Paris, March 1916
THE FADED STUDIO CURTAINS billowed into the room, bringing with them snatches of conversation from the Severinis’ bedroom next door.
Lying on the chaise longue, Leo enjoyed the sensation of drifting in and out of sleep, with sunshine falling on his face through the parted curtains. Down below in the street, a concierge with a guttural voice was reprimanding a child for some misdemeanor.
Leo could understand French, but this morning he lay half-listening to all the sounds as if they were music—the brashness of the concierge, the shrill entreaty of the child, Severini’s pleasing bass, all interspersed with the flap-flap of the curtain. The only thing missing was a warm, receptive female body, but since this was a rare omission, its lack didn’t spoil his sense of peace.
He liked being here. It wasn’t the first time he’d stayed over in the studio after late night debates with Severini about the direction of modern painting. Although, to be more accurate, Severini did most of the talking, while Leo hungrily lapped up his every word. An Italian now living in Paris and married to Jeanne, a French woman, Gino Severini was one of the leading members of the Futurist movement of painting, and Leo thought his paintings were some of the most exciting he’d ever seen. But even more exciting and inspirational still were the Italian’s ideas.
The breeze got suddenly stronger, blowing the window open further and sending the curtains almost horizontal. The child and the concierge had gone, and the Severinis’ conversation stopped being music and became words. Leo opened his eyes, listening intently.
Jeanne was speaking. “Well, I am sorry, Gino, but I cannot like him. I have tried, really I have. But a man who paints a picture of his woman giving birth…This man I cannot like.”
“My little old-fashioned chicken…”
“No, Gino, it is a question of what is right. Edouard says he pushed himself into the room of labor, then left without even stopping to see the child or to check that his woman was in good health. He returned to his studio and painted a picture about the birth, and then he left England and came here, leaving that poor woman to manage all alone. And who knows how many more children he may have fathered since he has been here in Paris? He does not care about people, this man.”
“He cares about us, I think.”
Leo heard Jeanne give a snort. “He is polite to me, and he encourages you to talk so that he can bleed you of your ideas. All he cares about is art. He is a fanatic. Gino, I do not wish to upset you, but really I would prefer that he didn’t come here anymore with the baby on the way.”
Severini laughed gently. “I do not think he will burst into your room of labor, mi amore.”
“Do not laugh at me, Gino!”
“Oh, my sweet, do not be angry, please! You will make our baby sad. And besides, how can I be laughing at you when I love you so much?”
There was silence, and Leo imagined the Italian soothing and embracing his wife. If previous occasions were anything to go by, they wouldn’t emerge from their room for a while. This was not the first time he’d been a witness to one of their lovers’ tiffs, although it was the first time he’d been the subject of one.
He slid from the chaise longue, leaving the bedding in a crumpled heap, and stretched luxuriously before pulling on his trousers. It was no surprise to him that Jeanne disliked him; right from the start he’d sensed her discomfort when they were in a room together. If Severini left them alone even for a moment, the waves of antagonism were almost tangible. It was always the same with happily married women. They desired him—as most women did—but because they loved their husbands, it made them feel deeply guilty. They put up the antagonism as a defense.
Sometimes Leo chose to break that barrier down, but in this case, it was the husband he wanted, not the wife. He just hoped that Jeanne’s complaints wouldn’t rub off on Severini. Leo hadn’t learned all he wanted to from the artist yet. A ban on his visits would be very disappointing.
Crossing over to the window, Leo drew the curtains wide, filling the room with even more light. Severini’s paintings were stacked all around the walls. Only one was faced outward, the one on the easel which was currently in progress. Taking a cigarette from his jacket, which was hung over the back of a chair, Leo lit it and inhaled deeply, standing naked from the waist up as he considered the painting. Entitled Red Cross Train, it measured about three feet by four feet, but it packed a punch worthy of a painting over twice its size. It was carefully chaotic, a statement about man and machines, an ordered world gone out of control. He could see in it the influence of Picasso and the Cubists, but clearly and excitingly, it went far beyond that, and Leo remembered the words Severini had quoted to him from the Futurist manifesto. “Let us shake the gates of life in order to test the hinges and locks.”
And Leo knew that the painting which seemed to have so offended Jeanne had gone wrong because he’d tried to produce a figurative representation of the event: the gaping, screaming mouth; the raw, stretched gash between the legs. The result had been powerful, but he knew now that it would have been ten times more powerful still if he’d found some way to portray the experience of the birth: the pain, the inhuman sounds, the smells, and that desperate claustrophobia—all expressed in paint.
Severini had told him that he believed originality was all, even if it was reckless, and Leo’s mind and body had burned with pleasure as he’d heard this, recognizing the truth of it for himself.
A hand fell on his shoulder; Severini had come silently into the room.
“Good morning, my friend.”
“Good morning.” Leo searched the Italian’s face to see whether Jeanne’s words had had any effect, but saw only the amiable expression he’d become accustomed to.
“Of course,” said Severini, looking at his own work and speaking just as if their conversation of the previous evening had never been interrupted by sleep, “there is one major flaw with this painting.”
Leo returned his gaze eagerly to the painting, unable to guess what such a flaw might be. “What is that?”
Severini’s shoulders rose expressively. “It is a second-hand impression. I cannot express what it feels like to be caught up in the middle of this war, because I have never been there. I have not existed in those trenches; I have not shivered with terror before an attack. Just think how much more power such an experience would lend to a painting. To be able to show how war feels.”
This was so similar to Leo’s recent thoughts about his childbirth painting that he felt a shiver run down his spine and a fire of excitement kindle in his belly. Yes. To be able to show how war feels.
Severini was looking at him quizzically, and Leo realized he must have spoken out loud.
“I will go,” Leo said. “I will experience it.”
“You will enlist?” Leo fancied he heard admiration in his great colleague’s voice.
“Yes. You have Jeanne. And the baby on the way. I have no commitments.”
Severini clapped a hand on his shoulder and nodded. “But you do possess strength and youth and a pair of lungs that do not threaten to collapse as mine do,” he said. “My friend, I envy you.”
Leo smiled. Gino Severini envied him. And it would be he, Leo Cartwright, who would be the one to advance the work of the Futurist movement.