P.P.Paris 1941

We arrived at our Paris apartment in the middle of a sunny afternoon, anticipating another wonderful vacation in the city of light. The seventh arrondissement, how we loved the area. Bakeries everywhere, wine shops, cafes, people with two baguettes, one to eat on the run, and one to take home. It was good to be back.

We carried our luggage up the four flights of stairs and found our apartment. The owner , Elise, had given us a numerical code to enter on the keypad by the door handle. Once in we would find the entrance key and use that for the reminder of our visit. As we opened the door, we stepped into an immaculate living room with a huge picture window overlooking the street. Straight ahead we could see the Eiffel Tower staring back at us. It was majestic.

The apartment looked just liked the pictures online. The rooms were a generous size for a one bedroom. Living room, dining room, a kitchen completely stocked with essentials to cook a gourmet meal but, we were in Paris. Cafes, bistros, restaurants, everywhere. We weren’t going to spend time cooking when we could be exploring. The bedroom housed a large canopy bed outfitted in luxury white linens. As we acquainted ourselves with the various rooms, we started to wonder if we had missed the toilet room, or water closet. We saw the large shower room but no toilet. After a few minutes, we realised there was one door we had not opened. We opened the door and truthfully, we were a little concerned. It was a beautiful mix of marble, chrome, and glass and smaller than an airline washroom. My husband was 6’3” tall, and muscular. How was this going to work?

I stepped in and held on to the sink and carefully turned around, however, that was me. I couldn’t figure out what Jim was going to do. I stepped out and he stepped in. By way of a twist and a turn while holding the sink he managed to turn around.

“It’s fine,” he said, “I’ll make it work.”

Smiling, we shook our heads.

“Okay, let’s go find some dinner.”

We walked around Paris for about twenty minutes, and then ended up at the bistro across the street from the apartment. The menu was full of things we found tempting so it made perfect sense to dine there.

The sky was starting to fill with stars as it darkened. Lovely as it was, we were tired after our long trip, and decided to head for bed. On the hour, the Eiffel Tower started its light show. Every hour the tower would light up and sparkle for about 5 minutes. The dark sky was a perfect backdrop for such a radiant vibrancy. Truly spectacular.

Once back in our apartment, it didn’t take long before we were asleep. In the middle of the night, I heard Jim move, and assumed he was off to the W.C. No lights were turned on so his eyes must have adjusted to the darkness. Suddenly I heard a bang, and a thud. I jumped out of bed, switched on the lights, and called to him through the door.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, sorry. I guess I didn’t twist or turn properly. I know my foot hit something but I’m not sure what. Hang on.”

I could hear movement of some kind but really had no idea what he was doing, or if he was stuck. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine but it looks like I kicked the baseboard, and a piece has come loose. Actually, it’s come off.” Jim opened the door with the baseboard piece in his hand. “We’re going to have to either put it back together or tell the owner.”

“Well as long as you’re okay. Let’s take a look at it in the morning.”

In the morning we had our showers making us feel much better, made coffee, and had a look at the baseboard. We decided the damage was not bad, and most likely I could slide in on the marble floor, and perhaps glue it back in place.

I opened the washroom door, crouched down on my knees, lay down on my stomach holding the piece of baseboard in my hand, and started to slide toward the baseboard gap. Now within reach, I put the piece up to the gap and realised I could easily glue it in place. However, just as I took the wood piece away, I noticed something in the opening. I touched something square or rectangular, like a book. It was a book, a little soft covered black book. I slid back out and stood up.

“Look at this.”

I slipped off the elastic closure around it, revealing pencil drawn doodles of flowers, vases, and ladies faces and also some text. Flipping through the pages, we saw more doodles and what appeared to be poetry written in French.

I drew on my memory for the limited French I knew, and read aloud, “the lonely road is what I walked…,” and then said “look at this doodle. It reminds me of someone, of paintings I’ve seen. Don’t you think it looks very Picasso-esq? I don’t know, like his Dora Maar paintings?”

“I guess.”

We looked through the little black book becoming more convinced the drawings or doodles appeared very familiar. We looked at the front of the book and noticed the inscription of P.P. Paris 1941. That was it, nothing more. After a few more minutes leafing through the book, we were certain the book was important, but did it actually belong to Picasso? Possibly?

“We should take it to the museum, the Louvre, and find out what they think. We have tickets for this afternoon, so we’re going anyway.

“Sure, let them take a look even though it doesn’t really belong to us. It belongs to Elise.” Jim said.

“You’re right but let’s find out if there is anything to it before we involve her. What do you think?”

“OK.”

We headed off to the Louvre and were lucky as there wasn’t much of a line with our pre-paid tickets. Only ten minutes and we were in. Unheard of! We approached a desk to the side of the entrance and asked if we could speak to the curator. We told them we had an item, we thought was curious, and might be important. The head curator unfortunately was unavailable, but we could speak with her assistant. Before long Rosalie Rossignol appeared.

Ms. Rossignol led us to a small room with a table and four chairs for privacy. Once seated, we took out the little black book and handed it to her.

“We think the drawings look quite similar to Picasso’s work,” I said.

She opened the pages, taking special note of the doodles. When she came across the poem, she gasped. Composed but with raised eyebrows she said, “This is a Picasso poem. He wrote a few when he needed to clear his head. Whether these musings are by his hand, I’m not sure. I am no Picasso expert, but this book is indeed interesting. Where did you get this?”

We explained the whole story of the tiny washroom, and how Jim stumbled, to which she nodded her head in understanding. Then she said, “You need to go to the Musée Picasso Paris on Rue de Rivoli. Not too far on the Metro.”

“Do you think we should go now?”

“Yes, Yes. I will call ahead to inform them of your arrival. Also, do not worry about your pre-paid Louvre tickets, just ask for me later today, or any other day this week and I will honour them.

We made our way to the Musée Picasso Paris without any difficulty. When we said Ms. Rossignol had called ahead, the representative led us to as small private room.

Once the curator, Mr. Beauchamp assessed the book, he said it was authentic.

We were stunned. As much fun as it was to pretend it might be the work of Picasso, we didn’t really think we’d stumbled on something so precious.

“If you will grant us the book, we will give you a finder’s fee of €13,000.00 ” (about $20000.00 for our purposes).

“Wow! We had no idea. What was it doing in the baseboard? Do you have any idea, Mr. Beauchamp?”

“It seems that Picasso was living in Paris at the time of the German occupation, and he felt terribly harassed by the Nazis. It is possible he hid the book and simply forgot it was there. So, what do you say? Do we have a deal?”

“We will have to call the owner of the apartment. We are here on vacation, and it’s only right we inform her of our finding.”

“Of course. I’ll leave you while you telephone her if you like.”

We spoke to Elise, the owner, and she was quite excited about the news. She wanted to see the book but couldn’t come now. Could she come tomorrow, and would the museum let her hold it and look through it? And yes please, let them have it, it belongs to them for the world to see. As well, she told us because we found the little black book, the money belonged to us. No arguments.

“May I speak with the curator, please?” Her voice was excited.

We signalled for Mr. Beauchamp to return and asked him to speak to Elsie.

They spoke enthusiastically for a few minutes, and then the call was ended.

“Elise has instructed me to give you the money. She feels quite comfortable in her decision. She believes her apartment will be booked all the time if she advertises it as the apartment Picasso lived in when in Paris. She also wants to take some pictures of the pages and so on thinking they will enhance the apartment. She’s very confident.”

Mr. Beauchamp left us in the room while he collected the necessary documentation for us to sign. He also was preparing a cheque for €13,000.00 ($20,000.00).

While he was busy, we thought we should call Elise just to confirm her decision once again.

“Yes, yes, please take the money. You have done me a great favour. Also, I will always find room for you when you come back to Paris. Who knows, you might find another great work!”

We hung up from Elise just as the curator came in to collect the book and give us a cheque for €13,000.00 ($20,000.00).

Paris just gets better and better.

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