Cooking for Picasso by Camille Aubray Page A

about what things
you
like to do and how
you
like to live.”
    She nodded, brightening. “Yes. I’ll be fine. Deirdre invited me to spend a few weeks in Nevada with her, to get away from all this cold weather. So, go do your work, and I’ll see you here when you come back and we’ll do nice things together.” She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching before she pressed a new key into my hand. “Dad had the locks changed last month,” she murmured.
    “See you soon,” I promised. She remained standing there at the front door, blowing kisses as I waved goodbye from the cab.
    —
    M Y NIGHT FLIGHT to Germany was quiet, because I’d been booked into the business-class section where most passengers were trying to sleep. The communal hush was soothing. And as we were crossing over the Atlantic Ocean in that inky darkness, I found myself drowsily wondering what had really happened to my Grandmother Ondine, that year when she and Picasso crossed paths.

Ondine and a Party of Three, 1936
    S HORTLY BEFORE E ASTER THE TELEPHONE rang at the Café Paradis, and Ondine’s ears perked up when she overheard her mother using the code name for Picasso, saying in her warmest manner, “Certainly, Monsieur Ruiz. We would be happy to accommodate you.”
    But when Madame Belange ended the call, her tone changed entirely. “How do you like that? He says he’s got two guests coming from Paris to
day
and asks if
you
could cook lunch up at the villa!”
    Ondine, recalling how she’d blundered into claiming entire credit for the
bouillabaisse,
said quickly, “Don’t worry,
Maman,
I can do it.”
    “Well, you’ll have to,” her mother answered, sizing up the situation pragmatically. “We’re already overstretched—it’s Holy Week, for heaven’s sake! Men never consider what work a holiday is. But what on earth will we serve Monsieur Ruiz’s lunch party on such short notice? Your father just went over the accounts and once again says we must cut costs. I suppose we’d better keep it simple, with plenty of cold dishes.”
    “No!” Ondine exclaimed vehemently. At her mother’s surprised look, Ondine said more quietly, “It’s a special occasion, so we mustn’t fail this
Patron
. His visitors are Parisian and you know how they chatter when they travel! The talk will be all up and down the Côte d’Azur if they love it or hate it.”
    “Then
what
will we feed them? Look in your notebook. What does he like to eat?”
    Ondine sat down on the chair in the corner and quickly flipped through the pages of her careful notes. Cooking for Picasso had settled into a comfortable routine. Each time she went into his kitchen she laid out his prepared lunch while he was rustling about upstairs in his studio.
    Yet, quiet as he was, the Master was clearly hard at work. The smell of paint wafted downstairs, but more than that, his intense focus and steely ambition were palpable, as if he were an unstoppable, hardworking furnace that, once fired up, could heat the entire house and illuminate every room. Ondine sensed in her very skin and bones that wonderful things were happening here.
    And sure enough, she soon discovered the results, for he had the habit of scattering his paintings throughout the house—propped up against a wall here, a chair there, a table beyond—while they were still wet.
Monsieur Picasso put them out to dry, just like a woman hanging her wash,
Ondine had noted, amused.
    Within a week there were four paintings in this impromptu art gallery—strange, compelling pictures in pastel Easter colors, composed of circles and triangles with eyes and noses in unexpected places; and in the backgrounds were seashell-shaped spirals and cornucopias with trees sprouting from them, everything at once celestial yet warmly earthy, an explosive burst of spring fever. In one of them she recognized the Mediterranean’s pale beaches and blue sea as a backdrop for what seemed like a whimsical-looking, kite-shaped