Portrait of a Girl (34 page)

Gently he shook her by the shoulders. “Do you see now that I understand you very well? Don’t we have to love each other when we share so many painful experiences? Who else knows it: this loneliness that’s like a sea without a shore.”

Now at last Nika smiled, and Segantini in relief put his arm around her. “I wish you could bloom like an alpine rose. I love that flower. It is strong and tough and full of fire. You’re strong. People like you and me are strong. Otherwise we would have died as children when we were left behind and only loneliness remained. Do you hear?”

She nodded and got up. “I have to go to work.”

“Wait just a moment, Nika! Our paths crossed here. But they must separate now. Not only because I am begging you to leave. My path led upward from the cities of the plains, away from the noise, into the heights. Into the stillness. I want to paint nature more and more convincingly, more simply, in a more spiritual way. You are young. You must first go down into the world.”

“Yes,” Nika said. “But I won’t allow you to send me away just because it’s convenient for you.” She didn’t notice that she was suddenly speaking to him familiarly, using the informal
tu
rather than the formal
Lei
, as if they were at last so close that they could speak to each other on the same level. Nor did she feel the pain in the hand she had clamped tightly around the mirror shard in her apron pocket while they were talking.

“Give me your hand in good-bye,” Segantini said. “Tomorrow I’m going to my winter quarters in Soglio.”

She pulled her hand out of her apron pocket and placed it on his chest.

Segantini stood watching her walk along the narrow avenue up toward the hotel. Her hair glowed in the light of the setting sun. Then she disappeared into the shadow and the colors faded.

They changed horses in Promontogno outside the Hotel Bregaglia. The Maloja Pass descended almost a thousand meters vertically, and from the top, it had looked almost as if the post coach were going to plunge down the pass into the valley rather than stay on the road. Once the descent was over, the coachman had carefully guided the coach and horses through the narrow streets of the Bregaglia Valley villages, through Casaccia, Vicosoprano, Borgonovo, and Stampa.

Segantini, who had gone on ahead without his family, leaving behind numerous unpaid bills, got out to stretch his legs. On the mountain slope to his right, high up on a rock terrace, clung the small village. The bell of the old church in Soglio rang the hour.

Segantini smiled. It sounded as if a smith were hammering on his metal anvil. How close his Italy was from here. One day he, Segantini, son of Agostino Segatini, would no longer be stateless, but an Italian citizen with an Italian passport. Some day his efforts at the various government bureaus would be successful. He would no longer be considered a deserter in Austria and a man without documents in Italy, and he would no longer have to renew every year his permission to live for another twelve months in Italy. One day he would visit the town where he was born, Arco, at the northern end of Lake Garda. Arco, a town he was not allowed to set foot in because it was Austrian, and when he was young he had not served in the Austrian army, had shirked the country’s military service.

Bluish smoke rose from the
cascine
, the huts where the chestnuts were dried. It snaked up between the autumn-colored trees toward the sky in thin ribbons. Segantini breathed in the clear, cool fall air and gazed up at the cliff. He knew that there were golden eagles up there. On overcast days, they would plunge down into the villages, killing sheep and capturing chickens faster than the eye could see. When hunting for eagles, you had a royal opponent who with one wing beat could shatter a man’s arm as if it were glass.

The horses pulling the coach struggled up the narrow road to Soglio. Now and then, the clouds would part to give a view of the mountaintops. Palazzo Salis, a splendid structure, was an appropriate place to stay. The pension that occupied the structure’s second story would be his home until spring.

The rooms for the Segantini family were ready. He climbed up the broad granite stairway of the Palazzo. The pension proprietor unlocked the heavy doors set into stone and stepped aside to let Segantini enter. The old wooden floors creaked under his boots. The tile stove was warm, and the wooden shutters had been opened so that the glowing light of the late afternoon hour could fall into the room and on the baroque gilt of the old furniture. The coffered ceilings, decorated walls, and doors of larch wood were masterworks of carpentry from a bygone time. His brother-in-law Bugatti would have appreciated all this.

Segantini took off his laced boots, opened the windows wide, greeted the bizarre peaks of the Badile and the Sciora on the other side of the valley, and dropped onto the four-poster bed with the elaborate pillars. He looked up at the canopy over his head, where flowers, plants, and birds of paradise were all intertwined. Just before he fell asleep on the bed after the difficult journey, he thought of the alpine panorama that he definitely wanted to tackle next year and of Bice who would soon follow him with the children. Every separation from her was hard for him. But as his eyes closed, his thoughts became interwoven like the patterns on the baldachin; he saw Nika’s face turning away from him and the red handprint her bloody hand had left on his white shirt.

Bice presumably knew how to wash out bloodstains. But he’d rather not give her the shirt.

The next morning he wrote to Bice. And to Alberto Grubicy, his dealer, asking him for an urgent transfer of money by return mail.

The Venetian Ball

Nika hardly slept that night. Even before the sun rose she went down to the lake and walked along the shore, shivering. The nights were getting colder; the first hoarfrost blanketed the lawns in the mornings. As she turned to go back to the hotel, she suddenly saw Achille Robustelli walking toward her.

He had slept badly too and needed the fresh air to wake him up.

“Segantini told me to leave,” she said when they met on the path. Dawn was slowly breaking, and she could see the surprised expression on his face.

“Why are you telling me this?” Achille asked.

“I don’t know,” Nika replied.

“And I couldn’t sleep,” Achille said.

They walked along silently.

“It’s important that I talk with you,” he finally said.

“Now?”

“Yes, it would be good. After that you’ll probably leave even without Segantini’s sending you away.”

Nika kicked aside a branch the wind had brought down. “I won’t let myself be sent away,” she answered. “I haven’t hurt anyone.”

“It’s all right. Never mind.”

Robustelli unlocked his office and turned on the light. Nika was shaking; she was tired and cold.

“Wait, I have a blanket somewhere here,” Achille murmured. He found it and wrapped it around her shoulders. He turned away when she looked at him the way she had once before already—as if she knew him very well. He saw that her right hand was bandaged and said, “That won’t be good for the Venetian Ball this evening.”

“It’ll be all right by then,” she said, and again gazed at him in such a way that he had to look away. He went over to his desk drawer.

“Don’t be shocked by what I’m going to show you now. It’s irrelevant how I got it. Sometimes it’s best not to ask too many questions.” He took the locket out of the drawer. Nika gave a soft cry, but by then Robustelli had already put it into her hand.

“How did you get it?” Nika had jumped up out of her chair and was going toward the door.

“I already told you, that’s not important. It’s more important for you to listen to what I’m going to tell you.” He gently pushed her back down onto the chair. “Someone took the locket from your room, and by accident, it came into my hands. But there’s a good side to it.” He didn’t know quite how to go on from there so as not to frighten her too much. “Nika, there’s a rose engraved on the locket. I am familiar with this rose. It’s the floral emblem of a Venetian family.”

Nika’s face had turned white.

“I’ll get you a cup of coffee,” Achille said, continuing. “You told me that you want to find your mother. Now at least you know where you should be looking.” He had never told her that he had found out more about her, that he had gone to Mulegns, or that Segantini had told him her story.

Nika just nodded, dazed.

If you’ve been looking all your life for something, then you can’t feel glad when you find it. Not right away.

When Achille returned with the coffee, Nika was still sitting there motionless. He held the cup out to her. She took one sip, then another. And then the cup in her hand slowly began to tremble. It seemed to him as if he were watching his news gradually getting through to her. Achille felt at a complete loss. Not because he wasn’t able to take a trembling person in his arms and console her, but because it was Nika who was sitting in front of him. He was afraid to touch her, that he might do something stupid.

Nika was still silent, and so he continued, “I told you already that I’m absolutely sure about the coat of arms. But there are two hotel guests staying here just now, Count Primoli and Signor Bonin, to whom, with your permission, I shall show the locket. The count is very familiar with Venice, and Bonin is a Venetian. If one of them can confirm my suspicions, you will know where you should look.”

Nika leaned forward, put her hand on the desktop, moved it toward Robustelli’s hand, hesitated, and then put her hand on his.

“Why? Why are you doing all this for me?” she asked softly.

“Oh,” he said, shrugging.

She smiled that smile which Segantini had helped him understand, squeezed his hand. “Thank you very much.”

Nika thought that he blushed a little, but then he drew his hand away, sat up as if at attention, and said formally, “You are welcome.”

The moment of intimacy was over. Nika got up, put the blanket on the chair.

“May I ask you something else, Signor Robustelli?”

“Of course.” Achille cleared his throat and casually looked for his box of Emser pastilles in his drawer.

“Did you open the locket?”

“No,” he answered truthfully.

She opened the locket, took out the scrap of paper, and held it out to Robustelli.

“I can’t read what it says there. There are letters that I don’t know. But maybe you coul
d . . .
?”

He took the piece of paper, unfolded it, and smoothed it out. The writing was already faded, the paper fragile and slightly soiled, but he saw at once that the sentence was written in Greek. “No,” he shook his head, “I’m not as smart or well educated as you think. But I can tell that it’s Greek. We should ask Count Primoli.”

Nika knew that she had to make use of this opportunity. And that there was no one she would more readily give a free hand to than Robustelli. “Yes, please ask him. Show him the piece of paper too.” She got up and handed him the locket. “I am truly grateful to you. Thank you.”

He had gotten up and taken a step toward her, but then stopped abruptly.

She shook his hand, and for a moment she thought he was about to embrace her. But he just pressed her hand and accompanied her to the door.

A large number of workers were transforming the hotel ballroom into a Venetian scene, complete with baldachin-topped gondolas in which the guests would be served by waiters dressed as gondoliers to the strains of music by Venetian masters. Robustelli was hurrying to the ballroom because he hoped to find Signor Bonin or the count there. He was in luck. Bonin was reading the paper and having a cup of coffee. He nodded to Robustelli, who used the opportunity to say, “Signor Bonin, how lucky that I found you here. I know that you’re leaving tomorrow.”

Bonin lowered the paper. “That’s true. I’m going to Paris with the count and then returning to Venice. But I’m already sad to be leaving here. I liked it very much.”

Achille smiled. “Signor Bonin, before you leave, I have a favor to ask. May I show you something? It won’t take long. You’re a Venetian, and I thin
k . . .
” He took the golden locket out of his vest pocket and held it toward Fabrizio. “I believe I once saw this rose in a Venetian family’s coat of arms.”

Fabrizio took the medallion and examined it from all sides. At that moment, Primoli joined them. He had been looking for Bonin. He peered over Bonin’s shoulder with curiosity. And it was the count who, without hesitation, said, “But of course, this is a full-blown Damascene rose with a ruby, the coat of arms of the Damaskino family. An old, wealthy family of Greek origin in Venice.”

Fabrizio nodded in agreement, and Primoli, who had many connections among the leading families of Venice, went on, “There’s a Greek district in the city where many rich merchants and printers live; these Venetian Greeks live in their own quarter near San Marco. They have a
scuola
for charity cases and their own church, the Chiesa dei Greci.”

Fabrizio returned the locket to Robustelli.

“The count is right. The Greeks who live in Venice have money and influence. Many of the families have been resident in the city for centuries. I am also familiar with this coat of arms.”

Achille Robustelli found himself having two conflicting visions. In the one, he saw himself giving the beautiful Nika Damaskinos a passionate kiss. In the other, he was embracing Andrina, in gratitude for her little theft. “Gentlemen,” he said, “thank you. I don’t want to trouble you any further. But I do have another question. Does either of you know Greek?”

Primoli nodded.

And now Achille, whose mother was on good terms with the Lord and often sent a quick prayer heavenward, did as she would have done. But unlike her, he did not quickly cross himself. He felt he had to somehow express his thanks and relief.

James had talked Edward into going with him to Maloja for the Venetian Ball, even though his friend had arrived only a few hours before from Zurich. The long journey to St. Moritz had given Edward some perspective on what had happened, but he was still nervous and didn’t want to leave Mathilde alone for the evening. But, finally, he did agree because James intended to leave the next day. His suitcases all stood packed and ready at the Pension Veraguth, and this was the last evening the two friends would be spending together in the Engadine.

There was no way he could avoid it. Dr. Bernhard had told Mathilde that Emma Schobinger had indeed asked him for the names of other sanatoriums for diseases of the lungs, and Mathilde realized that her mother would act as quickly as possible. Edward had tried to calm Mathilde. But she had reproached him for not wanting to fight for her. They had had their first argument since they’d met.

“Aren’t you getting a little too upset?” Edward asked.

“You’re not taking me seriously,” Mathilde said.

“What do you mean?” Edward replied. “It’s just that panic isn’t appropriate right now. We don’t even know yet what your father’s reaction will be.”

“You mean, it will all be much easier once I’m gone from here? When they’ve moved me elsewhere? And assured Adrian that I’ll marry him?”

“I just want us to think about this calmly,” he retorted.

That upset her even more, and she said heatedly, “You just don’t want to fight for me. Just like back when you didn’t fight for your Emily and just played the casual friend.” She was profoundly disappointed in him and bit her tongue to keep from accusing him of being a coward.

Edward said nothing. The arrow had hit its mark.

“Let’s discuss this further once you’ve pulled yourself together.” It was hard for him not to tell her that she wasn’t the Empress of China; she couldn’t send her fighters into battle whenever she chose to.

“No!” she cried. “You are going to stay here now and tell me if you want to stand up for us before my parents create a fait accompli, or if you simply want to admit defeat the way you did with Emily!”

He said nothing in answer to that. Just picked up his hat and left.

But she was right. He hadn’t fought for Emily. He hadn’t even tried to find out the reasons for her dissolving the engagement. Nor did he confront his rival. And he had not confronted him because he thought that sort of cockfighting was silly and unbearable.

However, this time, without even discussing it with Mathilde and trying to settle their differences, he had climbed into the post coach and gone to Zurich. The telephone operator at the post and telegraph office there told him that only one Franz Schobinger was listed. He asked for his office number, called Mathilde’s father, and asked for an appointment to meet him in the city. Franz Schobinger agreed without enthusiasm to meet the unknown young man at the Konditorei Sprüngli at the Paradeplatz, since he saw only further trouble ahead.

What Edward had to say was said quickly. He disclosed all the basic information about his background and his financial affairs and asked for Mathilde’s hand.