Madame Picasso

Picasso’s studio was at the end of a corridor. He turned a doorknob and pressed back the door, which made a long, low squeal. Then he held out his arm with a gallant flourish, issuing her inside.

Eva took two steps and was stopped by the profusion of work that lay scattered before her. The room, with giant windows and peeling plaster walls, was littered with canvases, large and small ones, hanging in a riotous jumble on the walls. The color, the light and the clutter, all of it together, made her gasp. Her hand flew to her lips but not in time to stifle the sound of surprise. Picasso bit back another smile, which he meant for her to see.

“Bienvenida,” he said as he closed the door behind them.

The odor of paint and turpentine in the small space was bitingly strong.

Picasso’s smudged windows, full of badly painted panes, dominated the space and ushered in the silver light from a shimmering full moon. He lit an oil lamp on a table in the center of the room, illuminating the many canvases with mellow light.

Some of the works hung crookedly, some were straight—all vying for a cramped bit of space. Other canvases were propped against the walls, three-and four-deep; they were stacked on tables on top of loose pages filled with sketches. More were tossed onto the studio floor like litter, along with paint boxes, jars, squashed tubes of paint and rags. The sheer volume of work was astonishing. It seemed to Eva like a great creative explosion.

But there were finer details of the place that came into focus once Eva allowed herself to breathe in and see it all. There was a small wooden animal cage on the floor, and beside it were two roughly sculpted stone heads, perched on wooden pedestals, remarkable to her for how antiquarian they appeared. The only real piece of furniture, besides an easel, was a small iron-frame bed covered over with a pretty apple-green quilt embroidered with red roses and red fringe.

“You...live here?” she asked. She turned back to him and their eyes met.

“Once. But not any longer. Yet, it is still the place where my soul resides.”

Not quite knowing what he meant by that—or how to react to any of this evening—Eva picked up a sketch that was lying on the table. It was boldly erotic—two women open to an animal-like male figure with a dark forelock of hair. She had never seen anything so carnal and she felt embarrassed. Picasso looked at her unfazed.

“It is a satyr and his nymphs,” he said.

Eva glanced up at him, pressing back her naive shock. She could feel the hesitation in her own expression. “Is the satyr supposed to be...you?”

“If you wish.”

“I don’t understand.”

Picasso shrugged and flashed his disarmingly sheepish smile. It was a response of equivocation. “I see life differently,” he said with a charmingly casual simplicity.

“Clearly, you do.”

Oh, dear, she should not be here, she thought, no matter what she had told herself earlier. This place was cold and plain and it felt wildly dangerous. Eva was suddenly terrified of her own innocence—of displeasing him. But there must be a first time for everyone, her conscience silently argued, and her heart raced. Her first time, here now with a great artist, would be something she would never forget. She trembled and tried her best to look mature. She felt herself being drawn into him so powerfully that she couldn’t run even if she wanted to.

Eva pushed away the thoughts competing in her mind. Trying to buy time to process the moment, she focused on a stack of large canvases propped on the floor beneath the window. The collection of paintings had been done in rich shades of dark blues and grays, and the images at the center of each were absolutely haunting, gaunt, bereft characters. They were nothing at all like the charismatic, carefree man who had brought her here. Rather, they were people who all exemplified some dreadfully sad tale, and Eva could feel the human tragedy in each of them.

Eva knew nothing about art. But she knew what moved her. These were powerful images, all so raw, and very different from the Cubist works at the exhibition of a sort she was told he, too, painted. Her body reacted to the drama in these before her mind could. What did it mean that he could create in two such different styles? Was there a story? Her head throbbed with a jumble of questions and emotions and it made her feel insecure to wonder about them. Clearly there was more to Picasso than what he had allowed her so far to see.

Next in the stack of canvases was a portrait of a young, dark-haired man, clothed all in black with a glowing backdrop. His pale face, looking directly at the viewer, black eyes wide and plaintive, was rendered almost cadaverously white by the intense blue of the background. The face had a poignant sadness that drew her almost as profoundly as the women had.

“Yet like the satyr, that is me also,” Picasso said, breaking the silence between them. His tone suddenly was disarmingly tentative. She felt the vulnerability in it, which was something she certainly had not expected. “Another side of me.”

Such two starkly different sides of the same man, Eva thought—a confident young painter, handsome and sensual, and yet something far more vulnerable—as she compared the whimsically erotic sketch on the table with this self-portrait. Picasso waited patiently for Eva to react, but instead she looked away and returned her attention to the rest of the canvases against the wall. The final painting at the back of the large stack bore an image of a man’s face and head, eyes closed, painted in profile. The figure was illuminated by the stark yellow glow from a single candle. There was a bullet wound visible at his temple.

Startled, Eva glanced back at Picasso. His wry smile had disappeared, replaced by something deeper and more somber. The anguish in his wide black eyes said that he had not wanted her to see this painting. Perhaps he had forgotten it was there.

“Who was he?” she asked cautiously.

“His name was Carlos Casagemas. We came to Paris together from Barcelona. He was my best friend...before he committed suicide,” Picasso replied grimly as he approached her. He changed the subject by putting his hands firmly on her upper arms and clamping them tightly.

There was tremendous force in his grip. He was holding on to her with possession now, and his face was full of a brooding sensuality. Eva could no longer think as the sound of her own heart pulsing filled her ears.

Picasso released one of Eva’s arms and began to slowly unbutton her white cotton blouse as he locked his gaze onto hers again. He was nothing like the boys she had known in Vincennes. Nothing at all like Louis. He pressed the full length of his body against her then as he had done outside. He breathed softly against her neck as his warm fingertips met the skin of her bare breast. He withdrew slightly and challenged her to look away from his gaze.

“I’m not an expert but the way you are staring at me right now is not how an artist properly assesses a model. I live with enough artists around me to know that much,” she nervously murmured. Yet the words came as a weak refrain. “Was that not, after all, why you invited me here, to model for you?”

She tried desperately to press back her deepening arousal. She glanced at the bed in the alcove. When she turned back, Picasso closed the gap between them with a sudden, sensual kiss and Eva moved willingly into his embrace.

His fingers ran over the hard point of one nipple and then the other as he kissed her more deeply, filling her mouth with his tongue.

“I want to see all of you,” he said in a throaty Spanish whisper.

Was it his fame, how shatteringly attractive he was or his surprise possession of her that was most alluring? She had not fully imagined any of this an hour ago as she had stood in the actress’s dressing room. What was happening was so forbidden—surely a sin. It was certainly wrong, yet she wanted it just as much as he did. They moved together as one—still kissing, touching, bound by each other—to the little bed in the corner of the room. Their kisses grew more urgent and Eva lost sight of the paintings, of their conversation, of all rational thought. The rough need flaring through Picasso’s warm lips finally took total control of her. She felt her body open to him even before either of them were bare. She was aware of the ache for him deep inside herself as he stripped off her skirt, her stockings, her camisole and her drawers, as he caressed her body, lingering skillfully on every tingling curve and rise of flesh. Please let me be good enough for him, she desperately thought.

He released himself from her for a moment to draw off his own clothes. Then, with moonlight shining through the window on him, he paused before her, naked and unashamed.

They did not speak further. There was no need for it.

Arched over her a moment later, yet still restrained, Picasso ran his hand along her supple body with the precision of a sculptor. His fingers were an artist’s tool moving deftly along the lines and curves of her. He moved until all of her senses were wildly alive, tender and achingly sensitive. She was trembling as his fingers finally found the untouched place between her legs. As he kissed her again Eva tasted a moan of desire deep in her own throat.

In the flickering light of the oil lamp, Picasso forced Eva to lie still beneath him. With exploring kisses and languorously patient caresses, his tongue moved as his fingers had done, until desire blotted out all of her remaining sense of reason, touching her in ways she had never even known how to fantasize about.

He finally clamped his hands on her hips to mount her, and the pleasure turned to a swift sharp pain in a place deep inside her. Only then did she remember how fragile innocence was. He was rough and frenzied with his own need, unaware still, in that passionate moment, of her virginity. She tried her best to open to him as he moved, but her body resisted and she arched her back as he pressed hard into her. A moment later as he groaned into her ear, the pain disappeared and she rocked with him into oblivion, forgetting everything else in the world but this dark-eyed stranger and how he had just now changed her life forever.

Chapter 6

“Marcelle Humbert, I tell you, you are absolutely brilliant!” Sylvette squealed dramatically after Eva tried her best to slip silently into their room early the next morning.

She was unable to think of anything but Picasso: his warmth, the way he tasted. Her skin still tingled from his caresses. Not wanting the fantasy to end, she had left Montmartre while he was still sleeping. She had gone away so swiftly before dawn because she could not have borne Picasso waking and asking her to leave. He was too famous for it to have ended otherwise.

She knew it would be better this way.

Sylvette knelt beside Eva’s bed, her eyes wide with excitement. “Mistinguett is going to do a number as a geisha, and Monsieur Oller loves the idea! She thinks you are her savior after last night. She has even invited us to lunch today before the show. Can you imagine, she wants us to meet her friends? And all of this because of your lovely little kimono. What an impression you have made at the Moulin Rouge!”

Eva thought again of how her mother had given her that kimono, and regret seized her for a moment. I’m sorry, Mama, Tata, for disappointing you both, she thought, and her heart squeezed. It felt like a lifetime since she had seen her parents. Still, how could she turn back to them now? What would they think of her especially after what she had done last night?

Sylvette paused and looked at Eva more critically. “Where were you last night, by the way? You didn’t come home. Were you downstairs with Louis, finally?”

Eva was uncertain why but she still didn’t feel she could tell Sylvette the truth about Picasso. But her friend would not have believed her, anyway. She could barely believe it herself. Eva grinned coyly and sank onto the edge of her bed.

“Why you little minx, you!” Sylvette giggled, and Eva did not deny it. “So, will you join us for lunch, then? Please? You won’t back out on me, will you? Mistinguett is bringing a friend apparently, and it would be so exceedingly awkward just the three of us without you.”

“All right, yes, I’ll be there, if it means that much to you.” Eva rolled her eyes and smiled. “But only because you helped me get the job in the first place.”

“Oh, splendid!” Sylvette sank back on her heels, the glow of victory shining on her pretty face. “And she really does like you now, you know. You positively saved her with that geisha idea. I never asked you how you thought of it.”

“I learned to be resourceful growing up with little money,” Eva replied as she slipped off her shoes and rubbed her toes, sore from the walk out of Montmartre. She hadn’t wanted to take a trolley and the route was long even just from the subway stop.

“This is going to be exciting!” Sylvette steepled her hands and tucked them beneath her chin. “There’s no telling what can happen with a woman like Mistinguett once she likes you and offers to take you to lunch in her glamorous Paris.”

Eva didn’t have anything suitable to wear for a luncheon with anyone important, which should have concerned her. Secretly, though, her mind was still humming with thoughts of what she and Picasso had done together, and she couldn’t have cared less about dresses or hats or gloves. She was beginning now to regret having left so swiftly before she’d given him a chance to tell her if he had feelings for her, and she wondered what it would make him think of her. Was that not what loose women did, leave before dawn? He was probably accustomed to that, so many women at his feet. Of course he was. He was young, handsome and nearly famous. He had probably forgotten her already.

“Why on earth are there tears in your eyes?” Sylvette asked, bringing Eva back to the moment. “Oh, I will kill Louis if he’s hurt you!”

“He didn’t.” Eva sniffed, brushing her eyes with the backs of her hands. She nearly added that it wasn’t him at all but she thought better of that. “And I would appreciate you not mentioning it to him, either. I’m sure he would be embarrassed that I told you.”

“Your secret, pretty Marcelle Humbert, is safe with me—your very dearest friend,” Sylvette solemnly promised.

Eva stood, feeling the need to freshen up. Suddenly she didn’t want to be reminded of what she had done. As much as she had enjoyed it, she was also a little ashamed. In spite of how dispassionate she was trying to be about it all—and how adult—at the end of the day, Eva could not let go of the reality that she had given her virginity to a virtual stranger. The little girl who still lived inside of her heart wept over her precious surrender, even as Eva smiled and laughed with Sylvette.

Perhaps he would call on her again at the Moulin Rouge. After all, there were such things as romances. But she felt vulnerable and silly for even thinking about it.

Eva gathered up her soap and a towel, getting ready to go down the hall to the bath. Before Sylvette could say anything else a knock sounded at the door. She wasn’t certain why, but she hesitated a moment before she opened it. On the other side was a young deliveryman. Freckles and a driver’s cap met her, along with his dutiful expression. Not many people sent deliveries to a humble place like la Ruche, she thought.

“Mademoiselle Gouel?” he asked with an adolescent lift of his heels.

There was a red leather-bound book poised before him in his hands. The title was displayed in prominent gold lettering: Satyrs, Pan and Dionysus: Discussions in Mythology.

She nodded and the man handed the book to her. There was no note, but she knew where it had come from. To know that he thought of her as something more than a night’s dalliance filled Eva with more excitement than she knew how to process. For an instant, she hugged the book to her chest. Then she closed the door and reluctantly turned around. She knew she was beaming.

“What the devil is that?” Sylvette asked.

“Oh, nothing important. You should wear that violet-colored dress today, the one with the little pearl buttons. The fabric brings out the color of your eyes,” Eva said divertingly.

“Do you really think so?”

“Absolutely. By the way, who is joining us today?”

Sylvette laid two dresses across her bed and looked at them with her hands on her hips as she answered absently. “I’m not totally certain other than that Mistinguett said her name is Fernande Olivier.”

* * *

Le Dôme was the best of the four cafés on the corner of the bustling boulevards Montparnasse and Raspail. It was shaded by an elegant bower of horse chestnut trees and had a butter-yellow awning. Le Dôme was a lively spot, harboring a tangle of closely packed tables with chairs spilling out onto the sidewalk. All of it was full of such life, young Parisians chattering endlessly about politics, art and literature. The newly opened la Rotonde across the street was swiftly becoming its main rival, and there was always someone interesting among the crowds, drinking, smoking, laughing and debating. Progress and possibility was everywhere.

Once, Eva had passed by and caught a glimpse of Isadora Duncan, the beautiful and famous dancer. She had been not two feet away, impossibly striking in a white turban, white dress and man’s black silk necktie. Her spider-long legs were crossed and she held a cigarette poised in an ivory holder, allowing it to punctuate her thoughtful dialogue as she conversed with a group of young people collected around her.

Eva secretly craved an opportunity to be back at that café, near people like that. Fame really was so intoxicating, and she was absolutely starstruck. Just to sip an aperitif, and listen to conversations around her there, was to drink in the pure magic of this city.

Today, Eva felt almost confident in a pale blue dress, ornamented by a delicate string of seed pearls, a beige cloche hat and beige high button shoes. She walked along the boulevard toward the café with Sylvette, who was wearing the violet dress Eva had suggested. Eva had borrowed her own ensemble from a girl down the hall at la Ruche who modeled frequently for an artist named Maurice Utrillo. Fortunately, it fit Eva as if it were her own. In it, she felt for the first time prettier than her tall, willowy roommate, for this one day at least.

When Mistinguett saw them approach, she stood and waved them over. She was seated at a banquette at the back of the café, up against a wall of mirrored glass. Waiters dressed in black-and-white wearing long white aprons wove through the noisy place, full trays aloft. The other young woman with Mistinguett sat with her back to the door. From her reflection, Eva could see that she was tall and her bearing bespoke a relaxed grace that was intimidating. She wore a large hat decorated with a rose-colored ribbon and large pearl-and-garnet earrings. She glanced up but did not stand as Mistinguett embraced each of them warmly.

“Oh, isn’t this delightful! These are the two girls I was telling you about who positively saved me with Monsieur Oller.”

Eva saw the young woman’s face now as she turned her head on a long slender neck. She was lovely with such expressive, wide, olive-colored eyes, full lush lips and long auburn hair in a smooth fall beneath her hat. She extended her own silk-gloved hand to Eva’s bare one as their eyes met.

“Ah, yes, the seamstress with the kimono,” she said in a strikingly seductive voice.

“I am Marcelle Humbert.”

“And I am Madame Picasso,” she said. A reserved smile slipped onto her beautiful face in the same graceful way as all of her other movements.

Eva felt her knees buckle beneath the weight of her slim legs. Her stomach seized with a wave of nausea that, for a moment, was overwhelming. The wife of Picasso’s brother, she hoped. Oh, please, yes, let that be the case! Or a cousin of the artist, perhaps? But no, this woman—this Fernande Olivier—would never have spoken the title with such boastful pride if that were so. Breathless, Eva sank onto the empty chair beside Fernande as Sylvette now extended her hand to her.

“Madame Picasso, it is an honor,” Sylvette gushed, wide-eyed, with dimples showing. “I have seen your husband at the Moulin Rouge. He is terribly talented. They say his work is genius.”

“Indeed.” Fernande nodded noncommittally as she tapped her cup with her finger.

Mistinguett’s expression was more reserved suddenly, and Eva saw the two women exchange a glance. She seemed to want to say something but then the waiter approached to pour the wine. Fernande leaned back in her chair.

“It’s a pleasure to meet someone so resourceful,” Fernande said to Eva. “I respect that in a woman. That is certainly what it takes to achieve anything worthwhile in this very competitive city.”

“Merci.” It was all she could manage to say. She still could not process what was happening. He was married? She felt like such a fool. Why hadn’t she suspected? Assumed? Even the thought of it. And of course the wife of a great artist would look like this: tall, elegant, confident.

Eva hated this woman suddenly. But she hated herself more. She longed to give in to her tears and run out of the restaurant, but that would be to reveal everything, including her stupidity. He had taken more advantage of her than she had even guessed possible. Captivating or not, Pablo Picasso was a bastard! Eva drank half her glass of wine in one swallow.

“So, have you been married long?” she asked, suddenly wanting to know.

Mistinguett and Picasso’s wife exchanged another glance.

“We are not technically married, Mademoiselle Humbert. Although, I have been with him long enough, and suffered enough of his failures and his poverty, to claim the title. So, unapologetically, I have taken it.”

Eva looked at Sylvette, who seemed perfectly charmed by the explanation. “We women need to claim what we want. If we don’t, we will never get anything.”

“We will be emancipated one day, after all. The suffragette movement is growing everywhere,” Mistinguett agreed. “It’s important to remind our men that there is no going back. It is the wave of the future.”

Fernande sipped her wine gracefully. “Yes, well, Pablo, Monsieur Picasso, is quite a traditionalist. He’s a Spaniard, you know. He prefers the old ways in spite of himself, and he fights me on all of it.”

“But he’s such an innovator in his art,” Mistinguett pointed out. “There’s not much traditional about that.”

Remembering the sketch of the smiling satyr, Eva thought how true that was. He was a cad. He had deceived her and then used her. She must keep that foremost in her mind now.

“So, tell me about yourselves. Where are you from?” Fernande asked casually.

As Fernande spoke, Eva noticed that her skin was practically translucent, flawless. With her thick red hair, exotic almond-shaped eyes and deeply sensual voice, she really was an uncommon presence. It was easy to see how Picasso had been attracted to her.

Who wouldn’t have fallen in love with her?

They could not have been more different. Eva, with her slim shape, delicate features, wide blue eyes and glossy mahogany hair pinned tightly into waves, suddenly felt like an adolescent compared to this stunningly beautiful woman.

“I am from Vincennes originally,” Eva finally managed, executing perfectly practiced Parisian French. No one would ever suspect her mother’s more humble Polish origins.

“And what about you?” Fernande asked, glancing over at Sylvette. “You are in the chorus?”

“But I hope to make it more one day. I would like to become an actress.”

Fernande smiled, and there was an element of the Cheshire cat about her expression. Eva felt a strange chill just before she looked down at her menu.

“I recommend the fricaseed chicken here. Although I am an absolute slave to their simple plate of Yorkshire ham, a slice of cheese, and to have it with a pint of dark beer. Those penniless days for Pablo and me never do quite fully leave either of us, I’m afraid, and we both have begun to remember them rather fondly.”