Cooking for Picasso by Camille Aubray

preparing “the best lunch” in town. Quickly she arranged the appetizers on their dishes and loaded them onto a big tray. Ready. She took a deep breath, hoisted the tray and carried it into the dining room.
    Picasso and his guests stood there with filled wine glasses in hand. Now they took their seats. Ondine served
langoustines
“Ninon”—shellfish in a leek, butter and orange sauce, with a
chiffonade
of greens topped by a few edible flowers. “Ah!” the men chorused, dropping their napkins in their laps.
    Back in the kitchen she became deeply absorbed at the stove with final preparations of the main course. When she re-entered the dining room to collect the empty plates, the men had resumed conversing in that low, businesslike way. Picasso did not look up at her, nor give any indication of what they’d felt about the appetizers. She hurried off to put the dishes in the sink.
    “Well, they all ate every bite. They wouldn’t do that if they hated it,” Ondine consoled herself. “But these men are connoisseurs of the world’s greatest art. They must have highly sophisticated palates, too!” Her fingers were shaking as she put the
cassoulet
and clean dishes on her tray. “Mother of God, give me deliverance!” she said under her breath.
    She staggered back to the dining room with her heavy tray. This time, the men stopped talking and glanced up hungrily, their eyes following her every move as she deposited the main course in the center of the table. They continued to watch while she lifted the lid of the pot. More intense silence. Ondine raised her spoon to break the
cassoulet
crust with a ceremonial
crack!
The guests broke into applause. She almost wept with relief, carefully placing each serving before them. Then she stood quietly in the doorway to assess if anything more was needed. Picasso and Cocteau dove in heartily.
    Matisse used his spoon to delicately taste the sauce. “Ah.
Superbe!
” he sighed.
“Ondine, vous êtes une vraie artiste.”
She was thrilled. No one had ever called her, or her mother, a “true artist”. From the head of the table Picasso smirked at the food—not her—with pride, nodding.
    Ondine said,
“Bon appétit,”
before she slipped out to check on dessert. She heard a second bottle of wine open with a loud
pop!
and soon the men’s voices rose in volume, boisterously laughing and even shouting.
    “Good, they’re happy now,” she sighed in relief as she ground the coffee beans.
    But when she came into the dining room to collect the empty plates, the atmosphere had changed palpably, with a dangerous tension in the air that made her want to hide like a child behind the sofa in the parlor until the guests had gone home. Already she felt she’d been holding her breath all day.
    “You’ve really got Herr Hitler all wrong,” Cocteau was saying plaintively. “He’s a pacifist at heart! And he truly has France’s best interests in mind.”
    Picasso snorted. “He’s got France’s best
bridges
in mind for his bombs,” he replied belligerently.
    “No, no!” Cocteau insisted unwisely, as if he were confident of words he’d heard repeated a hundred times at other important luncheons. “Hitler loves France. He’s a true patron of the arts.”
    “It remains to be seen,” Matisse cautioned. “The odds are that we are all on his blacklist.”
    Picasso turned to Cocteau with terrifyingly piercing scorn in those coal-black eyes. “You think Hitler will let a ‘degenerate’ like you keep staging your pretty little films and ballets?” he said tauntingly. “He’ll eat you alive for breakfast, and he’ll still be hungry before noon.”
    Cocteau wore the shocked look of a schoolboy who’d had his knuckles rapped. Picasso saw this, but rather than let his friend off the hook, he pressed on in an even crueler tone, with the look of a bird of prey swooping on a mouse. “But if you, Jean, salute whatever flag the Nazis run up the pole, then perhaps the Führer will keep