The Woman in the Photograph (33 page)

She tucked the new letter safely away with his others in a black leather hatbox, then looked in her wardrobe for something to wear. Narrowing her eyes critically, her lips pursed, she pulled out various frocks and suits—held them up under her chin in front of the mirror—then discarded them on the bed. She wanted to look her best, but shunned anything too conventional. She decided on her flowered crepe de chine; it had a flattering tailor-cut, but the illusion of carefree youth. Pinning on her new straw hat, she remembered the collage exhibition. (A straw hat? Picabia's absurd nonpicture had questioned.) That was when Tanja was still in Paris, when she and Man were together, mentor and student, a passionate couple. Everything had changed since then.

Grabbing her portfolio, she headed to le Dôme; Lee had a meeting with a gallery owner who wanted to see her work. At just twenty-five, Julien Levy had his own New York art gallery and was intrepid enough to fill it with work by the Surrealists. On the telephone, he'd said her pieces would undoubtedly fit
nicely in two different group shows. She could hardly believe it. Her career, even without Man Ray, was definitely going places.

On the sunny terrace, she ordered a café au lait and looked at her watch. Ten minutes early. Humming excitedly to herself, she glanced down the street; her song was immediately stifled by a blossoming frown. Kiki and her friend Jacqueline, Man's long-haired model, were walking up the boulevard arm in arm, square handbags bouncing against their hips. Lee pulled a cigarette out of its case and looked away, but soon felt their shadow on her, heard the scrape of iron chairs on the pavement. She moved her portfolio and bag onto her lap and looked at them.

“Good morning,” she said without enthusiasm. She hoped they'd be gone before Julien arrived; Kiki had a way of stealing thunder, of making men forget why they'd come in the first place.

“Lee Miller.” Kiki sat down. She was not wearing her characteristic grin, but a somber expression; her brow creased under the wide arcs of her penciled eyebrows. “We've just come from Man's place. He looks like shit.”

“Like he hasn't slept in weeks,” Jacqueline added, using the same accusatory tone as Kiki. “He said he's on a liquid diet, to purify himself.”

“Makes you wonder what liquids he's drinking,” Kiki said, inviting herself to Lee's cigarettes. “Even worse, though”—she blew the smoke out through her nose—“he's carrying a revolver around. When I asked him why, he glared at me, shrugged, said it wasn't my business.”

Lee's head jerked up, wondering if Man had gone completely crazy. Had he spent the weeks of silence planning murder? She squinted down the street in the direction of his studio,
half-expecting to see his silhouette coming toward her, pistols raised, outlaw-style. Kiki followed her gaze with a caustic smile.

“I'm not worried about you, honey, I'm worried about him. I've never seen him this blue. He'd turn that gun on himself before he'd shoot you with it. Even in the best of times, the idea of suicide fascinated Man.”

“He never told me that,” Lee said, wondering if Kiki had always known Man Ray better than she did.

Was he really contemplating killing himself? First Nimet and now Man. Aziz had said it was de rigueur for jilted parties, but Man Ray had never been one to follow the crowd. Lee remembered her mother's failed attempt—her feeble revenge against Theodore's unfaithfulness—but couldn't imagine Man doing it. He was too strong, too self-assured—or at least he used to be. Perhaps Kiki was lying and the gun was for her.

“He probably never told you a lot of things.” Kiki stubbed out the cigarette, half-smoked, and got to her feet. “I just thought you should know.”

Itching to go, Lee flagged the waiter to bring her the check, then watched the two women disappear down the stairs into the Vavin metro stop. Oh, Man. She resented being held responsible for another person's happiness, for his well-being.

Ever since Lee could remember, men had wanted something from her—her body, her approval, her devotion—had declared their love and pined for her, desperate for her attention. When she didn't return their affections, they called her cold, pitiless, unfeeling,
la belle dame sans merci.
As if she could control how they felt—as if it were her fault! She couldn't understand why Man refused to let her go. He had always been
possessive of her, of her body, her person. Would he rather kill her than give her up?

Gazing at the dark passage into the metro, she suddenly saw a thin young man in a double-breasted suit taking the stairs two by two. Julien had finally arrived.

“Great to see you!” She gave him a kiss on both cheeks. “Now, let's get the hell out of Montparnasse.”

“Anything wrong?” He took her portfolio and offered her his arm.

“I don't want to run into Man Ray. I've just heard he's packing a gun.”

“In that case, I certainly don't want him to see us together.” Julien laughed, but immediately put out his arm for a taxi. “I went by his place yesterday to look at his work. I didn't see a gun, but he looked half-dead.” He slid into the cab beside her. “Where do you want to go?”

“It's such a pretty day.” Lee began, trying to shake thoughts of Man and guns out of her head. “Let's go to the Île de la Cité. To that tiny park at the tip of the island. It should be cool under the trees next to the river.”

“Perfect,” he said, repeating the instructions for the driver. “Then we can have lunch at the Henri IV at the Place Dauphine.”

On the quay, between an old man serious about fishing and an amateur painter crouched on a camp chair before an easel, Julien and Lee sat on the warm stone, letting their legs hang down like children, staring up at the sun with closed eyes. Lee began to relax, away from Montparnasse. A
quartier
filled with the same old faces, it made the bustling French capital into a village, made Paris intolerably small. Finally, Julien turned to look at Lee.

“
Another thing about Man.” He had obviously not stopped thinking about him. “When I was at his place, he showed me a new readymade. It's a photo of your eye on a metronome. It even comes with instructions. It says to cut the eye from a portrait of a former lover, then, after clipping it to the pendulum, regulate it to the desired tempo.” Julien pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and read out loud.
“Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy it with a single blow
.” He looked at Lee while stuffing the paper back inside his jacket. “It's called
Object of Destruction
. It's a powerful piece. I'm going to show it in the gallery.”

“If he doesn't destroy it first, that is.” Lee breathed out, reminded of the scene in
Blood of a Poet
when Enrique smashed his muse with a mallet. It seemed Man Ray wasn't above copying ideas from the little magpie.

The hammer, the crushed statue, the gun. In the film, the poet tried to destroy his muse but, in the end, she led him to his fears, to madness, to suicide. She'd watched his demise coldly, her purpose fulfilled. She shivered, thinking of Man's revolver. As his muse, had she dealt him a deadly hand?

Like the metronome in his
Object of Destruction
, Lee's feelings about her former lover swung back and forth, from dread to pity, from revulsion to guilt, from resentment to exhaustion. She wanted done with him. Lee changed the subject, fleeing from Man Ray and his suffering.

“Speaking of the gallery, I've brought the photos you asked for.”

She handed him her portfolio and watched as he looked through the thirty-odd prints she'd chosen from her three-year stint in Europe, from wryly observed encounters—labyrinths of architecture, living statuary, surreal glimpses of urban mystery—
to original portraits of the famous and the anonymous both.

“They're wonderful,” he whispered, gazing into her in the eyes, as if astounded.

“Which show do you see them in? The Surrealist show? Or the modern photography one?” Lee didn't really mind—both would include Man Ray—so long as he took three or four.

“Lee, you've got plenty of pieces here, all high-quality prints of interesting subjects. What I'd like to do is give you a one-woman show.”

“Really?” Her mouth flew open and her eyes lit up; she flung her arms around him in a warm hug.

He held on too tightly and, as she pulled away, kissed her on her mouth. Confused, she studied his face; a cavalier smile played on his lips. Would she be given the show if she were plain? Was this an elaborate gesture to get her in bed? Did it matter? Lee wasn't sure. She popped up from the cobblestones and pulled him up by the hand.

“Let's go celebrate.”

At the wine bar in the Place Dauphine, Lee ordered champagne and escargots.

“I've been wondering,” Julien said, “why don't you take any self-portraits? It would be a great asset to the show.”

“My photo has been taken too much as it is. When I'm behind the camera, I prefer to look at other things.” The waiter served the champagne, and they clinked glasses. “I hope the people that go to the show will be more interested in the photos than the photographer. Who knows? They might imagine
Lee Miller is a little old man from Intercourse, Pennsylvania, or a soldier boy off on leave. I'd like that.”

“As much as you may like the idea, I think you're already too famous for that.”

He locked eyes with her again. She found him good-looking, despite thin lips. Debating the idea of a fling, Lee grabbed a shell with tongs, pulled a snail out of its parsley-butter cocoon, and chewed slowly. While Aziz was in Egypt, their relationship was on hold; Julien was married and would not want a commitment. She licked her buttery lips, then took another sip of champagne. Perhaps they could both get what they wanted.

“Am I?”

“You are.” He smiled broadly. Could he sense that she was considering it, that she was tempted? “In fact, I know a few businessmen who would be more than happy to finance a Lee Miller photography studio if you ever decided to move back to New York.”

“Now, that one's hard to believe.” She looked him in the eye, trying to decide if this was real information, or more well-timed flattery.

“Claire Luce's husband, for one. He's the heir to the Western Union fortune, you know. Loved the portraits you took of her.” He soaked a piece of bread in the snail butter, obviously unsettled by the contents of the shells. “With the gallery show and a financed studio, it'd be a great time for you to come back to New York. I know I'd love to have you around.”

Had she learned everything she could from Paris? From Montparnasse and
French Vogue
, from the avant-garde art scene, from the city's most famous photographer? Had she gotten
what she came for? She looked up at Julien; he touched the tip of her finger with his.

“Maybe it is time to go,” she said slowly. As they slid out of her mouth, the words surprised her, but she knew it was true.

Only a half-year had passed since Man Ray had suggested the very same move. How preposterous it had seemed then. She wondered how he would react when he heard the news, that
she
was going, that New York was ripe for
her
. How bitter would that irony taste? She hoped it wouldn't be the final blow, the one to make him pull a trigger. Lee, however, was finally making a firm decision about her life, and not Man Ray, Paris, or future winters with Aziz Eloui Bey could make her change her mind.

The next morning, before dawn, her telephone rang. She bolted up in the dark, instantly ousted from sleep. She tiptoed over to answer it, but didn't hesitate; she knew who it was.

“
Oui
,
âllo
?”

“Lee?” Man's voice was a dried husk, pleading and desperate, but this time she didn't cringe or slam the phone back on its cradle. “Don't hang up! Listen to—”

“No, Man. You listen to me. I'm leaving Paris. In another month or two, you won't have to see me anymore.”

“Wha?”

“I'm going back to New York. I'm leaving.”

There was a muffled silence on the line—she thought she could hear him deflating.

“Good-bye, Man.”

She quietly hung up and went back to bed.

•  •  •

That fall, Lee closed her studio and booked passage to New York on the
Ile de France
, set to cross on October eleventh. The evening before her trip, as she was getting ready to go out, she found a gnarled envelope that had been pushed inside the door. The handwriting—although loose and wild—was still familiar. It was the first message she'd had from Man in months. He must have heard about her imminent departure.

Inside was a page torn from a notebook; he had drawn her eyes and lips—a simple outline, a vacant stare—then covered it, from top to bottom, with her name.
Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Lee
 . . . She imagined his voice calling her—not that of a gangster, but that of a spoiled child—and nearly tossed it in the bin. She stopped herself and tucked it away in her handbag instead. Maybe the next time she saw the drawing, she wouldn't find it so cloying, so filled with self-pity. Perhaps she'd remember a time when they were equals, a pair.

She slipped her fur coat over her satin evening gown. Michel, George, Tatiana, and the others were all waiting at the Ritz for a farewell dinner. She could hardly believe she was leaving tomorrow, that three years had passed since she'd been in the States. After refusing Man's entreaties to return, she was the one going back to New York—with contacts, a show, studio backers—and he was staying in his same cluttered old studio near the boulevard Montparnasse.

Lee headed out into the night under her umbrella. Her heels clicked on the wet pavement as she got into the cab. As the driver took off, Lee gazed out at the people, the lights, eager to enjoy Paris one last time. She'd long lost the habit of examining every corner for Man Ray, worrying what he might do. In fact, she'd already forgotten the note in her bag.