6th
Madame X - A Bar Review Post-Mortem
“But I just don’t understand why you don’t want to paint me anymore,” wailed Madame X to John Singer Sargent.
“You are no longer new,” Sargent replied, as matter of fact as a brush stroke. “I told you to stop with the slip of your dress strap. That alabaster shoulder, Amelie, was everything.”
“You weren’t the only one who wanted me. I am…I am the It-Girl!”
“Mrs. Gautreau. Amelie. Your face is as pale as your arms are plump. You are no longer twenty-three if you ever were a day. And you eat — red meat.”
Madame X looked around one last time at the fading red couches of her once famed boudoir, arching an alopecia-thinned brow at the imprint of a spectral lover (John - Jacques - Jonathan — and Catherine) who had lingered on the pale neck before leading Madame’s frail hand out to the garden to smoke French Resistance cigarettes and talk of all the fine things in the world.
“You can have the place if you still want it,” said Singer Sargent. ” But you should reconsider those portraits —they’re just so obvious, although the one in the unitard who looks like a yogi may do. You may also want to consider adding a few organic wines, and maybe a starter salad, if you even want to try and attract new clientele.”
Starter salads? Rabbit food? Madame grimaced.
“And most importantly, the smoke is bothering the neighbors.”
Madame X didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t except to kiss Singer Sargent tenderly on the nape and quietly pull the door shut and the heavy drapery down behind him.
She pulled down her black gown too — slowly tugging at the straps as the artist had first taught her — until her nude body shivered in a full-length gilded mirror.
She had never noticed how her paleness — accented by a light amber down — had lacked tautness, elasticity. Her grace had always been in the suggestion of movement rather than in the still-life’s perfection. Even in The Painting the grip of the hand gave the lie to the cool profile as the gaze — straight-ahead — dreamed of raptures in crooked side-streets.
But her clients had never minded. She had not changed.
Madame X took the revolver (it was in the yellow envelope all along in the conservatory) and stroked its muzzle against a belly fragrant with steak and wine.
“Now what would the neighbors think of that picture!”
The old Madame laughed, clucking a Bordeaux-stained tongue to ivory teeth.
“I guess I’ll have to put out an ad in all of those Bridge and Tunnel rags tomorrow,” she said with a bit of her old flounce, opening up the garden doors and striking up a match.
