Mistral's Daughter (13 page)

Even if Maggy had known what
to say he wouldn't have paid attention to her.
 
She was too young, too ignorant for her opinion to carry any weight with
Mistral.
 
Naturally Maggy thought his
work
was wonderful.
 
Why shouldn't
she?
 
What did she know of the painting
that she didn't pick up as a pigeon picks up crumbs in the street?
 
How could the judgment of an
 
eighteen- year-old model give him the support
he found in conversation with a cultivated woman
of the world, a rich
man's daughter who, at twenty-three, had quickly come to know everyone who
counted in the artistic circles of Paris?
 
Kate's delicate fingers seemed formed to take the pulse of that world
and judge its condition.

That past June, Paul
Rosenberg had exhibited Picasso's work of the last twenty years.
 
On October 5th of 1926, when Avigdor first
exhibited Mistral, it was clear that the second major artistic event of the
year had taken place.
 
The crowds who are
invited to a
vernissage
are as without pity as they are without
false pride. If they find work
uninteresting they quickly turn their
backs to the walls and chat
with each other, take a quick glass of wine
if it's available, and leave for something more interesting without even a word
of apology to the dealer.

But when the work speaks to
them, when they smell new talent, they are capable of shoving each other aside
to get a better look with as little courtesy as if they were snatching the last
taxi on a rainy night.
 
And when they
decide to buy, a wave of desire begins to mount in the gallery, rocketing from
one spectator to another, as infectious as hysteria, as if these finely dressed
collectors were badly behaved children at a birthday party, openly covetous,
grabbing for the last slice of a delicious, but inadequately large, yet
essential cake.

Avigdor, besieged, put a small
red "sold" sticker on the last of the fifty canvases less than two
hours after the collectors and the merely curious had begun to trickle into the
gallery, many of them alerted by the critics who knew that Avigdor would
provide them with the occasion for a rousing debate.
 
He needed all his patience and good nature to
deal with the complaints of former customers who were angered at the
unavailability of the pictures they insisted on having.

"Come back
tomorrow," he repeated, with a confiding appeal in his kind eyes,
"and I'll see if there's something I can spare you
—
but I can't
promise miracles
—
it will be small.
 
Forgive me, my friend.
 
No, I
assure you, I didn't reserve any for myself
—
you know I never do that.
Tomorrow
—
yes, I'll try to find something."
 
He would, he thought, get rid of all of
Mistral's earlier work at this rate.

Mistral brooded, a silent
island in the middle of the long crowded room.
 
He understood his success intellectually, but instead of the glory he
expected to feel, there was blankness, emptiness, confusion.
 
And there was something worse
—
there
was fear.
 
Success, disdained for so
long, then sought at last with such an unleashed need, success was too great a
change for him to accept.
 
The territory
was too unfamiliar, the position too exposed, the prize too rich.

Each time another stranger
came up to him to congratulate him the words seemed to mean less and less.
 
The people surging excitedly
around
him, chattering at him and at each other, didn't connect in his mind with the
pictures on the walls.
 
He couldn't forge
a link between his work, the work he did alone, the work that poured from his
belly, with any of the compliments that were being paid him.
 
He muttered his thanks, keeping his eyes
focused above the heads of the people who talked to him, absently pushing his
dark red curls away from his forehead that was damp from the heat of the room.

Only with Kate who slipped
effortlessly through the throng and returned to his side from time to time, was
he able to look down and grin faintly.
 
They exchanged a few words, unimportant comments on the size of the
crowd and the success of the frames, but the less they said the more intimate
was their communication.
 
Mistral drew
strength from Kate, who felt none of the unwelcome emotion that was poisoning
the moment for him.
 
For her the victory
was at second hand, removed enough to be under control, yet close enough to
fill her with the sweetness of being the instrument of it all.

Maggy stood in a corner,
holding herself particularly tall and proud.
 
A ferocious malaise had gripped her as she watched the crowd cluster
excitedly around at the seven canvases that displayed her in all her
nakedness.
 
It was one thing to pose for
an artist, but quite another to be displayed for laymen to see, she
thought.
 
If she had known how she was
going to feel, she wouldn't have come to the
vernissage
at
all.
 
She mustered all the experience of
the past year
to calmly accept the congratulations that accompanied the
perfunctory shakes of her hand, the rapacious, avidly inquisitive, scrutinizing
glances.

It was almost, she thought,
as if she were an animal, a horse who had just won a race or a dog that had
been named "best in show."
 
"Magnificent, Mademoiselle," or "splendid, quite
splendid," they said to her, and passed quickly on, as if she were not a
human being
to whom one could talk reasonably.
 
Soon, she speculated, some
man would
doubtless try to pop a lump of sugar in her mouth
—
that one would lose
a finger.

If only Julien would come and
stand by her, if only he would even catch her eye, but he was as immobile in
his position in the center of the room as if he'd been planted there.
 
Why did he ignore her so, today of all days?
she asked herself, and a cramp of misery settled behind her eyes.

Even Paula, who had first
stayed close to her side, had drifted off to inspect the crowd of collectors,
artists and critics, the very people who came to her restaurant every
night.
 
It was as if this was a party in
Paula's honor, for if it had not been for her, none of it would be
happening.
 
If Paula Deslandes had not
launched Maggy Lunel, Mistral might well still be unknown, she meditated, not
at all sure she was pleased with her largesse.
 
She was looking about with that indefinable air of the insider, the
person in the know at a public event, when a man she'd never seen before spoke
to her.

"It's an extraordinary
event, Madame, don't you agree?"

"I do indeed," said
Paula with a subtle inclination of her head that Madame the Marquise du
Pompadour would not have found unworthy.
 
She could tell immediately from that one sentence that the man was the
particular kind of American who speaks acceptable French but still has enough
trouble with the language not to have the insupportable pretension to imagine
himself fluent.

"Is Madame a
collector?"

"In a minor way,"
Paula answered, looking at the man with interest.
 
"And Monsieur?"
 
As always, she responded first to his
masculinity, his good looks.
 
Then she
noticed that he was exceptionally well turned out, yet he wore his expensive
clothes with American forthrightness, a kind of brusque immaculateness that
proclaimed his origins.

"In a minor way also
—
can one live in Paris and not collect something?"

"Some do...
 
but I have no use for them," Paula said
with a disdainful sniff of her pert nose.

"May I present myself?
Perry Kilkullen."

"Paula Deslandes."

As they shook hands she took
stock of her new acquaintance.
 
He was
probably close to forty, and his aura of prosperity contrasted pleasingly with
his thick blond hair that was just beginning to go gray at the temples and his
gray eyes that held a youthful enthusiasm.
 
He was, Paula thought, the sort of splendid American that the English
are regretfully forced to concede is a gentleman in spite of his birthplace.

"Have you bought
anything in the show?" Paula asked.
 

"Unfortunately, no.
 
The only pictures I really wanted were all
sold."

"Which ones would you
have chosen?" Paula asked with her most adorable pout.

"Any one of the nudes
—
I think they're the finest things here."

"Monsieur has a taste
for the sublime," Paula teased.

"I noticed you talking
to the young lady," Perry Kilkullen said, indicating Maggy across the
room. "She's the model, isn't she?"

"Surely you don't
imagine there are two like her in the world?"

"I suppose she's the
artist's wife?"

"God forbid!"

"His friend then?"
he asked delicately, giving the word "friend" the particular tiny
nuance of pronunciation, a mere fragment of a tome that to the French indicates
a sexual partner.

"Certainly not," Paula
said protectively. "Maggy is a professional artists' model
—
the
best one in Paris as
anyone will tell you.
 
She works for many painters."

"Maggy?"

"Maggy Lunel
—
my
protégée,"
Paula said preeningly.

"She's so very
beautiful.
 
A girl
apart,"
Perry Kilkullen said
in such a voice that Paula glanced at him
sharply.
 
He was staring
 
openly at Maggy with a look of such
poleaxed yearning that Paula would have laughed if her self-esteem hadn't
required a split second
to regain its equilibrium.
 
Ah, but what did she take herself for?
  
Her forty-three years, luscious as they
were, would seem nothing when compared to Maggy's resplendent eighteen, Paula
thought, shaking herself mentally.

"How does she come to be
your
protégée
the stranger continued, not trying to hide his curiosity.

"Ah, that's a long
story," Paula said evasively.
 
She
had to grant
eighteen its full glory, she reflected, but she didn't have
to humble herself before it.
 
This
handsome Kilkullen would have to try much harder to find out
anything he
wished to know.

Maggy, still trapped in the
corner, looked at Mistral who stood
 
some twenty feet away.
 
Oh, this was intolerable.
 
She couldn't endure another minute without
some contact with him.
  
Perhaps he would
put his arm around her, or at least take her hand in his.
 
She
needed some loving word, some
gesture.
 
Why was she so childish?
 
Even a single smile would help her to get
through these moments.
 
Maggy began to
struggle through the mob in Mistral's direction.
 
She found her passage blocked by Avigdor, who
had been collared by a stout man with dyed black hair.

"Adrien, who owns that
nude lying on the green cushions?"
 
I want to find the lucky son of a bitch and get it from him.
 
It's only a question of how much he wants
—
I'll pay anything
—
be a good chap and tell me."

"It's not for
sale," Maggy said gently.

"Mademoiselle Lunel is
right," Avigdor agreed.
 
"It
belongs to Miss Browning."

"The hell it does!"
the stout man said.
 
"Where is she
—
I'd like to talk to her."

"Monsieur Avigdor is
mistaken," Maggy spoke up firmly.
"I've
owned that particular
painting from the very day it was painted.
 
Julien gave it to me and it has no price because I'll never sell
it."

"What do you say,
Avigdor?" the man insisted, unimpressed.
 
"There seems to be some confusion...
 
ah, perhaps Miss Browning can...
 
I don't..."
 
Avigdor looked as if the heavens had opened
and hail had ruined his hay.

"Look, just follow
me," Maggy told the stout man.
 
Avigdor obviously didn't know what he was doing or saying.
 
With difficulty she cleared the way toward
Mistral, and clutched his arm.

"Julien, that dealer of
yours has just told this gentleman that my picture doesn't belong to me
—
explain to him, would you, please?"
 
Mistral turned his head and glared at both of them from under his
frowning brows.
 
His mouth, always set in
a stern line, was tight with annoyance.