Cooking for Picasso by Camille Aubray

Author:Camille Aubray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

Ondine in September, 1936

PICASSO HAD SIMPLY VANISHED FROM the face of the earth as far as Ondine was concerned, for Paris was as far away as the moon to her. And now that Ondine no longer had an artist to cook for, her mother was keeping her on a short leash, not only cooking but waiting on tables during the busy summer season. Her father expected her to turn over her tips to him at each day’s end. It was as if her parents sensed that she must be constantly watched in order to get her to the altar on her wedding day.

But as the summer months faded, no one, least of all Ondine, grasped what was actually happening to her until, just a few weeks before the wedding, she went to the dressmaker who was altering Madame Belange’s bridal gown to fit Ondine. But now, in what was supposed to be just the final fitting, suddenly the gown could not be buttoned at Ondine’s waist.

“I’ll have to let out the seams,” the dressmaker observed. There was a silence, punctured only by the sound of the scissors picking out the threads. “I’d say it’s about four months,” she said finally.

Ondine, standing on the tufted footstool, saw her own startled expression reflected in three mirrors around her. “It can’t be true,” she whispered. “I’m just eating too much, that’s all.” But with a sinking heart she knew the real reason why she’d been feeling so strange and a little sick at times.

The dressmaker gave her a sharp, no-nonsense look. “I’ve seen more brides like you than I can count,” she said with certainty. “You are going to have a child.”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Ondine said in panic, thinking of her parents.

“Of course not. We can drape some lace here, like an overskirt around your hips,” the woman said, pinning the lace to show her, then sitting back on her heels and gazing at Ondine with a sympathy so rare that she nearly burst into tears. “Does Monsieur Renard know?” the dressmaker asked, looking doubtful, for no one could imagine the fastidious baker taking such advantage of his future bride.

“No!” Ondine cried out in anguish. The dressmaker’s little black dog, who’d been asleep with his back against the stool, sprang up in alarm at her desperate outburst, then whimpered in sympathy.

“Is it Monsieur Renard’s baby?” the dressmaker asked. Ondine’s blush was her answer. “Does the father know?” the woman said in a low voice.

Ondine bit her lip, then shook her head. For weeks she’d bicycled to Picasso’s villa in the hope that he would return. Yet he never did. The villa was rented to other summer people, and Ondine felt foolish, mournfully skulking about with strangers gazing back at her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Picasso had somehow taken her heart, mind and soul with him, leaving behind only a ghost of a girl.

Then one day she saw a newspaper photo of Picasso in St. Tropez—with that photographer Dora Maar by his side, looking triumphant.

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