Picasso in Vallauris, September 1953
PABLO PICASSO HAD NEVER BEEN so insulted in his life. He sat in a dark room alone, smoking. He had come to the conclusion that women simply weren’t human, after all. You gave them everything—your love, your children, a fine house—so why did they make a man feel guilty for just being a man?
“They’re all impossible,” he thought, reviewing his grudges. Take Olga. She remained his wife—and still went by the name of Madame Picasso—and she’d won a tidy share of his assets, but that wasn’t good enough for her; she went about following his mistresses, shouting at them, pinching them, telling them that they had no business being with Picasso.
As for Marie-Thérèse, she now needed constant reassurance, so Pablo kept writing her letters swearing that she was the only woman he’d ever really loved; but lately, on his twice-weekly visits to see their child, Marie-Thérèse kept urging him to finally make good on his vague promises to marry her.
And poor Dora Maar, well, some of Picasso’s friends actually blamed him for her breakdown, saying he’d crushed her spirit with jealousy, manipulating her by parading other women before her, egging her on and then rejecting her yet again. Friends found her wandering the streets of Paris, talking incoherently. Picasso had to call a doctor who carted Dora off to a rest home and gave her electroshock treatments. The vivacious, intellectual brunette was never quite the same after that; she “found” religion, and when Pablo saw her in Paris, she shouted at him that God would make him pay for his sins if he didn’t kneel down right now and beg the Lord’s forgiveness.
“It’s not my fault that women are so weak!” Pablo protested to his friends. After all, God kept rewarding him with more money and success—and a new young mistress; so Pablo thought it would be different this time with Françoise. The Parisian girl with flowing, dark-russet hair was the young artist to whom he’d brought a bowl of cherries at the café, when the Gestapo were still running Paris; and after the war she’d defied her wealthy father and even her benevolent grandmother, to come and live with Picasso here in Vallauris.
“I allowed her to share my life, my time, my talent for a whole decade,” Pablo fumed, “and now, what thanks do I get? What does the lovely Françoise say to me?” Picasso repeated the words incredulously. “I am sorry, Pablo, but I want to live with people of my own generation and the problems of MY time.”
And, she’d told him that she simply was no longer happy with their relationship.
He’d thundered back in outrage, “Your job is to remain by my side, to devote yourself to me and the children. Whether it makes you happy or unhappy is no concern of mine.”
But he’d failed to notice that the worshipful girl had turned into an elegant woman with a mind of her own; after all, she was in her thirties now—and he was in his seventies.
“She makes me feel like an old goat,” he thought savagely; and now his canvases were filled with nude young models indifferent to the pathetic dwarfs and clowns who sought to make love to them.
Still, Françoise didn’t leave right away, so Pablo didn’t really believe she meant it. He tried to make a brave joke of it to his friends. “Françoise’s going to leave me soon,” he’d announce. “Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow.” Poor me, he was saying. I am a man without love. For a while it seemed to work; friends rushed up to Françoise and begged her not to do such a cruel thing to the Master.
And soon the word leaked out to the press, who hovered on doorsteps to ask Françoise if the rumors were true. She would flee to Paris, only to return to Pablo in the South of France.
“No woman leaves a man like me,” Picasso assured himself. The truth was, he really didn’t know what to do in a situation like this with an independent-minded, modern younger woman.
So, when the moment finally came, Pablo was not emotionally prepared. On this otherwise beautiful September day, Françoise packed her suitcases, picked up her handbag, took their son and daughter by the hand and led them into a waiting auto. The driver seized their suitcases and deposited them in the trunk while the children piled into the car, then peered out the back window, their inky dark eyes dancing in the mischief of the moment, as if they were off on a dangerous but intriguing adventure.
“You’ll be back,” Picasso had told Françoise with a shrug, pretending not to care. But just as she and the children settled into the car, he charged down the stairs like an enraged bull. By the time he caught up with them, the car was already in motion.
Pablo glared into the window as if to command his mistress to stop. She gazed back at him, defiant and resolute. The driver slowed uncertainly.
“Go!” Françoise ordered. The driver floored the accelerator, making the tires spin in the gravel. The car drove on.
“Merde!” Picasso bellowed, brandishing his fist at the disappearing auto. He followed it for a few paces with a cigarette between his fingers, watching with an expression of utter outrage and betrayal.
In the deafening silence, he took a long, furious drag before he hurled the cigarette into the dust and stepped on it, as if to extinguish something more than just its glowing, ashy tip.
Then Picasso turned, went back into the house and slammed the door behind him.
THE NEXT DAY, he awoke shortly before noon. The house was dark and shuttered, silent. He was alone. He would have to get up sooner or later, call a friend or servant in Paris, get them to help him make a change, make a move, do something. Pablo had refused to learn how to drive, fearing that it would affect and even injure his hands. He hated operating modern machines, even talking on the telephone, but today he did so, summoning the son he’d had with Olga to come and get him.
Picasso was not a man who was meant to be alone. Still, he lay there in his darkened room, smoking. Then he thought he heard a noise outside the house. Did he imagine it? It was too soon for his son to be here. He strained to listen to the light and lilting sound.
What could it be—human voices, or just birdsong? Warily he sighed, got up and went to the window, parted the curtain and peeped out.
There were two figures approaching the house. Pablo ducked out of sight from the window. Through sheer habit he waited for someone else to resolve this, then reminded himself that there was not a mistress nor a servant nor a friend in this house to send to the front door to investigate.
He would have to handle this for himself today. Or else ignore it.
The irresistible lure of his own insatiable curiosity tugged at him. He thrust his feet into his sandals and went down the stairs as noiselessly as possible. He paused on his side of the front door and waited there, feeling like a spy, listening to the voices as they finally reached the house. Female voices, light, sweet and pleasant.
Even so, his nerves were startled when he heard the sharp rap of the door knocker resonating through his front door while he remained right there on the other side of it.
Picasso held his breath, trying to decide, torturously, what to do.
Then he made up his mind.