Portrait of a Girl

by Binkert, Dörthe

  Mathilde felt as if she were living in a bad dream. Still, she didn’t have to leave, to leave James. Was that what the doctor was saying?

  “But,” and now he turned to Mathilde, “you must go to bed as soon as possible! The first thing we have to do is to bring your temperature down. Only then can you even think of taking some short walks which can gradually be extended.”

  He smiled at Mathilde. “After a while you’ll even be able to take real walks in the mountains, never fear. I could recommend the fresh air sanatorium in Görbersdorf in Germany, or refer you to one in Davos, where there are several sanatoriums for lung diseases.”

  Mathilde flinched and clasped Betsy’s hand more tightly. Under no circumstances did she want to do that!

  “I myself treat patients using heliotherapy, taking advantage of the healing power of the sun,” Dr. Bernhard continued. “I first used this method on slow-to-heal surgical wounds, but I also treat clinical tuberculosis and various other forms of the disease, such as skin, bone, or joint tuberculosis with this method. So, if you wish, you could remain here, and I would place you in my clinic in St. Moritz. The air here is just as good as in Davos.”

  Mathilde nodded emphatically, and Betsy said, “Yes, of course, I’m sure that would be best. We’ll need a certain amount of time anyway before we can quite understand what it all means . . . and naturally we have to discuss how to proceed with Mathilde’s parents. You understand, I’m sure, that your diagnosis has hit us like a bolt out of the blue.”

  “Very well, then. I shall have them prepare a room in the clinic,” Dr. Bernhard replied briefly. “Your niece can move in tomorrow.” He got up, and taking Mathilde’s hot hand in both of his, pressed it encouragingly. Before showing the two women out of his office, he said, “You’ll see, Miss Schobinger, we’ll get you on your feet again. We’ll start with six meals a day, a glass of red wine or two, preferably our local red, which is especially good for you, and lots and lots of fresh air taken on the balcony of your room. The rest cure will soon make you well once more, I’m quite sure.”

  “What did Dr. Bernhard mean, Mathilde, when he said you were evasive yesterday?” Betsy took Mathilde in her arms. “You have to tell me everything, you hear? Otherwise I can’t help you. And I have a vague feeling that something is bothering you.”

  The midday light flooded the sitting room of their hotel suite, making Betsy’s raspberry-red dress glow. Mathilde, suddenly emotionally overwhelmed, sobbed, and throwing herself in the direction of the raspberry fabric, buried her head in Betsy’s lap. She was shaken by a fit of crying, little sobs escaping every now and then. Betsy had to smile at the staccato and bitterly sad melody. Softly she stroked the blonde curls.

  “Come now,” she murmured. “I’m sure it can’t be as bad as it sounds right at this moment. With Dr. Bernhard we’re in the best of hands, and we’ll find a solution for whatever else is troubling you.”

  But Mathilde’s sobbing was getting worse as if old, long-repressed misery were now breaking free, and piling on top of this new one.

  “I can’t marry Adrian,” Mathilde said in a halting voice without lifting her head from Betsy’s lap.

  “No one would ask that of you right now.”

  Then, raising her head, Mathilde said quite distinctly, “I love James.”

  Then her face disappeared again in Betsy’s lap.

  After this declaration, the room was quiet. The sobbing ebbed away, and Betsy digested what she had just heard.

  Suddenly she said, “Mathilde, I’m hungry. Let’s go eat, what do you think?”

  From under the curls came a muffled “No way. I can’t go into the dining room. My eyes are all red from crying.”

  Betsy was relieved to hear her say something sensible. It sounded as if Mathilde had reached safe harbor after a stormy sea voyage.

  “Let’s have a look.” She raised the young woman up and wiped the tears from her face. “Hmm.” The poor child’s face really was all red and puffy. “Maybe we can have something sent up to the room, all right? You should be lying down anyway, Dr. Bernhard said so.”

  “Aunt Betsy, did you hear what I just said?”

  “I did. But when I’m hungry, I can’t think. And there’s a lot to think about here.”

  “And you don’t know everything yet,” Mathilde added.

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “I . . .”

  “Stop, don’t go on. I’ll ask the chambermaid to bring some water. Then you can wash your face and lie down on the couch. I’ll cover you. The room service waiter will bring you something to eat. Then I might excuse myself to get a glass of wine, or maybe even two—because it isn’t as simple as I thought it was. And then we’ll see.”

  Betsy sighed. All at once, she sympathized with her sister Emma, instead of just her niece. She admired all these women who were mothers. My God, you had to be devilishly careful not to say the wrong thing.

  She went to the door and rang for the chambermaid.

  Did it have to come to this? Betsy shook her head. Of all people, James. That ladies’ man, that Don Juan. A journalist and, she suspected, a man without much money. That was too bad, because if he’d had a fortune, that might have made up for his being a newspaperman. A man she herself liked. Of all things. She was thirty-five, experienced, financially independent. She could afford to take on a man like James, if she cared to, even if nobody—nobody!—would have approved. James had many qualities that a more mature woman could appreciate. But Mathilde! Not only would her parents naturally forbid this relationship, but the girl had clearly gotten caught up in feelings that James surely did not reciprocate. After all, she, Betsy, had seen how inseparable he and Kate had been all this time. How could he possibly fall in love with this naïve child, to say nothing of having a serious or faithful relationship with her? Betsy had one marriage behind her, with all its illusions and disillusions. Given this experience, her expectations of love were totally and fundamentally different from Mathilde’s imaginings.

  But what right had she to judge? Love was a big word. Each person supplied it with his or her own ideas. Betsy excused herself to go to the bathroom, where she paused to look in the mirror. She scanned her own dark-blue eyes, adjusted her pretty horn comb, and checked to see that her pinned-up hair was in place. With both hands, she touched the nostrils of her prominent narrow nose. Then she returned to the sitting room. She took a deep breath, ready to listen to whatever else Mathilde was about to tell her.

  “And why did you get engaged to Adrian if you don’t want to marry him?” Betsy asked.

  “Because back then I didn’t know what love is,” Mathilde said.

  “Aha, and what do you think love is?”

  “What I feel for James, that’s love.”

  “But, even before we met James, you weren’t at all eager to thank Adrian for his letters and telegrams, or to call him on the phone. Am I right?”

  Mathilde was silent. Finally, she said, “He’s nice. He’s good-looking. He loves me. He’ll inherit the bank.”

  “But?”

  “He’s boring.”

  Betsy bit her tongue. She had been on the point of saying that, on the whole, these were pretty good grounds for a marriage. “Hmm. And James, I take it, isn’t boring.”

  Mathilde, brightening, sat up on the sofa.

  “James is incredibly exciting. He is charming, witty, experienced . . .”

  “. . . and full of secrets. Who knows what else he does,” Betsy said, completing her statement.

  “He knows how to treat a woman . . .”

  “But you’re still a very young woman.”

  Mathilde blushed. “Aunt Betsy,” she said, “I feel awfully tired.”

  “Very good. Take a little nap. But at some point, you’ll tell me where you lost your parasol, yes?” And with that, Betsy left her niece alone in the room
.

  Kate had called the chambermaid and asked her to prepare her bath. The girl, whose name was Andrina, was quick and efficient and Kate always asked for her because she preferred bossing around pretty girls rather than ugly ones.

  “Are you aware of how pretty you are?” she asked Andrina when the girl told her the bath was ready. “I’m sure you’ll have an easy time in life. Beauty smoothes quite a few paths. That’s why I like to tip the ugly ones; they have to work so hard, the poor girls.” And with that, she dismissed the chambermaid without giving her even a small coin, but with an encouraging smile.

  The warm water, the bath salts, the soft, fragrant towels relaxed and energized Kate. She had let James know that she would be having supper at the hotel with Betsy and Mathilde and that she expected him afterward in her room. James had remained vague. Edward, he said, would probably want to tell him about his mountain hike and he didn’t know how the evening would turn out. To that she had replied, slightly annoyed, “Nobody’s talking about the evening, dear.”

  He would come. She felt sure a man like James wouldn’t forego a night with an attractive woman. And certainly not if she was available without consequences: no emotional outbursts, no clinging, no future expectations, and no forever—in short, no handcuffs and not even the risk of syphilis.

  The evening with Betsy and Mathilde was brief. Descriptions of the mountain landscape Betsy had seen, the mule, and the alpine roses bored her; and the name Segantini still didn’t mean any more to her now than the little she had found out about him during the picnic at Lake Staz.

  After dinner, Kate returned to her room. She contemplated her body. It was small and supple, always ready, like her head, and looking for opportunities to win. Like her heart and her mind, her body did not surrender, and it fascinated men to find out how smoothly and directly it sought satisfaction. Kate dusted herself with the powder puff, coughing as she breathed in some of the fine particles. The perfumed powder filled the bathroom with its fragrance. She slipped into her housecoat and the little velvet slippers that showed off her small feet. Then she returned to the sitting room and rang for the room-service waiter. He just stared wide-eyed. Yes, she knew the housecoat was captivating with its showy, velvet flowers in pale pink, salmon, and gold on the silky, soft-flowing background. Her husband, who used to call her “my little hussy,” liked things a bit more vulgar, but actually that had nothing to do with her essence. Pleasure for her came from getting her own way, not in the physical, sensual sense, but in exerting control over others—and in never forgetting herself or losing at anything.

  The waiter was still standing there expectantly.

  “Please bring up some foie gras and champagne along with two plates and two glasses. And stop looking at me like that. The second glass isn’t for you.”

  Suddenly she was angry that James was not yet there. And all at once, even as she was placing the order, she saw herself left sitting alone with the champagne. What a humiliating experience it would be if the waiter were to ask, “Shall I open the champagne now for Madame, or would you like to wait a bit longer?”

  When there was a knock on the door, she was relieved to find that it was James.

  “You certainly weren’t in a hurry,” she said in greeting instead of hello. She pulled him into the room.

  “You look enchanting, Kate,” James countered, sitting down on the sofa. He stretched both arms out across the sofa back and gazed at her with a smile.

  “Well, take off your hat, James,” she said, returning his smile. “Or would you like to remain quite formal?” Leaning affectionately toward him, she took the hat off his head.

  Kate’s perfume was seductive; James took her by the waist and pulled her down into his lap. The silk housecoat with the delicate flower appliqués slipped off her shoulders, and James kissed her neck, the flawless shoulders, and placed a finger on the delicate spot between her breasts.

  Kate didn’t wait for him to kiss her on the lips. With a small, involuntary sound of triumph, she placed her mouth over his and with her tongue carefully parted his lips.

  The room service waiter spoiled this good beginning. He was standing outside the door with the champagne, and Kate had to open it for him. James sat up properly again after having slipped dangerously into the horizontal with Kate in his arms.

  He made no special effort to take up where they had left off before the interruption, but instead poured them each a glass of champagne. Then he lifted his glass and said, “To you, Kate.”

  What was the matter with him, she wondered. Why was he acting so lukewarm?

  “Well, what do you think of our young Mathilde, James? The girl is very much in love with you.”

  “Yes, she is indeed,” James said, showing no emotion.

  “And do you still feel flattered, or is it already beginning to get on your nerves?”

  He turned away from Kate, answering her almost peevishly, “I don’t know yet.”

  “How unresponsive you are today, James. Really, quite uncommunicative. I have to admit I was suspicious when the girl didn’t meet me after her health treatment. And you didn’t turn up at lunch either . . .”

  “But I told you, I had a tennis match.”

  “Excuses are nothing unusual in the business of seduction. That’s no proof that you weren’t with her during the time I was waiting for both of you in vain.”

  Kate could see from his expression that this conversation was in danger of veering off in an unexpected direction.

  “But why talk about the girl,” she said, “when we can indulge in grown-up pleasures.”

  She took a bit of foie gras, refilled his glass, and began to undress him. He didn’t help her much, and she tried to convince herself that it was because of the pleasure it gave him to play the passive role of desired object and not a growing disinterest in her.

  She was skillful and experienced. And he did gradually surrender to her, sliding off the sofa onto the rug, pulling her down with him. Her housecoat opened wide, and she lay there naked on the golden silk with its pale pink and salmon-colored flowers. She took pleasure in the looks he gave her, seeing him as a voyeur reining in his lust even as she became aroused.

  Supporting himself on one elbow, he gazed at her, at the same time spreading her legs with the other hand, still coolly, almost dispassionately, but Kate didn’t give in to him at once. Then finally, he threw himself on her. He’d forgotten Mathilde now. Kate had won again.

  Uncertainties

  Nika was talking. But only with Segantini and Gian. It was hard for her to find her tongue again after the many years of silence, and words were too treacherous and too valuable to waste.

  Nika waited impatiently for Segantini’s visits when she worked in the hotel garden, but they weren’t as frequent as she would have liked. He had many appointments, and Baba always went with him when he was painting. But sometimes he sent Baba home, saying he would follow shortly.

  He still had Nika’s sketchbook. She had talent. He’d seen it immediately. She should be encouraged. She wanted to learn how to write properly and to draw, like him. He knew it well, this hunger for the education that has been kept from you, the urge to express yourself, the longing to be seen and acknowledged—to see the appreciative look in the eyes of others, and to realize: I am, and it is good that I exist.

  “I’ve been thinking how it could be arranged,” Segantini said to her one day, when he’d found her at work outside. He didn’t want to have her join his children, who were taught by a private tutor. She didn’t belong to that part of his life, and he didn’t want to mix up the two worlds.

  “Perhaps I can talk with the priest; I’ll see what can be done.” He didn’t want to admit to her that when it came to writing he wasn’t very sure of himself.

  “You still have my notebook,” she reminded him. “I can’t go on sketching because I don’t have another one.”


  “Right,” he said. “I looked at it very carefully. You have a good eye. Your hand is still hesitant, you don’t trust yourself, but that’s just a matter of practice. You see what’s important, the essential, and that’s what matters. If you don’t see the essential of what you are drawing, then no amount of technique is of any use. Moreover, if you can’t express the essence of what you’re drawing, then the picture will be boring and uninteresting.”

  Segantini was silent for a moment, looking at her hair glowing in the evening light. A warm golden tone like that of the gold leaf that as the last step he rubbed into the barely visible grooves produced by his way of painting—placing one stroke of color next to another in the divisionist style. The technique gave his paintings a singular shimmer and a magic that viewers could not account for. It was much the same magical effect that Nika’s hair had on him. And the blue-green of her eyes, wasn’t that the exact color that was dominant in his painting The Spring? Wasn’t she the beautiful nude, lying next to the bubbling waters?

  Nika lightly touched the sleeve of his black jacket, looking at him questioningly.

  “Call me Segante,” he said, almost indignantly, because she had interrupted his thoughts, “that’s what my friends call me.”

  “But we’re not friends,” Nika said. “Even if you come to see me here.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Well, as you wish. In any case, I thought that I might teach you to draw. If you like, I’ll bring your notebook with me next time. I’ll give you an assignment, and when we see each other again, we’ll discuss how you could improve it.”

  She stood there transfixed, as if he’d said something terrible. Then her eyes filled with tears. “You would do that? For me?”

  “Why not. We could give it a try.”

  He looked away in embarrassment. Did she have to cry? And because he wasn’t looking at her, he couldn’t prevent her from taking his hand, pressing it to her wet face, and kissing it.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “Oh yes,” she said, her voice choking with tears.