Last Lovers

What the hell else does she think I am, a surveyor taking measurements of Saint-Germain-des-Prés so we can make a copy and build it out in the desert for some Arab prince to convert into a mosque? Hey, maybe they’d let me house my chevalet there, a horse turned camel. The French call easels chevalets for some reason, sounds like something to do with horses, at least to my semiliterate French-American ear.

I lean down and try straightening my box up, lengthening the collapsed rear leg, slowly twisting one side leg that’s sticking out all cockeyed. Nothing seems to be broken, thank God. It could just possibly end my budding career as artist. Maybe that’s ‘grafted’ career, more accurate, probably.

‘Oui, madame, je suis peintre, artiste-peintre.’

‘Ah, and you are American, too. That’s very interesting.’

Then I see the cane. It’s white. I feel like a real asshole. It’s the kind of insensitivity, unawareness, that’s my greatest problem. I get down on my knees again beside the old lady.

‘Est-ce que je peux vous aider?’

She seems to look right through me. I realize only then she’s spoken in perfect, practically unaccented English-English.

‘Ah, ha, you have seen my cane. I can tell by the change in your voice. Yes, you may assist me. Would you help me pull myself to my feet? If I try getting up myself, I shall need to roll onto my knees again and that would be rather painful.’

She stretches out her hands. They’re small and smooth. I gently pull her to her feet. Actually, she more pulls herself up, using my hands as support. She has strong arms for an old gal.

I lean over, pick up her cane, give it to her. She brushes herself off, all over, not knowing where she’s dirty, with the thoroughness of a blind person. Then she starts swinging her cane in arcs around her, close to the ground, like a radar scanner or somebody hunting for money at a beach with a metal detector.

I see what she’s looking for, a purse, more like a satchel, about two yards nearer the church. I go over and pick it up. I step inside the radar sweeps and touch her hand, push the leather straps of the satchel out so she can grab them.

‘Ah, sir. Sometimes it is difficult being blind. Thank you for your kindness. I am very sorry I bumped into you. Or should that be crashed? Anyway, I am sorry. You see, I have my little private paths where there is the least chance I will stumble into anything or anyone, and you were in the middle of one; I did not expect you, you fooled me.

‘You must work very quietly, monsieur, or I would have heard you. Of course, there is the noise of automobile traffic out there.’

She waves her cane at the boulevard Saint-Germain.

‘But I should have smelled you, at least, the wonderful smell of turpentine. I should have smelled that. Yes, I must be getting old, it is hard to realize.’

‘Perhaps the wind was blowing the wrong way.’

She leans back, smiles, looks me in the eye, that is, if a blind person can look someone in the eye.

‘Ah, an American, an American painter, with a sense of humor. This is very interesting. It is something I did not expect, a pleasant surprise. There do not seem to be very many pleasant surprises left in this life.’

I notice then she isn’t completely in red, not anymore, anyway. She is wearing a red pillbox hat, the kind Jackie Kennedy was wearing in Dallas, only red, not pink; a bright Santa Claus-red skirt, sweater, and coat. But now the coat is well dabbed with several colors from my palette. It must have brushed against her in the cataclysm, bump, crash, or collision; whatever it was.

‘Excuse me, madame, but there is paint on your coat. If you would stand still I can take it off now with my turpentine. If I don’t, and it dries, it will stay there.’

‘Is it a good design, the paint on my coat? If so, I should like it to remain. It would be lovely having a hand-painted coat, painted by an American artist here in Paris, n’est-ce pas? Even though I could not see it, would it not be exciting?’

‘I’m afraid, madame, it is only a smear of burnt sienna, yellow ocher, alizarine crimson, and a touch of ultramarine. Even in the Salon de Mai it would not be considered much of a composition.’

I’m not usually so flip, so verbal. Perhaps it’s because I don’t get to speak much English these days and I’m enjoying the freedom of my own language, but I think it’s the nature of this woman, the situation. I want to continue our wordplay, our game, practically a flirtation.

Or maybe it’s because I sense she’s lonely, too, wants to talk with someone, practice her English.

‘Then perhaps, monsieur, it would be best if I take off the coat so you can obliterate, transform, or remove your work of spontaneous art. At least, then I shall have the smell of turpentine following me around for a day or two, a souvenir of our meeting. I think I should like that.

‘I am sure definitely it will be better than going into one of the art galleries. I always feel so unwanted there. Some painters seem to feel a blind person staring at their paintings is an insult; perhaps it is. I am only looking for something I should want to see. From what my sister, Rolande, has told me, it would not make much difference if I could see; I am not missing much. Oh yes, sometimes there are advantages to being blind.’

She starts to unbutton and shrug the coat off her shoulders. She’s a slim woman, straight, neat. I go around behind her and take the coat, slipping it down her arms. She transfers her cane and satchel from hand to hand as I remove the coat.

‘Won’t you be cold, madame? I could lend you my jacket, but it is almost completely covered with paint. It might just well be accepted in the salon.’

‘No, I do not think I shall be cold. I am going over to the stone bench there at the foot of Monsieur Diderot. It is where I was going when we met so precipitously, or, perhaps, fortuitously; no, that has too strong a French derivation. What would be a better way to say that in American, monsieur?’

I swear she looks me in the eye again. Maybe she’s only partly blind, or likes to pretend she is and for some reason enjoys carrying a white cane. Maybe she isn’t even French. She speaks English better than most English or American people I’ve known, so precise, with such an elaborate, thought-out vocabulary.

‘Would you accept “propitiously,” madame?’

‘Oh yes, wonderful. An American with a sense of humor, and so gallant, as well. Oh yes!’

She walks away directly, quickly, toward the statue, not tapping her cane or in any way indicating she’s blind. No wonder she crashed into me. If she was going at a pace like that, it’s amazing either of us survived. In a football game, they’d definitely have given her fifteen yards for clipping.

I manage to gather my stuff together. Except for a swipe across my palette and the broken brush, I’m in good shape. I spread her coat over the bench and start working on it with turpentine and one of my paint rags.

Yesterday I found three towels thrown out in the trash over by where I stay near the Bastille. The centers had the toweling worn thin, but they make perfect paint rags. I’ve torn them up into foot-square pieces. I use one of my best rags.

The problem is not to spread the paint any more than is necessary and still get it off. I work about ten minutes, a separate part of the cloth for each color. When I’m finished, the only stain that shows is the dark wetness of the turpentine.

It’s an early spring in Paris. The chestnut trees are only now sprouting leaves, limp baby leaves, just out of the bud, no blossoms yet. The famous song talks about April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom, and so forth, but actually the blossoms usually come in May. Today is April ninth, and although the sun is out and it’s just possible to paint without the paint and my fingers stiffening up, that old lady must be freezing without her coat. I make a final inspection.

I look over. For Christ’s sake, she has pigeons all over her! There are pigeons sitting on her shoulders, on her head, on her lap, and she’s actually holding one in her hand. How the hell can a blind woman catch a pigeon?

I scurry over. When I come close, most of the pigeons fly up and away, a few retreat to the ground at her feet, watching to see what happens next.

I hate pigeons myself, and if she’s going to have them squatting on her like that, I’ve just wasted too much time and turpentine removing paint spots. She’s going to have pigeon shit all over her, so what difference could a few dabs of paint make? Pigeons, dammit, flying rats, that’s all they are!

She turns toward me when I’m still about ten feet away.

‘Ah, the American painter comes to visit with me. Do not worry, my feathered companions here will fly back when they know you are a friend of mine.’

I’ve been promoted to friend. Does that translate directly from French as ami? As far as her pigeons are concerned, I just don’t want them shitting on me or my painting.

‘I’ve removed the paint from your coat. The smell will go away rather quickly. I hope it doesn’t bother your pigeons.’

It doesn’t hurt anything trying to be nice. She stands and I slip the coat over her arms. She snugs it against her shoulders, feels with her hands if the collar is straight, fastens the buttons. She does everything with smooth, easy movements, no hurry, but very efficiently. She turns her eyes toward me. There’s nothing I can see wrong in those eyes. They’re clear; I don’t see any cataracts, no film over them. They look like perfectly good eyes to me, regular doorways to the soul.

‘Please will you not sit down with me a minute, Monsieur le Peintre? I do not have a chance very often to speak with anyone, especially a painter, an American painter. It is strange, but I begin to have the feeling I might be in one of those films, those moving pictures I have heard about.’

She sits, I sit beside her. The stone bench is cold. I notice she’s sitting on a small inflatable cushion. She reaches into her bag and pulls out another, rolled into a small package about the size of a cigar.

‘Here, you may sit on this. If not, you are liable to develop pain in your kidneys.’

God, she sounds like my mother! And it seems she can read minds as well as ‘see’ when she’s blind. I feel somewhat foolish, but I blow up the cushion and slide it under my duff. It’s comfortable and does keep off the cold as well as being softer than the hard stone. This old lady really knows how to do things.

It’s one of those days when, if the sun is shining, it’s warm. However, when the sun is blocked by the many scudding white and dark clouds overlapping each other, immediately a cool breeze springs up and it’s cold. Right now the sun is bright and lighting the tops of those beautiful French clouds, the kinds the Impressionists painted, that I’ve never seen anywhere else. I hope someday I can work up enough nerve to really try a crack at those clouds.