William Wharton: Scumbler

Then he goes past with flowers, yellow daisies; slinks into the concierge’s doorway; comes back without flowers, very catlike. He’s a cat all right – big one, has all the marks. I like cats, usually; dangerous, but something. Wolves and dogs like me can usually make it with cats. We’re different but we respect each other.

I SLINK THROUGH MY PRIVATE FOREST,

SNIFFING TRACES, SEARCHING PLACES

TO HIDE MY KNOWINGS, LUSTING FEAR.

Next, the concierge comes gliding out with the flowers in a vase. She perches them on the back of my box, next to the turpentine. She’s probably some kind of small cat, too; clean little feet, sure sign. Here I am, surrounded by cats, trying to paint. Holy God!

A FEINT AT DEATH:

LAST BREATH. I PAINT.

The American invites us both for coffee. What the hell; I hate losing light but it’s OK; this is what my painting’s about, being close with people. We go into a small café next to the hotel.

The bartender here used to be a bullfighter. Every tiny Spaniard I’ve ever met in Paris is an ex-bullfighter the way all big Americans are ex-football players or boxers. No, that’s not true anymore. Today they’re all black-belt judo or karate or kung fu experts. Times change, stories change, but men’s stupid lies about themselves don’t change much.

We have coffee, then a cognac. The concierge – her name is Blanche – is turned on. She’s about ready to lock both of us between those skinny thighs of hers. Probably be wonderful. Ben Franklin knew what he was talking about; one of my all-time heroes. He was seventy years old when the Revolutionary War started, and they couldn’t’ve won it without him. But he never fired a shot. I wonder what kind of pictures Ben’d’ve painted if he’d turned his fantastic mind that way?

LOST BODIES, LOVING SOULS:

WE SPRING FROM NOW TO WHERE

BELLS TOLL FOR THE LIVING.

The painting’s standing out there in the sunshine alone. There’s maybe an hour more before the light shifts. Light’s important when I’m leaning into impasto. This time of year I can’t afford to let any light get away; I’m running out of time no matter how fast I run.

I go out. My American and the concierge stay in the café and talk; his name is Matthew, calls himself Matt. I get by without telling my name.

I work madly. I want to paint in the rough impasto, then let it dry a few days. Afterward, I’ll work on glazes, scumbling and accent some lights. Painting has a rhythm of its own; I just follow it. I’m only a man chasing after a magic Pied Piper who’s playing haunting tunes, tunes I can just barely hear.

A TINGLING, CLANKING OF MULTICOLORED WHITE;

THE COWBELL RINGING OF MOURNING IN THE NIGHT.

An hour later I stop. The American’s standing behind me; he could’ve been there all the time; he invites me to lunch. I’m beat but I say OK. I’m beginning to think he’s one of those rich Americans playing hooky in Paris, checking out French language, French cooking, French living, French loving, French potatoes, French dry cleaning.

We eat in a little friterie around the corner. I’ve never tried this place before. It’s good, cheap. We feast on aubergines, pork, wine and tart for twenty-two francs. I find out he’s not rich; poor, living on less than a hundred and fifty bucks a month. He’s in a fifteen-franc-a-day hotel; does without heat to save a franc; that’s rock bottom. He’s studying at the Sorbonne; doing a master’s about some 1870 Socialist named Jean Jaurès. To live, he teaches English to French businessmen at IBM.

We begin talking motorcycles. He has a 1950 Ariel; now that’s a truly vintage bike. He takes me up onto the Place Saint-Sulpice to see it. It’s covered with a black tarp. We unwrap and this bike’s beautiful enough to bring on tears. A good well-cared-for thought-out machine like that is a delight. I’d love to paint just one painting as perfect as this machine. We check oil, set magneto and turn her over. Two kicks and a lovely deep sound.

He bought it from a woman in Versailles for only five hundred francs. It’d been sitting on blocks in a garage for twenty-five years. She’d talked her husband out of driving it thirty years ago because it was too dangerous. He died ten years later of diabetes.

It’s marked in miles and has a grand total of 6,021. There are saddlebags and two old-style helmets. I guess the old guy even thought he’d get his wife to ride with him sometimes. There’s a high-mounted back seat so a passenger can see over the driver’s head. In those days riding a motorcycle was supposed to be a pleasure.

He takes me for a nice, slow tour around the Place; I’m sitting up high with a great view, no helmet. Matt says he never goes over thirty; in no hurry at all. It’s rare to find a young person, especially a man, so smart about those things. If you go fast, you can’t see anything; if you can’t see anything, why go? We park the bike, carefully cover it again and shake hands.

A RACE THROUGH LIFE. QUICK

GATHERING OF FOOD, SHELTER,

WIFE, CHILDREN: ALL THE SPACES

CLUTTERED: SOME FACES, A BITE OF

SONG. ONE LONG LAST TRICK.

I’m late. I pack my paints and drop in at Lotte’s, just around the corner. I need to fix her heater. It’s an electric job, the kind that heats oil in a radiator; gives fine heat but expensive, big electric bills. I always keep a tool kit in my bike. I unpack it, go through the courtyard on Mabillon and into her place.

Lotte’s not happy. I was supposed to eat lunch with her today and forgot. I could kick myself. She’s an Austrian woman and can really cook. She gets great food from home, like weisswurst and stollen.

Lotte’s very quiet, wears mostly black; about thirty-five, teaches German at a French lycée. Smart woman, sensitive; loves paintings, one of those people you have in mind when you paint, someone to paint to , like my Kate.

I met her in the street; she stood behind me the way the American did today. She has quiet eyes, Egyptian eyes, green. She tells me, in French, how she likes my painting. I start playing ‘mad artist’. There’s something challenging in her old-maid look. She listens. I spread more crapola in my personal, fractured French. I’m romancing; definitely not seducing. Most people don’t understand the difference. One’s for fun, the other’s serious business, distinctly not for clowns like me. She nods and looks into my eyes.

‘You may speak in English.’

Not much accent. I’m painting in front of Chardin’s house on the Rue Princesse, just up from where I worked today, nearer Rue Canettes.

I enjoy feeling the lonely master Chardin peering over my shoulder while I’m painting in that street. He lived at number 13. It sort of kills time, talking to a lovely young woman and having him there too. It sort of kills time not in the meaning of wasting it but really killing it, making the seeming reality of it go away.

I invite her for a cup of coffee. She says no, leaves. I figure that’s the end of it; just as well, back to work: balancing light, space, the illusion of objects. I’m communing with Jean-Baptiste Chardin, an almost ignored master in his time.

LEVELING TIME, MY MENTAL SHOVEL

LABORS TIGHT BETWEEN GOD AND DEVIL.

I’m just packing up my box, dead tired, when she comes back, invites me for a cup of coffee at her place. I’m out of the painting enough now to catch the great overwhelming black waves of sadness she’s giving off. I follow. Am I being seduced? No, it’s mutual induction like electric current. Probably nobody’s ever really seduced or seduces anybody. Seduces are only excuses.

Her place is a little attic room on the Rue Buci, two streets away. The room is neat as a pin; clean, more Austrian than French. There are two beds and a small room cut off for a kitchen; john’s in the kitchen, curtained off. Old building, thick walls, sun coming in through a window, flowers in the window.