Cooking for Picasso (30 page)

“Fabulous French Cuisine at Chez Ondine,”
Luc read the rhyming headline aloud. “It says,
I have dined in many of the world's best restaurants, yet I am astonished to find that the chef at Chez Ondine
regularly spoons up a cuisine fine enough to match, and even rival, the very
crème de la crème
.”

Luc looked up, his eyes shining with pride. Stunned, Ondine said, “We ought to say a prayer of thanks for the old monk Père Jacques who taught me his cooking secrets at the convent!”

“You'll soon see the power of a good review,” Luc said, kissing her. “With luck, we'll get theatre and opera patrons from Manhattan, too. Things will be different from now on.”

Yet Ondine could not say why such good news sent a strange, apprehensive shiver up her spine. Luc understood the ambivalent expression on her face, and he laughed and hugged her reassuringly. “Never mind what the old market ladies taught you in Juan-les-Pins! They feared good luck as well as bad. Too much superstition, with their talismans to ward off the evil eye of jealousy!”

It wasn't long before their parking lot swarmed with cars ferrying curious diners who drove not only from far-flung corners of the county, but from Connecticut and Manhattan and even New Jersey. This hubbub was easily observed by Luc's suppliers and by other restaurant owners who'd been in business for years but never managed to attract such a crowd.

“We got
too
successful,” Ondine would say later, because the restaurant's profits did not go unnoticed by another very different sort of customer. Strange, predatory men with hardened faces began showing up at
Chez Ondine
. They sat at the bar drinking small cups of bitter coffee, sizing up Luc as they often did whenever a new immigrant grocer, shopkeeper, vegetable seller or baker began to prosper.

Ondine watched uneasily as Luc's business dealings—and the people he had to “play ball” with—became more complicated. With wifely concern she noted that after his nighttime “meetings” or Sunday card games with the men, Luc came home with a more tense and distracted expression. And just when she and Luc were earning enough to start a savings account, those strange, ominous-looking men began demanding a piece of the profits for “protection” against thieves, robbers and arsonists.

“What kind of nonsense is this?” Ondine asked when Luc first told her about the payoffs he was being forced to make every week. “We must pay those gangsters to protect us from
them
?”

“That's right,” Luc replied calmly as they sat with the adding machine between them, counting the week's take. “Otherwise, some of our suppliers of wine and meat and fish would charge us more than they do—and sell us only their dregs! They're all connected. I'm told it's called ‘the mob'.”

“How is this possible? What about the police?” Ondine demanded. Luc just shook his head.

So they paid. Faced with a situation she couldn't control, Ondine resorted to slipping into church when it was empty. She'd go to the statue of the Virgin Mary, at whose feet stood an iron shelf with rows of small votive candles. Ondine deposited a coin in the metal box and, using a long, skinny wooden stick poking out of the ashes on a tray beneath the candles, she transferred a flame from one candle to her own, then closed her eyes and prayed fervently for a more benign form of protection.

T
HE
G
ESTAPO WERE MAKING A
surprise visit to Picasso's studio again. But as always, they were unsure of what to look for in the Minotaur's lair. A few years before the war, Picasso had moved into this elaborate apartment on the Rue des Grands-Augustins which Dora Maar had found for him, and its labyrinth of rooms suited his mysterious, secretive nature.

First you had to get past the Master's assistant, Sabartés, a suspicious-looking Spaniard who grudgingly allowed the German officers into the anteroom—an odd, rather chaotic reception area populated with a variety of caged birds and spiky exotic plants, and, on any given day, an assortment of fawning art dealers, collectors, magazine interviewers, would-be artists and anyone else who sought Picasso's favor.

“Why are non-Germans so badly organized?” the young blond officer asked his older, superior partner as they moved into the second room, which was narrower and cluttered with old furniture, tables of books, magazines, photographs, hats, men's suits, shoes, paintings, musical instruments, stones and shells and anything else that had once caught Picasso's fancy but now lay here, gathering dust.

A third room contained many large sculptures. It led to a winding staircase, which in turn took them to a second-floor studio where, finally, they discovered Picasso himself. Pablo liked to tell people that this was the studio which inspired Balzac's famed story about an artist whose painting came to life.

The two Gestapo officers did not know who Balzac was. But they noted it down. Then, affecting a stern and scornful manner, the elder one said, “Where is your friend Jacques Lipchitz? Was he here today?” This was a favorite question of the Gestapo that they asked whenever they visited.

And Picasso, his dark eyes watchful, would say the same thing he always said about this Jewish sculptor. “As far as I know, he's gone to America.” If Picasso even knew the town's name where Lipchitz had gone, he didn't say so.

Besides, the Gestapo knew perfectly well that Lipchitz was long gone. Next they said tauntingly, “Well, how about you? You're Jewish, aren't you?”

“Non,”
Picasso answered curtly.

“Oh?” said the older, arrogant one. “Let's see your papers, then.”

Despite Picasso's calm, disinterested manner, he always took care to have his papers in order. Then, inevitably, the search began. The German officers examined cupboards, opened closets, and stared at paintings.

Picasso had taken precautions. Many of his paintings were in vaults and other safe places. He had also hidden stockpiles of coal and firewood which was so scarce these days; and his emergency stashes of solid gold bars were wrapped up and mixed in with soaps from Marseilles in an old suitcase.

As for his women, Dora Maar lived in an apartment around the block, and Marie-Thérèse was ensconced in another one farther away but within visiting distance; yet neither woman was supposed to visit his studio unless invited. Of course, sometimes they broke this rule. But mostly, he could control them. He provided precious things like the coal for Marie-Thérèse so she could keep their daughter, Maya, warm during this period when everything of value was ruthlessly rationed.

Pablo considered himself lucky that the Gestapo came today, instead of one of those days when Spanish refugees or French resistance fighters showed up on his doorstep, needing money or whatever aid he could give.

“What's this supposed to be?” asked the young officer, staring at an abstract painting. He'd heard that Picasso was a great artist, yet also on the “degenerate” list, so his work was not allowed to be displayed in galleries. Picasso shrugged. Baffled, the man persisted, “Why do you paint like this?”

“I don't know,” Picasso replied, playing the bohemian to the hilt. “Because it amuses me.”

Light seemed to break across the young officer's face. “Ah! Then it's a fantasy,
ja
?”

The older officer, in no mood for cat-and-mouse games, picked up another canvas and said chillingly, “Is this painting yours?”

“Yes, but I didn't paint it,” Picasso said. “I only own it. It's a Matisse.”

“And this?” The elder officer moved into another narrow aisle stacked with pictures.

“It's a Renoir.”

“And this, also, is a Renoir?”

“No, it's a Cézanne. You already inventoried that one.”

“Did I? Are you sure?” The younger officer nervously checked his notes.

“Oh, yes,” Picasso said disingenuously. “But you missed these over here.”

On and on it went, as the older man peered into the bewildering stacks and directed the younger to write everything down. By now the officers were disoriented and confused, just as Picasso wanted them to be, while he continued telling them they'd seen this or missed that, until they were hopelessly lost amidst the clutter. When they asked what each painting was worth, Picasso invented modest prices. The officers believed him only because they were so out of their depth—they knew how to evaluate a chunk of gold from a Jew's tooth, or a gypsy's earring; they knew the sum total of the contents of every bank vault in Paris which they'd opened up as soon as they invaded the city; but modern art was a mystery that often eluded them.

Finally, at the end of Picasso's stacks of canvases, the young man's hand paused at an unusual portrait. This was unlike all the baffling modern paintings he'd seen today. It was a girl at a window, her face alight, her eyes gazing out at the world as if she alone could bring it to its knees. A curl of a smile lighted her young face.

“What's this one, then?” asked the junior officer, trying not to care personally. But something about that young woman made his heart yearn for home, and all the pretty girls he'd ever known.

Picasso's dark gaze followed his and rested on the portrait. For a moment he honestly could not remember when he'd painted it. Then he recalled his
ondine,
the girl from the sea, in a quieter time when privacy was a commodity easily attained; as opposed to now, when it was as rare as rubies. Unexpectedly Pablo felt deeply moved by this, for a moment wishing that he could transport himself back in time to that day in Juan-les-Pins, when France herself was almost as innocent as this radiant young lady.

“Oh, that,” Picasso said as casually as possible. “That's just a girl I once knew.”

The young man nodded sagely. “Yes,” he said, his hand still on the canvas. “That's a good one.”

Picasso felt strangely protective when, for a moment, it looked as if this callow German officer might tuck the portrait under his arm and take it with him. It wouldn't be the first time the victors took whatever spoils they wanted from Paris.

But the older man, whose heart could no longer be moved by love of anything pure and gentle, said curtly and importantly, “Yes, well, that's rather old-fashioned, isn't it? I imagine it's not worth as much as your fancier ones these days.”

The younger man actually blushed scarlet, put down the picture and backed away.

“Ah, what painting
is
worth much these days?” Picasso said romantically. “Art can't warm your bathwater or feed your children.”

L
ATER, WHEN THE
officers had gone, Picasso went down to a nearby black-market café to calm his nerves with a glass of wine and supper. Dora Maar was there at his table, along with other friends.

“Have you heard about Cocteau?” Dora said to him
sotto voce
. “The Nazis beat him up on the Champs-Elysées, just because he refused to salute them.” Picasso shook his head sadly; he'd heard far too many stories like this about people he knew. They all understood that the world they loved was vanishing, in ways large and small, every day.

So Pablo tried to lighten the atmosphere for his other friends at the café. The actress Simone Signoret listened intently as Picasso regaled his group around the table with what would become his most famous tale about the Gestapo inspecting his studio.

“Then one of the officers—the older one—he sees a photograph of my painting of the fascist bombing of
Guernica,
lying on the table,” Pablo said. “This Nazi looks at all that carnage, and then he says to me,
Did you do this?
And so I said to him,
No, you did!
”

And along with his friends, Picasso laughed uproariously at how he'd forced the Nazis to confront the damage Hitler's army had done.

At that moment, Pablo spotted a young girl with dark-russet hair, sitting at another table with her girlfriend, accompanied by a man Picasso knew. Every time Pablo caught the eye of the russet-haired girl, she grinned back at him. So he kept telling more jokes and showing off, just to see that girl smile again. Finally, he rose from his table, leaving Dora Maar behind, and carrying a bowl of cherries.

“Well?” Picasso said to his friend who was sitting there with the young ladies. “Aren't you going to introduce me?”

He set down the bowl of cherries right in front of the russet-haired girl, then listened attentively as his friend made the rounds of introductions.

“And, this is Françoise Gilot,” said the man. “She's been a law student at the Sorbonne, but now she thinks she'd rather be a painter.”

Picasso laughed. “That's the funniest thing I've heard all day,” he said. “Girls who look like
that
can't be painters.”

But Françoise was no shrinking violet. She was the well-educated daughter of a very successful businessman who'd taught her how to think, debate and compete. So she jutted out her chin and informed Pablo that it just so happened that she and her girlfriend were not only painters, but this very week they were having a joint exhibition at a well-respected gallery. Perhaps Picasso ought to have a look. Then she smiled, and popped a cherry into her mouth.

“Is that so?” said Pablo. “Well, I am a painter, too. You must come to my studio and see some of
my
paintings.”

“When?” asked Françoise. She was only twenty-one years old, but she knew how to heed the call of fate.

“Tomorrow. The next day. When you want to,” Picasso replied.

Very seriously, Françoise and her best friend put their heads together and reviewed their schedule. “We can come next Monday,” Françoise announced.

Picasso bowed. “As you wish.” He shook hands with everyone; then he picked up his bowl of cherries and returned to his own table.

And Dora Maar wished, with all her heart, that they had picked a different café to have supper in that day.