Paris Red: A Novel (31 page)

I do not
know who is more nervous, Stevens or me.

He greets me graciously, even warmly, but I can see from his face he has no idea why I am there. And that is when I realize he did not talk to Stevens about it beforehand, that it really was just an idea he proposed yesterday. Not a request at all.

When it comes time to tell Stevens why I am there, all the words I think of seem awkward. So I just decide to say things plainly.

“He told me I might come and see you today,” I say. “I have the day free.”

“That’s kind of both you and him.”

“I’d be happy to sit for you if you like.”

“Right now?”

“If you’d like,” I say. “Or maybe some other day.”

Stevens watches me for just a moment—but just for a moment.

“No, I’d like to do some sketches, Mademoiselle Meurent,” he tells me. “But only if you have time.”

“I have time. Where would you like me to be?”

“That chair would be fine.”

So I walk to the chair he shows me, one with a straight back and red velvet cushion. I put my bag on the floor beside the chair and then I begin to do my job.

I sit down.

I do not
know how much time passes, but I do know time is not the same with Stevens as it is with him. I do not go places in my mind—I just try to make my mind a blank. But I cannot help but think that the whole experience of sitting in front of someone I do not know is entirely different from anything I did with him, who was my lover before he sketched me, who knew my body before he ever painted me.

And only when I let myself think that do I understand another lesson of the day. A modèle de profession poses for strangers, not for lovers. Or maybe she poses for lovers, too, but not always. He and I are the exception, not what I am doing here with Stevens.

When I understand that I begin to relax. Let myself settle into the deep part of the chair, hold my back straight and let my shoulders down. And something must change in my posture or expression because I hear Stevens turn over a page.

After some time
I say, “Would you like me to do something? Take a specific pose?”

“What does he like you to do?” Stevens asks.

I think about telling him the first drawing he ever did of me showed me fastening a garter. That he sketches page after page of my breasts. That sometimes he has me sit on his work table and takes a low stool in front of me and draws my thighs and my sex.

“He likes to draw me taking down my hair or pinning it up,” I say instead.

“Do that then. That would be fine.”

So I slowly take the pins and keep my arms in place for a long time. I hear his pencil against the paper, and when I think I hear it stop, I take my hands away and let my hair slip down on my neck and look off in a different direction. When I hear the scratching stop again, I bring sections of my hair forward to lie on my shoulders and I shift on the chair so my shoulders and breasts have a different angle.

I do it all slowly and methodically, but I do not know if he has chosen one of the steps to sketch, or all.

But it does not matter. My job is to pose, not to pick and choose.

When Stevens asks
me if I would stand up, I say, “Certainly.”

I look off in the direction he tells me, and I hear his pencil for a long time. And it is partly that sound and partly the fact that I find it easier to stand than sit, but for the first time since I walked in the door I can feel my mind begin to wander, the way it does when I pose for him.

For some reason I think of my father, of a day when he took me with him to gather snails at the barrier walls. His face looked so different that day. Relaxed, his eyes at ease. And then I think about how seldom you really know what a person looks like. You just see people’s faces fleetingly.

Because we are all always turning away.

I know what the faces of my parents look like, and I knew Nise’s face, and now I know what he looks like.

He knows what I look like, too.

One day he had me squat on the table, right there in front of him. Up on the balls of my feet, my arms behind me, bracing me, holding me up. The position so strained I could barely hold it.

I thought it was my sex he wanted to draw. Because he did it before, and he was right there between my legs. Because he drew for a while and then said to me, “Tell me to kiss it.” So that is what I thought it was all about.

But instead he drew my face. From that angle, looking down at him. My strained and greedy face.

All that goes through my mind as I stand there, in front of Stevens.

“Can you change
your position again, mademoiselle?” Stevens says.

And brings me back to myself.

I have to think for a moment, but I do the next thing without hesitating. Somewhere inside myself I have been deciding, and now in this moment it is decided.

I unbutton the top part of my dress. I unbutton enough buttons so I can shrug out of it, so my shoulders can be bare.

I am still in my chemise and stays, but my shoulders are bare, and my breastbone and neck. And I put my hands at my hips and turn my head to the right and push my shoulder blades together, the way I would sometimes at Baudon, after I had been burnishing for hours.

And I can feel the heat beginning at my hairline and my nape, the way it always does.

So I talk, just to hear my voice. Without looking at Stevens, I tell him, “This is how I used to stretch on my old job. I’m right-handed, so I never got to turn my head to the right.”

He does not answer, but in a moment, I hear his pencil on the paper. I hear him, and I go on hearing him for a long time. I hear him until the heat at my face and my neck begins to disappear. Yet even when I no longer hear him I do not break the pose.

I let Stevens go on looking.

When we say
goodbye at the door of course I am dressed again, and it is the same politeness as always. And then Stevens says, “Now, the wage for your time. I know what I usually pay my models, but I don’t want to be out of line. Will you tell me what Manet pays so I may match it?”

The question surprises me. Stevens paid me when he was away, dealing with the death of his father, but maybe he did not know what exactly the sum was for. And again, I understand that he and Stevens did not discuss things in advance. When he told me yesterday that I should come and sit for Stevens, it was only a suggestion. Not a request, not an assignment. Not a loan of my services.

None of the things I thought.

It really was my choice to come or not. Now I see it. And for a moment I think about saying the first words that come to my mind,
No, not today. Today was meant to be a gift.
And then I do not say them.

“He pays me by the week,” I say instead. “So five francs would be my daily wage.”

“I pay my models ten per session. I won’t give you less.”

He does not pull the money from his pocket but instead walks to the small desk at the side of the room. When he comes he puts a small envelope into my hand.

“Thank you,” I say. “That’s generous.”

I look at Stevens as I say it. I can see he is not handsome. But the expression in his eyes is a pool I can step into.

Which Stevens lets me do.

“Then thank you, mademoiselle,” he tells me. “For the gift of your time and your beauty. I hope you’ll sit for me again soon.”

He bows then, just the way he did last time I was here, but this time it does not feel so odd. And when he takes my free hand to kiss it, I let him.

Then I walk out onto Rue Taitbout.

It is not
until I am close to La Bruyère that I think I understand why I did it.

Stevens did not ask me to undress—I was the one who wanted to show him my shoulders and throat, the bone on my chest where my breasts begin. I wanted to do it even if it was hard. I wanted to do it for the same reason I did things when I was younger. Because I craved the experience. Because if I could do it I would be stronger. Because I wanted to be taken out of my depth.

But I also wanted to do it because I knew it would hurt. And I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to know what it felt like to show myself to someone other than him.
Other than him.
I wanted to stop thinking it was so precious. I wanted to be the one to do it before anyone else did. Before he forced me to see it.