Portrait of a Girl

by Binkert, Dörthe

  “Yes,” Mathilde said. She looked around the room still dazed with sleep and the dream she had dreamed. Oh yes, she was in Dr. Bernhard’s clinic under the care of the nurses. That was good. “Yes,” she said again, trying to smile, “it was only a dream that confused me.”

  The nurse brought Mathilde out onto the balcony and wrapped her in blankets and disappeared again. Then, moments later, she returned with a visitor.

  “Good morning, Mathilde. I hope you don’t mind this interruption?” Departing, the nurse silently closed the door behind James. “You look frightened,” James said, embarrassed. “Would you rather I hadn’t come? I brought you some flowers.” He held out a colorful bouquet of roses.

  Mathilde was still silent. Tears came to her eyes.

  “Please, Mathilde, don’t cry,” he begged her. “Should I have come sooner? Or not come at all? Should I leave now?” He took her hand and kissed it. Then he turned it palm up and placed a luminous blue butterfly in it. “You left this in my room,” he said, and folded her fingers around the butterfly. Then Mathilde really began to cry.

  “None of it should have happened,” she managed to say between sobs.

  “But you were so lovely,” he said, “and you wanted to be kissed.”

  “No, don’t! Don’t say anything. I know. You don’t have to explain. And in the end, it’s even my fault. But you realize that I cannot see you anymore. That’s clear, I hope.”

  “But I wanted to tell you . . .” he said, trailing off hesitantly.

  “There’s nothing you should tell me. You should simply go and leave me in peace. And not a word to anyone, ever. Do you understand?”

  As James walked down the hallway of the clinic, he no longer noticed the septic odor given off by the freshly scrubbed floors. For once, he felt—and it was an unfamiliar feeling for him—that he had done something he shouldn’t have done.

  “Come in!” Achille Robustelli called out. He was in a good mood. Business this summer was flourishing. The season would probably turn a profit, and the usual complaints about the personnel and illness had remained within reasonable bounds. Everything was functioning smoothly. Only the emptiness in his heart remained; the feeling of satisfaction he got from his work did not make up for it. This was a good moment to devote some attention to Andrina. She was the one who had just knocked and stuck her head inside the door inquiringly.

  “So, how does your brother like working for the railroad?” he asked and indicated that she should sit down on the other side of his broad desk.

  “Luca? He’s doing well. He sent us a postcard and asked me to give you his regards. The entire family is grateful to you,” Andrina lied.

  “You don’t have to say that,” Achille said, for he was not as vain as Andrina thought. “From what I hear, your mother isn’t exactly happy about it and doesn’t have anything good to say about me. But I was glad that I was able to do you and Luca a favor, because,” he turned his ring once or twice, “you’ve surely noticed that I care for you, that you’re important to me.”

  He had spent a long time thinking about whether he should invite Andrina to go with him to the dance on Saturday in St. Moritz. He was sure the head housekeeper would give her a few hours off; after all, he did favors for Signora Capadrutt now and then too.

  Moreover, he had decided not to tell his mother about Andrina for as long as possible, because she would probably find just as much to criticize about her as she had about all the other women he had liked in the past. Why hadn’t he thought before of keeping from her any information having to do with women, marriage plans, and his ideas for the future? His sudden realization—that he didn’t have to tell his mother everything, and nothing at all about Andrina—seemed to him like proof that Andrina was the right one. All these years he had been fully aware of her critical nature, yet he had subjected the other girls to his mother’s pitiless gaze. This time, though, he would guard his treasure more carefully—because he wanted to keep it.

  Andrina, contrary to her usual style, waited patiently for him to emerge from his reflections and look at her directly. Then she said, cautiously, “Yes, Signor Robustelli, I noticed that you like me. And that is why I took a chance and turned to you about Luca. And I knocked on your door just now because I was hoping you’d be happy to see me . . .”

  “I am,” Achille said, a bit stiffly and went on, “and I would like to invite you to come dancing with me in St. Moritz this Saturday.”

  He laughed, because it was clear that he had actually succeeded in surprising her. “You’re not saying anything. Surely you have gone dancing before?”

  “Yes,” Andrina said, “but not with a gentleman like you.”

  “And that makes you speechless?” Signor Robustelli asked, less inhibited than before.

  Andrina shook her head.

  “Well?”

  Achille watched, fascinated, as Andrina’s full lips pursed to form an answer. A flood of wild desires surged up inside him with a vehemence that surprised him, but he controlled them, realizing that he’d probably have to rein them in for a while.

  “I’d like to come,” she said hesitantly, “but I don’t know what the head housekeeper . . .” She looked questioningly at him with her chestnut-brown eyes.

  “I’ll worry about that,” he replied. “But now, go back to work.” He returned energetically to the papers on his desk.

  “Signor Robustelli?”

  “Yes, what?”

  “I don’t have a dress in which I can be seen with you.”

  Andrina had gotten up, and Robustelli smiled as he allowed his eyes to glide over her breasts and hips.

  “You don’t need a dress to please me,” he replied.

  Kate considered her night with James only half a success. He hadn’t stayed until morning nor had he been a particularly tender lover. At breakfast, she felt so unloved that she almost longed for the return of her husband just to avoid the thought that she might actually have suffered a defeat. But not only would it take Robert thirteen hours to get down to Chur, he’d need another thirteen to come back up to St. Moritz, and so she would have to try, without him, to give this day a more pleasant aspect than her dark mood and the hazy clouds outside promised.

  The waiters were anxious to remove the breakfast dishes because it was time to set the tables for lunch, but Kate, who had dithered for a long time between going downstairs or ordering something to be brought up to the room, had appeared late for breakfast. She had decided to leave the site of her partial humiliation.

  “Oh,” she said as the waiter discreetly approached her table in the hope she would get up, “now I know what I really want! Please be so kind as to bring me a fresh fruit salad. That’s exactly what I feel like having now.” She smiled graciously up into the waiter’s face, which was not exactly delighted. “And please tell them in the kitchen that I’d like it with a fresh peach and . . .” she called after the young man who had without a reply already turned to go, “a little fresh toast. This bread here is too soft and chewy, as if it were two days old.”

  The waiter neither turned around nor answered her. He just nodded silently. Kate felt a trace better.

  That changed when they handed her a telegram at the reception desk in which Robert informed her that he would be staying in Chur a day longer than originally planned.

  “Is everything all right, Madam?” the man at the desk asked.

  “Yes, yes. Of course,” she replied and stepped outside. After a moment’s hesitation, she went down the avenue that led to the lakeshore. About halfway there, she stopped by some benches near a beautifully laid out circular flowerbed. The flowerbed was deserted around this time of day. Only the birds chirped and flew busily back and forth in the trees. With a relieved sigh, she sank down on a bench. Here, there was no one to notice the gloomy mood so uncharacteristic of her.

  James had not said a word to
her about getting together again in the next few days. On the contrary, he had mentioned that he would be spending a day with Edward. Why was he arming himself so carefully with excuses? He needn’t fear that she planned to chase after him!

  The sky was covered by a thin whitish veil, and a diffuse light lay over the landscape. A remarkable emptiness spread out before Kate, even though she tried to pull herself together, to become her usual self, the alert, witty Kate, the one she preferred to show to the world. Oh, yes, she had an iron will, and that had often come to her aid. But today, life seemed oddly burdensome. She stretched out her right arm and held her palm into the air. Sparrows hopped toward her and a few tufted titmice on the lowest branches of the trees turned their heads sideways, rubbing their beaks on the branches, unsure whether to come nearer. But Kate had neither breadcrumbs nor birdseed to offer, and so no bird came to perch on her empty hand. Unexpectedly, tears came to her eyes and she quickly got up.

  Since they had been staying at the hotel, no one had asked why she and Robert had actually come here, and she had liked it that way. Only now, at this moment, it upset her, just as she felt hurt that she had no children, although she actually didn’t want any. She had the curative water brought to her room in bottles so that she could do a Trinkkur, a mineral water drinking cure, but she didn’t want to take the baths, even though Robert had urged her to do it. Robert was so simple. “If you can’t have children, let’s try the baths. Maybe they will help,” he said. That was all that had occurred to him.

  Sullenly, she dispersed the complaining sparrows with her parasol and resolved to take the horse-drawn omnibus to visit the shopping gallery in St. Moritz. Somebody had claimed that Swiss clocks were terrific and very much in vogue. And she could also take a look at the Palace Hotel, which was supposed to reopen very soon with a festive celebration.

  “Have you ever been to St. Moritz?” Segantini asked. Nika shook her head. She had decided that she didn’t want to see him again, but since she hadn’t yet told him, he continued to come by freely.

  “I have to buy some things there, and if you’d like to, you can come along. I’ve asked for a carriage. Wait by the side of the road at three o’clock, and I’ll ask the driver to stop for you.”

  Nika averted her eyes. She didn’t like the way he spoke to her.

  “I have to work,” she said. “You know that.”

  “Gaetano!” he called, and when the old man shuffled up, he said, “Nika is going with me this afternoon to St. Moritz. She’ll make up for the time she missed.”

  “I quite understand,” Gaetano replied.

  “You don’t understand anything,” Segantini said angrily.

  The gardener made no reply and left.

  Nika shook her head; she didn’t understand either.

  Segantini looked at her in surprise.

  “Then think about it for a while,” he said. His voice had turned gentle again.

  Nika looked down and said, “Maybe it’s you who should be doing that.”

  The driver stopped but didn’t get down from the carriage. Segantini leaned forward, holding a hand out to Nika, and pulled her up into the open carriage. Dust whirled up behind them as the horses trotted off. Segantini laughed when he saw Nika’s reserved expression.

  “Haven’t you ever sat in a carriage?”

  Nika shook her head.

  “Farm wagons don’t go as fast as this lovely victoria, eh?”

  She said nothing. It wasn’t the speed. She was reproaching herself for even having climbed up. Why had she gone to wait by the side of the road in the first place? She should simply have gone on with her work. Gaetano was angry about this escapade and had threatened to speak to Robustelli. Under no circumstances must he do that. She needed Signor Robustelli’s help to find work and new lodgings for the winter. And yet, whenever Segantini came near her, she again felt good about things and wanted to sing and chirp like a bird in the spring. Yet he was an old man, and he had a wife. Couldn’t she get that through her thick skull? And he ordered her around like the farmer had.

  The carriage was a two-seater. An elegant folding roof arched overhead. Segantini didn’t want to have it lowered. They sat close together. Ahead to the right, the lakes glittered in the sun, but their faces were in the shade. Nika had rolled up the sleeves of her blouse, baring her slender brown arms. Now and then, his jacket touched her skin, but that was because of the slight rocking motion of the carriage, which flew along, much too fast.

  “I love you,” Nika suddenly said, without looking at Segantini.

  It was as if the words had dropped on the floor of the carriage and from there onto the road, had simply rolled out of her mouth and disappeared into the gravel. And now they were lying somewhere, unnoticed behind them on the road, because nobody had caught them, had stretched a hand out for them.

  “What did you say?” Segantini turned to her and looked at her face.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Yes, you said something.”

  “I don’t want to repeat it.”

  He was silent. Finally he said, “I say what is important to me, over and over again. I keep painting this landscape, these mountains, the sheep, the cows, the people, whether they are at work or at rest. Again and again, I paint the light after the sunset. The stillness. Death. Love.”

  Nika did not reply. She saw the words she had spoken lying in the road like little gray marbles, somewhere between Maloja and St. Moritz, totally meaningless, worthless.

  “I paint the love that is in everything,” he continued, “that is the mission, the task of art. It is in the beauty of every little flower—the love that surrounds us.”

  They passed the little, old San Lurench Church; they passed Sils-Baselgia.

  “I was orphaned early,” he began. “A little boy who could sense that his mother was ill and would soon leave him, no matter how much he loved her. Even while she was alive, she wasn’t quite all there. I killed her by being born. She never recovered from my birth. My older brother died in a fire at barely three years old. That also may have contributed to her condition. My father was rarely at home. I scarcely knew him. Only poverty was always present. When my mother died, he took me to Milan, to his daughter, Irene, from an earlier marriage. I not only lost my mother, but I also lost the countryside, the surroundings in which I grew up. The little town of Arco, the river in which I almost drowned once, the sky I still remember. I never liked Milan.”

  So that’s why, Nika thought. That’s why he bothers about me, because he knows what I know. Because I know what he feels.

  “Irene kept house for her brother Napoleone,” Segantini continued, “but his little drugstore was not doing well. They themselves were both strangers in Milan and found no support anywhere. The store closed; the furniture was sold. My father left with Napoleone.”

  Segantini cleared his throat; he didn’t remove his hand when Nika’s hand searched it out and held it tight. Her grip was strong and without false consolation. He talked on into the dim light under the carriage roof. Outside, the brightness made the water quiver with gleaming flecks of light.

  “I stayed with Irene, whom I hated. And she felt the same way about me. She was a skinny, bitter woman without any understanding for a young child.”

  Not saying a word, Nika squeezed his hand. It was so large that she could barely get her fingers around it.

  Segantini cleared his throat once more. “I never again saw my father.”

  He felt the strong, almost masculine, pressure of her hand. Then he pulled his hand back and leaned forward to see where they were. They were just then going through Silvaplana. On the left was the road that led up one of the mountains.

  “I came from there,” Nika said, and pointed. “Over the Julier Pass.”

  He nodded absently. He at least had known his parents. He didn’t want to judge whether that was better o
r worse. “Was the farmer with whom you grew up in Mulegns good to you? Better than Irene was to me?”

  “No,” Nika said.

  At that point, he didn’t know what to say.

  They had left Champfer behind and would soon be reaching the first houses of St. Moritz.

  “We’ll soon be there.” Segantini took Nika’s arm and pulled her forward. “Look, there are the mineral baths and the big hotels where people enjoy them . . . the Spa, the Kurhaus, the Victoria, the Stahlbad. But we’ll drive up to the village first. Look, there’s even a streetcar here. Have you ever seen a streetcar?”

  “No.” Nika smiled. “That’s a streetcar? On the tracks? Like a train?”

  “And up in the village there’s a new grand hotel opening next week called the Palace; it’s near my friend Peter Robert Berry’s house. We’ll be driving past it next.” He called out to the driver, asking him to stop and fold down the roof so that they could see better.

  Nika was amazed. The Palace Hotel was immense. In contrast to the Spa Hotel Maloja, it looked like a huge fortress with a fortified tower and battlements. All in all, this was a totally incomprehensible world for her: the streetcar, the noble carriages, the many elegant people. Lots of high-class guests came to Maloja too, but the village had remained what it was originally: there were no baths, no fine shops, and no collection of luxury hotels. The guests of the Spa Hotel Maloja went to St. Moritz on the horse-drawn omnibus whenever they had treatments, wanted to dine out, go shopping, or attend soirees.

  Segantini asked the driver to stop and jumped down.

  “Wait for me here,” he said. “It’s better if you don’t walk around in this place by yourself. Sit up front with the driver. From there you can watch all the goings-on.”

  Nonplussed, she nodded, watching him hurry off. He was like her. And yet he wasn’t.

  In a short while, he came back, bringing some cake wrapped in paper.

  “From the Hanselmann Bakery,” he said. “You’ll like it.”