Last Lovers. William Wharton
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still sits there. The pigeons are all around her. It is evening and I guess that’s when pigeon mating instincts come to the fore, because two or three cocks are doing the old courtship routine, puffed out, head bobbing, flight feathers dragging, rattling, on the ground, going round in tight circles.
‘Are they dancing their love dance, Jacques?’
‘That’s right, Mirabelle. I guess pigeons spend more time courting than any other creature I know.’
‘But you know pigeons are mated for life. They do their dance around almost any hen, but they are mated for life.’
‘Somebody told me that once, but it’s hard to believe. It certainly would be nice if it were true. I like the idea.’
‘Honestly. Have you ever seen pigeons mating in the streets, in public, as cats, dogs, even other birds do?’
‘No, now you mention it, I never have. Maybe you’ve got something there, Mirabelle, about pigeons teaching humans how to live.’
‘They are only flirting with the hens, showing how they care for, admire, value them. I think it is most beautiful. I thrill to hear their cooing song, hear their feet pounding on the ground, listen to their feathers bristle. It is such a dance of meaningful, purposeless passion.’
She looks up at me in the blueing dusk.
‘You know, Jacques, there is not enough love in this world. Sometimes I think the pigeons are the last lovers in Paris. There seems to be much of sex in these times, but very little of true love, of love that makes all creatures come closer together, that allows one creature to express an inner feeling toward another creature so they know they are important and valuable to them.’
She stands and I help fold her chair. I throw it over the top of my box. I offer her my arm and she takes it.
‘Jacques, would you be my guest at La Palette on the rue de Seine? We can have a cup of coffee or something there. It is a place where artists have long gone. I have not been there for more than ten years, since before Rolande’s death. Please, take me there. It would be such a pleasure for me to hear and feel the excitement of that place.’
I’ve passed the café tens of times but never gone in. Café sitting just doesn’t fit into my budget. I hope I’m not spending Mirabelle’s savings. It doesn’t seem fair or right.
‘If that’s what you want, Mirabelle, let’s go. But I must pay. I’m a rich man. I have a thousand francs in my pocket right now.’
I smile down at her, knowing the smile means nothing, is invisible, she cannot see it, but it makes me feel good. I’m smiling for myself.
She holds tighter on to my arm, not clutching, only tucking herself in closer. It’s a lovely evening and we must make quite a pair walking into La Palette. We find a table in the back and both order a Cointreau. It seems the perfect thing to finish off a good day’s work. It’s going to cost more than a week’s living but it’ll be worth it.
Mirabelle has all her antennae out. I can tell by the almost ecstatic look on her face, the smile, the inner concentration. She’s probably ‘perceiving’ more of this ambience than I am, by far. I close my eyes and try to experience the way she does. While I have my eyes closed, the Cointreau arrives. I can tell it’s there even without opening them. The smell of oranges surrounds us. I wonder if I would have smelled it if I’d been sitting there with my eyes open.
‘Is it not wonderful, Jacques?’
She is fingering the round ballon of Cointreau, spinning it around in her small, pointed, thin-skinned, dainty fingers.
‘I feel everything so strongly it’s almost like seeing.’
We clink glasses, she makes the first move, of course. It’s been a long time since I’ve had Cointreau, and this isn’t the best but it tastes good, not as good as that Poire William, but good on an early spring evening.
We sit sipping and listening. I’m also watching the coming and going, the flirting, the general horsing around of the young people. Why do artists always feel they need to make such a scene all the time? Probably it’s what makes them artists, or makes them want to be artists in the first place. They want, need, to be seen. For some reason, they aren’t sure they are. I wonder how much of that is in me. Probably anyone who has all the love, acceptance they need would never actually create, do, anything. They’d be complete within themselves. That would be the end of writers, poets, painters, singers, musicians, politicians, most of the people who help make the world go around, at least who strive for human communication.
It’s dark when I escort Mirabelle home. She invites me up but I don’t feel like sitting in a dark room while she wouldn’t even know it. I’ll have to buy a few light bulbs and slip them in around her place if I’m ever going to spend any time there.
I have a great walk home, I use the gate code number I learned by watching others punch it in, sneak up the stairs quietly, and settle in. I watch my painting for a long time in the candlelight as I eat a light supper. With all the lunches, I’m not eating up my stew for this week.
Blind Reverie
I feel so brazen. I wonder if he feels it, too, but he means so much to me. He must have some idea of my feelings. even if he can see.
I am confused. Knowing how my pigeons look has taken so much away. I thought my love for them would be more, but it is somehow less. I should have known. I think he is convinced I am childish, calling them by name, but they have been my only companions for so long. I hope he doesn’t mind my calling him Jacques. He cannot know it was the name of my father.
I felt something negative when he came into the apartment. Can it be so dirty, unkempt? I must ask him. But I must go slowly. It was much, asking him to paint me. Now I am glad I did it. I wanted something we could share, a way to keep him near.
I think he likes my food. I could tell by the sounds as he ate. I am so happy to have found him. It is wonderful to have someone with whom I can share my pear in the bottle.
3
The next morning I’m finishing the painting of the Place Furstenberg. I feel in control. The strong movements I established yesterday are holding up as I move into the more descriptive elements. The light is coming through the trees and I’m using a tremendous variety of color to capture the sense of light on the paving of the Place. The painting is somewhere between Impressionism and something different, a new kind of vision for me, a highly personal vision such as Vincent van Gogh had, a conviction that the way I see is valid.
I work all morning and then I feel Mirabelle beside and behind me.
‘I can tell you are happy with your work, Jacques. The bells are ringing, will you déjeuner with me, and then perhaps we can start the portrait.’
How can she possibly know I’m just about finished? Do I give off some kind of ‘satisfaction vibrations’? I scratch my signature in the lower right-hand corner. I pull the canvas off the easel and print in the title, Place Furstenberg, date and sign it on the back. I’m almost tempted to sign it ‘Jacques.’
‘Yes, I’m very happy with the painting. But I don’t think I can start with your portrait because I have no other canvas here with me. I didn’t realize I’d finish this one so quickly. I wish you could see it. It’s the best painting I’ve done and you helped very much.’
‘Thank you. It means much to me to feel I could help. Can you understand what this must mean to someone blind such as I?’
Her face is very serious, then it breaks into a smile and she ‘looks’ down at her feet briefly. She finds my eyes again.
‘Could you not buy a canvas near here? I do not think the shops are closed as yet.’
‘It is very expensive