My Uncle Oswald(54)

“You might at least tell me what he was like as a person.”

“Sparkling bright,” she said. “Oh, he was so sparkling bright and so quick and clever. He has a huge head and a nose like a boiled egg.”

“Is he a genius?”

“Yes,” she said, “he’s a genius. He’s got the spark, the same as Monet and Renoir.”

“What is this spark?” I said. “Where is it? Is it in the eyes?”

“No,” she said. “It isn’t anywhere special. It’s just there. You know it’s there. It’s like an invisible halo.”

I made fifty straws from Stravinsky.

Next it was Picasso’s turn. He had a studio at that time in the rue de la Boétie and I dropped Yasmin off in front of a rickety-looking door with brown paint peeling off it. There was no bell or knocker so Yasmin simply pushed it open and went in. Outside in the car I settled down with La Cousine Bette, which I still think is the best thing the old French master ever wrote.

I don’t believe I had read more than four pages when the car door was flung open and Yasmin tumbled in and flopped onto the seat beside me. Her hair was all over the place and she was blowing like a sperm whale.

“Christ, Yasmin! What happened?”

“My God!” she gasped. “Oh, my God!”

“Did he throw you out?” I cried. “Did he hurt you?”

She was too out of breath to answer me at once. A trickle of sweat was running down the side of her forehead. She looked as though she’d been chased around the block four times by a maniac with a carving knife. I waited for her to simmer down.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re bound to have one or two washouts.”

“He’s a demon!” she said.

“What did he do to you?”

“He’s a bull! He’s like a little brown bull!”

“Go on.”

“He was painting on a huge canvassy thing when I went in and he turned round and his eyes opened so wide they became circles and they were black and he shouted ‘Ole’ or something like that and then came towards me very slowly and sort of crouching as though he was going to spring. .

“And did he spring?”

“Yes,” she said. “He sprang.”

“Good Lord.”

“He didn’t even put his paint-brush down.”

“So you had no chance to get the mackintosh on?”

“Afraid not. Didn’t even have time to open my purse.”

“Hell.”

“I was hit by a hurricane, Oswald.”

“Couldn’t you have slowed him down a bit? You remember what you did to old Woresley to make him keep still?”

“Nothing would have stopped this one.”

“Were you on the floor?”

“No. He threw me onto a filthy sofa thing. There were tubes of paint everywhere.”

“It’s all over you now. Look at your dress.”

“I know.”

One couldn’t blame Yasmin for the failure, I knew that. But I felt pretty ratty all the same. It was our first miss. I only hoped there wouldn’t be many more.

“Do you know what he did afterwards?” Yasmin said. “He just buttoned up his trousers and said, ‘Thank you, mademoiselle. That was very refreshing. Now I must get back to my work.’ And he turned away, Oswald! He just turned away and started painting again!”

“He’s Spanish,” I said, “like Alfonso.” I stepped out of the car and cranked the starting handle and when I got back in again, Yasmin was tidying her hair in the car mirror. “I hate to say it,” she said, “but I rather enjoyed that one.”

“I know you did.”

“Phenomenal vitality.”

“Tell me,” I said, “is Monsieur Picasso a genius?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was very strong. He will be wildly famous one day.”

“Damn.”

“We can’t win them all, Oswald.”

“I suppose not.”

Matisse was next.

Yasmin was with Monsieur Matisse for about two hours and blow me if the little thief didn’t come out with yet another painting. It was sheer magic, that canvas, a Fauve landscape with trees that were blue and green and scarlet, signed and dated 1905.

“Terrific picture,” I said.

“Terrific man,” she said. And that was all she would say about Henri Matisse. Not a word more.

Fifty straws.





18





MY TRAVELLING CONTAINER of liquid nitrogen was beginning to fill up with straws. We now had King Alfonso, Renoir, Monet, Stravinsky, and Matisse. But there was room for a few more. Each straw held only one-quarter cc of fluid, and the straw itself was only slightly thicker than a matchstick and about half as long. Fifty straws stacked neatly in a metal rack took up very little room. I decided we could accommodate three more batches on this trip, and I told Yasmin we would be visiting Marcel Proust, Maurice Ravel, and James Joyce. All of them were living in the Paris area.