Madame Picasso. Anne Girard

      Louis held her arm as they approached the crowd gathered in front of the circus building. Neither one of them knew quite what to expect.

      “I still don’t understand how you managed such an invitation,” he said excitedly, taking in all of the activity and the rollicking circus music spilling out from inside.

      “Well, I owed you, certainly, after you took me to the exhibition. You told me that you would be pleased to meet such a celebrated young artist as Picasso, so I thought this might be fun. Everyone in Paris talks of him.”

      “Of course I am pleased. I’m hoping he might be able to give me a few pointers about my own work since they say, for all of his success, he, too, had a rough go of it in the beginning.”

      Eva cringed inwardly at the note of desperation in his voice. Louis had painted some beautiful watercolors but his work did not come from the place of passion Picasso’s did, and he certainly had nothing of the celebrity about him. Louis was a man who played at art. Picasso was a man who lived it.

      Once Eva had given their names at the box office they were ushered inside by a young man dressed in a red-and-black harlequin costume. They passed a clown, a juggler and two girls in scanty dresses, each with huge bobbing feathers attached to their headdresses. Eva could tell from their expressions that only important guests were seated by a host.

      Her heart began to race as they neared the front row. She spotted Picasso, Fernande and their group of friends prominently seated there. Suddenly she was not sure that she could go through with this. Her stomach squeezed into a tight knot and rocketed into her throat. Fernande stood, smiled broadly and waved to call them over.

      “I’m so pleased you made it. I know you will love the show,” she said, embracing Eva as if they’d known each other for years, not days. “Pablo, this is Marcelle Humbert and her friend. Both of you, may I present, Pablo Picasso.”

      She felt a brief spark of defiance and almost announced that they had already met, but her nerves overcame her and, beneath Picasso’s bold, dark gaze, she simply nodded.

      “I’m Louis Markus,” Louis offered affably.

      “And these are our dear friends, the very beautiful Germaine and her husband, Ramón Pichot, a wonderful artist himself,” she said of the attractive young couple with them. “And of course this is Guillaume Apollinaire.”

      Apollinaire stood to greet them. He was exceedingly tall with a long heavy chin and sloping shoulders. Reading his poetry in Vincennes, Eva had always envisioned someone entirely more dashing and modest-sized. Still, he was a man with a likable aura and with the most wonderfully warm smile, she thought. He looked like a gentle giant.

      “What an interesting beauty you possess,” Apollinaire remarked with a noticeable lisp, and she could hear the familiar Polish accent behind his words. He did not seem to remember having met her backstage at the Moulin Rouge.

      “Listen to nothing he says. He is a dreadful flirt, and currently on the rebound. But of course they will reconcile—like everyone else in our little group. We are all bound together for eternity,” said the pretty young woman called Germaine as she extended her hand to Eva. Her hair was a similar shade to Fernande’s and she had the same striking green eyes. Eva thought they could have been sisters. “It’s a pleasure to meet any friend of Fernande.”

      “Thank you,” Eva said. She glanced at Picasso then and saw that he was still staring at her. She was not certain what his strong gaze was telling her but she reveled in how awkward the situation must be for him, too. It was the only power she wielded over him and she wanted desperately to enjoy it. Was that not what a worldly woman did in a situation like this?

      “Oh, it’s starting! Monsieur Markus, come sit beside me. Pablo loves to chatter on about all of the acts, and I, of course, have heard it all before,” Fernande instructed as if she were directing servants at a dinner party. “I’m told you’re a painter. Louis Markus, hmm. Did you ever consider changing your name? If you’re going to be a great artist in Paris, you really should be called something far more grand and memorable.”

      Eva heard him chuckle since he had changed it once already. Louis Markus had been a vast improvement by Parisian standards. “Have you anything in mind?”

      “Not yet, but I will,” Fernande announced.

      Eva sank awkwardly into the only seat left open, the one beside Picasso. There was a railing right in front of them and the scent of sawdust and manure was disarmingly strong. A trumpet sounded, announcing the beginning of the show, and Picasso leaned in close to Eva.

      “We really must stop meeting like this,” he said softly into her ear.

      “I’d be happy to accommodate you if you would kindly stop cropping up everywhere.”

      Fernande was happily chatting with Louis and pointing at the elephants, who were lumbering out into the center ring to great fanfare.

      “That was unwarranted.”

      “Was it?” Eva asked curtly, holding fast to her hauteur.

      “There’s not a day this week I have not thought of you.”

      “I’m sure Madame Picasso would not appreciate knowing that.”

      “I have no wife.”

      She cast a wary glance at Fernande. “She calls herself that so it is the same as if you did.”

      “Perhaps that’s true,” he conceded with an uncomfortable shrug. Two great gray elephants in red-and-gold collars were paraded in front of them then by a man in a red coat and black top hat. He snapped a huge bullwhip. “I swear to you, when we met I had no intention of deceiving you.”

      Eva could hear a slight hitch of regret layered beneath his whispered words.

      “Once the milk is spilled it is spilled.”

      There was a silence between them as the ringmaster bellowed in his loud, showy baritone. Picasso washed a hand over his face. He drew in a breath, exhaled, then looked out into the sawdust-covered center ring.

      “I would not have expected such a harsh tone in your words.”

      She stiffened, looking as well to the center ring and the two scantily clad female performers with feathered headdresses who had come out to ride the elephants. “They are not merely words, monsieur. The tone cannot be helped because they are the thoughts of my heart, meager and naive though they may well be to someone like you.”

      “They touch me. You touch me. In a way I have not felt in a very long time.”

      “And you insult me as we sit here in the presence of your wife.”

      “Dios, she is not my wife!”

      “Continually making that distinction is beneath you.”

      “How have you any idea what is beneath me or what I am capable of?” he snapped at her.

      Fernande was momentarily distracted by the rise in Picasso’s tone, and she glanced over at them. Eva felt herself flush. Her heart quickened. Perhaps she was not ready for this. She had never been so confused or humiliated. If she could take that one night back, ah, if... But she knew, even as the thought whispered through her mind, that a thousand times over she would still have given herself to Picasso. It truly had been the most exciting night of her life.

      Neither of them spoke again until after the circus was over and they all walked together out onto the busy boulevard de Rochechouart with the rest of the crowd. The streetlamps were lit by then, and each one cast an amber cone of light through which they all passed. It was a warm evening and there were people strolling everywhere. Louis put a casual arm across Eva’s shoulder as they walked onto the rue des Martyrs and she felt herself seize up at the possession behind his touch. She forced herself not to shrink from him, however, since suddenly she wanted Picasso to feel jealous.

      “You should all come to the apartment for a drink,” Fernande said blithely as