Madame Picasso

Eva sank awkwardly into the only seat left open, the one beside Picasso. There was a railing right in front of them and the scent of sawdust and manure was disarmingly strong. A trumpet sounded, announcing the beginning of the show, and Picasso leaned in close to Eva.

“We really must stop meeting like this,” he said softly into her ear.

“I’d be happy to accommodate you if you would kindly stop cropping up everywhere.”

Fernande was happily chatting with Louis and pointing at the elephants, who were lumbering out into the center ring to great fanfare.

“That was unwarranted.”

“Was it?” Eva asked curtly, holding fast to her hauteur.

“There’s not a day this week I have not thought of you.”

“I’m sure Madame Picasso would not appreciate knowing that.”

“I have no wife.”

She cast a wary glance at Fernande. “She calls herself that so it is the same as if you did.”

“Perhaps that’s true,” he conceded with an uncomfortable shrug. Two great gray elephants in red-and-gold collars were paraded in front of them then by a man in a red coat and black top hat. He snapped a huge bullwhip. “I swear to you, when we met I had no intention of deceiving you.”

Eva could hear a slight hitch of regret layered beneath his whispered words.

“Once the milk is spilled it is spilled.”

There was a silence between them as the ringmaster bellowed in his loud, showy baritone. Picasso washed a hand over his face. He drew in a breath, exhaled, then looked out into the sawdust-covered center ring.

“I would not have expected such a harsh tone in your words.”

She stiffened, looking as well to the center ring and the two scantily clad female performers with feathered headdresses who had come out to ride the elephants. “They are not merely words, monsieur. The tone cannot be helped because they are the thoughts of my heart, meager and naive though they may well be to someone like you.”

“They touch me. You touch me. In a way I have not felt in a very long time.”

“And you insult me as we sit here in the presence of your wife.”

“Dios, she is not my wife!”

“Continually making that distinction is beneath you.”

“How have you any idea what is beneath me or what I am capable of?” he snapped at her.

Fernande was momentarily distracted by the rise in Picasso’s tone, and she glanced over at them. Eva felt herself flush. Her heart quickened. Perhaps she was not ready for this. She had never been so confused or humiliated. If she could take that one night back, ah, if... But she knew, even as the thought whispered through her mind, that a thousand times over she would still have given herself to Picasso. It truly had been the most exciting night of her life.

Neither of them spoke again until after the circus was over and they all walked together out onto the busy boulevard de Rochechouart with the rest of the crowd. The streetlamps were lit by then, and each one cast an amber cone of light through which they all passed. It was a warm evening and there were people strolling everywhere. Louis put a casual arm across Eva’s shoulder as they walked onto the rue des Martyrs and she felt herself seize up at the possession behind his touch. She forced herself not to shrink from him, however, since suddenly she wanted Picasso to feel jealous.

“You should all come to the apartment for a drink,” Fernande said blithely as she walked just ahead of them, linking her arm with Apollinaire. “It’s such a grand place we’ve got now, and I do love to entertain. Did you know Pablo rented me an aparmtent on the boulevard de Clichy? Everyone who is anyone lives there.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said Picasso.

“Ah, the master has spoken!” Fernande snapped with a dramatic flourish. “Picasso does not think! Which in itself is a statement not so far from the truth.”

“Easy, Fernande,” Germaine warned.

Eva perked at the exchange between the two women, realizing how much better they knew Picasso.

“That’s all right, perhaps another time.”

“Oh, come now, Mademoiselle Humbert. There is nothing like the present! In Paris, one must seize opportunity. Pablo is a master at that. Tell them, Pablo. Tell them about being a master!”

“Stop it, Fernande,” he groaned in response.

“Con calma, mi amigo,” said Germaine’s husband. Eva knew even without understanding Spanish that Picasso’s friend was urging him not to make a scene, which the group had clearly been privy to more than once before.

“Spoilsport,” Fernande muttered beneath her breath.

“You mustn’t always bait him like that,” Germaine urged her friend, and suddenly Eva wished to be anywhere but here.

It all felt so exceedingly awkward. Louis tightened his fingers around Eva’s arm. Both of them could feel a battle brewing.

“Shall we not talk of how he baits me?” Fernande whispered back urgently.

“Bait you? I have given you everything you have ever asked for!” Picasso shouted, seemingly unleashed as he sped up to walk beside her.

“Let’s calm down, everyone, before this gets out of hand,” Ramón suggested, trying to ease the tension between them. “I think we are all in need of a drink.”

“Brilliant idea,” said Apollinaire.

“I’d prefer opium,” Fernande said in a kittenish mewl.

“You know perfectly well that is not going to happen again.”

“Don’t be too sure what is going to happen with me, Pablo,” Fernande said.

“I could say the same to you, mi corazón,” he shot back.

Instead of their apartment, they settled for la Closerie des Lilas on the boulevard du Montparnasse, a stylish café crowded most nights with young intellectuals. They collected at the long mahogany bar, where a group of men in white tie and tails, and women in elegant gowns, were enjoying a drink. They were likely going to or coming from the Opéra de Paris.

Picasso leaned in toward Eva. “I began the painting of you after you left,” he said in a low tone, breaking the din of animated conversation and the clatter of dishes around them.

“You are wasting your time,” Eva replied, refusing to look at him.

“Oh, I never do that,” he countered, biting back a smile as he glanced around. “Did you like the book?”

Fernande was openly flirting with Louis now, and she seemed to Eva to be rather drunk already. “Sylvette is using it as a doorstop.”

“Ah, Sylvette.”

“Have you seduced her, as well?” Eva asked baitingly just as Apollinaire approach them.