Not a Madeleine

But a Mounds bar. Coconut and dark chocolate. A Mounds bar from the vending machine along the side of the station sidewalk while I wait for the train to come swooshing in. The year 1952. A subway station in New York.

I have always liked coconut but it has to be paired with dark chocolate. Milk chocolate is too sweet. There is never time to get a proper lunch as I make my way to Columbia University for my evening class. On my way back home, I often get a pastrami on rye from the delicatessen close by. Or maybe a can of Campbell’s clam chowder. I never do much cooking. Come to think of it, it isn’t just a matter of time but also of not wanting to spend much on lunch in the automat or even in the corner diner, generally Greek or Italian. Sometimes I may even get a slice of pie from one of the cubby holes lining the walls in the cafeteria, refilled in less than five minutes by invisible hands. Evenings after a sketch class, fellow students and I sit around over cups of coffee discussing the class and the models – a lithe dancer or a hefty curvaceous one who is on an ice-cream diet trying to lose weight. Then possibly around midnight I wander home, by myself, to the tiny room I rent from the thin middle-aged woman who works for a society for abandoned children. My room has one window and is on the fourth floor at 31st Street from where I can hear the Third Avenue “el” rumble by. Just once, I remember now, did someone follow me. Never occurred to anyone to accompany me home.

If I am on my way to NY University in Washington Square I can generally walk. Or if it is MOMA I am headed for, I can also walk, passing by Barnes and Nobel across from Rockefeller Center where I might go in and wander around, leafing through the wonderful array of books.

Later there is no time for lunch as I make my way to Columbia University from East 31st Street. There are few fellow travelers this time of day. The cross-town subway, and then change to up-town at Penn Station. A long walk through tunnels and down endless flights of stairs, only some of which are escalators to get to the uptown train. I will be getting off – not sure if at the 96th station or at 124th. Columbia University. I’m lucky to have Meyer Schapiro on Romanesque art. He’s absolutely brilliant. The woman I sit next to in the class is auditing. Ellie. She wears braces for her muscular dystrophy and we become friends. She’s married to a philosophy professor whom she eventually divorces and then remarries a year later. She loves to order shoes and dresses delivered to her apartment, only to return them the next day. It embarrasses me but she is a friend so I don’t criticize. Paul Wingert teaches so-called primitive art, which is what interests me most. He was once so drunk he couldn’t say a word at his lecture on African art. The students were all very understanding. Since I am his assistant I take him home and put him to bed. Should have called the doctor.

The Museum of Natural History. I am accompanied to the storerooms where I photograph and draw the masks from New Guinea, Sepik River.

June. I am wearing a skirt. And sandals. That leave my legs bare and which, at the end of the day have to be washed clean of their NYC grime.

December. I am wearing a skirt. And a rather voluminous nubby turquoise coat. In Rockefeller Center, skaters are flying over the ice, or more often falling down. The huge Christmas tree has just gone up. Macy’s and Lord and Taylor’s have put up their holiday displays with elves and fairies. It has snowed and at night I walk through the city with my friend Remo and we marvel at the Seagram Building with its dusting of snow as it rises up against the dark sky.

Soon it will be spring with tulips and roses on display in the shops along Lexington Avenue. And a pink silk blouse sprinkled with black horse motifs makes its way from a shop window to my shopping bag. Walks in Central Park herald the change of seasons. And I will sit on the floor of my small room and paint pictures in black and white of figures lost in their own private thoughts. Before, perhaps, going out to buy a Mounds bar.