Once every month or so, I take my clothes to a self-service laundry. I shove them all in one washer, except for a sweat suit I wash by hand, then put them in the little spinner for a franc a shot. Together it costs seventeen francs, with drying. But after that I smell like an angel for a few days. My T-shirts glisten and my jeans almost have creases.
After I finish eating, I blow out my candles and stare for a while through the attic window. I keep thinking I’ll climb up and clean the grime off so I can see out to the sky, but I’m afraid of tipping off whoever really owns this place to the idea I’m up here, so I don’t. The weather’s getting good enough now so I can leave the window pushed up at night and have a good look at the stars when there are any. I’ve discovered from experience just how far I can push it up and still not have rain come in.
Before I fall into a deep sleep, I remember that tomorrow I should stop at American Express to see if there are any letters from Lorrie or the kids. Also, I want to write and let them know I’m all right and how well my painting is coming along.
Blind Reverie
His smell is so different from that of most men, not only the turpentine. And his voice, sometimes calm when he answers me, but there is excitement in there. At the same time, this is a sad man, an alone man. I think he is probably a good painter.
He was kind to join me under the statue. The feet of Monsieur Diderot had a moldy smell today, could it be from the rain and the pigeons. It was stronger than usual.
I do not think Monsieur le Peintre cares for my pigeons. It was in his voice, in the way he sat, even with my pillow, I felt he was uncomfortable. I must teach him to love them as I do. I hope he comes back tomorrow. I can smell his turpentine in my coat all the way in the other room.
I hope I was not too brash. It is so rare to find someone with whom to talk, who is not always thinking about my blindness. That is their blindness. I so often feel sorry for those who must live inside the world and not outside it as I do. It must be so hard and cruel for them.
2
I wake with the first light. I slip on my running costume: a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and a sweat suit. The best thing I took with me when I left were my two pairs of running shoes. These running shoes I’d had at least three years and never ran in them. I dread to think of when they wear out. These things cost fifty bucks a pair. Now I use one pair for everyday, for painting, and the other for running only.
I sneak out the gate downstairs. Nobody is up at this time in the morning except garbage collectors and Algerian street sweepers. I start my usual warm-up, run down Ledru-Rollin and across the river to the Left Bank quai. I run through the little park there and the sculpture garden.
I stay with the quai even when I have to go up steps and down the other side. I take the steps quickly and two at a time. I want to make my blood really bubble. I run till I get to the Pont Alexandre III and cross it. Now the light is coming on stronger and traffic is picking up. I don’t like to run when there’s too much automobile smell.
I run along the street above the Right Bank quai. Sometimes I need to run up here along where the bouquiniste stands are, because of the road they’ve built along the quai. I cut in through the Marais to the Bastille. Traffic is picking up seriously. I go down the rue de la Roquette, the way I came home yesterday, and up rue Keller and home. It’s only about an hour’s run but it wakes me up. There’s no trouble getting through the gate, the concierge sleeps until seven-thirty or so. I’m dripping as I quietly run up the stairs, my usual two at a time, to my hideout.
I take off my sweat suit and hang it on a hook behind the door. I spread my soaking shorts and T-shirt on a piece of string along the back wall behind some long pieces of wood. I stretch out on the floor until I stop sweating. I have a little piece of rug I found in the trash by the rug store at the corner of rue de Charonne and avenue Ledru-Rollin. I’m flat out on it, getting my breath back and trying to relax.
After about five minutes, I start my one hundred, deep-breathing, sit-ups and then do a few yoga exercises. I finish with fifty slow push-ups, hands lifted off the floor each time.
I don’t think I’ve been in as good a shape in my life, not since high school. I’d better stay in condition, I have no backup, no social security from the French, no health plan, no MBI. I’ve got to stay healthy. The best part is it’s such fun staying in shape.
When I first started living in the streets, almost a year ago now, I was slowly going downhill. I didn’t eat right, I didn’t keep myself clean, I’d put down a bottle of red wine every night so I’d sleep, and then it’d be noon before I could shake my head without hurting. I was well on my way to becoming a real clochard. It’s hard to believe how quickly one can go down when one just doesn’t care enough.
I splurge this morning and give myself my usual Sunday treat, even though it’s only Thursday. At least, I think it’s Thursday. I still have the end of my baguette saved from yesterday and dunk it into a cup of coffee I brew on my stove. Real luxury. I sit against my bedroll and look across at the painting. I’m anxious to get into it again. From the look of the sky as I was running, that old, blind lady was right, we’re going to have another great day, another painting day.
I hide everything, tuck away my running clothes where they can’t be seen but will have room to dry, wash myself off quickly with the water I pack up in wine bottles. I don’t have any soap. I tuck my key and flashlight in place and quietly go down the staircase. Nobody really gets to work before eight, so I’m okay. The concierge’s door is still closed, too.
Out on the street, the sun is up, long slanting light making everything clear and shining. There are the usual morning Paris sounds of garbage trucks, water running in the gutters, pigeons gurgling and splashing in the dirty water as they’re just waking up. Then I watch as they glide against the sky. I guess the flock around here lives in the tower at Sainte-Marguerite’s. I think about the blind old lady and what she said about pigeons. What a nutty idea. I’ve got to admit, though, they look great against a sky, and I’m going to start using them to hold things together, tie the sky to the earth.
I decide to walk straight down Henri IV the way the bus goes, so I can get the long view of Notre-Dame from the back. It’s a special view from the bridge, with the little garden tucked on the end of the island.
I get to my painting spot at about eight-thirty. I put down my box and sit on the bench just soaking up what I’m going to be painting, trying my damnedest to let it happen to me. Letting it really come into me is something I’m trying to learn. I’m too aggressive, keep forcing the subject matter too much, not changing it but trying to make it mine instead of letting me become it. I breathe deeply, trying to relax, have confidence in things. I’ve had too many years where if you were caught relaxing, ‘goofing off,’ it was held against you. Every day it was a race to see who’d be first in the office and last to leave. I never even realized it was happening, either. And it wasn’t happening just to me, it was all of us.
When the bells ring nine, I’m into it. I’ve set up slightly to the left of where I was painting yesterday. There’s no chance anybody will be crashing into me and I can use the bench to store my varnish and turpentine bottles.
I start with that sky, working from the top, buttering it between the trees, around the tops of buildings. I like having the sky established before I start lighting the rest of the painting. I’ll let the other parts of the painting happen to the sky, later. Also, the sky’s up where it doesn’t get in the way, doesn’t get smeared as I work.
I’m lighting the top of the tower when she sneaks up behind me. I actually jump. I didn’t hear or feel her near me at all.
‘Ah, Monsieur le Peintre, you are here. That is good. Are you happy with your painting this beautiful day?’
She’s holding out her hand to shake. My hands are relatively clean but with some dabs of blue and yellow ocher. I quickly wipe them on my paint rag and shake with her.
‘Oh, it does not matter if you g
et paint on my hands from yours, monsieur. I could feel it and wipe it off with a tissue.’
She smiles. I try to think how she knew. Of course, it was the slight delay before I shook hands with her, she knew I was painting. She’s a regular Sherlock Holmes.
‘Yes, madame, so far the painting is going well. I am just now painting the tower of the church against the sky.’
‘It must make you feel like a pigeon flying up there. Sometimes, as I am falling asleep, I try to imagine myself as a pigeon in the open air, close to the bells, the sky, above the trees, the streets. It is lovely.’
She pauses.
‘Do you know, often I dream of it. In my dreams I can see. I see all of Paris below me, glowing, glistening in magic light. I am never blind in my dreams. Is that not interesting?’
It tells me something. It tells me she hasn’t always been blind. The company-trained psychologist strikes. Or else it tells me she likes to lie, also interesting. I start painting again. She stays beside me.
‘Monsieur le Peintre, is it possible that I could make an arrangement with you?’
Oh boy, what’s coming next. I step back from the painting but I keep my brush in hand. I’m ready to take the en garde position. I can just see it spread on the front page of Le Soir:
American artist arrested
for attacking old, blind woman
with paintbrush
This would be in French, of course.
‘You see, I know each of the birds in my flock, all forty-six of them, but only by feel; I should like very much to know how they look: what color they are, how they are marked, striped, checked. Since you are an artist, trained to see, truly, clearly, you could describe them to me.’
She pauses. I wait. What’s next? She said something about an arrangement. Is she going to offer money?
‘If you will do this for me, monsieur, I shall prepare for you a very good meal today at midday. I assure you I am an excellent cook. I like to eat. As I said, when we lose one gift, other senses become stronger. My senses of taste and smell are very strong. I think you would like my food.’
How can I say no? It means I won’t get much painting done, but I’m in no hurry. I’m for sure not going anywhere. She can’t live too far from here if she’s blind.
‘I live just there, behind the statue of Monsieur Diderot just past where the Italian restaurant is. It is called the rue des Ciseaux. I live at number 5 and on the second floor. There is only one door on that floor. If you come, you need only knock.’
My God, maybe she has a sixth sense as well. She seems to read my mind.
She stops and now she waits. I know the rue des Ciseaux. It’s a street of restaurants. I never thought of anyone living there.
‘Of course, madame. It would be a joy for me to watch you with your birds again and, if you will have me, I should very much enjoy my déjeuner with you. Thank you.’
‘Thank you, monsieur. I hope you do not think I am being too forward, but it means much to me, also I shall enjoy having someone dine with me to whom I can speak in English.’
I start painting again. I think I’m taking advantage of her blindness, that she won’t know, but she knows immediately. It’s probably the direction of my movements or even the sound of the brushes.
‘Yes, you keep painting until it is a good time for you to stop, perhaps when you have caught the beautiful light on the tower against the sky. I shall wait for you.’
With that, she turns away. I continue painting the steeple and heavy stone of the massive tower. Her comments about being a pigeon, flying up there, the openness of the sky, the strength of the tower, all seem to flow into me. I’m painting it with much more force and at the same time a new sensitivity. It’s amazing how an idea can affect the way you see.
I paint for perhaps fifteen minutes or half an hour more and it’s good painting, some of the best I’ve done. I put down my brushes and walk over to sit next to the old lady.
She turns toward me, smiles her quiet, not quite sad smile.
‘I hope I have not interrupted you at an important point. I do very much appreciate this help you are giving me. I have not yet worked on any of the birds, but as you can see, they are waiting for me.’
Sure enough, there are pigeons all over the place, all over her. It’s amazing no sparrows or any other birds come. But then, come to think of it, only pigeons seem tame enough, friendly enough with humans to come close. They’re either very stupid, or very trusting, as she insists.
She opens her little satchel and unfolds her kit. This is some kind of signal. She holds out her finger and two birds fly down; one lands first, so the other veers away. She puts her hand over it.
This is a really peculiar-looking bird for a pigeon, smoky-dark, with some remnants of checks on the back. It’s slightly lighter on the chest, with a few almost white feathers on the thighs. Its beak is yellowish, with a streak of blue or violet, and its legs are a dark yellowish pink, almost salmon color. I describe all this to the blind lady while she does her inspection and files off a few scales from one leg.
‘This hen is not young, she must be more than five years old. Her name is Nicole. She has been in the flock a long time. She has had at least fifteen nests and most of her young have grown. Some of her sons have left the flock. She is becoming thin and I do not think she will have more than one nest this year. From the way you describe her, she is not a very beautiful bird, is she? I had always thought she would be one of the most lovely. I imagine what we think is beautiful in a pigeon is not necessarily what pigeons might feel. Perhaps sometimes it is best to be blind, so one can see the way things really are, and not be blinded by the way they look.’
She gently launches Nicole away and another bird flies down to her hand. This bird is almost pure white but has irregular blue-gray markings. It is big, with a tinge of iridescent color around its neck. It has beautiful pink, almost scaleless legs with bluish nails. I describe this one as best I can.
‘Oh yes. I always felt he must be white. He is so bossy, even though he is only from one of last year’s nests.
‘Almost always he is one of the first to come to me, not because there is anything wrong with him. He only wants the grains I give.’
She’s started feeding him his individual grains and he picks them quickly from between her fingers. She more brusquely lofts him off into flight.
I sit and describe each of the birds as they come. It takes more than an hour. I’m enjoying myself, enjoy trying to describe the birds accurately. There’s something in it of the careful seeing one does while painting. But I’m also wanting to get back into my own work.
‘Well, Monsieur le Peintre, I suspect that is all we are going to have today. There are two who did not come, perhaps they are with another flock or perhaps something has happened to them. It is terrible the number of pigeons killed by speeding automobiles in this city. The automobiles never stop, so the pigeons are smashed into the street and are totally destroyed. There should be a law against it.’
I don’t tell her how they seem to lose their color, how the feathers become spread under the tires so that, in the end, the pigeon disappears into the asphalt. In one day, on a busy street, a pigeon can turn into nothing.
‘Well, I shall go prepare our meal. If you stop painting when the bells start ringing, I shall expect you about ten minutes later. You can bring your box with you and place it on the palier or in the vestibule. It is at your disposition.’
She bows her head slightly in dismissal and begins to gather up her equipment. I go back to my painting. The work I’ve just finished is even better than I remember it. I start painting across the long façade of the nave, trying to vary the color of the stone with the shadows, with the staining of age, with the flashes of light through the trees, at the same time fighting to make it all hold together. I also begin working the foliage of the trees against this light. When I have a color I feel would be good in another place, I put it there. The statue of Diderot takes careful but
loose painting, as I bring the color of the sky down into the color of the pigeon shit, as it blends to the color of the oxidized bronze. I’m beginning to feel that, in parts at least, I’m entering the painting and being inside it. Time seems to fly.
Then I hear the bells of the church ringing. I don’t remember hearing them start, I was that much out of things. I quickly pack up my box. I put the bottles of turp and varnish into my pockets, rapidly clean paint off the brushes. I’m packed in no time. I look around to see if I’m forgetting anything. I have it all. I start off behind Diderot, to the mouth of the rue des Ciseaux, and down the hill of that small street toward the rue du Four.
On the left, I find number 5. It’s an old building with walls slanted in from the time when mortar wasn’t strong enough to support straight-up walls. The stairway is narrow, so I need to take the painting off the easel on my back to maneuver the tight corners. At the second floor, I put down my box and painting. There’s a place under the electric box for me to store them. I knock.
Almost immediately the door is opened.
‘I heard you coming up the steps. You had to stop because the painting was too big to come around the corner, am I right?’
I nod, then realize I must speak. It takes time getting accustomed to a blind person.
‘That’s right. I almost knocked the corners off the walls.’
I go inside. It’s a nice apartment but dark. It opens onto the court. Of course, for her, the darkness would be no disadvantage. Although it’s neatly kept up, no disorder, everything in its place, the plaster is hanging from the ceiling, the wallpaper is loosened from the walls, hanging in strips, and the woodwork is unpainted, dirt-stained from constant handling.
The rugs are worn. It’s a strange contrast between this wellkept woman, her carefully set table, the general order of the room, and the overall squalor of the apartment.