Picasso's House

Picasso's House

     by Douglas El Greco

Simplot purchased a painting of Pablo Picasso's house at a Sotheby auction because they had decided to diversify their holdings, surplus capital being an issue in the last three quarters. Our dealers told them that any price below three million guaranteed them a rich return if they ever decided to place it on the block again. I was sent to make the bid and when I returned to Chicago with it, security guards, two of them, sat one on each side of me. They were not allowed guns aboard, of course, but they were big men and trained in hand-to-hand combat. 

        A thirtyish woman, dressed to kill, seemed very interested in my movements as we flew. I noted this and told the guards who took an interest in her from then on. She asked questions about my work, my family, my lifestyle and my means. I answered her duly, as well as I could sitting ahead of her. She would not give over during the entire flight. She even switched to the same plane as I did at Heathrow. Eventually, during ground transport, we successfully lost her and I did not see her again until the painting had hung in the Simplot headquarters for more than a year.

        We were elated with the purchase. It raised the agricultural corporation from its rural ignorance to something resembling urbanity. The members of the board, in the meeting that ensued, spoke of the new face of the company at every opportunity. Even shareholders at large, from Wyoming, Utah, Del Rio, Montreal, Dublin, Hamburg and Asian cities, too, stopped to see the work. Excitement generates from exotic objects; that we began to understand. All of us, executives with decision-making powers, planned to organize more purchases of rare art and music. Stradivarius, Lloyd Loar, Breminski, Rachmaninoff, Wilbur, Chopin and Tchaikovsky were named among us as likely sources of original music and valuable instruments. Holbein, Winslow, Plummer, Rubens, Van Gogh, Matisse, and many another great painter found his way into our meetings. Once a year we would purchase a rare work it was decided, and I would be the one making the excursions to obtain them. Single, without a family, dapper-looking and charming, I say with modesty, I presented them with the best face for such serious responsibilities.

        Now, one day, as every day I did, I stood observing the Picasso hanging in the offices of Simplot's president. Seldom at his desk, flying from country to country as was his wont, he tacitly agreed to keep the "sanctuary" doors opened to trusted members of the executive. I observed once again the house itself, with its turrets and tweltth-century architecture. A fieldstone walk led from the lane to the front door. Twelve steps, wide and sweeping, climbed to the high double oak panels of the entry. Four graceful columns supported a ceiling and a roof above against rain and sun. Twenty-foot windows of small-pane glass, some colored red and purple, blinked in a light clearly Parisienne in tone. The sun must have been setting in the west, for the day declined and amber light slanted in with long shadows from the left of the beholder. A small front yard, a wide view of the reaches behind the house, and a sky of blue and expansive height divided the painting's perspective. In the back yard, outbuildings that were surely stables and servants' quarters neatly, coldly, done in blinding white, decorated the rest of the scene. Living beings there were none except a dog curled on the top step as if awaiting its master.

        "Where is he?" I demurely asked myself on many occasions. Was it the painter himself? Was it possibly a self-portrait? The whole picture had the look about it of Utopia, of a quaint and perfect day with heavenly weather and pastoral peace settling like bees abuzz on the overlit world of quiet objects all about. Where could he be? In his study reading? At table eating a late dinner? Might he be in the bath soaking the oils from his tired fingers? Could he be lounging in a smoking room with some of his female acquaintances, since it was common knowledge that Pablo dallied and played in that way until he died at the age of ninety-seven. 

        "He's right there by the bush," a voice said in my ear, and I turned abruptly at the tones I did not recognize. It was the woman from the plane! How confounded I felt, and fearful, too! What on earth was she doing here? She must be an agent of some sort intending to steal this, I thought. How did she get in here? The place is locked and sealed tight. No one enters without permission!  

        "Have you permission to be here?" I stuttered, betraying, I am afraid, my trepidation. I looked for signs of a weapon on her person but saw no evidence of any. In my unease, oddly aware of the unimportant suddenly, I smelled the mustiness of the canvass as if the Picasso had lain in a basement for many years unattended or cared for. Her body's pleasant appeal told me of perfumes rich and clean, scents carefully applied by an expert. She stood with one hand at her bosom, straight-backed and damned attractive in a black dress and fashionable pumps. Her neck long and thin, pulsing with the slight beat of an excited heart, she reached a slender arm then toward the painting, as if she had not heard my question.

        "There he is, don't you see?" she said. I paused, watching her with distrust, then bent toward the shadows of the foliage to the right side of the painting where brilliance turned to dark shape and wildness. Sure enough! A figure I had never noticed before, lonely against an elm of great width, but so shaded that it seemed hardly a tree at all, and the body bent at an odd angle as if needing the support of the trunk. 

        "Well, I'll be..." I said. She interrupted me.

        "He's pissing," she announced, pointing towards his waist. "He's taking a piss!" She turned to me and grinned, looking down towards my own regions of that sort. I blushed at the word. I never use it myself. This woman, for all her outward grace, coarsened the room with her speech.

        "No! It can't be! Why do you think that?" But I bent to look closer, and sure enough, a hand barely visible holding something pointy, which also came to clarity only with purposeful concentration.

        "My Lord!" was all I could manage.

        I discovered, upon further investigation, from the woman herself, that she was the wife of the company president, a former model for the great painter himself, and sent along secretly on the previous mission to guard against my leaving with the painting for my own gain. She smiled when I apologized for suspecting her of evil purposes. Then she did something that I would never have expected, nor was soon inclined to forget. She took me by the hand, kissed me fully on the lips, and whispered in my ear.

         "Let's take it with us somewhere far away!" she said, and then looked at my eyes to ascertain if I understood. I stood for a long while mulling. She touched against me with the whole length of her being, and soon I came to the conclusion that her suggestions bore some advantages. I spoke further with her, we negotiated various items of contract, she agreed, blushing at some of them, and finally we lifted the painting from its hanger and placed it in a suitable bag before driving to the airport.