Portrait of a Girl

by Binkert, Dörthe

  Nika nodded. The cure was something they knew about in Mulegns too.

  “I’ve already given Gian some silver thistle tea. When he wakes up, I’ll give him soup made of borage and some other herbs, which is the same brew you give to sick cows. But for now, we’ll let him sleep.” Benedetta shook her head. “The men gave him schnapps mixed with an egg and some honey, the same stuff you give a woman who’s just had a baby.” She was silent, probably thinking of all her deliveries.

  Then, seeming to notice that Nika was very worried and uneasy, she added, “You like Gian, I know. It will be all right if you go and sleep for a while. I’ll take care of him.”

  Another Sort of Fever

  More often than he liked, Segantini’s legs were taking him in the direction of the hotel, in spite of the commands from his head to the contrary.

  He usually got up very early, at sunrise, and Baba adapted to his rhythm. Sometimes he was already at his easel by five a.m.

  The paintings he was working on were in various spots outdoors. He locked them up each night in heavy wooden boxes specifically made to protect them, so they could safely stay outside no matter what the weather.

  Baba would follow him each morning to whatever canvas he had in mind to work on, and crouch at his feet, patient as a dog. As she handed him paints, he would put down color on the canvas with short, strong strokes. First, he’d begin with the colors that would determine the tone of the painting.

  He worked on canvases he’d already primed with turpentine and terra rossa. The dark rust-red surface grounded him and lent the brightness of his colors a deep undertone that ran like a bass note in his symphony of light. Over the years, his palette had become lighter, brighter, and he now used only a few pure unmixed colors: zinc white and silver white, black, cobalt green and emerald, cobalt blue and darker ultramarine, four shades of yellow, and vermilion. Between the brush strokes, he left spaces of almost the same width as his brush strokes. Later, he usually filled these spaces with complementary colors, putting red next to green, for example. The colors would blend in the eyes of the viewer.

  Usually, before beginning work outdoors, he would have already roughly sketched the composition he saw in his mind onto the canvas in simple white strokes and planes of color. During that phase, he would also search for the locations that would provide details for the picture: a church steeple, a depression in a meadow, a mountain. For most of his paintings, he used several locations. When he reached the last stage, he’d select just one place to work where he could capture the harmony of light that would give his painting its atmospheric mood.

  He usually worked on several paintings at once. And, practiced and tireless mountain hiker that he was, he traveled long distances each day to find the different light conditions he wanted.

  As he settled down to paint, he’d often say, “Read to me, Baba.” And listening to Baba’s voice, enveloped by its murmuring flow, he’d put paint to canvas almost as if in a trance—in any case, without thinking.

  Each day, Segantini went home for lunch, and ever more frequently he sought out the route that led past the hotel. He would scan the garden. Her strawberry blonde hair could be seen from a distance, and its abundance drove him crazy: it was a carpet he wanted to spread out, or better yet, be enveloped within. He wanted to wrap himself in its fragrance, which he already knew was half-flower and half-animal. But he did not allow himself to go near Nika after spotting her. Instead, he would greet her from afar.

  He also felt drawn to walk past the hotel in the evening. And it was only then, once his work was done, that he would occasionally say a few words to her—that much he allowed himself. At that time of day, she seemed to be on the lookout for him.

  Although her eyes never revealed anything as he came closer, he saw how blood rushed to her small face at the sight of him. She had soft, light skin, even though it was tanned from being exposed to the sun. Like Bice. No, quite different from Bice’s. That was, of course, the crux of it. Had she been like Bice, his imagination wouldn’t have tormented him, for Bice gave him everything that a woman like her had to give. From Bice he got everything he needed. This half-tamed girl had all the things he didn’t need. She made him feel restless; she disrupted his work, which Bice had so wholly subordinated herself to. It made him feel oddly weak. For he was his work. His work was what held him together. It was the framework on which his life was built. He had constructed a world for himself in which darkness and fear could not overpower him. Thanks to his work, to his ceaseless striving, thanks to nature and the alpine light, he could live and even love. The girl belonged to the other side of his life, the side he had tried to hide, to forget about.

  Yet in spite of that, he was driven to seek her as if he were looking for his own shadow. His life now had only the one side, the bright side; he had achieved this with great effort. Yet deep down, he knew that the dark side persisted, just as death is a part of every life.

  Nika had a problem. How could she tell people that she wanted to learn to write and to draw without speaking? She showed her notebook to Gaetano, pointed to the plants she had drawn and then to the empty space next to the drawing. But Gaetano was even less able to write than she was.

  “Show your notebook to Signor Segantini, to whom you’ve become so indispensable,” he said, hoping to distract her from his own shortcomings.

  “Every time he comes to see you, he’s actually stealing time from your work. But I can’t complain because he’s a friend of the hotel director’s. Ah yes, that’s how the world turns,” he mumbled. Yet he spoke without any real anger, like someone who long ago had reconciled himself to such things. And then, to encourage her, for he liked Nika, he added, “Go ahead, show him the notebook. Look there, he’s already on his way here. Pretty soon you’ll be able to set your watch by him.”

  “I’d like you to talk,” Segantini said, after he’d beckoned to her and she’d walked away from Gaetano.

  Together they’d strolled to the shore of the lake, where they stood side by side, looking into its clear depths. Stones, bits of root, lake grass barely trembling with the tiny movement of the water. Segantini bent down and, picking up a flat pebble, tossed it at a wide angle over the surface of the water. It touched the surface, causing a ring-shaped wave to spread out across the water; it skipped, once, twice, and then sank.

  He stood up and looked into the girl’s face. He reached out a hand and touched her hair; it was only loosely and casually pulled together to form a knot at the back of her neck. Taking a strand of hair, he wrapped it around his finger.

  His first contact was with her hair; her first contact with his hand. It was a broad hand, fleshy, almost ungainly, yet also gentle. Nika took hold of his hand, pulling it down so that the strand of hair slipped out, and looked at it, while shyly stroking his wide fingers with the fingertips of her left hand.

  “I . . . want . . . to . . . learn . . . to write!” Nika suddenly said haltingly, not looking at him. “I want to learn to draw!”

  Segantini lifted her chin so that she had to look at him. He gazed carefully at her face. Said nothing. Nodded.

  Lost in thought, Nika stroked her skirt and ran her fingers through her hair, imagining her hand was his; when she slid her tongue over her lips, she had the sensation of feeling his lips. She practically felt the texture of his beard on her skin.

  She watched as he flipped open her notebook and paged through it, looking at her drawings with his lips slightly pursed. Then, he fixed his dark, penetrating gaze on her and said, “You’ve done well. I’ll take the notebook with me.”

  She didn’t dare contradict him, even though she was worried about losing it, the only treasure she had besides the locket.

  Later that night, she found she couldn’t sleep. After putting out the lamp and lying down, she stared into the dark. She missed the warmth of the little brown cows; they were all up in Grevasalvas now. She stood up aga
in, wrapped her woolen shawl around her, and stepped outside the door. Looked up at the sky. The stars were out, and the Milky Way formed a diagonal trail across the heavens as if the milk pail had slipped out of a heavenly Gian’s hand. The stars were very far away. There was a slight, scarcely perceptible breeze, as though the night were breathing softly.

  Nika spread her arms as if to embrace the night. Now, because there was an ear ready to listen, it was worthwhile talking again.

  Nika had stopped talking years before because it didn’t make any difference whether she talked or was silent. She had grown up with the same milk and the same language as the other children in Mulegns, and yet the others understood Nika as little as Nika understood them. She didn’t even know if anyone noticed when she suddenly stopped talking.

  The farmer had forbidden her to speak with the people in the village. And then there was the affair with the cave.

  The farmer’s older sons had promised to give her an apple if she would go with them. It was late summer; the farmer was gone for the day. Otherwise, they couldn’t have sneaked away from the farm that easily. A couple of children from the village came along too.

  Nika had a bad feeling about it. You didn’t simply get an apple for nothing. She worried that the boys might have discovered her buried locket, or been alerted to the fact that it had disappeared from the chest. She had to go with them. Because she had to find out. She absolutely had to make sure.

  “Well, come on, you coward!” Hans called to her, holding out the apple. He was the oldest. Almost imperceptibly, Reto shook his head. Maybe he’d found out what his older brothers had planned, even though they usually didn’t include him, the youngest, when they were hatching some mischief. He was sometimes the target of the coarse pranks in which even the old farmhands, whose lot had made them merciless and rough, often took part.

  The big boys had already encircled Nika like a pack of yowling dogs and were chasing her out to the edge of the village and beyond. From time to time, Hans held the apple up triumphantly, and then, with the others laughing, he would let it vanish into his pants pocket. There were girls in the group too, Maria and Elsa. That gave Nika some hope that Hans wouldn’t pounce on her as he had threatened to do.

  Nika felt even more anxious when she realized where they were heading. She knew that not far from the village, set far back from the road, was a well-concealed cave, which the young people used as a meeting place. It was also a place they could hide things they didn’t want to show anyone at home or hand over to their parents.

  That’s where they took Nika. She started to tremble with fear and said, with her teeth chattering, as firmly as she could, “Let me go. I’ve got to work.”

  Hans made a face. “Don’t be afraid. I like Elsa better than you. I’m not going to kiss you.”

  Elsa laughed and took the apple out of Hans’s pants pocket, not without brushing her hand along his leg, and smiling at him. “Well, go on. You’ll get your apple inside.” Elsa ducked and went into the cave.

  Hans gave Nika a push that made her stumble in after Elsa. Reto let out a muffled scream, and when Nika turned around to look at him, she saw that Hans was holding his mouth shut, hissing, “Shut your trap. Otherwise you’re in for it.”

  Elsa held Nika by the arm, and Hans followed them inside and blocked the entrance.

  The prank had been prepared beforehand. When Hans gave the sign, the others with joint effort began to shove a big chunk of rock in front of the entrance. Outside, Maria was holding Reto’s mouth shut; he was whimpering with fear. “If you don’t keep quiet, we’ll put you in there too,” she told him.

  When the rock almost completely blocked the entrance, Elsa let go of Nika.

  Hans nodded to Elsa and said, “You get out now.”

  “And you,” he said to Nika, “you’ll get your apple, you really will. You didn’t think you would, did you?” He laughed.

  It had gotten so dark inside the cave that Nika couldn’t make out his features. Elsa, squeezing out of the cave through the narrow opening, protested, “Hey, I want the apple.”

  Hans pressed the apple into Nika’s hand. “Elsa is really an awful person. Here, you can take it.”

  Then he pushed Nika even farther back into the cave.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” Nika asked. “Why are you locking me up in here?”

  “Just because,” Hans said, and he too squeezed out through the narrow opening.

  Then they pushed the rock so as to block the entrance all the way, and it was totally dark inside.

  They hadn’t found the locket, or noticed that it wasn’t in the chest anymore. They had no reason for what they were doing to her.

  The cave was damp and chilly. All sorts of junk and garbage had collected there, but it was too dark to know what anything was. Nika knelt on the ground near the entrance. No sound could be heard inside the cave.

  She lost all sense of time. At some point, it would be getting dark outside too.

  When the farmer’s wife asked them about Nika at supper, Hans gave Reto a threatening look.

  “No idea where she is,” he said and shrugged.

  “She’ll be in for it when she gets back,” the farmer said.

  “Maybe she ran away,” Hans said.

  The next morning, in spite of being afraid, Reto couldn’t hold it in any longer, and he told the farmer’s wife where Nika was.

  She sent the boys off. “Bring her back here. And make it quick,” she said. But she kept Reto at home, so he wouldn’t be beaten to a pulp.

  They were all silent as they pushed the rock away from the cave entrance and Hans pulled Nika out.

  Then Hans said to the others, “She was so scared she made a mess in her pants.”

  But nobody laughed. They took Nika, who was shivering with cold, back to the farm.

  The farmer’s wife didn’t say anything; just sent Nika off to work with a gesture of her hand. The farmer waited till Sunday. Then he took off his belt and said, “You filthy brat, if you disappear again you’ll get a good hiding.”

  From that day on Nika stopped talking.

  Walking a Tightrope

  Achille Robustelli was at his desk. He felt vaguely uneasy. His attention was entirely focused on seeing to it that the hotel operated smoothly, but he also had a well-developed sixth sense that alerted him when something was not quite right in his surroundings. And there seemed to be several things amiss.

  Andrina was apparently upset about the straniera’s being transferred from the laundry to the garden. As a chambermaid, she got to see the insides of the hotel guests’ rooms, yet she, herself, was practically invisible. And when she did enter their rooms, it was usually after the illustrious guests had left, leaving her only the thankless task of cleaning up after them. On the other hand, the straniera, in Andrina’s eyes, could almost take part in their social life, or at the least observe it. This put Andrina in a bad mood, Robustelli saw.

  In addition, he knew, Andrina’s family had problems at home, much more serious ones. Gian was still fighting for his life. Robustelli would gladly have helped the family, for the pretty Andrina’s sake, but the girl’s mother held it against him that he had smoothed the way for Luca to get a job with the railway. Besides, she would have been too proud to accept money from a stranger to pay a doctor—and she didn’t even believe that the doctor could help her son.

  Meanwhile, Luca was gone, but that seemed fine to Robustelli. Many young men were leaving the rural areas for the cities to work in factories, or taking jobs with the railroad. It was the march of time. Robustelli saw these developments matter-of-factly. There was no going back, not even in the Engadine, where foreign visitors were now the largest source of income. Not all the locals profited from this, and the difference between the poor and the rich was enormous, even among the natives; the difference in means between the vacationing visitors
and the valley residents was nearly incomprehensible. Yet the visitors provided work for the residents, even if they weren’t prepared to share their affluence directly with the poorer locals.

  The truth was, Achille had gotten to know his wealthy clientele better than he would have liked. He was a careful observer, and what he saw—although it didn’t turn him into a misanthrope—did quash any idealistic notions he might have had. He was too middle class to get anything out of class-war slogans, but he saw the situation quite clearly, and as a consequence, he never admired rich people just because of their money.

  On the other hand, he had thought a lot about what Segantini had told him about the strange young woman. He had also been brooding about Segantini himself. In contrast to those two, who’d been abandoned as children, he had grown up in loving and sheltered circumstances. Not that his mother’s affection had always been problem-free. Sometimes he felt as if he were suffocating under her love. But that same love, especially while his father was still alive, had nurtured him and made him strong enough to see himself with sympathetic and appreciative eyes, and to defend himself against unjust demands or attacks.

  Segantini’s story about the girl’s origins made him aware for the first time that not all people grew up with the warm and secure kind of upbringing that seemed so natural to him because he’d had such a home. He wondered about the development of a person who is deprived of love at the beginning of his life. He’d contemplated it, but felt he really couldn’t quite imagine what being abandoned felt like. Yet he could tell that Segantini, in contrast to him, was able to empathize with Nika’s story, probably because he’d had a similar experience early in his life.