Ondine and a Visitor at the Villa

THE NEXT DAY, ONDINE FELT apprehensive as she cycled into Picasso’s driveway. She wasn’t sure if she was still welcome here. Yesterday he’d been so unpredictable—one minute gentle and inviting, the next indifferent, even hostile. Would he forget that he’d asked her to keep cooking for him? And what if posing without her clothes was part of the deal to keep her job here?

“I don’t mind so much if he sees me naked,” she realized with a guilty thrill. But imagine having the whole world—especially the villagers in Juan-les-Pins, like the Three Wise Men in the café—ogling pictures of her in a gallery and then making rude remarks for the rest of her life!

As Ondine stepped into Picasso’s kitchen she was surprised to find him sitting right there at the table, drinking tea with a strange woman who definitely was not the demure blonde in his paintings. This sophisticated creature was just the opposite, with black hair swept back severely in a chic Parisian twist, and stunning black eyebrows to match. She wore rouge and blood-red lipstick, and dark smudgy eye makeup. She appeared to be in her late twenties, and was dressed in a smart suit and crisp white shirt like a man’s. She had a fancy, professional camera in her lap and she was winding the film expertly.

“Ah! Come in, come in!” Picasso exclaimed with exaggerated courtesy, in a tone that struck Ondine as highly theatrical and artificial. “Dora, here is my Ondine—the best chef in all of Provence! In fact, this girl will one day be a great culinary artiste.”

Dora glanced up sharply, her eyes glittering like a flash of lightning, but she said nothing and just kept staring at Ondine while continuing to wind her camera. Ondine noticed that Picasso had not bothered to explain Dora to her. “And what has my kitchen goddess brought me to eat today, chère Ondine?” Picasso asked, rubbing his hands together with exalted glee.

“I am making you a sole à la meunière,” Ondine said, a trifle reluctant to discuss this in the presence of a stranger. Without warning, the woman raised her camera, and in a blinding flash of light she snapped a picture of Ondine. It made her feel as if she had just been publicly assaulted.

“Excellent! We’ll wait in the dining room,” Picasso said, rising. The woman followed him out.

Ondine set to work, but her hands trembled and tears threatened to tumble from her eyes. She winked them back ferociously. She’d brought enough food for two, but that was because Picasso usually invited her to eat with him after posing. Why should she now have to give up her lunch for this female?

“I guess I’m back to being only his cook. Well, I’ll make it perfect!” Ondine grumbled, picking up two delicate fish, seasoning them with fresh pepper and dredging them in the flour which gave this dish its name—meunière for the miller who ground the flour. Then she browned the sole in a pan with clarified sweet butter and a tablespoon of olive oil. When they were golden on both sides, she put the fish on a platter, topped with a sauce of melted butter, lemon juice, capers and freshly chopped parsley. She was serving them with tiny new potatoes, and baby green string beans perfectly aligned with thinly sliced strips of red peppers; and a crisp white vermentino wine so young it was almost green.

When Ondine brought the tray into the dining room, Picasso and his female visitor were immersed in conversation. He leaned forward to gaze at the food on its platter, giving it a quick nod of approval, and Ondine set to work with her serving fork and knife, lifting the bones entirely off the fish in one expert maneuver before arranging the meal on individual plates.

“The world is full of hypocrites,” Dora was saying. “Headlines all screaming about Herr Hitler reoccupying the Rhineland—but still the politicians do nothing. They all know it’s a blatant violation of the Treaty of Versailles! And yet those same journalists have orgasms about the Nazis hosting the summer Olympics. An outrage, to award Germany the honor, instead of Spain!”

“The fascists have more money. They can always outbid the leftists,” Picasso answered calmly.

“Yes, but where do the Nazis get all that money?” Dora said meaningfully. “Who gave Hitler enough funds to build his monster stadium—oh, how he loves stadiums, and this one’s going to have a hundred thousand seats! And such sophisticated sound devices, just so that foul little man can broadcast his glory to over forty countries around the globe. The world’s gone mad.”

Despite the frightening things they were talking about, Ondine couldn’t help noticing how lovely Dora’s voice was—melodic and mesmerizing, all the more so because she radiated high intelligence and a serious mind; and she spoke with passionate conviction, as if she’d thought about it deeply and cared personally about world events. Her gaze was sharp and clear, and Picasso seemed impressed with her.

“The world’s been seduced by a man of force, as it always has and always will,” he replied.

Ondine could scarcely believe that a woman was discussing money and politics with a man. She certainly hoped Picasso wasn’t going to ask Ondine her opinion on Germany. She was suddenly aware that Dora was watching her every move, not directly but out of the corners of her eyes, like a cat.

Meanwhile Picasso was watching Dora’s attitude toward Ondine with a look of supreme amusement.

This woman must be a reporter, come to interview him, Ondine thought uncertainly as she returned to the kitchen. Perhaps that was why Picasso was showing off about having a Provençal chef.

She was surprised to find herself feeling strangely possessive of Picasso. She’d never been bothered by the other, blonde woman, who’d seemed more like a phantom because she hadn’t directly intruded on the special, weekday solitude that Ondine had been sharing with her Patron.

Later, when she re-entered the room to collect the plates, Picasso and Dora had moved on to an animated discussion of Parisian artists and art dealers. He looked up only to say rather grandly, “A fine meal, Ondine. We’ll have our tea in the parlor,” as they rose from their chairs.

Ondine, who this afternoon was feeling like his servant for the first time, returned with a tray bearing the tea he liked and an apricot tarte she’d made this morning specially for him. She placed it all on the low table beside the sofa in the parlor, where Picasso was sitting with his legs crossed.

Ondine poured the tea. When Dora reached for her cup, Ondine briefly glimpsed a black-and-blue bruise on Dora’s forearm. Some instinct made Ondine avert her eyes. Dora rose gracefully and moved around the parlor to view the paintings that Picasso had haphazardly placed here and there.

He drank his tea, then got up and stood beside Dora, murmuring in a playful tone, “Want to come upstairs? Last time you were here, we were so busy, I forgot to show you ‘my latest etchings’.”

Ondine, having sliced the tarte and put it on the dessert plates, straightened up just in time to see Picasso place a hand on one of Dora’s buttocks and give it a firm squeeze.

Hastily Ondine returned to the kitchen and began washing the dinner plates as fast as she could. Why should she feel so blinded by—if not tears, then some sort of rage? She didn’t realize that she was clattering the dishes with more vigor than usual and perhaps making a noticeable noise, until Picasso entered the kitchen and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Dora can’t make up her mind whether she wants to be a photographer or a painter,” he said in a low, confidential voice. “She’s a professional photographer, you see. But I have advised her to be a painter, because every photographer has a painter inside waiting to be released, anyway.”

Ondine said nothing. “You know how I met Dora Maar?” he continued conversationally. “It was at a café in Paris. She was playing ‘the knife game’ with herself. Do you know it?”

He took Ondine’s hand and placed it, palm down, on the cutting board on the kitchen counter. Then he put his own warm hand on top of hers, and separated her fingers so that there were spaces between them. He picked up one of the kitchen knives that Ondine had just washed.

“One, two, three, four, five, six!” he counted aloud gleefully while poking the knife into the board in the small spaces between their fingers, starting at the outside of the thumb and going between each finger until he reached the outside of the smallest one. Then he went back more rapidly, chanting, “Five, four, three, two, one!” Ondine gasped but refused to squeal because she sensed that that was what he wanted.

“The idea is to go faster than anyone else, without chopping off your fingers,” Picasso announced when he stopped. “Dora did it wearing a glove. By the time she was done, it was stained with her blood.” He sounded impressed. “I keep that bloody glove on a shelf in my studio.”

Then you’re both crazy, Ondine thought, but she waited quietly until he removed his hand from hers and set it free. When Ondine looked up, Dora was standing in the doorway, watching again like a black cat, but then she put her cigarette to her lips, exhaled a plume of smoke and drifted back to the parlor without having uttered a word. Picasso went out after her, and Ondine hurriedly returned to her dishes.

Presently she could hear them climbing the stairs. The house grew quiet, but soon she heard strange animal grunts and thumps and cries. Ondine paused in alarm, then realized that it was lovemaking—of a sort. There came a particularly loud, rather alarming thump—as if someone had fallen to the floor or against a wall, followed by a woman’s unmistakable cry of anguish. For a moment Ondine imagined having to call Rafaello the policeman to intervene. There were more cries from both of them, but these subsided into low murmurs. Ondine picked up her hamper and slipped out the kitchen door.

As she was attaching the hamper to her bicycle, Picasso threw open a window upstairs, and Ondine could see him standing before his easel, speaking calmly to his guest. Ondine knew that stance.

“Now he’s painting her,” she muttered, shaking her head as she pedaled away fast. All the way home she rode with a furious, violent energy. “Who was he trying to embarrass today—Dora or me? He seems to want to make both of us miserable. But why? Why? And what has become of the blonde lady in his paintings?” she wondered. “Well, why should I care, anyway?”

Even to herself, she could not explain the anxious, cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. All this time while he’d been painting her he’d made her feel like the most important woman in the world, and his pleasure warmed her as if she were lying on a beach basking in pure sunlight. Now, without warning, it was as if the moon had just eclipsed the sun, blackening it out and leaving her shivering in a day as dark as night, fearing that the sun would never return to warm her up again.