Читать книгу Last Lovers - William Wharton, Уильям Уортон - Страница 8

I wake with the first light. I slip on my running costume: a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a sweat suit. The best thing I took with me when I left were my two pairs of running shoes. These running shoes I’d had at least three years and never ran in them. I dread to think of when they wear out. These things cost fifty bucks a pair. Now I use one pair for everyday, for painting, and the other for running only.

I sneak out the gate downstairs. Nobody is up at this time in the morning except garbage collectors and Algerian street sweepers. I start my usual warm-up, run down Ledru-Rollin and across the river to the Left Bank quai. I run through the little park there and the sculpture garden.

I stay with the quai even when I have to go up steps and down the other side. I take the steps quickly and two at a time. I want to make my blood really bubble. I run till I get to the Pont Alexandre III and cross it. Now the light is coming on stronger and traffic is picking up. I don’t like to run when there’s too much automobile smell.

I run along the street above the Right Bank quai. Sometimes I need to run up here along where the bouquiniste stands are, because of the road they’ve built along the quai. I cut in through the Marais to the Bastille. Traffic is picking up seriously. I go down the rue de la Roquette, the way I came home yesterday, and up rue Keller and home. It’s only about an hour’s run but it wakes me up. There’s no trouble getting through the gate, the concierge sleeps until seven-thirty or so. I’m dripping as I quietly run up the stairs, my usual two at a time, to my hideout.

I take off my sweat suit and hang it on a hook behind the door. I spread my soaking shorts and T-shirt on a piece of string along the back wall behind some long pieces of wood. I stretch out on the floor until I stop sweating. I have a little piece of rug I found in the trash by the rug store at the corner of rue de Charonne and avenue Ledru-Rollin. I’m flat out on it, getting my breath back and trying to relax.

After about five minutes, I start my one hundred, deep-breathing, sit-ups and then do a few yoga exercises. I finish with fifty slow push-ups, hands lifted off the floor each time.

I don’t think I’ve been in as good a shape in my life, not since high school. I’d better stay in condition, I have no backup, no social security from the French, no health plan, no MBI. I’ve got to stay healthy. The best part is it’s such fun staying in shape.

When I first started living in the streets, almost a year ago now, I was slowly going downhill. I didn’t eat right, I didn’t keep myself clean, I’d put down a bottle of red wine every night so I’d sleep, and then it’d be noon before I could shake my head without hurting. I was well on my way to becoming a real clochard. It’s hard to believe how quickly one can go down when one just doesn’t care enough.

I splurge this morning and give myself my usual Sunday treat, even though it’s only Thursday. At least, I think it’s Thursday. I still have the end of my baguette saved from yesterday and dunk it into a cup of coffee I brew on my stove. Real luxury. I sit against my bedroll and look across at the painting. I’m anxious to get into it again. From the look of the sky as I was running, that old, blind lady was right, we’re going to have another great day, another painting day.

I hide everything, tuck away my running clothes where they can’t be seen but will have room to dry, wash myself off quickly with the water I pack up in wine bottles. I don’t have any soap. I tuck my key and flashlight in place and quietly go down the staircase. Nobody really gets to work before eight, so I’m okay. The concierge’s door is still closed, too.

Out on the street, the sun is up, long slanting light making everything clear and shining. There are the usual morning Paris sounds of garbage trucks, water running in the gutters, pigeons gurgling and splashing in the dirty water as they’re just waking up. Then I watch as they glide against the sky. I guess the flock around here lives in the tower at Sainte-Marguerite’s. I think about the blind old lady and what she said about pigeons. What a nutty idea. I’ve got to admit, though, they look great against a sky, and I’m going to start using them to hold things together, tie the sky to the earth.

I decide to walk straight down Henri IV the way the bus goes, so I can get the long view of Notre-Dame from the back. It’s a special view from the bridge, with the little garden tucked on the end of the island.

I get to my painting spot at about eight-thirty. I put down my box and sit on the bench just soaking up what I’m going to be painting, trying my damnedest to let it happen to me. Letting it really come into me is something I’m trying to learn. I’m too aggressive, keep forcing the subject matter too much, not changing it but trying to make it mine instead of letting me become it. I breathe deeply, trying to relax, have confidence in things. I’ve had too many years where if you were caught relaxing, ‘goofing off,’ it was held against you. Every day it was a race to see who’d be first in the office and last to leave. I never even realized it was happening, either. And it wasn’t happening just to me, it was all of us.

When the bells ring nine, I’m into it. I’ve set up slightly to the left of where I was painting yesterday. There’s no chance anybody will be crashing into me and I can use the bench to store my varnish and turpentine bottles.

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.

‘That’s right. I almost knocked the corners off the walls.’

I go inside. It’s a nice apartment but dark. It opens onto the court. Of course, for her, the darkness would be no disadvantage. Although it’s neatly kept up, no disorder, everything in its place, the plaster is hanging from the ceiling, the wallpaper is loosened from the walls, hanging in strips, and the woodwork is unpainted, dirt-stained from constant handling.

The rugs are worn. It’s a strange contrast between this wellkept woman, her carefully set table, the general order of the room, and the overall squalor of the apartment.

Also, to make it worse, on the two windows opening onto the dark court are hanging ragged green curtains, faded with age into yellowish stripes. I see five doors I imagine enter into other rooms. The old lady is wearing an apron and she’s smiling.

‘Please, if you would like to wash up or if you have any needs, the water closet and the salle d’eau are over there.’

I actually am awfully filthy, both from the way I live generally and because I’ve just come in from painting. I bow (invisible), smile (invisible), then, to compensate, say thank you. I move toward the door where she’s pointed.

I go in, close the door to find it totally dark in the toilet room. I open the door again to look for the light switch and find it. I flick the switch, but no light. I look up and find the light bulb hanging on a cord from the ceiling with a green metal shade. I screw out the bulb, classic, French, old-fashioned, bayonet bulb. I can see through the clear glass that it’s burned out.

I get myself oriented, close the door, lift the toilet seat, and, lining myself up with the toilet by my knees, let fly. Knowing her supersensitive ears, I pee against the side of the toilet so I won’t make any noise. I hope I’m not peeing over the side onto the floor. I flush and open the door. I inspect. Luckily, I managed to get it all inside the bowl.

Then I go to the salle d’eau, a room with a basin for washing hands, cold water only, and with a bathtub, one of those tubs made from enameled metal and standing on lion’s feet.

Again, the light switch doesn’t work. I don’t even climb up on the side of the tub to check the bulb. I imagine after years of someone blind living alone in a place, either all the bulbs get burned out by being left on with nobody to see them, or the thin wire in the bulbs goes bad and burns out the first time somebody happens to switch one on. French electricity tends to have surges which burn out light bulbs anyway, no matter how careful you are.

This time I leave the door open while I wash my hands. The tub has hot water as well as cold and there’s an old-fashioned water heater hanging over it. I’d give a medium-sized watercolor just to soak for half an hour in sudsy water filled to the top of this tub. Instead, I do my best, washing up at the sink. The mirror above the sink has a layer of grime and flyspecks over it, so there’s no way I can see myself. I’m not all that interested anyway. I just want to check and see if I have paint on my face. I often hold brushes in my teeth, not very professional, but I do it often, and paint smears on my cheeks.

I come out. The old lady is bustling about from the kitchen corner where she cooks, to the table where we’re to eat. It’s as if she never knew what it was to be blind. I wonder if the light bulbs work in this room. I’m willing to bet there’s not a functioning light bulb in the entire apartment.

She indicates where I’m to sit and I do. There are clean cloth napkins and an hors d’oeuvre of coquilles Saint-Jacques, hot in the shell. This is the kind of haute cuisine I used to get at all those business lunches. Of course, when we were dealing with the French, it would be almost absurd, the food would be so good, and the prices were impossible, but I wasn’t paying. OPM, other people’s money, was what we were all spending.

There was one place called the Coq Hardi, about a fifteen-minute drive from my office, where we’d eat often, and they’d practically hand-feed us, a waiter standing beside each of us, passing different cutlery, different goodies. The bill after all that cosseting would be enough to keep me for six months now.

But this, right here, in this dark dingy room, is a good start toward one of those fancy meals. The old lady has taken off her red costume and is dressed in a dark blue sweater with a white collar showing and a dark blue skirt. The dull light is coming through the window behind her and shining through her hair. She wears it in braids tied tight around her head almost like a crown.

‘Bon appétit, Monsieur le Peintre. I hope you like the coquilles.’

‘Bon appétit to you, too, madame. I’m sure I will. This is one of my favorite hors d’oeuvre.’

‘I am mademoiselle.’

‘Okay, mademoiselle. Bon appétit.’

We eat slowly, carefully. These are some of the best coquilles I’ve ever had. It’s a mixture of scallops, a white sauce, mushrooms, and Armagnac. There are also small shrimp, each about the size of a fingernail. I wonder how she manages.

‘Have you been painting for a long time, monsieur?’

‘It’s a complicated story, mademoiselle. I studied painting a long time ago and then was in a large American corporation doing business, first in America, then here in France. Now I am back to painting again.’

‘Have you retired?’

‘Yes, probably one could say I’ve retired, but I actually feel as if I’ve just started my work after a long interruption.’

She’s quiet. I don’t really want to go into all of it. It’s still damned painful. I remember I want to stop to check for mail at American Express, and write a letter. I’ll stop by before they close.

To change the subject, I figure it might be time to bring up the idea of including her in my painting, at the foot of Diderot. For some reason, I’ve been putting it off.

‘Mademoiselle, I hope you don’t object, but I would like to paint you in my picture. I’d like to have you sitting with your pigeons on the stone bench at the base of Monsieur Diderot’s statue.’

She stops with her fork halfway to her mouth. She puts it down and wipes her mouth carefully with her napkin. She looks me directly in the eyes and I can see the beginnings of tears in hers.

‘Thank you very much. I would be most happy to be in your painting. One of the worst things about being blind is the sensation, the conviction, that no one sees you. Most of the time I feel terribly invisible.

‘Monsieur, it will give me great pleasure to know I am there in your painting, in the world I can no longer see, to be visible to all.’

She looks down at the table and wipes her eyes gently at each corner with her napkin.

I had no idea it was going to be such a big deal. Normally, I’d start to get nervous. Sometimes when I was doing a watercolor people would ask me to put them in and I was always sure it would ruin the picture. Painting people isn’t really my thing. Mostly, I guess I just haven’t had much practice. But since she can’t see, she’ll never know, I can relax. No matter how I might botch her, it won’t matter. I can even paint her out if it’s too bad. Only the painting will know, and it’s part of me. But I’m glad I mentioned it.

She stands up, comes over, and faultlessly takes my dish with the eaten coquilles and the small three-pronged fork, then moves into the kitchen corner. I can smell something delicious that’s been simmering in a frying pan there. I’m hoping it won’t be some half-raw red meat cooked the way most French insist these things must be done. I’m not sure I could handle it after all my vegetarianism.

But no, it’s one of my favorites again. She must be a mind reader. It’s escalope à la crème champignons and beautifully done, the cream sauce lightly flavored with the same Armagnac as the coquilles, blending the two together. She brings some pommes frites allumettes to go with it, and thin white asparagus. I’m really getting the best of this deal. At this rate, I’ll describe every pigeon in Paris for her if she wants.

And it’s pleasant being with her, eating such good food in such a civilized manner. We eat, comment on the food, talk about pigeons, something about my painting, nothing too serious. I know she’s curious concerning me, but she’s a real lady, no probing questions. It can be hard with women sometimes, especially American women. They’ll ask about anything, before you even get to know them. This is a wonderful woman of the old school, a true lady.

After we’re finished with the escalope, she brings on fruit and cheese. Again, everything is perfect. How will I ever go back to my Mulligan stew again?

Finally, there’s coffee, and she goes to another tall cupboard, climbs on a small stool, and pulls down a dusty bottle. She wipes it off, then puts it in the center of the table.

The coffee, of course, is outstanding. We sip at it. She looks, if she can look, over the edge of her cup at me.

‘Tell me, monsieur. Is there really a pear inside that bottle?’

It’s one of those fancy bottles of Poire William. It looks as if it might be the original bottle, it’s so dusty, faded.

‘Yes, there’s a pear inside.’

‘It is the last thing my father sent home to us before he was killed. My sister, Rolande, insisted we never drink it, that we keep it there, locked in the closet, in honor of his memory.’

‘That was very thoughtful of her.’

‘Monsieur, I should like to drink from this bottle with you today. It has been too long; it is time.’

It’s her decision. I really enjoy this particular liqueur, one can actually taste the gritty, pithy quality of the pear when it is properly aged, and this liqueur is certainly aged, in fact, I think it has even evaporated a bit.

‘That would be very kind, mademoiselle. But are you sure you want to drink it after all these years?’

‘Yes, I am quite positive.’

She looks at me with those clear, sightless eyes again.

‘Do you know how the pear gets into the bottle, monsieur?’

I’d never really thought about it. I know one can soak an egg in vinegar and then, when it’s soft, slide it through the neck of a bottle, where it will harden, but I’ve never tried it. I guess I just wasn’t curious enough. I don’t imagine one could do that with a pear, anyway.

‘No, mademoiselle, I have no idea. It is interesting to think about, isn’t it.’

‘I know how it is done. They wait until the blossom on the pear tree has been fertilized by the bee, then they place that blossom inside the bottle and tie the bottle to the tree. The pear is born, grows inside the bottle.

‘When it is grown, they cut the stem of the pear, take the bottle from the tree, then pour liquor made from other pears on top. They close it up tight with the cork, and the pear remains in the bottle. It can never come out. Is it not a lovely idea, even though it is so sad?’

She stands and goes deftly over to a drawer. She pulls out a tire-bouchon, a corkscrew, and hands it to me.

‘Would you be so kind, monsieur, as to open the bottle, and we shall drink this liqueur which has been waiting inside with this pear for over fifty years just for us today.’

While I center the corkscrew and twist it in, she goes to the cupboard and comes back with two small glasses. They are etched on the sides with tiny cupids frisking in an encirclement of leaves. She watches, or appears to watch, as I pull the cork. I sniff and there is an aroma through the room. I hand the bottle across to the old lady.

‘Please, would you pour, mademoiselle? I know the man is supposed to do it, but this is such a special occasion, a private celebration, it seems only right you should be the one.’

She takes the bottle from me. Her hand is steady. As she pours into each glass she has the tip of her thumb just inside the rim of the glass and, as the liqueur reaches it, she stops pouring. It’s something I wouldn’t’ve thought of. I guess, if I were blind, I would. We all have so many blindnesses.

When she finishes pouring, she carefully puts down the bottle. She holds her glass up to me and looks across into my eyes.

‘Please, before we drink, would you tell me your name, monsieur. I do not want to be impolite, but it seems proper that when we share this we should know at least that much about each other.’

That’s natural enough. But I don’t think anyone has asked me my name in almost a year. I’d almost forgotten I have one.

‘I’ve been called Jack most of my life, mademoiselle. My real name is John, spelled J-O-H-N in English. But this past year I’ve been calling myself Jean, J-E-A-N, the French way. It sounds better to me.’

‘I like your American name, Jack; like the English villain Jack the Ripper. But may I call you Jacques in the French style? I know it means James in English, but I’d like to call you Jacques.’

She doesn’t ask my last name, but I would have told her, for whatever it meant.

‘And may I ask your name before we drink this delicious liqueur, this fateful beverage?’

‘Call me Mirabelle, please, Jacques.’

‘But that seems so impolite, mademoiselle, I mean, Mirabelle. What is your family name?’

‘That does not matter. I shall call you Jacques and you call me Mirabelle. You know, Jacques, there is no one left on this earth who calls me Mirabelle. My sister was the last one, and she has been dead for fifteen years. I do not want Mirabelle, the idea of Mirabelle, to die. Please, Jacques, call me by the name of my childhood, Mirabelle.’

There are tears in her eyes again. We touch glasses, they clink with the sound of true crystal. I know I’m expected to say something.

‘To the two of us, Mirabelle and Jacques, on this wonderful day, drinking to the dreams of our past.’

‘And to the dreams of our future.’

She drinks and I drink with her. It is absolutely incredible. Never have I tasted a liquid so filled with nectar. It is as if the pears have been compacted, distilled, heightened in flavor until only the essence is left. We both sip, close our eyes, let the warmth flow through us, then, simultaneously, open our eyes and smile. It can only be coincidence. She could not match my smile and I know I am not consciously trying to match hers. She holds the glass against her breast.

‘It is as if my father lives again. I can almost feel, hear him. Thank you so much, Jacques for this wonderful moment.’

We drink the rest of our glasses and I ease the cork back into the bottle. Each sip was like the first, an experience into another world.

‘Jacques, I shall drink the rest of that bottle with no one but you. Is it too much if I ask you to déjeuner with me tomorrow?’

I’m slow to answer. One part of me doesn’t want to get involved with anyone, even if it is only an old, blind lady. But another part does want to share time with her. I’m feeling ice clots breaking up inside me.

‘Yes, Mirabelle, and thank you. But you must pass the test first.’

She leans forward, obviously puzzled.

‘Tomorrow you must tell me the color and markings of each bird when it comes to you. Show me what you have learned today.’

Mirabelle smiles, the most spontaneous smile yet.

‘I have learned much, Jacques. You shall be surprised.’

Soon after, I rise, ease myself toward the door, pick up my painting box in the hall, and leave. Mirabelle ‘sees’ me to the door. She’s refused my offer to help her clear the table, help with the dishes.

‘No, Jacques, I want this time to myself so I can savor the pleasure of our meal. Also, it would be wrong for you to stay in here on this beautiful day, when you have your painting to finish. Goodbye for now. All revoir.’

On the way down the stairs I start smiling about my new name, Jacques. I’m not even sure I can spell it. I know the way Mirabelle pronounces it, it sounds a bit like Jock in English. I never thought I’d ever be a ‘jock.’

There are about two hours of good painting time left. I have some trouble handling the street in the foreground and the bottom right-hand corner. I think of putting in a bus at the bus stop, but that’s against my idea of what I’m trying to paint. I don’t want to put in any cars either. What I’m trying to paint is a Paris that transcends time somehow, a Paris which will always seem to be; yet, in another way, never was. I don’t put in TV antennae, automobiles, or motorcycles, not even bicycles. When I paint in people I make them vague so there’s no problem with dated clothes.

Also, I’ve found, if I put in a figure, no matter how hard I’ve worked on the entire scope of the painting, people will see it only in relation to that figure. I noticed this with my watercolors. I’d do an entire composition of buildings with shadows cast upon them, shutters, chimney pots against the sky, a sense of space, then I’d make the mistake of putting in a woman hanging out some clothes from one of the windows. People’d look at it and call my painting The Woman Hanging Clothes out the Window. But they’d buy it, much more frequently than if there were no woman at the window.

I’ll probably have the same trouble with this painting. Nobody can resist ignoring the sky, the trees, the entire Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Les Deux Magots, Diderot, the entire composition; it’ll just be The Lady in the Red Suit with the Pigeons. So it goes. In this case, because of all that’s happened, I can live with it.

I more or less solve the lower right with shadows cast by the trees in the garden and by putting in cobblestones, the cobblestones that used to be there but have been smeared over with asphalt. It isn’t the best of solutions, but it’s the only one I can come up with.

I find, in my paintings, I have the most trouble composing the upper left and the lower right areas. I never even notice I’m going to have this same problem again until I get there. Sometimes I think I’ll never learn.

I scratch my signature and the date on the painting. It’s almost invisible, just a scratch using the top of my brush. Then I turn it over, title it Mirabelle with Diderot, date and sign it. Mirabelle really fits in the painting. It’s as if she’s always belonged there.

The sun is off the front of the church when I pack up and start for home. Tomorrow I’ll use another of my 25F canvases. I’m not sure just what subject I’ll paint but I know it will be near to where I’ve been painting. I found when I was doing drawings and watercolors that each little quartier has its particular quality and one painting tends to lead into another. I’m half thinking I might try the Place Furstenberg. It’s a beautiful Place and I’ve painted it three times with watercolors and drawn it at least four or five times. When things were desperate I could always sell a few watercolors or drawings of the Place, and it was fun doing them, it’s a real challenge in its simplicity. There are a fair number of tourists who go through there but at the same time it isn’t exactly a tourist trap.

I stop in at American Express just before it closes. There’s nothing. I pull a folded sheet of paper and an envelope out of my jacket and use my drawing pencil to write a reasonably long letter. I try describing the painting I’ve just finished, and also tell something about the blind old lady named Mirabelle. I finish by assuring them I’m fine but miss them all. I sign it with ‘all my love.’ I mail it to Lorrie at her new address.

The next morning, after my run, as I beat my way crosstown, I realize I’m looking forward to seeing Mirabelle, not just enjoying some more of her wonderful food, but spending time with her, absorbing her strength, vitality; feeling her concern, sensitivity, empathy.

The day is beautiful. More sun and fewer clouds, but there are still some soft, floating, spidery ones drifting quietly across the sky. Unless you stop and line them up with something on earth, it’s hard to tell they’re moving.

I’m wearing my usual painting outfit, a falling-apart, multi-stitched denim jacket I bought for twenty francs at the flea market. I didn’t put on the green check woolen shirt I usually wear under it. The shirt’s missing more than half its buttons but it’s warm. When I ran this morning I realized today I wouldn’t need it. I’m beginning to think I don’t even need the jacket. Paris is giving us a little taste of what spring will be, real spring, maybe with a touch of summer.

I get to the site and elect to paint the Place from the uphill side and to the left of the street leading into it. I set myself practically in the Place because I want the lamps in the middle to be the center of my painting, sort of a focus around which the rest will swing in three dimensions; I’d like something of a merry-go-round feeling.

I do a rather careful drawing, keeping in mind the painting as I go. It’s amazing how one can paint something several times and it’s always different. I’m about to start putting paint on my palette for the underpainting when I begin to think of time passing. I don’t have a watch. I forgot it, left it behind on the night table in our bedroom when I packed up, more than a year ago, so I ask the time from somebody passing by. It’s just five minutes to ten.

I break down the box, swing it onto my back, and move up behind Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the Place in front of the church. I look across the street and there she is sitting in her usual spot. I try to see how close I can creep up on her before she senses me. I walk carefully. If anybody was watching, they’d think I was some kind of Jack the Ripper with a specialty in old ladies, because I’m practically walking on tiptoe. Before I get within six feet, she turns to me, smiles.

‘I thought you might not come, Jacques. I knew you were not here and I was disappointed. It is so very good of you to come after all.’

‘It was the smell, wasn’t it. You smelled me coming. Is that it, Mirabelle?’

She smiles and pulls out her second inflatable cushion for me.

‘No, there is something on your painting box which jiggles when you walk, it sounds like metal hitting wood. I did not smell you until after.’

‘Do I smell that bad? What do I smell like, anyway?’

‘Oh, Jacques, you want to know all my secrets. All right. You smell like turpentine, of course, and you smell something of perspiration because you concentrate so hard. And you smell …’

She pauses.

‘You smell like a man. You have a special man smell about you. It is not the smell of tobacco as with my father or some other men, and it is not the smell of the different perfumes so many men wear these days. Sometimes it is hard for me to tell the men from women except for the sound of the shoes they wear, and even that is changing.

‘You have a very special smell. I cannot describe it but I like it. The closest thing I can think of is the smell of horses.’

I’ve finished blowing up my cushion and I sit beside her.

‘I’d better not sit too close, Mirabelle. I never realized I was so smelly.’

‘No, Jacques, I like you sitting close to me. Remember, I enjoy your smells. They are very healthy, hardy smells.

‘Now, are we ready for my test? I shall touch and feel my pigeons and then tell you how they look, is that right?’

‘That’s right. But I was only teasing, Mirabelle. It will be impossible.’

‘Let us see.’

She puts out her finger and one of the pigeons, which had been hovering around her, lands. She picks it up, turns it over, inspects it.

‘This one is a tannish brown with two brown stripes across the wings. It has yellower eyes than most and its legs are a nice persimmon red. You admired the look of this bird and said it was almost acceptable, even for a pigeon. Am I right?’

She’s right, all right. She’s so right she’s telling me things I don’t even remember telling her.

‘I don’t believe it, Mirabelle. Come on, try again.’

Another bird flies down. This time it’s a heavy, dark blue bird with stripes on its wings, an ordinary-looking pigeon. Mirabelle strokes its neck with her finger and massages the feet and legs. She looks at me.

‘This one is bluish gray with two darker bars on each of her wings. She has a sheen of color on her neck almost like a cock. She has pale pink legs and darker than amber eyes.’

She lets this one fly away, after giving her grains from her little sacks.

‘I am not sure what color amber is, Jacques. Is it more an orange color or yellow?’

We go through the entire flock. The only interruption to her perfect replay of what I told her yesterday is one bird, a small-sized, gray one, which had not come the day before. Mirabelle tells me immediately when she handles her that she does not know the markings of this bird. She knows it is one of the birds who didn’t show up yesterday, that she is probably brooding an early nest.

An hour has passed and I’m ready to go back and start my underpainting.

‘Where are you painting, Jacques?’

‘I’m on the Place Furstenberg. I’m painting down the hill with the rue Jacob at the end.’

‘Oh yes. That is a lovely Place. I would play with a ball there when I was a child. It is one of my special places.’

‘What do you mean? Is it one of your favorite places?’

‘Yes, that is true, but more than that. It is very complicated. You go paint now and I shall explain to you while we déjeuner. I must go now to prepare. The food for the week was delivered from the market this morning, so we shall eat well.’

With that she begins putting her things together.

One of the strange aspects about being with a blind person, I’m finding, is when they stop talking to you, you do sort of disappear yourself. I stand, watch her a few seconds, and walk back across the boulevard. I’m still astounded at how she could describe all those birds in such detail. How could an old lady like this have such a remarkable memory?

On the Place, I’m soon into the painting. It seems no time at all before the bells of Saint-Germain-des-Prés start ringing, I have the sky and the left side of the Place with the bare trees roughed in. It’s a good time in a painting, everything still seems possible.

We have another wonderful meal. I try to talk about my enforced vegetarianism, how I don’t eat as much meat as before. She’s served small tournedos of beef with fresh string beans and pommes Dauphine. It is magnificently prepared. This time I notice how she must be cleaning things up as she goes, because there’s no mess in the kitchen, everything except the absolutely necessary pans and dishes is soaking in hot water in the sink.

Then she asks where I’m living. I tell her about my squatter’s attic, how I cook, where I get my food, about my running, just about everything concerning the life I lead, even to the stink from the glue and noise of my hammering. I try to tell it as humorously as possible. If you think about it, considering everything, it is all damned funny.

She keeps staring into my eyes. There is a concentration beyond sight.

‘But why do you live like this? What will you do in the winter when it becomes cold?’

‘I survived last winter and then I had no attic in which to live. Now I have a home. This winter I’ll buy an extra blanket at the flea market and be just fine.’

We’re finished eating. She goes over, picks up her stool, and reaches into her closet for the Poire William. I move to help her, then settle back. She’s too quick for me. As she stands on the stool, stretches, slightly lifting one leg, I see her legs are thin like those of a young girl, perhaps a girl thirteen or fourteen years old. She wears thick old-lady stockings, lisle, I think it’s called. She comes to the table. I know where the glasses are and take them down. She hands me the bottle.

‘Please, Jacques, this time will you pour? I want to feel spoiled, taken care of, treated like a young woman just a little bit.’

She sits, ankles crossed under her chair. I pull out the cork, the smell of pears fills the room again, she inhales. I pour three-quarters of a glass each. I hand one glass to her, pick up my own, and we touch glasses.

‘To Jacques, one of the finest painters in the world.’

‘How can you know that, Mirabelle?’

‘Because I am blind? Most of what I know, I know because I am blind. I know you are a fine painter.’

‘All right, then: to Mirabelle, the best blind critic of paintings in the world. May all critics have such a depth of perception.’

We sip. I remember.

‘Mirabelle, you called Place Furstenberg one of your special places. What did you mean by that? You said you would explain.’

She sips again, tilts her head toward the table, then looks up at me.

‘You know, Jacques, I am not really blind.’

She’s looking me right in the eyes. I’m not surprised. I’m only wondering why she pretends. Why in heaven’s name did she smash into me when I was painting, actually hurt herself. Am I involved with another total crazy?

‘No, you see, I have perfectly good eyes, there is nothing wrong with them. I have perfect nerves to carry what my eyes see to my brain.’

She pauses.

‘But my mind, it will not let me see. I am what is called hysterically blind, aveugle hystérique. I have tried everything, but since I was fourteen years old I have been able to see nothing.’

‘You mean you don’t see me now, here in front of you? You don’t see this room? What do you see?’

‘I see only the visions which are in my mind. I have my own world of things I see, but they are all ancient images, visions of when I was a child. Many doctors have worked with me trying to make me see again. My sister took me to psychiatrists and others. I was hypnotized many times. But I cannot see. Sometimes I think I shall never see.

‘One of the things I was supposed to do, helping me see again, was to remember places of my childhood, places I loved, enjoyed, and then go to those places, close my eyes, try to remember everything that was there. After, I was to open my eyes and hope I would see these things of the real world, but they were never there for me.

‘I have twenty-two places, all here in the quartier, which I have in my mind. They are almost like personal picture postcards, postcards I can bring before my mind. For many years, I would go to those places and concentrate, trying to see, trying to see anything, even the slightest light, but it never happened. Place Furstenberg was one of those places.’

‘What happened? How did this come to be, Mirabelle? It’s terrible.’

‘It is terrible to you. But it is not terrible to me. The doctors tell me I do not see because deep inside I do not want to see. I am afraid.’

‘What are you afraid of, Mirabelle?’

‘I am afraid of what I will see. I have learned to enjoy this private world in which I live. Yes, it is inconvenient being blind, but it is also very comforting.’

‘My God, whatever happened? Why are you afraid?’

She sips again and holds the drink against her breast. I’ve never seen anyone do that before, until she did it yesterday. Maybe it’s a way to protect the glass from being knocked from her hand by accident.

‘Perhaps another time, Jacques. I should like to talk with you right now about something important, if I may.’

What could be more important than why she’s blind? I wait.

‘I should like you to paint my portrait. Since you have created me in the picture at the foot of Diderot it has given me much comfort. I feel I exist in the outside world, not just in the world of my imagination, inside my mind. Please, will you paint me?’

This I hadn’t expected. It’s so embarrassing. I sip some more of the Poire William, trying to figure what to say, how to refuse without hurting her feelings.

‘I am not really a portraitist, Mirabelle. Since I was a young man, a student, I’ve tried painting portraits of people. I couldn’t do it then and I don’t think I could do it now.’

‘Yes, however, with this painting, you have no one to please but yourself. I cannot be a critic. I do not even know how I do look. I only want to have you make a painting, an object, which says something about the way you see me, feel about me. It would mean much to have this happen.’

‘But, Mirabelle, it’s so expensive. I’d be happy to paint you for nothing, but then I’d want the painting myself. Also I am running out of francs.’

‘You may have the painting for yourself, in any case. I would prefer that. But you cannot paint it for no money. I want you to charge me a regular price. This is a commission.’

‘It would be my first commission, Mirabelle. But you have no idea of the cost. I must charge three hundred francs for each painting to have enough to live.’

‘I will not pay three hundred francs.’

She pauses. I’m off the hook. She just has no idea. I see her differently now, though. I see her as a painting. I would like to paint her if she would be willing to pose. I’d like to paint her inner calm, vitality, separateness, courage, if those things can be painted. It’d be more money down the tubes, more paint out of the tubes, but I still have a few francs left and then there’ll be the tourist money this summer. Maybe I’ll go up onto the hill at Montmartre, play animal with the others in the artists’ zoo; I’m sure I could sell something there.

‘Jacques, I must pay at least a thousand francs or you cannot paint my portrait. I would gladly pay more if you want it.’

Hell, I’m not off the hook! In fact I’m really hooked. Mirabelle gets up and glides in that special way she has, not dragging her feet but hardly lifting them, feeling forward with them, as if she’s sliding her feet into slippers with each step, moving quickly to the cupboard again. What other delicious goody will she pull out?

She takes down a metal box with pictures enameled on it. She pries the lid open, reaches inside, and feels around. She pulls out one, then two, five-hundred-franc bills. She closes the box and puts it up on the shelf again. She comes back to the table.

‘Now you know where the blind old lady hides all her money. She does not hide it from herself.’

She holds the bills out to me. I don’t want to take them.

‘Wait till I’m finished with the portrait, Mirabelle. This is crazy.’

‘No, but it is crazy waiting until the painting is finished before I pay you. What is the difference. This way you can have the money now and I would only keep it in that box doing nothing. You can buy paints with it so the painting can be better. That makes much more sense.’

She leans the money closer to me, looking into my eyes the entire time. I take the money. She’s right.

‘If I come over to where you are painting now, on La Place Furstenberg, may I stay beside you? I will not be a bother, I want to feel you painting, know you are seeing, really seeing, that which I can only remember. Would that be all right?’

It’s okay with me, but how’s she going to get over? It means crossing boulevard Saint-Germain and that’s a fast-moving, wide street, not exactly the kind of street a blind old lady should try to cross.

‘You can come with me if you want. I’ll help you across boulevard Saint-Germain.’

‘No, I shall clean up here first. You would be surprised how I can find my way. I go anywhere in Paris I want. At the boulevard, I listen to the feet. When they start moving across the street I go with the others. Also, there is always someone to give an arm to an old lady in a red costume with a white cane. I can sometimes almost see myself in my mind. Of course, the boulevard was completely different when I last saw it, but I can tell much from the sounds and smells.’

So I take off. The light should be just right now. I’m realizing that, in the end, I’ll be running two paintings at the same time if it’s going to take me several days to paint each one. I’ll need one canvas for morning light and one for afternoon. I’ll really have good use for that thousand francs, just keeping myself in paint and canvas.

I’ve been painting about an hour when I look beside me and there’s Mirabelle sitting in a little collapsible chair. She smiles.

‘Oh, now you see me. I have been here awhile and you have been so busy looking, you didn’t know I was here. Sometimes looking so hard can make one blind. Is that not interesting?’

I’m just getting into painting the globes of the light stand in the center of the Place. I swear each one is a slightly different color. If you didn’t look closely, you’d think they were only white, but one’s slightly bluish white, one’s greenish, one yellowish, and the other has a violet tinge. I never would have guessed it until I tried painting them. I try explaining this to Mirabelle. Again she closes her eyes as I talk as if she’s trying to cast up the images in her mind. We’re quiet for a while.

‘Jacques, do you mind if I talk about what I am seeing here, myself, in my mind, listening to the wind against the trees, smelling the street, the paint, you; remembering from when I was a little girl?’

‘No, I’d like that very much, Mirabelle.’

‘Well, first I remember it was like a giant room, as if it were not outside at all. The trees make a great cover like an umbrella. There were benches on each side of the lamp and I would sit and stare at each of the globes, moving my head back and forth to watch my reflection move in each of them. The walls then were gray, blue-gray, violet, brown-gray, and when the sun would shine on them, they seemed to glow with a white luminescence not much different from the white in the sky between the leaves.

‘Now I understand the walls have all been painted white and yellow and light colors of brown. It must be beautiful, but it is not what I have in my mind.

‘It seemed then, as a child, that the street down to the rue Jacob was very long. We would roller-skate down that street, our skates strapped to our shoes, and we would roll hoops. There were very few automobiles and many horses. Only part of the street was smooth, the rest was stones. The rue Cardinale was only dirt. The windows were mostly open and will always be open in my mind, with flowers at the windows and clothing hanging on little lines, like butterflies against the green of the trees.

‘Also, at certain times, the trees would have purple flowers, the flowers would then fall, and we would gather them in our skirts and throw the petals at each other. It was a wonderful time.’

She stops. She still has her eyes closed. She’s brought such a freshness, a dreamlike vision to what I’m seeing, I find I’m integrating some of her feelings into my painting. I have alternatives for almost any decision I make in the painting now. There’s what my eyes see, there’s what my mind is seeing, the selective vision of the painter; and then there’s the vision of Mirabelle’s mind. It’s the same as it was with the pigeons against the sky over Saint-Germain-des-Prés, I’m flying in her dream, painting her desires.

She keeps on talking, resurrecting the memories she’s stored, cherished, all these years, speaking of the way it was, and it seems so much more real than what I’m seeing before me.

I begin to think I’m going blind myself, then realize it’s only getting dark. I have no idea what time it is, but the painting is almost finished. I never believed I could get so far along on a painting in a single day. And what I’ve done is good, it holds together; more than that, it sings out the feelings I have, about Paris, about Mirabelle, and in many ways her feelings about Paris as a young girl, and now as a blind old woman.

I pack up the box. Mirabelle has some grains with her for the pigeons. Many from the flock at Saint-Germain-des-Prés come here to this Place and pick up bits of food tourists or others leave on the ground. When my box is packed, I lean against the wall beside where Mirabelle is sitting. It’s a great little folding stool she has, I wish I had one for myself, sometimes my back gets tired standing. She turns to me.

‘I feel it growing cooler. Is it really becoming dark? Is that why you have packed up your paints?’

‘That’s right, Mirabelle. It was getting so dark I was beginning to think I might be going blind myself.’

‘No, Jacques, that is not the way one goes blind.’

She still sits there. The pigeons are all around her. It is evening and I guess that’s when pigeon mating instincts come to the fore, because two or three cocks are doing the old courtship routine, puffed out, head bobbing, flight feathers dragging, rattling, on the ground, going round in tight circles.

‘Are they dancing their love dance, Jacques?’

‘That’s right, Mirabelle. I guess pigeons spend more time courting than any other creature I know.’

‘But you know pigeons are mated for life. They do their dance around almost any hen, but they are mated for life.’

‘Somebody told me that once, but it’s hard to believe. It certainly would be nice if it were true. I like the idea.’

‘Honestly. Have you ever seen pigeons mating in the streets, in public, as cats, dogs, even other birds do?’

‘No, now you mention it, I never have. Maybe you’ve got something there, Mirabelle, about pigeons teaching humans how to live.’

‘They are only flirting with the hens, showing how they care for, admire, value them. I think it is most beautiful. I thrill to hear their cooing song, hear their feet pounding on the ground, listen to their feathers bristle. It is such a dance of meaningful, purposeless passion.’

She looks up at me in the blueing dusk.

‘You know, Jacques, there is not enough love in this world. Sometimes I think the pigeons are the last lovers in Paris. There seems to be much of sex in these times, but very little of true love, of love that makes all creatures come closer together, that allows one creature to express an inner feeling toward another creature so they know they are important and valuable to them.’

She stands and I help fold her chair. I throw it over the top of my box. I offer her my arm and she takes it.

‘Jacques, would you be my guest at La Palette on the rue de Seine? We can have a cup of coffee or something there. It is a place where artists have long gone. I have not been there for more than ten years, since before Rolande’s death. Please, take me there. It would be such a pleasure for me to hear and feel the excitement of that place.’

I’ve passed the café tens of times but never gone in. Café sitting just doesn’t fit into my budget. I hope I’m not spending Mirabelle’s savings. It doesn’t seem fair or right.

‘If that’s what you want, Mirabelle, let’s go. But I must pay. I’m a rich man. I have a thousand francs in my pocket right now.’

I smile down at her, knowing the smile means nothing, is invisible, she cannot see it, but it makes me feel good. I’m smiling for myself.

She holds tighter on to my arm, not clutching, only tucking herself in closer. It’s a lovely evening and we must make quite a pair walking into La Palette. We find a table in the back and both order a Cointreau. It seems the perfect thing to finish off a good day’s work. It’s going to cost more than a week’s living but it’ll be worth it.

Mirabelle has all her antennae out. I can tell by the almost ecstatic look on her face, the smile, the inner concentration. She’s probably ‘perceiving’ more of this ambience than I am, by far. I close my eyes and try to experience the way she does. While I have my eyes closed, the Cointreau arrives. I can tell it’s there even without opening them. The smell of oranges surrounds us. I wonder if I would have smelled it if I’d been sitting there with my eyes open.

‘Is it not wonderful, Jacques?’

She is fingering the round ballon of Cointreau, spinning it around in her small, pointed, thin-skinned, dainty fingers.

‘I feel everything so strongly it’s almost like seeing.’

We clink glasses, she makes the first move, of course. It’s been a long time since I’ve had Cointreau, and this isn’t the best but it tastes good, not as good as that Poire William, but good on an early spring evening.

We sit sipping and listening. I’m also watching the coming and going, the flirting, the general horsing around of the young people. Why do artists always feel they need to make such a scene all the time? Probably it’s what makes them artists, or makes them want to be artists in the first place. They want, need, to be seen. For some reason, they aren’t sure they are. I wonder how much of that is in me. Probably anyone who has all the love, acceptance they need would never actually create, do, anything. They’d be complete within themselves. That would be the end of writers, poets, painters, singers, musicians, politicians, most of the people who help make the world go around, at least who strive for human communication.

It’s dark when I escort Mirabelle home. She invites me up but I don’t feel like sitting in a dark room while she wouldn’t even know it. I’ll have to buy a few light bulbs and slip them in around her place if I’m ever going to spend any time there.

I have a great walk home, I use the gate code number I learned by watching others punch it in, sneak up the stairs quietly, and settle in. I watch my painting for a long time in the candlelight as I eat a light supper. With all the lunches, I’m not eating up my stew for this week.