The Burnt Orange Heresy

"Do not be so nervous, M. Figueras. (?')Debemos dar preferencia al hablar del espanol?"

"No. I think in Spanish when I speak it, and I prefer to think in English and talk in French-"

"What are you talking about?" Berenice said, sipping from her glass.

"The difference between Spanish and English and French," I said.

"I hate Spanish," Berenice said, winking at me. "It's got too many words for bravery, which makes a person wonder sometimes about the true bravery of the Spanish character."

"And French, I think," Debierue said in English, "has too many words for love." He reached over and touched my hair. "You have nice curly yellow hair, and she should not tease you. Come now, drink your orange juice."

The paternal touch of his hand unknotted my inner tenseness, and I realized that the old artist was trying to make things easier for me. At any rate, my guilty feelings had been dissipated by his casual acceptance of both me and my professionalism. My awe of the old painter was also going away. I was still mightily impressed by him, and I felt that our conversation was going well

Any writer who is awed in the presence of the great or the near-great cannot function critically. I respected Debierue enough to be wary, however, knowing that he was not an ingenuous man, knowing that he had survived as an individual all of these years by maintaining an aloof, if not an arrogant, silence, and a studied indifference to journalists. Debierue realized, I think, that I was on his side, and that I would always take an artist's viewpoint before that of the insensitive public's. He had read my work and he remembered my name. I could therefore give him credit for knowing that I was as unbiased as any art critic can ever be. To see his paintings, which was the major reason for my odyssey, I now had to gain his complete confidence. I had to guard against my tendency to argue. Nor should I bait him merely to obtain a few sensational opinions about art as "news."

"I am curious about why you immigrated to Florida, M. Debierue."

"I almost didn't. For my old bones, I wanted the sun. When more than fifty years of my work was burned in the fire-you knew about the fire?"

"Yes, sir."

"A most fortunate accident. It gave me a chance to begin again. The artist who can begin again at my age is a very fortunate man. So it was to the new world I turned, the new world and a new start. Tahiti, I think at first, would be best, but my name would then be linked somehow to Gauguin." He shook his head sadly. "Unavoidable. Such comparisons would not be fair, but they would have been made. And on the small island, perhaps the bus would pass my studio every day with American tourists to stare at me. Tahiti, no. Then I think, South America?' No, there is always trouble there. And then Florida seems exactly right. But I did not come right away. I knew about the war in Florida, and I have had enough war in my lifetime."

"The war?" I said, puzzled. "The war in Vietnam?"

"No, no. The Seminole War. It is well known in Europe that these, the Florida Seminole Indians, are at war with your United States. Is it not so?"

"Yes, I suppose so, but only in a technical sense. The Seminoles are actually a very small Indian nation. And it's not a real war. It's a failure on the part of the Indians to sign a peace treaty with the U.S., that's all. Once in a while there's a slight legal flare-up, when some Florida county tries to force an Indian kid to go to school when he doesn't want to go-although a lot of Indians go to school now voluntarily. But there hasn't been an incident with shots fired for many years. The Seminoles have learned that they're better off than other Indian nations, in a legal way, by not signing a treaty."

"Yes." He nodded. "I learned this from M. Cassidy, but I wrote some letters first to be certain." He pursed his lips solemnly and looked down at the countertop. "I will die in Florida now. This much I know, and a Frenchman does not find it so easy to leave France when he knows he will never see it again. There are other countries in the world that would have welcomed me, M. Figueras. Greece, Italy. The world is too good to me. I have always had many good friends, friends that I have never met. They write me letters, very nice letters from all over the world."

I nodded my understanding. It was perfectly natural for strangers in every country to write to Debierue, although it had never occurred to me to write him myself. The same thing had happened to Schopenhauer in his old age, and he had been as pleased as Debierue to receive the letters. Any truly radical artist with original ideas who lives long enough will not only be accepted by the world at large, he will be admired, if not revered, for his dogged persistence-even by people who detest everything he stands for.