9 Like the World Around Them Didn’t Exist #2
“All good, of course. Too good, really. I woke up super late with a headache . . . I didn’t think we’d had that much to drink last night.
So I said to myself, you know what? I asked Alfred—my sometimes assistant who lives upstairs—to open on his own, and I stayed in bed until lunchtime.
Then I took a shower and came on over. Want some? ”
“No thanks.”
Truthfully the apple peel didn’t look too appealing. And this, right at the start, sixteen hours after a clandestine kiss, was not the time to explain how picky she could be or begin confessing her flaws.
Jean-Pierre slid the key into the lock and opened the door.
“Welcome to Anouk 44, my paradise. This is my cave, my refuge”—he switched the lights on, bit by bit, from behind the counter—“and my life. Voilà!”
“It’s beautiful.”
The old varnished wood floorboards were once railway ties, warped through the years.
The reflection of the lights on the long strips of wood brightened them and gave a sense of spaciousness to an interior marked by three iron columns, painted white, that marked the walkway through the gallery.
All the walls were also a Grecian white, a Mediterranean white, and judging by the smell, it had only been a couple of days since the paintbrush had gone over them.
The artworks, each consciously spaced from the next, popped even more against such a light backdrop.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful, Jean-Pierre. I’m glad I came.”
“Very austere, very simple. What you see is what you get. There’s nothing more . . .”
“It’s very you.”
“There’s this counter and a chesterfield sofa to contemplate the Vasarely piece. In the back there’s a storeroom that functions as a tiny office, a half bathroom, a half kitchen. Really it’s just a small stove to make coffee. Would you like one?”
“No, not right now . . .”
“Here. Sit and take a good look.”
Jean-Pierre had taken her by both shoulders and practically pushed her onto the single-seat worn-leather chesterfield that faced a green-and-white Victor Vasarely hexagon. It couldn’t have been much bigger than a television screen.
“Don’t take your eyes off the painting. Keep your eyes fixed.”
“Are you trying to hypnotize me?”
“Keep your eyes fixed, don’t rush,” Jean-Pierre whispered, “in silence . . .”
Paulina lowered her eyelids, trying to focus. She saw green-and-white hexagons everywhere.
“Can I say something?”
“You’re getting dizzy?”
“A little . . . how did you know?”
“You’ll like this one better . . . Pull your feet in. Be careful.”
Before Paulina could even get up from the armchair, Jean-Pierre dragged her by the backrest, past the columns, and left her a few feet from another painting.
“Let’s see how you like this one . . .”
“Is it an Andy Warhol?”
“Marilyn’s Lips. I knew you’d like it . . .”
“What makes you say that?”
“I could tell.”
“Well, well, well. You know when I’m dizzy, you can predict what I like . . . You really do know me.”
“More than you know me.”
“Listen to him, so full of himself.”
Instinctively, Paulina touched his hand, running her fingers over the hairs on his veiny hands.
After she had done it, she realized she didn’t know whether she had permission to do so .
. . She felt like they had gone back a few steps, to where things had been left off the night before, and now she didn’t know where they were at.
Jean-Pierre had greeted her with two cool, brotherly kisses—on the cheek!—but now, sitting before those multicolored lips, he didn’t mind her caressing his hand. He didn’t make a face. There was no sign of disapproval. On the contrary.
What game is this womanizer playing today?
Is this all spontaneous—the apple and the chesterfield—or is it part of some grand scene he’s directing?
Paulina needed clues, but she had none.
Jean-Pierre had more than enough energy to spare. What kind of apple had he eaten?
“Why do you think people like looking at a painting?”
“I thought I came to Paris for a wedding, not to be quizzed.”
“Let’s see if you agree with me.”
The gallerist wasn’t really interested in Paulina’s answer. He needed to deliver his own theory—crafted, pondered, anything but accidental. It was, indeed, a rhetorical question.
“I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve talked it over with experts and other gallery owners . . . We live in an age of tremendous noise. Don’t you think?”
“Yes, yes.” No one in their right mind would interrupt his monologue.
“The radio, the TV, the news. Messages coming from everywhere. A bombardment. Opinions, opinions, information. It’s a constant bombardment.
Every day, at all hours. At the end of the day, we no longer know whether the things we think are truly own thoughts or just echoes of everything we’ve heard.
We repeat what we hear. We are the echo, and we don’t even realize we’ve become animals of repetition. ”
Jean-Pierre unbuttoned his collar and loosened his lilac tie like it was holding him back.
“My dear Pauline, I think that art can help us in a crucial way. It can let a person go back inside of themselves. Art draws you away from external noise and helps you find yourself again. When you look at a painting, when you spend some time with it, you discover what you have inside. Little by little you discover what’s inside, what you think, and how you feel.
You discover who you are, and you likely realize that there’s nothing more interesting than that. ”
“Wow . . . And is that why art moves us?”
“It’s why there are people who don’t like looking at paintings. Because they sense they wouldn’t like what they’d find. The glass on the frame isn’t there to protect the painting. It’s to protect us from ourselves. It’s our shield, our very own shield.”
If the peacock had wanted to impress, he had succeeded by fully fanning out his tail. Self-satisfied, he lit his pipe.
“I make sure that there’s a variety of works here.
There are no two pieces by the same artist. I don’t do any themed exhibitions between May and September.
I’ve scheduled things that way for years.
I’ve realized it’s better to do a collective show for the summer visitors, a tutti-frutti of colorful pieces from the gallery’s archives.
I only have contemporary art, dating from World War I onward.
These are works I’ve collected from past exhibitions, and now hardly a week goes by without someone coming in and falling in love with a Lichtenstein comic, or Christo’s models before he wrapped the Pont Neuf, or Vilacasas’s Planimetrias.
I love these bird’s-eye views of the city.
Or the one in the shop window. Did you see it?
A first-rate Le Corbusier. Did you notice the collage?
I put the things I like best in the window.
It’s like an advertisement of myself to the street. A bit of who I am.”
“You’re a collage?”
“Who isn’t?”
“No, I hadn’t seen it.”
Paulina got up out of the armchair, checked that the clasp of her dress was still properly fastened, and smoothed down the earth-toned skirt from Groc so it would fall right below her knee.
“While I was waiting for you—because honestly you took a long time and I was just about to leave—I had time to notice, at least, the magnificent fruit crates from the shop across the street. The fruit was so beautifully arranged. The best painting on the street. I’d never seen anything like it . . .”
“Don’t make fun of me . . . But isn’t it lovely to have a produce store right across the way? And so useful. I buy kiwis and apples to take home . . .”
“Do you live around here?”
“Not exactly. I live in Le Marais, but you can walk there. Do you know it?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Not very well.”
“I think Julie took me there once.”
“It’s very lively there—you’ll like it. It’s close to where they’re planning to open the Picasso Museum.”
“Excuse me, but the real Picasso Museum, the good one, will always be in Barcelona.”
“You can’t expect me to argue with you about this without laughing . . .”
“Agree to disagree?”
“Should we debate it over dinner?”
“Now?”
“We eat early here. I can show you the neighborhood, take a walk, and then have dinner.”
“What about the gallery?”
“Do you really think anyone’s going to come in? And besides—” He switched off the lights. “The owner gave me permission.”
They walked along the rue de Seine so absorbed in each other, they hardly looked at the street.
Jean-Pierre, acting as a tour guide eager to impress, pointed out interesting things about the neighborhood while she listened in silence.
Where the sidewalk narrowed, their hands brushed, unintentionally, she thought.
Skin against skin. And she shivered. They turned onto rue de Buci, packed with tourists seated on shaded terraces, and soon reached boulevard Saint-Germain.
“Saint-Germain-des-Prés is one of the oldest churches in Paris, and Saint-Sulpice is the second largest in the city after Notre-Dame. It looks even bigger from the outside, depending on your view. Saint-Sulpice is right here. You can see it peeking out from here.”
Paulina looked at him, a challenge in her eyes.
“Four hundred steps.”
“What?”
“From here to there.”
“From Saint-Germain to Saint-Sulpice?”
“From door to door. What are you betting?”
“Tonight’s dinner.”
“Done.” She held out her hand. “You’ll be paying, Jean-Pierre.”
“Your steps or mine?” He clasped her hand to seal the bet.
“They’re the same. From door to door, four hundred normal steps.”
“Plus or minus ten.”
“What’s that, honey?”
“A little margin of error, woman. Four hundred might mean three hundred ninety or . . . I’d really feel bad if you’re forced to treat me to dinner.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need a margin of error.” She was firm, resolute. “From here to there, four hundred steps. Door to door.”