I thought of Mama's sad and happy years as we sat down to lunch. How it brought back the past. The trays of anchovies, tuna, mullet in brine, slices of smoked sturgeon, and its roes. Then came the skewered lamb; a fine dolma, vine leaves stuffed with meat; a rice called pilà; and last the eternal sweetmeat, irmik helvasi, made of rose-petal flour. corn meal, butter, honey, and nuts. The honey is very special. It is imfi, or palm syrup.
I ate everything and felt very old and very full of the past. The servants poured rose water over our hands and gave us the damp towel which has helped so much to spread trachoma over the Near East.
Hajji smiled and looked at his Swiss wrist watch. “The owner of the Picasso will be here soon. I hope you will be very pleased.”
“I hope the art dealer will be.”
Mrs. Hajji sighed and took two after-dinner pills, and the art objects on the table rattled. A servant came in, towing, like a wide little tug, the largest woman I had ever seen. She was not only fat, she was huge—big-boned, old, and once very beautiful, I felt sure.
Another servant followed with a picture, wrapped badly in paper. Mrs. Hajji pushed back a flock of tears and said to me, “This is Anna.”
The large woman looked at me. leaned over, and kissed my cheek. “Little Stevie.”
I was puzzled. The large woman shook her head.
“You don't remember Anna any more?”
“I am sorry.”
“You've changed, too. The little boy with the blond hair has become a middle-aged man with gray hair. At least, darling, you have kept it.”
“You're Anna,” I said. “The Anna.”
“I've changed a great deal, too.”
Yes, she had. She and Mama had been the gay girls back in 1913. They had been called the two most beautiful women of their time, and their time was long past. Mama was dead. But there sat Anna cartooned as this tremendous woman, this aging woman looking at me, trying to bring back a past we had once shared. The small boy and the beautiful Anna of the soft, white back and the long arms and the red hair and the gleaming, gold-flecked green eyes. The Anna that Mama had promenaded with “for protection.” How Gramp bad snorted at that line and swung his cane at the flowers. “For protection! It's the men who need protection! Damn world is going to hell in a hack when two women like that are allowed to run in polite society. and their husbands off someplace making a living for ‘em!”
I said, “It's been a long time, Anna.”
“Yes, darling, a very old time. And I've shocked you. When Hajji said they were sending an art expert from Egypt and said his name was the same as the writer's, I knew it was Sari's boy. We both bought this Picasso in Paris. One of those Russian dukes paid for it. We wanted to buy a Renoir, but Leo Stein—remember Leo, Stevie? No. I guess you don't—he talked us into the Picasso. Poor Leo is dead, I hear. What ever happened to that yenta of a sister of his?”
“She started a literary movement. She's dead, too. Some people take her very seriously. She's got a cult now.”
“The cow.” said Anna, unwrapping the painting. “Well, here it is. I need money badly. Things have changed since the old days. I hope you're getting a good cut of the price, darling.”
“No, just the trip. The dealer is a friend of mine.”
“That's bad. Dealers aren't nice people, except the Khalfahs here.”
Hajji purred, “It's a fine example of the Rose Period.”
I looked. It was a bad fraud. The Rose Period isn't hard to copy. But this thing was labored and cluttered. Picasso's Rose Period is a thing of quick drawing, amazing color tones, and flat areas so simple that it almost falls apart and yet doesn't.
“I'll have to study it a little more, Anna.”
She smiled and patted my check. “I've got an advance from Hajji, darling. Tonight we celebrate. They are dancing a fine zabek full of knives, or do you like Circassians?”
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