Today’s post is an excerpt
from my recently completed novel, Fiesta of Smoke. In this snippet, Calypso is fleeing a mysterious
pursuer, while attempting to complete the mission she has undertaken in Paris.
Her reminiscence takes her back to her first trip to the City of Light, as a
teenager.
Presently, I’m involved in
Round 3 of editing and revising the manuscript of Fiesta of Smoke. Last week, the publisher approved the manuscript, saying,“I think you did a great
job with it. Calypso, Javier, and Hill are all great characters and you've
layered this novel beautifully. . . . Congratulations on writing a stirring
piece of fiction.” A message that, as you can imagine, was a great relief and
delight to receive! The plan, now, since it took me longer to finish than
anticipated, is to set the publication date around the first of November.
For those who may have missed
them, a synopsis of Fiesta of Smoke
can be found on the January 5, 2012 post; the Prologue, on January 8; an
introduction to the protagonists Calypso, on February 3, Javier, on February 20
and Hill on March 2; Calypso and Hill Dine was posted on March 14; More of
Calypso and Hill, on March 30; More of Calypso and Hill–2, on April 10;
Calypso’s Apartment, Place des Vosges, on April 19; and Hill’s Teenage Sex
Life, on May 15.
. . . .
Paris, 1992
Calypso walked quickly on rue
de Rivoli, dodging other pedestrians, heading toward Palais Royal. Traffic was
heavy and noisy. She felt mercifully inconspicuous in the early afternoon flood
of humanity.
To shake off her mysterious
tracker, she had caught the métro at Quatre
Septembre and ridden to Opéra, stepped onto the quai, pretending to check for something in her purse until
the bell rang, then as the doors were closing, quickly darted back onto the
car. The automatic doors compressed her shoulders as she squeezed through.
She turned to look back at
the quai, to see if anyone were
running or looking frustrated, but the train was engulfed in its tunnel before she
could be sure. She rode past the Madeleine stop, and Concorde, all the way to
Tuileries.
Emerged from the mètro and
still not confident that she had eluded the tail, she merged with the flood of
foot traffic, stopping periodically to use store windows as rearview mirrors,
or to enter shops and observe the street from within. She could detect no sign
of a follower.
It was still several blocks
to Palais Royal. Plenty of time to reconsider. But all her life, she had set
her eyes on what needed doing and had done it. Sometimes it involved
considerable risk or prolonged periods of quiet, dogged faith. Whatever was
required, she steeled herself to it. She did not deviate or dodge the
inevitable.
She had made the deeply
considered decision that while illegal, her project was not immoral. Au
contraire. It was a grave moral issue
and she could not ignore or evade it. Hundreds, thousands, even millions, of
lives might be changed by what she was prepared to do today. It was a
responsibility that simply could not be shirked.
Fate works in strange ways.
How could she have known, those many years before, when she was just beginning
to explore the cultural riches of Paris, that the contacts she was making would
some day lead to her implication in certain violations of international law?
In those days, she had
immersed herself in art--the Louvre, of course, came first, then the Jeu de
Paume, and then the Cluny, the Rodin, the Grand and Petit Palais. After that,
it was the galleries. She walked all Paris, singling them out, exploring them
methodically, penciling the streets she had explored on her American Express
Pocket Guide maps, so she wouldn't miss a thing, chatting with ever-increasing
intimacy with gallery owners, as her pitiful high school French was hammered
into a genuine tool of intellectual communication.
That was how she came to know
Jean-Paul and Yvette. Their gallery on rue de Richelieu, close to Palais Royal,
had drawn her again and again. Its interior was lined in glowing cherry boiserie and smelled of a potpourri Madame Grenelle concocted
herself, from lavender, cedar oil and other ingredients that were secret to her
and, she insisted, would die with her.
Monsieur Grenelle, a gallant
figure with a huge white moustache and grandly pomaded head of white hair,
darted-in waists on his jackets and impeccably creased trousers, was an
extrovert who loved meeting his public. He specialized in paintings of the
modern period.
Madame Grenelle, equally
slender and white haired, was a regal presence who fortunately hid her initial
chill behind the heavy cut velvet curtains that separated the gallery from
their personal sitting area. It took several visits before Calypso even knew of
her presence in the gallery, and then only because she asked about a pre-Colombian
terra cotta figurine. Antiquities, it seems, were Madame's specialty, although
the two had been together in both marriage and business for so long that their
expertise in one another's sphere was complete.
Their love of their
respective subjects was enormous and they were gracious and generous in their
willingness to teach. Soon, Calypso was visiting them for an hour or two, each
afternoon, and they were serving her tea in the sitting room behind the green
curtains.
She remembered the day she
had broken through their Gallic reserve; the day they had finally taken her
warmly to their hearts.
Monsieur Grenelle, with great
mystery and flourish, had whipped a drape from an easel, exposing a painting.
"This I have purchased today, for 10,000 francs!" he exclaimed.
Calypso looked with complete
incomprehension at the canvas. It was lurid and hastily daubed in broad brush
strokes that left little raised incrustations of dried paint at their edges.
The subject was a woman's face, slightly green, with contorted lips, as if she
were about to vomit. The entire effect was repulsive.
"10,000 francs!"
"Oui! What a bargain, non?"
"Is that for a single
canvas, or by the truckload?"
There was a long silence,
during which she saw expressions crossing his face like clouds caught on
time-lapse film. Consternation, insult, dismay, disappointment, restraint and
finally calm restored--all while Calypso cowered inside her mortifying
rudeness.
"So you do not like this
painting?"
"Oh Monsieur Grenelle,
please forgive me, I . . . "
"Non, non, non, non,
non. There will be no apology. Tell
me what you are seeing.”
"Well . . . I . . . I
mean, it seems crude to me. Violent. Unhappy. And poorly made, as if the
painter were in a hurry, or just didn't care. And was also in a very bad
mood."
"Ahhh! You have a good
eye. All of what you say is true. Do you know what this painting is?"
"I'm afraid I
don't."
"It is German
Expressionism. A rare painting, long thought to be lost, by Ernst Ludwig
Kirchner, of his favorite model, Dodo. Everything you say about this painting
is true. He has used pairs of complementary colors to make aggressive and
unsettling contrasts. Blue and orange. Red and green. And then, this silly,
fragile pale aqua of her dress, so incompatible with the intensity of the
complementary colors. Colors clash, you know, if they have radically different
values. Really, it's completely ghastly, you're absolutely correct."
Calypso’s shoulders dropped
from around her ears, in relief.
"Kirchner is close to
Matisse in time, you know, a contemporary. But while Matisse painted his joie
de vivre, Kirchner focused on the
tensions of modern life. He saw everything in collapse: morals, religious
faith, mindless mass society. He was much influenced by Edvard Munch, you see,
and by the Fauves. The harsh colors and jagged brush strokes, the crudeness of
the image, all are attempts at authentic expression."
"Oh Monsieur Grenelle, I
must apologize! I am completely mortified! I am too ignorant!" Her French
came out stilted. She felt like a heroine in one of the first talkies, wringing
her hands and wailing her protestations.
"Not at all,
Mademoiselle Searcy. You are young. Beauty is what you are, and it is beauty to
which you respond. It takes time and a sound pummeling by life to appreciate
such art."
"You're very kind . .
."
"Art can become too
rarified, you understand. Too pretty. Then a Kirchner has to come along and rip
the cover off things, show the dynamics, the mechanisms, behind all the show. I
suppose Freud would say, demonstrate the unconscious."
"I guess I'll learn to
appreciate him. Like I have escargot."
"You are still very
young, and untouched, yet, by deep passion. Someday you will know that art,
like sex, should rely as heavily on raw energy as on technique."
Calypso was still young and
inexperienced enough to blush.
It was at that point that
Mousieur Grenelle had taken her kindly by the elbow, saying, "It's time
for a cup of tea. My wife and I have been discussing it, and . . ." he
held the lustrous draperies aside, "we think it is time for you to call us
by our given names. And we you, of course. Please, sit here in the bergère . . ."
With that, they had gone from
vous to tu, and over time Jean-Paul and Yvette became the
grandparents she never had.
. . . .
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