I watched her go down the hill with her dainty little steps. There was something I didn’t quite understand about Ellie—and I realized I didn’t even know her last name.
The front door opened with a creak and groan. I went in and looked around, not knowing which door to knock on. Then I heard the sound of male voices and laughter from down below. I descended a narrow staircase with care, as there were broken boards and little light. The building didn’t smell too savory, as if there were no drains and someone had burned their cooking. And in the background that ever-present odor of oil paints, linseed oil, and dark cigarettes.
Down one flight I went, then a next. Then on the very bottom floor a door was open and I heard voices coming from inside.
“What do you think?” a voice asked. “Is it good?”
“Not bad, Guillaume. Not your best.”
“It needs more work, doesn’t it?”
I approached the door and tapped on it. “Pardon me,” I said.
They looked up at me, startled as if they were naughty schoolboys who had been caught out doing something wrong.
“Madame? You look for someone?”
“I do,” I said. “I am looking for the painter Maxim Noah? Do you know where I might find him?”
“Maxim? Is he awake? Go and bang on his door. Tell him a foreign lady is here.”
“He lives here?” This was a stroke of luck.
One of them got up and I heard the stairs creak as he went up one flight. The fat one nodded to me with recognition. “I remember you. You came to the Nouvelle Athènes the other day. Did you find your friends?”
“I’m still looking. Maxim Noah is a cousin of one of them so I thought that maybe…”
“Oh, so she is the American lady he was talking about. Quite excited to have met her. I suppose these Jews feel rather vulnerable at the moment, all alone here at a time when…”
He broke off as heavy workman’s boots clomped down the stairs.
“Someone to see me?” he asked. “Is it my newfound American relative?” He came into the room, a handsome black-eyed boy with tousled hair and a jacket patched at the elbows.
“Mr. Noah?” I held out my hand. “I am a friend of your cousin Elena.”
“Enchanted.” He didn’t sound particularly enchanted and the hand that took mine was wary.
“I’m sorry to disturb your work,” I began.
This produced a chuckle all around. “Work? He was in bed with Jojo, no doubt.”
“How is Jojo, by the way?” the fat one asked. “We haven’t seen her for days. Have you grown so jealous that you hide her away from us?”
“She hadn’t been well. A mere cold but she stays in bed.” He looked at me again. “How can I help you, madame? Has my cousin sent you to look at my paintings, perhaps? You wish to buy one? I have many for sale.”
“Enough to paper the walls,” one of them said and they laughed again.
Maxim’s eyes flashed dangerously. “You insult my art because you do not understand it. Ask Picasso. He understands. He knows that art must move away from representation and the artist must have freedom to express his inner soul.”
“Then your inner soul must be quite murky,” one of them said. “Your paintings are terribly dark and gloomy. If this lady put them on her wall she would want to commit suicide instantly.”
“Do not listen to them, madame,” Maxim said. “You come to see for yourself. I go first to make sure that Jojo is dressed properly for your visit.”
He ran up the stairs. I looked around at the group. “I take it that Jojo is his mistress?”
“And very possessive he is about her too,” the fat one replied. “Won’t let a man near her. Won’t let her out alone. Of course, she’s very young and beautiful. A dangerous combination with so many wolves like us around.”
I thanked them for their help then followed Maxim up the stairs back to the top floor. I waited in the hallway, looking across at another door on which was scrawled, in blue chalk Au rendezvous des poètes (“The meeting place of poets”) and realized I could see how Sid and Gus had been excited to come to a city like this, where art and poetry and the bohemian lifestyle were not frowned upon.