The Last Nude (25 page)

WHEN I LEFT ON THE HEELS of Boucard’s surprise visit, Kuffner was waiting for me at the bistro. This time I didn’t pretend not to see him as I walked by, so he didn’t rush out coatless to intercept me. He merely stood and pointed to the chair opposite his. “Come in?” he mouthed in French, palms open.
This is for you, Gin,
I thought. I went in.

I had had this kind of drink with a handful of men, and I knew what to do with one kind: listen, smile, laugh at his jokes, let him touch me. Ask questions that allow him to brag. Some of the other kind—the ones who didn’t talk—liked being drawn out; some liked being mocked or teased, and some just needed a hand on the knee, to know not talking was fine, too. Kuffner might be one of those.

“Well, hello, Baron.”

“I could not bear the thought of you walking past me again,” he said, in an unfamiliarly accented English, “so I stopped coming for a while.”

“But here you are,” I said.

“I’m so glad I came back.”

When Kuffner poured me wine from a carafe, I realized that he had been keeping a second glass on the table waiting for me. “You’re awfully persistent.”

“Who could blame me?”

“Have you been here all day?”

“Most of it. What have you been doing all day?”

“I worked,” I said, trying to conceal my surprise that his English was even better than Tamara’s.

“You posed for
Nude with Dove
?”

“She didn’t tell you it was ready? It was for a new painting.”

“What do you do in the pose?”

“I lie on my side with my arm like this.” I showed him.

“Is it another nude?”

I nodded.

“I would love to see you pose for it.”

“Oh, would you?”

“What I would really love is to see you pose for it while Tamara paints you.” A different sort of man, before spelling out his particular fantasies, might have tried to tell me about the book he was writing, according to Tamara’s report, on agrarian reform, but not Kuffner.

I knew what to say next, and six months ago, I would have said it.
Well, aren’t we direct? I like that.
Or even,
What’s it worth to you?
With the weather turning colder, I had caught wind of the spicy, meaty cloud of heat that poured out of Bistrot Varenne a hundred times, and I had often told myself,
One day, I won’t be put off by the mild little waiter. I’ll go in and demand some thin-skinned Alsatian sausages and a good glass of Riesling.
Now here I was, inside, with a man whose ear and nostril hairs sprouted as plentifully as the ones on his throat, and the little waiter was never going to come ask what Mademoiselle was having, because Monsieur was taking care of everything. When I sipped the perfectly appropriate red that Kuffner had poured for me, I realized I didn’t want to say the next thing. It had been six months since I’d gone to bed with anyone who repelled me, and I didn’t know if I could do it anymore. I didn’t worry about rent now. I could eat well if I avoided restaurants. I had new shoes, new silk stockings, all the fabric I wanted, my very own stainless-steel mechanical pencil.
Oh, Tamara,
I thought, chilled.
You’ve spoiled me for my old life, but you haven’t taught me anything else.
I would just have to ask
her
for the money.

All these thoughts happened quickly, in just the time it took to bring that unwanted wine to my lips. Now I had to step out of the corner I’d talked my way into. “What interests you the most?” I teased. “The painter, the painting, or the model?”

When Kuffner’s eyes widened in reply beneath his thick brows, he looked all the more like a hermit who’d strayed from his cave. “That’s exactly it!”

“What?”

“Rafaela!”

I’d been trying to get out of the conversation with my question, not deeper into it, but suddenly Kuffner was holding my hand and squinting, pained. “Baron, do you need me to phone for a doctor?”

“Not at all. Your question. I don’t know. I
don’t know.
I sit here waiting for you and when you walk by, I am disappointed because you walk away, but I’m also disappointed you’re not the painting. I sit here waiting for a glimpse of Tamara on her way home, and I’m disappointed
she
is not the painting. And if I even had the painting? I would be disappointed it was neither of you.”

I set down my glass. This was not what I had expected at all. Who was this man, this stark Saint Francis, so naked in his perversity? “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you there,” I said dryly.

“But Rafaela, you can,” he said.

What now?
I thought. He was still holding my hand.

“You can do two things for me. You can meet me for dinner tonight.”

“I have plans.”

“Of course you do. Saturday night?”

“I’m going out of town for Christmas.”

“Tomorrow, then,” he said. I raised a noncommittal eyebrow. “Eight o’clock, Lapérouse?”

“Maybe.”

“If you don’t come, I won’t be offended,” he said. “But think about it. Promise?”

“I’ll think about it,” I granted.

“And Rafaela, do you know, is Tamara going to the Duchesse de la Salle’s party this Friday?”

“Of course. Are you?” I asked, surprised.

Kuffner opened his wallet. I felt sweaty and alarmed, my legs suddenly stuck to the seat of my chair. “This”—he set down a few coins—“is for the wine. This,” he said, unfolding two banknotes, “I am just leaving here. You can take it or walk away from it. I won’t be here. I won’t know what you decide. And I’m not going to ask you to do anything. But if I went to Tamara’s on the night of the party and the doors were unlocked, there is a good chance you would accidentally run across more of this,” he said.

What lay in front of me on the table were two five-thousand-franc notes, enough to buy a new motorcar. Far more than enough to pay for Gin’s doctor. Tamara had charged as much for the Salon
Belle.
I was surprised by the delicacy with which the rough-looking man skirted outright bribery.

“I think you dropped something,” I said.

“Beg pardon?”

“On the table. I think you dropped some money.”

Kuffner’s face lit with understanding as I gathered my purse and gloves, and before I could walk away from the banknotes, he was halfway across the restaurant with his coat under his arm. “Tomorrow night,” he called back over his shoulder. “Eight o’clock.”

I looked down to avoid his eyes, feeling them on me as, peripherally, I saw him backing out of the café. At three, the place was all but deserted, the few other patrons too engrossed in their conversations or newspapers to watch Kuffner leave. The mild little waiter noticed, however, glancing from Kuffner to the money on my table as he approached it with a rag. Before he could take a step closer, I set my beaded purse down on the banknotes. Our eyes met for a moment: I weathered his stunned contempt with a smile that would have done Gin proud, and when his back was turned, I took the money.

 

 

 

Gin didn’t come home that night. After I posed for Tamara the next day, after I made her recite once again the stops on our trip and each place where we’d stay—a sleeper car after the de la Salles’ party, two nights each with friends of hers in Florence and Rome, two nights in a Venetian hotel—I asked, “Tamara?”

“What is it?”

“I’m worried about our
Rafaela
while we’re gone,” I said, gently palming her back. “Boucard’s using your framer to spy on you. Kuffner’s phoning all the time. Last night, he even offered me money to help him steal it. I don’t think you should leave it alone.”

Tamara turned over in bed and looked at me. “He did what?”

I told her about Kuffner’s request, but the thought of Gin’s sharp little face kept me from mentioning the banknotes in my purse. “I think you should hide the painting while we’re gone,” I said. “That, or take it with us to Italy. We could leave it at one of your friends’ houses, for safekeeping.”

I watched Tamara silently consider and reject a series of possible hiding places before arriving at a new problem: “Won’t Boucard know if we take a painting to Italy?”

“Only if you frame it first, right?”

Tamara’s eyes went gray, slid away from me like minnows. “Truuue,” she mused, her voice gliding down a scale.

“So we can just stop home after the party and pick it up when we collect our suitcases.”

“Let me think about that. The painting will be safer if I take it to Italy, but do I want to leave it there?”

“We could bring it back with us.”

“That’s a lot of travel for one painting,” Tamara murmured to herself uneasily. “Let me just think over how to do this.”

I caressed her, feeling less guilty about Kuffner’s money. I’d taken it, sure, but I hadn’t helped him. “Can you believe we’re leaving on Friday?”

“Can you believe I have to finish your dress in three days?”

“Oh, no!”

“You should go. I need to work on your dress, and I also need to get to the framer’s before they close; Monsieur le Baron is coming for
Nude with Dove
tomorrow.”

 

 

 

I never even considered going to Lapérouse that night. I bought a bottle of Riesling for myself, just because I could, and drank a glass at home with a pâté sandwich. One of my rare cigarettes for dessert. While working on my new zipper dress-in-progress I realized, proudly, that for the first time I wasn’t making a template from a dress I already owned. I wasn’t using a pattern from a magazine. I was working from imagination and experience alone, and so far, the dress fit beautifully. I carefully sewed Kuffner’s banknotes into the hem. Gin came home from work at midnight, and we played records on her gramophone and drank the rest of the wine together.
“Baby won’t you please,”
she purred along with Bessie Smith.
“Baby won’t you please come home?”
I could hear Colma breaking through Mayfair. Her face was wet with tears.

“Do you know what you want to do, Gin?” I asked.

“No.”

“Because I can give you the money if you want.”

“I said I don’t know.”

“You’d never have to pay me back.”

“Mind your own beeswax.”

“I just want you to be happy.”

“That’s what
I
want, Rafaela. I just want to be happy.”

 

 

 

“I have to leave early,” I told Tamara the next day. I did not want to see Kuffner when he came to pick up his painting that afternoon. “I have to go with a friend to a doctor’s appointment,” I lied, changing quickly for
Myrto
.

“I wish you did not have to leave early,” Tamara said on our first hour’s break, as we lingered over Jeanne’s
chocolat chaud
. The housekeeper was working mornings that week; she had family visiting for the holidays. “Vavin botched the frame and I have to wait two more days. I am afraid Kuffner will be a monster when he finds out I have no painting for him.”

“Oh, no.”

I dreaded seeing Kuffner, especially since I’d stood him up the night before, but Tamara sounded so upset, I considered staying for her sake. When we confronted the baron, if it came out that I had kept his money, I could just as well return it, at the rate Gin was going. What did she think was going to happen? Just as I came to this conclusion, Tamara said, “I am not going to tell him about the bribe.”

“Pardon?” I said, blushing. What did she know?

“I am not going to tell him I know he tried to bribe you.” Oh, she
didn’t
know I’d taken the money. Good.

“Why?”

“I think the English is
I want to string him along
,” Tamara said. I didn’t notice her accent much anymore, but the sound of one of Gin’s phrases passing through its dolorous sieve amused me. It also made me think of Gin the week before, telling me how angry she’d be if I let Kuffner go. What if she was right? Even if I had lost the stomach for it, wouldn’t it be smarter to
string Kuffner along
than reject him outright? And Gin might yet come to her senses, and ask for the money. “All the same,” Tamara added, “today’s meeting will not be pretty.”

I couldn’t agree more,
I thought. I had yet to work out my own string-Kuffner-along plan, but I knew that Tamara’s framing troubles weren’t part of it. “Well, Jeanne will protect you.”

Tamara smiled. “She will beat him with a wooden spoon.”

“Can’t you ring him up and tell him not to come today?”

“I kept telephoning him before you came, but he must already be on his way.”

“Oh,” I said, alarmed. I thought about making an excuse, but decided instead to tell the truth, at least in part. “Do you mind if I go get a cup of coffee down the street?” I said. “Baron Kuffner makes me uncomfortable.”

“You are not the only one.” Tamara sighed. “But do as you like.” At that moment, proving her guess correct, the doorbell rang. “Ah, just what I think of when I look at you,” Tamara razzed, watching me dress. “A shrinking violet.”

I had my coat on by the time Kuffner reached the top of the stairs. I squeezed past him in the doorway, but not quickly enough to miss the disappointment and desire in his face. “Good morning,” he said stiffly, leaning in for a pair of air-kisses that served as cover for a whispered plea. “Friday? The door?”

“We’ll see,” I murmured, as his cheese-grater stubble scraped against my face.

When I came back from the café near the Métro stop an hour later, Tamara looked drained. “Was Kuffner angry about the painting?”

“An absolute beast.”

“I’m sorry I left like that.”

“You could not have helped,” Tamara said. After a second restorative cup of chocolate, she worked for two more hours on
Myrto,
then had me try on the peacock dress. The shining unfinished gown fit tightly, with just enough room for me to sit and walk. “I think you should not come tomorrow,” she said. “I need to spend the rest of today on this dress,
hélas
.” With her accent, French
alas
sounded like English
loss
. “Tomorrow, too. But I will miss you terribly. Come early on Friday morning?”