the coat off her shoulders. She’s a slim woman, straight, neat. I go around behind her and take the coat, slipping it down her arms. She transfers her cane and satchel from hand to hand as I remove the coat.

‘Won’t you be cold, madame? I could lend you my jacket, but it is almost completely covered with paint. It might just well be accepted in the salon.’

‘No, I do not think I shall be cold. I am going over to the stone bench there at the foot of Monsieur Diderot. It is where I was going when we met so precipitously, or, perhaps, fortuitously; no, that has too strong a French derivation. What would be a better way to say that in American, monsieur?’

I swear she looks me in the eye again. Maybe she’s only partly blind, or likes to pretend she is and for some reason enjoys carrying a white cane. Maybe she isn’t even French. She speaks English better than most English or American people I’ve known, so precise, with such an elaborate, thought-out vocabulary.

‘Would you accept “propitiously,” madame?’

‘Oh yes, wonderful. An American with a sense of humor, and so gallant, as well. Oh yes!’

She walks away directly, quickly, toward the statue, not tapping her cane or in any way indicating she’s blind. No wonder she crashed into me. If she was going at a pace like that, it’s amazing either of us survived. In a football game, they’d definitely have given her fifteen yards for clipping.

I manage to gather my stuff together. Except for a swipe across my palette and the broken brush, I’m in good shape. I spread her coat over the bench and start working on it with turpentine and one of my paint rags.

Yesterday I found three towels thrown out in the trash over by where I stay near the Bastille. The centers had the toweling worn thin, but they make perfect paint rags. I’ve torn them up into foot-square pieces. I use one of my best rags.

The problem is not to spread the paint any more than is necessary and still get it off. I work about ten minutes, a separate part of the cloth for each color. When I’m finished, the only stain that shows is the dark wetness of the turpentine.

It’s an early spring in Paris. The chestnut trees are only now sprouting leaves, limp baby leaves, just out of the bud, no blossoms yet. The famous song talks about April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom, and so forth, but actually the blossoms usually come in May. Today is April ninth, and although the sun is out and it’s just possible to paint without the paint and my fingers stiffening up, that old lady must be freezing without her coat. I make a final inspection.

I look over. For Christ’s sake, she has pigeons all over her! There are pigeons sitting on her shoulders, on her head, on her lap, and she’s actually holding one in her hand. How the hell can a blind woman catch a pigeon?

I scurry over. When I come close, most of the pigeons fly up and away, a few retreat to the ground at her feet, watching to see what happens next.

I hate pigeons myself, and if she’s going to have them squatting on her like that, I’ve just wasted too much time and turpentine removing paint spots. She’s going to have pigeon shit all over her, so what difference could a few dabs of paint make? Pigeons, dammit, flying rats, that’s all they are!

She turns toward me when I’m still about ten feet away.

‘Ah, the American painter comes to visit with me. Do not worry, my feathered companions here will fly back when they know you are a friend of mine.’

I’ve been promoted to friend. Does that translate directly from French as ami? As far as her pigeons are concerned, I just don’t want them shitting on me or my painting.

‘I’ve removed the paint from your coat. The smell will go away rather quickly. I hope it doesn’t bother your pigeons.’

It doesn’t hurt anything trying to be nice. She stands and I slip the coat over her arms. She snugs it against her shoulders, feels with her hands if the collar is straight, fastens the buttons. She does everything with smooth, easy movements, no hurry, but very efficiently. She turns her eyes toward me. There’s nothing I can see wrong in those eyes. They’re clear; I don’t see any cataracts, no film over them. They look like perfectly good eyes to me, regular doorways to the soul.

‘Please will you not sit down with me a minute, Monsieur le Peintre? I do not have a chance very often to speak with anyone, especially a painter, an American painter. It is strange, but I begin to have the feeling I might be in one of those films, those moving pictures I have heard about.’

She sits, I sit beside her. The stone bench is cold. I notice she’s sitting on a small inflatable cushion. She reaches into her bag and pulls out another, rolled into a small package about the size of a cigar.

‘Here, you may sit on this. If not, you are liable to develop pain in your kidneys.’

God, she sounds like my mother! And it seems she can read minds as well as ‘see’ when she’s blind. I feel somewhat foolish, but I blow up the cushion and slide it under my duff. It’s comfortable and does keep off the cold as well as being softer than the hard stone. This old lady really knows how to do things.

It’s one of those days when, if the sun is shining, it’s warm. However, when the sun is blocked by the many scudding white and dark clouds overlapping each other, immediately a cool breeze springs up and it’s cold. Right now the sun is bright and lighting the tops of those beautiful French clouds, the kinds the Impressionists painted, that I’ve never seen anywhere else. I hope someday I can work up enough nerve to really try a crack at those clouds.

The damned pigeons have come back. They don’t seem to mind me, as if this old lady gives some kind of magic protection. She’s devoting herself to them now. I watch. It’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

She has a small leather roll-up kit, the kind a good mechanic might have to store his wrenches, only smaller. She has it open beside her on the bench, that’s on the other side from where I’m sitting. In the kit are small scissors, two pairs of tweezers, both large and small, various little metal picks, toothpicks, tiny sticks with cotton wrapped on the end like Q-tips, miniature bottles with the smell of alcohol, and several small files. There is also a bottle of antiseptic.

I don’t know how she manages, but she puts out a finger, no food on it, just a finger, and several of those crazy pigeons fly down to land on it. She selects one of the birds by putting her hand over its back, slowly, carefully. As it hunches down, she picks it up. She then gently spreads out a wing and runs her finger along its length, checking the feathers. If there’s a twisted feather, she tries to straighten it, or, if it’s badly twisted, she quickly pulls it, checking the feather socket with her sensitive fingers and with a Q-tip applying a touch of antiseptic.

She goes over the entire body of the pigeon that way: probing, feeling, adjusting. Each pigeon seems to enjoy this, like a Swedish massage. There’s no fluttering to get away, no panic, they just relax and let all this happen. She then checks the feet, feeling for scales, I think, smoothing or filing rough spots with one of her small files, clipping the toenails if they need it, cleaning out the space between nail and toe, washing the whole foot. I wish somebody would take care of me like that. I wouldn’t shit on their statues, either.

One bird has an infected joint, where the toe joins the leg. She cleans this thoroughly, gently, expertly touching, feeling for swelling, and puts both alcohol and antiseptic in the sore spot.

As she finishes with a pigeon, she deftly reaches into each of about ten little bags she has lined up close to her thigh. She chooses individual grains, as if they’re vitamin pills, and feeds them, one at a time, to the bird on which she’s just worked. The pigeon, meanwhile, is flutting out its feathers, doing a quick little inspection with its beak, checking any repair work that’s been done.

The pigeon takes the grains from her hand as she offers them, then she gracefully swings away the pigeon on which she’s been working, gently off her finger. They usually fly up, circle a few times, then land on the statue of Diderot for a quick rump-thumping crap. The favorite places seem to be the pen in his hand, his hand itself, and his head.

There are pigeons all over Diderot. He has even more pigeons on him than the old lady, but then he’s about ten times bigger. He has a patina of white pigeon shit over the dark green patina of his bronze to show for it, too.

I watch through about five or six pigeons. I’m too fascinated to even think about getting back to work. I’ve never seen anything like this. I had canaries when I was in high school and I loved to hear them sing. But pigeons only make that gargling noise all the time, could make you vomit just listening to them. However, I must admit, I’ve never seen anybody handle birds the way this old lady does.

While she works on the pigeons she talks to me, mostly asking questions. She never takes her mind from her work with the birds, but once in a while she ‘looks’ at me and smiles. I begin to realize she’s guessing at the location of my eyes from my voice, my smell, something. I feel she does it so I won’t be uncomfortable with her blindness. She’s pretending she can see, for me. But I am uncomfortable, I can’t help it, I still can’t figure how she can look directly into my eyes, read me. It’s weird.

‘Are you long here in Paris, Monsieur le Peintre?’

‘Yes, I’ve been here almost five years now.’

‘But you have such a heavy American accent. After so long in Paris you should speak better French.’

God, I think I only said about fifteen words to her in French. I didn’t know it was that bad.

‘I don’t seem to have a good ear for languages, madame. I try to learn French, but it is difficult. I speak much better now than I did a year ago, so that’s something.’

She’s concentrating on a flight feather which is dangling and must be removed. She could be a surgeon, her hands are so sure and quick.

‘So you have good eyes and I have good ears. Together we would know much about this world if we could share. Almost no one uses the gifts they have. Only when one loses one gift does one begin to find and appreciate the others.’

There’s a long pause as she carefully extracts the feather, puts antiseptic on the feather socket.

‘Now, Orlando, that will be much better. You will be able to fly faster away from the automobiles and soon a new feather will grow in.’

She turns to me again, smiles.

‘I hope you do not mind if I talk to my pigeons. I have a name for each of them and they are my only friends, my only family. Being an old, blind woman is sometimes quite lonely.’

‘I’ve talked to pigeons myself, also, madame, sometimes they are the only creatures with whom I can talk.’

I don’t tell her how mostly I’m cursing them when they make that sudden flurry of stiff feathers from behind me when I’m trying to concentrate on a painting. A person could have a heart attack when a flock of pigeons soars off in a bunch like that.

‘But I don’t know them the way you do, madame. When I talk to them it’s as if I’m talking to myself and seem to learn nothing. I’ve never been as close to pigeons as you are.’

‘Well, you see, monsieur, I have been coming here every day from about ten in the morning until the midday bells ring for thirty years, since the end of the second great war. The pigeons in the flock change but the flock itself remains. Even the young new ones, or a pigeon who joins this flock from another, know me. You see, pigeons are some of the kindest, most trusting, least hostile creatures on this earth. I am convinced they communicate with each other, can talk in a special way, but hard as I have listened, I have never learned their language. However, humans could learn much from them as to how we should live.’

Being out in the streets, I run into all kinds of loons, but this may be my prize catch, a blind old lady in a red suit who wants to talk to pigeons because maybe they can tell her how humans should live.

I’m beginning to feel I might be getting involved with another nut. I’ve developed a sort of sixth sense for sorting out the real crazies. But this woman seems different. Except for all the pigeon business and her blindness she seems more normal, more clear, intelligent, than anybody I’ve talked with in a long time.

But also, I’m beginning to feel itchy about getting on with my painting. I’ve decided to paint this woman in at the base of the statue. I definitely could use a strong color there in the foreground and red would go great against the green of the trees in the park next to the church. I’ve already decided to treat Monsieur Diderot loosely, with suggestions of the bronze, a few pigeons, and the thrust of his leaning toward the church across the street.

‘Well, I’d best get back to work, madame. The light is changing fast and I want to finish my underpainting today.’

‘What are you painting? Is it the church?’

I still can’t get used to her being blind. When she comes out with something like this I almost feel as if she’s kidding, but then I’ve had this happen often before, with people who can see. I’ll be sitting directly in front of something that interests me, making what I consider a fairly good representation of what I’m seeing, and they’ll stand there, looking all around, puzzled, and finally ask me what I’m painting. It can drive me up a wall, it also isn’t very good for my confidence.

I thought they were kidding at first, but no, it just isn’t what they’re good at, the way I can’t seem to learn French. But, of course, with this woman, she’s really blind. She only knows I’m beside the statue of Diderot. I could be painting the café or even the Hôtel Madison.

‘Yes, madame. It is the church, but much more. I have the statue of Diderot on the left side of my painting, then I’m looking up boulevard Saint-Germain with Le Drugstore, and across the street, Les Deux Magots, then the opening to rue Bonaparte. In the middle is the tower of the church, with the nave going across the painting to the fountain. In the foreground, I have the little garden where children play, and in front of that, le boulevard with the bus stop.’

She stops working on her pigeons and listens to me. She closes her blind eyes the way a person with sight would close theirs to picture something.

‘You describe it all very well, I can see it in my mind. I do wish I could see your painting. I have lived in this quarter all my life. I feel you are probably a very good painter because I think you are a good man. Thank you for cleaning my coat and then keeping me company. I hope you are happy with your painting when it is finished.’

As she speaks, the bells of Saint-Germain-des-Prés start their beautiful, hollow, hallowed gonging, ringing. The first few notes, then the crescendo as they pick up speed, are so comforting. The bells are one of the things I’ve learned to love in Paris. Not far away, I hear the deeper bells of Saint-Sulpice start their welcoming answer to noon, invitation to the important French déjeuner.

The old blind lady has been gathering her tools together and fastening them. She puts away her small sacks of feed, then pulls out a larger sack and strews some grains on the ground in front of her. She turns to me.