Clara Mondschein's Melancholia

by Anne Raeff

  Marisol didn’t doubt my explanation. Apparently my mother had presented quite an orthodox image of herself to Marisol, but she started a theological argument with me as if I too were a believer in the sinful nature of graven images. “But my art is not meant to depict God or anything sacred. On the contrary, my paintings’ sole purpose is to illustrate the mundane.”

  “But the mundane is also God’s creation,” I played along.

  “I suppose,” but that’s all she said. As we sat there some more, I wondered why Marisol didn’t ask me to model for one of her paintings. I was starting to get annoyed, sitting there wondering that, wondering why she didn’t find me interesting enough to paint yet worried that she just hadn’t gotten around to asking me yet. What would I do if she suggested such a thing? How would I be able to stand her staring right into me? And what would she see that would end up captured on canvas?

  “So why did you want my mother to model for you so much?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want her to model for me so much. I just thought she would make an interesting subject.”

  “Can’t you work from memory? I never understood why artists have to have models. Beethoven didn’t even need to hear to compose music.”

  “Well. We’re not all Beethovens, are we?” she said triumphantly, although I don’t know what the triumph in admitting one isn’t as good as Beethoven is.

  And that was the end of that discussion. Somehow we couldn’t fall into a conversation and pursue it, let it run loose, see where it took us like the way I talked with George Liddy, but I guess that’s partly because he does all the talking. Marisol didn’t seem to be nervous at all. She just sat there as if she were meditating again, looking straight ahead, but not really at me. It was as if she were using me to imagine my mother. I felt as if Marisol would have happily sold her soul to be able to paint my mother because what painter wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to paint the face of the Holocaust? I wanted to ask Marisol if my mother had told her all about her birth, but I didn’t know how to ask that question. That’s always my problem; everything I want to say or think of saying seems so stupid in my head, so not worth saying at all. Once, in English class, when we were studying public speaking, one of the Korean kids in our class, a very shy girl who still used a pencil box in which she kept colored pens, White-Out, erasers, and paper clips, raised her hand and asked the teacher to explain some techniques for interrupting, for getting a word in when two or more people were talking and you had something you thought was worth saying to say. She was one of the few Korean kids in our school who was actually Korean, not just of Korean descent. At that time, she had only been in the United States for two years. A lot of the kids in the class tittered, but the teacher answered her very seriously—explained how you had to physically move in on the conversation and then just start talking. If one talked forcefully enough and smiled, for some reason she emphasized the smiling, people would listen. I remember thinking that I would have liked to ask the teacher how to find something worth saying, or how to interrupt silence. I envied my classmate’s dilemma. It seemed so solvable at the time, although I know that our teacher’s earnest pointers really did nothing to alleviate the girl’s agonizing. I wonder if it only got worse for her after that, after she knew theoretically what she could do, but still found herself unable to act.

  And then just when I was thinking about telling Marisol about my concentration camp sketches as a way to begin talking about my mother’s birth, she got up slowly from the floor and embraced me from behind. I felt her arms on my breasts and her breath on my neck and the next thing I knew she was removing my shirt and I wasn’t stopping her. Everything was done in silence only it wasn’t an unpleasant silence anymore. In the beginning, I kept thinking that I was supposed to say something or make some kind of sounds, but then I stopped worrying about it.

  After it happened, Marisol took me out for coffee and then walked me home. At the door to our building she gave me a long kiss, then turned around and walked away without saying a word. I didn’t say anything either because I was still whirling from what had happened, from the smell of her and what it felt like to touch her. Then I got so incredibly tired, as if I had been swimming for hours and then lain down in the midday sun. So I mounted the stairs slowly, dreading having to explain my overnight absence to my parents, but I was lucky—I came home to an empty apartment and was able to fall into bed, let myself be taken over by a dreamless sleep.

  I woke up in the late afternoon. My mouth was parched, the sheets were wet with sweat, and the first thing I thought of when I came to consciousness was the feeling of her tongue on my nipples. I closed my eyes again, trying to remain a while longer in that half-sleeping, half-waking state, but sounds from the kitchen forced me to complete consciousness. Putting on my clothes made me gag—the smell of cigarette smoke from the bar in them was so strong—but I didn’t feel I had the right to clean clothes or to a shower. Also, I thought that if I were especially quiet and didn’t wash up, I could slip out of the apartment unnoticed.

  And thus I found myself in the blazing late afternoon sun, smelling of sweat and cigarettes. I could hardly feel my legs or arms, but my head throbbed and my mouth and throat felt as if they were stuffed with dead moths. Since I had no idea what to do or where to go, I went looking for George Liddy, knowing he was always happy to have some companionship and that it would not be too difficult to find him at this time of day.

  He was at the Barberillo drinking a giant glass of fresh juice, his usual snifter of Cointreau ready on the table. “Can I invite you to some vitamins?” he said. “They have a wonderful selection here—coconut, orange and banana, peach and orange, pear, peach and raspberry. The sky’s the limit.” He raised his juice glass up in the air as a priest raises the chalice of wine before dispensing the Eucharist. “Take this juice and drink it,” George Liddy said and proceeded to down his juice in one gulp. He set the glass down with a thump and immediately finished off the Cointreau. “I’m a great believer in vitamins, Deborah, for I certainly would have been long dead without them.”

  The next thing I knew there was a similar huge glass of thick orangish liquid in front of me, which I drank dutifully, feeling it ooze its way into my bowels. “I’ve decided to forgive you, Deborah, although last night I certainly did not appreciate being left to find my own miserable way home while you waltzed off with that amazon. I almost ended up in a terrible scrape, you know.”

  “What happened?” I had visions of poor, tall George Liddy being chased by youths in tight pants.

  “You see me before you in one piece, without even a scratch on my body, so there is no point in repeating what might have happened when nothing, in fact, happened at all, which, I am sure, is not what happened to you.” He pushed back his seat like a satisfied diner after finishing a hearty winter meal.

  “No, I didn’t almost end up in a terrible scrape,” I said, knowing full well what he was implying.

  “Well, that’s a big relief now, isn’t it? Almost getting into a terrible scrape can leave one quite shaken up.”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never been in a life-threatening situation, have you?”

  “If you must put it so dramatically, I suppose I haven’t. Well, we should have a drink to that; let’s count our lucky stars, shall we, Deborah? It’s as good a cause as any, don’t you think?”

  However, the thought of alcohol mixing in my juice-filled stomach was too much to bear, so I declined, much to George Liddy’s disappointment. He wasn’t disappointed for long since he was used to drinking by himself. As he sat there drinking another Cointreau, it dawned on me that, because he was an alcoholic, he was in a life-threatening situation right at that moment, but I didn’t let him in on my thoughts because being an alcoholic doesn’t mean you’re an idiot. We talked about insignificant things like how his landlady spends all afternoon in front of the television and ho
w her laughing combined with the screeching of the television makes it impossible for George Liddy to spend a quiet day in his room reading.

  “Why don’t you find another place to live?” I asked and he said it would be too much trouble. I kept half-hoping he would bring up Marisol again, but I guess he was respecting my privacy. George Liddy was a great believer in minding one’s own business. I was getting so hungry that I wasn’t even thinking about Marisol anymore and so we ordered crêpes, which was the only food they served at the Barberillo. What I really wanted was a huge calamares sandwich, but George Liddy refused to leave the Barberillo. “One can’t let one’s stomach make one’s decisions for one,” he said and asked for the crêpe menu. I didn’t protest because one thing I knew about him by then was that if he felt entrenched in a place, comfortable like a cat in a sunny spot, he wouldn’t move. So we had soggy crêpes; well, I had soggy crêpes. George Liddy took about three bites of his, which was ham and spinach sautéed in olive oil, and pushed his plate away. “I’ve never liked crêpes,” he said.

  So I ended up eating his lunch plus two other equally soggy and salty crêpes, but it didn’t really matter since I was so hungry. After I finished my lunch, that horrible mothiness in my mouth was replaced by a subtle taste of garlic, but my head was still throbbing right behind the eyes. If I had had another kind of companion, I might have suggested a walk in the park or another excursion, to the mountains, perhaps, where it would have been cooler. But George Liddy was ensconced for the day. That was evident. There he sat in the corner underneath a photograph of Simone de Beauvoir, his red beret resting jauntily on his head, long legs crossed, yellowed fingers scratching his chin as if he were very seriously contemplating why he didn’t like crêpes.

  “What happened with that vixen last night?” he asked. I guess he had been pondering whether or not to ask me about Marisol.

  I decided to completely ignore his choice of the word “vixen.” “She doesn’t talk much,” I said.

  “Now that’s a bad sign. Never trust someone who doesn’t talk.”

  “I don’t talk.”

  “You don’t talk to people to whom you have nothing to say. There’s a difference.”

  “Maybe she didn’t have anything to say to me.”

  “It is more that you had nothing to say to her, I am sure.”

  “Don’t you like Marisol?” I asked.

  “No. She’s melodramatic, and I loathe melodramatic women. And do you like her?” he asked.

  “Why do men have a right to be melodramatic while women don’t?” I wasn’t ready to decide whether or not I liked Marisol.

  “I said absolutely nothing of the sort. As far as I’m concerned, no one has the right to be melodramatic, and the world would be a better place if there were an international edict prohibiting such behavior. I also happen to avoid melodramatic men, although, given my predilections and given other favorable characteristics, I have been forced to tolerate melodramatic behavior in men on occasion.”

  “I wouldn’t call Marisol exactly melodramatic.” I guess I had made up my mind to defend her and my connection to her.

  “Long silences, eyes that never blink, black attire, tight blouse, smoke wafting out of her mouth, the pallor, the thin fingers. Please.”

  “You’re thin.”

  “I am. Thin and yellow.” He held his hands up to the light. “I’ve been noticing it more and more lately. It certainly is not attractive, the beginnings of cirrhosis. Perhaps I should start using powder. What do you think, Deborah, a little powder on my hands and cheeks? I could start a fashion—the eighteenth-century look. It’s not that ludicrous really.”

  I suggested we go to a wig place I had seen on the Calle de Hortaleza, but it was two-thirty and the store was closed. That’s one of the things that drove me crazy about Madrid—just when you got up the energy to do something, it was siesta time and all you could do was eat, drink, or go to the big department stores. Not that George Liddy would have gotten up to walk in the hot sun to a wig store. It was just an idea, something to do that might have broken the monotony, taken my mind off Marisol—because she had started weighing heavily on my mind.

  “Do you think I should go see her?” I asked.

  “See whom?”

  “Marisol.”

  “Oh.” George Liddy knew I was being serious, so he thought for a while before he answered. “How do you think you will be received?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, because I didn’t know whether what happened the night before was some kind of spontaneous fluke or whether she had planned it out beforehand.

  “Well, then you certainly should not. We should try to avoid setting ourselves up for rejection. I have learned as much, and, frankly, I can’t imagine that her intentions were good.”

  “Why is that?”

  “No one’s are. That’s the sad truth of the matter. I shall tell you a parable. Mind you, I am only telling it to you as a parable. If for any instant you feel pity for me about what I am telling you, I will fly into a rage.”

  “How will you know what I am feeling?”

  “It will be evident. Now, let me also remind you that I have told this story to very few people, not because it is a shameful story, but because there are very few people who have the capacity to understand its significance.”

  “I hope I don’t disappoint you,” I said very solemnly.

  “You won’t. I know how to choose my audience.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Now don’t start getting obsequious on me. You have my word that being chosen for my audience is a dubious honor, very dubious.”

  “Then I am even more honored,” I said very seriously.

  “Enough, lest I change my mind.”

  I said nothing and waited for him to begin. “Not so long ago, when I could still consider myself middle-aged, I cultivated the friendship of a small group of young men with literary aspirations. I chose this select group from among my students—handsome, intelligent young men who were passionate about the giants of Irish literature. Irish literature is very popular with the English these days. We met often, our little group, at a local pub where they would drink Guinness. (Irish I may be, but I have my loyalties to Cointreau, as you are well aware.) They brought their works in progress and earnestly solicited my advice. Our evenings almost always ended with a recitation; usually it was Yeats, by yours truly. They would take turns sitting next to me, as if it were a special honor. I looked forward to our outings with exaggerated anticipation and had myself convinced that they did too. And it is possible that they did. It is certainly possible that they had not meant to put an end to our soirées by what they did. But that, in fact, is what happened. Not only did it put an end to our charming little encounters, it put an end to a lot more, which I do not care to discuss at the moment.

  “We left the pub at about eleven-thirty since I felt that if I stayed any longer, I would not be able to hold my head up straight and tall. I always made an effort not to get into too miserable a state around my young literati. That night, perhaps, I had indulged a little more than usual, but was perfectly capable of booming out Innisfree without getting confused or maudlin. We were all in great cheer as we left the pub, especially since it was such a beautiful spring night, the kind I love the most—a soft drizzle, an almost summer warmth, the smell of damp earth and leaves. There was no trace of that flowery sweetness that can make one sick on a spring night. I invited them to my apartment, thinking we would all have one last drink together; we could have a fire, and some melancholy music in the background, something Irish. It made a lovely picture—six young men in sweaters lounging in my living room. I remember my favorite, a quiet West Indian lad with green eyes, was sprawled out on the carpet. But one drink led to another drink and to yet another. There were two who had been friends since childhoo
d, who were most keen on prolonging the party. My West Indian lad neither drank nor spoke and concentrated on kneading the carpet with his beautiful hands, flautist’s hands—nimble, strong, and wide at the ends. Well, you can imagine the scene—nymphs in the salon of an aging gentleman.

  “The last thing I remember is being carried to my bedroom. I remember the West Indian looking at me from the doorway and the others all gathered around me as if I were their distant old father on his deathbed and they had come to make their petitions or their peace. It was not a completely unpleasant feeling, and I am still not able to reconcile this charming death-of-a-patriarch scene with what met me when I awoke in the morning, stark naked on the floor. That is how I found myself—on the floor, naked, my body marked out in black like those horrible pictures you see at butcher shops, with all the cuts and chops and ribs and loins labeled. The labels, written in regular uppercase letters with a fine marker, were the worst of it all.”

  What are you supposed to say to a story like that? It’s like when someone dies. What would George Liddy have said if I had told him what I was thinking, that his story made me want to see Marisol even more, that I was just like him, coming to consciousness on the floor of his room among all his familiar things—his favorite books, the alabaster bust of Samuel Beckett, Persian rugs. Would he have been disappointed or delighted?

  George Liddy broke the silence. “I think we have outworn our welcome in this charming little corner.”

  “Let’s go on a trip.” The idea occurred to me as I was speaking. “We could go to Granada or Barcelona.”

  “I’m afraid my traveling days are over, Deborah. That trip to Ávila nearly did me in. All that walking in the sun—mad dogs and Englishmen behavior. I’m really too old for that sort of thing. I’ve decided to spend my time indoors.”