Portrait of a Girl (22 page)

Segantini was satisfied with the interview. The older he got, the more he liked to talk about his work and discuss theoretical and artistic questions. He was in a cheerful mood after the interview, and when he met Achille Robustelli, he returned the latter’s greeting. “Thanks, Robustelli, for arranging this interview, and even finding an interpreter. I had a pleasant conversation with Mr. Danby.”

“I’m glad,” Robustelli said. “May I accompany you a few steps? I wanted to talk to you about another matter, just briefly.”

“Of course. Go ahead.”

“It’s a rather delicate matter. I hope you won’t take offence. Gaetano, the gardener, has complained to me that Nika is being distracted too much from her work.” Achille took a deep breath. “You come by to see her frequently, and evidently you also took her with you, in the middle of her workday, to St. Moritz.”

Segantini was about to fly off the handle, but Robustelli placed a hand on his arm to calm him.

“Wait a moment. I don’t wish to criticize you. I just wanted to tell you that the girl is going to have difficulties because of this. Actually, I should let her go. She can’t simply leave work, even if you,” he cleared his throat, “even if you have asked her to. If it gets around, it will stir up bad blood. And the negative effects will hurt Nika, not you.”

“Nobody can reproach me with anything,” Segantini said angrily.

“But it must matter to you if I can’t employ Nika anymore. She will hardly be able to stay in Maloja then. The Biancottis won’t just keep on feeding her.”

Segantini gestured emphatically with his hand and gave Robustelli a cool look.

“You seem extremely worried about the girl.”

Achille said nothing. He found this only normal and wished that Segantini would also take the girl’s welfare into consideration.

“I hear what you’re saying, Robustelli.”

With these words, Segantini turned, waved good-bye, and quickly walked away.

Achille watched him thoughtfully. For the first time since he had known him, he didn’t like the man.

He went back to his office, closed the door, and sat down at his desk. He took the silver cigarette case out of the drawer. He didn’t look at his reflection in the gleaming surface but absentmindedly lit a cigarette. He really didn’t know anything about Nika even though he saw her every day.

Kate had cited her husband’s urgent business affairs as the reason for their sudden departure. It was supposed to look as if Robert were about to complete an important transaction which she, as a loving wife, was also anxiously anticipating. So supportive was she that she was willing to break off her vacation prematurely and miss out on the festive opening ceremonies for the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz to be at her husband’s side at this important moment.

With her head held high, she rushed down the stairs, bestowing a warm smile on Betsy when she ran into her at the reception desk.

“Betsy, how nice that I get to see you before I leave!” she said. “How lucky you are! Enjoy the opening celebration at the Palace. It’s sure to be an unforgettable event.” She took Betsy’s hand. “I envy you!” She paused briefly so that her regret could be felt, then continued with a happy look on her face. “Just think, my dear Betsy, with your niece in the hospital and me already on the train, you’ll be brilliant, the center of attention!”

Betsy, who never ceased to be amazed at Kate’s lightning-fast insults, didn’t say anything to answer this remark, merely wished Mrs. Simpson a good trip. Kate nodded. “Yes, it’ll be good for dear Robert that I go with him. There’s nothing that beats a good marriage, but you know that, after all, you were married once too.”

Betsy abruptly let go of Kate’s hand, which was still holding on to hers. It was a blessing that this woman, for whatever reason, was vanishing from the stage. But something else had occurred to Kate.

“Oh, just one more thing, Betsy. I think I ought to tell you, otherwise I’ll reproach myself later.”

Betsy raised her eyebrows.

“Well, what is it you think I absolutely have to know?”

“Oh, it’s about your niece. Our dear James—I think you like him too—has not exactly behaved comme il faut toward your young Mathilde, so he confessed to me. I assume Mathilde did not tell you about it, and it’s certainly understandable that James won’t tell you about it. But I thought you really should know that he more than compromised your niece. You did tell me she was engaged. But now I really must go. Good Lord, Robert has been waiting an eternity in the carriage for m
e . . .
”

With that, she hurried off, before Betsy could say anything.

Nika was having dreams about post coaches. In one dream, the post coach was racing through Mulegns, the wildly galloping horses running away with it. The woman at the post coach stop was watching the lurching coach in horror. Nika, as a grown-up, was standing beside her and pointing at a woman’s white arm waving out of the coach window.

In a different dream, she saw Segantini sitting in another coach. He stuck his head out of the window. All she could see were his dark curls, as she had on the day she saw him for the first time. As the coach moved along, he threw the drawings she had given him out of the window. Saddened, she gathered up the scattered sheets of paper.

Another time, it was she who got into a coach. “To Italy,” she called out to the driver, but he only shook his head. “I don’t have a license for Italy,” he said. “You’ll have to walk. No one will drive you there.”

Nika was not only plagued at nighttime by bad dreams. In the daytime, too, she felt unhappy. She couldn’t stop feeling furious with her mother, who had only managed to do things halfway. If only she had simply abandoned Nika without leaving any clues. Then she wouldn’t have to worry now about whether her mother perhaps still loved her in some corner of her heart and was calling to her with the message in the locket.

In spite of that, Nika had searched for the locket she had angrily taken off a while back. It was a miracle that she found it again in the hay. Now that she no longer wore it, she hid it under her straw pallet.

Segantini was coming less frequently. Either he was using the days to paint or he had become more cautious. She had sworn to herself not to practice writing anymore and not to draw because it reminded her of Segantini. In spite of that, she did both. She wrote and sketched. Once, when she was daydreaming, she wrote, “I love Segantini.”

Gian had made a complete recovery from his illness, and Benedetta gave thanks to the Virgin Mary, something she hadn’t done in a long time. She wasn’t happy about letting her oldest son leave home again, but Aldo insisted. Gian, he said, would become a laughingstock if he clung to his mother’s apron strings, and Benedetta wouldn’t like it either.

Still, she was afraid her dreamy son might get lost in solitude up in the mountains and plunge to his death simply because he didn’t pay attention. Now, after his illness, he was even less alert and engaged than before. When no one was looking, she would stroke his tousled hair, and he would smile at her in his distracted, lost-in-a-daydream sort of way. He was such a good-looking boy, with his brown eyes and his gentle, boyishly mischievous face. But with a sigh, Benedetta had to admit to herself that he lacked all aggressiveness, something you needed in life.

He didn’t object when his father sent him back up to Grevasalvas. Benedetta went with him, loaded down with all sorts of good things she had canned, cooked, cured, and smoked for him. Nika wanted to go with him, but Benedetta didn’t want her to, perhaps because she had a maternal inkling that her son was secretly suffering because of this girl.

Gian loved the view of the mighty Piz Lagrev, whose sides were scarred by rockslides and avalanches. He loved the waterfall that roared between the huts and stables of Blaunca, and the smell of its mist and spray. And he loved the four little brown cows that had been entrusted to his care. Yet he felt lonely, a feeling that he had not ever had before. Now there was Nika, and because of her, he knew what loneliness was. When he was near her, he felt different than when he was alone. What he felt when he was next to her was different from anything he had ever felt. Suddenly there were several feelings within him that he could compare, and the contrast was marked enough to make him realize that there were the moments when he was lonely—and other moments when he wasn’t. Gian had learned what love is. Yet that gift had made him sad. For Nika had told him she could not return his love.

“I don’t want you to kiss my lips,” she had told him gently and turned her face away from him as they were saying good-bye. “Lovers kiss each other on the lips. I like you very much. But that is something different.”

“Why aren’t we lovers?” Gian had asked in disappointment.

“Because I love another man,” Nika said.

“So what Andrina’s been saying is true.”

Nika shook her head.

“No. It isn’t. I love Segantini. But he doesn’t love me.”

Achille Robustelli had noticed that Segantini was coming to the hotel less frequently. He was relieved. Yet in spite of that, he wasn’t particularly happy about it, because he could see that Nika had started to look like a weeping willow. One day he asked her to come to his office, even though he had no idea why he wanted to see her.

“Sit down,” he said, and once she was seated, he went on, “Signor Segantini told me that you’ve started to speak. At any rate with him. I don’t know whether you’d like to talk with me too. I would be happy about that. I have been wondering what you are going to do once the season here is over. I’m sure you know that we close for the winter.”

Nika looked at him with her blue-green eyes like the sea. Was that a flash of gratitude? he wondered.

She said nothing, seemed to be debating whether she should say something or not. Then she smiled, and he felt as if an entirely different woman were sitting before him.

“You’re very kind,” she said. “I’ve also been wondering what will happen in the winte
r . . .
” Suddenly she even laughed. “And I thought I would ask you for help.”

Achille Robustelli, a bit confused by so much unexpected trust, touched his prematurely gray temples and leaned back in his chair.