Painting on the vertical dimension, this should fill a 20F just fine.
I’m all settled in when Mirabelle sits in the chair. I need her head turned more to the light with her sightless eyes seeming to look at me. I want the dynamic of the two directions. I wonder if when I paint her, her eyes will seem empty, they don’t seem that way to me at all. I have the other chair set up in front of my paint box. I stand and go over to where she’s sitting. I put my hands on each side of her face and turn it so the light is just right. I think it’s the first time I touch her face.
Usually, from the little experience I’ve had with painting portraiture, one asks models, after they’ve been posed, to pick something and fix their eyes on it. But this is obviously impossible in this case. She does the mind-reading trick on me again.
‘I can hold my head still like this because I know where you are and I can feel the open window.’
I start my pencil sketch with a 3B pencil. I’ll move up to 6B later on when I’m more sure. I really don’t like working the drawing with charcoal and then blowing fixative on it the way they taught me those long years ago at school. I draw with the pencil and correct with a soft eraser. I begin drawing and concentrate for at least fifteen minutes, getting her placed on the canvas, having the right relationship between head, body, and negative space. I want her placed up high on the canvas but not too dominant. I make quite a few erasures before I get the proportions and angles I want.
‘Please tell me, Jacques, how I look. No one seems to look at me, or, if they do, they have never told me. Many times I would ask Rolande how I looked but she would only say I was quite presentable, or sometimes when she was cross, that I was too pretty for my own good. But that was a long time ago.
‘I can feel with my fingers that I am getting older. There seems nothing one can do to stop that. It is only natural, is it not?’
She pauses. I’m trying to concentrate, get it right, what’s she talking about now?
‘Do I have gray hair, Jacques?’
This is going to be hard but I want to be truthful. I look away from the painting, up at her.
‘White, Mirabelle, you have white hair. There are some dark hairs in your eyebrows, but the hair on your head is practically white.’
‘Oh dear! I have begun to think so. At first, twenty years ago, I could tell some of the hairs were stiffer and were hard to manage. I imagine they were the white ones. They were not like the kind of hair usually growing on my head. Now they are all the same, all stiff and straight. You know, it is hard for me to think of myself with white hair. Is that not silly? Here I am, seventy-one years old, and I actually almost did not believe I had even gray hair. I feel like such a fool.’
‘None of us ever really look at ourselves, Mirabelle, even if we can see. Perhaps it is best, it helps us sustain our illusions.’
She’s quiet for a while. I’m working on the relationship between her eyes and nose. She has a lovely, thin aquiline nose with visible, slightly flaring nostrils. Her eyes, her non-seeing eyes, are set wide and are large. It’s so hard to believe she sees nothing.
‘Yes, you are right; perhaps that is why I do not allow myself to see. But tell me, do I have wrinkles in my face? Of course I do. Would you please tell me about them? I want to know, I really do.’
It’s hard to concentrate because that’s not the part of her face I’m working on yet. I can see this is going to be quite a problem painting her. I lean back and look.
‘Yes, Mirabelle, you have wrinkles. So do I. I’m forty-nine years old, so naturally I have wrinkles. Without wrinkles nobody’s face would be very interesting.
‘You have a wonderful line of concentration, slightly to the left, between your eyes, and a smaller one just beside it. Then across your forehead you have four questioning lines, unevenly spaced, going all the way across. Two of them intersect on the left side. There are lines coming out of your eyes on each side, mostly smiling lines, lines from avoiding the glare of the sun. No, that can’t be, the glare of the sun would mean nothing to you. They must only be smiling lines. You do smile often, you know, Mirabelle.
‘There are lines down the sides of your mouth from your nose. These are the deepest lines in your face. They come right down past your mouth to your chin. Those are the main lines on your face, the most visible, but not the most important.’
She’s quiet some more. I get back to work with my drawing. Again, by having explained to her, I’m seeing better. The spacing between the eyes and the mouth is better related to the length of the nose. This can always be a problem in doing a portrait.
‘And what other lines are there?’
I don’t stop drawing this time.
‘Well, there are all the lines that come with aging, with the gradual loss of skin tone, small crosshatch lines, the lines from the pull of gravity on the skin. These are the usual lines which don’t really tell much about a person, what they are, the way they’ve thought. They’re only the lines that come naturally as anybody gets older, lines of normal skin aging.’
I don’t mention the lines I’m drawing in now, those lines that run down into the upper lip, the lines of a shrinking face, the most prominent aging marks on almost any face. I hope she doesn’t question me anymore.
‘Am I ugly, Jacques?’
This is asked in a very low voice.
‘No, Mirabelle, you are quite a handsome, mature woman. I’m sure you must have been a very pretty girl and a lovely young woman, as well. I’m quite proud and happy to be painting your portrait.’
I can say this and really mean it. There’s something mystical, almost childlike in her face, her voice, and all her moves, which denies her age. Maybe blindness helps people not get old too fast. Perhaps she’s been protected from so much of the distraction, the impact, the stress of ordinary city life, she’s been preserved in some way. There’s a strange quality, so fresh, new, clean, about her.
‘Do you think anybody could ever love me, Jacques? Be honest now, please.’
What a question! I finish up with the curvature of her cheek before I answer.
‘I love you, Mirabelle. You’re one of the finest, most intelligent, sensitive, and interesting people I’ve ever met. I enjoy your company. I feel like a better person when I’m with you. Does that answer your question?’
And I’m not lying.
‘Thank you, Jacques.’
I hope that’s the end of it.
‘But I mean, really love me; want to make love, faire l’amour with me. Do you think it is at all possible for some man to feel that way?’
Well, this stops me. Maybe I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear her. But I can’t, the intensity of her question demands an answer.
I sit back, look at her, look at the drawing. Actually, it’s coming along pretty well, considering everything. I’m beginning to realize there’s a young girl locked up in this old woman’s body. It seems sad. It’s like the pear.
‘It’s not impossible, Mirabelle. You are really a most attractive older woman. It is
