Page 31 of The Velvet Hours
“My patrons have made Paris a very hospitable place for me, that is for certain.”
Again, she saw a certain flash in his eyes. He possessed a unique sense of vitality, and she realized that she had missed being in the company of someone with such physical and mental energy since Charles’s illness had made him a faint shadow of his former self.
Boldini reached down the leg of the chair, where he had rested his sketch pad. He took it and began to untie the black ribbons that were wrapped around the stiff canvas book.
“May I?” He tapped his sketch pad. “It might help to get a few quick drawings of you sitting here before I leave.”
“Of course,” she said, readjusting herself in the chair so her posture was straighter and her chin was slightly lifted. Then, like a huntress, she focused her gaze squarely at him.
“You seem to have done this before,” he mused.
“No. You will be my first.”
He smiled. “At some point that’s convenient for you, I will need you to come to my studio on Boulevard Berthier so I can start the portrait. My easel, paints, and brushes are all there.” He opened up his sketch pad and smoothed over one of the blank pieces of paper with his hands. “And I certainly wouldn’t want to sully your apartment with all of my supplies...
“But if you don’t mind, today I’d just like to do a few sketches of your face... your features...”
His pen had already started to fly over the paper. He began capturing her in a flurry of rapid black strokes before she even had a chance to respond.
***
“What a queer little man!” she told Charles when she next saw him. He lay against the pillows of her bed, the barrel of his eagle and talon pipe nestled in his hand.
“But quite talented, I assure you. I saw his portrait of Madame Veil-Picard at the Paris Salon last year...” He sucked in his pipe again. “It was remarkable. He caught the mischief in her eyes...” He placed a finger underneath Marthe’s chin and tickled her. “I wouldn’t want just some stale portrait of you. I want someone who can bring you to life.”
“I wish you had commissioned a portrait of yourself, too.” She turned and whispered into his ear, “You’re the one we should be immortalizing.”
He smiled. Two paper fans of wrinkles lined the corners of his eyes. “I’m afraid I’m no longer worthy,” he said with a small laugh. “I’m in, as they say, a state of decline.” He took her hand and brought it to his chest. “But you... you’re at the peak of your splendor.”
“But you seem better, my darling.” She had thought in the past week his pallor had seemed much improved. He had even eaten some of the small sandwiches that she had asked Giselle to prepare.
“Let us just enjoy ourselves right here, at this moment,” he said. By now, Charles had become an expert in changing the subject anytime Marthe tried to discuss his health.
He took a hand and placed it between her thighs. “Never mind this Boldini,” he said playfully. “He might paint those lips of yours.” Charles kissed her on the mouth. “But I get to see you at your most beautiful.”
She felt his fingers enter her.
He touched her so deftly. A smile came over her, and she closed her eyes.
13.
Solange
October 1939
That autumn in Paris proved to be the last months of mass delusion about the impending war. I had never seen so many lines at the cinema as movies had become the perfect two-hour tonic for those who wanted to forget reality. Instead of sitting in my favorite café with my journal, even I would take my two sous and spend it on a movie ticket instead of a cup of coffee.
By the end of September, Warsaw had surrendered, and Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland between themselves, forcing the former government to flee to London.
As the headlines blared the latest news of the Soviet troops arriving en masse in Latvia and the French troops retreating to the Maginot Line in anticipation of a German invasion, the average French person seemed more concerned with the emptiness in their stomachs. We all dreamt of butter and sugar ever since the glass cases in the local boulangeries appeared nearly barren. In one bakery, onlybaguettes and a few rusticboulesof bread lined the wicker baskets. Gone were the trays of tarts and chocolate cakes. Instead of sweets, the baker had only a basket of bruised fruit to offer. Overhead, we saw the silver wings of airplanes, though not yet the iron cross of the Luftwaffe.
My father had begun to stockpile penicillin, a new drug he believed would be as valuable as gold as the war progressed. I watched as he brought a few precious vials home to the apartment and stored them in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
“All the boys your age will now be drafted, Solange,” he informed me over dinner one night. “Conscription begins at nineteen.”
I shook my head. It was terrible to imagine that so many of the boys I had attended school with would now be sent off to fight. I could only imagine the pain in their mothers’ hearts.
“How horrible for the families of these boys, who are expected to become men and soldiers overnight,” Papa went on.
