The Italian Teacher

by Tom Rachman

  “I need to be in my cottage.” At least once more. Dad’s paintings just lying there. I can’t leave it like this.

  “You want to go talk with Basque people?”

  “Don’t know if I’d talk to them. But I could find them at the market and listen.”

  “What’s the point learning, Chars, if you never talk?”

  “The point? More words!” His medication-dulled eyes glint. “More!”

  His trip keeps getting delayed. The oncologist says: “Treatment first, then travel. Maybe next summer. That’s the plan—next summer we get you to that cottage. Sound fair?”

  81

  When Pinch is readmitted to the hospital, Jing asks for a list of people he’d like to speak with by phone. He has so few to suggest. He’s been in regular touch with Marsden and Birdie since they heard of his condition. But he wouldn’t mind hearing from Julie again. After decades of life, that’s it: Marsden, Birdie, maybe Julie. He leaves out Barrows—he’s ashamed for her to know, as if dying early were a form of failure.

  “Not too bad here! Could be worse!” Pinch tells Julie when she phones. He asks after her niece Liz and nephew James, recalling the memorable tour they all took around the National Gallery. “Fun, that was.”

  “Gosh, I’d entirely forgot that. Well, Elizabeth lives in London now, works in marketing, though she’s on maternity leave now. James does something in tech—do not ask me what! He’s got four little ones, believe it or not.”

  Pinch longs to say: Do those two remember me? I was fond of them.

  “I was really just calling to thank you, Charlie.”

  “To thank me? I didn’t do anything,” he says, exerting himself to hide the lisp. “You’re back living in your hometown, back with your first husband—seems I had no effect at all!”

  “I owe an awful lot to you. I had no confidence before, which you gave me.”

  “All I did was encourage you, which somebody should’ve done long before.”

  “I’m up to all sorts of things with my life because of you. Ever so grateful, Charlie.”

  After hanging up, he holds on to the phone, other hand flat on his chest over pictures of Harold and Tony. After those two died, he was distraught—couldn’t speak their names for a couple of years. Nowadays he studies their photos at length. They make him laugh.

  So fast gone, isn’t it. Was I anything? What anguishes him most is not that he didn’t succeed, but that he didn’t experience more: other lovers, intrepid trips, peculiar foods, a daughter and a son, both grown, returning to see him. “How nice you could come! Sorry I’m not at my best. Take a seat—there’s space on the edge of the mattress. Tell me, what have you been up to of late?” When young, Pinch considered human connections the refuge of those who couldn’t make art. Or is art just the refuge of those who cannot connect?

  Work colleagues drop by, including Francesca, who brings a stack of grammar books, knowing they will divert him: the brand-new Italian, German, French, Portuguese texts, all pilfered from the school. “Courtesy of Uncle Utz,” she says.

  He reaches for his notepad, writing, “Molto gentile. Grazie.”

  Nearly without exception, the colleagues who visit are women. The male teachers can never make it, which hurts him, although he never lets on—he always replies cheerfully to their text messages.

  One man who does appear is Marsden, turning up alongside a diminutive companion with tweezed eyebrows and carefully trimmed beard, as groomed as a French formal garden. Privately, Pinch thinks of Rob as Marsden’s sidekick but doesn’t use that term, knowing it sounds dismissive. As it happens, he immediately warmed to Rob, who has sensitive gray eyes and, despite his size, is always in everyone’s way, apologizing excessively (“So sorry!”), only for another person to tap him on the shoulder, setting him off again, like a well-dressed pinball.

  Marsden and Rob flew in for the week to help Pinch with his return from the hospital. They make an excellent team, supplying all Pinch’s favorite treats—not least, plentiful Maltesers. Rob compiles a list of vegetables that are supposedly cancer-fighting, and discreetly adds them to Pinch’s diet. They place flowers around the bedroom and bring out his favorite art books. Each day, they interrogate Pinch on any desired comforts and, no matter how obscure, track them down, always in the most lavish version. When he can’t eat, they consume his favorite meals in front of him, which is heavenly for Pinch.

  “I just realized something incredible, Marsden!” Pinch kids. “You were the love of my life! Did you realize?”

  “You even sent me bouquets in secret.”

  “Me? I never!”

  Everyone laughs—in medicated delirium, Pinch can be extravagant. But he is at ease around them and speaks as himself. Among the worst aspects of illness (with ample competition) is the incessant talk of illness. Instead they discuss music and films and old days in Toronto. When their departure approaches, Marsden and Rob announce their intention to stay on—they are clearly needed here. But Pinch declines. Jing is worse at caring for him, but she’s in tatters over his current state and suffers when she finds nothing to do.

  Tensely Marsden packs, repeating aloud everything they must do before the taxi arrives. Rob bids farewell and waits downstairs. Marsden and Pinch are left alone.

  “You have to let go of my hand at some point.”

  “You mean it doesn’t come off?”

  “It’s become quite attached to me.”

  “I feel the same way.”

  82

  When Pinch asks Birdie if she had a comfy flight, she can’t remember. It’s too shocking to see her brother like this. Throughout her four-day visit, she avoids him, finding things to go out for, rushing to the kitchen at any opportunity to wash dishes or clean the fridge shelves—anything. On her final afternoon, he forces a conversation. He wants to settle a few things, needs to apologize for not having stood up for her when she visited Rome, for trying to be Dad’s favorite. But when he approaches any subject, she keeps interrupting, not allowing this to be the last conversation—it’s not the last anything!

  “I’m not sure when I’ll die, Bird, but I’m certain it’ll be this that kills me.”

  She changes the subject, talking of when she picked up her new little brother at the international school in Rome, eating ice creams in those gorgeous piazzas, little Charlie translating her flirts with Italian boys.

  “What funny times!” he says.

  “I love how you maintain such high spirits, Charlie.”

  “Because this conversation is for you, Bird. I won’t be here to remember it. And I need to get this in your memory in the right way.”

  “Oh cut that out! You ain’t going nowhere!” She hurries on to a discussion of the Faces show in New York. “How great that was,” she marvels. “Our dad.”

  83

  When Barrows hears about Pinch’s sickness from Marsden, she emails immediately. “I’m doing a talk at the LSE in a few weeks. Could I see you?”

  He hesitates. I’m so hideous now. Who cares? I do. As her visit nears, Pinch reads the alarm in people’s eyes. Oh, stop fretting about how everybody sees you! He recalls his excitement of younger years when meeting with Barrows. I’ve missed her. Missed a lifetime in her company.

  They must have a long talk when she comes. But he sounds moronic. Well, she can talk; that’ll suffice. Suddenly he needs Barrows to know—she, whose opinion matters more to him than anyone’s—he needs her to know that she adores an artist, and it’s me.

  Barrows sends increasingly detailed messages: I’m about to leave New York, just arrived in London, checking into the hotel, will be at your place around midday before the conference opens, so looking forward. By email he explains how to find Jing’s house, sending instructions three times. “We can have lunch and talk. I might have to just listen sometimes!”

  Jing goes to her office to leave Pinch and
his friend in private. An hour before Barrows arrives, he props himself up in bed, bravely refraining from painkillers to keep his mind clear. As arranged, the front door is left unlocked so she can let herself in.

  When I tell her about the paintings, she’ll see that I achieved something with my life. Even now, he thinks, shaking his head, even now, I need to impress Barrows!

  “Hellooooo?”

  “Here! Up here!” he calls out, cringing at his slobbery voice.

  Clomp, clomp up the stairs.

  “Hey, it’s you,” he says, chest tightening. Yes, yes, that is Barrows. Hair still long, entirely gray now. She doesn’t dye, and good for her—natural, dignified. “Forgive the sight of me,” he tells her. “I look like a ghoul. It’s the chemo. Does it to everyone when you’re on this dose.” (Untrue; they stopped his chemo weeks ago.) “I should keep the lights low so nobody has to see!”

  “You look fine, Charles.”

  “Fine is one thing that I do not look. But thank you.”

  She pulls up a chair.

  He asks her to speak of her conference, which relieves him of talking for a while and allows him to muster saliva. He scarcely hears, so preoccupied is he with this imminent confession. He’ll go over everything, explain what he did, how and why.

  Speaking of her own work, she is distant, pleased with herself. Was she always like this? Barrows keeps diverting back to the subject of Bear. “I was thinking of our crazy trip to France,” she says. “At the time, did you realize why I was going there? I think you did, right? My big notion of writing something about him.”

  “About my father? No, I wasn’t aware.”

  “Didn’t you sort of bring me for that reason?” she responds, an arch smile. “To show off your famous father?”

  “Did I? Maybe.”

  “Anyway, I never got enough material. Because of that argument.”

  “What was our argument even about?” he wonders, aiming to shift to warmer matters.

  “About you being obnoxious, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “Oh,” he responds, taken aback. “Yes, it probably was. Anyway, I’m sorry to hear that. Actually,” he adds, interrupting her, “I’m very sorry to do this, Barrows, but could you possibly go?”

  “Are you not feeling well?”

  “Very much not. But that’s the norm. I don’t mean to be rude. And I know I am. But it’s a matter of urgency—I’d quite like to be alone. And my time is limited these days. Sorry; I shouldn’t be doing this.”

  She rises, gathers her belongings. “I traveled quite a ways to get here.”

  “No, you’re right. I apologize.” He looks directly at her.

  She leans down. A kiss on his cheek.

  “I wish you such good luck, Barrows.”

  That night, Jing asks how it went with his friend.

  “Quite well.” And he means it. Pinch isn’t downcast about the meeting. He is relieved. Because Barrows was not the person he imagined. Anyway, not that person to him. Not anymore.

  84

  Jing enters his bedroom. Pinch reaches out, eyes shut, seeking her hand. He urges her to sit on his bed and describe his dogs.

  As her words reverberate, he drifts into fevered sleep. Phones are ringing, the house bustling with policemen—he wakes, inhaling turpentine, smelling Bear’s clothing. He sniffs again, the dust of Natalie’s clay, dirty doorknobs, her gray fingertips. How amazing my mother and father were! All those years, all their bullying doubts, all in the paltry hope that strangers might someday stand before their work and look, probably no longer than a few seconds. That’s all they were fighting for. What driven lives!

  And his own life? Viewed at any point along the way, it seemed to Pinch to have so little direction. But from the present vantage, what happened feels inevitable—not because events were beyond his control but because they were within it. He couldn’t have been other than he was. That doesn’t hurt anymore. Just another ant, marching up and down.

  Or is this the painkiller talking? He smiles in the dark, unsure if the thin light framing his curtain means almost morning or nearly night.

  He recalls a conversation with Natalie when, in sullen adolescence, he read her a line of German philosophy that claimed evil outweighs good by a comparison of “the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.” Natalie recoiled. That, she retorted, overlooks so much: sensory experience, change, ideas, and a few allies (how few!), all of which combine into more than the waiting darkness. Don’t you think, Pinchy?

  “I brought you a leaf,” Jing says, placing it on the bedspread.

  He opens his eyes, takes it by the stem. “Lepidopterist,” he says.

  “What language is that?”

  “Just a language in my head.”

  Noticing Pinch’s eyes flutter closed, she tiptoes away.

  “I have a question,” he says, or believes that he says. “Why is that leaf so beautiful? Why does one thing contain beauty and another doesn’t? The park, it overwhelms me.” (He says “park” but means “back garden.”) “Almost makes me cry to look out that window. But those concrete flats over the fence actually make me furious. Not that nature is better than artifice. Because art is artifice. Sorry, what was the question?”

  “The question is: Why should a leaf be beautiful?”

  “Because it has healthful associations? Or because, within our primal selves, we associate color with plenty? Might that be it?”

  “But why find beauty in a painting? And how can an abstract be so affecting?”

  “Or a piece of pottery, for that matter,” he adds.

  Silence interrupts him; it holds.

  He yearns for beauty. More. The art books around him—he doesn’t care to view them. Lately he finds the sublime in unpretty faces. He could watch them for years. Natalie was right: Life is thrilling.

  Must get to the cottage. Must.

  Charles Bavinsky outlives his father by little more than a decade.

  Portrait of an Artist

  HAND-BUILT ABSTRACT CERAMIC,

  SPLASHED BLUE AND RED GLAZES,

  INCISED LINES

  16 X 9 X 6 INCHES

  Courtesy of Xiao Jingfei

  2011

  85

  Upon learning of Pinch’s death, his siblings contact the Petros Gallery. They know their brother’s plan was to bequeath the Faces to museums. Can that be canceled? Everything depends on Pinch’s estate. His sole beneficiary is someone named Xiao Jingfei. Wait—what? This must be a mistake. It turns out to be the woman in whose house Pinch lodged during his final years. Was this some sleazy affair? Did she manipulate their half brother when he was sick? In any case, this is an outrage—a stranger controls their legacy.

  Complicating matters, tax officials are meddling, with the French, the Americans, and the British all making claims to the inheritance. And one big question hovers over everything: Are there more paintings?

  A lawyer counsels Jing to immediately conduct an inventory at the cottage where the deceased apparently stored his father’s art. If she finds nothing, fine. But if she gets lucky? “You realize how much a Bavinsky goes for these days?”

  Jing refrains from answering—or admitting that she has no idea where Pinch’s cottage is. She does own a set of scratched old keys, however, and considers asking Birdie for the address. But perhaps that sister is allied with hostile family members. Instead, Jing approaches another of Pinch’s final visitors, Marsden, who mentioned living at the cottage for a spell.

  “You can come and show me?” she asks by phone. “I pay for your flight. Okay?”

  They meet at an airport outside Barcelona and drive north into French Catalonia. Marsden’s transatlantic haze is intensified by the strangeness of returning here. He attempts to converse with her, but most exchanges falter. “Interesting,” he says, “ho
w Charles studied grammar right till the end.”

  “Chars liked preparing.”

  “But what for, at that point?”

  “It’s good to study.”

  They drive up the mountain in silence, united by someone who doesn’t exist.

  “Scary to think what we might find,” he remarks, looking at her.

  Gripping the wheel, she slows into another hairpin turn.

  86

  He guides Jing around her own property, pointing to the art studio and the woods behind. In the cottage kitchen, dead flies dot the tile floor. The shelves are stacked with domestic pottery, stamped on the underside with the hallmark “C.D.” Upstairs, the bed is made, linen humid, whiffs of potpourri. Entering each room, they flick on the lights with anticipation, as if someone might lie there, sit up, staring at them.

  On the bookcases are battered thrillers, guides to the Roussillon in English, and a notepad so old that when Jing takes it from the shelf, pages flutter to the floor. It once belonged to Cecil Ditchley and contains glaze formulas in elegant cursive of the kind that nobody can produce anymore. They also find a copy of the Bavinsky memorial booklet, along with Pinch’s bound thesis on Caravaggio, with Bear’s notes jotted in the margins, even though he always claimed never to have read more than a few words. Marsden rests the Caravaggio thesis on his palm—he has never read this. He recalls staggering up the stairs of that shared home in Toronto, Pinch frowning at his desk at this housemate with a bottle of booze in hand. That isn’t a happy memory, for they were growing apart. The indolent and the industrious cannot stay friends. But such distinctions are trivial now. Their affinity on the steps of the Sidney Smith lecture hall proved truer than any rupture.

  Marsden flips open the thesis, stopping at the dedication: “To the two great artists of my time, Natalie and Bear.” Marsden smiles. He slides the copy into his bag, calling out: “No paintings over here. But don’t abandon hope. We still have the studio to check.”