Cooking for Picasso (8 page)

Only his family knew that Dad was
not
a happy man. His frequent outbursts of rage were our little secret, which we seldom discussed even among ourselves. My early attempts to engage Mom about why Dad was so angry were fairly fruitless, as she excused him by saying that his career was stressful, and this was true; his legal work for high-stakes clients involved skimming the risky edges of the law.

But recently Mom had confessed to me that, during a particularly volatile period, a doctor once told my father that he had “narcissistic tendencies” and suggested therapy. “What did Dad do?” I asked.

“He was furious. Then he went and found another doctor he liked better,” Mom demurred.

We all tried to coax Dad into a happier mood with things we knew had pleased him before—his favorite songs, or sports scores, or old movies. But every evening when he came home from work, no matter what wonderful steaming dish Mom set down in front of us, our appetites died as my father, his face already thunderous, took his seat at the head of the table, searching for any inkling of failure or disloyalty in order to find a scapegoat. Then he'd explode with the pent-up fury we all dreaded.

The twins learned to deflect this by flattering Dad, pretending to be exact little replicas of him. But I watched in dismay as Mom absorbed his ridicule with a meekness that even as a child, I could see only reinforced his contemptuous attitude, which extended to whatever female friends she tried to socialize with, making it uncomfortable for her to invite any of them to her home.

And there was a joke I learned to hate which he often repeated at her expense. It was about an incident at a New Year's Eve gala when she was standing in an impossibly long line for a ladies' room. I never heard the end of the joke; all he had to do was to start to tell it, and my mother would get so embarrassed that she'd beg him to stop. He'd keep going, and even as her eyes filled with tears he'd continue, until finally stopping short of the “punch line” by telling her,
Julie, you're just too sensitive
.

As the youngest in the family witnessing all this, I'd hoped my elder siblings would stand up to him; but Dad's rage was like an oncoming tank which most people instinctively ducked away from. Yet he was the sort of forceful man who didn't respect “wimps” and you couldn't miss his smirk of disdain for people he could cow. Someone had to stare down his guns for Mom's sake. When nobody did, the sight of her defeated, slumped shoulders and tearful face became so intolerable that I had to speak up. Although Dad enjoyed some preliminary sparring, he could not bear to lose an argument. And that's why, when his shouting failed him, I was the one he hit. A whack across the face or back; a shove; a rough painful twisting of my arm or wrist—right there at the table, while the others averted their gaze.

When Dad's rage was finally spent, Mom would be off the hook. At this point he usually looked bewildered, as if he could not fathom why the rest of us found his behavior so shocking that afterwards we all pretended nothing had happened; until the next time. It was always worse when the twins were away at school, leaving Mom and me alone with him. I've never admitted this to anyone, but in a way it was my father who unwittingly helped me find my calling in life—by inspiring me to become a teenage makeup expert in order to learn how to cover up the bruises I got from him.

I left home as soon as I could free myself from his financial support, fleeing to the Yale School of Drama through tuition loans and a scholarship for a theatre degree in production design. When I couldn't find work in the theatre right away, I spent a summer assisting a top makeup man in Hollywood, and I realized I was much happier playing with pots and tubes of cosmetics. Ever since then I've been in business for myself in Los Angeles. There in Lotus Land, among possibly the most neurotic people on earth, I felt that I'd found a more understanding family.

M
Y MOTHER WAS
patting my hand now. “Any new men in your life?” she asked hopefully. I shook my head, careful to appear serene about my current circumstances. She knew of my broken engagement, and probably understood, on some level, why I'd backed out of marrying a perfectly nice stockbroker who could have given me children to dote on and a life of ease—because he was the sort of guy who had to be completely in charge of every aspect of his life, and I just couldn't bring myself to entrust one man with my entire future, as my mother had done.

Perhaps because she
did
understand all too well, she reached out and stroked my hair with a soothingly fond gesture. Then, as if she'd suddenly figured out what she could do to brighten the situation, she rose to her feet and whispered conspiratorially, “Come, I want to show you something.”

Somewhat halfheartedly I followed her through the hallway to the laundry room at the back of the house, where she bent down to open a sliding door in a cupboard beneath the washer-and-dryer.

“I never noticed that cupboard before,” I said. “What's it for?”

“It's just a crawl space, in case any wiring or plumbing has to be fixed or changed. But to me, it's better than a vault!” She chuckled to herself. “Oh, I guess I'm just like
my
mother, after all. Your
Grand-mère
Ondine was always so worried whenever she heard about yet another burglary on the Riviera. She
did
have her little hiding places for her valuables—and I remember a secret storage area under a closet floor, where during the wars her parents hid the café's best champagne from the German soldiers.”

She leaned in to retrieve a parcel sealed in a plastic bag, then rose to her feet, clutching it to her chest like a naughty little wide-eyed girl with a secret.

“Let's go back to the kitchen where the light is good,” she suggested. We returned and I watched, mystified, as Mom opened the plastic bag to remove something wrapped in blue-and-silver Christmas paper, which she now deposited into my lap. “I want you to open this Christmas gift early this year—because it really came from your grandmother, not me,” she said quietly. Her eyes were bright with excitement. I tore open the wrapper, half-expecting to see some family jewels. Instead, I discovered a maroon leather-bound notebook, shaped like a ledger.

“This belonged to your Grandmother Ondine. She gave it to me the day that you were born. It's a kind of cookbook she wrote herself, with all her best recipes!” Mom announced.

“It's lovely,” I replied, baffled. I absolutely hated cooking, and my mother knew it. Every Frenchwoman, no matter how wealthy, believes that she should periodically cook for her family to prove that she excels at this domestic art. Mom was a generous and gifted chef, yet my father and siblings were indifferent to food and treated her like hired help. So I guess that's why I'd always steered clear of kitchen work. It occurred to me now that my mother was offering this gift as a gentle hint that I should learn to cook and thus become a more traditional female, as a path to happiness.

“At least I can give you this—for an heirloom,” Mom said apologetically, noticing my hesitation.

Considering everything she'd told me this evening, the whole thing felt like just another kick in the pants, not a gift. A consolation prize, perhaps. But when I saw the hopeful look on her face I kissed her. This treasure obviously meant a lot to her, and I did like the feel of the notebook's buttery soft leather cover. Curious, I turned to the first page, which had a printed box decorated with a border of grapevines, and inside it, at the
Date
line, was a scripted flourish in blue ink saying
Spring, 1936
.

“This is Grandmother Ondine's handwriting?” I asked, studying it closely. On the line for the
Nom,
she'd only written a letter
P
. “Who's ‘P'?” I said, pointing to it. Mom hesitated, and a strange, conflicted look crossed her face. Then, visibly, she made up her mind and took the plunge.

“Oh. Picasso,” she said in a low voice.

“
Picasso!
Really?” I asked, taken aback. Mom nodded, and she went on to explain how Grandmother Ondine, at age seventeen, had transported lunch from her parents' café to Picasso's villa.

“Amazing!” I responded, actually feeling goosebumps imagining the scene as I flipped through the recipes, all handwritten in French.
Bouillabaisse
and
coq au vin
and beef
miroton
and lamb
rissole
. “What else did she tell you about Picasso?” I asked, feeling all the more intrigued now.

“Nothing,” Mom admitted. “She just gave me this book as a keepsake and told me to pass it on to you when you were old enough.” She turned to the back of the notebook where, in a leather pocket for storing mementos, Mom had tucked an envelope that was already slit open. I saw that it was posted in 1983 from
Juan-les-Pins, France
.

“Here's a letter that Grandmother Ondine wrote to me,” she explained. “On old stationery from when her parents ran the café. She kept this stationery for her own personal use years later, when she grew up and took over the café after her parents died.”

Fascinated, I saw that the folded sheet of delicate white paper, deeply creased from being tucked into that envelope for so long, had an appealing black-and-grey drawing of the café professionally printed at the top of the page. The words
Café Paradis
were on the awning of its picturesque terrace.

“And here's a photo of Grandma in the kitchen of her café,” Mom said, passing me a snapshot. It was a cozy moment and I noticed that Mom had used the American word
Grandma
this time. “Isn't her hair wonderful? It never went completely grey—it stayed mostly dark, right to the end of her life.”

She put the picture in front of me and I peered closely at the first image I'd ever seen of Grandmother Ondine—a woman wearing a rose-colored dress, whose hair
was
very different from Mom's and mine, darker and luxuriously curly. I was immediately captivated by her vital-looking face and bright, lively eyes. She seemed like a strong, no-nonsense character.

“Grandma looks
formidable,
” I said, surprised. Mom was so shy that I never imagined I had a female ancestor who ran her own business in a century when women were still struggling mightily for equal rights. Grandmother Ondine was standing in an old-fashioned kitchen; behind her was a Provençal country cupboard painted bright blue, with a tall pink-and-blue striped pitcher on it.

“Hey!” I said. “Isn't that the same pitcher you've got in
your
kitchen?” I glanced up at the shelf where it was sitting right now, always in pride of place for as long as I could remember.

“Hmm? Yes,” Mom answered, still scanning the letter. “Your grandmother was sixty-four years old when she wrote this! She says business is good and she's got a nice young lawyer, Monsieur Clément, who's helping her put her affairs in order. But I got worried when I read this part about Grandma needing to see a doctor for ‘some heart trouble', and having to use a cane to walk. That's when I decided I
had
to go see her in France, even though I was pregnant with you. Deirdre and Danny didn't come with us because they wanted to be with their friends that summer.”

Very soberly, she replaced the note in its envelope and tucked it in the leather pocket. “I've kept it all these years because it's the only letter she ever sent me. Before then, we were a bit—estranged—ever since I left France to get married. She had wanted me to—wait.”

“You and Dad eloped, right?” I said. Mom nodded guiltily. She'd always made it sound so romantic, as if Dad had swept her off her feet. Now I saw there was more to it; perhaps a serious rift with her mother. Gently I asked, “How come you never told us about Grandma Ondine and Picasso?”

Mom flushed and admitted, “She made me promise never to say his name to—” She stopped.

“Dad,” I guessed. She nodded. I knew he resented Mom's few stories about her life before she met him; so whenever Mom ventured to tell one she did so hurriedly, in the manner of someone who's been chided that she's not very good at it, which evoked the very irritation in her audience that she dreaded. I am ashamed to think that we all got used to only half-listening to her.

Now she actually lowered her voice, even though we were the only two people in the house.

“There's something else I find myself thinking about a lot lately. That last day—when Grandma Ondine and I were sitting together, having a nice chat just before dinner, like you and I are doing right now—she said she had to tell me something she didn't want anyone else to hear.” By now I was holding my breath, waiting. Mom said wonderingly, “Grandma told me that Picasso once gave her a picture.”

“Picture?” I said, awed. “Like, a painting? Or drawing?”

“A painting, I believe. She said he gave it to her as a gift for all her good cooking. I think she wanted to tell me more—but she never finished her story because right then and there I went into labor! They had to rush me to the hospital, and, well, we never had dinner that day! You certainly surprised us all, arriving a whole month sooner than you were due,” Mom went on breathlessly, lapsing into the only part of the story I knew, because it explained why I'd been born in France. So I knew what was coming.

“That's the same day Grandma Ondine had a heart attack, right?” I said softly. As a child I'd felt slightly guilty about it, as if I'd somehow inadvertently caused her death. Later, in my more mystical teenage years, I told myself that my grandmother had somehow passed the baton to me that day. So now, holding on to this elegant, leather-bound book, I felt that “baton” in my hands for the first time.

“Yes. It happened when I was at the hospital. A neighbor looked in on Grandma and called the doctor. She died at home that day—the doctor said she went quickly and didn't suffer.”