Last Lovers

I start with that sky, working from the top, buttering it between the trees, around the tops of buildings. I like having the sky established before I start lighting the rest of the painting. I’ll let the other parts of the painting happen to the sky, later. Also, the sky’s up where it doesn’t get in the way, doesn’t get smeared as I work.

I’m lighting the top of the tower when she sneaks up behind me. I actually jump. I didn’t hear or feel her near me at all.

‘Ah, Monsieur le Peintre, you are here. That is good. Are you happy with your painting this beautiful day?’

She’s holding out her hand to shake. My hands are relatively clean but with some dabs of blue and yellow ocher. I quickly wipe them on my paint rag and shake with her.

‘Oh, it does not matter if you get paint on my hands from yours, monsieur. I could feel it and wipe it off with a tissue.’

She smiles. I try to think how she knew. Of course, it was the slight delay before I shook hands with her, she knew I was painting. She’s a regular Sherlock Holmes.

‘Yes, madame, so far the painting is going well. I am just now painting the tower of the church against the sky.’

‘It must make you feel like a pigeon flying up there. Sometimes, as I am falling asleep, I try to imagine myself as a pigeon in the open air, close to the bells, the sky, above the trees, the streets. It is lovely.’

She pauses.

‘Do you know, often I dream of it. In my dreams I can see. I see all of Paris below me, glowing, glistening in magic light. I am never blind in my dreams. Is that not interesting?’

It tells me something. It tells me she hasn’t always been blind. The company-trained psychologist strikes. Or else it tells me she likes to lie, also interesting. I start painting again. She stays beside me.

‘Monsieur le Peintre, is it possible that I could make an arrangement with you?’

Oh boy, what’s coming next. I step back from the painting but I keep my brush in hand. I’m ready to take the en garde position. I can just see it spread on the front page of Le Soir:

American artist arrested

for attacking old, blind woman

with paintbrush

This would be in French, of course.

‘You see, I know each of the birds in my flock, all forty-six of them, but only by feel; I should like very much to know how they look: what color they are, how they are marked, striped, checked. Since you are an artist, trained to see, truly, clearly, you could describe them to me.’

She pauses. I wait. What’s next? She said something about an arrangement. Is she going to offer money?

‘If you will do this for me, monsieur, I shall prepare for you a very good meal today at midday. I assure you I am an excellent cook. I like to eat. As I said, when we lose one gift, other senses become stronger. My senses of taste and smell are very strong. I think you would like my food.’

How can I say no? It means I won’t get much painting done, but I’m in no hurry. I’m for sure not going anywhere. She can’t live too far from here if she’s blind.

‘I live just there, behind the statue of Monsieur Diderot just past where the Italian restaurant is. It is called the rue des Ciseaux. I live at number 5 and on the second floor. There is only one door on that floor. If you come, you need only knock.’

My God, maybe she has a sixth sense as well. She seems to read my mind.

She stops and now she waits. I know the rue des Ciseaux. It’s a street of restaurants. I never thought of anyone living there.

‘Of course, madame. It would be a joy for me to watch you with your birds again and, if you will have me, I should very much enjoy my déjeuner with you. Thank you.’

‘Thank you, monsieur. I hope you do not think I am being too forward, but it means much to me, also I shall enjoy having someone dine with me to whom I can speak in English.’

I start painting again. I think I’m taking advantage of her blindness, that she won’t know, but she knows immediately. It’s probably the direction of my movements or even the sound of the brushes.

‘Yes, you keep painting until it is a good time for you to stop, perhaps when you have caught the beautiful light on the tower against the sky. I shall wait for you.’

With that, she turns away. I continue painting the steeple and heavy stone of the massive tower. Her comments about being a pigeon, flying up there, the openness of the sky, the strength of the tower, all seem to flow into me. I’m painting it with much more force and at the same time a new sensitivity. It’s amazing how an idea can affect the way you see.

I paint for perhaps fifteen minutes or half an hour more and it’s good painting, some of the best I’ve done. I put down my brushes and walk over to sit next to the old lady.

She turns toward me, smiles her quiet, not quite sad smile.

‘I hope I have not interrupted you at an important point. I do very much appreciate this help you are giving me. I have not yet worked on any of the birds, but as you can see, they are waiting for me.’

Sure enough, there are pigeons all over the place, all over her. It’s amazing no sparrows or any other birds come. But then, come to think of it, only pigeons seem tame enough, friendly enough with humans to come close. They’re either very stupid, or very trusting, as she insists.

She opens her little satchel and unfolds her kit. This is some kind of signal. She holds out her finger and two birds fly down; one lands first, so the other veers away. She puts her hand over it.

This is a really peculiar-looking bird for a pigeon, smoky-dark, with some remnants of checks on the back. It’s slightly lighter on the chest, with a few almost white feathers on the thighs. Its beak is yellowish, with a streak of blue or violet, and its legs are a dark yellowish pink, almost salmon color. I describe all this to the blind lady while she does her inspection and files off a few scales from one leg.

‘This hen is not young, she must be more than five years old. Her name is Nicole. She has been in the flock a long time. She has had at least fifteen nests and most of her young have grown. Some of her sons have left the flock. She is becoming thin and I do not think she will have more than one nest this year. From the way you describe her, she is not a very beautiful bird, is she? I had always thought she would be one of the most lovely. I imagine what we think is beautiful in a pigeon is not necessarily what pigeons might feel. Perhaps sometimes it is best to be blind, so one can see the way things really are, and not be blinded by the way they look.’

She gently launches Nicole away and another bird flies down to her hand. This bird is almost pure white but has irregular blue-gray markings. It is big, with a tinge of iridescent color around its neck. It has beautiful pink, almost scaleless legs with bluish nails. I describe this one as best I can.

‘Oh yes. I always felt he must be white. He is so bossy, even though he is only from one of last year’s nests.

‘Almost always he is one of the first to come to me, not because there is anything wrong with him. He only wants the grains I give.’

She’s started feeding him his individual grains and he picks them quickly from between her fingers. She more brusquely lofts him off into flight.

I sit and describe each of the birds as they come. It takes more than an hour. I’m enjoying myself, enjoy trying to describe the birds accurately. There’s something in it of the careful seeing one does while painting. But I’m also wanting to get back into my own work.

‘Well, Monsieur le Peintre, I suspect that is all we are going to have today. There are two who did not come, perhaps they are with another flock or perhaps something has happened to them. It is terrible the number of pigeons killed by speeding automobiles in this city. The automobiles never stop, so the pigeons are smashed into the street and are totally destroyed. There should be a law against it.’

I don’t tell her how they seem to lose their color, how the feathers become spread under the tires so that, in the end, the pigeon disappears into the asphalt. In one day, on a busy street, a pigeon can turn into nothing.

‘Well, I shall go prepare our meal. If you stop painting when the bells start ringing, I shall expect you about ten minutes later. You can bring your box with you and place it on the palier or in the vestibule. It is at your disposition.’

She bows her head slightly in dismissal and begins to gather up her equipment. I go back to my painting. The work I’ve just finished is even better than I remember it. I start painting across the long façade of the nave, trying to vary the color of the stone with the shadows, with the staining of age, with the flashes of light through the trees, at the same time fighting to make it all hold together. I also begin working the foliage of the trees against this light. When I have a color I feel would be good in another place, I put it there. The statue of Diderot takes careful but loose painting, as I bring the color of the sky down into the color of the pigeon shit, as it blends to the color of the oxidized bronze. I’m beginning to feel that, in parts at least, I’m entering the painting and being inside it. Time seems to fly.

Then I hear the bells of the church ringing. I don’t remember hearing them start, I was that much out of things. I quickly pack up my box. I put the bottles of turp and varnish into my pockets, rapidly clean paint off the brushes. I’m packed in no time. I look around to see if I’m forgetting anything. I have it all. I start off behind Diderot, to the mouth of the rue des Ciseaux, and down the hill of that small street toward the rue du Four.

On the left, I find number 5. It’s an old building with walls slanted in from the time when mortar wasn’t strong enough to support straight-up walls. The stairway is narrow, so I need to take the painting off the easel on my back to maneuver the tight corners. At the second floor, I put down my box and painting. There’s a place under the electric box for me to store them. I knock.

Almost immediately the door is opened.

‘I heard you coming up the steps. You had to stop because the painting was too big to come around the corner, am I right?’

I nod, then realize I must speak. It takes time getting accustomed to a blind person.