Portrait of a Girl

by Binkert, Dörthe

  “I know,” Andrina replied. And this was precisely what was worrying her. They’d gone dancing several times already and she’d done her best to encourage his advances, but he still had not proposed. She had managed to get him to make some more intimate overtures, but it had all been somewhat delicate. Now the little plant needed to be nourished so it could grow—he remained too discreet in his courtship. She could not offer herself too openly for that would give her the air of being easy, which might ruin any chance she had of achieving a higher social position at his side. But time was short. He would be going to Italy for the winter, and it was anyone’s guess whom he might meet there.

  “The hotel closes for the winter, and I’ll probably spend the winter months in Bergamo. What will you be doing? Would you like me to help you find a job in St. Moritz for the winter season?”

  Exactly. Here they were. They had arrived at the point of danger.

  Without a word, Andrina walked over to the door, turned the key in the lock, came back, and sat down on Achille’s lap. He was young and in the best of health, and Andrina sensed the desire coursing hotly through his veins. She slid a little higher up on his thighs and affectionately put her arms around his neck.

  “I know you would do that for me. And of course I’d like to work here again next summer. With you, at your side. But if you go to Bergamo, Achille, it means that we won’t be seeing each other for months!” Her round breasts were so close that his breath came in gasps and he felt hot. “And do you think I could hold out that long?” she whispered close to his ear.

  He stayed quite still, thrilled by her proximity, overcome with desire, embarrassed by the obviousness of his arousal.

  “Did you hear me?” she whispered, now touching his ear with her lips, brushing against his cheeks with her cherry-red mouth.

  “Oh yes,” he mumbled, visualizing the seductive Andrina with the chestnut-brown eyes lying in bed, waiting for him as—but, no, he couldn’t get carried away. First, he had to propose to her and tell his mother about the seriousness of the matter. He straightened up and gently pushed her back a little.

  “I didn’t tell you anything about this before, but in a few days my mother is coming for a visit. Not exactly the most opportune moment as it happens—just before the end of the season and the grand ball. But maybe her visit is coming at a good time after all. I would like to introduce you to my mother. Then, perhaps, you could come to visit me in Bergamo . . .”

  Andrina beamed. “You will?” She kissed Achille on the lips, utterly delighted. She embraced him as if wanting to choke him rather than marry him. He smiled, half in joy because of his decision and half in doubt.

  “And then we’ll be engaged,” she cried. “And you’ll even buy me a real engagement ring with a diamond.”

  Achille smiled. “That seems to be the most important thing to you. And when the time comes, you will get a ring.”

  “Then you won’t have to find me a job for the winter,” she said, decisively, playfully turning the ring on his finger. “And as soon as you let me know, I’ll come to Bergamo. As fast as the wind.”

  Achille was relieved. The side of his life that involved his emotions had lain fallow too long. But they were all still there. Indeed, he felt that it was this very abundance of unexpressed feelings that had led him to hide them over the years, displaying them less and less.

  Not that he was inexperienced in sexual matters. In the army, and afterward too, he had occasionally gone with friends to brothels. But he didn’t enjoy these visits and always felt slightly out of place. Being good-looking, somewhat shy, and very polite as an officer, he’d effortlessly outrivaled the others. He had never wanted to share in his comrades’ coarse jokes, their stable manners, and disrespectful treatment of the women.

  But now he sensed quite clearly that it was time to give up his solitary life. Andrina had recognized this, and he was grateful to her. He longed to have a woman’s body lying next to him at night, to finally yield to his own desires, to receive the mixture of tenderness, sex, and affection that he craved. To let his feelings, for which there had been no room while he was in the army or pursuing his career, all pour out. This completely different kind of passion and intimacy was what he needed.

  Suddenly he saw Nika again, saw the way she had stood before Segantini yesterday, looked at him, before rushing into his arms; or had he been holding on to her because she wanted to run away? Why did this scene come to mind just now? He had felt ashamed watching them, but he hadn’t averted his eyes; he always seemed to be there when Segantini came to look for Nika. It struck him how inappropriate it really was.

  Achille pushed Andrina off his lap.

  “You have to unlock the door now, Andrinetta,” he said gently. “And another thing. I’ve been able to arrange for Nika to stay in the room next to yours. Seraina had to leave before the end of the season. Her mother died, and they needed her at home. There are many little brothers and sisters.”

  Andrina felt herself getting angry. “So now she’ll have a room all to herself while I have to share mine?” she asked, her voice sounding dangerously calm, even as she was getting increasingly angry and her face was turning red.

  “Please, Andrina, don’t get upset. It’s only for a few weeks. I’m glad I was able to solve the problem. I don’t understand why you’re reacting like this.”

  “Let me explain,” she replied, quite furious, even stamping her foot as she stood in front of him. “This straniera that nobody knows anything about, this nothing of a nobody, she simply gets everything. People feel sorry for her. She settles in with us, eats at our table. She’s courted by Segantini, whose head she’s turned—the witch—just like she did my poor brother Gian’s. And you,” she took a deep long breath, “you allow her to stop working in the laundry so she can work in the garden and get fresh air, and now she’s allowed to lie down to sleep like a princess in a bed of down. And I’m not supposed to get angry? Why don’t you simply give her the diamond ring you just promised me!”

  Achille looked at her, dumbfounded. “What did you say?”

  “I say, why don’t you take her!” Andrina yelled, turned on her heel, unlocked the door, and slammed it shut behind her.

  “Edward,” cried Mathilde. “I’ve never seen you dressed this way! Warm cap, woolen leggings. What’s the occasion?”

  Edward smiled and took off his cap. “I’m preparing for hard times. Today’s weather is giving us a foretaste. Have you taken a look outside yet?”

  Mathilde laughed. “No, you can’t see anything in this fog!”

  “You should have seen the primeval soup that I’ve just traveled through.”

  “Where are you coming from?” she asked. He always had a story to tell that drove away the boredom of the sanatorium routine.

  “I went to meet an old friend from London who was staying in Pontresina,” Edward said. “His family is spending the summer there, and he sent me a telegram to say that he’d be visiting them for a couple of days.”

  London. Mathilde suddenly visualized a salon—yes, she could quite clearly imagine what it must look like in a well-to-do family’s home in the West End. She pictured herself as one of the guests, healthy and radiant, although shy, and ashamed of her girls’ boarding school English. Edward was asking her to dance, and it seemed not for the first time. No, indeed, they knew each other well, she felt so natural in his arms . . .

  “I actually had intended to walk to Pontresina,” Edward was saying, “but in this weather I decided to take a carriage instead. Even here, the lake was already rough and gray, but it was still a lake and the clouds were clouds. However, the farther we went, the more everything seemed to flow together. And then it was only clouds,” Edward went on. “We were driving directly into nothingness, a void.”

  Mathilde pulled her chair closer to him.

  “Then you really are dressed appropriately,” she sa
id. “But what do you mean when you say, you’re preparing for hard times?”

  Edward hesitated. “I’ve decided,” he continued slowly, “to stay here until you let me know your decision . . . even if that should be for the entire winter.”

  “My decision?” Mathilde asked. “Decision about what? There’s nothing to decide. I’ll simply have to stay up here a long time, even if Dr. Bernhard believes that I’ll get well again.”

  “You certainly will get well again. I know that for sure. I am willing it to happen.”

  She laughed aloud. “But Edward, what do you mean, you’re willing it to happen? Whether we live or die isn’t in our hands. Certainly not with this disease.”

  “Perhaps you don’t want to understand what I’m saying. You are engaged. Your fiancé was here. He will be visiting you again. And he, too, is hoping that you will get well again and come home soon. Are you going to marry him?”

  Mathilde sat up ramrod straight.

  Edward wouldn’t be put off anymore. “I wouldn’t have any doubts about this, of course, if I didn’t know that you’ve fallen in love with James.”

  Mathilde’s expression turned cool. “That’s over and done with.”

  “Then there isn’t any uncertainty anymore? No decision to make? Because you are absolutely certain that you’ve found your way back to the right man?”

  Mathilde said nothing. She looked out of the window, but there was nothing to see. Just clouds and fog. “His family no longer wants me. They can’t depend on me for the continuation of the Zoller family. Not anymore.”

  “But your fiancé, what does he say . . .”

  “He is standing by me. Yes. Adrian wants to marry me. Even against the wishes of his parents.”

  “But that’s nice,” Edward said, unhappily. He was thinking of Emily, whom he had loved without a successful outcome, and he thought that there are always other men with more charm, wit, or daring than he had. It was time for him to leave. He got up and reached for his hat.

  “But you still haven’t told me what hard times you’re preparing for!” Mathilde said and drew him back into his chair. “And above all, why you asked me about Adrian and my engagement.”

  “Right,” Edward said and sat down again. “But I don’t know if it makes any sense to talk about it.”

  “But talk about what? Come on, tell me what you want to tell me! And please look at me while you do.”

  She smiled because suddenly she saw again the image that a moment ago had carried her off for an instant into a London drawing room. The truth was, Edward wouldn’t carry her off. Not to his “castle” at Pension Veraguth and not to London. He was no robber baron. But she felt infinitely comfortable with him. Yes, that was it. A deep familiarity, a closeness.

  She looked at Edward, and it would have been hard for him to persuade himself that her look was not affectionate and encouraging. And even though he was very adept at choking off things in the early stage of germination, he now threw all care to the wind.

  “I wasn’t a good substitute for James.”

  “Oh?”

  “I wanted to kill him . . .”

  “Really?”

  “I saw what he did to you.”

  “I hope not,” Mathilde said, firmly.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Edward said. “Could you imagine . . .” He was suddenly very tired. “Could you see yourself deciding in my favor?”

  “And all that without flowers?” Mathilde asked.

  “They’ll be delivered afterward,” he replied with a crooked smile. He felt as if he hadn’t eaten anything for days. “Now of course there aren’t any tiger lilies anymore,” he said.

  “Let’s see if it won’t work just as well with roses,” Mathilde said.

  Dr. Bernhard was right. The delicate green needles of the larches were just beginning to change color. Edward went on long walks with Mathilde in a landscape of rocks, glittering lakes, clouds, and light.

  “The sun is so bright in one’s eyes that one can hardly see anything,” Edward said, touching Mathilde’s arm affectionately. They stopped, and Mathilde actually closed her eyes. She felt the shadow that fell over her cheeks and the warmth of his face as it came closer and their lips met. Have you ever kissed a man? James had asked her, and she had lied. One didn’t have to lie to Edward.

  “Oh, my God,” she said after they’d pulled apart and she’d taken a deep breath. “You’re full of surprises!”

  She shook her head. No, she thought, she couldn’t possibly tell him what she meant by that. Why had she assumed that Edward would kiss her gently and hesitantly? She took a step back and looked at him. James was athletic, energetic, charming, experienced. Edward was tall, calm, and sensitive. How could she not have seen that he was manly and passionate? She took his hand and drew him closer.

  “I am glad that this side of you doesn’t immediately jump out at everyone.” She kissed him again on the mouth.

  “Why?” he asked. “What have you discovered?”

  “I’m discovering you. And every day I discover something new. One has to be patient with you. It will take me time to discover everything about you. Thank God that not all women can have the opportunity, otherwise . . .”

  He opened her coat and put his arms around her waist. “Or otherwise what?”

  “Otherwise I’d be jealous . . .”

  “You silly girl,” he said. “Do you think I waited this long to fall in love again just so I could go look for another object of affection right away?”

  She took his hand and pulled him down to the lakeshore. She tossed a pebble into the glittering golden grid the sun was making on the water.

  “To fall in love again?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes. Naturally, I was in love once before. After all, I’m not a little boy anymore, but a grown man. I’ve met many women, and there was one whom I loved very much.”

  Mathilde looked at him in disbelief with her blue eyes, as if it was utterly impossible that he had ever . . .

  “Loved very much?” she murmured, shaken, “very much?”

  Edward laughed out loud. “Yes, very much.”

  Mathilde was silent. My God, she didn’t know anything about him. She’d always taken it as a matter of course that he cared for her, but she had never asked anything about his past. To her he seemed to have had no other life, except for the interests he shared with her, and his friendship with James.

  “Aha,” she said, both disappointed and ashamed. “Where is she now? Is she dead?” Obviously that’s what Mathilde would have preferred.

  “No. She’s alive and happy. She’s married. But it was me she was actually engaged to.”

  Mathilde sighed.

  “The way I’m engaged to Adrian . . .” She gazed over to the opposite shore of the lake, at a loss.

  “The way you are engaged to Adrian,” he said, slowly. “It took me a long time to get over our splitting up. You can ask James. Years. It took years. But now I am happy, maybe happier now that I’ve found you than I would have been if I hadn’t had that earlier experience.”

  He leaned against a tree trunk. “How differently things can turn out. Quite different from what we imagine.”

  Mathilde looked unhappy. The wonderfulness of his kiss had suffered a bit in the face of the knowledge that he had kissed another woman before her. Kissed her the same way. Or, it was to be assumed that he had kissed her in much the same way.

  “Mathilde?” he said softly, “Mathilde. You’re not going to be jealous of the past? It is over, you know. But it is a part of my history. Emily is a part of my life. I can’t simply cut out that chapter. I wouldn’t be the man you know if I didn’t have my history. And,” he went on, taking her in his arms, “you, after all, have scarcely reserved your attentions for only one man . . .”

  “I never . . .” she wan
ted to contradict him, but he didn’t let her finish.

  “You fell head over heels in love with my best friend . . .”

  She nodded sheepishly. She couldn’t deny it. On the contrary, she wanted to tell him. That was a dark chapter that she had to get off her chest at some point, not to Adrian, but to Edward.

  “Are you all right?” Edward asked and brushed a few blonde curls out of her face.

  “Yes, yes. It’s just . . . there’s . . .” Her voice faded despondently.

  “Maybe I don’t really have to know what happened?” he said.

  She looked at him with gratitude. Then she frowned and said, “Yes. You do have to know. I did something terrible. You won’t love me anymore once you find out what it was.”

  “Yes, I will,” Edward said.

  “But you have no idea what happened,” Mathilde said, convinced that after her confession he would never again kiss her as he had kissed her just now. “He took my clothes off,” she said softly, not looking at Edward. “He saw me almost naked.” She looked into his eyes. But his expression remained unchanged. “Edward, he touched me and looked at me. And he . . . he took photographs of me. Do you understand? He can ruin my life; he has a photograph of me . . . well, almost naked.”

  “It’s all right. It’s all right, Mathilde . . .” Edward held her close. “James told me.”

  “What? How could he tell you!” Mathilde was indignant. “How could he do such a thing!”

  Edward held her at arm’s length and looked at her in amusement. “Well, now. He is my best friend. And he realized that I had feelings for you. I think he felt an obligation to tell me. The way you did just now. That is really good.”

  How could he say something like that? Mathilde looked at him. She was perplexed.

  “You know,” Edward whispered in her ear, “I don’t hold it against James that he desired you. He realized even before I did just how wonderful you are. He knows what I have in you; he saw it . . .”

  Mathilde was speechless. To hear such a sentence come from his lips. There was really no end to the things she had to learn about Edward.