Two women and a baby

The kid stares at me, staring at my hair and my dress, and then his face changes. He spots a ball in the distance, behind me, and stretches out his arm to touch it. I squirrrmmm, his greasy fingers straight out of a Lays bag are coming for me. “Ohhhhhh no!!!!! Where is the damn security guard when you need him? Shouldn’t he be here? Isn’t it his job to protect me? And the several of us French women, so old? It’s not like we can protect ourselves, we are left permanently at the disposal of these galleries now.” The loud beep goes off, the laser sensor activated by somebody coming too close to me. I heave a sigh of relief, it is slow and nobody can really see me gently blow out the breath I didn’t even know I was holding! Heavens!

Can you imagine, it’s only Wednesday yet, although it feels more like a Saturday. It always gets crowded here on Wednesdays when it’s free entry to all. People rush in to get their bit of culture in, without having to spend the $25 it usually costs to enter the premises. The museum is strict that way.

Being a painting on the wall often feels like a partner dance, or speed dating as you kids like to call it these days. People walk by, stare intensely at me, and scrutinize the faraway look on my face. They stare at the curve of my back and my long skirt blowing in the wind. They drink in the orange poplars of the landscape and the woman and small child playing with the ball in the distance. A summer on the French Riviera on full display. My canvas skin itches when they stare like that, and I feel like their stare will melt the oil colours off my skin and make me come undone. I remember the feeling- Claudia felt it too, when my creator was trying to paint me. She kept fidgeting and said asking her to sit still like that made her skin very itchy. I think that’s why I have always associated stares with itchiness, it is one of my earliest memories.

I also remember the baby- Emma I think her name was. Monet, my creators daughter. She is the baby in the background with her mother knitting. Camille was a fine woman, and I never really understood why Monet took up with Claudia, but I guess those were the times, all artists kept two lives, muses they called them. How much we laughed about it when all of us met at exhibitions. These artists displaying their wives and mistresses on the same canvas in the same room, never would this have worked in real life, those French tempers are nothing to joke about.

I’m jolted back to the present when the spotlight tours start. These already? I never realize when it is afternoon time. Now the assistant curator gives people a free tour of the selected few works in the museum. The young lady in her 20s- her name is Emma too, has a petite figure and always dresses smartly with those pencil skirts and high heels. Infact, I have now started to look forward to her tours. I always look forward to find out what she will wear on that day. I imagine if I were of this time- I mean if Claudia were of this time not frozen in a poofy skirt and parasol, she would dress like this. Smart dresses and high heels and the face black rimmed glasses that gives a hint of scholarliness. Yes I think Claudia would have liked it. Although I comprise of both the women- Camille and Claudia  and the child Emma, I have always thought of myself primarily as Claudia- it’s like picking your favorite child really- you love both of them, but there is always one of them you connect with more. I think, actually what do I know- I am just a 150 year old painting. The crowd stares at Camille now as Emma the curator describes her relationship with Monet and the baby. She always skims of his relationship with Claudia, just describing him as a mistress from 1865 to 1870 till he apparently got bored with her. It always peeves me how they describe Claudia, glorifying Camille and relinquishing Claudia to a forever outsider. They don’t understand those times, these people. It was different time- mistresses had a place of power in the social structure- especially in France, with their petite dancer like figures and usually long legs, they were a source of endless inspiration for the artists. And they were an irreverent breed. See! I can practically hear you rolling your eyes- men so predictable you think- but hey, I don’t expect to understand them.

The tour is beginning to lose interest- a few have begun to check their phones and stifle yawns, others have wandered off looking at other paintings in this room. A tall gentleman with nice eyes stands at the back and listens attentively. His piercing gaze looks at my directly, right into my eyes and I feel myself blush, not that he can see it through my oily skin. He is taking in all the details that Emma the curator departs with a keen interest. And then abruptly the talk finishes and the group moves to another Renoir across the room. I see the gentleman linger behind, taking in every inch of me, then he turns around and walks away.

A European looking couple and an Indian girl pass by me. The couple has an audio guide and they listen to it attentively as it departs all the information about Camille, Monet and Claudia, then they start talking to each other furiously- I gauge they are talking German, but I can’t really tell. The Indian girl has moved away to the sofa directly in front of me, and she starts writing something in there. The German couple is still talking in forced hushed tones, are they arguing? I can’t say really. I don’t speak German. I know, I know, you are probably shocked. After all I was born by the French Siene. How far is that from the German border, ‘how can you not speak German I have been asked’ and it is strange really if you ask me, considering I survived two world wars against the Germans. But what can I do. The first war I was tucked away in the basement a rich French merchant where I lived covered in tattered rags tucked in a carefully constructed pile of rubbish and during the second war, this merchant’s Jewish grandson sent me along with his wife to America, as soon as Hitler declared the war. He was smart, he knew it was coming and we set sail aboard the Mayflower and through the English Channel arrived in Boston in the United States of America in early 1941. I stayed secreted away in my Lady’s bags till her husband the brilliant French merchant joined her. There upon, they bought a fancy looking townhouse at Beacon Hill and that’s where I lived, in their study for thirty years. My old master was quite a shrewd businessman and worked as an investment banker till the 1970s. they had two children- a girl and a boy and when that boy grew up and decided he wanted to marry a German scientist he had met at university, my master in a fit of disagreement and anger towards the Germans for having taken his home and mother land away from him, bequeathed me to the Museum of Fine Arts, where I have lived since. My old mistress ,  a patron of the MFA still visited me every once in  a while, every time looking immaculately dressed in her pearls and gloves, she often reminded me of Camille, as if an older sister to Claudia. I think she liked Camille too, her gaze often resting on her, more than younger woman in the foreground. The son and the scientist never visited me though.

My neck hurts, and I ache to straighten up. But I am cast in time, forever bound to be looking over my shoulder, smiling slightly as I see Monet sketching me. If you think smiling like Mona (Lisa) is painful, try spending your entire lifetime looking over your shoulder, and I mean looking at Monet for the rest of my life.

The rotating circus of people pointing and cooing at me, get my attention and I tense myself as I prepare for the evening influx of patrons to the gallery. I stare at the sea of faces, not throngs ever, just a moving crowd of people; no two faces the same trying to understand the intricacies of the human beings. I spot a couple onto the side, the boy talking earnestly and gesturing at the me, making sweeping motions, the girl’s eyes slightly glazing over as she looks in awe at his description. I can’t quite see him, he is turned towards her and his back towards me, but then he turns in a moment to point the red ball rolling out of baby Emma’s grasp and I quite literally gasp as I see the that ‘ why it’s the same gentleman from this morning!’

‘It’s always about a girl! ‘ I sigh in my head, and here I thought he was actually interested in me, all this while he was trying to impress a girl! They follow quickly around the rest of the gallery and disappear into the emerging crowd outside. Of course they hurried away, if only she knew that that he knew nothing about the rest of the paintings, he had left the tour half way!

As they disappear away, I forget them as I entertain a healthy mix of tourists with backpacks and guide maps and art patrons with genuine curiosity and elegant knowledge. It’s hard sometimes not being able to talk to any of them, and yet have to accept their stares with grace. I sometimes switch my mind off, but my curiosity always gets the better of me, and I end up giving the visitors back stories and characters.

A few hours later, it’s probably close to closing time, and the crowd is thinning. The tall gentleman returns again! I should probably give him a story, in a day I have seen him more than I even saw Monet!

He is with another lady this time- The Player! I gasp. This time, the girl is taller too and quiet. She has kind eyes as she looks as me knowingly, nodding in acknowledgment as he starts talking to her about my history and pearls of Emma the curator’s wisdom. There is almost no one around and I can hear them talk. ”You know”, he says to her, “this painting is so special to me, I never bring anyone here. But I felt you would understand.” His stance changes and she steps in closer to him and links her arm through his. “I do,” she nods agreeing, “Now shall we go to dinner?” he smiles looking surprised as if this was not his plan all along. They walk out of the gallery, almost, he then turns around, strides back to me, looks straight into my eyes for a second and then we both , at the same time, grin and wink at each other. He turns and walks out.