Ondine in Vallauris, September 1953
AT FIRST, ONDINE WASN’T ENTIRELY sure she had the right house for Picasso. She and Julie had paused momentarily at the foot of a long, steep flight of wide stone steps, flanked on both sides by a free-spirited garden that was arranged in terraced layers on a hill, all leading up to a rather modest villa perched at the top.
“Maman, do I really have to climb all these steps with this basket on my arm?” Julie exclaimed.
“Yes,” Ondine had answered, gazing upward.
“Must I go looking like Little Red Riding Hood?” Julie whimpered. “I’m sixteen, after all!”
She’s nearly the same age I was when I met Picasso, Ondine thought to herself.
“Who is this man we’re visiting?” Julie had asked. “Why is he so important?”
“I knew him back in Juan-les-Pins. He’s very rich, and he might be able to help us,” Ondine answered carefully, mindful of her promise to Luc that she would never tell Julie about Picasso.
But I never said I wouldn’t tell Picasso about Julie! Ondine thought determinedly.
“Well, if he’s your friend, why do I have to be the one to give him this basket?” Julie fretted.
“Because he prefers young women,” Ondine said, more to herself. She’d examined her reflection in the mirror only this morning; she was thirty-four now, and the face that looked back at her possessed a brave radiance. But life had toughened her up, and her eyes were those of a woman unafraid to look the truth square in the face. Let’s see if Picasso can do the same, she thought.
Tenderly she smoothed out the shoulder seams of Julie’s dress and gave a sharp tug to adjust her hair ribbon, saying, “Remember to call him Patron when you address him. And be sure to smile and curtsey. You look too gloomy when you fail to smile.”
Julie misunderstood and pouted. My own mother thinks I’m not pretty enough, she reasoned with a queer little feeling of hurt. In truth, she had a lovely face, with warm dark eyes and lustrous auburn hair, but nobody seemed to notice the shy little creature who kept her head down.
Obedience was the only weapon of survival that Julie had managed to make her own. She lowered her lashes resentfully but said, “Yes, Maman.”
Ondine saw her daughter’s pout and wasn’t fooled one bit. Everyone thought of Julie as pleasantly compliant, but the girl had a reticence which sometimes amounted to passive mutiny.
She blames me for everything that’s gone wrong since Luc died, Ondine reminded herself.
As they climbed the steep stone staircase to Picasso’s house they could hear bees humming busily in the tall grass of the terraced gardens they passed. It was a hot day for September. Ondine thought she saw a curtain twitch in the window as she moved forward resolutely toward the house.
“Maybe your friend’s not even home today,” Julie said hopefully, lagging behind. The hamper was heavy and she wished they could just leave it on the front stoop and run away. She couldn’t imagine knocking on that door, curtseying and offering this basket to a total stranger.
Ondine had cooked a lapin à tomates, les olives et la moutarde—rabbit stewed with onions, mustard, tomatoes, white wine, black olives, capers and herbs. She led Julie right up to the front door. They had to knock on it twice before they heard a man’s heavy tread at the other side of the door. After a long pause, the door creaked open a bit more, and the Minotaur peeped out, his dark eyes glowering.
“Who is it?” Picasso demanded, shading his eyes from the sun’s glare with his hand. “Come closer, I can’t see you,” he said, sounding irritated. He had a folded newspaper tucked under his arm.
She stepped forward courageously and said, “Bonjour, Patron. I am Ondine, your chef from many years ago, from the Café Paradis in Juan-les-Pins. My daughter has a gift for you.”
Picasso stared at Ondine, then opened the door a bit wider. Julie saw a short, leathery-looking, powerfully built man, dressed in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt that hung open to reveal his broad chest. He was tanned all over to the color of bronze, even his balding head. He wore a furious scowl with those smoldering black eyes. But this man, although he appeared strong and fit, looked more like a grandfather.
“He’s so old! Not at all like you told me,” Julie whispered from behind, for Ondine had described this “friend” as a virile, dark-haired Patron, not a man in his seventies.
“Shh,” Ondine whispered back. Julie, terrified, stepped forward and mutely handed Picasso the picnic hamper. He looked astounded, but could not resist peering inside, sniffing. The scent of the food appealed to him just as Ondine knew it would. No man can resist being pampered, she saw in satisfaction, stealing a better look at him. He was even shorter than she remembered. His dark hair had turned white and was almost all gone now—yet her heart responded to his familiar, magnetic presence.
Picasso glanced from mother to daughter, as if Julie’s youthful face was balm to his wounded pride. “Well, why not?” he exclaimed, stepping out and closing the door behind him. “No one else has thought to feed me a meal like this today! I’ll eat in the garden. Want to see it, young lady?”
Julie beamed at him in relief, finding this change of tone encouraging. They followed Picasso around the side of the house to a sitting area where he deposited himself in a wrought-iron chair, placing the hamper on a matching table. Ondine swiftly unpacked the delicate rabbit stew that was so tender you could cut it with a fork. As she laid out the meal for him, he sat like an emperor allowing his attendants to wait on him. Then Picasso ate hungrily, looking pleased all the while.
Ondine nodded to Julie, who, on cue, did what she’d been told to do: leave the adults to have their private conversation among old friends. As Julie tactfully wandered off into the garden to look at the flowers, Picasso’s gaze followed the girl, then returned curiously to Ondine.
“Tell me—how exactly do I know you?” he asked, as if stirred by only a distant memory—one so monumental to Ondine, but, she noted, hardly more than a footnote in this man’s mind.
Trying not to be wounded by this she said quickly, “It was 1936 in Juan-les-Pins. I used to bring your lunch to you on a bicycle. I posed for you, in a blue dress, wearing your wristwatch. I am Ondine, your Femme à la montre.” She watched for any sign of the interest he’d once taken in her.
“Ah! Ondine,” he repeated in wonder, like a man waking from a dream. “Yes, yes! The one with the hair like the waves of the sea! Still cooking in that café? Or did you marry some local hero?”
So he did remember. There was even a fond note in his voice. Ondine found herself blushing. Absurd, at her age. “I did marry,” she said carefully, “and went to America, where we had our own café in a town called New Rochelle. Important people from Manhattan lined up at my door just to taste my bouillabaisse,” she said proudly.
“Bon! I only like to be around winners, not losers,” Picasso proclaimed. He tore off a corner of his bread roll to mop up his sauce. “And what kind of man is your husband?”
“A good one. But, he died,” she said quietly.
Picasso, apparently not wishing to indulge in chatter about death, especially of someone he didn’t know, said rather curtly, “So—what are you doing here in Vallauris?”
“I am a private chef now. When I heard you were my neighbor I had to pay a call.” Tentatively she said, “My boss is changing his living arrangements. Could you perhaps use my services as a cook?”
He shook his head firmly, speaking more to himself in a bitter tone. “No, I’ve got my cook coming down from Paris. But I won’t stay in this house for long. Why should I? It’s time to move on!”
Ondine said softly, “I’ve thought of you often, ever since that day when I cycled to your villa in Juan-les-Pins, only to find the house empty. You left so suddenly. How I missed you! And I looked everywhere for the portrait you made for me, yet that was gone, too. But, you left me a precious gift from our love. I thought you ought to know. Your daughter has your eyes, as you can see.”
There was a long silence, punctuated only by the chirping of birds and the drone of insects in the grass. Picasso’s gaze narrowed. “You come to me now, after all this time? That seems unlikely.”
Ondine was determined not to back down. “Julie is yours, but my husband loved her and cared for her as his own. So I promised him I’d never tell her about you, and I never will,” she said, so that he would understand that she was not going to make unreasonable demands.
“That’s wise,” he said firmly, removing his napkin from where he’d tucked it under his chin to wipe his mouth. “These days, people usually want either of two things from me. Some wish me to immortalize them in a painting. The others—complete strangers—knock on my door and ask for money. Can you imagine? What do they think I am, a bank? I have four children now, and I give to them whatever and whenever it pleases me. But they know better than to ask for more.”
She heard his bullish tone and absorbed his warning. He was scowling again. Her heart sank but, sensing Julie still moving about in the garden, picking flowers, Ondine thought, I must not fail her.
Picasso studied her face. “Well, Ondine, what do you want?” he asked with some asperity.
She didn’t dare say, I want you to love and provide for this daughter of yours! Obviously he’d sized her up as an unprotected woman without powerful male relatives to demand justice for her and Julie. So she tried to conjure an acceptable reply to Picasso’s question, as if he were a genie who might grant her only one wish. Her thoughts landed on it as delicately as a butterfly on the grass.
“I want the special portrait you made of me after our night of love,” she said quietly. “We talked of Rembrandt, and you had me pose as your Girl-at-a-Window. You promised I could have it.”
Did he remember? Did he even still possess the portrait? His face remained inscrutable. She plunged on. “You said the picture was mine to keep. And I know you are a man of your word. It’s important because now that painting will serve as your daughter’s dowry,” she added earnestly.
“I’ll have to think about that. When a decision is made, someone wins, someone loses. So there is always blood on the floor.” He looked as if such a dilemma already perplexed him. After a pause he wagged a finger at her, saying, “But you see, if I did give you that painting, it would be as a gift. And you must never sell a gift.” He wore a cunning look now; Ondine wondered if he was just playing cat-and-mouse. For all she knew he may have sold the picture, long ago. Clearly he was testing her.
She said carefully, “I believe I won’t have to sell it. Just owning it will be enough to impress a suitor’s family. I want our daughter to marry well, and have a decent start in life.”
Picasso said sternly, “If I give it to you, will that be an end to this?” His unsentimental eyes told her what the only answer could be.
Ondine sized up the situation and saw that she must take this offer before he withdrew it. “Yes.”
From the road came a noise of gravel as a car climbed up the hill. Picasso heard it, and he rose abruptly. Ondine rose, too, and Picasso swept his hand toward the villa as if throwing down a gauntlet.
“Who knows where that painting is? The house is bursting with artwork; I can’t keep track anymore. People keep trying to ‘organize’ me. I paint, I draw, I sculpt—then I have to buy bigger houses just to find room to hold it all! Some of my pictures were sent here from my apartment in Paris. Some I sold. Some I gave away. Maybe I gave away that Girl-at-a-Window? I don’t have time to look for it now. But if I come across it, I’ll let you know. Goodbye.” His tone was final.
Ondine glanced up and realized that Julie must have wandered down the terraced garden steps; for now she returned, blushingly self-conscious, followed by a handsome red-haired man who appeared to be about six feet tall. He’d just arrived and, from the looks on both their faces, had been flirting with Julie.
“That’s my eldest son,” Picasso said. “Since he has no gainful employment at the moment, he’s working for me, as my chauffeur.”
At first, Ondine thought it must be a joke. This tall redhead the son of the short, dark Picasso? Ondine made a fast calculation and decided that this must be the child of Picasso’s Russian wife.
“Your car’s ready,” the tall fellow said.
Picasso was now eyeing Julie, who came toward him and remembered to curtsey before presenting him with a bouquet of flowers. For a moment he looked touched, even proud, almost in spite of himself. Ondine held her breath as the two black-eyed creatures gazed at each other.
“Yes, yes, very nice,” he said somewhat gruffly as he accepted her flowers, but then turned away and followed his son. Ondine had packed up the food hamper, and now she handed it to Julie. Picasso climbed inside his fancy car without a backward glance.
“Are we going home now?” Julie asked. Ondine nodded, but as they set off, her feet dragged. Picasso’s car soon overtook them and roared ahead, kicking up dust as it disappeared beyond the bend.
As they walked past cicadas making their mind-numbing chatter in the tall grass, Ondine glanced at Julie. And suddenly the sight of her daughter, panting and staggering under the weight of a hamper full of Picasso’s dirty dishes, was too much to bear. This must not be her fate.
“Julie, I forgot something,” Ondine said decisively. “You go on home ahead of me.”
Julie gave a long-suffering sigh and trudged ahead. Ondine hurried back to the villa, alert for any servant who might spy her and call the police. But the place was as silent as a tomb. She stole up the house’s stone steps. The big French windows were locked, some even shuttered. She searched determinedly until she saw a smaller, high kitchen window that was left open to relieve the heat.
Ondine hoisted herself up, scraping her palms in the process. She squirmed through the window and landed on a kitchen counter. Tiptoeing around, she peered into shuttered rooms until she found a likely candidate—a room devoid of furniture but completely stuffed with art. Row after row of paintings were kept in groups, some arranged by size, others haphazardly tied with string, or piled on tables, or in stacks simply propped up on the floor. There must be hundreds here.
“I’d better move fast,” Ondine told herself, switching on a small light. She knelt down and attacked each group. They were stretched canvases on wood bars. She worked systematically and swiftly, trying not to get distracted by the strange beauty of the pictures, all full of life and energy. Some had dates painted on them; some did not. Some were grouped by a particular year or subject; some weren’t.
So many pictures of that elegant woman whom Ondine recognized as the pretty mistress from the magazine photos. Sorting through the canvases Ondine felt her hopes diminishing, even as the artwork seemed to be going back in time, with pictures Picasso had made in the 1940s, perhaps to celebrate the end of the second world war—joyous images of frolicking goats and horses, cavorting nymphs and fauns and other mythological creatures.
As she dug deeper the stacks grew dustier; these batches even had spiderwebs wrapped around them, with a scattering of long-dead flies trapped forever. Ondine wrinkled her nose as she put her hand through the webs. These older paintings were more surreal and harder to fathom.
But then she saw a familiar face—the one that looked like a kite. “Ah!” she cried at another and another in those pastel Easter colors, all from the first week she’d met him. Paintings she remembered, but time had forgotten.
But the Minotaur with the wheelbarrow was gone. So was the still life with the striped pitcher. She reached for a last, smaller canvas, propped in a corner, its front turned away like a bad student forced to stand at the back of a classroom and face the wall. When she turned the painting around she let out a small cry—for it was like looking into an enchanted mirror that transported her back in time. The Girl-at-a-Window gazed right back, full of hope and triumph, her lips slightly parted as if about to speak.
“Was that really me?” Ondine murmured, barely able to recall what it felt like to be a creature who believes in her own unquenchable power. She sat back on her heels, remaining quietly in communion with her lost self. Then she heard the sound of a car approaching.
Ondine gasped. She’d never stolen anything in her life, not even small schoolgirlish thefts. But she reminded herself, “When he made this painting, Picasso said it was mine. He can’t go back on his word. It’s the least he can do for Julie. He just said now, When a decision is made, someone wins, someone loses. Well, I’m tired of losing.” The picture wasn’t large, only about half a meter high and even less wide; she could carry it. Hastily she wrapped it in some old newspapers that lay beneath the canvases.
She realized in a panic that she’d have to go out on the other side of the house. She hurried into one room after another, each with its windows shuttered. She mustn’t make a noise that might draw attention. Finally she found a window at the back of the house that opened quietly. She lowered the canvas out first, depositing it onto the grass below. She could hear the car coming closer to the house as she slipped out. She crept around the corner, then peered out cautiously.
It wasn’t Picasso’s car. It was a gardener, unloading his truck. Watching him walk back and forth several times, Ondine timed his moves until she knew when his back would be turned; then she ran out and ducked into the tall grass beyond the house. She inched her way down each terrace, lowering the painting ahead of her until she finally reached the road.
AS SOON AS she got home, Ondine hid the painting under her clothes in a large drawer. For a few days she waited nervously, but soon she believed that her painting was bringing her good luck. For one thing, Picasso evidently didn’t miss it because no policeman showed up to arrest her.
Then, not long afterwards, while she was still desperate to find a job, she heard that the Café Paradis—or the Café Renard, as she must call it now—was in serious trouble. She decided to go there and see for herself, but when she arrived, the front window bore a sign saying CLOSED.
She shaded her eyes and peered inside, spotting the portly baker sitting alone in a crumpled heap at a corner table. He unlocked the door, listlessly allowing her to follow him inside. And—she couldn’t believe it, but there were tears running down his face.
“What’s happened to you?” she exclaimed.
“He left me!” Renard cried, sitting down heavily. “My chef has run off to Rome with an Italian aristocrat! To think I neglected my own business to give him everything I had to spend—everything, I tell you!” he blurted out, searching his pockets for a handkerchief. “He didn’t even leave a note. Just slipped away early one morning like a thief! I had to hear about it from the stationmaster.”
Suddenly the whole thing was clear to Ondine, and she thought she understood why Renard had been an elusive bachelor all these years, only willing to marry when it suited his business plans.
Why, the poor man has at last fallen in love—with that ungrateful boy! she realized. She was touched, but she also saw an opening. So for the first time, she spoke to Renard as if they were friends. “You know, Fabius,” she said gently, sitting next to him as he resurrected his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, “be glad that you have some good memories of love. But it’s a mistake to try to hold on to happiness forever. It makes you miss the opportunities that are right here in front of you, right now.”
Renard had grown quiet, lulled by her soothing, maternal voice and the fact that she addressed him by his first name. “What opportunities?” he muttered interestedly, blowing his nose.
“For one thing, that boy was costing you too much money,” Ondine answered. “He wasn’t a good cook, and you let him make a mess of this place. Now don’t argue—you know it’s true. He’s lost you a lot of customers. You said yourself that your business is a shambles.”
“Yes,” Renard admitted sadly.
“I think fate sent me to you today,” she went on. “It’s time you and I put our talents together.” When Renard looked faintly alarmed, she assured him, “I’m not speaking of marriage. We both have hearts that have not mended. But you are a good baker, and I can cook. I know this café and its local and seasonal clientele like the back of my hand. Together we can make it successful again.”
“It will take years—and all our profits—to fix up the café as it was before the war,” he warned. “But you’re right, no one cooked like you and your mother. You surely would bring in more customers.”
Ondine said carefully, “Yes, I will cook here, but not as a hired chef. I want to be a partner, just as my father was.” Renard gasped, but she plunged on. “Do you still own the mas in Mougins?”
“Yes, but it, too, has seen better days,” he admitted.
“Ah. Well, I will help you build up the farm as well,” Ondine continued boldly. Luc had, after all, taught her a thing or two about bargaining and taking advantages of every single opportunity.
“Why should you do that?” the baker asked, astonished.
“Because that mas is the lifeblood of this café, and you are not using it well,” she said frankly. “I will put all my body and soul into making both businesses a success. But I’m not going to be a hired hand. I’ll be your legal partner, or nothing.”
“But what does that mean, exactly?” Renard demanded.
“It means that we share the profits equally, and if you die, the entire business will go to me, just as if I were your wife,” Ondine replied firmly. “People will think we’re a couple, but you’re free to love whomever you please, so long as you do so quietly, without jeopardizing my claim on the café and mas. You won’t ask any spousal duties of me but we’ll be kind to each other. Agreed?”
She showed him her review clippings from America which she’d brought today to convince him to hire her. This time she made him read them. He studied each one, pausing now and again to eye her speculatively. Ondine had grown from an unpredictable, defiant girl into an intelligent, ambitious businesswoman. Renard, too, had a nose for a good deal, no matter whom it came from. At last he nodded decisively, looking both awed and relieved.
Ondine said, “I’ll ask the lawyer I’ve been cooking for to draw up the papers. And one more thing. I want my daughter, Julie, to be employed as a waitress in our café. She needs to be around people, to cure her of her shyness.”
“Oh, all right,” Renard said. “Can you start right away?”
Ondine made another discovery that day, when she rolled up her sleeves and cleared out the café’s kitchen and basement. Down in a jumble of old boxes she found her mother’s pink-and-blue pitcher that had been intended for Ondine’s wedding trousseau. “It’s a sign that Julie will marry,” she decided, removing it to show to Julie so that she, too, would believe in a happy future.
But Ondine wasn’t ready to tell anyone about her portrait. When she and Julie moved into the larger bedroom above the café, she waited until the girl was taking her bath, and only then did Ondine unpack the painting. It was lying at the bottom of her suitcase, face-up, protected by her clothes.
“Picasso was right to tell me not to sell you,” Ondine whispered to the Girl-at-a-Window. “You’ve brought me good luck.” Carefully she wrapped it in a clean pillowcase, laid it in a drawer of the armoire under her clothes, and locked it. Not until later did she realize that, this time, she’d put the painting face-down.
And shortly thereafter, her luck changed again.