By Arnie Greenberg Dedicated to Dr. R. B Haas and my own personal Rose. Copyrite, Novel and Sketches 2004 A. Greenberg
(The "real" people upon whom the characters in this story are based: from left, Bruce Kellner, insurance investigator in the story, but in real life a Pennsylvania writer, expert in the Harlem Renaissance and a friend of Robert Bartlett Haas, center, the narrator. Retired from the University of Southern California, Haas was a friend of Gertrude Stein's and has written and lectured about her work. At right is Arnie Greenberg, who uses the two friends shown here as the main characters in his book. While all his characters are real and most of the incidents true to history, the story of the copy of Picasso's painting is untrue. Greenberg has authored many articles and books and is an accomplished painter. His two plays are Picasso: The Man Who Painted Hell, and Goddy, on Stein and Hemingway in the 1920's. This photo was taken in front of Chateau Beon, France, the home of the story's second detective, Jean d'Aiguy, the real son of Rose McMasters d'Aiguy, the girl in "A rose is a rose is a rose.") Prologue When
I visit the various homes where Picasso and Gertrude Stein lived, I hear their
voices again. I see the expatriates gathering in the courtyards or coming up the
street. How can you visit the Bateau Lavoire without seeing the Rousseau Party
or Gertrude sitting for Picasso in your mind's eye? "I
wanted to hear their voices: Picasso's high
People without memories are bereft of dreams. Sitting alone in a hospital rehabilitation center for weeks on end is hardly what I would choose for anyone, let alone myself. When I first faced the prospects of a long recovery, I was naturally less than elated. Depressed comes to mind, but so does discouraged or at best pessimistic. I would lie in that drab room and stare at the gloomy, threatening sky. My mood was reflective that autumn, and soon my thoughts went back to those heady, stimulating days in Paris when I was young and at the beginning of…I am not certain of what. The Idea of Going to France
(A Left Bank Street in Paris, which the young Robert Haas surely must have seen) I remember well the first time I was struck with the idea of going to France. I was a student at the University of Chicago at a time when the world was trying to smile again after the Great War. I was preoccupied with literature, music, and the theater. I gained little satisfaction from the dark, impersonal hallways and the uninspiring faculty -- competent, but without imagination. I hadn't chosen Chicago as a place for my education. Chicago had chosen me. Of the various universities to which I had applied, Chicago was one of the first to offer me a small scholarship. My Montreal middle-class family of craftsmen was not overjoyed. On the other hand, I was. Finally, I would be able to leave my family home, break the umbilical cord and breathe the air of liberation. I would be my own man, though I realize now that I was hardly a man. For a boy of 18 summers, Chicago was the answer. There I would be free to study at my own pace and continue my painting lessons after hours. It became painfully obvious that painting was my main preoccupation. The academic life took second place. Yet, over the years I was able to earn a degree and learn something about painting. I wasn't what you may call a gifted student of art. I was hard working and I was happiest when I painted. I must add that while I eventually made my living from art, I never considered myself an 'artist.' I was, at best, a person who painted. It was a means to a comfortable end. Meeting Thornton Wilder During my senior year at the university, I enrolled in a studio painting course with a teacher who as, I remember, had many friends among the university faculty. It was that friendship that was to change my life. For through her, I met Thornton Wilder, the writer who taught English, mostly to graduate students. One winter day he came to our studio to view our work at the invitation of Miss What's-her-Name. He was a tall, bulky individual, but not athletic. He wore rimless glasses and a tweed jacket, and he always carried a notebook and pencil. It was strange, I thought, for someone to be constantly writing in the middle of a conversation. It was though he was a perpetual researcher. Note taking was an extension of this friendly academic. The teacher explained what she was trying to accomplish. In my case, as she pointed out, she was trying to free me of my rigidity. That was my worst fault. That was during the years following the Great War and would-be artists were striking out for Paris. It was my dream, too, but I had been putting it off. My meeting that day with Thornton Wilder changed all that. Wilder Extends His Hand As they approached my easel, I felt anxious as one might feel when one is about to be assessed by a professional. Yet Wilder was not an expert on art, really. Sensing my discomfort, he extended one enormous hand. "Hello,
young man. I'm Thornton Wilder." Miss
so-and-so smiled uncomfortably. "Shall we move on?" She led Professor
Wilder to the next student's easel. I often thought of Thornton Wilder's remarks
and began reading about Cubism and the Cubists of Paris. There was precious little
in print, but what I learned intrigued me. I decided to go to Paris after graduation.
That, I was told, was where it was all happening. I would go to Paris and become
a painter. Any further academic training could wait. After all, I was not yet
25. The Greatest Deceit in Art in the Twentieth Century Had I not gone to Paris, I would not have met the Russian painter Marevna Verobiev or Gertrude Stein. I would not have been part of the greatest deceit in art in the twentieth century. You probably know nothing of what I'm referring to. The newspapers kept it secret. So did those involved, until now. It might have gone unrecorded. Now, with time on my hands, I feel compelled to open my diary and report what I know about that great art scam I call the 'Double Deception.' RBHaas THE BEGINNING CHAPTER 1
I felt the afternoon sun warming my back as I headed down the boulevard Raspail on my way to Gertrude Stein's famous apartment on the tiny rue de Fleurus. Teenage girls, in pale tunics, walked past me and giggled, as French girls of a certain age were sure to do. They glanced at me without turning their heads, quickened their steps as though they were afraid I'd talk to them. I stopped and tipped my well-worn 'chapeau.' They were giggling as they disappeared swiftly in the opposite direction. Was it my clothes the girls were laughing at? Or was it simply what teenage girls did in Paris? I was smiling, inwardly. I'm sure the whole city smiled that sunny Thursday in April. Paris...Where Everything Was Possible I
hadn't been in Paris long, but I knew it as a city where everything was possible
and every sensation could be felt, including the city's visual impact, an impact
always been beyond words. It was a city without end. This was everyone's 'deuxième
pays du monde,' everyone's second home. With 25,000 chestnut trees and countless
plum trees blooming all at once, one couldn't help feel the awakening…the
rebirth.
(The Louvre looks across at the River Seine, which slices through Paris) Her
status derives from the age of Revolution. And, oddly enough, it was Napoleon
III who engaged Baron Haussmann, the city planner, to create the 'perfect Paris'
and give this marvelous city a gigantic facelift. He made it the most stunning
capital in the world, a magnet. Creative minds would draft out the twentieth century
in fashion, art and literature. On the boulevard, news vendors hawked copies of Paris Soir, Le Monde, and l'Express at street corners or at brightly decorated kiosks that advertised shows and products for every taste. Sad women with bloated faces and hoarse voices sold vegetables, flowers or fish from wooden wheelbarrows, crying out to passers-by. On the streets were red taxis, buses, Citroens, bicycles, ever- present pushcarts, and people everywhere. Some walked, some sat at cafes, sipping aperitifs, wine, beer or coffee. Others read newspapers, oblivious to the noises around them. Tourists peered in shop windows for a glimpse of the latest fashions. Businessmen rushed to their next rendezvous. Pretty young girls sporting fashionable berets and candy-striped blouses carried flowers and chattered amiably. Crossing the street, one risked being crushed by the last remaining omnibuses led by huge, nervous horses. The air was heavy with the smells of roasted chestnuts, fried potatoes and hot pink sausages prepared on time-worn portable stoves. Some horse-drawn cabs jostled for position with their motorized cousins. At Last...the Fabled City This was the fabled city -- the April city of artists and musicians. It was a city with a heart that seemed to move even as it stood still -- a gathering of humanity from country hamlets and foreign capitals. Once-proud nobility now counted themselves as waiters, doormen, and taxi drivers, happy to have work of any kind. They came from Spain, Russia, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Canada and the Far East. But mostly they came from America. During the years after the Great War, Americans arrived at a rate of five thousand per week. Prohibition ended at the gangplanks and at 50 francs to the dollar you could live in style. They came to this world capital of culture to work or play for a brief visit and often stayed. In Paris you were free to be yourself -- to do what you wanted, to mix with whomever you liked, to relax or create or work at a mindless job, or not work at all. It was your choice to make, choices you couldn't make at home. Paris could make or break you, but it wouldn't shield you. The whole rhythm of life encouraged experimentation, adventure and indulgence. Here, an artist could breathe in the atmosphere, break the puritanical shackles, drink, live freely and still be creative. My Name Is Robert Haas My name is Robert Haas, I wanted to paint and live in Paris. It's not what you actually got from Paris that was important to me. It was what it didn't take away. You felt free the moment you arrived. North America then was no place for anyone creative. Veterans of the Great War looked for a creative future, and here creativity was king. This new feeling started the moment I arrived. It was easy to break the stilted shackles of North America and live as you wished. I was an expatriate, and the bistros were the meeting places of my peers, my generation. My favorite was Le Select on the boulevard Montparnasse. For others it was La Coupole across the street, the Dome and Rotonde at the corner of boulevard Raspail, or Le Closerie des Lilas farther up the street. You saw everyone at these watering holes at all times of the day or night. You could sit watching people for hours and nobody bothered you. You could just nurse a beer. Nobody disturbed you, as you sat among the drinkers, smokers or hangers on. Everyone talked at once. How they talked. Such debate! Such madness! And all the while an army of waiters moved lithely through the crowds, heaving heavy trays of drinks, cassulet, moules, frites, and fruits de mer or choucroute garné. All around were ladies with their gentlemen, artists, models, freaks, famous personalities, and losers. Sooner or later you met everyone. Once I saw Josephine Baker, the black American singer, parading half-naked with an ocelot at the end of an emerald studded leash... it could only happen in Paris. We had come there to be part of the greatest, gaudiest spree in history. 'America is my country, but Paris is my home town' Gertrude
Stein once said, 'America is my country, but Paris is my home town.' She understood
what the city stood for. It was on my way to Gertrude's that I found myself on
that sunny Thursday in April.
(Gertrude Stein's Paris house at 27 rue de Fleurus, where Robert Haas found himself one sunny Thursday in April) They are often indistinguishable from the many mid-sized dwellings that fronted on other streets in Montparnasse. On some, there were tiny trees, newly planted and evenly spaced. But they seemed to suffer from lack of sunlight. Many had archways with ornate beige facades. Gertrude's apartment was well known to many. I had heard from at least a dozen people that it was a unique, two-story home with tiny rooms, and an unusually large 'atelier' or salon with high ceilings, which had been turned into a picture gallery. Leo Stein and his sister Gertrude were wealthy expatriates, in the habit of buying modern paintings at very low prices. Because of the unusualness of the collection, they created a most disturbing sight. The Steins often bought paintings in twos, since Gertrude usually liked one and Leo liked another. Gertrude and Leo loved showing them off. But it became a 'bother' having people knock on the door at all hours. So they settled on the idea of inviting friends and friends of friends to their Saturday night soirées. These soirées were serious evenings at which the new vogue in art and literature was discussed. Alice Toklas, Gertrude's companion, made little sandwiches and served refreshments. And there was tea. On special occasions they served naturally distilled liquors. Gertrude Had Sent for Me Gertrude had sent for me, summoned me was more like it via Sylvia Beach, whose bookstore on the rue de l'Odéon I had frequented often. I stood facing number 27, thinking of an appropriate excuse. Gertrude, I was told, didn't take kindly to people who came late. I took a deep breath and rang the bell. The door was opened by a petite and mysterious woman. This gypsy-like, brooding lady with the Joan of Arc haircut was Gertrude's companion, Alice. I later found out that Alice was more than a companion. She was a friend, confidante, secretary, cook, help-mate, lover and more. I never knew a closer relationship than theirs. There was even a degree of co-authorship between the two. Gertrude's hand scrawl was transposed to typed sheets and often contained changes suggested by Alice. Because of their intimacy and affection, Gertrude listened to Alice. She also relied on Alice to deal with those she didn't have time for. Gertrude talked to the writers. Alice talked to the wives. During the war, they traveled over dusty roads in Gertrude's Ford car, handing out supplies to the French wounded. They did it together. After the war, they were awarded the prestigious Medaille de la Reconnaissance francaise for the work they had done. At that time, Gertrude was still the most talked about and least read writer of her time. It was Gertrude who said, 'You are a lost generation.' But she knew everybody and was probably one of the greatest influences on that whole generation of 'lost' souls. She had a certain command over people, so when Sylvia told me that Gertrude wanted to meet me, I obeyed. The card Gertrude left for me said, simply, 'Please be coming to see me." To read the next chapter, click here. (Contact
Arnie Greenberg at ultours1@gmail.com)
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