Andrina passed a finger over the engraved rose, the red jewel in the middle. She couldn’t contain her curiosity, opened the locket, but didn’t find a picture in it, no jewel, only a small, folded piece of paper. She couldn’t make out the words. Disappointed, she put the paper back in the locket, placed the chain around her neck, and opened the uppermost button on her dress so that one could see the locket. She pinched her cheeks to give them a pink blush and waited for Achille to call for her.
Emma Schobinger had rarely felt as certain about a decision as now. She had decided she was going to St. Moritz at the first possible moment. And she was going there without her husband. Instead, she asked her cousin Frieda to accompany her. She had made an appointment on the telephone with Dr. Bernhard. She was beside herself. To dissolve the engagement! Bad enough that Adrian’s family had distanced themselves on the grounds of Mathilde’s having tuberculosis. What an affront to her and Franz, and of course Mathilde too. But still, Adrian was sticking by his fiancée, and she assumed that his parents would one day become reconciled to his decision. He was, after all, their only son and the inheritor of the bank. And now this had to happen.
Who had put such silly notions into the child’s head? Didn’t she, Emma, have a bad feeling right from the outset about having Betsy accompany Mathilde? Betsy was absolutely the wrong example for a curious young woman not yet sure of herself. And the mountains. Emma held her forehead as if she had a headache. If you stayed up there too long, you’d probably go mad. But all this was reversible, once she had Mathilde back home with her.
“It’s very simple, Mama. I don’t love him,” Mathilde said.
“Oh, so you don’t love him. And when did you discover that?”
“I’ve felt it for quite a long time, but I wasn’t sure enough to talk about it before I came here. Well . . . actually, I never loved him,” Mathilde admitted meekly. She had been utterly surprised by her mother’s visit, an effect Emma Schobinger had carefully anticipated.
“Well.” With an ungracious gesture, Emma Schobinger sent the nurse who had just come in with a thermometer out of the room. “I want to say something to you,” she went on. “It’s nice to love the man you marry. But after a few years it all takes on a different aspect, and by then you realize that you’re still married.”
“But Mama,” Mathilde said, shocked, “do you mean to say that you don’t love Papa anymore?”
“Yes, I do, but in a different way. But we’re not talking about your father and me now, we’re discussing your behavior. And that, my dear child, is unacceptable.” Even though Emma Schobinger wasn’t tall, she seemed just then imposing and implacable.
Mathilde wondered whether she should be honest and mention Edward. But then she thought it would be better to go step-by-step and not to mention anything too early. For that might have an even more negative effect on the situation.
“Is there another man involved?” her mother asked as if she had read Mathilde’s mind. She wasn’t naïve. “Adrian mentioned a certain Edward who comes to visit you. More often, in fact, than is appropriate for an engaged young woman.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Mathilde who had decided to fight for her point as vigorously as her mother. The engagement had to be dissolved first, before Edward became involved. And so she said casually, “I hope I’m permitted to have visitors. The doctors all say that loneliness doesn’t help recovery.”
“Rubbish,” Emma Schobinger said.
The blood rushed to Mathilde’s head so that her curls looked as though an electric current had passed through them. She took a deep breath. “Up here, I’ve come to realize, and it’s partly because of my illness, that I don’t want to spend my life with Adrian. I know that there’s nothing wrong with him, Mother, that he’d be a perfect son-in-law and husband.” She drew herself up again and forced herself to look directly at her mother, “But I want to be in love with the man I marry.”
Emma Schobinger got up. She knew that Mathilde liked to involve her in long drawn-out discussions. “None of this matters,” she said tersely. “You are going to marry Adrian. And leave your illness out of it. No dramatic fever please. Dr. Bernhard told me an hour ago that he is very pleased with your state of health. He sees no reason why you wouldn’t be cured and released in a couple of months.”
“I won’t marry Adrian,” Mathilde said in a firm tone of voice. “And certainly not just because you want me to.”
Emma was shocked. It wasn’t possible that her daughter had lost all respect for her mother. Mathilde wasn’t doing herself a favor with such impertinences. “Just so you know,” she said coolly as she was about to leave, “I have asked Dr. Bernhard to give me some addresses of tuberculosis sanatoriums near Zurich.”
Andrina was just what Signora Robustelli had expected: the sort of woman who wasn’t at all appropriate for Achille. Pretty, buxom, vain, and with a tendency to recklessness. A woman who would ensnare a responsible man and then ruin him.
It was obvious that the young woman was ambitious. That might have been a positive trait, but certain details bothered the signora. A young woman with good judgment didn’t get all dressed up like this for her first meeting with the family of the man she was hoping to marry. The girl was wearing, to put it mildly, a not-very-tasteful Sunday dress on a normal workday, as well as a valuable piece of jewelry that fit neither with the dress nor its wearer. Signora Robustelli didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but this just didn’t look good.
Surprisingly, the conversation began to falter not because of Signora Robustelli, but because of Achille. All this time Andrina had been polite and attentive, and the signora was even beginning to like her because she didn’t talk as much nonsense as the signora had expected. On the other hand, Achille seemed not to be paying attention. The conversation meandered on for a while without any high or low points. Andrina poured Achille and the signora more coffee. Then she suggested that she leave.
“Achille, I’m sure you’d like to stay a while alone with your mother. You haven’t seen each other for a long time. If you will excuse me, Signora Robustelli, I was very happy that you were prepared to meet me.”
She got up. Achille’s mother gave her a point for politeness, but her son, surprisingly, said in an unusually brusque tone, “Wait, Andrina, I’ll go outside with my mother and call her a carriage. Stay here till I come back. I won’t be long.”
Andrina nodded obediently. She was surprised. What was happening? He wasn’t himself; he was different. They had drunk coffee in his office, and she now sat down again. It didn’t feel right. She didn’t sit in his chair behind the desk, which is what she would have liked to do, but she lingered close enough to get a look at the letters that lay there, opened. But like most of the people in the village, she hadn’t gotten very far along with reading, and before she could decipher anything, Robustelli had come back into the room.
“So,” he said, closing the door behind him. “Now give me the necklace you’re wearing and tell me where you got it. I’ve never seen you wear it, and it would surprise me to know that it belonged to your mother.”
Yet that’s just what she had almost told him. Instead, she said nothing, just handed him the locket. She had never seen him this stern. She had just wanted to look pretty for his mother. Why was he so upset?
Achille examined the locket carefully. “This is a coat of arms,” he said. “A family’s coat of arms that I’ve seen before. If I’m not mistaken, it’s the coat of arms of an old established Venetian family. How in heaven’s name did you get it?”
Andrina had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. The straniera had landed her in a real fix. She had destroyed everything, Andrina’s entire life, her future. It was obvious that Achille was angry. Now he probably wouldn’t marry her, and it was Nika’s fault. Andrina stubbornly refused to say anything, pursed her lips.
“Come on now, Andrina, tell me where you got it
!”
“It belongs to Nika. She hid it among her things. I just intended to borrow it, to look pretty when you introduced me to your mother . . .”
Robustelli, whose reputation and self-respect was based on his correctness, shook his head. “You didn’t borrow it, you stole it. Or did you ask Nika for permission?”
Andrina was angry at her fiancé. He was behaving like a teacher or a priest. That was hard to take considering that he himself was obviously in love with the straniera, just like Segantini. Go to hell with the bitch, she almost cried out. But then she thought better of it. “I didn’t ask her. She hides it from everybody. But Luca told me that she had it. She was wearing it when Gian and Luca found her. I was going to put it right back in her bureau.”
“You won’t be doing that now.” Signor Robustelli was pacing up and down and thinking.
“I’m going to keep the locket here.”
Achille Robustelli did not believe in divine Providence. His Christian faith was not strong enough for that. Not did he believe in coincidence. He believed in precision, prudence, clever foresight, sober logic, and above all, the importance of proper and decent behavior. Yet now, he began to feel doubt. For suddenly, unbelievable currents of feeling struggled inside him. He felt pursued by coincidence, and if he had been superstitious—given all these meaningful omens—he wouldn’t have known how to save himself.
Here he was now, holding Nika’s locket, her one treasure, and the secret of her life’s story that she herself couldn’t decipher. She needed someone to help her. And of all people, it was Andrina who had put the locket into his hands, forcing him to think about Nika—Nika, whom she couldn’t stand and considered her rival.
And indeed, as luck would have it, he had recognized the damask rose with the ruby. One of the soldiers from his old unit, a fellow officer, had been a member of an old Venetian family, and this was their coat of arms. They hadn’t been close friends, and Achille wasn’t sure whether he remembered the name right. If he wasn’t mistaken, it was Damaskinos—yes, a Greek name—Damaskinos.
Achille examined the piece of jewelry, but he didn’t open the locket. It belonged to Nika, and he had neither the right nor any desire to open it. He was morally upright, even if there was no one present.
But the negative side of holding the locket was that all the feelings he had learned to suppress now swept over him, and put him in turmoil. Now the thought of marrying Andrina made him sad and unhappy. He felt full of inner conflict, consumed by an ill-fated affection for Nika who loved another and would never reciprocate his feelings.
Achille Robustelli, who had been praised in the military for his objectivity, common sense, and strategic perspicacity, was hopelessly caught in the tangle of his own emotions.
“Oh, Baba,” Andrina said, stopping Segantini’s servant on the village street. “I haven’t seen you in ages! I’m just coming from the hotel, and you can imagine how demanding the hotel guests are.” Baba was in a hurry and wanted to keep going, but Andrina held on to her arm. “Baba, just one moment. There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time. Does Signora Bice know that Signor Segantini constantly goes to see the straniera?”
Everybody in the village knew who the straniera was.
“It’s really none of my business,” Andrina continued, “but everyone at the hotel knows about it. A guest, a very influential lady, told me the other day, that she had met the two in St. Moritz. Well, I don’t think that’s right and proper. But no doubt, there was some reason for the outing, and your signora didn’t mind.”
Baba’s face froze. She didn’t like Andrina. Everybody said that Andrina wanted to be somebody she wasn’t. Poor Benedetta; she really had back luck with her children—Gian, who wasn’t all there, Luca, dead, and this girl here, who was never satisfied.
“I’m sure the signora knows about it,” Baba answered, dismissively. “I have to go now. The hotel isn’t the only place where people have work to do.” She released her arm from Andrina’s grip and hurried off.
Baba hadn’t let on that Andrina’s words had left their mark. Wasn’t she his faithful confidante? Didn’t she carry his paints everywhere for him, wasn’t she the one who read aloud to him, and with whom he shared his ideas? Yes, and hadn’t she even been the model for many of his pictures and the one who devotedly cared for his family, even if her meager monthly salary was often paid late? Didn’t she sacrifice everything for him? What was he looking for from the straniera?
She would have preferred not to believe Andrina. But she knew better. She herself had wondered why Signor Segantini sometimes sent her directly home while he made a detour.
Nika stood in front of the enlarged photographs that Fabrizio Bonin had hung in the Spa Hotel Maloja, furtively glancing at them. The photographs fascinated her and she kept secretly going back whenever there were no guests around. They were not color photographs, and yet they captured the light and shadow in many incredible ways. The photos showed scenes from the everyday life of Venice, a city that Nika knew nothing about. The city seemed to be rising out of the water; canals crisscrossed it the way streets did in other cities. And it was the water with its reflections that created the great abundance of light and shadow, movement and stillness. Nika was enraptured. The photographs resembled paintings, but they seemed more alive, more present; it was almost as if at any moment the people in them would move and begin to speak, even step out of the picture.
“Do you like the photographs, Signorina?” a voice behind her asked.
Nika was startled and turned around. The young man with the brown eyes was standing directly behind her. Warily Nika looked everywhere, but the hallway was empty. “Yes, I like them very much!” she said softly, adding even more softly, “I’m not allowed to talk with the guests.”
Fabrizio Bonin shook his head. “What peculiar rules,” he said, whispering in turn, which made Nika laugh. “But you must be allowed to answer their questions. If not, it would make you a very impolite employee.”
The whispering lent their conversation a note of confidentiality, and they both had to laugh.
“I have to get back to work now,” Nika said, covering her mouth, “but I like the pictures very much. They are as beautiful as works of art.”
“Photography is an art,” Fabrizio said, “a new art with a great future and unimaginable possibilities. And unlike painting, you can even make a good living with it if you do it right. Look, do you see how wonderfully light and shadow are depicted here?”
He pointed to one of the photographs and was tempted to take her hand, to lead it to the one he meant. But he didn’t.
Nika nodded enthusiastically. “And you really think that photographers can make a living with their art?”
“I know they can. Venice is a photographer’s city. And how about the city?” asked Bonin, still whispering as if he enjoyed the secrecy and confidentiality of their whispered exchange. “Do you like the city too? It’s my home. I live there.”
“Yes, the city too,” Nika said, smiling. “But now I really have to . . .”
“All right, all right, just one more moment,” he begged her. “I want to tell you how proud I am of my city. There is no other city that has so much light yet is so full of shadows, or captures the sky in the mirror of its water . . .”
Nika looked at him. “I could listen to you forever,” she whispered and hurried off.
“I would like to show you Venice,” Fabrizio said softly. But she didn’t hear him. He gestured as if to wave to her, and when she turned quickly, she saw the gesture and smiled at him.
Segantini intercepted Nika outside the hotel. He said, “I have to speak with you. Let’s go down by the lake.”
He went on ahead, not waiting for her answer. Rowboats floated quietly on the water, the first shadows were forming on the plateau.
“I don’t have much time,” Nika said. “I have to be
in the dining room.”
She was still angry with Segantini because the painting had been so little about her. But it wasn’t just injured vanity that she felt. She didn’t understand the idea behind the picture. Segantini’s thoughts were foreign to her. “The picture shows a girl standing at the threshold to womanhood,” he had said, and then, he had added a monster. In her life, Nika had never had much opportunity for being vain, for self-absorbed gazing into mirrors, and so she didn’t understand his loathing of it.
“Come sit down with me on this bench. It’s important,” Segantini said. He didn’t seem to be feeling well, nervously crossing and uncrossing his legs, and fiddling with his vest.
She reluctantly sat down next to him. Why was he always talking to her as if she were a child or as if he had to order her to do something?
“It would be better if you left this place,” he said without any transition.
Nika’s ears began to ring. It was as if a storm were breaking out, as if a shrill, whistling wind were approaching with such force that she couldn’t breathe. Then the present came back into focus. Yes, there was Segantini, but everything was still revolving. It took moments for things to come to a standstill again.
“Aren’t you well?” Segantini asked, taking her arm.
“No, I don’t feel well,” Nika mumbled, getting up. Segantini pulled her back onto the bench.
“Wait, Nika. I want to tell you about what happened. Andrina Biancotti went to Baba and told her you were brazenly flirting with me. And that it had already gone so far that I came to see you whenever possible.”
Nika listened apathetically.
“Nika,” he shook her. “Baba didn’t come to tell me; she went to Bice with the story. And of course, she wasn’t happy about that. I love Bice, and I need her. You have to leave. Bice is demanding it, even though I’ve told her a thousand times that nothing ever happened between us. Nika?”
Nika didn’t move.
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