From A Conversation with Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia PAULE ANGLIM

From A Conversation with Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia
PAULE ANGLIM

Over the course of her very long life, Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia was an avant-garde musician, a central cultural figure in Paris, and a member of the French Resistance. She married Francis Picabia in 1909, and the two of them, along with Marcel Duchamp, were among the founders of Dadaism. Among her numerous publications are essays on Guillaime Apollinaire, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp (who, incidentally, fell madly in love with her), Arthur Cravan, and the books Aires Abstracts and Jean Arp. A true revolutionary, during the Second World War she was active, with Samuel Beckett, in the Gloria Network, participating in heroic “adventures,” as she called them, such as ferrying microfilmed documents out of Paris.
In September 1976, Paule Anglim interviewed Mme. Buffet-Picabia, who was then in her nineties, at her home in Paris. The following is an excerpt from her reminiscences of Samuel Beckett.

I have a rather amusing story to tell you. There were two girls in the same network as my daughter, and they had a cat. There was a courtyard in between their house and another house, and the cat jumped from one window to another. One day the window of the house next door was closed, and the cat fell and broke two paws. So do you know who took him in and took care of him? Beckett.
Later on someone sent me a message that the cat had completely recovered and could be taken back to its home. I was in the area that day and I heard the news. I was at a friend of mine’s, Mary Reynolds, and Beckett’s wife [Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil], an extremely nice person, was also there. I told them that I was on my way home, which was toward St. Germain, and I would tell them that they could come collect their cat. Suzanne said to me, “It is not worth your taking a detour—you have the metro just a few steps away, and I myself must go home so I will go by there.”
When she entered the apartment building of these two girls, the concierge seemed timid but told her that the girls were home. As she approached the apartment, she found that the Gestapo were there. The girls had been arrested and the Gestapo were staying there to catch anyone who might come in. There was someone at the concierge who was observing everything that the concierge would say. All of this was very dangerous indeed, but Suzanne did not lose her head. The Gestapo asked her, “Why do you come here, miss? Do you know these ladies?” “No, I do not know them, but I am coming here because of their cat. It was at my house and we were caring for it, and now it is recovered and I came to tell them that they could pick up their cat.” One of the officers said, “Well, then let us go see the cat.” His car was downstairs.
Fortunately there was a cat, but what was much more serious was that all of the records and documents were in a book on the table. They did not pay attention to them. The officer looked at a book now and then, but not at the book on the table. The cat was there and the explanation was good. And then Suzanne said, “I must go to the station to pick up my mother.” “Then we will take you to the station,” because they were thinking she was going to meet someone other than her mother. She was indeed meeting her mother. So everything was in order and the officer had not noticed what was on the table since it was all pell-mell and couldn’t be dangerous. It appeared that the officer was from the Wehrmacht, and he said, “Miss, I am very happy that we did not find anything at your home.” So there it is, she came back to Mary Reynolds’s, and there she found herself very faint. She had been able to hold firm until the last minute.

(Excerpted from Brick 83, used by permission of the author)