Life Class

by Ann Charney

  The return of Bill and Christophe deflects Helena’s attention from Nerina. Hearing the men talking about the history of the house, which dates back to the fifteenth century, she feels dutybound to join in. Italian architecture of that period — the great quattrocento — is one of her special interests. It doesn’t hurt to remind people like the Ohstroms that she was trained for culture, not commerce. Or that civilizations are remembered not for their business people, or their bankers, but for their art.

  “You’ve just made me realize that all the reading I did in preparation for this trip barely scratched the surface,” Christophe says, when she pauses to catch her breath.

  “We all feel that way around Helena,” Bill tells him. “She knows Venice better than most Venetians. Consider yourself lucky to be taken under her wing.”

  Helena, worn out from the exertion of her performance, responds with a weak smile. Her memory is not what it used to be and names and dates don’t come to her as easily as they once did. Fortunately, Bill and Alice have now turned their attention to Christophe and his upcoming exhibition, leaving her free to sit back and relax.

  Listening to the animated conversation around her, Helena feels she’s done her work for the day, and done it well. Perhaps too well, she thinks, when Alice starts to quiz Christophe on his opinion of other artists — a game Alice has been known to play for hours.

  “My dears, it’s time for me to leave you,” Helena announces, rising from the table. “Please carry on without me. No need to end the evening on my account.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Christophe says, quick to join her, “I have to be at the gallery first thing tomorrow morning.” Maybe he doesn’t care for the quizzing any more than she does.

  “How did I do?” he asks her once they’re alone. “I feel like I just faced the Inquisition in there.”

  “Get used to it,” she tells him. “It’s the price of admission, like singing for your supper. In any case, as far as Alice and Bill are concerned, there are no wrong answers. What they enjoy is reacting to other people’s opinions, the stronger the better.”

  “I can handle that,” Christophe says. “It’s all the talk about the exhibition that has me worried. I’m not even sure we can get it up before the opening.”

  He continues to voice his concerns during the ride back on the vaporetto, ignoring the scenery this time. “Nothing has gone right so far. The L–shaped space of the gallery, with its walls tilting inward, is a challenge. To make matters worse, the workmen assigned to help me only show up when they feel like it and then pay no attention to my instructions.”

  Helena listens patiently, although she’s heard it all before from other artists. The best thing she can do is simply to allow Christophe to unburden himself.

  “Sorry to dump on you like this,” he says when they reach her house. “I guess I’m just suffering from a bad case of nerves. This may be my only shot at a show in Venice, and I want to make the most of it. You understand, don’t you Helena?”

  “Get some sleep,” she tells him, thinking longingly of her own bed. “I’ll be at the gallery tomorrow and every day after that, if necessary. Don’t worry, we’ll straighten things out in no time.”

  Back in her flat, she takes a moment to glance at the notes on the exhibition that Christophe has left for her. His main installation, titled The Waiting Room, appears to consist of a circle of plastic covered chairs arranged around a frosted glass cubicle, and a soundtrack of a woman’s voice reciting a list of symptoms.

  What do doctors’ waiting rooms — places to be avoided in her opinion — have to do with art? And why should a young man like Christophe be preoccupied by illness? She gave up years ago looking for a connection between the work of conceptual artists like Christophe and the Italian masterpieces of the past that drew her to Italy as a young woman. Their promise of a luminous world beyond the postwar drabness of her native Poland gave her the courage to make the difficult journey. The ominous promise of The Waiting Room is best left unexplored.

  Still, she will do what she can for Christophe. It’s both her job and her inclination to do so. Helena’s faith in art may have waned, but she still has a soft spot for artists.

  III

  The breakin

  AS HELENA rushes about helping Christophe with his exhibition, she forgets about Nerina’s failure to keep her promise. Domani has come and gone, and there’s still no sign of her.

  When the telephone rings one night, wrenching her from a deep and blissful slumber — her reward for all that exertion — she’s in no mood to be polite.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Bill Ohstrom apologizes. “I realize this is no time to call, but we have a bit of an emergency on our hands, and we need to speak to Nerina. I was hoping you’d know how to get in touch with her.”

  “Why? What’s happened?” She can think of no good reason for a call at this late hour.

  “We’ve just returned from a short visit to Rome to find the place in total disarray. I’m pretty certain we had a breakin. Nerina was supposed to be looking after the place while we were away, but she wasn’t here when we got back. I want to talk to her before calling the police.”

  “Surely you don’t think she had anything to do with this?” Helena asks, fully awake now and indignant on Nerina’s behalf. Too many crimes in Italy are being blamed on illegal immigrants these days. It’s not like the Ohstroms to succumb to this sort of scapegoating, but you can never tell how people will react when their property is threatened.

  “Of course not,” Bill quickly replies. “We simply want to see if she can shed some light on what happened. And if she was here during the breakin, she might be hurt.”

  Bill sounds sincere, but Helena still feels the need to defend Nerina, even though she’s not being accused of anything. “Nerina would never get mixed up with any kind of criminal activity. She’s much too frightened of being deported to tangle with the police.”

  But even as she speaks, Helena is thinking how little she knows about Nerina. Not only is she closemouthed about her early years, she is equally circumspect about the present. Helena has no idea where Nerina lives, or how to reach her when she is not at the Ohstroms. Nor do the Ohstroms, apparently. Her certainty about Nerina’s innocence is based on nothing more than instinct — a fact she is reluctant to reveal to the people she convinced to employ her.

  She tells Bill she’s misplaced Nerina’s telephone number and will call him as soon as she finds it. For once, being old works in her favour. Old people are always misplacing things.

  “Don’t bother,” Ohstrom replies. “I’m afraid we can’t wait any longer to call the police. They will want to see the place before we start straightening it out. I doubt we’ll get much sleep tonight, as it is. It’s hard to get past the knowledge that your home has been invaded by strangers — the one place where you’re supposed to feel safe.”

  Helena murmurs words of sympathy, but she can’t bring herself to feel sorry for the Ohstroms. Insurance will cover whatever they’ve lost, and in no time at all their lives will run smoothly as ever. That’s the way things are for people like the Ohstroms — the lucky ones. She can’t expect him to understand that flight is the only insurance available for people like Nerina. No wonder she didn’t stick around to wait for the Ohstroms to return.

  Unable to get back to sleep, Helena occupies herself by working on the press release the gallery will send out before Christophe’s opening, now only days away. A knock on the door soon breaks her concentration. It’s followed by Nerina’s voice calling her name.

  The stiffness in her joints tells her she’s been at the typewriter longer than she thought. As she makes her way slowly to the front door, she hears Nerina continuing to call her name. By now, Helena thinks, everyone in the building must have heard her.

  Nerina falls into her arms, weeping, as soon as the door opens. “Bad trouble, very bad trouble,” she repeats between heaving sobs.

  Helena forces her into a chair, and brings he
r a glass of vermouth to calm her. Nerina gulps it down in one shot. Helena refills the glass, and, when the sobbing starts to subside, asks Nerina to explain herself.

  Nerina, never easy to understand, is nearly incoherent. Slowly, with much patience on Helena’s part, and ample use of mime on Nerina’s, a story begins to emerge.

  As far as Helena can make out, Nerina’s troubles began in the early afternoon with the doorbell ringing. Pressing the intercom button, she heard a man’s voice saying he had a package for the Ohstroms. Nerina had signed for deliveries in the past, so she didn’t hesitate to open the door. A young man entered, carrying a box and a clipboard. But instead of handing the box to her, he reached inside, pulled out a rope and attempted to tie her up.

  Here Nerina grabs her scarf and ties it around her hands to make her point.

  “I scream loud,” she says, demonstrating her vocal power before Helena can stop her. “So my friend upstairs can hear me.”

  “Friend? What friend?” Helena asks, startled. “You mean there was someone in the house with you?”

  Nerina nods and gives Helena an imploring look. “Big, empty house, very scary for me. I invite friend to come.”

  “Who is this friend? How do you know him?” She has never heard Nerina mention any friends until now.

  “Marco. He refugee like me. We live in same apartment.” Seeing the look on Helena’s face, Nerina quickly explains that she shares an apartment with five other people. “Venice very expensive.”

  Helena wonders if Marco was the reason for Nerina’s haste the last time they met, but she wants to hear the rest of the story.

  Nerina explains, in her fashion, how she tried to fend off her attacker, hitting him with any object she could grab. But it was a losing battle. By the time Marco finally came to her aid — he was in the shower and hadn’t heard her first cries for help — she was on the floor, with her hands and feet tied. Marco, managed to sneak up on the intruder from behind and overpower him, finally pushing him out the back door.

  “Well done,” Helena says, exhausted, as if she had taken part in the struggle herself. But there is more to come, she realizes, as Nerina starts to cry again.

  “Come now, the worst is over. There’s no need to be so upset.”

  “Worst not over.” Nerina wails. “I break lots of things in house. Expensive things. Vase, clock, mirror…”

  “That’s enough,” Helena says, fatigue driving out her last shred of compassion. “Tomorrow you will explain the situation to the Ohstroms. After all, you were only defending yourself and their home. They’ll understand.”

  “I never go back there,” Nerina says, jumping out of her chair. “They make me tell story to police. Police send me back to Croatia.”

  “I will speak to the Ohstroms tomorrow and persuade them to keep you out of this. Now go home and let me get some rest. And leave me a number where I can reach you.”

  There is no telephone in her flat, Nerina tells her. Helena decides to believe her. The wait for landlines can be long in Venice, and as far as she knows Nerina doesn’t own a cell phone.

  “I call you from café,” Nerina promises. At the door, she throws her arms around Helena. “You so good to me, Helena, like an angel,” she says. “You have much condolence.”

  “The word you want here is compassion, not condolence,” Helena says, laughing.

  “Compassion,” Nerina repeats dutifully. “English better soon. I promise.”

  IV

  The Missing Brooch

  HELENA sleeps late the next morning, until she is awakened again by a call from Bill Ohstrom.

  “I was just going to call you,” she says as soon as she hears his voice, feigning an alertness she doesn’t feel. “Nerina came to see me last night. You and Alice will be interested to hear what she had to say.”

  “Great, the sooner the better. Come for lunch.”

  In the Ohstroms’ dining room, Helena chooses a seat facing a garden tucked in behind an adjacent building. She hopes this secret oasis of greenery, hidden from the street, will have a calming effect on her frayed nerves.

  Bill and Alice, on the other hand, seem remarkably relaxed, despite last night’s ordeal. “Hey, we’re New Yorkers,” Alice says, as she refills her wine glass. “City crime is nothing new to us.”

  Helena is pleased they’re taking the breakin with such equanimity. It bodes well for Nerina.

  “How did you find Nerina?” Bill asks, while he concentrates on serving the omelette he’s prepared for their lunch. “I hope she’s all right.”

  “Of course she’s all right,” Alice cuts in. “Girls like Nerina know how to take care of themselves. Bill seems to think all beautiful young women are in need of his protection. That’s how I got him to marry me, and all these years later he’s still no wiser.”

  “To tell you the truth, Nerina was pretty shaken when she came to see me last night,” Helena says, choosing her words carefully. She has decided to give the Ohstroms an edited version of Nerina’s tearful tale, avoiding any mention of Marco. In this account of the breakin, Nerina puts up a fierce fight, leaving in its wake a path of destruction, until finally — and singlehandedly — she succeeds in scaring off the intruder.

  “Lucky for her he was just a skinny kid,” Helena tacks on in the interest of credibility.

  “What did I tell you?” Alice asks, a note of triumph in her voice. “That girl knows how to look after herself.”

  “That was very brave of her,” Bill agrees. “But why didn’t she wait until we got back to tell us herself what happened?”

  “I guess she panicked,” Helena says, appealing to their sense of sympathy for the underdog. “She knew you would call the police and she didn’t want to be around when they came.”

  “I only wish she hadn’t used my Etruscan pitcher as a weapon,” Alice says, pointing to a collection of shiny, black pottery shards on the sideboard. “Apart from its historic value, the piece has great sentimental attachment for me. My parents bought it in Greece, on their honeymoon.”

  Helena tries to look concerned, but she thinks Alice should blame herself instead of Nerina. If the pitcher meant so much to her, she should have kept it in a safer place.

  “Nerina feels terrible about the damages she caused,” she assures Alice. “The poor girl couldn’t stop crying last night, she was so afraid of your reaction. I tried to tell her that you would understand, but she refused to believe me.”

  “Of course we understand,” Alice replies, rising to the bait. “We’re not coldhearted slave masters.”

  “All things considered, I think we got off pretty easy,” Bill says as he clears the table. “No one was hurt, and thanks to Nerina’s bravery and quick thinking, nothing was taken.”

  “That’s not quite true, Bill,” Alice says. “There is the missing diamondandsapphire brooch.”

  “I’m sure you’ve misplaced it,” Bill says, his dismissive tone indicating they have already discussed the matter and are not in agreement. “Let’s wait a couple of days and see if it turns up before we accuse anyone. It’s not as if this kind of thing hasn’t happened before. Remember the ring you thought you’d lost, and then found in one of your drawers?”

  Alice drops the subject, looking chastened. When Bill says they will do their best to protect Nerina from the police, she is quick to voice her support. “We’ll just pop her into a closet and hide her should the police ever return.”

  Before heading home, Helena decides to pass by Christophe’s gallery in Cannaregio to see how he is getting on. Crossing the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo — site of the oldest ghetto in Europe, despite its name — Helena is struck by the irony of her choices: fleeing her Jewish past only to end up in a city that perfected the practice of herding Jews into corrals and branding them with yellow insignia.

  Inside the gallery, most of the work is in place and Christophe waits, eager to show her around. As they make their way through the gallery, he launches into the backstory of each piece they pass — h
ow it began, the discoveries along the way, the references that guided him.

  “Save it for the critics and the buyers,” she interrupts. “There will be plenty of people to impress both at the opening and at the Ohstroms’ party afterward.”

  The light is fading by the time she emerges from the gallery. The dark waters of the San Vio canal that runs alongside her street reflect the illuminated windows of the nearby buildings. She pauses for a moment, watching the blurred images dance on the smooth surface of the water while she gathers strength for the eightysixstep climb to her flat.

  When she finally reaches the top of the landing, she is surprised to find Nerina waiting for her. From the number of cigarette butts in her coffee cup, it looks as if she’s been there a while.

  “I have good news for you,” Helena tells her as soon as they’re inside the flat. “The Ohstroms want you back and they’re going to help you stay clear of the police. As far as they know, you were alone in the house when the attack took place. But I’m not going to cover for you again. You must promise not to bring Marco, or any other friends, into the house unless you clear it with the Ohstroms first.”

  “Marco not my friend,” Nerina says.

  “What happened? That’s not the impression I had yesterday.” Nerina’s English is improving daily, but she’s still hard to follow at times.

  “I find out he take something from the house. To make it look like robbery.”

  “Alice’s diamondandsapphire brooch?”

  Nerina nods, looking alarmed. “They know?”

  “Don’t worry. Bill Ohstrom has persuaded Alice that she’s misplaced it. Lucky for you, she has a history of misplacing things, but there’s no time to lose. You must get the brooch back from Marco and put it where Alice is likely to find it. If Marco gives you any trouble, tell him I will not hesitate to report him to the police.”

  It’s an idle threat — going to the police would expose Nerina as well as Marco — but Nerina takes it seriously.