The Last Nude (27 page)

I HAD NOT KNOWN I WOULD BE ONSTAGE. It was a small stage two steps up from the de la Salles’ salon, but it was marked off nonetheless by an honest-to-god red velvet curtain. Behind that curtain, while talking almost constantly to Romana de la Salle and the Marquis d’Afflitto, Tamara posed me on an enormous pouf. She seated me with my legs tucked to the side, leaning on one arm, while the three of them fanned my train around me, pinning it to the ottoman in dozens of places so that I seemed to swirl up from a sweep of feathers like an upside-down tornado. My anger had taken me to a new, numb state, as if I were not a person, but a camera, being affixed, not to a hassock, but a tripod.

I had not been told that the de la Salles’ party would have a name: The Nine Amusements
.
Red-blonde Romana, wearing brooches shaped like stars at her shoulders, would represent Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, and at the end of the programmed entertainments would lead the guests up to the roof to gaze at the murky Parisian night while smoking opium. “Who’s Dance?” I asked.

“Mother was
trying
to get Josephine Baker,” Romana said, “but no luck there. And then for a minute we thought we could get the Spanish dancer Nana de Herrera”—at the mention of Baron Kuffner’s mistress, Tamara and I glanced at each other—“so I even bought some records.” She gestured toward the far end of the room, from which the gramophone smoldered with a tango I recognized from a Valentino movie. (So young to die!) “But Miss de Herrera wasn’t sure when she’d have to leave. So I saved the day, and got Vi Morris to agree to shadowbox. She should get here any time.”

“
Vi
as in Violette Morris, the athlete?” Tamara asked, and as they switched to French, I remembered the princely young woman at her party, posing face-to-face with the Duchesse de la Salle portrait in the bedroom.

“Exactly the one,” said d’Afflitto.

“How did you manage that?” Tamara demanded, stretching out on a chaise.

Romana drew her arms girlishly behind her back. “She gave me her telephone number,” she simpered.

“Romana, shall we say,
spent a lot of time
with Vi Morris at your party,” d’Afflitto said. “But I guess you were too busy with your admirers to notice.”

When Tamara smiled I realized just how much she
enjoyed
Kuffner and Boucard’s pursuit, despite her protests to the contrary.

“Does your mama know you were sitting in the lap of that
apache
?” d’Afflitto teased.

“She does
not
,” Romana said, with a sugary grin. “And I plan to keep it that way, thank you very much.”

“I wonder if she’d pose for me sometime,” Tamara murmured.

“I can’t imagine her posing for you,” said d’Afflitto. “Like an elephant in a china shop.”

“I don’t know,” Romana teased. “Tamara might like that sort of thing.”

“André Gide? Why, yes. Jean Cocteau? Of course. But Vi Morris? The lady boxer?”

“I’m sure if the painter put her mind to it, Mademoiselle Morris would find posing for Tamara irresistible,” came Baron Kuffner’s voice before he circled the curtain to join us. Hearing them all through the filter of my imperfect French compounded the detached, glassy nature of my anger, so much so that I could look up at Kuffner unmoved.

“We’re not ready!” protested Tamara.

“How can we open the curtain in a burst of revelation if people keep barging in?” d’Afflitto groused. A foot shorter, and in his usual bow tie to boot, he appeared particularly slight beside the older man.

“You’re always a revelation, Rafaela,” Kuffner said.

I did not squirm. “So, where’s Mademoiselle de Herrera?”

“She’ll arrive on her own time,” he said, following my unblinking lead. “For you, Madame de Lempicka?” he offered, extending an opalescent cocktail.

“My god, is that real absinthe?” asked d’Afflitto.

Romana nodded. “Mother had some brought over from Spain.”

“No, thank you,” said Tamara. “Not before I draw.”

“But I insist.”

“I’ll relieve you, Baron,” said d’Afflitto, extending a manicured hand.

Kuffner pulled his extra glass up out of the way, forcing the smaller man to reach high, like a boy. “I’m not interested in the kind of relief you can offer, Marquis,” Kuffner replied, his smiling teeth thick and square.

Seeing a flash of hatred pass over d’Afflitto’s face, Tamara stepped in to distract the two men. “I
would
like a drink, Baron.” In the sudden tension, with the four of us watching, Tamara claimed Kuffner’s glass and raised it. “To Art,” she said brightly, and drained it at one go, provoking a glance of alarm between Romana and d’Afflitto. “What do
you
know about lady boxers?” she asked, returning to her chaise
.

“I know that boxing with one can only end in humiliation,” Kuffner said, amusement creeping up behind his moustache.

“Afraid of being beaten by a girl?” teased Romana.

“An old farmer does not fight a national champion, especially when he is a guest of that nation,” Kuffner said, with a chilling smile. “He might win.”

Romana laughed, impressed.

“When I said
humiliation
,” Kuffner explained, “I did not specify for whom.”

“You
are
a brute,” said Tamara.

“Well,
I’m
going to be a brute if you don’t get off our stage,” Romana said. “We’re about to start.”

“Don’t make her call her mama on you,” d’Afflitto sneered.

“Pardon me, ladies. Marquis,” Kuffner said, backing away to greet someone beyond the curtain.

“
Romana, I’ve never seen you brutish,” said Tamara.

“D’Afflitto’s right, though. I
would
just call my mother if he didn’t leave.”

“The national boxing champion doesn’t scare him, but the mention of Marika de la Salle sends him running.” D’Afflitto chuckled.

Perhaps Kuffner had spotted Mlle. de Herrera, or perhaps he
had
actually changed his mind about Violette Morris, because just then Romana gave a sudden “Ooh!” as a pair of blunt-nailed hands appeared over her eyes. Our little party stared as the athlete, resplendent in a gangster’s suit, a cigarette tucked behind one ear, leaned in to trade
bisous
with Romana. “Am I late?”

“Not at all,” Romana gushed, pulling aside the curtain and beckoning. “
Maman!”

Even in my frozen state, I gasped when the Duchesse de la Salle emerged backstage. I had been staring for months at that marcelled hair, those long riding boots, the beauty mark above the lip that lent the plain face its sinister humor. The portrait that hung above Tamara’s bed was faithful: it was hard to imagine anyone, least of all giddy Romana de la Salle, calling this woman Mother. No wonder Kuffner had vanished when d’Afflitto threatened to summon her!

Now that they faced each other, I could see that Romana’s mother, Greek and in her late forties, bore very little resemblance to the French boxer in her twenties, but their mannish clothes were similar, as were the possessive glances they shot at Romana. “So good of you to come,” said the duchess. “What can we arrange for you? Some special kind of lighting? A punching bag?”

Noting the businesslike and slightly offensive haste with which the duchess leapt to the subject of the evening’s entertainment, I realized I had never seen two
donne-uomini
face off before. The expression in the duchess’s eyes said that Vi Morris might be a celebrity, but she was not from the right sort of family, and was, like me, only welcome in her home if on display. The expression in Vi’s eyes said the duchess might have brought her in as some sort of dancing bear, but she planned to make her pay for the privilege. “I just use a mirror,” she said icily, never letting go of Romana’s pretty hands. Through the half-open curtain, I could see more than a handful of feathered and tuxedoed onlookers leaning in curiously.

“That can be arranged,” said the duchess. “We’re so grateful you could make the time. How ever did my daughter persuade you?” The question itself, though friendly—flirtatious, even—was delivered in a slightly menacing fashion, as if to say
Keep your hands off her, you lowlife.

“She said she might make it worth my while,” Vi Morris said, to the laughter—disapproving and hopeful, respectively—of mother and daughter.

“Not in so many words.” Romana giggled.

The duchess raised an eyebrow at her daughter. “Well,” she said, her face smoothly recomposing itself, “can we get you a drink while we set up for you?”

Vi Morris seemed to take the duchess’s failure to be provoked as provocation itself. Riffing off the tango on the gramophone, she spread a hand across Romana’s back and dipped her in a deep swoop. “I’ve never been asked to play the Muse of Dance before.” She chuckled as Romana emitted a soft thrilled shriek. It might have been nothing, a little horseplay among friends, but Romana and Vi Morris were not friends.

“We’ll have Tamara draw while we get your mirror,” said the duchess. “Romana, come with me.”

As the duchess marched her daughter away, leaving d’Afflitto to finish pinning me alone, Tamara told Vi Morris, “I’m sending
my
daughter to boarding school, you wicked thing.” Kuffner’s absinthe had clearly hit: Tamara’s voice was rich and throaty. I remembered the narrow-eyed look with which the boxer had sized up Tamara at the end-of-Salon party, because I saw her repeat it now. Recognizing—or pretending to recognize—someone across the room, Vi peeled off, and Tamara drew the velvet curtain closed.

“You never know where the duchess will draw the line with her daughter,” said d’Afflitto, shrugging. “Opium, yes,
les hommasses,
no.”

“
She’s just upset because Vi’s a bigger
hommasse
than she is.”

“Did I miss anything?” asked Romana, reëmerging. She looked a bit rattled.

“Not at all. Are you in trouble, darling?” asked Tamara.

In an effort not to sound upset, Romana spoke in an accent and sprinkled her sentence with English words. “I’m a little
cross
with
Miss Morris
for making
Mother
look bad like that.”

D’Afflitto looked uneasy at Romana’s discomfort. Tamara looked disappointed with Romana, and I could tell both that she had already calculated what she would charge
Miss Morris
for her portrait, and that she was bidding that money good-bye. “So which Muse are we,
chérie
?” d’Afflitto asked.

“Polyhymnia, the Muse of Religious Poetry,” Tamara intoned with faux gravitas. “Which makes Rafaela my goddess. Wear this.” Tamara handed me a feathered eye-mask with a single plume rising from the back strap to dangle, absurdly, over my head. I looked at it coldly, thinking, if I were really your goddess, would you
trompe
me with Ira like that? If I were really your goddess, would I have to wear this dumb mask?

“Are you sure we’re not meant to be Comedy?” I said aloud. “Doesn’t this feather make you think of”—I pointed to my throat and made a dangly gesture before I remembered the French word from Sylvia Beach’s medical textbook—“an epiglottis?”

“Don’t be silly,” d’Afflitto chided. “You look divine.”

“Suzy Solidor’s doing Comedy,” Romana said, perking up somewhat.

“You know that’s not her real name,” whispered d’Afflitto.

“Suzy Solid Gold?” asked Romana. “I guess not.”

“It’s Suzanne Rocher,” he explained, to a round of laughter. “But you should paint
her,
Tamara,” he said, as if to console her for losing Vi Morris.

“Wouldn’t I like that?” Tamara said. “You can tell she has beautiful breasts.”

I knew Tamara was just saying it to make herself feel better, but her frank sexual praise of this woman I’d never seen made me feel even more grotesque than I already did. “Maybe she’s beautiful,” I said, sounding brittle. “But is she funny enough to be the Muse of Comedy?”

“Absolutely,” d’Afflitto assured me. Something in my voice made him give me a second look. “I heard her practicing a dirty song about being a pirate,” he said. His voice was playful, but he glanced from me to Tamara and back, offering me a quick, pitying look.

That look alone cracked the cool lens through which I’d been watching the others. “As long as it’s not a dirty song about being a peacock,” I said. I hated my chin for wobbling.

“Rafaela,” Tamara coaxed, switching to English. “Is it the mask that bothers you?”

“It makes me look stupid.”

“You do not look stupid. You look like you came all the way from a sultan’s paradise to let me draw you. Some kind of pomegranate heaven of peris and houris and peacocks.”

“Isn’t there a Muse of Love Poetry?” asked d’Afflitto.

“Natalie Barney snapped up that one,” said Romana. “Are you surprised?”

“I’m happy with my lot,” Tamara insisted in French. “Painting is my religion. Besides, Rafaela,” she added in English, taking my hand, “in that mask, you will be able to look into the eyes of all those people, but they will not be able to look into yours.”

I squeezed Tamara’s hand, still too hurt over Ira to thank her out loud. With eyes shiny from her quickly drunk absinthe, Tamara gave my train a last tug, pulled my shoulders back a hair too sharply, and perched behind her easel, charcoal in hand. “Ready?”

“I’ll let Mother know,” said Romana.

Moments later, I heard a female voice address the room in stentorian French. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present the painter Tamara de Lempicka as the Muse of Religious Art, Polyhymnia. Like all of us,” she said with a good deal of irony, “Polyhymnia is a Vestal at the altar of Love. Ladies and gentlemen, I also present to you the divine Rafaela Fano as the Cyprian goddess herself, Aphrodite.”

The Duchesse de la Salle parted the curtain. Pressed together in the low light, the crowd looked like a slab of black-and-white rock, their jewels like flashes of mica. Bespectacled Kuffner and suave Boucard stood in the front row. Boucard’s elegant graying wife had claimed a stool in front of him while a slim woman with handsome black eyes and impeccable posture stood by Kuffner: Nana de Herrera, no doubt.