Interviewing Matisse, or the Woman Who Died Standing Up Read online

  Molly said, “Is it that late? Hold on just one more minute—what was I saying? Oh, how Price told Claude-Marie he was going to Cincinnati while Price was watering the gardenia plants—Inez’s gardenias—and while Claude-Marie was turning out the lights, and you know what else Claude-Marie said, Lily? Claude-Marie said, Price looked as if he had fallen into a trance. Price looked a lot older, and the whole time too, while Price was watering the gardenia plants and picking off the dead leaves, Fiddle, Claude-Marie said—oh, Fiddle! Fiddle is her name, Lily! Price’s new wife’s name! Thank God! I knew all along I would remember Fiddle eventually. And I knew too, the way to remember Fiddle was not to think about it. To think about something else. But, Lily, what can Fiddle possibly stand for? I am asking you, do you know, Lily? Nora might know—she and Fiddle take the same yoga class—but what was I saying? Oh, Fiddle. Fiddle, Claude-Marie said, was asking Price while he was watering the gardenia plants what he was going to do with them. Fiddle was telling Price he could not throw these plants out and he could not keep the plants either, and all the time, according to Claude-Marie, Price was acting as if he could not hear Fiddle—could not hear what Fiddle was saying to him. Price never once answered Fiddle, and Fiddle—I already told you, Lily—was wearing those rubber gloves, and this was when Claude-Marie said to her: No good deed goes unpunished.”

  I said, “Molly, what? You have to speak into the receiver, I can’t hear you again. What did Claude-Marie say to Fiddle?”

  Molly said, “No good deed goes unpunished is Claude-Marie’s favorite American expression. This and Be careful what you wish for. There is no way, Claude-Marie says, you can translate these expressions into French. In French, Claude-Marie says, these expressions make no sense. Like As I Lay Dying, the Faulkner novel—the classic example of the untranslatable. As a matter of fact, Lily, this is what we talked about in the car. No, not the Faulkner novel—Be careful what you wish for. The time I was telling you about. The time the plane crashed and I told Yuri that lying and wishing were not the same thing. The reason I told Yuri the plane crashed, was that the baggage door blew open. This had nothing to do with me, I said. Anyway, I should know better than to feel guilty and than to listen to Yuri—Yuri is nothing but a superstitious old peasant from Russia. The money too, Lily. The five hundred dollars is what I am thinking about now, and if I had lent Inez the thousand she wanted, Inez would have spent it. Spent the money on Kevin. Spent the money on something. To be honest—to be honest with you, Lily—only I don’t like to say this, this is the trouble with lending people money. The five hundred dollars is gone. Gone forever. Most of the time—you know me, Lily—most of the time, I never think about money. Claude-Marie is the one who thinks about money. Claude-Marie thinks about money all the time. When I was young, Lily, I never had any money. Not a centime, Lily. If I had had money then, I would have never done half the things I have done. I would never, for instance, have met the French count. I would never have met Matisse, Lily. Henri Matisse.”

  I said, “Oh, yes, you told me about meeting Matisse already, Molly.”

  Molly said, “I was just lucky was what. I was lucky, too, to meet the count. The time I lived with the count in the abandoned razor blade factory was the happiest time in my life. Swear to God, Lily. I never had to do anything, and the count too, was so punctual. Every night at seven o’clock sharp, I heard his car arrive—a Citroen. The kind of car French officials drive. The kind of car that sinks into itself with kind of a relieved groan when it stops. I would watch from the window, Lily, as the count pulled up in front of the abandoned factory door. I would watch as the count took out the packages from the back of the car, packages of pate and wine. I watched how the count would open the hard-to-open door with this large metal key, a key that looked like the key to a medieval city—Lily?”

  I said, “Hmmm—yes.”

  Molly said, “But, Lily, you should have tasted the wine. Wine from the count’s own vineyard, a vineyard somewhere near Bordeaux. A vineyard that had belonged to the count’s father and to the count’s father’s father before that. The count said he could trace his ancestry all the way back to before the French Revolution and to Louis the Fourteenth. So could his wife. Isabelle. Isabelle and I are still good friends, Lily. As a matter of fact, Isabelle is how I met Claude-Marie. Through Isabelle’s sister.”

  I said, “Isabelle has a sister? You know what time it is, Molly?”

  Molly said, “Oh, God, it’s late, I know. We should get off the phone. But I told you, didn’t I, about Isabelle’s sister? About how Isabelle and her sister met Matisse. A kind of coincidence. I mean Matisse and the French count. No, no, no, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t sleep with Matisse. Neither did Isabelle. The whole point of the story, Lily, is that when they were children—Isabelle and her sister—their mother was invited to have tea with Matisse and with somebody else, somewhere in the south of France where Isabelle’s mother went every summer. While Isabelle’s mother was having tea, Isabelle and her sister were playing in the garden and all of a sudden, Matisse came out. Isabelle said she got frightened, so did her sister, frightened Matisse would ask them what they were doing there in his garden. But Matisse just took a pee. Afterwards, Matisse went up to Isabelle and her sister—Isabelle and her sister were about the same height then—and Matisse asked Isabelle if she and her sister were twins.”

  I said, “Twins? Oh, I think I’ve heard this story before. I think you’ve told me this story, Molly, only I can’t remember.”

  Molly said, “But since Isabelle was still frightened and she did not want to contradict Matisse, Isabelle said: Yes, yes—they, she and her sister, were twins. Later—and after she had finished her tea—Isabelle’s mother told Isabelle she was curious and she had seen Isabelle through the window outside in the garden talking to Matisse, and what, Isabelle’s mother wanted to know, had Matisse said. Since Isabelle did not want to tell her mother that she had lied to Matisse, Isabelle told her mother that Matisse had asked her what her favorite color was. Isabelle told her mother: Blue. Isabelle said she had told Matisse blue was her favorite color, and Matisse, Isabelle said, had told her, blue, was his, too. And from then on, Isabelle’s mother went around telling everyone that she knew for certain what Matisse’s favorite color was. But what I like best about this story, Lily, is that blue was probably Matisse’s favorite color all along. Blue is the most popular color. Yellow is the least. Yellow is the most difficult and someone—oh, yes, I know—it was Inez. Inez said yellow was supposed to give you an appetite. This was why the insides of restaurants were painted yellow. So were the tablecloths and the napkins yellow. But when Price overheard Inez say this—this was right here in Old Saybrook, Lily—Price shouted across the table at Inez: What about van Gogh, Inez? Van Gogh’s sunflowers do not make me hungry. Van Gogh’s sunflowers are tragic. I’ll never forget this—the way Price shouted. The way I’ll never forget Price in Paris, Lily. Price in his plaid jacket. Price on the Boulevard Montparnasse, Price climbing to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Good exercise, he said. Price ran—remember? Price ran a marathon. He ran the time the woman took the subway and cheated—I forget her name. Inez would know. I know Inez would remember. The woman’s name was just the kind of thing Inez would remember. The way Inez could remember birthdays. Not just birthdays of relatives. Inez could remember Natalie Wood’s birthday—October eleventh. Inez also used to cut out clippings from newspapers and magazines. Inez would send them to me. Those clippings must be around here somewhere—somewhere in with the interview probably, and in with the coupon for a free meal and cocktail. Here! Oh, Lily, isn’t this amazing? Isn’t this a coincidence? Swear to God—right here—I found one of the clippings Inez sent me. You won’t believe this. Lily, this is the one about a woman who found a live hand grenade in her bag of potatoes and the woman—wait, I am rereading this—the woman lived in Neuilly, which was why, I guess, Inez—oh, and Neuilly is right on the other side of the Bois de Boulogne, Lily. But Claude-Marie—this is what I told Inez
—Claude-Marie does all the shopping and anyway, Claude-Marie does not eat potatoes any more. Brussels sprouts, too. Claude-Marie does not eat brussels sprouts either any more on account of the war. And it makes no difference, Lily, that I have told Claude-Marie that the war was over forty years ago and that he was only a small boy then, and I have told you, Lily, haven’t I, how Claude-Marie is not always practical? As a matter of fact, just now, I told Claude-Marie since he had to drive all the way to the morgue, he might as well kill two birds with one stone and buy himself an airline ticket. Only I said: Claude-Marie, please, for God’s sakes, don’t buy a ticket on Air India.”

  I said, “Air India? What’s wrong with Air India? I’ve flown Air India. The food on Air India is delicious. They serve curry—oh. Was it Air India that crashed, Molly, while you were in the car with Yuri and Price?”

  Molly said, “Bibi too. Don’t forget, Lily, Bibi was in the car, and, no, it was British Airways. A DC-10 Airbus. I never saw so much smoke in my life. On the highway, the cars had to turn on their headlights. This was right in the middle of the day—around noon, I would say. We had not had lunch yet. Lunch was what Claude-Marie and I had argued about and why I told Claude-Marie to call his sister, Dominique, and tell her we had had an accident. I had also told Bibi she could look at the horses. The horses at Chantilly, and while Bibi was looking at the horses, I had told Yuri he could go over to the chateau and look at the book of hours—the famous book of hours of the duke of Something-Somebody-or-other. At the time, Lily, I did not realize they no longer exhibited the real book of hours, they exhibited a facsimile. Anyhow. As it turned out, none of this mattered. Claude-Marie turned the car rightaround and we drove back to Paris. I remember, Price said he was just as glad. No, not glad about the plane crash, glad about going back to Paris. Since this was his last day, Price said he wanted to take another look at Notre Dame. I said I would go with him. No—you know me, Lily, I am not religious, and Price is a Quaker. I just like to sit and listen to the music. The organ music, and the one real regret I have in my whole life besides the French count is that I cannot play an instrument. Why I make Bibi take piano lessons. Piano lessons from Mademoiselle Boudemange. Oh, and did I tell you this? Did I tell you, Lily, that Mademoiselle Boudemange said she knew Artur Rubinstein? As a matter of fact, Mademoiselle Boudemange said that Artur Rubinstein gave her a piano—a Bechstein. But the Bechstein is not the piano Bibi practices on. Mademoiselle Boudemange won’t let her. No. Bibi practices on a Yamaha.”

  I said, “A Yamaha? I thought a Yamaha was a motorcycle, Molly.”

  Molly said, “Lily, the only thing I know about motorcycles is that Jerome has one, which is another reason why I worry about Bibi. I told you, Dominique is in the real estate business and Dominique is away all day in her car, and who, I ask you, is looking after Bibi? The fat Portuguese babysitter and Jerome? Jerome is Dominique’s adopted son, and who knows what Jerome is up to right now. Jerome and Véronique—Véronique is Jerome’s sister—I do not trust either one of these adopted children, which was why I told Claude-Marie—after he identified Inez at the morgue—to go buy the ticket, but Claude-Marie said tomorrow. By the time he had finished, the airline office, Claude-Marie said, would be closed. Oh—I forgot to tell Claude-Marie about the car. I forgot to tell Claude-Marie that today is Wednesday if it is alternate parking. I’ll always remember, Lily, how when I was first married I used to sit in the car for two hours and read the newspaper. I have never been so well informed in my life. I read the sports page, I read the stock market report, I even read the obituaries. You would be surprised too, Lily, at how much you can learn from the obituaries. Really, I am not kidding, which reminds me, at Harvard, Claude-Marie—Claude-Marie, you know, Lily, went to the Harvard Business School. A lot of Frenchmen do. Harvard is the only American school Frenchmen have heard of. But what was I saying? Oh, I know, Claude-Marie had a professor who told his students that the only thing they needed to read to pass his course were the obituaries. Frankly, I am not sure Harvard did Claude-Marie much good, and I am not even going to mention that crook again, Thomas Hamlin Aldrich. He went to the Harvard Business School too, Lily. This was where Claude-Marie met him. One thing I do know, I am not going to go to Claude-Marie’s twenty-fifth reunion with him. I never went to my own—my own high school reunion. The only person I want to see again is Amy. And I do see Amy anyway. I see Amy at funerals. Charlie, too. Only Charlie was not in my class at high school. Charlie was a freshman at UVA. Charlie, Lily, was the one who caused all that ruckus by putting the raven inside Edgar Allan Poe’s room, and he was the one about whom the man from the S.P.C.A. said: People like Charlie should be locked up. Oh, but what time did you say it was now? It’s too late, I guess, to call Claude-Marie about the alternate parking. But what was I saying? Charlie? The funny thing, Lily, is that Charlie is locked up, only Charlie is locked up for a different reason. It is too late, isn’t it? I would hate to wake up Nora. Nora works hard, and I have always said that a simultaneous translator at the United Nations has a huge responsibility. This is what I tell Bibi, Lily.”

  I said, “Molly, you took the words right out of my mouth—speaking another language is a big asset. Have I told you yet how I have joined a French conversation club?”

  Molly said, “Me, too—first thing I did was to take French lessons. And luckily Matisse spoke a little English. Otherwise, I would not have understood a word Matisse said, which was what I said to Havier. Havier speaks fluent Spanish. Price, too, is a good example. French would have come in handy the time Price wanted to buy Inez a souvenir and I said: Get her perfume or get her a scarf—and Claude-Marie was right. Claude-Marie was right when he said that Price had made money by selling a sculpture and that Price felt guilty for not bringing Inez to Paris, and the reason I remember this so vividly, Lily, was that this was during dinner and I had just told Claude-Marie how Price and I had had the drink on Boulevard Montparnasse, and Claude-Marie said: Too bad, too, about Inez. Too bad Inez did not come to Paris with Price, and I said to Claude-Marie: Too bad about whom? Who is this Inez anyhow that you are talking about? All this was while we were eating the tart, Lily. I swear to you, and Claude-Marie, I remember, said how he had bought the lemon tart from Madame Florisson on rue du Bac. Claude-Marie said how although it was a Sunday, the bakery was open, and Claude-Marie said how he had talked to Madame Florisson—no—Madame Florisson, Lily, is not the woman with the goiter, Madame Florisson is the woman with the daughter-in-law. And according to Claude-Marie, Madame Florisson’s daughter-in-law had just arrived from Nantes the day before because the next day, Monday—and Monday, Claude-Marie also said, the bakery would be closed—the daughter-in-law had an appointment to see a specialist about her kidneys, and Bibi, who was at the table with us, asked me where the kidneys were. I told Bibi I had no idea. I told Bibi, I did not have the foggiest notion. I still don’t.”

  I said, “I always get where the kidneys and the liver are mixed up.”

  Molly said, “The lemon tart, too, was delicious and you cannot find a lemon tart like this in Connecticut, but what was I saying? Oh, Price—Price wanted to buy Inez something. Men, too, Lily, are funny this way—I am speaking of presents. Take Claude-Marie. Claude-Marie gave up after the red sweater. The red sweater Claude-Marie gave me was definitely the wrong kind of red. Except for someone like Inez. Inez was someone who could get away with wearing red. Inez wore a red wool dress in Old Saybrook the time Suzanne and Harry came for dinner and the time I was telling you about when we argued about the crystals and Jackie Kennedy. Oh, and after dinner, I remember, Inez spoke Spanish to Havier. Funny the things you remember. At first, Inez said she could not remember any—any Spanish that is—but once she started to talk to Havier, Spanish, Inez said, came back to her and—oh, Lily, I’ll never forget this either—it was strange too, to hear Inez talk in another language. In another language, Inez looked more animated. And it was funny how Price said he did not remember any Spanish. Price said he did not remember as much Spa
nish as Inez did, and Inez said this was because Price was always locked up in his studio, while she, Inez, was out doing the marketing and talking to all the people, and Price said as far as he was concerned, Spain was a mistake, and Price was probably thinking of the boy Jesus. Of Jesus Ramirez. I told you, Lily, how Price told Fiddle the water was running and he had walked in on them. Anyway—or, so Nora said. Only I don’t believe everything Nora says. I don’t believe what Nora said about Mercedes, her sister, and I don’t believe what Nora said about Yuri and all the women on her sofa bed—the same sofa bed Claude-Marie is sleeping on right this minute, Lily—oh, and the lobsters. Did you hear about the lobsters, Lily? This is funny, because last year, when Yuri came to New York for his show, the plane—the Air India plane—instead of landing in New York the way it was supposed to, the plane landed in Bangor, Maine. Poor Yuri, Lily. Yuri had to clear customs in Bangor, and while Yuri was waiting to reboard the plane, Yuri bought the lobsters. Yuri said he bought the lobsters to bring to Ivan and Nora as a kind of house present and as a thank-you for letting him sleep on their sofa bed. Yuri also said he told Nora what the woman at the Bangor airport who had sold him the lobsters had said. The woman told Yuri that he had to cook the lobsters alive in boiling water.”

  I said, “I know, Molly. Everyone knows this—the water has to come to a rolling boil.”

  Molly said, “Only neither Ivan nor Yuri would do it, Lily—boil the lobsters alive, I mean. They told Nora that they were Russian and that they couldn’t possibly. Nora had to. I tell you, Lily, Yuri got away with murder in New York. In New York, there is a whole network of Russians: Russian waiters, Russian poets, Russian taxicab drivers—Inez’s cab driver, remember? The cab driver Inez said fuck you to, the day we had lunch, the same day Inez asked me for the money—and you know what I keep thinking, Lily? I keep thinking five hundred dollars is a lot of money. I keep thinking you can do a lot with five hundred dollars—my Leica, for example. I sold Yuri my Leica for five hundred dollars but Yuri has only paid me for half of it. Yuri still owes me two hundred and fifty dollars. The last time I reminded Yuri about the Leica, Yuri said—and you know how Yuri talks: ‘I give beautiful painting to you Mow-li instead.’ What could I say, Lily? I don’t want one of Yuri’s paintings. Yuri paints legless chairs. I want my money. My two hundred and fifty dollars. It was a good camera, Lily. The camera I took the pictures of Isabelle and the French count with for the magazine. Funny, how things work out, isn’t it? Just because I took that picture of Matisse, everyone assumed I was a professional photographer. Beginner’s luck, because to tell you the truth, Lily, I didn’t know the first thing about photography. If someone talked to me about F-stops, I swear, Lily, I started to feel sick to my stomach. Believe me, photocopying is a lot easier. A photocopying artist is more like a technician. I have never met another photocopying artist. I just met one once—a woman. She photocopied her backside, her naked backside—I promise you—at all different hours. ‘Ass at Noon,’ ‘Ass at Night’ was how she titled her art. I hate people like this, don’t you, Lily? They give photocopying a bad name. It is bad enough now that everyone photocopies their hands. They photocopy newborn babies’ feet too. When Bibi was born, all they did was put little beads around Bibi’s wrist that spelled out my last name, only I remember they misspelled it. I didn’t care. I told the nurse: As long as it’s my baby and I am not like—oh, but Inez—remember Inez, Lily? Remember how Inez was touchy about this? About her name—Inez. How Inez had to be spelled with a Z and not with an S. I told Inez I didn’t think it made a whole lot of difference. I told Inez what’s the difference as long as ‘Inez’ and ‘Ines’ are pronounced the same, only Inez did not see it this way. Inez said she could never identify herself with an S. I said: But Inez, you are so lucky. Inez is a name that sounds good in all different languages. Take Molly, for instance. In French, Molly sounds terrible.”