The Missing Matisse Read online

  “Monsieur Marius,” I say respectfully, “you said you were going to tell me a story.”

  “Oh! Yes. What you see while you are on this trip must be kept secret. You understand?”

  “Yes, Monsieur Marius.”

  The pirate is speaking to me. I am all ears.

  “Because if you speak to anyone—” he leans closer to me—“the gendarmes will arrest you and cut off your ears.” He shifts his eyes in that frightening pirate fashion that one comes to expect from such a cutthroat character.

  “Did the gendarmes cut off Papa’s friend Monsieur Bouliers’s leg?”

  “No! It was the German gendarmes in the last war who did that because he didn’t keep his mouth shut,” Alberto cuts in with a low mysterious tone as he theatrically mimics the cutting of ears and a leg. A shiver goes down my spine. Instinctively, I check my ears and my left leg, too, to make sure they are still attached.

  “The kid won’t say a word,” declares Marius.

  I now feel accepted in the smuggler fraternity. They all pull out their couteaux à cran d’arrêt to slice pieces of sausage. I reach in my pocket for my knife too.

  “Pierrot, where did you get that knife?” Papa asks me with narrowed eyes.

  “From your desk drawer. You never use it.” I shrug just like Papa. What good is it to him if he doesn’t use it? This line of reasoning seems logical to me.

  “I’ve repeatedly told you not to take it!” I can hear the exasperation in my father’s voice.

  “I’m sorry,” I reply, “but I will need it if I meet up with one of Franco’s spies.”

  Doesn’t Papa know that they have been hot on my trail ever since I declared war on General Franco?

  “Besides,” I add, “surely I am not expected to walk around half-naked in these dangerous days, am I?”

  The men burst out laughing, and Marius sprays us with wine and sausage bits from under his long mustache.

  “What’s so funny?” I demand to know.

  This brings more laughter.

  “Stop the engine, Alberto,” my father orders, clearly in command.

  The boat, now silent, drifts in the light swell. In the west, on the horizon, we can see the dark outline of the coast. A few faint lights are visible here and there.

  “That’s the place,” my father points out, after taking a couple of bearings with the compass.

  “Do you think they will come?” asks Marius.

  “They will,” my father says confidently. “They are desperate for guns.”

  The boat rocks on the waves, and all of us settle in to wait.

  “This wine from Banyuls is perfect,” Alberto says as he holds up the canteen.

  Monsieur Marius begins to tell his pirate story again, but my father interrupts him and looks at me. “Pierrot, some of your grandmother Matisse’s ancestors were genuine buccaneers.”

  My eyes widen. Whoa! Now I understand. This explains everything about my father’s character and mine. We are pirates by blood.

  Marius continues his story, and I sit on the edge of the bench and listen as the boat rocks and the stars twinkle above us. Marius’s deep voice is like the lulling of the rocking boat, and I scoot back, fighting a strong urge to fall asleep. Eventually I lose the Battle of Sleep.

  “It’s going to be a long night” are the last words I hear before drifting away into slumber.

  I FALL out of the bunk in the hold. Daylight is streaming through the cracks in the trapdoor. It’s morning. As I get up and sit down on the bunk, I am unexpectedly thrown hard to starboard. The waves roll us up and down. Then I vomit . . . everywhere. I am seasick for the first time in my life. From the deck, I hear voices coming and going.

  “Keep her steady at forty-five degrees.”

  The wind is howling through the short rigging.

  “As soon as we pass the cape, it will calm down.”

  “With this weather, how are we going to fish for sardines?”

  “It will be calm in the bay. I know a good spot. There are plenty of places on the rock bar.”

  “If that wretched wind doesn’t chase the sardines away.”

  “Pass the wine and shut up. You’re always complaining!”

  Eventually the wind dies down, and despite my queasiness, I fall back to sleep.

  When I wake up later, I’m feeling much better. I look around. Something’s amiss. I pull up the tarpaulin. The guns are gone! Where are the guns? Have I slept through the whole contraband deal and missed all the action?

  I scramble up on deck and find my father and Marius taking a nap. Alberto is seated by the tiller, cleaning his crooked pipe.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur Pirate. What’s up?” he asks me with a broad smile.

  “You didn’t wake me to help with the guns! I thought we were in this together.”

  “You were only a reserve.” Alberto’s answer has saved my pride, yet I’m still disappointed. But being in the fresh air has settled my stomach.

  “I’m hungry and thirsty,” I say sullenly.

  “We can’t risk mutiny,” he says with an indulgent smile. “Here is water mixed with wine, and a piece of bread with a few dried figs. There is nothing else left to eat, but soon we will have plenty of sardines.” Alberto passes me a canteen and the food.

  The bread and figs taste great, but the water and wine taste like the aluminum canteen. Yuck! Soon I curl up on deck and fall asleep again, and when I wake, the three men are pulling the net from the sea. It seems as though a million or more shiny sardines are jumping into the woven baskets and onto the slippery deck. We return to the harbor late in the afternoon.

  I see Maman waiting on the docks with a few friends, watching us closely.

  “Uh-oh,” Papa says.

  When I leap from the boat onto the dock, Maman takes me in her arms. She is crying. “Are you okay, Bunny Rabbit?” she asks. I’m stunned by this emotional display of her relief that I am alive. I thought for certain that she was going to be very upset with me. On top of that, usually my mother lives in her own world. Her focus is on her art, Papa, and Gérard. My younger brother requires more attention than me because he is a small boy. Though I understand that she loves me, I often feel like a spectator in her life.

  I savor this moment in her arms. Then she looks at Papa, who is still on the boat. She still holds me, but her body goes rigid, and her tone changes.

  “Jean, you are totally irresponsible. How could you take him on such an outing? This is it! All you can think of is boats and sardines, but what about how I feel?”

  Papa drops a net onto the deck. “It was not my idea to take Tatiou. He was under a tarpaulin.”

  My parents quarrel for a while, but with my safe return and buckets full of fish, Maman’s anger fades, and soon the two of them kiss and make up.

  I lucked out on this adventure. Gunrunning, pirates, fishing—and I’m not even in trouble with Maman!

  Papa builds a bonfire on the beach, and he grills the fresh sardines on charcoal right there in the sand. The sun falls into the sea as I sit happily on a dry net next to Papa. I hold a sardine by the head in one hand and the tail in the other and eat everything in between, leaving only the backbone, a method Monsieur Picasso has taught me. It is divinely delicious. A pirate never eats sardines from cans.

  With stomachs full, our friends leave to go home. I lean back and contemplate the sky and sea. The oil lamp hanging from a pole behind us makes the flecks of sardine scales stuck in my father’s beard shine like diamonds. Slowly he extends his right arm, holding a sardine in his hand and pointing it toward the sky.

  “Look, Tatiou. By the tail of the sardine, you’ll see the constellation of Orion. Orion is the most magnificent constellation in the whole sky. It is the constellation of the hunters. In Greek mythology, Orion was a giant hunter slain by Artemis.”

  I take note. I have to see to this Artemis for slaying the great Orion. I stare into the sky at the magnificent Orion shining with a glorious mystery and feel goose bumps prick
le all over my skin.

  This is what I like most about Papa. He doesn’t just tell me about ordinary things. He gives me history lessons and tells me fascinating and important things concerning life to stimulate my curiosity.

  Then nature calls and I trek off into the dark. When I return, the lantern has been turned off, and Papa and Maman are in each other’s arms, tenderly kissing. Such moments make me pause with wonder at my parents, who are so happy and in love.

  PAPA OFTEN TAKES Maman, Gérard, and me on picnics in the Pyrenees. We travel in his Mathis car, a brand that sounds like our name, Matisse. In fact, I believe we own the car factory, and I brag about it to anybody who will listen.

  Papa drives on rough roads, almost trails, way out in the wilderness, and we bounce all over in the car like dice in a gambling tumbler. Even so, I’m able to enjoy the view. Grassy slopes undulate in the wind, creating a range of color I have never seen anywhere else. Some fields are covered with jonquils of a yellow so beautiful that I could not possibly paint them or capture their vibrancy. I take this all in as I grip the seat for safety.

  “Be careful, Jean! Slow down. This road is terrible,” Maman complains on a particularly bouncy excursion.

  “This is not a road,” Papa says. “It’s a pathway to a Roman marble quarry that was abandoned long ago.”

  Maman appears as intrigued as I am. She must realize what a privilege it is to experience such magnificent beauty and history because her attitude changes. “Next time I shall take a cushion to put under my bottom,” she says with a smile.

  The days in Collioure are rich with memories for me. It is a time in paradise, the calm before the storm.

  Then, abruptly, everything changes.

  Perhaps it is my mischief that causes my parents to follow through with their threats to send me away, or maybe it’s some influence of this new regime in Germany led by some newly appointed man with a strange little mustache. I overhear my parents and their artist friends discussing and debating about this in the bistros and cafés.

  Whatever precipitates it, one day in 1936, when I am eight years old, Tata arrives at our house. When she sees me, this small woman takes me in her arms and hugs me so tightly that it surprises me, even as a boy of eight.

  She has come to take me to live with her in Paris.

  3

  TATA

  Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge.

  ARTHUR RIMBAUD

  PARIS AND TATA ARE SYNONYMOUS.

  Her legal name is Henriette Escousse, but if I could have a say, it would be changed to Saint Henriette. This adorable lady, in her mid-sixties, is a teacher by profession and a recognized scholar in Paris. She was born in the City of Light and has lived here all her life. This fact makes her a true Parisienne.

  Tata’s whole personality radiates kindness and love toward me. She quickly becomes my favorite person in all the world. However, under her small and frail physical appearance resides a will of tempered steel and the courage of a lion. I have been told stories of Tata all my life, particularly how she was decorated with the prestigious Légion d’honneur for organizing the evacuation of her students under fire from the monstrous German howitzer, Big Bertha, a gun used by the German army to bombard Paris during World War I.

  I have mixed emotions as I say good-bye to Papa, Maman, and Gérard. I’m sad that I am being sent away, but these feelings are quickly replaced by the excitement of this new adventure on the horizon.

  We are traveling to Paris by train, powered by a steam locomotive. I try to get a good look at it from the platform before we depart. The locomotive fascinates me, and I want to study how it works. But it’s time to board so Tata hurries me along. On the train, I settle into my seat by the window. On this route from the south of France to the north, the scenery is mesmerizing. We go through ancient-looking villages, past ruins of castles on hillsides, over green rolling countryside, and beside vineyards as far as the eye can see. Mountain ranges rise from the horizon, and valleys stretch from farm to farm. I’m in awe of the beauty of my homeland and bombard Tata with questions.

  “What color of cheese would that cow make? Would a spotted cow make spotted cheese? Who lived in that castle over there?” and on and on for nearly the entire twelve-hour journey.

  Finally we arrive in Paris! Although I was born here, this is really my first time being aware of it all.

  What an extreme contrast this city is compared to tranquil Collioure. When we arrive at the Paris railway terminal, Tata is tired. The long trip, along with my nonstop bombardment of questions, has gotten the best of her. Yet what patience she has with me—she hasn’t even lost her smile.

  “Porter! Here, please,” signals Tata as we get off the train.

  “Madame, this steamer trunk is very heavy,” the porter remarks, puffing heavily as he loads it into the trunk of the cab. “It’s unusually heavy for a regular tourist.”

  Before we left Collioure, I threw a whale of a tantrum to get a special package inside the big trunk of the taxi. I was so insistent and the theatrics of my scene were so outrageous that finally the big people gave in.

  “Tatiou, I would like to know why this package that you have insisted on taking is the heaviest of all our luggage?” Tata asks as she dips regally into the cab.

  “It’s a gift for you, Tata,” I say as I settle into the seat beside her. The taxi driver quickly merges into the lane, zigzagging in the heavy traffic.

  “And what is it, dear?”

  Excitedly I reply, “It is a surprise, Tata. I made it myself, especially for you.”

  On our drive from the railway terminal to Tata’s apartment, my face is pressed against the window, taking in the buildings and the people on the streets. The traffic is congested, with horse carts, cars going in all directions, and buses with back balconies. People are rushing everywhere. I want to see everything and understand what I’m seeing.

  I WILL FORGET most of the addresses where I have lived during my life, except for two: one on the French Riviera with my family and Tata’s address: 23 rue Morère, on the fourth floor of an apartment building in the fourteenth arrondissement (district) of Paris. It is located not far from Montparnasse in le quartier des artistes, the artists’ district. Now I am an artist living in the mecca of the arts. With my mini watercolor paint set from Monsieur Maillol, I am quite certain that my artistic abilities will grow by leaps and bounds.

  There is no elevator in Tata’s building, so the taxi driver has to wrestle with the luggage all the way up the stairs. When he starts to complain, Tata says, “Elevators are bad for your heart.”

  “Not if you drive a taxi all day, Madame,” he replies, completely out of breath.

  “I’ll give you a good tip,” she says. When he hears this, his face lights up.

  When all of the luggage has been brought up and the taxi driver is on his way with Tata’s generous tip, I am ready to give my aunt her gift. I watch her unwrap the colorful paper, and I hear a gasp. She must be pleased, I think.

  Inside is a large beach stone with a special name: a galet. This galet is well polished by the surf of the Mediterranean and still has the salty pungent odor of the sea. Its large, flat surface was the perfect canvas for me to paint my first masterpiece: a nautical scene with blue sky and white clouds above the sea, where a sailing ship is being carried by the wind, its sails full and billowing. In the right corner of the painting is the signature of the famous artist himself: Tatiou.

  “What a wonderful boat, Pierre!” Tata says, her eyes clouded with tears. She is touched by my gift.

  “It’s not just a boat, Tata. It’s a pirate ship—the Orion.”

  Even though it has already been a long day, Tata listens to my wildly exaggerated version of Marius’s pirate tales.

  Finally, she says, “I have a gift for you, too, Pierre,” and leads me to the guest bedroom where I will be staying. In the corner on the floor, sitting on its own stand, is a magnificent model sloop, decorated with a red ribbon. A bea
utiful card is attached that reads: “To Pierre, Welcome to Paris. With love, Tata.”

  It is the first toy I have ever been given.

  “We shall sail her in the Tuileries pond,” Tata promises.

  “Yes! But before her maiden voyage, she needs an anchor, and I have to paint her name on the bow,” I reply.

  “And what will that be, Pierre?”

  “Orion, Tata.”

  “But of course,” she muses with a grin.

  DAY TWO IN PARIS. I pick up Tata’s newspaper on the dining room table and can’t believe what I see. It’s a jumble of words that I cannot read. Frustrated, I start to panic, profusely swearing in Spanish as I pace back and forth. Tata calmly and firmly demands an apology and an explanation for my outburst. I deliver both immediately. As she takes the offensive paper from me, she smiles and places her arm around my shoulder.

  “I know how to solve this problem,” she says with confidence. That morning we go to the bookstore, and she buys me a thick red volume entitled Le Petit Larousse Illustré, a French-language encyclopedic dictionary. This is my lifeline. I carry it everywhere with me and sleep with it by my pillow at night. Tata has given me the key to knowledge.

  I fall in love with Paris, enticed by her promises of wonderful opportunities for an innovative and adventurous spirit like me. At every opportunity, Tata takes me out to explore the streets of Paris.

  Everywhere I look there is an extraordinary spectacle. Merchants with wooden carts overflowing with an abundance of fresh vegetables and colorful fragrant flowers. I am taken with the street musicians: violinists, a singer accompanied by an accordionist, and a cappella singers who pass their hats for a few francs after their performances. There are discreet businessmen selling contraband on the sly out of their suitcases, keeping their eyes open for the flics with their white batons. The cops’ uniforms have black capes that take dramatic shapes on windy days.

  This amazing show never stops.

  There are gypsies in colorful clothing, with golden earrings, who have large black bears with rings in their noses that are tied to a rope. The bears go up on their hind legs, which makes them very tall, and they dance to the sound of tambourines while the gypsy women pester passersby, offering palm readings guaranteed to fulfill their dreams.