Paris Kiss (7 page)

Chapter 11

Georges strode through the Latin Quarter and Camille and I had to rush to keep up with him. We were out of breath, hairlines damp and corsets digging into our ribs by the time we got to 182 rue de l'Université. Rodin's
atelier
was in the
Dépôt des Marbres
where the Government stored the marble for State commissions. Georges led us into an open-air courtyard filled with dust and noise. I had been in stone-cutting yards before but never one so large and busy; it was like a small factory. Georges had to shout above the din of chisels being hammered into marble and the rumble of wheelbarrows as workmen moved blocks of stone around the yard.

‘Eh, Jules,' he called to a wiry man up a ladder. ‘Come down from there and meet Rodin's latest slaves.'

The man slid down the outside of the ladder. He removed the cotton kerchief he'd wrapped around his face, which was dusted white and marked with two rivulets of sweat, like a weeping statue. Jules Desbois, the senior
practicien
or stone sculptor, wiped a filthy hand on his shirt and shook our hands.

‘Women in the studio, I've seen everything now. But,' a shrug of the shoulders, ‘if Rodin thinks you're up to the job, who am I to go against the
maître
?' He began to pace to and fro, his hands behind his back as he delivered an evidently well-rehearsed lecture. ‘I warn you now, there won't be any allowances made for you. We work twelve hours a day, sometimes sixteen. Rodin makes the
maquettes
and we turn them into stone or bronze statues weighing a ton. We work as a team here, there's no glory for anyone other than Rodin. The pay is poor and Rodin can be difficult, but,' another shrug, ‘he is a genius.' He stopped pacing and put his hands on his hips. ‘I'll treat you like the men – no better, but no worse. You'll get a fair crack of the whip. If you can take the pace, I'll have your backs. If not, you should leave now.'

Camille was the first to speak. ‘We are not afraid of hard work, or of Monsieur Rodin. We expect him to be as exacting with us as with any of the men working here. You will find us their equal in stamina, if not strength. And as for talent, he has chosen Jessie and me out of his many students.'

‘You think you're up to it?' Desbois rubbed his chin. ‘One other thing – this is the coldest place on God's earth in winter. Enough to freeze your balls off, eh Georges?' He waited for our reaction. He wanted to shock us and it made me angry. If he imagined he could intimidate us with some coarse language, he was about to be proved wrong.

‘I suppose that's where we have the advantage, Monsieur as, fortunately, we have no balls,' I said with a sweet smile, spreading my skirts. Desbois looked stunned for a moment, and then he guffawed and slapped Georges on the back.

‘A pair of cool customers. Where did Rodin find them? The lads better watch out, they've met their match with these two. I tell you what, come back next week and we'll see what you're made of.' He turned his back on us, whistling as he returned to his work.

Georges lit a cigarette. ‘Well done. Desbois is not usually so easy to get round.' He looked at me through the smoke. ‘You make quite an impression, Jessie.'

Camille scowled and pulled at his arm. ‘Come on, we're wasting time. I thought you were going to show us around.'

Studio M, Rodin's main Paris
atelier
, was cavernous, with bare white walls and a flagstone floor. Light flooded in through arched windows onto plaster models of all sizes and in different stages of completion. On one table, the figure of a man was crouched over two small, lifeless bodies. It was Dante's Ugolino, an Italian nobleman who was imprisoned for treason and forced to eat his children's corpses before he too starved to death. I wrenched my eyes away from the gruesome tableau and looked around the room. It was almost too much to take in: every surface was crowded with plaster arms, legs and heads. At the back of the room, vast portals towered nearly to the ceiling. Figures sprang out of them and seemed to writhe in ecstasy. I walked towards the massive structure, as if in a trance, until I was close enough to study the yearning, tormented creatures. Each tiny face was contorted by a different expression of agony, lust or despair. I had never seen anything quite like it.

‘
The Gates of Hell
,' Georges stood behind me, so close I could smell his lemon cologne and feel the warmth from his body. When he pointed at the giant doors, it was as if he embraced me. I tried to concentrate on what he was saying about the figure that topped the doors, a seated nude, his chin on his fist, as if deep in thought. I could not know then that
The Thinker
would become the world's most iconic sculpture.

‘It is Dante, looking out over the circles of hell,' Georges said.

‘No, it is Rodin.' My senses overwhelmed first by Rodin's masterpiece and then by Georges' physical closeness, I hadn't noticed Camille. Her words broke the spell and Georges took a step away from me.

His tone was irritable. ‘You always sound so sure of yourself, Camille.' He shaded his eyes to peer at the statue where the ceiling cast a shadow. ‘But the figure looks nothing like the
maître ­­
– too young, for a start.'

‘Don't be so damned literal, Georges. It's Rodin, I tell you,' she said, beginning to throw her arms about in an effort to explain. ‘Can't you see? He's the archetype of all artists: he's Dante, Baudelaire, Balzac, Hugo and Rodin, above all, Rodin, dreaming into being his creations. But it is not an easy dream – look how every muscle in his body tenses with the effort of imagining, even his toes are gripping. It is Rodin as Creator.'

‘Very perceptive
,
Mademoiselle Claudel.' We turned to see Rodin. He stood easily, hands in his trouser pockets, the master of his studio. ‘Do you like my door to Hell? I hope you can both help me complete the infernal thing.' He smiled, pleased with his joke.

I was about to launch into an embarrassing gush of praise when Camille broke in, all business. ‘It's all settled, we can join your studio.'

Rodin clapped his hands. ‘Excellent, I knew you would find a way. And you have conscripted Georges to your camp, I see. Very
wise! Now, allow me to give you a guided tour, with commentary by the artist.' He smiled affably and stretched out his hand to Camille; she ignored it and took my arm.

As he walked around the studio and talked about his work,
Rodin worked away at a small piece of clay. He stopped at a pair of seated lovers locked in an embrace. Once again, I found myself looking at a masterpiece, one that would become famous as a symbol of romantic love. It is an extraordinary privilege to have been one of the first people in the world to have seen
The Kiss
, and one I still cherish.

We stood in awed silence in front of the sculpture. The couple were consumed with desire, lost in each other, the woman as hungry as the man. Tantalisingly, their lips did not meet. To look at them was to experience the thrill of the voyeur. Camille broke away from me and stepped closer to stroke the woman's haunch. Georges took her place next to me and placed a hand on my back.

‘What do you call it?' Camille asked Rodin.

‘The critics call it
The Kiss
, but the original title is
Francesca da Rimini
.'

‘The adulterous lovers, Paolo and Francesca, from Dante's second circle of Hell,' I said. ‘She fell in love with her husband's brother while they were reading the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere.'

‘You know your Dante,' Rodin said, taking a well-thumbed book from his pocket and showing me the cover:
La
Divina Commedia
. ‘I take it with me everywhere.'

Camille was also transfixed by the sculpture. ‘The woman is desperate for him, she is the man's equal in passion, pulling him close while he holds himself back. It is the moment before.'

Rodin and Camille shared a long look and once again I was the voyeur.

He opened his palm to show her a small, clay hand, its fingers curled in supplication. ‘For you, because you know that the hands and the feet are the most expressive parts of the body.' Camille took the hand from him and studied it. Rodin turned to us. ‘The models are about to return from lunch and I must get back to work. But please stay if you wish. Georges will look after you.'

Rodin went over to a noisy trio, who had come into the studio. It was the two Italian women we had seen at the Colarossi and Giganti.

Georges gave a low whistle. ‘Two sisters – one fair as day the other dark as night. Rodin has a good eye, eh Camille?' He nudged her but she ignored him.

The sisters didn't bother with a changing screen and pulled off their cotton blouses and stepped out of their gathered skirts where they stood. Naked, they began to parade around the studio, as comfortable as if they were strolling fully clothed through a street market. Giganti kicked off his clogs and was soon as naked as the other two. His physique was breathtaking: an anatomist's dream of muscles and sinews. Rodin gestured to Giganti and he began tumbling like a circus acrobat. The blonde sister danced with abandon to music only she could hear, arms weaving. Meanwhile, the dark one squatted on a dais, careless of her modesty.

Rodin followed the models, walking round them to catch every perspective, drawing lightly, quickly, furiously. I had never seen anything like it and began to realise why Rodin's sculptures were so alive. It was a technique I adopted as my own and followed throughout my life, always placing models on a rotating plinth so they could be seen from all angles. As Rodin finished each sketch he let it drop in his wake. Georges began to gather up the papers and Camille and I went to help. We laid them out on a large table.

‘He'll colour them later with ink washes,' Georges said.

I studied the drawings. The squatting model, whose pose could have been crude in a lesser hand, was transformed by Rodin's delicate pencil marks into one of nature's innocent creatures.

Camille traced the lines with her finger. ‘She is like a wild animal, caught unawares.'

We were well matched, Camille and I; we saw with the same eyes. I knew at that moment that I had come to the right place and was with the right people. Paris was my home now.

As we left the studio, I paused for one last look and saw Rodin standing in the middle of the room. He was staring after Camille like of one of the tormented souls from
The Gates of Hell
.

Chapter 12

As Camille predicted, Georges became our ally, and, with Rosa Bonheur, the four of us were a gang. It was Georges who proposed the boating trip. The oars dipped in and out of the green waters of the Seine. I leaned back on cushions in the stern, my hand trailing in the water. I watched Georges through the veil of my hat as he rowed in his shirtsleeves. He had contrived for us to be alone together in the boat and I had let him do so. The attraction between us had been growing all summer and although I knew it was wrong of me, it was exciting and I didn't want to give it up. Not yet, anyway.

Georges stopped rowing and leaned on the oars. We watched a kingfisher dive under the water in a flash of blue and green.

‘You and I are the same,' he said.

‘How so?'

He pushed back his hat. ‘It's obvious, surely. We are both artists and we neither of us give a damn for convention. I like how you stood up to Jules at the studio. You don't compromise, and you don't apologise for being what you are. I've never met a woman like you.'

I was of course thrilled by the compliment but tried to laugh it off. ‘I'm hardly unique. What about Camille? She's not one for apologising or compromising either.'

‘Ah, Camille, but she is completely mad.' He smiled. His teeth were white against his tanned face. He grew serious and laid aside the oars to be nearer to me. Our knees touched and he took my hands in his. ‘You and I, we would make a perfect –'

We were jolted by a collision. I clutched the side of the boat to avoid being tipped into the water. I looked behind me to see Rosa shaking her fist at us from the prow of the other boat as Camille hooted with laughter behind her. A spray of water soaked Georges' shirt. Camille, wielding the oars, was laughing so much I was sure she'd fall in.

‘
Hein
, look out, you maniacs!' Rosa called. She looked quite convincing in her white flannels and a Panama hat.

Georges reached out and pulled their boat alongside ours. ‘The only maniac around here is you, Rosa,' he said when we were level.

‘
This boating is easy,' Camille said. ‘I have mastered it already, although the fool Rosa is holding me back, she knows nothing about rowing.'

Rosa stood up and the little craft pitched dangerously. ‘It is you who is the amateur. Give me one of those sticks and I will show you the expert's way.' She managed to wrest an oar from Camille and began rowing in one direction while Camille went in the other.

Georges took his hat off and ran a hand through his hair. ‘It would help if you were sitting the same way instead of pulling against each other.'

‘
Ah bouf!
' Rosa said. ‘What do you know, you whippersnapper? An admiral had me out on the Seine before you were out of shorts.'

‘Pity he didn't teach you to row as well,' Georges said.

‘Impudent boy!' Rosa had stopped rowing while she talked, but Camille had not and the boat spun in a circle. ‘Camille,
arrête-toi!
Before you drown us both.' Rosa put down her oar and blew out her cheeks. ‘All right,' she called to Georges. ‘You win. I admit I haven't the first idea about boating. Get us out of this thing, won't you? I'm hungry.'

I held the boats together while Georges rowed us to a small beach overhung by willows. He tied up the boats, working with quick, easy movements. He handed us out, except for Rosa, who glowered at him and jumped clear of the water and landed in the sand with a crunch of her brogues.

‘
Ouf
, it's hot,' Camille said, taking off her hat and throwing herself down. I spread out a travel rug and joined her.

‘I have the perfect antidote for this heat,' Georges said, pulling up two ropes dangling off the side of our boat. At the end of each was a bottle of champagne, cooled by the river.

‘How clever you are, Georges,' Camille said. ‘I don't suppose you have any glasses?'

He lifted a wicker basket stowed under the seat and started unpacking it. ‘Glasses, baguettes, foie gras and,' he pulled out a tin with a flourish, ‘caviar.'

‘Bravo! Not just a pretty face,
mon vieux
,' Rosa said. She popped the champagne and poured it into the flutes.

Georges prised open the lid of the biggest tin of caviar I'd ever seen. ‘I share an
atelier
with a Russian. His mother sends him a tin from St Petersburg every month in case he starves. He never has any money, but we always have caviar.'

Georges dug a long silver spoon into the glistening black roe and held it out to me. I went to take the spoon from him but he stopped my hand. His touch felt warm and dry. ‘Close your eyes and open your mouth,' he said softly.

Camille nudged me. ‘Go on, we'll make sure he doesn't make any sudden moves, eh Rosa?'

I did as he said and leaned towards him. He put a spoonful of caviar in my mouth; I could taste the sea as the tiny spheres burst on my tongue. ‘Delicious,' I said with a sigh, my eyes still closed.

‘Yes, you are, Jessie,' he said. His lips brushed my neck. I started away from him as they all laughed.

‘Do you want me to hit him with an oar?' Rosa spoke through a mouthful of caviar and bread. ‘That I can do.'

‘No, I can take care of myself,' I said, pushing Georges away and settling my back against a tree. ‘Let's eat, I'm starving.' I tore a chunk of baguette with my teeth and Camille grinned at me.

‘What's so funny?' I said.

‘You're supposed to make sure I behave. What would Maman say?'

I stretched and settled back against the tree trunk. ‘We're grown women, not little girls.'

‘Try telling that to Maman.'

We drowsed under the willows, the wind soft on our faces, the sounds of the river in the distance. From under my hat I saw a dog and some children splashing in the shallows. A little along the grassy bank, a young man in a striped costume sat with his legs dangling over the water. Couples strolled arm in arm along the riverside, and here and there artists sat at their easels under white umbrellas. My eyes grew heavy and I dozed while the sun sank lower into the sky. When I awoke, Georges was sitting next to me, smoking.

I sat up. ‘Were you watching me?' I smoothed my hair and wondered if I'd been sleeping with my mouth open.

He smiled. ‘Don't worry; you look like an angel when you sleep.' Strains of accordion music wafted through the trees. He pulled me to my feet. ‘Can you hear that? Let's go dancing.'

Camille and Rosa had gone ahead of us down a towpath. The music grew louder until we came to a jetty where people were eating and drinking around a small dance floor. Couples danced to an accordionist and a woman who sang huskily about her broken heart. Georges held out his hand to me and we waltzed among men in open shirts and women in cotton print dresses. Georges held me tightly in the crowd so our bodies were pressed together and I wanted the waltz to go on forever. When the music changed all too soon to a spirited polka, Georges spun me around and we charged about in a breathless carousel. He led me in a gallop off the dance floor and into a small clearing behind the café. I hung onto him, laughing and trying to get my breath back.

‘You dance well,' I said.

His hair was in his eyes and he pushed it back. ‘All those wretched afternoons I suffered as a child at Monsieur Julliard's dance classes have finally paid off.'

‘They certainly have.'

‘Remind me to send him a case of wine,' Georges said. He stepped closer and his fingers found the nape of my neck. ‘Here, let me help you, your hair is coming down.' Deftly he removed some pins and it fell in around my shoulders. With a sudden movement that made me gasp, he wound the heft of my hair in one hand and moved his mouth close to mine. ‘
Jessie, je meurs pour toi.
'

I knew I should stop him, that I should tell him I was not free, but it was the last thing I wanted to do. This was Paris, I was far from home and nobody need ever know. Instead, I drew Georges closer and we kissed. The warmth of his mouth! If I close my eyes, I can still feel it. He put his arms around me and I arched my back to fit into the curve of his body. He began to undo the buttons at my throat, his fingers fumbling with the tiny hooks.
We heard voices and I put my hand on his. Someone was coming.

‘They must be somewhere. Did they go back to the boats? I'll look behind here.' It was Rosa. Just as I was tucking my hair into a chignon, she came into the clearing.

‘Here you are,' she said. ‘We thought you'd got lost.' Rosa eyed me. ‘You look a bit dishevelled. That's the polka for you. It's undone many a girl.' She winked and held out her arm. ‘Come on, Jessie, my turn for a dance. Georges, look and learn – I'll show you some real dancing,
mon vieux
.' She waltzed me back into the throng and I watched Georges longingly over her shoulder, like a child being dragged from a sweetshop. I was gratified to see that his face was thunderous.

Rosa laughed and pointed at Georges with her chin. ‘He looks like my cat when I've taken away a bird from its claws. Was he annoying you?'

‘Oh no, not at all.'

She cocked her head. ‘So it's like that, is it?'

I stiffened in her arms. I wasn't ready to tell anyone about what had just happened – I didn't know what to make of it myself. All I knew was it was wrong, and all the sweeter for that.

My voice was sharp. ‘I don't know what you mean. It isn't
like
anything. Besides, I'm more or less engaged to someone back home.'

‘More or less,
hein
? And no matter how more or less you are engaged, that won't deter our Georges. Quite the opposite, I'd say. If you were promised to the Prince of Wales and locked into a chastity belt, Georges would still come after you, having sweet-talked his way into getting a spare key. A man like that never gives up. The chase is on and when he finds out you're out of bounds, well, that will only make the game more interesting.'

‘You're talking nonsense. Anyway, I can look after myself.'

‘So you keep saying.' We had reached the edge of the dance floor and she stopped and looked at me seriously. ‘You must listen to me, Jessie, before you get hurt. We are not in the tearooms of London now, but the jungle of Paris, where the wild beasts prowl. They may be exotic and beguiling, but the only rules they obey are their instincts and desires. Be careful they do not eat you up.' Rosa nodded towards Camille, who was sitting at a table, sketching the dancers. ‘She is even more dangerous than Georges. She has no scruples at all, only an animal's instinct for survival.'

I dropped my arms and stepped away from her. ‘That's ridiculous; Camille is my friend, she'd never hurt me.'

Rosa shook her head, exasperated. ‘Your loyalty is admirable, Jessie, but you must be careful or you will be hurt.' She smiled and tucked an escaping strand of hair behind my ear.

We sat down and I tried to dismiss Rosa's warning, but I would have cause to remember it. Perhaps I should have listened to her, but would I have done anything different? I don't regret my time in Paris – how could I? Those days were in many ways the most vivid in my life, and now, after all these years, I am reliving those events as if they had only just happened.

Georges strolled over, his hands in his pocket. He started telling us an anecdote about a former art teacher and soon we were all capping each other's stories about eccentric tutors and the strange antics of models.

‘Georges, do you remember old Pierre, the model who fancied himself a critic?' Camille said. ‘He'd posed for all the great artists and would go around during his break giving us advice on technique.'

‘Pierre was priceless,' Georges said. He adopted an old man's falsetto. ‘See here, the anterior deltoids need a tad more definition.'

Camille frowned and wagged her finger. ‘That's not the way Pissarro would do it. The maximal tibia is all wrong. And Renoir would use more Cadmium Red for the skin tones.' She laughed. ‘That was Pierre – model, anatomist and tutor. A bargain, really, for five
sous
a day.'

Georges poured me a glass of wine and I smiled at him, grateful for his easy manner. ‘You lot don't know how lucky you are,' I said. ‘At South Ken, we “lady artists” were fobbed off with tramps dressed in dusty old costumes – drunken matadors, tipsy shepherdesses and toothless Pierrots. It was considered dangerous to expose us to the undraped form too often.'

Camille smiled at me. ‘But you are here with us now.' She put her arm around my shoulder. George put his arm around the other.

‘Yes, Jessie, you belong here,' he said, his eyes catching mine.

Rosa bit off the end of her cigar and spat it out. ‘Models with their pretensions and whines – who needs them? That's why I stick to racehorses and cattle. They don't complain about the cold and they don't go to the
pissoir
all the time. And, best of all, you don't have to listen to them banging their gums about some artist cheating on them. Give me a horse market over a studio any day.' She looked at the end of her cigar and watched it glow red in the violet evening light. ‘That's how I first met Rodin, drawing animals, when we were both starting out.'

The rest of us clamoured to know more.

‘You never told me you knew Rodin then,' Camille said at the same time as I said, ‘Tell us what he was like as a young artist. It's so hard to imagine him at our age.'

Rosa puffed at the cigar. ‘Let me see, he was shy, I'd say, introspective, intense. More like a woman than a man, really.'

Georges grunted. ‘That's hard to believe.'

Rosa shrugged. ‘He's nearly fifty now – in his prime. What you see is the respected artist with a growing reputation. But in those days he was as hungry as you all are. And he was just as unsure of himself.' We made loud protests but she waved them away. ‘You're all still wet behind the ears, mere babies to an old hand like me.' She resumed her story. ‘Rodin had a hard time of it in the early days. He was rejected three times by
L'École des Beaux-Arts
. They failed him on his sculpture submission, can you believe it?'