Portrait of a Girl

by Binkert, Dörthe

  “The stupid child!” the innkeeper cried. “She’s had that idea in her head for years!”

  Robustelli laid a hand on her arm to calm her.

  “You needn’t worry. She is in Maloja. A family there took her in. Nika is working in a hotel, the same hotel where I work.”

  The woman looked at him, flabbergasted. “She’s working in a hotel? Ah well, she was always curious, eager to learn; she asked the most impossible questions and insisted that I teach her to read.” The woman smiled as she remembered, but then went on immediately, “Still, she could have sent me a sign of life! After all, one worries.”

  Achille nodded. “She doesn’t know that I came here, Signora. Otherwise she would certainly have asked me to send you her regards. But I have the impression that the family she grew up with did not treat her too well.”

  The innkeeper gave Robustelli a sharp look. “Why should you care?” she asked, suddenly suspicious again.

  “Nika has confided in me a little. I would really like to help her in her search for her real parents.”

  “Well,” the woman said hesitantly. “The farmer’s family didn’t exactly treat her like a princess. But what do you expect? Nika was a contract child, they’re all treated the same. Nobody cares a lot about them, how they’re doing. Here nobody can afford to give things away.” But then she saw how carefully he was following her words, and she confided in him. “The farmer did beat her a lot. And she didn’t get enough to eat. I gave her something to eat now and then, whenever she secretly came here.” She leaned closer to Robustelli and lowered her voice. “To be frank, I tried to make things better for her. First, I went to see the minister. But those religious types! The man didn’t lift a finger for the girl. Avoid trouble, that was his motto. He wasn’t there to defend the weak, this man of God.” She made a hasty sign of the cross. “God save his soul. He’s dead.”

  Achille nodded again.

  “Then the girl got thinner and thinner and stopped talking. At that point, I reported the matter to the authorities in Chur. They have inspectors who can check on the living conditions of the contract children. And I was amazed—they actually intended to send someone here. But on the very day they were going to come to check on the conditions under which Nika was housed, she ran away.”

  The innkeeper shook her head. “She would have come of age soon anyway, and would have been free then to go wherever she wanted to . . .”

  “But was there no information with the locket about Nika’s parents?” Robustelli interrupted.

  “No sign of anything,” the woman said. “Of course I was curious, as you can imagine one would be when one suddenly finds an infant outside one’s door. I opened the locket. And the minister did too. But there was just a scrap of paper with some scrawled writing that I couldn’t make out. And the minister couldn’t figure it out either.”

  “And in spite of that you think that the mother was Italian?” Robustelli asked. He was beginning to realize that he wouldn’t be getting any new information.

  “I’d hold my hand in the fire about that,” the innkeeper said.

  After his return journey to Maloja, Robustelli felt tired. He hadn’t been able to clear up anything. He evaded Andrina’s questions about where he had been. And oddly enough, he had a guilty conscience doing so.

  James received a message from Segantini via Fabrizio Bonin that the painter wanted to meet him at the hotel in Maloja at two o’clock. James hoped fervently that the trek to see the painting in its outdoor location would not turn into a long excursion. He was looking forward to spending a few hours with his newfound friend Bonin, for he wanted to ask him, as a fellow newspaper man, about the situation of newspapers in Italy. He was also avoiding Edward’s company. He hadn’t wanted to talk with him ever since his last conversation with Mathilde.

  He hadn’t gone to see Mathilde again after that, but he certainly hadn’t forgotten her. It had been cowardly of him to demand an admission of love from her when she was the one who had asked him for one first. And yet, he simply couldn’t bring himself to seriously court her. He had too many doubts—fewer about Mathilde than about himself and his own constancy. And now here was Edward who’d jumped into the breach and seemed to have successfully established himself.

  That had hurt James’s vanity, even though he wouldn’t have admitted it. Between the two of them, hadn’t he always been the more successful in conquering ladies’ hearts?

  “Don’t worry,” Segantini said, smiling after looking James up and down, and taking note of his not-very-serviceable mountaineering clothes. “The picture I’m going to take you to see is in an easily accessible spot just outside the village. I call it La Morte and I visualize it as just one part of a larger project.” He set out with a strong stride, going ahead of Bonin and James and heading up toward the pass.

  James was startled when Bonin translated the title of the picture: Death. Thoughts of death and mourning had never been of particular interest to him. Fabrizio asked him if he knew Segantini’s The Dead Hero, a painting he had done when he was a young man, in which he gave the dead hero his own features.

  James nodded.

  “He kept coming back to this same subject,” Bonin said thoughtfully. “And again and again he had given the laid-out corpse his own face. Remarkable. As if the image of his own death was always very close to him. Do you also know the painting Return to the Homeland? It was shown in Venice in 1895, and I thought it impressive. A dead man is being taken back to his home in a coffin borne on a horse-drawn cart. The mountain landscape in the painting resembles this area. The painting was awarded the Prize of the Italian State.”

  James shook his head. “No. Don’t know it.”

  Segantini, who had walked on ahead, stopped and was waiting for them. “Come on. We’re going to leave the road that leads up to the pass and bear left. It isn’t much farther. But if you want to take a beautiful hike one day—then keep on going in this direction and you’ll come to Lake Cavloc. A really worthwhile excursion.”

  He turned and looked back in the direction of the village; he pointed to the small white church a little distance outside the village.

  “I painted one of my most recent works there. I called it The Comfort of Faith. A father and mother are mourning at the grave of their child whose soul is being carried off to heaven by two angels. Unfortunately, I can’t show you the painting; it’s in Munich just now at the Exhibition of the Secession. For me, the vast wintry landscape I used as the backdrop is more of a consolation than the religious imagery. In nature we are in good hands, with or without religion.”

  He walked on ahead of them again, then stopped at a large wooden box. When he opened its double doors, they saw a painting inside the box.

  James, who was afraid not only of hospitals but also of dead people, breathed a deep sigh of relief. There in the late-summer countryside where they stood, a wonderful winter landscape was revealed to their eyes.

  There was nothing dark or shocking in the painting; quite the opposite. James felt drawn into the picture as if by magic. It seemed as if he were walking on the crunching snow that covered the path toward the mountains over which the sun was just rising. A horse with a sleigh was waiting for a coffin that was being carried out of an alpine hut; mourning figures stood about, looking very small in the magnificent landscape. A cloud, warmly lit by the morning sun, floated above the highest of the mountains, like a messenger bringing redemption. James stepped closer, quite taken, almost against his will, for winter was not his favorite season.

  Asking Segantini to stand beside his picture, James photographed the scene. He squeezed his eyes almost shut, concentrating his gaze on the majestic mountain with the luminous cloud which dominated the painting. He said nothing, but as he narrowed his focus even further, he suddenly saw here too, in the mountain, the same face that appeared in The Dead Hero.

  Shocked, James tried to
drive away the monumental face of Segantini that stared back at him from the painting, but couldn’t. Was Segantini working here on an apotheosis of himself? Or did he visualize himself humbly being assimilated into an eternal, everlasting nature, into the landscape that he loved?

  He gave Segantini a sideways glance. The artist felt called upon to say something about the picture.

  “You can see that it’s winter; nature is buried under snow; the mountains in the background are lit up by the rising sun. In the alpine hut a young girl has died . . .”

  “Why a girl?” James asked.

  Segantini did not answer his question.

  “The painting is still far from finished. Will I be able to depict the eternal meaning of the spirit in these earthly things? Will I be able to capture the light that gives space to the distance, which makes the sky infinite? Will I be able to show the connection between the idea of nature and the symbols that arise from our soul?”

  Symbols, James thought, are always ambiguous. Perhaps even though Segantini elevated himself into immortality, he was still full of humility? Maybe he wanted to make himself eminent and yet cease to exist? It was as if he was certain of salvation and entrusting himself to it.

  “You will need the light of winter to complete this painting,” Bonin said. “You’ll be able to do it. But it isn’t there yet.”

  And with that, Death, which Segantini repeatedly conjured up, was once again warded off.

  “Bye, Aunt Betsy. When will you come again?” Mathilde had tears in her eyes as she embraced her aunt. “I don’t like to see you leave. But I can understand that you have to go home again.”

  “Tilda . . .” Betsy held Mathilde close. “Just look at you! You can ask Dr. Bernhard! You’re already doing much better. Up here in the mountains, you’ll get to be a strong, healthy young woman, and a very athletic one, with all the walks you take every day! And soon you’ll come back to Zurich. Adrian will come to see you here as often as he can. And your parents promised to come for a visit. You won’t be alone. And Edward is still here, too, after all.”

  She didn’t mention James. And her niece said nothing about the conversation she had had with him before Adrian’s visit. It seemed as if James had withdrawn, either because he’d come to his senses or because he didn’t love her.

  “I’d like you to come back soon. I’ll miss you, Aunt Betsy.”

  “Shh,” Betsy put her finger to her lips. “Don’t talk about it. We’ll see each other again soon.”

  Mathilde didn’t go with Betsy to the coach station. After these eventful weeks they had experienced together, she preferred a quick good-bye.

  Betsy turned to wave several times; then she disappeared around a corner. The wide brim of her hat was the last thing Mathilde saw of her.

  Once fall arrived it would get lonely up here, she feared. But Dr. Bernhard had assured Mathilde that October was often the most beautiful month of the year, and that the silent falling of the golden larch needles would conjure up a fairy tale rain of gold right before her eyes, a symphony of gold just as his friend Segantini—like no other—had painted it. She should be patient, he said, and she’d soon be strolling around in this fairy tale.

  Mathilde smiled. Everything was still green outside, and in a little while, Edward would come by to pick her up for an afternoon walk. She was going to ask him whether James was leaving too. It would be easier for her if she knew that he wasn’t here anymore.

  Entire hours had passed in which she hadn’t thought of him, sometimes half a day, and when Edward was with her she forgot him entirely, even though the two men were friends and belonged together. A few weeks ago, she could easily have chopped the head off anyone who said that there would come a time when she would no longer think of James every minute of the day. And yet, it had happened. I’m just like all the others, unfaithful, and fickle, she thought, feeling ashamed.

  “Thanks, Edward, for being so thoughtful to my niece,” Betsy said. “When you leave here, you really must stop off in Zurich. Will you promise me?”

  Edward had come to the post coach station to say good-bye to Betsy. James had sent his apologies, saying that he was on an excursion with Segantini and Bonin. Betsy’s baggage had been stowed away.

  “We’re ready to leave,” the driver called out.

  “Please promise that you’ll come by to see me?” Betsy asked again.

  Edward nodded and kissed Betsy’s hand. “Yes, I promise. Have a good trip, all the best.”

  Betsy waved once more to him. She hadn’t wanted to let on to Mathilde, but it was time for her to think of her own life and future. The summer in St. Moritz had caused quite a stir in her state of mind. She had stopped mourning, and had almost fallen in love with the same man as her young niece, and she actually would have liked it if at least Edward had made more of an effort to win her affections. He was very pleasant company; they had gotten along well, and he had always treated her in a way that made her feel respected and admired as a woman. But Edward, in spite of the lovely evening they’d shared at the Palace Hotel, had made no attempt to get closer to her. Betsy watched the landscape glide past through a kind of haze, for the horses and coach stirred up a lot of dust. Some of it must have gotten inside the carriage too, because moments later Betsy was searching for a handkerchief and dabbing at the corners of her eyes.

  She wasn’t so very young anymore. But she wasn’t old either. She had enjoyed doing things, wearing bright colors, being with men, feeling pretty, and flirting.

  Once back in Zurich, she would first work on improving the appearance of her house, her garden, and her wardrobe, and only then would she consider whether she wanted to spend the rest of her life working for charity and the introduction of a pension for widows and orphans. But, she thought, as she left the Engadine behind her, maybe she was really still a bit too young to devote herself completely to charity work.

  The air was cool. Although the first early snow had already melted, it was a harbinger of fall, like the meadow saffron whose pale pink now appeared in all the meadows. The sun was still warm, and there were some glorious days, but the weather was no longer dependable. Cool days on which the sky clouded over alternated with the summer brightness.

  Emma Schobinger had sent warm underwear and dresses up to the clinic, and Edward, who originally had planned to leave at the end of August, had some warmer clothes sent to him: woolen leggings and heavy tweeds, even a warm coat. He didn’t want to leave until he had found out how Mathilde really felt about her engagement to Adrian, and until he, Edward, had told her of his affection for her and found out whether there was any hope that she would one day reciprocate his feelings for her.

  James, who had actually planned to be gone long before this, had let himself be persuaded by Fabrizio Bonin to stay for the big Venetian Ball, a grand event the Spa Hotel Maloja held each year to mark the end of the season. Primoli and Bonin planned to leave after that.

  James was now spending most of his time in Maloja. In spite of himself, he was impressed by Segantini who was so different than he was, and he wanted to see more of the paintings the artist was working on. Whenever he could, he spent time with Bonin, and he was also spending more time with Primoli, who was not only a master photographer, but also a splendid conversationalist.

  James had taken photographs of Segantini with his recently developed and practical handheld camera, but he was also interested in the special techniques used to create the type of art photography that Primoli and Bonin spoke of with great enthusiasm.

  Insights and Confessions

  “I wanted to tell you something.” Segantini, stroking his dark beard, fixed Nika with a penetrating gaze.

  She said nothing, her eyes as unfathomable as the sea.

  “This year I’m leaving early for Soglio. In the winter, the Bregaglia Valley is a more pleasant place. Milder. Up here you’re buried under snow.”


  Nika was still silent. So he was leaving. And soon. He could also have said tomorrow. Or, this evening.

  For weeks I won’t be seeing him, she thought. Not all winter long. I won’t ever see him again. Once someone leaves, he doesn’t come back. That’s how things go. Her mother left and never came back. She, Nika, had run away from Mulegns and would never go back.

  “When will you be leaving?” she asked.

  “Soon. The end of September, I think. It looks as though winter will be early this year. In Soglio I can paint better out-of-doors.” For the first time she heard him laugh, a bitter laugh. “I have to be able to paint. You understand, don’t you? Without pictures, no money. I’ve never bowed to a theory, the opinions of the art critics, or academic arrogance. I’d rather live in the solitude of these mountains than in the salons of Milan and Paris. But my family has to eat; they need shoes and clothes, and the children need a good education. Even the stove needs to be fed so that I can gaze into its glowing red embers when I’m cold.”

  “When will you come back again?” Nika asked.

  “That depends entirely on the weather and my work. Maybe after Easter. Or maybe later. But you may have to leave if the Biancottis don’t want to feed you. The hotel is closed in the winter.”

  Nika didn’t listen to what he was saying. Why should she listen to him now that he would be going away soon?

  “Are you listening to me?” Segantini asked.

  She seemed completely indifferent, shook her head.

  He looked at her questioningly.

  “Will you miss me?”

  “No,” she said, again shaking her head.

  She wanted to run away. But he was standing directly in front of her so that she felt she couldn’t get past him. She gathered all her strength as if she were going to jump over him in one powerful leap.

  Segantini took Nika in his arms, holding the sobbing girl close.

  “The season will be coming to an end soon,” Achille Robustelli said.