Luncheon of the Boating Party (50 page)

“Then let them have their exhibition. I don’t have the stomach to fight it.” His mind flew backward. “Degas was my mentor when I

started. We used to be comrades.”

Two women came to sit at a table near them.

“Would you look at the
nénés
on that one,” Auguste murmured.

“Damn it, Auguste. Stick with the issue.”

Auguste ordered another
gloria,
grinning to the waiter idiotically, and leaned across the table. “I hope I die before I reach the age when I can’t take any pleasure in seeing a woman and imagining her on a rumpled bedsheet.”

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“I wouldn’t worry if I were you.”

Gustave fi nished his
gloria.
It felt warm and smooth going down, a comforting sensation. He was worn down by being the stretched cord holding the group together. What was he actually doing
artistically
to preserve the group identity? Not much stylistically. Only his subject matter and his perspective on
la vie moderne.
That and his funding and his skills for organizing and promoting, but if Durand-Ruel could deliver on his promises, his own help would be less needed. Where would that put him? A willing organizer with no one to organize.

On the way to the river, Auguste said, “I had a bizarre dream last night. I had gone to sleep thinking of Paul Lhôte. In the dream I was in the Salon the night before it was going to open to the public, in front of my boating party, and all the jurists stood in a row, hands across their chests. They all had the same cravats and the same face, as hard as stone.

Unreadable. I shouted epithets at them, but they were deaf. The fl oor was heaving like I was in a boat on the ocean and I was dueling with Zola, but his sword was longer than mine.”

“En garde!”

“Then Zola changed into Degas and Degas’ sword was sharper than mine. Then Degas became Raffaëlli, and Raffaëlli’s sword was only a wooden ragpicker’s hook.”

“Did you skewer him?” Gustave executed a fencer’s lunge.

“Right through his gut.”

“Ah, bravo!”

They chuckled, but inside, Gustave shivered.

They took the steps down to the quay to watch the pleasure boats go by, the unloading of barges, the bargemen calling out to each other, the young men stripped to the waist on the horse-washing barge. He liked the feeling of Auguste standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder, appreciating with him the green water bronzed with highlights of ocher and gold. On the opposite bank, beyond the quay wall draped with ivy like a green shawl, the ruins of Palais d’Orsay burned by the Communards shone pale yellow in the low-angled sunlight.

“Look there, Auguste, across the river. Proof of what Durand-Ruel said. Old institutions torn down.” Auguste only grunted.

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He unleashed Mame and threw an imaginary stick to see her run

along the quay looking for it. If he lived right on the river in Petit Gennevilliers, Mame would have the right sort of place to run. And he wouldn’t have to pass a gallery window every time he stepped out of his house.

At the beginning it was so spirited—the late-night talk in Café Nouvelle-Athènes, praising each other for a new motif or an original composition, loving each other’s brushstrokes, rejoicing in every small victory, feeling no divisions among them despite the individuality in their work, working shoulder to shoulder, advancing on the bastion of tradition as a solid force,
Montez la garde! Avant-garde, à gauche, gauche!

Taking them on eye to eye, sword to sword, with
esprit de corps, Marchons, marchons!

“Gone,” he said, facing the river.

Auguste shot him a look of alarm. “That’s a hard thing for you to say.”

“We’ve lost something precious.”

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Love Made Visible

Auguste tried to ignore everything going on around him to fi nish painting the faces of Jules and Ellen and Paul, but Pierre and the two Alphonses were hammering a raised platform for vaudeville. His other friends were hanging Chinese lanterns under the arches and swings from the maple trees, Alphonsine’s idea.

Merchants were erecting their fish-fry tents and booths for the sale of fl ags, straw
canotiers,
and paper parasols. An amusement fair was being installed along the Chatou bank with a carousel, a gymnastic appa-ratus, and games of chance, and a beer garden was being hammered together at the Giquel yacht works. The fi remen’s league was loading fireworks onto a small barge anchored to the Rueil bank. Only Gustave, painting a schedule of activities on a large board, was quiet.

All morning Auguste had been calling up his models as he needed them, but the one he needed most, Aline, was just now hurrying across the bridge, carrying that silly lapdog. Couldn’t she have gotten here a half hour earlier? It might make a world of difference. The good light wasn’t lasting as long.

She came upstairs out of breath. “Have I missed lunch?”

“We wouldn’t start without you, knowing how you and your furry

companion like to eat,” Jules said.

She had added a wide red velvet band around her square neckline and a double band of red down the front of her dress. “
Très chic!
” Auguste said.

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Aline traced the band with her fingers. “Do you like it?”

The trim defined the lines of the dress and set off her figure. The red made her face more rosy. She wore coral-red earring studs this time.

With the money from Angèle, he’d been able to pay Aline. It had gone to good use.

“I love it.”

When everyone came upstairs to eat, Angèle took one look at Aline and said, “
Oh, là là!
Aren’t you a smart one! The rue de Temple?”

“Bien sûr!”
Aline said, and the
r
rolled out down the river.

“Just one
r
will do, not three, if you want to be Parisian,” Ellen said.

“Maybe I don’t.”

“Good for you,
chérrrie,
” Auguste said.

Louise came upstairs with Anne to give her usual announcement.

“If you’d wanted your luncheon on Sunday,” Louise said, “you would have gotten only a slice of pâté on an empty plate. We’ll have our hands full in the kitchen tomorrow. But today I’m all yours. The
entrée
is
barquettes de fruits de mer.
”

“Oh, I love puff pastries,” Aline said.

What food didn’t she love?

“They’re in the shape of
périssoires!
” Ellen cried.

“Of course.” Louise huffed and puffed and moved her arms as

though she were paddling.

“With green beans as paddles,” Pierre said.

“For tomorrow’s races.” There was a lilt to her voice. “Picked from my cousin’s garden when they’re needle thin. They have the best taste then.”

“I think this calls for participation. I’m feeling lucky,” Paul said.

“You bet your life you’re lucky,” Angèle said. “You were especially lucky last Sunday.”

“What do you say, Pierre? Shall we enter the
périssoire
races?”

“
Périssoire
comes from the word perish, you know,” Pierre cautioned in a deeper voice than usual. “Oh, all right.”

Aline was the first to take a bite.“Oh, madame, I’ve never tasted such delicacies. I wish my mother could have a taste. She adores shrimp.”

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“Come into the kitchen before you leave and I’ll wrap some up

for her.”

“Oh,
merci,
madame.”

Alphonsine asked the women to help decorate the musicians’ barge with lanterns and put up streamers in the dining room. The men would help Alphonse anchor a sailboat’s boom over the water for the balancing game.

“And who’ll help me finish this painting?”

After a while, Louise served the main course. “
Faisan, chasse du pays
sur choucroute.
”

“Oh, madame! How did you know?” Aline said. Before she could

say another word, Gustave and Angèle and Alphonsine fell into a fi t of laughter. “Pheasant reminds me of home. We used to have it every autumn.”

“And sauerkraut, sausages, and carrots too. A wild guess—you

adore them, don’t you?” Gustave asked.

Père Fournaise came up the stairs with two bottles. “To be properly tasted, pheasant must be accompanied by a deep red burgundy.”

“I’m going to gloat to Charles about what he missed,” Jules said.

“Why such a special meal?” Paul asked.

“For Auguste,” Fournaise said. “So he’ll have the energy to fi nish the blasted thing today.”

“He can’t,” Pierre said. “He needs a fourteenth model. How about you, monsieur? Then we can wrap it up today and be out of your way tomorrow.”

Fournaise backed away shaking his head. “Not me.”

“Then you’ve got to find someone, Auguste,” Pierre said. “You keep putting it off, but it augurs ill for us, and for the painting.”

“We defy augury!”
Jules declared, his fist in the air. When Pierre gave him a look of annoyance, Jules added sheepishly, “Hamlet and I.”

“Can’t you just do without a fourteenth?” Raoul said.

“And leave thirteen figures around a dining table?” Auguste said.

“Raoul, you don’t know a damn thing about art.”

“That’s not my job. My job is to pick the winning horse. You’d be

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pathetic at it.” Raoul ate a few bites and said, “Aha! I have an idea of someone just right for a boating party.”

“Who?” three voices chorused.

“Maybe I shouldn’t say. I don’t know a damn thing about art.”

“For God’s sake, Raoul. Out with it.”

Raoul whispered something in Ellen’s ear and a mischievous smile came over her face. Ellen whispered to Angèle, who whispered to Antonio. Pierre leaned across the table and Ellen whispered to him.

“That would work!” Pierre said. “Unless it’s one of us.”

“That’s not likely,” Raoul said. “None of us are in more than one race. The rower who earns the most points from all the races is the champion.”

“Would someone mind telling me what you’re concocting? It is my painting, after all.”

“We think,” Ellen said with excitement in her voice, “that for the painting to be a true luncheon of
canotiers,
the champion
canotier
of the Fêtes should be in it.”

“That might be someone I don’t even know.”

“Come on,” Paul said. “It’s not like he’s a major figure. He’s just a face. You don’t have to love him.”

Everyone looked at him with eager expressions, waiting.

“This is a piece of art. It’s not a lottery.”

“A champion horse is a piece of art too,” Raoul said.

“Here’s a solution, Auguste. You’re stubborn if you don’t accept it,”

Pierre said.

Raoul said to Fournaise, “Monsieur, you can offer the chance to be in a grand painting of the rowers of Chatou to the winner when you award the
Coupe du championnat.
He can decline, of course, but it’s an honor he can’t refuse.”

“And I can decline too if he turns out to have a mug like a horse.”

“No, you can’t!” Gustave shouted. “You’ve avoided filling in that face in order to convince yourself that you’re not finished so you could keep going over it. You’ll muddy it up by overworking it if you’re not careful. This is
exactly
what you need. To make you stop. If you keep

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working on it, the change to autumn light will play havoc with what you’ve done. You’ve got to finish and let it go. The champion rower is the face, and that’s that.”

“All right, all right. I just hope to God he isn’t a gargoyle.”

They cheered and laughed and whooped in one raucous sound.

“Thank God,” Pierre said.

To cinch the deal, Fournaise brought out a bottle of
eau-de-vie de
poire
that he had made from pears grown in their own garden, and Ellen produced a box of Turkish rahat loukoum, jellied candies covered in powdered sugar.

“I regret I must interrupt your gastronomic delight in order to fi nish what we came for,” Auguste said.

They resumed their poses with an air of excitement for having supplied the answer.

Auguste drew out some strands of Aline’s hair at her forehead and temple—slowly, to prolong the pleasure. He arranged the folds of her skirt, running two fingers deep in the furrows. The shadows formed by the polonaise transformed the inward folds of cotton flannel into velvet.

“All right, try to hold that little pup still now.”

She stood Jacques Valentin on his hind legs.

“Bring him closer to you. That’s it. Perfect.”

The dog’s little nose was visible now against the white of Alphonse’s shirt. When the time came for highlights, a white speck in his eye would link them. His rump showed through the short goblet. There were so many colors in the fur, the same colors as Raoul’s coat, but here he wouldn’t blend them. He would let them be distinct. Ha! An Impressionist dog! A tendon in Aline’s hand lifted and caught the light. Also Impressionist, but in a different way.

The dog rested a paw in that sweet hollow below her velvet neck band. Desire to kiss that tender, vulnerable spot moistened Auguste’s mouth, pulsed in his throat, tingled his hand. With his wet brush he touched her there on the canvas, and left a tuft of fur.

Ever since he’d painted his first woman on a plate, a face fl oating on a white sea, a goddess in his thirteen-year-old eyes, he’d set out to fi nd

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her in the flesh, paint her in the flesh, know her in the flesh even before he knew fully what longings, what surrender, what sensations that would produce. Ever since that fi rst
femme idéale
he’d been looking, relishing the search. And here she was, bloomed to life. The muse of his youth had come to tease him with a fey look directed at Jacques but meant for him. Was it the twenty years between them that made it crack his heart?