‘Forgive me. I simply didn’t
believe you would come.
But I’m very glad you did. Very
glad.’ He stepped back and looked at me.
I could feel his eyes running over my
cheekbones, my neck, my hair. I sat before him as rigid as a starched collar. He gave
off a slightly unwashed scent. It was not unpleasant, but almost overpowering in the
circumstances.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like
a glass of wine? Something to relax you a little?’
‘No, thank you. I’d just like to
get on. I … I can only spare an hour.’ Where had that come from? I think
half of me already wanted to leave.
He tried to position me, to get me to put
down my bag, to lean a little against the arm of the
chaise longue
. But I
couldn’t. I felt humiliated without being able to say why. And as Monsieur
Lefèvre worked, glancing to and from his easel, barely speaking, it slowly dawned
on me that I did not feel admired and important, as I had secretly thought I might, but
as if he saw straight through me. I had, it seemed, become a
thing
, a subject,
of no more significance than the green bottle or the apples in the still-life canvas by
the door.
It was evident that he didn’t like it
either. As the hour wore on, he seemed more and more dismayed, emitting little sounds of
frustration. I sat as still as a statue, afraid that I was doing something wrong, but
finally he said, ‘Mademoiselle, let’s finish. I’m not sure the
charcoal gods are with me today.’
I straightened with some relief, twisting my
neck on my shoulders. ‘May I see?’
The girl in the picture was me, all right,
but I winced. She appeared as lifeless as a porcelain doll. She bore an
expression of grim fortitude and the stiff-backed primness of a
maiden aunt. I tried not to show how crushed I felt. ‘I suspect I am not the model
you hoped for.’
‘No. It’s not you,
Mademoiselle.’ He shrugged. ‘I am … I am frustrated with
myself.’
‘I could come again on Sunday, if you
liked.’ I don’t know why I said it. It wasn’t as if I had enjoyed the
experience.
He smiled at me then. He had the kindest
eyes. ‘That would be … very generous. I’m sure I’ll be able
to do you justice on another occasion.’
But Sunday was no better. I tried, I really
did. I lay with my arm across the
chaise longue
, my body twisted like the
reclining Aphrodite he showed me in a book, my skirt gathered in folds over my legs. I
tried to relax and let my expression soften, but in that position my corset bit into my
waist and a strand of hair kept slipping out of its pin so that the temptation to reach
for it was almost overwhelming. It was a long and arduous couple of hours. Even before I
saw the picture, I knew from Monsieur Lefèvre’s face that he was, once again,
disappointed.
This is me? I thought, staring at the
grim-faced girl who was less Venus than a sour housekeeper checking the surfaces of her
soft furnishings for dust.
This time I think he even felt sorry for me.
I suspect I was the plainest model he had ever had. ‘It is not you,
Mademoiselle,’ he insisted. ‘Sometimes … it takes a while to get
the true essence of a person.’
But that was the thing that upset me most. I
was afraid he had already got it.
It was Bastille Day when I saw him again. I
was making my way through the packed streets of the Latin Quarter, passing under the
huge red, white and blue flags and fragrant wreaths that hung from the windows, weaving
in and out of the crowds that stood to watch the soldiers marching past, their rifles
cocked over their shoulders.
The whole of Paris was celebrating. I am
usually content with my own company, but that day I was restless, oddly lonely. When I
reached the Panthéon I stopped: before me rue Soufflot had become a whirling mass
of bodies, its normally grey length now packed with people dancing, the women in their
long skirts and broad-brimmed hats, the band outside the Café Léon. They moved
in graceful circles, stood at the edge of the pavement observing each other and
chatting, as if the street were a ballroom.
And then there he was, sitting in the middle
of it all, a brightly coloured scarf around his neck. Mistinguett, her associates
hovering around her, rested a hand possessively on his shoulder as she said something
that made him roar with laughter.
I stared at them in astonishment. And then,
perhaps compelled by the intensity of my gaze, he looked round and saw me. I ducked
swiftly into a doorway and set off in the opposite direction, my cheeks flaming. I dived
in and out of the dancing couples, my clogs clattering on the cobbles. But within
seconds his voice was booming behind me.
‘Mademoiselle!’
I could not ignore him. I turned. He looked
for a moment as if he were about to embrace me, but
something in my
demeanour must have stopped him. Instead he touched my arm lightly, and motioned me
towards the throng of people. ‘How wonderful to bump into you,’ he said. I
began to make my excuses, stumbling over my words, but he held up a great hand.
‘Come, Mademoiselle, it is a public holiday. Even the most diligent must enjoy
themselves occasionally.’
Around us the flags fluttered in the
late-afternoon breeze. I could hear them flapping, like the erratic pounding of my
heart. I struggled to think of a polite way to extricate myself, but he broke in
again.
‘I realize, Mademoiselle, that
shamefully, despite our acquaintance, I do not know your name.’
‘Bessette,’ I said.
‘Sophie Bessette.’
‘Then please allow me to buy you a
drink, Mademoiselle Bessette.’
I shook my head. I felt sick, as if in the
mere act of coming here I had given away too much of myself. I glanced behind him to
where Mistinguett was still standing amid her group of friends.
‘Shall we?’ He held out his
arm.
And at that moment the great Mistinguett
looked straight at me.
It was, if I’m honest, something in
her expression, the brief flash of annoyance when he held out his arm. This man, this
Édouard Lefèvre, had the power to make one of Paris’s brightest stars
feel dull and invisible. And he had chosen me over her.
I peeped up at him. ‘Just some water,
then, thank you.’
We walked back to the table. ‘Misty,
my darling, this is Sophie Bessette.’ Her smile remained, but there was ice in
her gaze as it ran the length of me. I wondered if she remembered me
serving her at the department store. ‘Clogs,’ one of her gentlemen said from
behind her. ‘How very … quaint.’
The murmur of laughter made my skin prickle.
I took a breath.
‘The emporium will be full of them for
the spring season,’ I replied calmly. ‘They are the very latest thing.
It’s
la mode paysanne
.’
I felt Édouard’s fingertips touch
my back.
‘With the finest ankles in all Paris,
I think Mademoiselle Bessette may wear what she likes.’
A brief silence fell over the group, as the
significance of Édouard’s words sank in. Mistinguett’s eyes slid away
from me. ‘
Enchantée
,’ she said, her smile dazzling.
‘Édouard, darling, I must go. So, so busy. Call on me very soon, yes?’
She held out her gloved hand and he kissed it. I had to drag my eyes from his lips. And
then she was gone, a ripple passing through the crowd, as if she were parting water.
So, we sat. Édouard Lefèvre
stretched out in his chair as if he were surveying a beach while I was still rigid with
awkwardness. Without saying anything, he handed me a drink and there was just the
faintest apology in his expression as he did so, with – was it really? – a hint of
suppressed laughter. As if it – they – were all so ridiculous that I could not feel
slighted.
Surrounded by the joyful people dancing, the
laughter and the bright blue skies, I began to relax. Édouard spoke to me with the
utmost politeness, asking about my life before Paris, the politics within the shop,
breaking off
occasionally to put his cigarette into the corner of his
mouth and shout, ‘
Bravo!
’ at the band, clapping his great hands
high in the air. He knew almost everybody. I lost track of the number of people who
stopped to say hello or to buy him a drink; artists, shopkeepers, speculative women. It
was like being with royalty. Except I could see their gaze flickering towards me, while
they wondered what a man who could have had Mistinguett was doing with a girl like
me.
‘The girls at the store say you talk
to
les putains
of Pigalle.’ I couldn’t help myself: I was
curious.
‘I do. And many of them are excellent
company.’
‘Do you paint them?’
‘When I can afford their time.’
He nodded at a man who tipped his hat to us. ‘They make excellent models. They are
generally utterly unselfconscious about their bodies.’
‘Unlike me.’
He saw my blush. After a brief hesitation,
he placed his hand over mine, as if in apology. It made me colour even more.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said softly. ‘Those pictures were my failure, not
yours. I have …’ He changed tack. ‘You have other qualities. You
fascinate me. You are not intimidated by much.’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I
don’t believe I am.’
We ate bread, cheese and olives, and they
were the best olives I had ever tasted. He drank
pastis
, knocking back each
glass with noisy relish. The afternoon crept on. The laughter grew louder, the drinks
came faster. I allowed myself two small glasses of wine, and began to enjoy myself.
Here, in the street, on this balmy day, I was not the
provincial
outsider, the shop girl on the lowest-but-one rung of the ladder. I was just another
reveller, enjoying the Bastille celebrations.
And then Édouard pushed back the table
and stood in front of me. ‘Shall we dance?’
I could not think of a reason to refuse him.
I took his hand, and he swung me out into the sea of bodies. I had not danced since I
had left St Péronne. Now I felt the breeze whirling around my ears, the weight of
his hand on the small of my back, my clogs unusually light on my feet. He carried the
scents of tobacco, aniseed, and something male that left me a little short of
breath.
I don’t know what it was. I had drunk
little, so I could not blame the wine. It’s not as if he were particularly
handsome, or that I had felt my life lacking for the absence of a man.
‘Draw me again,’ I said.
He stopped and looked at me, puzzled. I
couldn’t blame him: I was confused myself.
‘Draw me again. Today. Now.’
He said nothing, but walked back to the
table, gathered up his tobacco, and we filed through the crowd and along the teeming
streets to his studio.
We went up the narrow wooden stairs,
unlocked the door into the bright studio, and I waited while he shed his jacket, put a
record on the gramophone and began to mix the paint on his palette. And then, as he
hummed to himself, I began to unbutton my blouse. I removed my shoes and my stockings. I
peeled off my skirts until I was wearing only my chemise and my white cotton petticoat.
I sat there, undressed to my very corset, and unpinned my hair
so
that it fell about my shoulders. When he turned back to me I heard him gasp.
He blinked.
‘Like this?’ I said.
Anxiety flashed across his face. He was,
perhaps, afraid that his paintbrush would yet again betray me. I kept my gaze steady, my
head high. I looked at him as if it were a challenge. And then some artistic impulse
took over and he was already lost in contemplation of the unexpected milkiness of my
skin, the russet of my loosened hair, and all semblance of concern for probity was
forgotten. ‘Yes, yes. Move your head, a little to the left, please.’ he
said. ‘And your hand. There. Open your palm a little. Perfect.’
As he began to paint, I watched him. He
scanned every inch of my body with intense concentration, as if it would be unbearable
to get it wrong. I watched as satisfaction inked itself on his face, and I felt it
mirror my own. I had no inhibitions now. I was Mistinguett, or a street-walker from
Pigalle, unafraid, unselfconscious. I wanted him to examine my skin, the hollows of my
throat, the secret glowing underside of my hair. I wanted him to see every part of
me.
As he painted I took in his features, the
way he murmured to himself while mixing colours on his palette. I watched him shamble
around, as if he were older than he was. It was an affectation – he was younger and
stronger than most of the men who came into the store. I recalled how he ate: with
obvious, greedy pleasure. He sang along with the gramophone, painted when he liked,
spoke to whom he wished and said what he thought. I wanted to live as Édouard did,
joyfully, sucking the marrow out of every moment and singing because it tasted so
good.
And then it was dark. He stopped to clean his
brushes and gazed around him, as if he were only just noticing it. He lit candles and a
gaslight, placing them around me, then sighed when he realized the dusk had defeated
him.
‘Are you cold?’ he said.
I shook my head, but he walked over to a
dresser, pulling from it a bright red woollen shawl, which he carefully placed around my
shoulders. ‘The light has gone for today. Would you like to see?’
I pulled the shawl around me, and walked
over to the easel, my feet bare on the wooden boards. I felt as if I were in a dream, as
if real life had evaporated in the hours I had sat there. I was afraid to look and break
the spell.
‘Come.’ He beckoned me
forwards.
On the canvas I saw a girl I did not
recognize. She gazed back at me defiantly, her hair glinting copper in the half-light,
her skin as pale as alabaster, a girl with the imperious confidence of an
aristocrat.
She was strange and proud and beautiful. It
was as if I had been shown a magic looking-glass.
‘I knew it,’ he said, his voice
soft. ‘I knew you were in there.’