FROM PARIS, FROM JOAN AND FRANK by Deborah Elliott Deutschman
Paris. 1958. Early September.
We see Joan Mitchell, the artist, and Frank O’Hara, the poet, walking across the Left Bank, slowly making their way toward the quays.
Joan Mitchell has been living in Paris for the last few years. She has a small studio in the Sixth Arrondissement (on rue Jacob). And though she has kept her studio in New York, and goes back and works there part of the year, she knows this is where she needs to be: in the atmosphere of Cezanne, Monet, and Matisse. Plus she has a complicated relationship with the artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, who’s still with his wife.
Frank O’Hara is in Paris on a work trip for the Museum of Modern Art, to help organize two traveling shows (“The New American Painting,” and a Jackson Pollock show) at the Musee National d’Art Moderne.
Several of their New York friends are in Paris: the poet John Ashbery (also living there), the artists Grace Hartigan and Sam Francis, and the poet Barbara Guest – visiting, briefly.
FRANK:
My last day in Paris, Joan and I just kept walking, after my studio visit to see her new work. One of those perfect summer days. Across the Left Bank, then along the quays, across the river. We had some idea about wanting to follow in Baudelaire’s footsteps, something like that – to see where he might have walked on a beautiful summer day. But we stopped off on the Ile de la Cite, at the Place Louis Lepine. And there was this outdoor market –
JOAN:
At first, I thought it was some kind of special Flower Market – the Marche aux Fleurs. With maybe only tropical flowers and plants, and, for some reason, they were being transported in small cages. Because I see all these strange flowers and plants, in all kinds of striking, surreal, brilliant colors – pure, absolute essences of colors, in small cages.
“See, we’ve got strange flowers from Baudelaire here,” I say to Frank. “From some opium vision of his. Baudelaire’s with us.”
“What the hell is this?” Frank says.
Then, suddenly – Shit, I realize they’re birds. And the whole fucking Place is filled with birds in cages. “It’s the Bird Market,” I say. “One day a week the Flower Market becomes a Bird Market. I know Paris pretty well by now, but you know I’ve never been to the famous Bird Market. Look at those two over there.”
FRANK:
Joan and I both zero‑in on these two birds: A white cockatoo and a green macaw – I think? At first, I’m not sure – I don’t really know that much about birds. A large white cockatoo, in a too-small cage, chewing away on his foot he’s so nervous – and emitting a sort of lower register nonstop gulp, as if trying to hatch an egg stuck in his gullet. And, in the cage next to him, a green macaw: Very calm, simply staring back at me. In a most quiet, collected manner. No sound at all, only the calm regard taking me in.
JOAN:
“Maybe he was a deaf mute in another life?” Frank says. And he bends down, studying the two birds, as if trying to figure out who they are – where they come from.
I bend down, also. “How you doing in there?” I ask them. Then I turn to Frank, “What do you think is their real story?”
“Let’s ask them,” Frank says. And does just that. “Tell us your real story,” he says, in his offhand, intimate, irresistible way. But the birds just keep doing whatever they’re doing.
“Look, they’re about to close,” I point out, suddenly noticing a lot of activity around us. The Bird Market is starting to get dismantled. Stands and tables and cages carted out to the nearby parked trucks and vans. “I’m going to go take a quick look,” I say, leaving Frank with his two birds. “Before the whole fucking place shuts down.”
And I go off – at the tail end of this Bird Market.
FRANK:
It is late afternoon by now. The ethereal blue of the sky shifting to other tones of pastel and amber and gold as the light goes, almost imperceptibly, and the city begins to slip away on its evening voyage.
I keep staring at the two birds. I lower myself even more to their level, so they can see me better: What are they trying to say? Do they want me to open their cages, set them free? Or do they just want me to commiserate with them?
The white cockatoo with his foot in his mouth, biting his nails, he’s so anxious he can’t stand it. This beautiful white bird with his smooth pure immaculate plumage, his long white feathers: a vision of a white sacrament, a ceremony. The white of a marriage rite, straight from the brilliant colors of a rainforest, here to the heart of Paris, on this gray sidewalk.
And the macaw that is so calm in contrast: such a placid presence, such peace emanating from within – a reincarnation of some higher soul. So calm, as he takes in how I’m taking him in, trying to see who he might be.
What is the real story with these two birds?
And I study the two birds in their small cages, as they stare back at me. On this beautiful summer day – my last day in Paris, before heading back to reality and New York City: We stare at one another, from our different cages.
And then, I get up – and go over to one of the men hauling some cages into the back of a small truck and I point to the Place where cages are fast disappearing and point to myself and take out my wallet and between my English and my limited French, try to convey what I want, while also miming. And the man smiles, puts his cages down, and follows me back to the two birds.
“Of course, Monsieur, you just have to tell me which bird you want,” he says, in French. “And we will work out the price – very special price – after all, it’s the end of the day.”
“How much for these two?” I ask.
“Both? You want both of them?” he ponders, as if that might be a problem. “How about that one there?” he indicates another bird nearby. No, I shake my head. I want these two right here, I explain. We negotiate back and forth. I pull out all my French bills – and remaining traveler’s checks and dollars. And he hands over the two cages. And, a cage in each hand, I go around the corner to wait for Joan. Who, finally, reappears.
JOAN:
And there’s Frank – in the shadowy recesses of the open entrance area of some old building. I mean – Shit, it’s almost dark by now. “I was looking all over the fucking place for you,” I start to say. Then, I see the birds. “My God, what have you done? You didn’t –”
He smiles – that inimitable smile of his: the all-knowing cool angelic prankster-hipster, and nods. “Oh boy, Frank. We’re going to get the fucking French police. What are we going to fucking do?” “Don’t worry,” he says. “I paid for them. I just don’t have any money left, that’s all. Good thing it’s my last day.”
“But what are you going to do with them?” I ask.
“Go have a drink?”
And so we head off to the Deux Magots. And join John there. And Grace, and Sam. And Barbara –
And the birds cause quite a sensation – Frank has opened their cages, but they just stay in there, just waiting. All kinds of people keep coming over to look, ask questions.
We end up eating at the Closerie des Lilas, since the Dome and the Coupole were too full. One of the outside terrace tables – even the French have certain limits.
“Monsieur, please,” the maitre d’ says. “This is not a circus here. Look, we already have a horse –” he points to an elegant young couple with a huge Great Dane, who’s crouched under their tiny table – and who has clearly registered the presence of the two birds on his turf. But the maitre d’ is overruled by the elderly woman at the cash register (the owner?) who waves Frank and the rest of us in. Frank with his uncanny power-hierarchy gauge had immediately established a special rapport with her.
Frank places the two open cages with the birds on two café chairs next to him. And we have dinner: John and Barbara, and Sam, and Grace – and her third husband (soon to be ex), who joins us. And the handsome curator from the Musee National d’Art Moderne Frank is working with on “The New American Painting” show – that Grace and Sam are both in, and I’m not – and the Pollock one.
And Jean-Paul. Who is back in my life, once again – and being as nice as he can be. Fucking shit, what a life.
And John’s French boyfriend, also a poet. And some of Barbara’s family who live here – and a few people whose names I can’t remember.
And that’s the story. How I got that fucking cockatoo and John got a macaw. After all, we were both living in Paris and Frank couldn’t exactly take the birds back to New York just like that.
New York. 1959. Late January.
Downtown. A loft on Second Avenue. A boisterous party in progress. We see FRANK O’HARA seated on an ancient couch, the center of a small group.
FRANK (laughing, to the group):
“What do you mean?” Bill says, when I tell him the story the next evening back in New York. You know his accent – let me try it – that Dutch-accent brogue – “I haf friends in Customs –” Ah, shit, I’m no good at accents – “I kuld haf gotten the birds through,” he goes on. “I’ve alvays vanted a kock-atoo. And mack-hah.” If I hadn’t known what Bill was talking about, I mean, shit, I would have had no idea what the hell he was trying to say. I mean, c’mon. A cock-a-what? And a mack-hah? I almost made a lewd remark, but I didn’t think Bill would be too amused. Besides, he wasn’t really listening. He just kept on: “Vat does Joan know about birds? It’s vasted on her. She’s not going to appreciate it. And John – I mean, kooommm on, Frank?” And he paused here, and just kept staring at me with those piercing gray eyes of his, shaking his head in bewilderment.
“Vat vere you thinking of?” he says. “You go to the truble of saving the birds, and then you just leave them in Paris? Promise me ven you go back for the Pollock show in January you’ll bring those birds back. Promise.”
I promised. He had me repeat it again. “You haf vitnesses now,” he warned me, indicating the other people at the table with us at the Cedar. I thought he was too drunk to remember.
But the next day, I get a call at work. Dorothy Miller and I are in the conference room with Alfred Barr, in the process of going over the new shows this season at MoMA with the members of the board. “It’s Willem de Kooning,” Alfred’s secretary says.
And I take the call, to my regret. Bill starts his whole spiel about the birds. And he won’t let me get off until I say yes.
So that’s how Bill got the two birds.
Or, at least, that’s one version.
Another, recounted decades later, long after everyone from that generation is gone, by a writer who comes across a color photo-postcard of de Kooning when she’s looking for an old manuscript in a transfer file box of papers near her desk and there’s a small faded envelope, probably from a museum, with some photo-postcards she’d kept, a sort of mixed random memorabilia: several famous photographs of Paris by Atget and Kertesz, and photos of Joan Mitchell, and Frank O’Hara at MoMA with Alfred Barr and Dorothy Miller – and, in bright color, de Kooning, his blue shirt hanging out of his paint-splattered white work pants, standing there, with blues of sky and water, on a gritty pebbled Long Island beach, and his white tousled/disheveled hair, beautiful age-creased face, squinting in the summer light – and perched on his palm, nuzzling with him, beak to nose, a white cockatoo.
And this writer wonders how did the white cockatoo get there? What was de Kooning doing with a cockatoo? What was the story? And she starts to imagine how the cockatoo came from the Bird Market in Paris – Along with maybe another bird? A macaw? A beautiful green macaw: de Kooning’s bird story
Deborah Elliott Deutschman is the author of a novel, Signals (Seaview Books/Simon & Schuster, and PEI paperbacks). Her poems and stories have appeared in North Dakota Quarterly, The Carolina Quarterly, Gargoyle, The New Criterion, and The New Yorker.