“Americans have money,” one of them said. “They would not choose to live and work in Le Bateau-Lavoir as we do.”
Bateau? That was a boat, surely, and Lavoir had something to do with laundry? “A laundry boat?” I asked. “But we are far from the river, are we not?”
This set them laughing. “We live and work on the slope of Montmartre, above us here,” a portly young man, rather better dressed than the rest, said to me. “We call our building Le Bateau-Lavoir because it reminds us of the flimsy way the laundry boats on the Seine are built with gaps between the floor boards. But to answer your question, there are no Americans among us, I regret.”
“Americans keep to themselves,” the small dark one called Pablo said. “They never seem to learn the language properly.”
The one in the well-cut suit roared with laughter at this. “That’s a good one coming from you, mon vieux.” He dug the small dark one in the side. “Your French is still atrocious.”
“I think I have learned it rather well,” the other replied haughtily, but they all laughed.
“You speak it with a lisp, like a girlish Spaniard,” a man across the table said.
The small one called Pablo rose to his feet. “You insult me and my nation. I will challenge you to a duel.”
“Sit down, Pablo, do,” the man nearest him dragged him down again. “You are alarming the young woman and there are few enough of us already without killing us off one by one.”
The dark man turned to me. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle,” he said. “I’m afraid I have the hot temper of my race. You wished to know something?”
“I wondered if you might have met two young American women? One of them wears her hair cut short, like a man, and the other is a painter?”
“There are plenty such in Paris,” one of them said. “Go down to Montparnasse and see.”
“I remember meeting two such Americans,” Pablo said.
“When? Where?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Some weeks ago. At a salon. Possibly chez La Stein? One of them had brought a painting with her. I did not think much of it, so I don’t bother to remember.”
This was getting nowhere. I was beginning to feel more and more desperate, as if I was racing against time. “And if I wish to find out the address of the American painter, Reynold Bryce? Do any of you know where I might find him?”
“Reynold Bryce,” one of them said, leaning back in his chair to study me as if I might be the object of his next painting. “Why would you wish to find him? He is passé, boring, not of this century.”
“Perhaps she wants to model for him?” Pablo said, giving me a roguish look.
“I heard he does not paint people anymore. Only boring landscapes with lots of pretty flowers in them like his friend Monet.”
“I hear he likes his girls young and innocent,” the roguish one continued. “And one can see that she is not innocent, are you, chérie?” His flashing dark eyes challenged me with a most flirtatious smile.
“You insult the lady,” the well-dressed man beside him said. “Now her husband will challenge you to a duel.”
“This I should enjoy. I have been dying for a duel. I haven’t shot my pistol for days.”
“Behave yourself, Pablo,” another said. “This is France, not Spain. You are simply too hot-blooded.”
“Not at all. I am a man who knows what he likes. She can always model for me. She has interesting bones and that red hair—exciting.”
“You’d probably paint it blue,” one of them remarked.
“No-no. That is all behind me now. No more blue for Picasso,” he said. “I see the future and it is exciting.”
The man who was the best dressed among them, wearing a three-piece suit, touched my hand. “Do not worry, chérie,” he said. “You should have no concern about posing for Picasso. If he paints you, you will wind up with three heads, one breast, and one eye. And possibly blue hair. Completely unrecognizable.”
“I paint her as I see her,” the little Spaniard said.
“I clearly see two breasts,” the well-dressed one commented, eyeing me a little too closely. “Anyway, mon cher Picasso,” he went on, “you know very well that Fernande would kill you or maybe her if you dared to paint another woman. You know how jealous she is.”
I felt this banter had gone on long enough. They clearly had all the time in the world. I was racing against the clock. “So nobody knows where I can find Monsieur Bryce?”
“La Stein would know, don’t you think?” one of them suggested.
“Possibly she knows, but she wouldn’t tell. They hate each other. He is an anti-Dreyfusard of the worst order.”
“That’s true.” They nodded agreement.
The word, “anti-Dreyfusard” meant nothing to me. “What’s that?” I asked.
“You have not heard of the Dreyfus Affair? The army officer who was sent to Devil’s Island, falsely accused because he was Jewish?”