Madame Picasso

How could I have been so naive? Eva thought frantically, her stomach as tied in knots as her heart was. This was the man—another woman’s man—to whom she had foolishly given her innocence. How could she think he might fall in love with her?

Still, lunch was cordial. Eva did her best to participate in the conversation, in order to keep above any sort of suspicion. She would have preferred to keep hating Fernande Olivier, but she found that she could not. For the most part, other than that hitch in her tone, Fernande seemed an intelligent, funny, if slightly quirky, young woman with a bit of a flair for the dramatic. By the end of lunch Eva had no difficulty seeing how Picasso—or any man—could have fallen completely, hopelessly, in love with her.

After the lunch, the women stood out on the boulevard waiting for a cab. Eva now noticed Fernande’s trendsetting hobble skirt. She had seen ads for them from the Maison de Poiret. It was the height of fashion. “You really didn’t need to pay,” Eva said as a coal-laden cart trundled past them, along with several shiny black automobiles.

“It was my pleasure,” Fernande replied. “Anyone who would risk their own employment in order to help my dear friend is certainly a friend to me.”

“Sylvette and I are off to the theater for rehearsal. How about the two of you?” Mistinguett asked.

“Back to the passage Dantzig,” replied Eva, not wanting Fernande to know about the humble artists’ colony at la Ruche where she and Sylvette had their room.

“Same direction,” said Fernande. “Please do share my cab.”

There was no way she could have refused the offer. And she didn’t want to, anyway. A curiosity about the young woman so different from herself but who had attracted the same man had begun to build inside of her.

It was the first time Eva would be riding in a motorcar, so she stepped tentatively onto the running board, fearing it might move suddenly and carry her away. Motorcars had always seemed rather loud and a little frightening as they chugged up and down the busy Paris boulevards. Yet they were clearly the wave of the future and she was excited to experience now what so many others already had. Even though it was a vehicle for hire, when she stepped inside, it seemed to Eva the most elegant conveyance in the world.

“You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, dressed up in all this finery, but I came from the banlieue myself,” Fernande suddenly admitted as the cab merged out into busy traffic. “When Pablo found me, I was modeling for two francs for an eight-hour day and he was a starving artist who could barely speak French. And when he did it was comical. He really seemed quite the caveman to me.”

Eva looked over at her as she spoke but she didn’t respond. She wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway. She had never been so confused by her emotions or all that was happening.

“I’m not sure why I am telling you this,” Fernande admitted, feeding the silence that had suddenly fallen between them.

“I can confess something, too.” Eva was surprised at herself but she continued. “I ran away from my home.”

“So did I.”

“Marcelle isn’t even my real name,” Eva went on, feeling as though she needed to share something after Fernande had confided in her. She hoped Fernande would reveal something more about herself and Picasso. “It’s Eva, Eva Gouel. I’m half Polish, half French. Not Parisian at all.”

Fernande smiled at her and a spark of understanding flared between them. “My given name is Amélie Lang, but I have been using Fernande Olivier since the day I arrived in Paris. I use whichever name the moment dictates. I like the sound and the feel of each, for different reasons, I suppose.... It seems like we have quite a lot in common, you and I.”

“It would seem so,” Eva agreed.

When they arrived at la Ruche on the passage Dantzig, the motorcar chugged to a stop, the glass front windshield clattering. A moment later, the driver came around to open the door for her. Eva was glad that the humble beehive-shaped building was hidden behind an ivy-covered stone wall.

“Do you like the circus?” Fernande asked as Eva was exiting the car. She turned back to Fernande.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never been.”

“You’ve never been to the circus? Oh, heavens, we go to the the Medrano all the time. Pablo was keen on it for a while so he could paint the performers—the harlequins and clowns. He found the ragtag lot of them appealingly vulnerable, he said. For me, it’s just a night’s diversion, but I confess, I’m weary of it all. You would spice things up a bit if you joined our regular group.”

More than you know, Eva thought as she smiled innocently at Fernande.

“Have you a gentleman you could bring along? A suitor, perhaps?”

Louis came to mind. Eva knew she could not very well agree to join Picasso and his lover without a man beside her. At the very least, Louis would give her strength to go through with such an absurd proposition. She was still angry with Picasso for deceiving her, and yet it was beyond her to decline an invitation that would permit her to see him again. And to see how he would react.

“I suppose so,” she finally replied.

“Not one you’re mad for, then?” Fernande asked inquisitively.

“He’s only a friend, so far.” Eva shrugged as the driver waited at the open car door. She knew she was batting her eyes with rather irritating frequency, but she was doing so intentionally. The theater had already taught her many things.

“Good, then, so you are open to a new suitor. Because we generally bring friends, and Monsieur Picasso and I have been trying for ages to set up our friend, Guillaume Apollinaire, who has recently separated from his lover. He would like you, you’re just his type. He’s something of a noted poet. You may have heard of him?”

“The name sounds familiar,” she demurred, not wanting to sound like the outright fan she was, since that would set her at an obvious disadvantage.

“He’s Polish like you, so the two of you should get on like a house on fire.”

“Thank you for the invitation, Madame Picasso.”

Eva nearly choked on the title, but since they had only just met that day, it seemed the appropriate way to address her until she was invited to do otherwise. She certainly couldn’t call her Mademoiselle Olivier, after the stand she had made for Picasso. Fernande reached out of the cab and took Eva’s hand.

“Monday evening, then. It’s all settled. It will be great fun. And you must call me Fernande. All of my real friends do. I shall leave two tickets for you at the door and there will be someone to see you to our seats. Perhaps we can all go for a drink afterward.”

“I look forward to it,” Eva forced herself to say while she smiled as sweetly as she could. But her anticipation of the Circus Medrano was for very different reasons than Fernande ever could have thought. She looked forward to it only so that she could see Picasso again, and confront him.

* * *

“Believe me, Fernande Olivier cares far more for the title than the man. They have grown apart. She is already married, you know, so she can never truly be Madame Picasso, but that doesn’t stop her from going about posing as if she were.”

Mistinguett spoke the revelation in a low gossipy tone. It was an hour before the Friday night show and they were in the dressing room. Mistinguett stood, statuesque, wearing Eva’s yellow kimono for a fitting, the garment melting across her distinctive curves. Her hair was done up under a black wig, and her face was powdered and painted white, her lips made red, in a cliché imitation of a geisha. She was going to try out the new number tonight in the first act.

Something was missing however from the kimono. It lacked the dramatic flare it needed to compete with the other glittery costumes. But what? Eva silently inspected her beloved garment as she stood facing the star. She assessed the hem, and then the long, bell-shaped sleeves, remembering the small sachet of her father’s pipe tobacco that she had sewn inside the cuff. She felt the familiar guilty tug at her heart.

But then she knew.

She went to a large box of old costumes, bits and pieces in a nook behind the stage, and drew out a long strip of vermilion silk she had seen there. A moment later, she held up the glittering red fabric for Mistinguett’s approval.

“What if we cuff the sleeves and collar with something more dramatic like this? The contrasting fabric beneath the lights should make it look quite remarkable.”

Mistinguett gave a pleased smile. “That’s brilliant!”

“Thank you.” Eva nodded.

“I had no idea you were a designer.”

“Nor did I.”

“Well, you certainly are now! Let’s do it!”

Full of the heady new sensation of success, Eva dared then to change the subject. But even as she did, she was terrified to ask the question for what she feared they would discover.

“So, why is Monsieur Picasso still with Fernande if she is so contrary to his Spanish roots?”

“A great mystery in Paris, I assure you. He’s had quite a reputation for some time with the ladies. And he took up a new studio in some derelict old building in Montmartre where he used to paint when he first began. They say it’s to get away from Fernande’s demands. Personally, I bet it’s a place to take women.”

“I thought she was your friend,” Eva said, thinking that with friends like her, Fernande Olivier most certainly did not need enemies.

“With her growing new sphere of influence here in the city, because of him, I would be foolish not to be her friend,” she replied. “But there is a desperation about Fernande that is off-putting, at least to me. I think she would fight to the death over anything that mattered to her. It’s as if she’s never quite certain if she is happy or if she’s on the verge of some great tragedy.”

Eva nodded in agreement, though she didn’t really see Fernande as anything but confident and beautiful.

“And do be careful of Picasso,” Mistinguett added as she ran the slip of red silk through her fingers. “He’s broken more than a few hearts around here—pretty girls who actually thought they might have a chance against Fernande.”

“I will bear that in mind,” Eva replied in a tone that said such a thing were beyond the realm of possibility.

She took the kimono back from Mistinguett then and began carefully taking apart the cuffs of the sleeves, wishing that she could take apart the love affair between Picasso and Fernande just as easily, if she were given half a chance.

* * *

Eva still longed to tell Sylvette the whole story.

She almost did a number of times as she dressed for the Circus Medrano Monday evening. She had chosen the same pale blue dress she had borrowed for the luncheon with Fernande because of how confident it made her feel, and tonight she certainly needed all of the confidence she could find.

The Moulin Rouge was closed on Mondays so this was the only opportunity to attend such an event. She knew she should be excited to have been invited, but she was also nervous about seeing Picasso again.

Louis held her arm as they approached the crowd gathered in front of the circus building. Neither one of them knew quite what to expect.

“I still don’t understand how you managed such an invitation,” he said excitedly, taking in all of the activity and the rollicking circus music spilling out from inside.

“Well, I owed you, certainly, after you took me to the exhibition. You told me that you would be pleased to meet such a celebrated young artist as Picasso, so I thought this might be fun. Everyone in Paris talks of him.”

“Of course I am pleased. I’m hoping he might be able to give me a few pointers about my own work since they say, for all of his success, he, too, had a rough go of it in the beginning.”

Eva cringed inwardly at the note of desperation in his voice. Louis had painted some beautiful watercolors but his work did not come from the place of passion Picasso’s did, and he certainly had nothing of the celebrity about him. Louis was a man who played at art. Picasso was a man who lived it.

Once Eva had given their names at the box office they were ushered inside by a young man dressed in a red-and-black harlequin costume. They passed a clown, a juggler and two girls in scanty dresses, each with huge bobbing feathers attached to their headdresses. Eva could tell from their expressions that only important guests were seated by a host.

Her heart began to race as they neared the front row. She spotted Picasso, Fernande and their group of friends prominently seated there. Suddenly she was not sure that she could go through with this. Her stomach squeezed into a tight knot and rocketed into her throat. Fernande stood, smiled broadly and waved to call them over.

“I’m so pleased you made it. I know you will love the show,” she said, embracing Eva as if they’d known each other for years, not days. “Pablo, this is Marcelle Humbert and her friend. Both of you, may I present, Pablo Picasso.”

She felt a brief spark of defiance and almost announced that they had already met, but her nerves overcame her and, beneath Picasso’s bold, dark gaze, she simply nodded.

“I’m Louis Markus,” Louis offered affably.

“And these are our dear friends, the very beautiful Germaine and her husband, Ramón Pichot, a wonderful artist himself,” she said of the attractive young couple with them. “And of course this is Guillaume Apollinaire.”

Apollinaire stood to greet them. He was exceedingly tall with a long heavy chin and sloping shoulders. Reading his poetry in Vincennes, Eva had always envisioned someone entirely more dashing and modest-sized. Still, he was a man with a likable aura and with the most wonderfully warm smile, she thought. He looked like a gentle giant.

“What an interesting beauty you possess,” Apollinaire remarked with a noticeable lisp, and she could hear the familiar Polish accent behind his words. He did not seem to remember having met her backstage at the Moulin Rouge.

“Listen to nothing he says. He is a dreadful flirt, and currently on the rebound. But of course they will reconcile—like everyone else in our little group. We are all bound together for eternity,” said the pretty young woman called Germaine as she extended her hand to Eva. Her hair was a similar shade to Fernande’s and she had the same striking green eyes. Eva thought they could have been sisters. “It’s a pleasure to meet any friend of Fernande.”

“Thank you,” Eva said. She glanced at Picasso then and saw that he was still staring at her. She was not certain what his strong gaze was telling her but she reveled in how awkward the situation must be for him, too. It was the only power she wielded over him and she wanted desperately to enjoy it. Was that not what a worldly woman did in a situation like this?

“Oh, it’s starting! Monsieur Markus, come sit beside me. Pablo loves to chatter on about all of the acts, and I, of course, have heard it all before,” Fernande instructed as if she were directing servants at a dinner party. “I’m told you’re a painter. Louis Markus, hmm. Did you ever consider changing your name? If you’re going to be a great artist in Paris, you really should be called something far more grand and memorable.”

Eva heard him chuckle since he had changed it once already. Louis Markus had been a vast improvement by Parisian standards. “Have you anything in mind?”

“Not yet, but I will,” Fernande announced.

Eva sank awkwardly into the only seat left open, the one beside Picasso. There was a railing right in front of them and the scent of sawdust and manure was disarmingly strong. A trumpet sounded, announcing the beginning of the show, and Picasso leaned in close to Eva.

“We really must stop meeting like this,” he said softly into her ear.

“I’d be happy to accommodate you if you would kindly stop cropping up everywhere.”

Fernande was happily chatting with Louis and pointing at the elephants, who were lumbering out into the center ring to great fanfare.

“That was unwarranted.”

“Was it?” Eva asked curtly, holding fast to her hauteur.

“There’s not a day this week I have not thought of you.”

“I’m sure Madame Picasso would not appreciate knowing that.”

“I have no wife.”

She cast a wary glance at Fernande. “She calls herself that so it is the same as if you did.”

“Perhaps that’s true,” he conceded with an uncomfortable shrug. Two great gray elephants in red-and-gold collars were paraded in front of them then by a man in a red coat and black top hat. He snapped a huge bullwhip. “I swear to you, when we met I had no intention of deceiving you.”

Eva could hear a slight hitch of regret layered beneath his whispered words.

“Once the milk is spilled it is spilled.”

There was a silence between them as the ringmaster bellowed in his loud, showy baritone. Picasso washed a hand over his face. He drew in a breath, exhaled, then looked out into the sawdust-covered center ring.

“I would not have expected such a harsh tone in your words.”

She stiffened, looking as well to the center ring and the two scantily clad female performers with feathered headdresses who had come out to ride the elephants. “They are not merely words, monsieur. The tone cannot be helped because they are the thoughts of my heart, meager and naive though they may well be to someone like you.”

“They touch me. You touch me. In a way I have not felt in a very long time.”

“And you insult me as we sit here in the presence of your wife.”

“Dios, she is not my wife!”

“Continually making that distinction is beneath you.”

“How have you any idea what is beneath me or what I am capable of?” he snapped at her.

Fernande was momentarily distracted by the rise in Picasso’s tone, and she glanced over at them. Eva felt herself flush. Her heart quickened. Perhaps she was not ready for this. She had never been so confused or humiliated. If she could take that one night back, ah, if... But she knew, even as the thought whispered through her mind, that a thousand times over she would still have given herself to Picasso. It truly had been the most exciting night of her life.

Neither of them spoke again until after the circus was over and they all walked together out onto the busy boulevard de Rochechouart with the rest of the crowd. The streetlamps were lit by then, and each one cast an amber cone of light through which they all passed. It was a warm evening and there were people strolling everywhere. Louis put a casual arm across Eva’s shoulder as they walked onto the rue des Martyrs and she felt herself seize up at the possession behind his touch. She forced herself not to shrink from him, however, since suddenly she wanted Picasso to feel jealous.

“You should all come to the apartment for a drink,” Fernande said blithely as she walked just ahead of them, linking her arm with Apollinaire. “It’s such a grand place we’ve got now, and I do love to entertain. Did you know Pablo rented me an aparmtent on the boulevard de Clichy? Everyone who is anyone lives there.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Picasso.

“Ah, the master has spoken!” Fernande snapped with a dramatic flourish. “Picasso does not think! Which in itself is a statement not so far from the truth.”

“Easy, Fernande,” Germaine warned.

Eva perked at the exchange between the two women, realizing how much better they knew Picasso.

“That’s all right, perhaps another time.”

“Oh, come now, Mademoiselle Humbert. There is nothing like the present! In Paris, one must seize opportunity. Pablo is a master at that. Tell them, Pablo. Tell them about being a master!”

“Stop it, Fernande,” he groaned in response.

“Con calma, mi amigo,” said Germaine’s husband. Eva knew even without understanding Spanish that Picasso’s friend was urging him not to make a scene, which the group had clearly been privy to more than once before.

“Spoilsport,” Fernande muttered beneath her breath.

“You mustn’t always bait him like that,” Germaine urged her friend, and suddenly Eva wished to be anywhere but here.

It all felt so exceedingly awkward. Louis tightened his fingers around Eva’s arm. Both of them could feel a battle brewing.

“Shall we not talk of how he baits me?” Fernande whispered back urgently.

“Bait you? I have given you everything you have ever asked for!” Picasso shouted, seemingly unleashed as he sped up to walk beside her.

“Let’s calm down, everyone, before this gets out of hand,” Ramón suggested, trying to ease the tension between them. “I think we are all in need of a drink.”

“Brilliant idea,” said Apollinaire.

“I’d prefer opium,” Fernande said in a kittenish mewl.

“You know perfectly well that is not going to happen again.”

“Don’t be too sure what is going to happen with me, Pablo,” Fernande said.

“I could say the same to you, mi corazón,” he shot back.

Instead of their apartment, they settled for la Closerie des Lilas on the boulevard du Montparnasse, a stylish café crowded most nights with young intellectuals. They collected at the long mahogany bar, where a group of men in white tie and tails, and women in elegant gowns, were enjoying a drink. They were likely going to or coming from the Opéra de Paris.

Picasso leaned in toward Eva. “I began the painting of you after you left,” he said in a low tone, breaking the din of animated conversation and the clatter of dishes around them.

“You are wasting your time,” Eva replied, refusing to look at him.

“Oh, I never do that,” he countered, biting back a smile as he glanced around. “Did you like the book?”

Fernande was openly flirting with Louis now, and she seemed to Eva to be rather drunk already. “Sylvette is using it as a doorstop.”

“Ah, Sylvette.”

“Have you seduced her, as well?” Eva asked baitingly just as Apollinaire approach them.

“I’m told you like my work,” he said affably as he barged between them as everyone was doing with one another in the crowd.

“I do.”

“Any poem in particular?”

“‘We knew very well that we were damned, / But hope of love along the way / Made both of us think / Of what the Gypsy did prophesy.’ That one has always spoken to me the most.”

Eva saw a spark of jealousy flare in Picasso’s eyes and she reveled in it.

“You memorized it?”

“Several of them, actually. ‘I have picked this sprig of heather. / Autumn has ended, you do remember. / Never on this earth shall we meet again. / Scent of time, sprig of heather / Remember always, I wait for you forever.’”

“I’m duly impressed, mademoiselle.”

“Apo, go see if our table is ready yet,” Picasso grumbled with an authoritative air. He seemed to be completely ignoring Fernande, and what was happening between her and Louis, half a bar’s length away.

“I must see you again. You must allow me to paint you.”

“Sit for you, like last time? Oh, I think not.”

“Was it really so bad between us, Mademoiselle Gouel?” Picasso pressed as he leaned in close enough that she could feel the warm, primal attraction between them, and his breath near her throat.

Eva drew up her wineglass and took a sip. When she realized her hand was shaking, she slowly set the glass back down on the bar, hoping he had not seen it.

“I certainly didn’t know you were living with someone,” she said.

“And I didn’t know you were such an innocent to the ways of the world. So we each have had the other at a disadvantage.”

She never expected him to be so clever, or so disarming—particularly now in a crowd of people in which his lover was mere steps away. Eva might be out of her league with him but she was just angry enough not to submit to his artful ploys again.

“Forgive me, I don’t mean to toy with you,” Picasso said as he trapped her fingers in his own beneath the bar. “Only say you’ll allow me to see you again.”

“And Madame Picasso?”

“Fernande has a new lover, as it turns out, a strapping young German boy. My friends think I don’t know. They are trying to protect me so that I will keep painting. Anything to keep the peace, and keep the money rolling in. But I know.”