The next morning, after my run, as I beat my way crosstown, I realize I’m looking forward to seeing Mirabelle, not just enjoying some more of her wonderful food, but spending time with her, absorbing her strength, vitality; feeling her concern, sensitivity, empathy.
The day is beautiful. More sun and fewer clouds, but there are still some soft, floating, spidery ones drifting quietly across the sky. Unless you stop and line them up with something on earth, it’s hard to tell they’re moving.
I’m wearing my usual painting outfit, a falling-apart, multi-stitched denim jacket I bought for twenty francs at the flea market. I didn’t put on the green check woolen shirt I usually wear under it. The shirt’s missing more than half its buttons but it’s warm. When I ran this morning I realized today I wouldn’t need it. I’m beginning to think I don’t even need the jacket. Paris is giving us a little taste of what spring will be, real spring, maybe with a touch of summer.
I get to the site and elect to paint the Place from the uphill side and to the left of the street leading into it. I set myself practically in the Place because I want the lamps in the middle to be the center of my painting, sort of a focus around which the rest will swing in three dimensions; I’d like something of a merry-go-round feeling.
I do a rather careful drawing, keeping in mind the painting as I go. It’s amazing how one can paint something several times and it’s always different. I’m about to start putting paint on my palette for the underpainting when I begin to think of time passing. I don’t have a watch. I forgot it, left it behind on the night table in our bedroom when I packed up, more than a year ago, so I ask the time from somebody passing by. It’s just five minutes to ten.
I break down the box, swing it onto my back, and move up behind Saint-Germain-des-Prés to the Place in front of the church. I look across the street and there she is sitting in her usual spot. I try to see how close I can creep up on her before she senses me. I walk carefully. If anybody was watching, they’d think I was some kind of Jack the Ripper with a specialty in old ladies, because I’m practically walking on tiptoe. Before I get within six feet, she turns to me, smiles.
‘I thought you might not come, Jacques. I knew you were not here and I was disappointed. It is so very good of you to come after all.’
‘It was the smell, wasn’t it. You smelled me coming. Is that it, Mirabelle?’
She smiles and pulls out her second inflatable cushion for me.
‘No, there is something on your painting box which jiggles when you walk, it sounds like metal hitting wood. I did not smell you until after.’
‘Do I smell that bad? What do I smell like, anyway?’
‘Oh, Jacques, you want to know all my secrets. All right. You smell like turpentine, of course, and you smell something of perspiration because you concentrate so hard. And you smell …’
She pauses.
‘You smell like a man. You have a special man smell about you. It is not the smell of tobacco as with my father or some other men, and it is not the smell of the different perfumes so many men wear these days. Sometimes it is hard for me to tell the men from women except for the sound of the shoes they wear, and even that is changing.
‘You have a very special smell. I cannot describe it but I like it. The closest thing I can think of is the smell of horses.’
I’ve finished blowing up my cushion and I sit beside her.
‘I’d better not sit too close, Mirabelle. I never realized I was so smelly.’
‘No, Jacques, I like you sitting close to me. Remember, I enjoy your smells. They are very healthy, hardy smells.
‘Now, are we ready for my test? I shall touch and feel my pigeons and then tell you how they look, is that right?’
‘That’s right. But I was only teasing, Mirabelle. It will be impossible.’
‘Let us see.’
She puts out her finger and one of the pigeons, which had been hovering around her, lands. She picks it up, turns it over, inspects it.
‘This one is a tannish brown with two brown stripes across the wings. It has yellower eyes than most and its legs are a nice persimmon red. You admired the look of this bird and said it was almost acceptable, even for a pigeon. Am I right?’
She’s right, all right. She’s so right she’s telling me things I don’t even remember telling her.
‘I don’t believe it, Mirabelle. Come on, try again.’
Another bird flies down. This time it’s a heavy, dark blue bird with stripes on its wings, an ordinary-looking pigeon. Mirabelle strokes its neck with her finger and massages the feet and legs. She looks at me.
‘This one is bluish gray with two darker bars on each of her wings. She has a sheen of color on her neck almost like a cock. She has pale pink legs and darker than amber eyes.’
She lets this one fly away, after giving her grains from her little sacks.
‘I am not sure what color amber is, Jacques. Is it more an orange color or yellow?’
We go through the entire flock. The only interruption to her perfect replay of what I told her yesterday is one bird, a small-sized, gray one, which had not come the day before. Mirabelle tells me immediately when she handles her that she does not know the markings of this bird. She knows it is one of the birds who didn’t show up yesterday, that she is probably brooding an early nest.
An hour has passed and I’m ready to go back and start my underpainting.
‘Where are you painting, Jacques?’
‘I’m on the Place Furstenberg. I’m painting down the hill with the rue Jacob at the end.’
‘Oh yes. That is a lovely Place. I would play with a ball there when I was a child. It is one of my special places.’
‘What do you mean? Is it one of your favorite places?’
‘Yes, that is true, but more than that. It is very complicated. You go paint now and I shall explain to you while we déjeuner. I must go now to prepare. The food for the week was delivered from the market this morning, so we shall eat well.’
With that she begins putting her things together.
One of the strange aspects about being with a blind person, I’m finding, is when they stop talking to you, you do sort of disappear yourself. I stand, watch her a few seconds, and walk back across the boulevard. I’m still astounded at how she could describe all those birds in such detail. How could an old lady like this have such a remarkable memory?
On the Place, I’m soon into the painting. It seems no time at all before the bells of Saint-Germain-des-Prés start ringing, I have the sky and the left side of the Place with the bare trees roughed in. It’s a good time in a painting, everything still seems possible.
We have another wonderful meal. I try to talk about my enforced vegetarianism, how I don’t eat as much meat as before. She’s served small tournedos of beef with fresh string beans and pommes Dauphine. It is magnificently prepared. This time I notice how she must be cleaning things up as she goes, because there’s no mess in the kitchen, everything except the absolutely necessary pans and dishes is soaking in hot water in the sink.
Then she asks where I’m living. I tell her about my squatter’s attic, how I cook, where I get my food, about my running, just about everything concerning the life I lead, even to the stink from the glue and noise of my hammering. I try to tell it as humorously as possible. If you think about it, considering everything, it is all damned funny.
She keeps staring into my eyes. There is a concentration beyond sight.
‘But why do you live like this? What will you do in the winter when it becomes cold?’
‘I survived last winter and then I had no attic in which to live. Now I have a home. This winter I’ll buy an extra blanket at the flea market and be just fine.’
We’re finished eating. She goes over, picks up her stool, and reaches into her closet for the Poire William. I move to help her, then settle back. She’s too quick for me. As she stands on the stool, stretches, slightly lifting one leg, I see her legs are thin like those of a young gi
rl, perhaps a girl thirteen or fourteen years old. She wears thick old-lady stockings, lisle, I think it’s called. She comes to the table. I know where the glasses are and take them down. She hands me the bottle.
‘Please, Jacques, this time will you pour? I want to feel spoiled, taken care of, treated like a young woman just a little bit.’
She sits, ankles crossed under her chair. I pull out the cork, the smell of pears fills the room again, she inhales. I pour three-quarters of a glass each. I hand one glass to her, pick up my own, and we touch glasses.
‘To Jacques, one of the finest painters in the world.’
‘How can you know that, Mirabelle?’
‘Because I am blind? Most of what I know, I know because I am blind. I know you are a fine painter.’
‘All right, then: to Mirabelle, the best blind critic of paintings in the world. May all critics have such a depth of perception.’
We sip. I remember.
‘Mirabelle, you called Place Furstenberg one of your special places. What did you mean by that? You said you would explain.’
She sips again, tilts her head toward the table, then looks up at me.
‘You know, Jacques, I am not really blind.’
She’s looking me right in the eyes. I’m not surprised. I’m only wondering why she pretends. Why in heaven’s name did she smash into me when I was painting, actually hurt herself. Am I involved with another total crazy?
‘No, you see, I have perfectly good eyes, there is nothing wrong with them. I have perfect nerves to carry what my eyes see to my brain.’
She pauses.
‘But my mind, it will not let me see. I am what is called hysterically blind, aveugle hystérique. I have tried everything, but since I was fourteen years old I have been able to see nothing.’
‘You mean you don’t see me now, here in front of you? You don’t see this room? What do you see?’
‘I see only the visions which are in my mind. I have my own world of things I see, but they are all ancient images, visions of when I was a child. Many doctors have worked with me trying to make me see again. My sister took me to psychiatrists and others. I was hypnotized many times. But I cannot see. Sometimes I think I shall never see.
‘One of the things I was supposed to do, helping me see again, was to remember places of my childhood, places I loved, enjoyed, and then go to those places, close my eyes, try to remember everything that was there. After, I was to open my eyes and hope I would see these things of the real world, but they were never there for me.
‘I have twenty-two places, all here in the quartier, which I have in my mind. They are almost like personal picture postcards, postcards I can bring before my mind. For many years, I would go to those places and concentrate, trying to see, trying to see anything, even the slightest light, but it never happened. Place Furstenberg was one of those places.’
‘What happened? How did this come to be, Mirabelle? It’s terrible.’
‘It is terrible to you. But it is not terrible to me. The doctors tell me I do not see because deep inside I do not want to see. I am afraid.’
‘What are you afraid of, Mirabelle?’
‘I am afraid of what I will see. I have learned to enjoy this private world in which I live. Yes, it is inconvenient being blind, but it is also very comforting.’
‘My God, whatever happened? Why are you afraid?’
She sips again and holds the drink against her breast. I’ve never seen anyone do that before, until she did it yesterday. Maybe it’s a way to protect the glass from being knocked from her hand by accident.
‘Perhaps another time, Jacques. I should like to talk with you right now about something important, if I may.’
What could be more important than why she’s blind? I wait.
‘I should like you to paint my portrait. Since you have created me in the picture at the foot of Diderot it has given me much comfort. I feel I exist in the outside world, not just in the world of my imagination, inside my mind. Please, will you paint me?’
This I hadn’t expected. It’s so embarrassing. I sip some more of the Poire William, trying to figure what to say, how to refuse without hurting her feelings.
‘I am not really a portraitist, Mirabelle. Since I was a young man, a student, I’ve tried painting portraits of people. I couldn’t do it then and I don’t think I could do it now.’
‘Yes, however, with this painting, you have no one to please but yourself. I cannot be a critic. I do not even know how I do look. I only want to have you make a painting, an object, which says something about the way you see me, feel about me. It would mean much to have this happen.’
‘But, Mirabelle, it’s so expensive. I’d be happy to paint you for nothing, but then I’d want the painting myself. Also I am running out of francs.’
‘You may have the painting for yourself, in any case. I would prefer that. But you cannot paint it for no money. I want you to charge me a regular price. This is a commission.’
‘It would be my first commission, Mirabelle. But you have no idea of the cost. I must charge three hundred francs for each painting to have enough to live.’
‘I will not pay three hundred francs.’
She pauses. I’m off the hook. She just has no idea. I see her differently now, though. I see her as a painting. I would like to paint her if she would be willing to pose. I’d like to paint her inner calm, vitality, separateness, courage, if those things can be painted. It’d be more money down the tubes, more paint out of the tubes, but I still have a few francs left and then there’ll be the tourist money this summer. Maybe I’ll go up onto the hill at Montmartre, play animal with the others in the artists’ zoo; I’m sure I could sell something there.
‘Jacques, I must pay at least a thousand francs or you cannot paint my portrait. I would gladly pay more if you want it.’
Hell, I’m not off the hook! In fact I’m really hooked. Mirabelle gets up and glides in that special way she has, not dragging her feet but hardly lifting them, feeling forward with them, as if she’s sliding her feet into slippers with each step, moving quickly to the cupboard again. What other delicious goody will she pull out?
She takes down a metal box with pictures enameled on it. She pries the lid open, reaches inside, and feels around. She pulls out one, then two, five-hundred-franc bills. She closes the box and puts it up on the shelf again. She comes back to the table.
‘Now you know where the blind old lady hides all her money. She does not hide it from herself.’
She holds the bills out to me. I don’t want to take them.
‘Wait till I’m finished with the portrait, Mirabelle. This is crazy.’
‘No, but it is crazy waiting until the painting is finished before I pay you. What is the difference. This way you can have the money now and I would only keep it in that box doing nothing. You can buy paints with it so the painting can be better. That makes much more sense.’
She leans the money closer to me, looking into my eyes the entire time. I take the money. She’s right.
‘If I come over to where you are painting now, on La Place Furstenberg, may I stay beside you? I will not be a bother, I want to feel you painting, know you are seeing, really seeing, that which I can only remember. Would that be all right?’
It’s okay with me, but how’s she going to get over? It means crossing boulevard Saint-Germain and that’s a fast-moving, wide street, not exactly the kind of street a blind old lady should try to cross.
‘You can come with me if you want. I’ll help you across boulevard Saint-Germain.’
‘No, I shall clean up here first. You would be surprised how I can find my way. I go anywhere in Paris I want. At the boulevard, I listen to the feet. When they start moving across the street I go with the others. Also, there is always someone to give an arm to an old lady in a red costume with a white cane. I can sometimes almost see myself in my mind. Of course, the boulevard was completely different when I last saw it, but I can tell much from
the sounds and smells.’
So I take off. The light should be just right now. I’m realizing that, in the end, I’ll be running two paintings at the same time if it’s going to take me several days to paint each one. I’ll need one canvas for morning light and one for afternoon. I’ll really have good use for that thousand francs, just keeping myself in paint and canvas.
I’ve been painting about an hour when I look beside me and there’s Mirabelle sitting in a little collapsible chair. She smiles.
‘Oh, now you see me. I have been here awhile and you have been so busy looking, you didn’t know I was here. Sometimes looking so hard can make one blind. Is that not interesting?’
I’m just getting into painting the globes of the light stand in the center of the Place. I swear each one is a slightly different color. If you didn’t look closely, you’d think they were only white, but one’s slightly bluish white, one’s greenish, one yellowish, and the other has a violet tinge. I never would have guessed it until I tried painting them. I try explaining this to Mirabelle. Again she closes her eyes as I talk as if she’s trying to cast up the images in her mind. We’re quiet for a while.
‘Jacques, do you mind if I talk about what I am seeing here, myself, in my mind, listening to the wind against the trees, smelling the street, the paint, you; remembering from when I was a little girl?’
‘No, I’d like that very much, Mirabelle.’
‘Well, first I remember it was like a giant room, as if it were not outside at all. The trees make a great cover like an umbrella. There were benches on each side of the lamp and I would sit and stare at each of the globes, moving my head back and forth to watch my reflection move in each of them. The walls then were gray, blue-gray, violet, brown-gray, and when the sun would shine on them, they seemed to glow with a white luminescence not much different from the white in the sky between the leaves.