The Last Nude (16 page)

“How did they stay in such good shape all this time?”

“Buried completely underground. They only just dug them up in the past thirty, forty years.” He tossed a few pebbles at an abandoned wine bottle, but stopped when I knocked it over on the second try. “Attagirl, Rafaela!”

“All those brothers,” I explained, flattered.

“Have you ever shot a pistol?”

“When would I have shot a pistol? Back in my cowgirl days?”

“I could teach you,” he said. “I think you’d have fun.”

“You just don’t quit,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “So, do you think they had sportswriters, back in Roman times?”

Anson replied with a dry
hmph
of a laugh.

“Taking notes in Latin on the hems of their togas? Lions four, Christians zero?”

“I’m sure they had bookies, at any rate,” he said with a shrug. I was surprised he didn’t want to take up my game.

“Anson, I hate to ask you another favor, but I was wondering—would it be too much trouble to ask your friend to research someone else?”

“Are you in trouble?”

“No. Why?”

“Everything’s all right?”

“Of course. It’s not for me, it’s for the painter. One of the jurors of the Salon d’Automne wants to buy her painting—it’s an anonymous jury—and I wondered if you could ask your friend to find out who he is? I can tell you the name of the agent he’s using.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Well, that’s not really an emergency.”

“It has to be an emergency?”

“Well, obviously my definition of emergency is pretty loose, if it includes saving a flapper from bigamy. I did it because you were so upset.”

“It was awfully good of you.”

“It doesn’t sound like it really helped much.”

“Well, it meant a lot to me.”

“I’m glad, then.”

“So you wouldn’t even ask your friend, unless it was an emergency?”

“All right. I’m going to tell you this because I trust you, and because I don’t want to lie to you. It wasn’t my friend. It was me.”

“But how did you get the information? Did you break into a bank?”

“Rafaela, I’m not a sportswriter for the
Chicago Tribune
.”

“No?”

“I work for Monsieur Bland.”

“Wait. That business card you gave me, with Monsieur Boulind’s information, and you said he was a friend of the family—but he’s your boss?”

“That’s right.”

“So
that’s
why you’re always there when I call. You aren’t just dropping by to pick up messages; you’re there all day.”

“Much of the day,” Anson corrected.

“And
he
breaks into banks?”

“I’ve worked for him for five years and I don’t know his real name, but I know it’s not actually Yves Boulind. He’s a very highly placed man in the French government. A fraud investigator. He has the power to request any bank records he wants. And when he’s performing the will of the French government, he opens them himself. And when he’s requesting documents for a client, he leaves opening them to his staff.”

“You?”

“There are a handful of us. All foreigners. No rights. Paid under the table. Easy to blame, if he runs into trouble.”

“Has he ever gotten into trouble?”

“No. Because he’s very,
very
careful.”

“Oh.”

“He never even speaks to his own clients, he has ‘Madame Boulind’ do it. I don’t know what her real name is either, but I know she’s not his wife.” Sitting beside Anson in the raw expanse of the Arènes, I tried to imagine his half-hidden work life. “The point is, if we want to request information, he’ll do it, but every request is a risk. So just to slow us down, he makes us make it up to him in
devoirs.
”

The word meant “duties,” but it was also the word schoolchildren used for their homework. “Did you have to do
devoirs
when you looked up Daniel?”

“As many hours of work as would pay his rate, on top of the work we already do for him. And it’s whatever drudgery he’s been saving up for us. So when I looked up Daniel, let’s see. I organized a dropped box of a thousand checks, by number. I typed up some documents that were in truly egregious handwriting. I converted a month’s worth of receipts from pounds into francs based on each day’s exchange rate. I waited around to talk to somebody who didn’t want to pay his bills. Nothing difficult or dangerous, but that’s what makes it so unpleasant. The tedium.”

“And you did these
devoirs
in order to see Daniel’s records, just because I asked?”

“Ten hours.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. “And she wouldn’t even listen.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time that happened. As a matter of fact, that’s how Monsieur Bland started this business in the first place, researching his wife. Our bread-and-butter clients are rich ladies who want to know who their husbands are sleeping with. But I can’t say it makes them happy to find out.”

“Ten hours. Anson, thank you. I had no idea.”

He shrugged. “So you see why I asked if it was an emergency.”

“Tamara’s curiosity about the man who’s buying her painting is definitely not worth ten hours of your time. I would never have asked, if I’d known.”

“It’s really all right, Rafaela. I like you.” And then quickly, before he could make me uncomfortable, he added, “If she wants to pay Monsieur Bland’s fee, I’d be happy to put them in touch with each other.”

“I don’t want to make anything complicated for you.”

“It’s no trouble. I’ll give you a telephone number, Tamara can call Madame Bland, and they can settle all the details between them.”

“So whatever happened to his wife?
Was
she cheating?”

“He divorced her. But even after he knew the truth, it still took him years.”

9

NOT LONG AFTER I MET ANSON in the Arènes, I gave his card to Tamara. She accepted the telephone number eagerly, but she must have decided her curiosity wasn’t worth M. Bland ’s fee either, because she decided to pursue her investigation on less expensive lines. A survey of her friends turned up a particular stripe of art world parasite: Agence Binard represented a professional collector with warehouses of cheaply gotten paintings by new artists, some of which, if one played the odds, would one day be worth a fortune. It was gratifying, I could see, for Tamara to be included in such a pool, but the thought of
Beautiful Rafaela
moldering in a warehouse took a bit of the shine off selling it. Tamara
would
, she told me, retain the right to show the painting at any exposition she chose, so that was something. For my part, I didn’t care if the whole world saw the Salon
Rafaela
or if it crumbled to dust unseen, as long as Tamara kept the new one.
Ours.

 

 

 

The day before the Salon opened, Tamara asked me to come in for a short session before she went down to the Petit Palais to hang her work. When I arrived, I looked at her twice, startled: her hair was dyed deep black.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The Salon,” Tamara explained. “I am nervous every time I show.”

Tamara moved restlessly that day: she took Seffa for a walk every hour, whether he wanted to go out or not. “I am not nervous about
Kizette au Balcon
,” she said. “The Bordeaux judges loved it. But
Belle Rafaela
? I cannot change it anymore,” Tamara fretted. “I cannot hide it. I cannot take it back.”

“But maybe they’ll love it, silly. And besides, you have a buyer.”

“Well, when it is gone, at least I will still have this one.”

“I thought it would feel funny to pose for the same painting twice, but it feels the same,” I reflected. “Just longer.”

“I am glad it has not been too dull for you.”

“Do you want me to come in the day after tomorrow, then?”

“What is wrong with tomorrow?”

“Won’t you be at the Salon?”

“I want to have a full day of painting before I let them crush me.”

“That’s the spirit.”

 

 

 

That night I got my period, so the next day Tamara worked on
Full Summer
until it was time to go to the Salon. During our first break, I brought out my small valise. “I have something here, to congratulate you.”

“For me?”

“But you have to close your eyes.”

“A surprise?”

“You have to close your eyes and take off your clothes.”

“Cheeky! I like my surprise already.”

“It’s not what you think.”

Tamara lay naked across the couch, eyes closed. “Will this do, Miss Rafaela?”

It will more than do, you beauty, I thought. “Sit up and raise your arms over your head.”

“You never order me around like this.”

“I can tell you’re going to be so disappointed,” I teased, and slid the chemise I’d made over her head and shoulders.

“What is this?” she cooed.

“Keep them eyes closed, you!”

Everything was finished except the shoulder straps, which I had sewn in back but not in front, wanting to get the fit right first. Pinning the first strap, I watched her sitting quietly, eyes closed. Though her skin was taut and clear, her face at rest had a tragic grace, with its down-tipped eyes and pale slender brows, the proud prow of her nose. But it wasn’t at rest for long. “If you wanted a longer break, you could just ask.”

“Be patient.”

“I am only patient when working,” Tamara chided. And then, before I could do more than pin the second strap, her eyes flew open and she leapt up from the couch. “I love it! Rafaela, this is gorgeous!”

“Let me finish.”

“No, I love it just as it is,” she said, looking for the mirror, yanking the skirt down over her legs.
“Ouille!”

“If you’d let me finish, those pins wouldn’t stick you.”

“Fine, finish, finish. But do it during your next break, missy. Sitting still is
your
job.”

With the practiced ease of a woman who had never bought clothes off the rack in her life, she shimmied out of the silk slip, pins and all, and changed back into her painting clothes.

Forty-five minutes later, when we broke again, I could only make five small stitches before she seized the chemise out of my hands. “Wait, there’s only one strap.”

“I do not care.”

“How will it stay up, then?”

“A pin is fine. I love it. No one has made me anything to wear as a gift since I was a little girl. I want to wear it under my dress right now.”

“Have it your way,” I said, absurdly happy to see her in the shimmering little slip after spending so many hours on it alone. Her slender body seemed to curve opulently under the clinging silk: cutting on the bias was worth every inch of fabric I’d wasted. I grinned.

“I will wear it to the Salon this afternoon,” she said. “For luck.”

Tamara and I had never gone out together. I wanted to walk up the street with her. I wanted to parade her past Sylvia’s shop, take her home to Gin and show her off. “Do you want me to come with you?” I asked shyly.

Tamara’s eyes glittered as she nodded. “For more luck.”

 

 

 

We left Seffa at home because there would be crowds. Tamara was too nervous about making a good impression at the Salon to notice that, despite my pleasure at going out with her in public, I was petrified to be at the Salon myself. I could tell myself that no one would recognize me, but there was still no way I would have gone alone, no matter how much I wanted to see the painting in its hour of glory. As much as I was glad to have Tamara by my side, I was glad, too, for the deep brim of my cloche
.
Luckily, many other women kept their outdoor things on in the unheated rooms: though she took off her gloves, Tamara still wore the jaunty red Paul Poiret cap that matched her red wool coat. Within moments of our arrival, a bubbly strawberry blonde emerged from the throng of art collectors and after-work types to kiss Tamara on both cheeks.

“Romana de la Salle!
Chérie!
”

“Tamara! Tamara! When is
Die Dame
going to print our painting?”

I recognized the pink champagne girl shrieking in French from Tamara’s
Orange Scarf
image, and I did not like the way she said
our
painting. But Tamara kissed me on the lips in front of her, which both reassured me and caught the lively, pale-eyed attention of a man I thought I recognized on the other side of the room. As Tamara announced me to her friend as
La Belle Rafaela soi-même
, I saw a familiar turquoise earring come shuttling toward us through the crowd. “How’s your mother, Romana?” Tamara asked in French. “Is she still with that tired old thing?”

“Mother’s been with Bibi for nine years,” Romana protested. “When are you going to remember her name?”

“The day that Bibi woman learns how to dress,” Tamara said. They both laughed. “I love your mother, but she’s such a puritan.”