In Montmartre, near the place de Tertre, in the corner of a two-room flat, little Sébastien laid on his pallet of blankets next to Peter, his American friend. It was very cold outside, but inside, the air was cool and thick with cigarette smoke. Peter had already fallen asleep and grown warm to the touch beneath a single bed sheet. Sébastien knew this because he had gently touched Peter’s arm and then his cheek to see if he might wake up and had been surprised by the heat in his skin.
Blankets and scraps of colourful fabric hung via clothespins from a line between nails in opposite walls, cordoning off what served as Sébastien’s room. On the other side of this makeshift wall, he heard one of the adults cough. Because Sébastien did not recognise the hard, rasping cough, he thought it must belong to the strange man. Someone flushed the toilet just before opening the bathroom door. He could hear other things too, smaller things, like the floorboards creaking under the weight of the adults as they moved slowly about the room.
Sébastien and Peter had been sent to bed shortly after the arrival of the strange American painter and her husband. She had entered the main room of the apartment with stacks of unframed paintings under her arms and greeted everyone with kisses on each cheek before unburdening herself of the canvases. The woman had looked familiar to Sébastien–not from his house, but from the café on place de Calvaire, or another adult gathering someplace. The strange man had followed her into the apartment. The woman leaned the canvases against the walls on the floor, and each of the adults: Sébastien’s mother and father, Peter’s mother and father, and the woman herself, had milled around, carefully studying each image. The strange man had gone directly to a chair to make himself comfortable, crossing his legs and rummaging in his pocket for cigarettes. He had looked at Peter and Sébastien and their parents, and at the pieces of furniture in the room, with what seemed to be an equal amount of interest, which is to say, very little, or none at all.
Now that Peter was asleep, under the sheet, his hands sometimes made little movements as if he were building something in his dreams.
On the other side of the blanket, Sébastien’s father, who spoke only French, asked the woman why she painted the women’s portraits from behind.
The woman replied in broken French with an American accent, like that of Peter and his mother and father. “It is like to thwart the gaze of the typical male.”
Everyone paused. Then Sébastien’s father said, “I don’t understand.” Sébastien could almost hear him shrug.
The strange man spoke in English, and his voice was abrasive, like a spoon crunching through a bowl of dry cereal. “She has these ideas.”
“Sure, I’m a feminist,” she said. “If that’s what you mean, honey. But what I’m trying to say, is that the typical male is a voyeur. You can hardly find a painting of a woman without her tits hanging out. Even the Venus of Willendorf, for God’s sake. She’s all tits and ass. So…in my paintings, I paint the back of the women’s bodies to make a point. Do you see how you almost can’t tell they’re women?”
Peter’s father asked her in English, “Do you mean every man is a voyeur?”
His mother said, “Yes, that’s what she’s saying.” Peter’s mother translated the conversation into French for Sébastien’s father.
No one said anything for a moment. Sébastien could hear them twisting in their seats.
Sébastien’s father broke the awkward silence, speaking as he only did on the rarest of occasions, in English, “I’m sorry, but it’s bullshit.”
Sébastien was curious about the paintings now. Because his father was a painter who often solicited women to pose for him, he had seen many naked women, not to mention the paintings his father made to capture the same women in their softest, pinkest states. Sébastien had seen so many nude paintings that he rarely bothered to pay attention–at least not when anyone else was looking. But now he wanted to see what had angered his father.
Sébastien sat up. Peter stirred and settled in again. He let out a long sigh of breath that smelled of copper. Sébastien crawled to the edge of the blanket wall and slowly parted the fabric. He saw first the strange man, who was looking out the window. Then he saw the strange woman, who was scowling at her husband.
His father shook his head, tapped his cigarette, then watched the ashes fall to the floor.
The paintings themselves were realistic depictions of the backs of the heads and shoulders of women, most of whom had short hair—though one wore a long braid.
The strange man with the abrasive voice said, “What do you want from these people, applause?”
“I don’t give a damn what these people think,” she said in English. “Real art isn’t about making friends. It’s about making statements. Of course, people aren’t going to like it, especially not the members of the old guard.” She was looking at Sébastien’s father.
“That’s enough,” the strange man said.
Someone else coughed.
Sébastien’s mother had been trying to get a word in for a moment. He could see her leaning forward and lifting her hand slightly, then lowering it again, her lips parting. She had done this more than once, but no one else seemed to notice.
Sébastien’s father said in French, looking at his mother, “What in the hell is she saying?”
Sébastien’s mother looked at him and shrugged. Then she looked at the woman and said, “I think they’re very strong images.”
The woman glanced at Sébastien’s mother.
Peter’s father stood up and stumbled across the floor. Sébastien could hear him before he could see him. He recognised the uneven steps of his hard-soled boots against the linoleum. This was his manner after a certain time in the evening. In French, he called out, “Where’s my boy?” It was one of the few phrases he knew. Sébastien noticed that he collected a handful of short sentences and phrases and studied the accent carefully. He would throw a few phrases around, especially in cafes, and pretend he understood everything. But when Sébastien asked him questions in French, he would never answer. He only nodded and grinned uneasily.
Sébastien laid down and pretended to be asleep. Peter’s father parted the blankets and leaned over the pallet to pick up his son. Peter opened his eyes, only narrowly, then closed them again, as his father lifted him over his shoulder and said, “It’s time to go, oui?”
Sébastien heard people and chairs shuffling and saw shadows move across the ceiling and the tops of the walls above the blanket partition. Pleasantries were exchanged, and Peter and his family left the American painter and her husband with Sébastien’s mother and father.
Sébastien rolled over to the warm spot where Peter had been. He sniffed the pillow, flipped it over, then rested his head there.
Sebastien’s father asked, “What did she say?”
His mother pretended to translate. But she told him the woman wanted to know what he really thought about the paintings. Surely he had something constructive to say, a word of encouragement for a young artist, considering the fact that he was somewhat influential.
Again, in English, Sébastien’s father said, “Pardon me.” Then to his wife, he said in French, “Tell her she can have all the ideas in the world, but until she demonstrates technical craftsmanship, the ability to express those ideas in a manner people will appreciate visually, her art will be soulless. Then–” he said, and he paused. He stood up and walked to a bookshelf. “There’s a problem with the originality of the notion of painting portraits from behind.” He licked his thumb and flipped through the pages of a large book, then stopped suddenly.
Sébastien sat up and peered between the pieces of fabric again.
In the open book, there was a picture of the back of a man’s head. He stood in front of a mirror, and the mirror reflected the back of his head too, although it should have shown his face. His father said one word, “Magritte.”
Sébastien’s mother looked at the strange woman, as if she were about to translate. The woman was staring at the book, making little movements with her jaw. Sébastien’s mother didn’t say anything.
The strange man stood up, dropped his cigarette to the floor and stepped on it. “Enough abuse for you?” he asked his wife, and he walked to the door. When his hand touched the knob, the woman said, “You could at least help me with my paintings.” He paused and listened, but without turning around. Sébastien only saw the back of his head as he walked out the door and slammed it.
Sébastien’s father shrugged. Then he looked at his wife. She narrowed her eyes and slowly shook her head. His father closed the book and took it to his room. She shut the bedroom door behind him.
The strange woman hurried to pick up her paintings. Sébastien could hear her breathing. Sébastien’s mother’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“That husband of yours is something else,” the woman said.
“Yours too, no?”
“Yeah, well, that’s life, right?”
“I like your paintings. I really do.”
“The worst part is,” the strange woman said. “I knew he’d be like this. Do you understand that feeling, that feeling when you know what’s going to happen, and when it comes true, you’re all the more furious because you saw it coming, because you hoped, despite your better judgment, it might turn out any other way?”
“I don’t care what my husband says. I sincerely admire your work. I feel it.”
Sébastien’s mother picked up the last painting and handed it to her.
“Maybe you’ll pose for me then—you know, sometime.” The painter looked around the room to be sure she hadn’t left anything.
“I was hoping you’d ask me that,” his mother said. She reached out. Her fingertips traced a few fine hairs on the woman’s forearm as if smoothing them down.
The women stared at each other. Sébastien’s mother rubbed the tip of her thumb against the tips of her first and middle fingers. The strange woman put down her stack of paintings quietly. She looked to the closed bedroom door, then back. She leaned forward and kissed Sébastien’s mother on each cheek, slowly. “Thank you,” she said, then she moved a little closer and put her mouth on his mother’s neck. Her lips moved up and down her neck. Her hands were on his mother’s shoulders. One hand dropped to her breast and touched her there. Sébastien’s mother moved in a strange, hypnotised way. “Do you have a studio?” his mother whispered. “When can I come?”
“Would you like to?”
“Very much.”
The woman stepped back. “Now that I know how much you’d like it, I’d rather you didn’t.” She opened the door, then bent to pick up the paintings again.
Sébastien’s mother watched her go, then took in a long breath and closed the door. She went to the chair his father had been sitting in. She curled up there, pulling her knees against her chest. She lit one of his cigarettes and stared at the ceiling.
He studied her carefully through the gap in the fabric wall and wondered what it was all about—the talk about the woman’s paintings and the woman being upset and touching his mother. Her gaze traced the wall. She shook her head very slowly, but her eyes steadied when they suddenly met his.
Sébastien let the blanket slip from his fingers and dropped back onto the pallet. The room was getting colder now. He should’ve quit looking sooner—anytime before that awful moment when their eyes met. He quietly pulled the sheet and a blanket over himself. He put his hands inside his underpants to warm them. He curled up and stayed good and quiet there, hoping sleep would come for him soon, and that his mother would stay in the chair smoking and pretending that she hadn’t seen him.
