The Italian Teacher

by Tom Rachman

  After boarding, Pinch dithers about his seat. Across from Dad or beside him? Finally, he inserts himself next to his father and, in sidelong glances, contemplates the man’s face, the lines across his stony brow, crinkles bracketing determined blue eyes. Pinch is caught looking and turns away.

  From his blazer pocket, he fishes a folded page full of technical questions about painting, amassed these past years of studying The Materials of the Artist, jotted in careful fountain pen, all for this precise moment. Yet Pinch is rattled by other thoughts—about living here, painting at the barn, apprenticing with Dad. Might I?

  “I hope you’re not too disappointed with me, Charlie boy,” Bear says, rolling up his magazine, swatting his son’s knee. “This damned picture refused to get finished. That’s been lousy for you, I know. Me coming home late, mind elsewhere. It can be like that when I’m working: I’m not really where I’m at. You follow?”

  “Oh yes. That’s fine,” Pinch says urgently.

  “Some folks would sit here tut-tutting.”

  “No, I understand, Dad. I didn’t mind.”

  Bear squeezes Pinch’s fingers, shakes his head. “Events like tonight—I got to put up with them.” Pinch doesn’t know whether to clutch his father’s hand back or stay limp. Bear, noticing the page on his son’s lap, reads aloud the heading: “Questions for My Dad.” He smiles, clearly touched. “Well, your dad is right here, Charlie. Ready and waiting. Fire away, my one and only.”

  Pinch scans the questions, too anxious suddenly to understand his own handwriting. He stammers out a query about that lesson in Rome, how Bear taught him traditional methods like mulling paints and squaring up, yet Bear himself doesn’t necessarily apply such old-fashioned techniques. “Did you show me that because,” Pinch ventures, having prepped this line, “because an artist should know the old ways so he can forget them, and go forward freely?”

  “What is this, an interview?” He ruffles his son’s hair, pulls him close. “You’re a smart one. Know that? You could explain a thing or two to these bums we’ll meet tonight, I promise you.”

  Gaining momentum, Pinch dares another question about when people sit for you. “Should I talk and get them when they’re reacting? Or should I say nothing and let them grow bored, then get them when they’re distracted and not thinking that I’m watching? Because I can’t really talk and draw at the same time. Mom says you’re like that,” he adds, having posed this question chiefly to cite a trait they share.

  “Charlie, let me tell you a story about me and portraits. After art college, I got this commission to paint some couple’s little daughter. When I tell you that the only notable thing about that gal was the ears, you better believe me! Immense, they were, like an elephant’s. I set up my easel, pose the little darlin’, and I paint her. The parents, they see the finished product, and they’re speechless. The lady, she goes, ‘Can’t you do anything about the ears?’ I say: ‘Why, sure: Pay a doctor to pin them back, and I’ll paint her fresh!’” He pinches Pinch’s thigh. Unsure of the point, Pinch grins. His father continues: “That is all you need know about portraits, Charlie. Are you accurate or are you cruel? That is the difference between a good painter and a great one. Because it’s impossible to be true and kind. Not been done.”

  “But if you’d painted her without elephant ears, the parents would’ve complained too, wouldn’t they? They’d say she didn’t really look like that.”

  “Oh, Charlie. You should know by now: Nobody sees themselves.” Bear raps the window, bothered suddenly. “What can I tell you, kid? What’s there to say about making paintings?” He looks hard at his son. “My real life, it’s when I’m working. It’s entirely there. The rest—everything—is flimflam. And that’s tragedy. Because what am I really doing? Wiping colors across fabric? Tricking people into feeling something’s there, when it’s nothing? When I’m doing the work, I almost think it adds up. Then they drag me to some farce like tonight, and I’m reminded what my job really is: goddamn decoration. Understand?”

  Pinch, stabbed by his father’s virulence, replies softly, “I don’t know.” For if this is tragedy, then Pinch wants his share: a mission like Dad’s, a trapdoor through which to pass, on whose other side is real life, making everything on this side fleeting and void. “Dad, can I stay here? With you and Carol? And— and work on my painting? Is that something that—”

  “You give me hope, Charlie. You know that? We will make this so special tonight, me and you. We’ll show them, hey? Buddies. You hear?” He shakes his son’s hand, a tight grip. Bear rests the crumpled copy of Partisan Review in his son’s lap, throws his arm around the boy’s shoulders. Pinch, fighting back tears of relief, stares hard out the window, hardly breathing. He clutches the magazine all the way to Grand Central.

  19

  The Checker taxi trundles south past Houston Street, passing industrial buildings and punctured garbage cans, whose pungent ooze trickles onto the sidewalk. The cab halts before a cast-iron facade, six stories of fire escape, the doorway defaced in spray-paint scrawl. Out front, a delivery truck idles, its clicker blinking. Bear and Pinch get out, father leading son up a rickety staircase to the second floor, where a tin sign—“Heights Manufacturing (Dresses) Inc.”—designates a previous tenant. Pipes run down the soaring ceilings of the newly converted gallery, machine parts and fabric bolts still heaped on the floor. A workman in overalls makes pencil marks on a wall, hammer jiggling on his tool belt.

  The opening tonight features younger artists than Bear Bavinsky, including three who are already present, sharing a bottle of Schlitz: a tall black woman in a Mondrian dress and orange bead necklace, and two jittery white guys, whom she teases, both in velvet jackets, leg-strangling black jeans, and Beatle boots. Nobody notices the middle-aged painter at the entrance, with his adolescent son in tie and blazer.

  The artists’ giggly banter sounds across the room, names drifting mystifyingly into Pinch’s ears: “Henry Geldzahler” and “Barry Goldwater” and “Lee Strasberg”—worryingly, he hasn’t heard of any of those artists. On a far wall, two blue fluorescent beams are mounted into an X. Beside this hangs a collage of Heinz ads. The largest work, however, is a plywood board stenciled with pink and yellow speech bubbles that contain no speech. Unsure how to react, Pinch turns to his father.

  “Planning to buy?” the black woman asks, approaching Bear. “Or just looking?”

  “Neither, if it’s all the same to you,” he replies.

  Smirking, she asks what brings him here, and looks most entertained to hear his name. “Shit, I’ve heard of you. But you’re not on tonight.”

  “Lovely lady, if I had something on these walls, nobody would look at anything else,” Bear tells her, charm turned up. Dad loathes these occasions, Pinch knows, yet he masters a room so effortlessly. He’s not even friendly to people, but they seem to like that. “Which is you?” he asks her.

  She points to the speech-bubble artwork. “Plus a few more to come—I’m waiting on a delivery man.”

  “You’re not the ketchup lover, I take it?”

  “That’s my friend René. You don’t dig that?”

  “If I was in the market for a hamburger, I don’t doubt your friend René would have all kinds of useful advice. Till then, I suggest he quits pretending to do anything more than drivel.”

  “He’s right there. You can tell him yourself.”

  “More than happy to.” Bear lifts a bottle of beer from her hand and places it into his son’s. “Now, this young man,” he informs her, clutching Pinch’s shoulder. “This is an actual, proper painter. Right here. He’s the one you should know. Not this hooey on the walls.”

  She cocks her head at Pinch, noticing him for the first time. “What’s your name, young man?”

  “Charles,” he replies faintly and offers his sweaty hand to shake. Instead, she takes back her beer, sips it, then returns the bottle, her eyes sparkling. “
You gonna be famous, big guy?”

  Smiling, he glances at Dad.

  “You don’t know his work?” Bear responds, slinging an arm protectively around young Pinch. “Ain’t heard of Charlie Bavinsky? And you call yourself an artist?”

  “Wait one minute. You saying this is the Charlie Bavinsky? In the flesh?”

  Pinch laughs, blushing.

  She takes her beer full-time now, summoning her friends and elaborating on the prodigy in their midst. One of the men touches Pinch’s head for benediction, saying, “You are the future.” As more people turn up for the hanging, each is introduced to “Charlie Bavinsky, artist of tomorrow.” With every introduction, the fanfare grows, each new entrant hearing another layer of grandiosity: “The world-famous genius, Charlie!” and “Charlie B, master of all forms, spiritual and sexual!” and “Charlie Bavinsky, visionary!”

  Pinch—casting wild-eyed looks at his father—is pulled from one side to another, these artists pawing at him, sharing beers with him, asking kooky questions for the others to overhear. “Everyone knows,” the black woman says, “that age is just a number.” She plants a kiss on Pinch’s lips, causing his legs to shake and everyone else to buckle with laughter. Pinch stands there, knowing—for the first time in his life, knowing—that this is his setting, and these are his people.

  Gradually, conversations bubble elsewhere. The mob disperses. Pinch spins about, seeking someone else to question him.

  The black woman is against a wall, prodding at the chest of Bear, who mock-falls back a step. “I know you,” she says, waggling a finger at him. “You’re one of those guys still got paint stains on his sneakers. I didn’t think they made your kind no more.”

  “Nah, what they make, sweetie, is shit. Which is everything in this gallery today.”

  Everyone laughs. They think he’s joking.

  “See?” the woman teases. “This is why you folks in such a bad mood. You used to be in charge.”

  “I’m out of date, you’re saying?”

  “Baby, you’re old! But don’t take my word for it. Let’s find you a mirror.”

  The sharper their exchange, the more Bear chortles—until everyone turns at the arrival of a portly man around sixty, Victor Petros, owner of this gallery, who is gasping from one flight of stairs, cigarette scissored between hairy middle finger and brass signet ring, sandalwood cologne emitting from large pores. He sloughs off his overcoat, allowing it to slump onto the floor, and he greets a few young artists, caressing an arm of each. He reaches Bear finally, taking both of the painter’s hands, leading him away for a private chat.

  Pinch—tipsy from beer, overheated, unsure of what to feel or where to stand—follows after his dad.

  “You approve, fine sir?” Petros is asking Bear, wiping his mouth from side to side, nostrils twitching. “Departing our home on Fifty-Seventh Street was not without bitterness. But walls must be had, my dear Bear: meaty walls for meaty masterpieces such as yours—those lunatic Bavinsky glories, hanging above the chasm of disaster, only to pull back at the last!”

  In a spurt of tipsy irritation, Pinch almost denounces this stupid description.

  Petros continues: “I know, Bear, I know. It’s not your style tonight. Nor mine perhaps. But that’s the market, alas. I trust you’ll be in attendance for the big splash later? There’ll be scribes and sausage rolls and sensational dames.”

  “I got the youngster in tow.”

  Pinch stands higher, presenting himself to the famed dealer for appraisal, a trifle defiantly—then hastily dabbing sweat from his upper lip.

  “What do you think of it all?” Petros asks. “You’re young—can you see any value in these works?”

  “I think it’s drivel,” Pinch declares, glancing at his father, then back at Petros, the boy’s neck flushing.

  “Youth speaks!” Bear says, chuckling.

  This prompts Pinch to push onward. “Nobody who has taste could like this junk. Why would anyone put this on their wall? It’s for idiots.” Noting the glare of Petros, Pinch falters. “It isn’t . . .”

  The dealer contemplates this spotty adolescent, as if struggling to discern a feature of minimal worth.

  Pinch is desperate to maintain poise yet wracked by his childish outburst, having shown off so stupidly, having insulted this important man, who Pinch has dreamed might someday represent him alongside Dad. Suddenly, Pinch glimpses himself: a little nothing among adults, who see how stupid he looks, a schoolboy in suit and tie.

  Petros takes a puckery drag of his cigarette. “When do I get a studio visit, Bear?”

  “That’s why you pulled me down here, Vic, to try that on again?”

  “I invited you to see our new dwelling, dear man, that I might receive your blessing for the move. But, naturally, I’m ever hopeful that you have fresh work for me. Been a long while! As I say to all my artists, popularity is a tan. It fades when out of the light.”

  “What is that supposed to tell me?”

  “That you must have pictures at your studio I could discreetly place with a few choice collectors. If only to keep your name among the living. Bear?”

  “When I’m ready is when you get something. But if you’re planning to push my paintings to some of your rich know-nothings, you won’t see anything ever.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re still insisting on museums. You know how needlessly complicated this makes my life.”

  “Vic, if you don’t like my terms, tell me so. Tell me. Play whatever games you want with these twerps you got showing tonight, but I’m a grown man. You don’t bring me all this way into the city for this.”

  Petros goes into backstroke, recasting what he just said, lavishing praise on “the unique vision of Bear Bavinsky,” even while gently scolding Dad for not making work like everyone else. It’s the market, he claims, conspiring against us both! Pinch wants to ask, But aren’t you, Victor Petros, part of that market?

  An awkward young woman in glasses sidles up, whispering to Petros about his meeting with Alfred and René at MoMA. “So glorious to have shown you our new cathedral,” Petros concludes. “It means the world to have your blessing.” He looks again at Pinch. “Everyone tells me that you are an artist too, and with great promise. Not to mention strong opinions. We’ll get properly acquainted tonight, agreed?”

  Pinch nearly leaps. Instead, he nods. “Yes, thank you. Thanks.”

  Bear watches, a little chuckle, arm around his kid, leading him away. As they descend for the street, Petros hurries to the top of the stairs, calling down a final thought to Bear. “Red, yellow, and blue! Primary colors make collectors happy! Keep that in mind!” He waves an unlit cigarette and returns to younger clients.

  Bear walks fast away with Pinch matching his pace, not sure where they’re headed but ready to sprint there, barely able to suppress his drunken tongue from blabbing about all that transpired. He aches for Dad to speak, to say whether that was triumph or disaster, if Pinch conducted himself acceptably.

  They walk in silence, Pinch buttoning and unbuttoning his jacket, armpits damp and itchy. At Washington Square Park, a college kid is playing the banjo, wailing Pete Seeger while Old World retirees hunch over chessboards. The metal railings are laden with paintings for sale: tawdry sunsets and Picasso knockoffs.

  “Those people showing at the gallery,” Pinch begins, watching his father, “it’s like they weren’t even doing the same profession as you.”

  His father keeps walking up Fifth Avenue, until leading Pinch through a revolving door into a hotel lobby. “You have a room for the young man?” he asks the front desk.

  “Get ya fixed right up.”

  Pinch goes cold. He’s being left here, and can’t object—he saw Birdie remonstrate with their father, and it never ended well.

  “Here’s a buck for the bellboy,” Bear says, slipping his son a dollar, turning back to the revo
lving door.

  “But will Mr. Petros mind if I don’t come back?” Pinch asks, suppressing desperation. “I was supposed to speak with him later, I think.”

  “Get anything you want, Charlie boy. Room service, anything. On me, kiddo.” And he’s gone.

  Up in his room, Pinch stands in bewilderment, still muzzy from the booze, mouth dry. He punches his thigh, hammering it three times, tears welling up. In confusion, he keeps flashing to before: Dad telling everyone I’m an artist.

  Once calmer, Pinch toys with the radio in the headboard, tunes into a ball game—he’s never heard one before. He leans out the window, scanning the concrete far below, seeing his father in every thick-shouldered guy who plods toward the hotel. Drowned out by car horns, Pinch states his name to the smoggy summer air, as if encountering real artists again, telling them about his influences. He replays those interchanges—except that he kisses back when the black artist pecks his lips. Pinch leaps onto the bed, landing on his knees, then darts back to the window, studying the sidewalks. As hours pass, the concrete below turns darker gray until the street lamps pop, coating the asphalt white, passing yellow stripes of taxicabs, red dots from a traffic light down the next block.

  Only at breakfast does he see Dad again: there, at the back of the hotel restaurant. Across from Bear is the black woman from yesterday, wearing the same Mondrian dress, a little rumpled this morning. She is caressing Bear’s open palm. He clasps her fingers, brings them to his mouth, a playful bite. Bear notices his son, nods, not calling the boy over.

  20

  Bear sleeps on the train back to Larchmont, with Pinch watching. Lightly, he rests his hand on his father’s upper arm, which rises and falls with the man’s heavy breaths. Stirring, Bear utters a peaceful sigh, draws his son closer, as if pulling a bony little cushion under his arm. “What a time!” Bear mumbles. “Told you we’d turn that place upside down.” His eyes remain shut, crow’s feet deepening from amusement. “And what an impression you made. They loved the hell out of you, Charlie.”