Date Published: March 11, 2021
Publisher: Giverny Books
A young WWI veteran searches for his French Impressionist father through encounters with Claude Monet and some of that movement’s key figures.
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He’d
used what little money he had to purchase new work clothes for his first day on
the job. He twisted his still-stiff
brown woolen cap between his sweating fingers as he glanced at his reflection
in the picture glass to see if his pale skin betrayed his months in the military
hospital. Did his slight frame and frail stature look well enough for rigorous
gardening work? No one would believe he was once tanned, muscular, and robust.
Did his prematurely greying hair and the red circles around his eyes reveal the
trials he had endured at the front? Although thirty-four, he felt and looked
much older.
Oscar summoned his courage pulled
from somewhere deep inside himself as he had done when climbing out of the
trenches and facing the enemy. “Bonjour,
Monsieur Monet.”
No movement. The newspaper Monet
held did not lower. The first salvo had fallen short.
He fired off another. “Bonjour, Monsieur Monet.”
Still no response. Second salvo,
off-target.
Perhaps Monet was hard of hearing.
Oscar added more powder and fired the third shot as he shouted, “Bonjour, Monsieur Monet.”
The paper lowered to reveal piercing
black eyes and a long white beard stained yellow with nicotine. Monet resembled
the newspaper photos Oscar had seen of him—short, stocky, and with an intense
gaze that seemed to miss nothing around him. His hands with translucent skin
and heavily veined looked muscular and tanned, as befitted a painter who worked
mostly outdoors.
Monet stared at Oscar as if trying
to remember who was this invader of his dining room and disturber of his early
morning coffee. He
wore an English herringbone wool suit buttoned at the neck, with just an inch
of white ruffled shirt cuffs showing at the sleeves.
At last, he spoke. “Who are you?”
He sounded irritated.
Oscar drew in his breath and squared
his shoulders to make himself look the part before responding with, “I’m
your new gardener, Monsieur.”
Monet frowned. “I don’t remember
you. Who hired you? Why should I hire a gardener in the middle of the winter?”
Oscar stammered as he gathered
enough breath to reply. “You… You did, Monsieur.
Yesterday. At least, that’s what I was told.”
He gripped his newspaper tighter,
shook his head, and frowned. “So, what are you doing in here? This isn’t the
garden.”
“Madame
Blanche asked me to meet you here before dawn to carry your paintings for you.”
“Humph!”
And
with that, Monet raised the paper again, which left Oscar standing in the
doorway, not knowing whether to stay or go.
Oscar
stood twisting and untwisting his cap and wondering. Will he dismiss me, fall asleep, or will we start our day together?
Could this cranky old man be his father? Probably not. But he might know him.
Since
it was his first day on this new job, he remained to see what would happen
next.
After
one, two, three, four, five minutes with no response, he looked around the
room. Yellow was the theme color. Even the chairs and light fixtures were
Provence yellow, as his mother called it. Monet seemed obsessed with the color yellow
and eating by the looks of the dining room with its multiple sets of dishes and
an abundance of silverware.
The
odd prints that hung on the walls disturbed him. They were most unusual and not
yellow. He saw dozens of them depicting an assortment of Japanese people in native
costumes through scenes of Japan. They reminded him of photos his Japanese
friends in San Francisco had shown him. The prints featured plants and animals
that he didn’t recognize.
Oscar
scratched his head and thought, why would one of the world’s most famous Impressionist
painters have these Japanese prints on his walls instead of his art or that of
his colleagues?
Lying in the hospital, he had
dreamed of what he would do when he was released. He never imagined he would
work in one of the most famous gardens in France. This job was the start of his
new life; he was excited and frightened to be here.
Curiosity
was getting the better of him as he walked around the long table, examining the
prints. Each one seemed more colorful and stranger than the one before, and
someone had labeled every one with the artist’s name. He made a note to ask Monsieur
Monet about the prints. They must have been significant to him if they were
hanging in his dining room. Undoubtedly, he would have dictated the decoration
of this space, the essential room for entertaining.
Finally,
Monet’s hand emerged to crush out his cigarette in his overflowing ashtray. He
lowered his paper, rose from his chair, and shuffled to the door.
“Are you coming?” he threw over his
shoulder.
Caught
off-guard while still staring at the prints, Oscar felt he was a puppy
following its master and hurried through the door after him, down the steps to
the garden, past the cart, and into the darkened studio.
“Put
these in the cart and follow me.”
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