Blue Ravens: Historical Novel

22 École Indienne

› 22 ‹ École Indienne — — — — — — — 19 2 2 — — — — — — — The River Seine shimmered and curved with an eternal smile, and the natural traces of that disguise were underway on the waves of winter lights. The reflections never slighted tinkers on the stone, wounded veterans, wanderers , and trusty fishermen who steadied the stream that morning. The waves of plane leaves, swollen beams, and barges of coal creased the slow water under every bridge of honor and tribute. The ancient sources and new catch of the river, and stories of moue and memory ran away overnight to the channel and the sea. Aloysius had started a new series of portrayals, Blue Ravens and Bridges on the River Seine, on our first weekend in Paris. We walked the entire day on each side of the river from the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris to the Pont de l’Archevêché and Pont Mirabeau. The River Seine curved to the west under the Pont Royal, Pont de la Concorde, Pont de l’Alma, and past the Eiffel Tower. Guillaume Apollinaire had published “Le Pont Mirabeau” in Alcools seven years earlier. Nathan Crémieux read the poem out loud at dinner and encouraged me to translate the first stanza. Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine The Seine runs under the Pont Mirabeau Et nos amours And our love Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne The river must remember me La joie venait toujours après la peine Joy always came after sorrow Aloysius made several outline drawings of each bridge in a notebook. He usually painted at the scenes, the actual portrayals of inspiration, but the blue ravens and the bridges were imagined and painted later. The notes 220 G e r a l d v i Z e N o r were impressions, creative configurations, and pictures of the architecture and the many moods of the river. My brother traced and set the bridges afloat several times but could not decide how to create the scenes of ravens and the river. Later that week he imagined the blue bridges afloat with mighty ravens on the curve of waves. The bridges were unmoored, and moved with the river and ravens. The memorial bridges were portrayed in natural motion, a tribute to the actual traces, totemic reflections, and impressions overnight in the River Seine. Nathan was delighted, of course, with the description of the new abstract bridge paintings, and he was eager to schedule an exhibition of the new series. The earlier blue ravens were the first contemporary native art to be presented with traditional, ceremonial and native ledger art at the Galerie Crémieux. Marie Vassilieff invited us to dinner a few days later at Le Chemin du Montparnasse. Since our first visit three years earlier she had created fantastic terracotta figurines, rough dolls dressed with motley, untidy material, an artistic counteraction of classical images and sculpture. The faces of the figures were handsome, some with huge eyes, more spirited than models of the ordinary. The figurines might have been the ancestors of every culture. Marie was moved when my brother told the story that our grandmother had made similar rough figures decorated with feathers and leather for the children on the White Earth Reservation. Aloysius was eager to start the stories over dinner with an episode about the nasty federal agent with a nose for the scent of wine, the prohibition of alcohol, and politics of white pine on the reservation. I continued with stories about labor unions and our work as stagehands at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis. Marie was a revolutionary and honored labor unions over the bourgeoisie , of course, and raised her voice to salute the mere mention of unions, and yet she was hesitant to favor the obscure communiqués of the communists , and would never stand with the fanatics or extremists of the Parti Communiste Français. Marie assumed that we had been active in communist labor movements and the Industrial Workers of the World, and anticipated our stories of the obvious proletarian maneuvers of natives on federal reservations. Naturally B l U e r a v e N s 221 she was enthusiastic about native traditions and liberty, but not as au courant with the colonies and reservations as she was with political revolutions, visionary literature, and the great innovative artists of Paris. I described the situation of labor and radical movements on federal treaty reservations...