Memory and Desire

by Lisa Appignanesi

  Then there had been the work of redecorating Thomas’s house to make it suitable for its new use; the challenge of rehanging; of providing texts which illuminated a particular historical moment. All this, combined with the running of her own Gallery had involved resources of energy she was never altogether sure she had. But she loved the work, loved the sense of purpose it all gave her, the sense of working for an attainable end, the certain sense that Thomas would have been pleased with her.

  ‘Yes, yes, I have,’ Katherine said aloud. ‘But when you see it, I think you’ll agree that it’s all been worth it.’

  ‘I haven’t even the smattering of a doubt,’ Jacob applauded her.

  ‘And Natalie’s been an angel. Almost like a partner. We discuss everything. She has no reservations about telling me when she thinks one of the explanation boards or anything else is gobbledy gook.’ Katherine laughed. ‘You have reason to be proud of your granddaughter.’

  ‘I am. Very.’ Jacob spread a little pâté on his toast and met Katherine’s eyes. ‘It’s Natalie I want to talk to you about, Kat.’ He suddenly switched to French. ‘You know I don’t like to interfere, but for her sake…’

  ‘What is it?’ Katherine was instantly distressed.

  Jacob avoided the vulnerability on her face, toyed with his food. ‘I think it’s time you took her to see her grandmother, took her to Rome. Set a definite date.’

  ‘Oh is that it? Princesse Mat’s been getting at you,’ Katherine accused him.

  ‘Kat, I think I’ve reached the ripe age where I’m capable of arriving at conclusions without consulting Mathilde,’ Jacob paused. ‘Natalie’s been talking to me. It means a lot to her, you know, and she feels you don’t listen, you always deflect her, make excuses. She’s showed me the letters the Contessa has sent her.’

  ‘Letters?’ Katherine looked at him sharply. ‘I thought there was only one.’

  She remembered the moment it had come all too well and the letter’s every word. The envelope had arrived as always promptly on Natalie’s birthday. Usually there was only a birthday card inside, a note in Italian which Katherine translated for Natalie. But this last year, the envelope had been plumper and when Natalie opened it, an airplane ticket had tumbled out. And the accompanying letter, this time, was in painstaking English. Natalie had read it herself before sharing its contents with Katherine.

  ‘Dearest Natalie, It is my very greatest wish to see you again before it is too late. You are now old enough to travel to Rome on your own, even if your mother will not accompany you. I enclose an airline ticket which will permit you to do so. Please let me know the date of your arrival and all will be made ready for you. I await you with open arms. Your grandmother.’

  Natalie had met Katherine’s eyes. ‘I’m going to go,’ she had said abruptly.

  ‘Yes hon, yes, of course,’ Katherine remembered how she had averted her face and procrastinated, changed the subject. Her daughter’s look, at once challenging and accusing, troubled her. It was as if she had always known the depth of Katherine’s resistance to her seeing her grandmother.

  ‘You mean there has been more than one letter?’ Katherine gazed at her father.

  He shrugged, nodded. ‘I think Natalie has been corresponding with her grandmother with a degree of regularity.’

  Katherine’s face fell. Natalie hadn’t told her. There had only been that once, as far as Katherine knew. That first time, when Natalie had announced that she had written to the Contessa to say that she would be coming to Rome as soon as school holidays permitted.

  ‘The summer is a good idea,’ Katherine remembered responding vaguely.

  ‘Why not Christmas?’ Natalie had asked stubbornly.

  ‘Well, perhaps, we’ll see,’ Katherine had changed the subject, as if it were a matter of no importance.

  ‘I think, Kat,’ Jacob’s voice brought her back, ‘I think you are being just a little bit selfish about this. You are not considering Natalie. It seems to me you’re so afraid of her identifying with her father, with his world, that you’ll end up by achieving exactly the opposite. Sometimes what we most avoid takes us over by surprise. In the trade,’ he chuckled, ‘we call it the return of the repressed.’

  Katherine looked at him wildly, ‘It’s not true.’

  ‘Isn’t it ma petite? Well then, take her to Rome. Let’s set a date now. I don’t think she particularly relishes the idea of travelling alone. It would be good for her to go with you. Good for both of you.’

  ‘No I will not go to Italy. I won’t set foot there again.’ Katherine didn’t recognize the panic in the voice that welled up in her.

  ‘That is not responsible of you, Kat. It is also a little bit cruel. You’re trying to control Natalie too firmly. Think of the damage to her. A father denied her even in memory. Her fantasies may end up far stronger than any reality can ever be.’ Jacob looked at Katherine sadly. ‘But if those are your feelings, I will take Natalie myself.’

  Cruel. The word rebounded in Katherine’s mind. She looked away blindly from Jacob. Saw the man from the table opposite staring at her with those blue eyes. Would he think her cruel, she wondered randomly. Cruel. It was the word she had always associated with her mother. Sylvie was cruel. Had been cruel to her. So cruel. She, Katherine, was not cruel to Natalie. They were friends. They shared everything.

  Perhaps not everything, as Jacob made so clear. Did Natalie, as he said, consider her cruel? Had she done everything to avoid being like her mother only in her daughter’s eyes to emerge as her replica? Cold, unseeing, spiteful. No. She refused it.

  A strange laugh rose in her. Oscar Wilde’s comment sprung into her mind, ‘All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kat. I did not mean to give you pain,’ Jacob said softly.

  She forced herself to focus on him. ‘Let me think about it. After the opening. Next week. Let me think about it then.’

  Jacob took her hand. ‘I will remind you,’ he murmured, at once gentle and implacable.

  Two days later, a new potential client who appeared in her appointment book as Alexei Gismondi came into Katherine’s office. Katherine, glancing up from her telephone call, saw a tall, dark man with striking features. She remembered that face but couldn’t quite place it. A corner of her mind bobbed through crowded streets, receptions, and then settled into a restaurant. Gerard’s. The man from Gerard’s.

  He recognized her too. Her lips curled into a smile.

  ‘Alexei Gismondi,’ she put down the telephone. ‘The man whose ears even an arduous New York waiter cannot penetrate,’ she stretched out her hand. She had had misgivings about this meeting with Mr. Gismondi, as she always did when confronted by a client with an Italian name. She had heard of this man, seen one of his films once, but no, she was certain now that she had never come across him during her days in Rome. She would have recalled that face, that slight air of diffidence, of world weariness, which sat oddly with the startling directness of those blue eyes.

  The pressure of his hand, his look, disquieted her. It was a sensation she had all but forgotten in relation to men. The old fear, always uncontrollable, returned. Perhaps he did know her, had known Carlo, was a witness to his activities, to her shame. For a brief moment, the scene in the catacombs the last time she had seen Carlo flashed through her mind. She forced it away.

  ‘What can I do for you, Mr. Gismondi?’ Katherine moved into smooth professional gear.

  ‘I am interested in acquiring a portrait in your possession, a beautiful portrait of Sylvie Kowalska by Michel St Loup. I came across it at an exhibition some months back,’ he said in careful English.

  His words so surprised her that for a moment she was at a loss. She had been thinking too much about Sylvie since her lunch with her father and now to have this man come in out of the blue and ask to see her portrait was uncanny.

  ‘That portrait is my own. It is not for sale,’ she said crisply.

  Blue eyes surveyed her, persuad
ed, felt as if they were seeing more than she wished to show. ‘I have a special admiration for St Loup. Money is no object.’ His voice was warm.

  Katherine defended herself. ‘Money is not my object either, Mr Gismondi.’

  ‘Oh?’ his face took on a supple irony. ‘I thought that in New York art and money were inseparable partners.’

  ‘I dare say,’ Katherine murmured. Her face grew hot. She didn’t like that look, so bold, so intimate, judging her. ‘Sylvie Kowalska was my mother, Mr Gismondi,’ she said emphatically. ‘One does not sell one’s mother.’ It sounded to her own ears like an outburst.

  Katherine struggled for her cool impersonal smile again. ‘But I could show you some other work, of course. We are not in the habit of turning away clients for whom money is no object,’ she mimicked his tone.

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I did not know Sylvie Kowalska was your mother,’ he said reflectively. ‘How silly of me. He looked at her now, as if seeing her afresh, studying every angle of her face.

  Katherine stirred uncomfortably, ‘How could you know, Mr. Gismondi? My mother and I do not look alike. And we certainly never had anything in common.’

  He smiled at that, a warm smile, open, friendly. Katherine felt herself drawn, despite herself. She averted her eyes, fumbled with some papers on her desk, signalling the end of the interview.

  But he wouldn’t go, ‘Well, even if you won’t sell, I would dearly love to see that picture again. Perhaps you would allow me at least that,’ his voice pursued her, gracious, warm, seductive, but with an undercurrent of amusement.

  She was about to tell him that was impossible when Natalie raced in, excited, talking a mile a minute.

  ‘I got an A in my dreaded math test, mommy.’

  Katherine hugged her, smiled congratulations, forgot Alexei Gismondi, and then feeling those eyes, remembered, ‘I’m afraid my time is up Mr. Gismondi. Can one of my assistants show you round?’

  ‘I did so want to see that portrait of Sylvie Kowalska,’ he stood his ground. ‘I’ve come a long way for that sole purpose,’ his smile lingered, seduced, implacable in its purpose.

  ‘Surely not with that sole purpose, Mr. Gismondi. A man with your schedule,’ she met him on it, laughed. The man had charm. If Sylvie’s portrait had been here in the Gallery she would have taken him to it instantly and let him look his fill.

  And then Natalie took over, curious at the mention of her grandmother’s name, smiling at the man, offering to take him home, making friends with him.

  A man from Rome with her daughter. Katherine shuddered for a moment, tried to still her irrational fears. ‘You can hardly expect me to allow a stranger to go home with my daughter, Mr Gismondi,’ she laughed brittly. ‘This is New York, after all.’

  ‘Yes, no, of course.’

  Katherine watched his confusion, was startled as he produced passport and wallet and laid them on her desk as collateral against his safe return. There was something touching about his fierce determination to see the portrait. She felt herself relenting. ‘I shall ask my assistant, Joe, to take you round to the house. I would hate to see such rare dedication to a work of art disappointed.’ She returned his papers, felt the brush of his fingers, the warmth of his eyes as he thanked her.

  And then they were gone. It was Katherine’s turn to feel confused. What was it about this man that gave him the power to move her? That old fear of things Roman? His insistence on seeing Sylvie’s portrait? She walked back to her desk, fingered the deep purple sprays of lilac in the white vase, breathed in the heavy fragrance of spring. Those once memorized lines floated into her mind:

  April is the cruellest month, breeding

  Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

  Memory and desire, stirring

  Dull roots with spring rain.

  Her own dull roots, she thought. She covered her face with her hands.

  *************************

  In the anonymity of the hotel restaurant, they sat facing each other across a starched white cloth. A little pool of intimacy gradually formed round their table as they talked. Katherine found herself saying things she had never uttered aloud before, fresh thoughts coalesced, sometimes surprising her. It was to do with the way Alexei listened, a particular intensity of listening, which made the words flow, unconstrained.

  She told him the little that she knew about Michel St Loup and her mother, the various portraits she had seen. ‘But you must meet my father. He knows far more. It was all before my time,’ Katherine smiled and then her brow furrowed. ‘My mother and I were never exactly close. She died when I was relatively young,’ she confronted those blue eyes. ‘She killed herself, you know.’

  Alexei took her hand, held it. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said softly.

  The pressure of his touch seeped through her, set up an ache she barely recognized. She had a fleeting vision of a tousled bed in a distant hotel room. She sat very still, held by his gaze.

  He was the first to withdraw his hand. She missed its warmth. She looked away, shrugged, a little desolate. ‘It was all a very long time ago.’

  ‘Tell me about you,’ he urged her. ‘You don’t bear your husband’s name?’

  ‘It’s quite enough that I bore him a child,’ the words leapt out of her with an unexpected fury. Katherine moderated her tone. ‘I… I didn’t like my husband very much. No, no that’s not quite true either,’ she played with her fork. She remembered that once, once she had loved Carlo, long ago, so long ago. That love had been buried, metamorphosed by its end into something else. But now, she recalled it. It confused her.

  Alexei’s eyes brought her back. They twinkled, ‘I don’t think I would like to bear the force of your dislike,’ he said.

  She looked at him. What she felt was something quite other than dislike.

  They talked some more, little bursts and starts of self-revelation interspersed with the narrative of work and tastes. His questions probed subtly. She replied, asked him about himself too, but he was evasive, adept at turning back to her.

  Over coffee she laughed, ‘And now I’ve told you everything and I still know almost nothing about you.’

  ‘There’ll be another time,’ he met her on it.

  ‘Are you in New York for long?’ she asked fearing his answer.

  ‘A little while,’ he was non-committal.

  They gazed at each other in silence. In that moment, Katherine had the sudden and distinct realisation that she wanted him. It swept over her with an uncontrollable force. Made her turn away. Did he share it? He didn’t say anything. Made no sign. She gulped her coffee too quickly. A voice rose in her, not her own, odd in its pitch.

  ‘Perhaps you would like to come to the opening of the Sachs Collection in Boston next week. If you’re here. If you have time.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ he said, ‘I’ll try to make it.’

  Katherine stood. He wasn’t going to ask her to stay. Why should he? They had only just met. It was the hotel that was doing it to her. A hotel like those other hotels in European capitals. But no, she forced herself to honesty. It wasn’t just that. It was altogether different. He had been in her home, had been with Natalie, had crossed the threshold of her real world. And still she wanted him.

  She stretched out her hand. ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ she said primly. ‘I’m sorry that I can’t part with the Michel St. Loup. But you understand…’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he murmured, stood. ‘I shall see you home.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ she demurred.

  ‘I insist,’ he smiled. ‘I am an Italian, more or less.’

  They sat next to each other in the taxi. So close, Alexei thought, and yet untouching. They mustn’t breach that distance. Of that he was certain. And yet the compulsion to hold her was so strong, that he had to keep his hands rigidly in his control lest they stray of their own accord.

  What was he getting himself into? He hadn’t bargained on any of this when he had left Italy in search o
f Katherine and Jacob Jardine. In search of Sylvie Kowalska.

  He felt driven now, by a double compulsion. A compulsion to find out more about Sylvie and a desire to kiss her daughter, to make love to her. He wondered what she would be like in bed, this Katherine Jardine. It was a long time since he had felt this kind of interest in a woman.

  The grim irony of it all made him laugh at himself wryly. There were no accidents in the psychic world. He had thought about her so much that there was an inevitability in the attraction, an inevitability in the fascination she held for him. An inevitability in his falling in love, he acknowledged it, with what was ultimately taboo.

  He glanced covertly at her profile, at once vulnerable and so certain, so decided. Like her talk. In his imagination, he traced the creamy line of her throat, her shoulders above the dusky hue of her dress. She was beautiful. Achingly beautiful.

  She turned to face him, her grey eyes shadowy, wild. Yes, she would be wild in bed too. Abandoned. Almost, he reached to touch her and then turned abruptly to look out the window. He knew enough about women to recognize that she wanted him too. It made it even more difficult. He wasn’t thinking straight.

  And what if he was to say to her now, ‘Katherine, Your mother once wrote to me telling me I was her son. It sounds ridiculous, I know. But I was born in Poland. And I never knew my mother and it’s just possible…’

  No, the monologue was ridiculous. He could imagine the disbelief, the consternation in her face. The sense of vertigo, the betrayal, the feeling that history had cheated one. All those things he himself had felt. One didn’t, one couldn’t do that to people. Simply walk in and disrupt the accepted order of their lives.

  And what made it worse was that she hadn’t got on with her mother. Indeed despised her, that much had been evident in her words. It made it impossible even to explore the possibility with her that Sylvie might have had another child. He hadn’t over dinner been able to bring himself to ask her, however indirectly, whether a rumour of that kind had circulated in the family.