The Italian Teacher

by Tom Rachman

  They awaken to a woman’s voice. Pinch and Barrows peek out of the bedroom window, their cheeks brushing, both bedazzled by morning light. Bear is accepting a crate of apples from a middle-aged woman who speaks English with a Dutch accent. Overnight, a forested mountain grew behind the property.

  Barrows opens the door to the back terrace and points to a gecko sunning itself on the flagstones. From behind, Pinch slips his arms under hers, cupping her breasts, hugging her to him. She twists around, licks his bristly cheek. “Starving.”

  “I’m not entirely edible.”

  So they wolf down ham-and-baguette leftovers while Pinch—his expectations about their future regenerated from a single night with Dad—drifts into embryonic-professor mode, telling her about Catalonia, how Basque Country lies to the west, Spaniards to the south, and how isolated terrain propagates obscure languages and dialects. In these parts alone: Anares, Gascon, Aragonese, Euskera, Occitan, Catalan.

  A car kicks up pebbles and dust—the Dutchwoman driving away. Only then does it occur to Pinch that his father has no way of breakfasting—theirs is the sole kitchen. They hasten to his studio and apologize.

  Bear isn’t perturbed, just delighted to see them. In the cottage kitchen, he prepares a lavish midmorning feast of farm eggs and cheese and gnarled apples, which he slices with his Opinel penknife, wiping juice on the thigh of dirty jeans, his empty pipe poking from a hip pocket. Around noon, a bearded Swedish hippie arrives from a nearby farm with his Irish girlfriend and her two kids from two previous hippies. Bear and they gab away, leaving Pinch and Barrows to lounge on sun chairs.

  “Light summer reading,” Pinch comments wryly, nodding at her paperback.

  She lowers The Gulag Archipelago. “You should talk: Syntactic Structures?”

  “It’s strangely fascinating.”

  At lunch, the Dutchwoman returns, bringing a magnum of vin ordinaire, just as mouth-puckeringly tannic as the previous night’s red, and just as pleasing. Afternoon naps follow before Bear rouses the kids with local sausages and muscat doux served in pottery mugs. (Marsden always raved about the pairing of muscat doux with foie gras, which he suggested they farm in the yard of the Annex house—only required a willing goose!) Pinch smiles, but it fades. He’s sorry how matters ended with Marsden, that Pinch so coldly cut off a friend of several years. Banish the guilt; too much at stake now. Each day must go perfectly.

  In bed that night, Barrows comments on how sociable Bear is. “Is he sleeping with the Dutch lady?”

  “Jorien? No, no. She’s married.”

  “You noticed what time she drove off? After the afternoon nap.”

  He watches Barrows smoke a Virginia Slim, a wiseacre smile cracking. I completely love you, he thinks.

  “Diminishing returns, after a point,” she is saying.

  “What are?”

  “When artists repeat early work, people say they’re limited. But if they innovate, it’s ‘lesser late work.’ They get imprisoned by their success,” she says. “Hey, am I going to pose or what?”

  “You don’t really want to. Sitting takes forever.”

  “Maybe that explains why your father produces so little—not to mention all of his visitors, Pinch,” she says, inserting his nickname as a tease.

  “Don’t call me that. It’s what my mother calls me. And I promise, Bear is not gallivanting up here. If he has slowed his work, it’s because we’re around. But Dad is a machine. He works every day of the year. Trust me. I grew up with this.”

  “I didn’t see stacks of canvases at the studio.”

  “Because he only just got here. And did you notice the oil barrel outside? He always has one where he paints. It’s for burning paintings that don’t make the grade. And that’s nearly everything.”

  “Why? That’s a bit extreme.”

  “It’s smart. Dad’s plan is to leave fewer than a hundred major works, each placed in major collections. He doesn’t pump out factory products, like certain artists I could mention. Even fifty great paintings for posterity is way more meaningful than a thousand shitty sketches churned out for cash, like Picasso did.”

  “Okay, but how do you know Bear was painting before we arrived? Maybe he was busy seducing Jorien.”

  “First, because he said so. Second, because Dad doesn’t busy himself with seducing. He does that in his spare time.”

  “You sound so pleased about it.”

  “Not pleased,” he rejoins, chuckling. “I’m just worldly—unlike certain prim ladies of Alberta. Your prudish roots shine through.”

  She pushes him, laughing.

  “Anyway, we saw at least one painting in the studio,” Pinch notes.

  “All I saw was the back of a canvas with hand smudges on it.”

  “Smudges from paint.”

  “True.”

  “Listen, I have this idea,” he says. “I was thinking we could drive down to Italy. It’s not that far.”

  “Didn’t we come all this way so you could show off your Dad?”

  “We came to sell a house,” he says defensively. “And certainly not to pose for my father.” But she’s right. He brought Barrows here to display Bear to her and her to Bear. Only, she and Bear are getting along almost too well. Pinch is their connection yet feels himself shrinking from view. “If we go to Italy, I could show you around, impress you with my Italian. We can resume your lessons. Barrows?”

  “Are you nuts? I’m having a ball,” she says. “You go to Italy. I’m staying here with Bear Bavinsky.”

  35

  Bear drives them to a nearby town for the weekly market, where farmers stand awkwardly behind portable tables loaded with local fare: wheels of cheese, pain de campagne, blood sausages. Behind them rise the Pyrenees, dogtooth peaks that inspire Barrows to pan across the landscape, inhaling crisp air. From a distance, Pinch watches Bear buying item after item, intent that the kids try everything delicious from around here. Speaking little French, Bear relies on pointing and horsing around, sharing uproarious laughter and backslaps with the vendors. Laden with purchases, he walks back to his son, places a few bags in Pinch’s hand, throws an arm around his boy, and hands Barrows a few more bags, throwing his other arm around her, uniting the young couple, and leaving them to their intimacy.

  “What’s that amazing smell?” Barrows asks, peering into one of Pinch’s bags.

  He reaches in, breaks off a hunk of cheese. “Try.”

  “Won’t he mind?”

  “This is for us.”

  “He’s so generous.”

  “I told you.”

  On the drive back, Barrows nibbles away, peppering their host with amiable queries about the life of an artist. At the cottage, Bear fetches an unlabeled bottle of red and distributes glasses. Pinch remarks, “That Basque guy selling the cheeses reminded me of Supper at Emmaus.”

  “Reminded you of what?” Bear asks, chuckling.

  “The Caravaggio, with that apostle spreading his arms. I used to look at that for hours back in my guarding days.”

  “What guarding days?”

  “When I worked at the National Gallery. In London, with Mom.”

  “Oh, sure, sure.”

  “So,” Barrows asks, “you’re a Caravaggio fanatic like your son?”

  “Dad is the one who introduced me to Caravaggio.” He turns to Bear. “Remember? At Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi, when Birdie was visiting.”

  “Of course!” Bear says grandly, vaguely.

  “Caravaggio is technically amazing,” Barrows acknowledges. “Still, I can’t help finding him a tad sterile. Each composition feels so staged. Those tableaux vivants—they all look, I don’t know, like some amateur theatrical troupe.”

  “Oh, come on,” Pinch says. “Yes, he posed his models. But there’s stunning complexity in those compositions, also from a technical standpoint�
�that basket of fruit in Emmaus, just teetering there? Dad?”

  “I hear where the lady’s coming from.” Pinch—who has revered Caravaggio because his father does—waits for Bear to add, “However . . .”

  “However invaluable his contributions were,” Bear continues, “I’d take Carracci over Caravaggio any day.”

  Pinch shuts his eyes an instant from surprise. “I remember you saying how absolutely anything a young painter needs can be found in Caravaggio.”

  “If a youngster asked me what to study, I’d be damned if I sent him to Caravaggio.”

  Pinch smiles in dismay. “I spent years copying Caravaggios.”

  “You painted?” Barrows says.

  “Not seriously. But when we lived in Rome, Bear gave me the most amazing lesson once. All the basics in one afternoon.”

  “Were you good?” she asks.

  “Terrible! Thankfully, nothing of mine survived. Dad advised me, quite rightly, that painting was not for me.”

  “I said no such thing!” Bear sucks the lighter flame into his pipe.

  “Yes, you did,” Pinch insists, fumbling for his own pipe. “When I was visiting you in Larchmont.”

  Bear leans back in his chair, nostrils flaring, smoke drifting out. He frowns, shaking his head.

  “You did!” Pinch says, too fervently.

  “You shoulda kept it up, dummy—a kid of mine could have done something special!” He takes Pinch’s hand, dwarfing it, and gives a squeeze.

  Pinch tunes out, distantly aware of Barrows inquiring about artistic process. With most outsiders, Bear refuses to talk shop, but he takes her questions, swilling wine and gesticulating in the smoky air. They both glance at Pinch, one after the other, as if he were an afterthought, then they resume.

  “Is painting even part of the discourse?” Barrows is saying.

  “What’s a five-dollar word like ‘discourse’ mean?” Bear responds, sighing. “A person can’t look at anything anymore without some fool telling him what it’s ‘supposed’ to mean.”

  “Warhol says there’s no meaning behind his art.”

  “It’s the first time I’ve ever agreed with that donkey. The way it used to be, when a guy couldn’t paint, he ended up a critic. Today, that guy, he’s the artist!”

  Pinch notices her smirk. His father is so outdated, and she sees him stumble.

  “The way you talk, young lady, it’s like any cockamamy new movement leads to a purer state. It’s like Karl Marx talking.”

  “You saying modernism is a Marxist plot?” she asks, amused. “Because critics have suggested you’re a reactionary. That Greenberg article about—”

  “That piece was ridiculous,” Pinch interjects. “And it was decades ago.”

  “Influential though,” she notes.

  “Look, here’s a secret for you,” Bear tells Barrows. “No great painter ever—not one—gave a damn about movements and manifestos. You think Degas sat around, sweating over Impressionism?”

  “So what do you consider yourself part of?” she asks. “You’re an island alone?”

  “The truth is this: There isn’t another artist around right now with my significance, not at this time,” he answers. “When you see a Rembrandt, that is him on the canvas, him seeing. When I paint, it’s the same. It’s somebody else in the picture, but it’s me on the canvas. Get that? Long after I’m under the dirt, I’ll still be there. Nobody’ll care anymore about some silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe or a dumb collage by that clown Bob Rauschenberg. What I’m working at is art. Not standing there like that lady who spreads her legs and pulls scrolls outta her jam pot!”

  “Jam pot?” Barrows says, laughing. “So wait, I’m to gather that your motive is immortality?”

  “Immortality ain’t good enough for you?” He winks at her. “Hey, you sitting for me later?”

  “Not sure your son is cool with the idea.”

  “Just because it takes so long,” Pinch says. “And we’re thinking of driving to Italy. Remember?”

  “I remember saying I’m fine here. Or were you intending to bundle me into the car and start driving? Don’t be so uptight, Charles!”

  Flushing, he stammers, “I just didn’t think you wanted to come to Europe to sit in a room.”

  “Who knows? Maybe I can write someday about the time I posed for the great Bear Bavinsky.”

  “Let’s get to it then.” Bear slaps his own thigh and stands.

  Pinch, nauseated, sits in place, then stands in haste, following behind them. Each step up the boggy turf is a queasy softness under his shoes. In the studio, Barrows drops her sundress, kicks off her platform sandals, which land with two clunks. She straightens a strap of her ill-fitting bra, the cups caved over her small breasts. Pinch watches, frantic, mute. These are the two most important people in my life. And they don’t need me anymore.

  Barrows corrects a twist in the elastic of her panties.

  “Steady there, tiger,” Bear tells her, setting up his canvas. “Haven’t even picked my paints, and the lady’s already in her skivvies!”

  “I don’t mind lounging in my undies on a hot day. So long as you don’t mind.”

  “I’ve seen worse sights.”

  Pinch tells her softly: “Maybe we should come back later when he’s ready.”

  She ignores him, approaching Bear to watch him prepare the materials.

  “Get comfy over on the drapery, sweetie,” Bear says.

  “How should I be?”

  “Dad doesn’t pose his models. You can sit as you like.”

  “Thank you, son of mine. And with that . . .” Bear looks to the door. “I don’t work with an audience.”

  Pinch starts for the cottage—only to swivel around halfway, chest thudding. He speed-walks back. But Pinch can’t just barge in. Saying what? He turns around again, quaking in place, looking toward the cottage. His heart is pumping overfast; he needs to be sick. Did I drink too much? Come on—sober up. Think. My girlfriend is in there, naked, my own father inspecting her. Do I shove him aside? I can’t. But I can’t wait here. When a woman sits for Bear, Pinch knows, it’s nearly a sexual act and often leads to one. He pictures Barrows where she is right at this instant. He bolts back to the studio, grabs the doorknob, and shoulders the door open.

  His father kneels over Barrows, one hand on the ground by her neck, his face above hers, as if feeding on a carcass. They turn to Pinch without expression—they’re otherwise engaged, Bear marking her place in chalk, Barrows still in her underwear.

  “I was just . . .” Pinch says, breathless. “Maybe this isn’t a . . .” His throat closes. Looking at neither, then approximately at her, he swallows hard. “Didn’t you say before that you don’t even like Bear’s art?”

  Cheeks flushed, she raises herself, resting on an elbow. “What are you talking about?”

  “You told me that.”

  Enraged, she glowers at Pinch, who averts his gaze, looking to his father.

  “Dad, if she writes about you, we don’t know what she’ll put in.”

  “Say what you mean,” she demands.

  “Just, on the drive, all that talk about Dad ‘objectifying’ women—would you publish that? It’s my father’s career on the line. You acted like he’s some terrible retrograde artist, then posing nude now? Why? To be hung on a gallery wall someday?”

  She stands, hands on hips. “Are you fucking insane?”

  He can’t meet her gaze. He looks at paint dots on the floor.

  “If you can’t accept me sitting, if you’re that possessive of my body, be up-front about it.”

  “I didn’t mean to have a big argument.”

  “Really? No?” She unhooks her bra, throws it at her pile of clothing. She pushes down her panties, lets them fall to her ankles.

  “What are you kids arguing over?” Bear asks,
indifferent to her nudity. “What do you mean, ‘objectifying’? Not women’s-lib jazz, is it?”

  “Well, you do only paint women,” she responds. “You’re supposed to be this ‘master of empathy,’ who captures women so deeply. But a woman’s hip is the sum of her? You’ve got to see how reductive that is.”

  “Could you put something on?” Pinch pleads, unable to look at her.

  “Honey, I’ve been married five times, okay? Does that sound like a man who doesn’t like the opposite sex? And I never painted a lady for the purpose of laying her. Hell, if I went to bed with sitters, it was to make for better paintings, not the other way around!”

  “Some of your wives were artists. Including his mother. How did that go for her?”

  Aghast, Pinch stares at Barrows. I never put it that way; she’s distorting this.

  Barrows adds: “The women’s movement hasn’t exactly landed in the art world, am I wrong? What’s that line? ‘When a woman makes dinner, she’s a cook. When a man does, he’s a chef.’”

  “What in hell are you talking about?” Bear says.

  “You’re trying to hang some sort of slander on my father, on a lifetime of serious work.”

  “Actually? We’re just talking,” she says, as if to a moron, gathering her clothing, which she holds in a bunch before her. “Right, Bear? Or are you above the critical consensus?”

  “That’s exactly what I am. The only people who get tingles over what critics say is a breed of people known as critics.”

  “Whatever floats your boat, Mr. Bear. You and Rembrandt, gazing from your canvases for the edification of future generations, right?”

  “Let me guess. You fancy yourself a critic someday?”

  “I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Well, tell me something, young lady. You ever seen the paintings of Gabriel von Max?”

  “No, why?”

  “Track them down. One I’d recommend is Monkeys as Art Critics.”

  “And that,” she says, “proves my point.”