Almost Famous Women

by Megan Mayhew Bergman

  He’s seen her private gallery before, but it still makes his throat close up when the soft lights go on and the velvet curtains are lifted, because it is evidence that she possesses greatness. Or has the greatness gone away?

  The canvases are enormous, and their frames are ornate. The paintings are dark: androgynous women in various brave poses or nude recline, their lithe bodies rendered in white, gray, and black. There’s a woman in a cheetah-skin dress, another with trousers, a monocle, and a dachshund. A woman with a sallow complexion and eyes hidden by a top hat.

  I painted this one in Paris, she says, nodding to a portrait of a woman in a fur stole with a commanding expression and the figurine of a black horse on the table in front of her.

  Natalie, he thinks.

  Paris must be beautiful, he says.

  Je déteste Paris.

  He’s quiet for some time because he knows that’s what she wants. He realizes that he’s jealous of the life she’s had, the money, the talent, the experiences. She calls herself American, but she’s not American, he thinks, she is of the world, and how many people can say that?

  I’d like you to leave now, she says.

  I was sent to live with the maid, Romaine says when he brings her lunch, surprising him with conversation. My mother sent me away, abandoned me, left me to fend for myself, even though we were wealthy. I lived in squalor with a large family in an apartment that smelled of cabbage and spoiled butter.

  Mario wonders if she is just talking, or actually talking to him.

  Romaine pauses to choke down a stewed tomato. Then, she continues, I was sent off to boarding school. Mother didn’t love me, you see, she never did. She loved my brother, St. Mar, and he was atrocious.

  How so? Mario asks. He wants to engage her, be spoken to as an equal.

  St. Mar was deficient, insane, violent, she says. You couldn’t touch him. Not even to cut his hair, and it was long and tangled and he would grab the scissors and come at you. He was a boar that couldn’t be brought out in public. When he was older his beard was long and he had sharp nails; he shuffled around the villa, moaning. Mother let him buy a monkey that bit children.

  The women in my life were insufferable and strange, she continues, leaning back in her chair, the paleness of her face exacerbated by the maroon velvet upholstery. My sister, I’ll have you know, had a child with my mother’s boyfriend, and married him. This is before St. Mar died.

  How did he die? Mario asks.

  He starved himself. After he died Mother became convinced she could summon spirits. And when she died? I went from being an impoverished artist to owning six flats in Nice. She left me boxes of things, wigs and false teeth and the sense that I was haunted, always, by St. Mar’s incessant crying, and Mother standing over me at night.

  That sounds—

  She comes to me still.

  Mario nods.

  I’m a martyr, she says, reaching gingerly for her teacup. I always have been.

  The sound of her body trying to swallow the hot liquid is repugnant, but he feels some measure of pride that she’s confiding in him. This is her way of saying that she knows he is more intelligent than the average domestico, that he has potential, that he’s trustworthy.

  Maybe she will see that I need help, he thinks, and send me off to Paris with a little annuity, deliver groceries to my mother.

  I’m planning to move to Nice, you know, she says, removing her green glasses again, looking up with clear eyes. Your services will no longer be needed. You should make other plans.

  Enzo, he says, wandering into the kitchen that evening, can you cover for me for a half hour? I need to check on Mama.

  Certo, Enzo says, smiling at him with dark, wine-stained teeth. He’s cleaning up the kitchen as if he’s going to leave, but Mario knows he sleeps in the house so he doesn’t have to pay rent elsewhere.

  There is contempt between them, but that doesn’t keep Mario from fantasizing about him. He imagines an angry, passionate tryst in the kitchen or the wine cellar. When he pictures these moments he has trouble looking Enzo in the eyes.

  At home, Mario finds his mother sleeping on their couch. She’s snoring loudly and her body is a fat little heap on the worn green upholstery. The small one-bedroom apartment with the concrete floor insults his taste. It’s made for a rat, he thinks. I’m growing accustomed to nice materials.

  He leaves his mother a baguette and a hunk of cheese and a note. He doesn’t have the courage to tell her that soon he’ll be out of a job.

  When he returns to Villa Gaia, he hears shouting in the courtyard. Enzo has his shirt off and is swinging at a much larger man in a black T-shirt.

  Lasciare! Mario hisses. You’re going to wake Romaine and we’ll all lose our jobs!

  He owes me money, the large man mutters. I’m going to kill him.

  Enzo, presumably drunk, swings again. The man ducks.

  Kill him down the road, Mario says. Prego.

  Heart pounding, Mario slinks into Villa Gaia, and silently creeps to Romaine’s bedroom door to see if she’s awake.

  I hear you out there, she shouts. Come in at once.

  Mario, head bowed, enters her dark bedroom. Romaine is propped on her pillows; a small light glimmers on her bedside table. The room is sparsely decorated, only a bed and bureau and the bedside table, but the wallpaper is hand-painted, a gray-blue background with white and silver cranes fishing in pools.

  You’ve been sneaking around, haven’t you?

  No, signora, I—

  You’re fired. I can’t sleep. I have called and called for you.

  I’m sorry.

  I’m ill. I’m ninety-three. I’m going blind. I can’t walk.

  Can I make you more comfortable?

  Just leave, she barks, raising a spindly arm, pointing a skeletal finger at the door.

  He backs out of the room and leans against the wall, heart racing still. If he loses this job now there’ll be no rent money, no food.

  The next morning, he brings her breakfast tray to the bedroom. Romaine sits up and rests against her pillows, grimacing, squinting at him. Her hair needs washing, he thinks.

  Didn’t I fire you last night? Didn’t I tell you to leave?

  No, signora. Mario smiles reassuringly at Romaine. You didn’t. You must have had a bad dream. May I put cream in your coffee?

  I never take cream!

  May I open your windows?

  Only a little.

  The dry air comes in, and with it the scent of tiglio blossoms, a smell that seems too delicate and sweet for a woman like Romaine, who reaches for her glass of carrot juice.

  I win, Mario thinks, smiling to himself as he backs through her bedroom door. Power is a funny thing. Sometimes you can just take it.

  The next morning Romaine cracks one of her ancient teeth on biscotti. The misery in this world is constant, Romaine says, one liver-spotted hand to her temple.

  I have suffered again and again, she continues.

  Mario leaves and comes back with a cup of lemon tea.

  He has dressed her in a soft, looping bow tie. Her head is tilted back, eyes suspicious. I didn’t ask for that, she says, looking at the tea in front of her.

  Tell me again about the flora and fauna of Capri, he says, kneeling at her side.

  Why should I tell you anything? she asks, frowning down on him.

  Because I’ll listen.

  Why don’t I tell you about the woman who locked her children in a cage? I was a boarder in her house. They used to scream like animals. But I was always in bad places then, living in squalor. I had no money. I wanted to become a singer.

  Would you sing for me?

  Never.

  Why did you stop?

  The notes of song could never replicate human suffering, she says, turning away from him. Not the way I could with line.

  I want to see you draw, he says, casually brushing lint off her shoulder.

  How dare you, she hisses, though he thinks maybe she is flatte
red. Perhaps the corner of her wry, bitter mouth has lifted for a second.

  I don’t believe you can do it anymore, he says, his voice teasing and almost, he realizes, malicious.

  I can do it. I don’t want to do it, but I can do it.

  Do it, he says, thrusting a pen into her gnarled hand. He brings a sketchbook to her and scoots her up to the table.

  No—my tooth is broken! Are you an imbecile?

  Do it, he says, using the firmest voice he has ever used with her, with anyone.

  I won’t.

  You will.

  Looking up at him with confused, then furious eyes, she puts the tip of the pen to the paper. At first it does not move. She’s just looking at it, or maybe she is looking within her mind. Her hand begins to slide across the dry paper, and a robed figure appears. She gives the figure wings and then draws two bald, stooped demons, which the angel presses to her chest as if about to nurse them. Romaine doesn’t pick up the pen; the line is constant and never-ending, sure of itself.

  He sees her tongue—God, it is an ugly tongue—examining the jagged edge of the broken gray tooth as she looks at her work, letting the pen fall to the table. She grabs his arm and whispers: I’m in pain. Please call the dentist.

  This is the price you have to pay, he thinks, looking down at her bulging eyes, for having a good life, for being able to wake up when you want, fuck who you want, travel the world and sleep in soft beds and never clean your own toilet. This is for your closet full of opera capes.

  I’ll see to it, signora, he says, pulling his arm from her cold grasp, gathering the drawing, leaving the room.

  As he leaves, the rottweiler begins barking.

  Marco! The dog, Romaine says.

  He pretends he cannot hear her, and continues down the stairs.

  Before he phones the dentist, he finds one of the letters from the art dealer, and places a call.

  I have new work, he says, in a confident voice he can’t believe is his own. And we’re willing to sell.

  On his next shift Mario finds Romaine sitting alone. She doesn’t look up or acknowledge him. She isn’t sleeping, but her body is in a state close to sleep, he thinks.

  Romaine, he says, addressing her by name for the first time. She looks at him, confused. Overnight he has come up with a plan, and he’s determined to put it into action, to claim the experiences that should have been his.

  I have something to tell you, he says.

  Don’t waste my time, she mumbles, fingering the silk of her blouse, brushing the morning’s crumbs from her lap.

  She looks weaker, he thinks, pleased with the idea that she might become more vulnerable. That’s what he wants. Vulnerable, but not dead. He takes a deep breath and continues.

  The cook—you remember Enzo?

  Of course I remember!

  He’s been using the galley kitchen as his private meeting space, Mario says—sighing as if this has bothered him morally—and there’s been trouble. I broke up a fight the other night; I was worried they would wake you. Did they wake you?

  I’ve told you that I rarely sleep. My mother—

  What would you like me to have done?

  Fire him, of course, Romaine says, sighing, sagging into her chair.

  Would you like to do it?

  Take care of it, Romaine says, turning her large eyes to the window. I don’t have the energy.

  Mario goes first to the galley kitchen, which is hot and rank with spoiled vegetables and forgotten, decanted wine. A raw goose, head still intact, lies defeathered and gray on a platter, beak resting on its pimpled back. The unwashed butcher block is scarlet with blood, marred by years of haphazard cuts. Unable to find Enzo, Mario moves from room to room until he comes to Romaine’s gallery. This is a sacred room, he thinks, and so when he finds Enzo sprawled in the corner, a sheet over his body, a white enamel pot of piss in the corner, he is furious, shaking with anger as he walks toward the sleeping cook and nudges him with the toe of his shoe, his father’s shoe.

  You’ve been let go, he says.

  Enzo rubs his eyes, sits up, spits onto a corner of the sheet, and rakes it across his face. You’re a big shot now? he says, blinking. How did you manage that?

  If you don’t believe me you can go and speak with Romaine.

  Fuck Romaine, he says, rising, standing nose to nose with Mario. Did you stick your tongue in her mouth?

  Please don’t make a scene, Mario says. He can smell Enzo’s musky body odor and unwashed hair.

  I’ll take everything, Enzo shouts, getting angrier by the second. Brutto figlio di puttana bastardo!

  Do what you think is right, Mario says, turning to leave. He’s shaking inside, waiting for Enzo to strike him or throw something, but he doesn’t. Mario calls the night nurse and tells her not to come, that Romaine has asked him to stay on for the night.

  That evening, the house is quiet. Enzo has taken all the wine, and the cellar is barren. No matter, Mario thinks, running a finger along the shelves to clear the cobwebs. I’ll order more. I can order anything. There are no limits.

  Now he has absolute privacy and authority in the house. Romaine is asleep in her chair in the parlor; Mario enters her bedroom and walks straight to the closet, taking a silk opera cape from its hanger, sliding it over his own narrow shoulders, admiring himself in the Japanese mirror. He can’t stop stroking the black silk. He wears the cape downstairs to clean the kitchen. He wears it to put out the trash. When the rottweiler begins to bark, he is so bold as to walk past Romaine wearing her own clothes, the fine clothes of her youth, and onto the patio, where, beneath a purple sky, he pelts the barking dog with Romaine’s uneaten dinner, undercooked goose thighs and roasted potatoes. His fingers are greasy from handling the food, but he continues stroking the opera cape. The streets of Fiesole are quiet. The families are eating their late dinners in their fine homes, congratulating themselves, he thinks.

  He wears her cape as he runs downstairs to the gallery, silk trailing behind him. He opens the door, not hesitating this time, and stands in front of Romaine’s sad, beautiful paintings, imagining that they are his, that he is capable of such fine work. He wonders if it comes out of her naturally or how hard she had to work to master the shape of a face, the arc of human hands, the color of flesh. He doesn’t want to imagine her working hard at anything, but it’s worse to imagine her so fortunate as to have been born rich and egregiously talented as well. How miserably unfair.

  The next night, after leaving Romaine to fall asleep again in her chair, he puts on her delicate, pale pink pajama set, so pristine he’s sure she’s never worn it. The silk feels incredible against his skin, nearly liquid. He brushes his hair at her vanity using her brush. He buffs his nails. He sprays himself with the expensive French perfume, a glass urn of amber liquid marked Guerlain with the unmistakable whiff of vanilla.

  He opens the windows and stands on the marble windowsill. He can see the lights of Florence in the valley below, the sheen of the Duomo. How could you get tired of this? he wonders. He has never felt so opulent, so himself. He smokes a cigarette, flicks the butt down onto the street.

  He rubs cold cream onto his face and, letting it sit awhile, begins sifting through Romaine’s drawers. In the top drawer of her bureau he finds yellowed photographs, and one which immediately stands out from the rest. It is not a beautiful photograph. Here, in some studio, some mansion from another time, another life, there is a boy in Victorian breeches seated on a tasseled velvet pillow. The boy has a wild dog’s eyes and long, tangled blond hair. Mario shudders and places the photograph back in the drawer.

  At 3:00 a.m., still wearing her pajamas, he wheels Romaine to the toilet, then to the guest room and helps her to bed, turning back the heavy duvet, easing Romaine’s diminished body underneath the sheets.

  What are you wearing? she asks, wincing, her eyelids swollen. She reaches out to touch him with a finger. Why are we in the guest room?

  He notices her nails are long and need trimming. Sh
h, he says. You’re imagining things.

  It’s late, she says. My back hurts. Do you have pills? I need pills.

  Shh, he says, turning off the lights and leaving her as quickly as possible. He sleeps in her bed and wakes slowly and contentedly in the linen sheets.

  In the morning, Mario makes what he considers to be decent eggs and perfectly crisped bacon and takes the food to Romaine.

  Why am I in the guest bedroom? she asks, narrowing her eyes.

  We’re having work done in your room, he says. You recall the damp spot on the ceiling?

  Have you found a replacement chef? she asks, frowning at the tray, the yolks running across the china. Someone competent? These are vile eggs. I once knew a blind peasant who could cook better than this.

  I’m looking. I want the best for you, Mario says. Then he says her name: Romaine.

  Signora.

  Yes. Signora.

  You can take the tray downstairs. I don’t want breakfast.

  That afternoon she wraps her old fingers around his arm with surprising strength as they are sitting in the parlor. I want to end my life, she says plainly. Surely we can pay someone? A doctor who has a gambling debt? There must be a black market for these things? I can’t be the only one tired of living?

  I’ll look into it, Mario says, though he has no intention of helping her end her life. If she were to die, he’d lose the beautiful house, the opera cape, the fine wine, the respite from his mother.

  The next morning a nice woman with short hair and round cheeks named Berthe shows up at the house. Mario answers the door.

  I’m just off the train from Paris, she says, smiling.

  Signora does not take visitors, he says gravely.

  I have news from a gallery, she says. Since Romaine won’t answer the letters, Natalie sent me in person.

  Begrudgingly, Mario heads upstairs to inform Romaine of her visitor.

  Tell her she is not to come unannounced, Romaine says, voice as loud as he’s ever heard it. Tell her I don’t read letters from Natalie’s spies!