Portrait of a Girl (30 page)

“But this is a young girl in the picture,” she said, with disappointment in her voice, “not a woman!”

“She stands at the threshold of becoming a woman,” Segantini replied. “Soon she’ll cross the bridge.”

“Is that why she is looking at herself? To see who she is?”

Nika looked carefully at the water, which reflected the girl. On its surface, the color of the water was a deep blue. Where the boulder cast a shadow, it was a swampy brown. And then Nika noticed something that the girl had apparently not seen yet. There was a monster lying in the water, a water snake with a dragon’s head, brown and ugly, its teeth bared. “She doesn’t see what’s lurking down there!” Nika cried, taken aback.

“Because she’s totally absorbed with her own reflection and isn’t aware of anything but her own face. Vanity is a source of evil.”

Nika felt hurt. So when he thought of her, he thought of vanity and a monster emerging from a deep pit of water.

“And why is it a girl standing there and not a man?”

“Women, it seems, are vain. And besides, it was you who gave me the idea for the picture.”

Nika looked at him angrily.

“There are also men,” he said to soothe her, “who look at their own reflection. You don’t know the myth of Narcissus. Narcissus was a young man.”

Nika felt a chill. So he had carried this terrible picture within himself ever since he had first seen her.

Yet, on the other hand, how enchantingly beautiful was the place that Segantini had brought her to. The quiet forest, the path overgrown with moss and tree roots, and the dark, bottomless pool with white clouds reflected in its blackness. What a wonderful smell in the forest, the mysterious interplay of light and shadow, wood cracking under their feet followed by a deep stillness that returned again when they paused. How the buds of the alpine roses had glowed, and she had felt as if she and Segantini were diving together into a profound, unfathomable dream. But no. He was looking at this girl in the picture from a cool distance; the colors were cold and did not radiate even the smallest spark of love.

“I don’t like the painting,” Nika said.

“I’m quite proud of it,” Segantini said. “I consider it my best so far. I think I shall call it
Vanitas
. It’s a Latin word; it means ‘Vanity.’ One could give it other titles too, such as
The Spring of Evil
or
Venus before Her Mirror.
”

He looked at the picture. “I like
La Vanità
best. That name also refers to the futility of all our striving. In the end, there is always Death. Death is always there, always more powerful than we are.”

He saw her horrified look and laughed. “Don’t be afraid for me. A fortune-teller prophesied I would reach the biblical age of ninety-nine. I’m a superstitious person. So I believe it.”

“I still don’t like the picture,” Nika said. “You look into a mirror because you want to know who you are. Is that a bad thing?”

“Too much looking is damaging,” he said. “Then you stop seeing others.”

“Maybe,” Nika said. “But no one ever showed me who I am. Why I’m here. I look in the mirror to find out.”

“It’s also vanity to believe that you can know yourself,” Segantini said.

“But what if you can’t see yourself, can’t recognize who you are?” Nika said.

“The only salvation is love,” he said. “Selfless love for another—a love like a mother’s love.”

Nika shook her head. “Not all mothers love their children. My mother didn’t love me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I have been looking for my mother because I want to know why she abandoned me. Maybe I’ll understand her better then.”

“You have to learn to love without understanding. As long as we don’t know about death, we won’t know anything final about life either. You will never find out everything. It’s better for you to believe that she loved you.”

Nika looked down at the ground.

“No, I’ll never give up my search. And besides,” she added angrily, “that dragon that you painted there, that doesn’t exist. What took me by surprise at the pool was only a strange insect on the water’s surface.”

Nika looked around the attic room. A bed, a table, a chair, a bureau with a water pitcher and bowl on it. There was space in the bureau for her things. My God, she thought, I have a room. A room. With a window through which the sunlight can come in.

She sat down carefully on the bed as if it might collapse with any violent movement. A bed! A pillow! A sheet, cool, fine, smooth. Nika got up again. Walked around. The wooden floorboards creaked under her feet. She sat down again, startled by the noise she was making. She felt she had to be quiet as a mouse so that the dream wouldn’t burst like a soap bubble.

Half a year had gone by since she had run away from Mulegns. And nothing was the same as before. She took the locket from the table and concealed it with her few things in the bureau.

When Signor Robustelli had called her to his office and let her know that he had a room for her, she had stared at him as if he were an apparition. If you’re treated badly for a long time, you can’t believe it when you’re suddenly treated well. You have to get used to it gradually.

Nika sat there on her bed, not moving, her knees pressed together, hands in her lap, letting the sun shine on her. She thought about Signor Robustelli who had looked at her, surprised. He must have noticed that she was staring at him as if she’d seen a ghost. Without being aware of it, she had begun to rely on him, to trust him, to ask him for help. But you can see people a thousand times and still not see them. He was just Signor Robustelli. Up to that point, she had only wondered and thought about Segantini. But at that moment when he’d explained about the room, she’d suddenly seen who this man really was, Achille Robustelli. He was younger than Segantini, more slender. He seemed more elegant, more agile. He took up less space than Segantini, and was probably less full of himself as well. Robustelli had dark, slightly wavy hair that was not as conspicuous as Segantini’s magnificent curls. At the temples Nika could see the first silvery gray, a contrast to the young smooth face. He didn’t have a beard like Segantini, didn’t conceal his lips, which were smiling at that moment as if to say: Well? And so? Did you lose your tongue again?

Then she came back from her reverie, smiled, looked at him as if to say, Aha, look at that, there you are.

Well, at last, his look said.

“Nika,” Signor Robustelli said, “I need you inside the hotel. You have to help serve. I know you liked working in the garden. But we have to get ready for the Venetian Ball even while the normal hotel service continues. We need every available hand to help now. Go to the
Chef de Service
, report in, and have them give you the appropriate clothes. And,” he said after looking at her hands, “scrub your hands first. And your fingernails.”

She looked at her hands, and you could tell they’d been doing garden work. Then she looked at Signor Robustelli. He laughed.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know this is all new for you. But you’ll get used to it.”

Stepping into the dining room of the Spa Hotel Maloja, Nika entered a new world. What she saw far exceeded what she had been able to imagine up to then. Indeed, with Gaetano she had raked the pebbles of the driveway that led up to the façade of the veritable palace. Hundreds of elegant carriages and coaches drove up that drive. She had seen the entrance hall by way of which one went to Signor Robustelli’s office. Gaetano and she had planted the flower borders in the circular flowerbed; she knew the short avenue that led down to the lake where the rowboats and the vaporetto waited. The boat would steam across the water, taking guests for high tea at the Hotel Alpenrose in Sils-Maria or for trapshooting at Isola, where only a few years ago the servants threw live birds up into the air, not clay pigeons. Early in the morning, she and Gaetano had checked to make sure the golf course and the tennis courts were in perfect condition for the hotel guests.

Nika had seen the innards of this grandiose world, where the laundry from hundreds of beds and an endless number of tablecloths, napkins, towels, and aprons were washed and ironed.

But none of that had prepared her for the splendor of the dining room. Silverware from the famous Hepp Brothers of Pforzheim and Baccarat crystal from France gleamed in the huge hall, where five hundred guests could be served a
table d’hote
meal at the long tables. Nika was shocked by the immense size of the room; it was intimidating, and she felt as insignificant as a little black ant. But luckily there was another column of black ants—waiters and waitresses who were passing the silver platters and taking them away and, in a strict, seemingly rehearsed dance, saw to it that all the guests were able to progress through the menu in accordance with established rules of haute cuisine:
potage brunoise
,
truite de rivière frites
,
sauce mayonnaise
,
pommes naturelles
,
filet de boeuf à la Milanaise
,
Caneton à la Rouennaise
,
haricots verts sautés
,
chapons de Bourg
,
salade
,
glace
,
tutti-frutti
,
pâtisserie
. Nika was ordered about, here and there, setting tables, refilling water carafes, passing bread baskets.

The ladies, who during the day had played badminton, walked around Lake Cavloc, or let themselves be taken up to Lake Lunghin on a mule, appeared in the dining hall in evening dress, wearing whatever jewelry they possessed. The gentlemen came from the hunt, which although restricted to the local inhabitants, was made available to guests who were willing to grease some palms. Or they had come down from treks in the mountains to the peak of the Margna or to cross the Fedoz Glacier. Now in evening dress, they were escorting their ladies in to dinner. They were hungry as wolves. Some of their hungry looks also took in the prettier among the serving girls.

In addition to the dining room—inarguably one of the world’s most fashionable—there were an à la carte restaurant, a ladies’ salon, a smoking room, a billiards room, and several reading rooms. Nika would sometimes be sent to one of these with a cup of tea or a cognac. She walked in awe on the carpets and froze once in wonderment, when she passed the open door to the ballroom. It was located in the midsection of the E-shaped building and was directly above the steam boilers that heated the giant hotel.

The ballroom had large windows and at the end of the room was a theater stage, just waiting for the next lavish production. There was no way for Nika to envision all the things that were offered to the guests in this space.
Tableaux vivants
were rehearsed here, and the latest cinematographic works were shown; the La Scala Orchestra of Milan performed, and stars of the Metropolitan Opera from New York sang here; and of course, there was dancing.

“Say it isn’t true!” Andrina didn’t quite have the nerve to slam the door to Achille Robustelli’s office. But her attitude toward him had changed completely. Ever since he had held out the prospect of an engagement, she had made some concessions. Not too many, yet enough to defend her own interests. But the way he was coddling Nika would have sent even more gentle souls around the bend.