Pictures of Fidelman

by Bernard Malamud

  Tense with desire Fidelman warmed her.

  “Angelo mio,” she murmured. “Amore, possess me.”

  He was about to when she kicked her legs together and hastily rose. “The cursed door again!”

  Fidelman gnashed his teeth. “I heard nothing.”

  In her torn yellow silk robe she hurried to the front door, opened and shut it, quickly locked and bolted it, did the same in her room and slid into bed.

  “You were right, it was nobody.”

  She embraced him, her hairy armpits perfumed. He responded with postponed passion.

  “Enough of antipasto,” Annamaria said. She reached for his member.

  Overwrought, Fidelman, though fighting himself not to, spent himself in her hand. Although he mightily willed resurrection, his wilted flower bit the dust.

  She furiously shoved him out of bed, into the studio, flinging his clothes after him.

  “Pig, beast, onanist!”

  At least she lets me love her. Daily Fidelman shopped, cooked, and cleaned for her. Every morning he took her shopping sack off the hook, went down to the street market and returned with the bag stuffed full of greens, pasta, eggs, meat, cheese, wine, bread. Annamaria insisted on three hearty meals a day although she had once told him she no longer enjoyed eating. Twice he had seen her throw up her supper. What she enjoyed he didn’t know except it wasn’t Fidelman. After he had served her at her table he was allowed to eat alone in the studio. At two every afternoon she took her siesta and though it was forbidden to make noise, he was allowed to wash the dishes, dust and clean her room, swab the toilet bowl. She called “Fatso” and in he trotted to get her anything she had run out of—drawing pencils, sanitary belt, safety pins. After she waked from her nap, rain or shine, please or no please, he was now compelled to leave the studio so she could work in peace and quiet. He wandered, in the tramontana, from one cold two-bit movie to another. At seven he was back to prepare her supper, and twice a week Augusto’s, who sported a new black hat and spiffy overcoat, and pitied the art student with both wet blue eyes but wouldn’t look at him. After supper, another load of dishes, the garbage downstairs, and when Fidelman returned, with or without Augusto Annamaria was already closeted behind her bolted door. He checked through the keyhole on Mondays and Fridays but she and the old gent were always fully clothed. Fidelman had more than once complained to her that his punishment exceeded his crime, but the pittrice said he was a type she would never have any use for. In fact he did not exist for her. Not existing how could he paint, although he told himself he must? He couldn’t. He aimlessly froze wherever he went, a mean cold that seared his lungs though under his overcoat he wore a new thick sweater Bessie had knitted for him, and two woolen scarves around his neck. Since the night Annamaria had kicked him out of bed he had not been warm; yet he often dreamed of ultimate victory. Once when he was on his lonely way out of the house—a night she was giving a party for some painter friends, Fidelman, a drooping butt in the corner of his mouth, carrying the garbage bags, met Clelia Montemaggio coming up the stairs.

  “You look like a frozen board,” she said. “Come in and enjoy the warmth and a little Bach.”

  Unable to unfreeze enough to say no, he continued down with the garbage.

  “Every man gets the woman he deserves,” she called after him.

  “Who got,” Fidelman muttered. “Who gets.”

  He considered jumping into the Tiber but it was full of ice that winter.

  One night at the end of February, Annamaria, to Fidelman’s astonishment—it deeply affected him—said he might go with her to a party at Giancarlo Balducci’s studio on the Via dell’ Oca; she needed somebody to accompany her in the bus across the bridge and Augusto was flat on his back with the Asian flu. The party was lively—painters, sculptors, some writers, two diplomats, a prince and a visiting Hindu sociologist, their ladies and three hotsy-totsy, scantily dressed, unattached girls. One of them, a shapely beauty with orange hair, green eyes, and warm ways became interested in Fidelman, except that he was dazed by Annamaria, seeing her in a dress for the first time, a ravishing rich ruby-colored affair. The cross-eyed host had provided simply a huge cut-glass bowl of spiced mulled wine, and the guests dipped ceramic glasses into it and guzzled away. Everyone but the art student seemed to be enjoying himself. One or two of the men disappeared into other rooms with female friends or acquaintances and Annamaria, in a gay mood, did a fast shimmy to rhythmic handclapping. She was drinking steadily and when she wanted her glass filled, politely called him “Arturo.” He began to have mild thoughts of possibly possessing her.

  The party bloomed, at least forty, and turned wildish. Practical jokes were played. Fidelman discovered his left shoe had been smeared with mustard. Balducci’s black cat mewed at a fat lady’s behind, a slice of sausage pinned to her dress. Before midnight there were two fist fights, Fidelman enjoying both but not getting involved though once he was socked on the neck by a sculptor who had aimed at a painter. The girl with the orange hair, still interested in the art student, invited him to join her in Balducci’s bedroom but he continued to be devoted to Annamaria, his eyes tied to her every move. He was jealous of the illustrator, who whenever near her nipped her bottom.

  One of the sculptors, Orazio Pinello, a slender man with a darkish face, heavy black brows, and bleached blond hair, approached Fidelman. “Haven’t we met before, caro?”

  “Maybe,” the art student said, perspiring lightly. “I’m Arthur Fidelman, an American painter.”

  “You don’t say? Action painter?”

  “Always active.”

  “I refer of course to Abstract Expressionism.”

  “Of course. Well, sort of. On and off.”

  “Haven’t I seen some of your work around? Galleria Schneider? Some symmetric hard-edge biomorphic forms? Not bad as I remember.”

  Fidelman thanked him, in full blush.

  “Who are you here with?” Orazio Pinello asked.

  “Annamaria Oliovino.”

  “Her?” said the sculptor. “But she’s a fake.”

  “Is she?” Fidelman said with a sigh.

  “Have you looked at her work?”

  “With one eye. Her art is bad but I find her irresistible.”

  “Peccato.” The sculptor shrugged and drifted away.

  A minute later there was another fist fight, during which the green-eyed orange head conked Fidelman with a Chinese vase. He went out cold and when he came to, Annamaria and Balducci were undressing him in the illustrator’s bedroom. Fidelman experienced an almost overwhelming pleasure, then Balducci explained that the art student had been chosen to pose in the nude for drawings both he and the pittrice would do of him. He explained there had been a discussion as to which of them did male nudes best and they had decided to settle it in a short contest. Two easels had been wheeled to the center of the studio; a half hour was allotted to the contestants, and the guests would judge who had done the better job. Though he at first objected because it was a cold night, Fidelman nevertheless felt warmish from wine so he agreed to pose; besides he was proud of his muscles and maybe if she sketched him nude it might arouse her interest in a tussle later. And if he wasn’t painting he was at least being painted.

  So the pittrice and Giancarlo Balducci, in paint-smeared smocks, worked for thirty minutes by the clock, the whole party silently looking on, with the exception of the orange-haired tart, who sat in the corner eating a prosciutto sandwich. Annamaria, her brow furrowed, lips pursed, drew intensely with crayon; Balducci worked calmly in colored chalk. The guests were absorbed, although after ten minutes the Hindu went home. A journalist locked himself in the painter’s bedroom with orange head and would not admit his wife who pounded furiously on the door. Fidelman, standing barefoot on a rubber bathmat, was eager to see what Annamaria was accomplishing but had to be patient. When the half hour was up he was permitted to look. Balducci had drawn a flock of green and black abstract testiculate circles. Fidelman shuddered. But Anna
maria’s drawing was representational, not Fidelman although of course inspired by him: A gigantic funereal phallus that resembled a broken-backed snake. The blond sculptor inspected it with half-closed eyes, then yawned and left. By now the party was over, the guests departed, lights out except for a few dripping white candles. Balducci was collecting his ceramic glasses and emptying ash trays, and Annamaria had thrown up. The art student afterwards heard her begging the illustrator to sleep with her but Balducci complained of fatigue.

  “I will if he won’t,” Fidelman offered.

  Annamaria, enraged, spat on her picture of his unhappy phallus.

  “Don’t dare come near me,” she cried. “Malocchio! Jettatural”

  The next morning he awoke sneezing, a nasty cold. How can I go on? Annamaria, showing no signs of pity or remorse, continued shrilly to berate him. “You’ve brought me nothing but bad luck since you came here. I’m letting you stay because you pay well but I warn you to stay out of my sight.”

  “But how—” he asked hoarsely.

  “That doesn’t concern me.”

  “—how will I paint?”

  “Who cares? Paint at night.”

  “Without light—”

  “Paint in the dark. I’ll give you a can of black paint.”

  “How can you be so cruel to a man who loves—”

  “I’ll scream,” she said.

  He left in anguish. Later while she was at her siesta he came back, got some of his things and tried to paint in the hall. No dice. Fidelman wandered in the rain. He sat for hours on the Spanish Steps. Then he returned to the house and went slowly up the stairs. The door was locked. “Annamaria,” he hoarsely called. Nobody answered. In the street he stood at the river wall, watching the dome of St. Peter’s in the distance. Maybe a potion, Fidelman thought, or an amulet? He doubted either would work. How do you go about hanging yourself? In the late afternoon he went back to the house —would say he was sick, needed rest, possibly a doctor. He felt feverish. She could hardly refuse.

  But she did, although explaining she felt bad herself. He held onto the banister as he went downstairs. Clelia Montemaggio’s door was open. Fidelman paused, then continued down but she had seen him. “Come een, come een.

  He went reluctantly in. She fed him camomile tea and panettone. He ate in a wolfish hurry as she seated herself at the piano.

  “No Bach, please, my head aches from various troubles.”

  “Where’s your dignity?” she asked.

  “Try Chopin, that’s lighter.”

  “Respect yourself, please.”

  Fidelman removed his hat as she began to play a Bach prelude, her bottom rhythmic on the bench. Though his cold oppressed him and he could hardly breathe, tonight the spirit, the architecture, moved him. He felt his face to see if he were crying but only his nose was wet. On the top of the piano Clelia had placed a bowl of white carnations in full bloom. Each white petal seemed a white flower. If I could paint those gorgeous flowers, Fidelman thought. If I could paint something. By Jesus, if I could paint myself, that’d show them! Astonished by the thought he ran out of the house.

  The art student hastened to a costume shop and settled on a cassock and fuzzy black soupbowl biretta, envisaging another Rembrandt: “Portrait of the Artist as Priest.” He hurried with his bulky package back to the house. Annamaria was handing the garbage to the portinaia as Fidelman thrust his way into the studio. He quickly changed into the priest’s vestments. The pittrice came in wildly to tell him where he got off, but when she saw Fidelman already painting himself as priest, with a moan she rushed into her room. He worked with smoking intensity and in no time created an amazing likeness. Annamaria, after stealthily reentering the studio, with heaving bosom and agitated eyes closely followed his progress. At last, with a cry she threw herself at his feet.

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned—”

  Dripping brush in hand, he stared down at her. “Please, I—*

  “Oh Father, if you knew what I’ve done. I’ve been a whore—”

  After a moment’s thought Fidelman said, “If so I absolve you.”

  “Not without penance. First listen to the rest. I’ve had no luck with men, they’re all bastards. Or else I jinx them. If you want the truth I’m an Evil Eye myself. Anybody who loves me is cursed.”

  He listened in fascination.

  “Augusto is really my uncle. After many others he became my lover. At least he’s gentle. My father found out and swore he’d kill us both. That’s when I left Naples. I was pregnant and scared to death. A sin can go too far. Augusto told me to have the baby and leave it at an orphanage, but the night it was born I was confused and threw it into the Tiber. I was afraid it was an idiot.”

  She was sobbing. He drew back.

  “Wait,” she wept. “The next time in bed Augusto was impotent. Since then he’s been imploring me to confess so he can get back his powers. But every time I step into the confessional my tongue turns to bone. The priest can’t tear a word out of me. That’s how it’s been all my life, don’t ask me why because I don’t know.”

  She grabbed his knees. “Help me, Father, for Christ’s sake.”

  Fidelman., after a short tormented time, said in a quavering voice, “I forgive you, my child.”

  “The penance,” she wailed, “first the penance.”

  After reflecting, he replied, “Say one hundred times each, Our Father and Hail Mary.”

  “More,” Annamaria wept. “More, more. Much more.”

  Gripping his knees so hard they shook she burrowed her head into his black-buttoned lap. He felt the surprised beginnings of an erection.

  “In that case,” Fidelman said, shuddering a little, “better undress.”

  “Only,” Annamaria said, “if you keep your vestments on.”

  “Not the cassock, too clumsy.”

  “At least the biretta.”

  He agreed to that.

  Annamaria undressed in a swoop. Her body was extraordinarily lovely, the flesh glowing. In her bed they tightly embraced. She clasped his buttocks, he cupped hers. Pumping slowly he nailed her to her cross.

  3

  Fidelman listlessly doodles all over a sheet of yellow paper. Odd indecipherable designs, ink-spotted blotched words, esoteric ideographs, tormented figures in a steaming sulfurous lake, a stylish nude rising newborn out of cold water. Not bad at all though more mannequin than Knidean Aphrodite. Scarpio, sharp-nosed on the former art student’s gaunt left, looking up from his cards, inspects her with his good eye.

  “Not bad, who is she? One of the girls here?”

  “Nobody I really know.”

  “You must be hard up.”

  “I always am.”

  “Quiet,” rumbles Angelo, the padrone, on Fidelman’s fat right, his two-chinned face molded in lard. He flips the top card.

  Scarpio turns up a deuce, making eight and a half and out. He curses his Sainted Mother, Angelo wheezing. Fidelman shows four and his last hundred lire. He picks a cautious ace and sighs. Angelo, with seven showing, chooses this passionate moment to relieve himself.

  “Wait for me,” he orders. “Watch the pot, Scarpio.”

  “Who’s that hanging?” Scarpio points to a long-coated figure loosely dangling from a gallows rope amid Fidelman’s other doodles.

  Who but Susskind, surely. A dim figure out of the past.

  “Just a friend. Nobody you know.”

  “It’d better not be.”

  Scarpio picks up the yellow paper for a closer squint.

  “But whose head?” he asks with interest. A long-nosed severed head bounces down the steps of the guillotine platform.

  A man’s head or his sex, Fidelman wonders. In either case a terrible wound.

  “Looks a little like mine. At least the long jaw.”

  Scarpio points to a street scene. In front of American Express here’s this starving white Negro pursued by a hooting mob of cowboys on horses.

  Embarrassed by the recent pa
st Fidelman blushes.

  Long past midnight. They sit motionless in Angelo’s stuffy office, a small lit bulb glowing darkly over a square wooden table on which lie a pack of puffy cards, Fidelman’s naked hundred lire note, and a green bottle of Munich beer that the padrone of the Hotel du Ville, Milano, swills from between hands and games. Scarpio, his major-domo and secretary-lover, sips an espresso. Fidelman only watches, being without privileges. Each night they play sette e mezzo, jeenrummy, or baccarat and Fidelman loses the day’s earnings, the few meager tips he has garnered from the whores for little services rendered. Angelo says nothing and takes all.

  Scarpio, snickering, understands the street scene. Fidelman, adrift penniless in the stony gray Milanese streets, had picked his first pocket. An American tourist staring into a store window. The Texan, feeling the tug, and missing his wallet, had bellowed murder. A carabiniere looked wildly at Fidelman, who broke into a run, another well-dressed carabiniere on a horse clattering after him down the street, waving his sword over his head. Angelo, cleaning his fingernails with his penknife in front of his hotel, saw Fidelman coming pell-mell and ducked him around a corner, through a cellar door, into the Hotel du Ville, a joint for prostitutes who split fees with the padrone for the use of a room.

  Angelo registered the former art student, gave him a tiny dark room, and pointing a gun, relieved him of his passport and the contents of the Texan’s wallet. He warned him that if he ratted to anybody, he would report him to the Questura where his brother presided, as a dangerous alien thief. The former art student, desperate to escape, needed money to travel, so he sneaked into Angelo’s room one morning and from the strapped suitcase under the bed, extracted fistfuls of lire, stuffing all his pockets. Scarpio, happening in, caught him at it and held a dagger to Fidelman’s ribs—who fruitlessly pleaded they could both make a living from the suitcase—until the padrone appeared.

  “A hunchback is straight only in his grave.”

  Angelo slapped Fidelman’s face first with one fat hand, then with the other, till it turned red and the tears flowed freely. He chained him to the bed in his room for a week. When Fidelman promised to behave he was released and appointed mastro delle latrine, having to clean thirty toilets daily with a stiff brush, for room and board. He also assisted Teresa, the asthmatic, hairy-legged chambermaid, and ran errands for the whores. The former art student hoped to escape but the portiere or his assistant was at the door twenty-four hours a day. And thanks to the card games and his impassioned gambling, Fidelman was without sufficient funds to go anywhere, if there was anywhere to go. And without passport, so he stayed put.