Madame Picasso

“Madame Picasso, it is an honor,” Sylvette gushed, wide-eyed, with dimples showing. “I have seen your husband at the Moulin Rouge. He is terribly talented. They say his work is genius.”

“Indeed.” Fernande nodded noncommittally as she tapped her cup with her finger.

Mistinguett’s expression was more reserved suddenly, and Eva saw the two women exchange a glance. She seemed to want to say something but then the waiter approached to pour the wine. Fernande leaned back in her chair.

“It’s a pleasure to meet someone so resourceful,” Fernande said to Eva. “I respect that in a woman. That is certainly what it takes to achieve anything worthwhile in this very competitive city.”

“Merci.” It was all she could manage to say. She still could not process what was happening. He was married? She felt like such a fool. Why hadn’t she suspected? Assumed? Even the thought of it. And of course the wife of a great artist would look like this: tall, elegant, confident.

Eva hated this woman suddenly. But she hated herself more. She longed to give in to her tears and run out of the restaurant, but that would be to reveal everything, including her stupidity. He had taken more advantage of her than she had even guessed possible. Captivating or not, Pablo Picasso was a bastard! Eva drank half her glass of wine in one swallow.

“So, have you been married long?” she asked, suddenly wanting to know.

Mistinguett and Picasso’s wife exchanged another glance.

“We are not technically married, Mademoiselle Humbert. Although, I have been with him long enough, and suffered enough of his failures and his poverty, to claim the title. So, unapologetically, I have taken it.”

Eva looked at Sylvette, who seemed perfectly charmed by the explanation. “We women need to claim what we want. If we don’t, we will never get anything.”

“We will be emancipated one day, after all. The suffragette movement is growing everywhere,” Mistinguett agreed. “It’s important to remind our men that there is no going back. It is the wave of the future.”

Fernande sipped her wine gracefully. “Yes, well, Pablo, Monsieur Picasso, is quite a traditionalist. He’s a Spaniard, you know. He prefers the old ways in spite of himself, and he fights me on all of it.”

“But he’s such an innovator in his art,” Mistinguett pointed out. “There’s not much traditional about that.”

Remembering the sketch of the smiling satyr, Eva thought how true that was. He was a cad. He had deceived her and then used her. She must keep that foremost in her mind now.

“So, tell me about yourselves. Where are you from?” Fernande asked casually.

As Fernande spoke, Eva noticed that her skin was practically translucent, flawless. With her thick red hair, exotic almond-shaped eyes and deeply sensual voice, she really was an uncommon presence. It was easy to see how Picasso had been attracted to her.

Who wouldn’t have fallen in love with her?

They could not have been more different. Eva, with her slim shape, delicate features, wide blue eyes and glossy mahogany hair pinned tightly into waves, suddenly felt like an adolescent compared to this stunningly beautiful woman.

“I am from Vincennes originally,” Eva finally managed, executing perfectly practiced Parisian French. No one would ever suspect her mother’s more humble Polish origins.

“And what about you?” Fernande asked, glancing over at Sylvette. “You are in the chorus?”

“But I hope to make it more one day. I would like to become an actress.”

Fernande smiled, and there was an element of the Cheshire cat about her expression. Eva felt a strange chill just before she looked down at her menu.

“I recommend the fricaseed chicken here. Although I am an absolute slave to their simple plate of Yorkshire ham, a slice of cheese, and to have it with a pint of dark beer. Those penniless days for Pablo and me never do quite fully leave either of us, I’m afraid, and we both have begun to remember them rather fondly.”

How could I have been so naive? Eva thought frantically, her stomach as tied in knots as her heart was. This was the man—another woman’s man—to whom she had foolishly given her innocence. How could she think he might fall in love with her?

Still, lunch was cordial. Eva did her best to participate in the conversation, in order to keep above any sort of suspicion. She would have preferred to keep hating Fernande Olivier, but she found that she could not. For the most part, other than that hitch in her tone, Fernande seemed an intelligent, funny, if slightly quirky, young woman with a bit of a flair for the dramatic. By the end of lunch Eva had no difficulty seeing how Picasso—or any man—could have fallen completely, hopelessly, in love with her.

After the lunch, the women stood out on the boulevard waiting for a cab. Eva now noticed Fernande’s trendsetting hobble skirt. She had seen ads for them from the Maison de Poiret. It was the height of fashion. “You really didn’t need to pay,” Eva said as a coal-laden cart trundled past them, along with several shiny black automobiles.

“It was my pleasure,” Fernande replied. “Anyone who would risk their own employment in order to help my dear friend is certainly a friend to me.”

“Sylvette and I are off to the theater for rehearsal. How about the two of you?” Mistinguett asked.

“Back to the passage Dantzig,” replied Eva, not wanting Fernande to know about the humble artists’ colony at la Ruche where she and Sylvette had their room.

“Same direction,” said Fernande. “Please do share my cab.”

There was no way she could have refused the offer. And she didn’t want to, anyway. A curiosity about the young woman so different from herself but who had attracted the same man had begun to build inside of her.

It was the first time Eva would be riding in a motorcar, so she stepped tentatively onto the running board, fearing it might move suddenly and carry her away. Motorcars had always seemed rather loud and a little frightening as they chugged up and down the busy Paris boulevards. Yet they were clearly the wave of the future and she was excited to experience now what so many others already had. Even though it was a vehicle for hire, when she stepped inside, it seemed to Eva the most elegant conveyance in the world.

“You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, dressed up in all this finery, but I came from the banlieue myself,” Fernande suddenly admitted as the cab merged out into busy traffic. “When Pablo found me, I was modeling for two francs for an eight-hour day and he was a starving artist who could barely speak French. And when he did it was comical. He really seemed quite the caveman to me.”

Eva looked over at her as she spoke but she didn’t respond. She wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway. She had never been so confused by her emotions or all that was happening.

“I’m not sure why I am telling you this,” Fernande admitted, feeding the silence that had suddenly fallen between them.

“I can confess something, too.” Eva was surprised at herself but she continued. “I ran away from my home.”

“So did I.”

“Marcelle isn’t even my real name,” Eva went on, feeling as though she needed to share something after Fernande had confided in her. She hoped Fernande would reveal something more about herself and Picasso. “It’s Eva, Eva Gouel. I’m half Polish, half French. Not Parisian at all.”

Fernande smiled at her and a spark of understanding flared between them. “My given name is Amélie Lang, but I have been using Fernande Olivier since the day I arrived in Paris. I use whichever name the moment dictates. I like the sound and the feel of each, for different reasons, I suppose.... It seems like we have quite a lot in common, you and I.”

“It would seem so,” Eva agreed.

When they arrived at la Ruche on the passage Dantzig, the motorcar chugged to a stop, the glass front windshield clattering. A moment later, the driver came around to open the door for her. Eva was glad that the humble beehive-shaped building was hidden behind an ivy-covered stone wall.

“Do you like the circus?” Fernande asked as Eva was exiting the car. She turned back to Fernande.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never been.”

“You’ve never been to the circus? Oh, heavens, we go to the the Medrano all the time. Pablo was keen on it for a while so he could paint the performers—the harlequins and clowns. He found the ragtag lot of them appealingly vulnerable, he said. For me, it’s just a night’s diversion, but I confess, I’m weary of it all. You would spice things up a bit if you joined our regular group.”

More than you know, Eva thought as she smiled innocently at Fernande.

“Have you a gentleman you could bring along? A suitor, perhaps?”

Louis came to mind. Eva knew she could not very well agree to join Picasso and his lover without a man beside her. At the very least, Louis would give her strength to go through with such an absurd proposition. She was still angry with Picasso for deceiving her, and yet it was beyond her to decline an invitation that would permit her to see him again. And to see how he would react.

“I suppose so,” she finally replied.

“Not one you’re mad for, then?” Fernande asked inquisitively.

“He’s only a friend, so far.” Eva shrugged as the driver waited at the open car door. She knew she was batting her eyes with rather irritating frequency, but she was doing so intentionally. The theater had already taught her many things.