Portrait of a Girl (23 page)

“Really?” he mumbled.

Nika looked at him calmly.

Robustelli said nothing for a while. Then he said, “And what would you like to do?”

“I’d like to go to Italy, not this winter, but when I have saved enough money for the trip.”

“To Italy?” Robustelli repeated.

“Yes,” Nika nodded.

“And why to Italy of all places?” Achille asked.

“Because I think my mother lives there,” she said. “I don’t know my mother, but I will look for her. And eventually I will find her.”

“
Bene
,” Robustelli said. “Do you know where you should be looking for her?”

“No,” Nika said.

“Aha.”

“I’d like to stay here for the winter, look for a job, maybe in St. Moritz at one of the hotels that stays open for the winter. I could work in a laundry again.”

“You would probably have to, in the winter,” Achille Robustelli said, smiling.

Nika smiled too. “I thought you might be able to give me a reference.”

Robustelli leaned forward and looked at her. She was no longer as thin as she had been when she first came. Benedetta had obviously taken good care of her. And whatever Segantini had done with her, it had been good for her too. It was as if an ugly duckling had turned into a swan—something within her had unfolded and was now visible. She is beautiful, he thought. He said, “All right, I’ll think about it.”

A Visit Is Announced

“And with whom are we attending the opening of the Palace Hotel?” James asked, sullenly.

Edward who, in contrast, was in a very good mood, looked up briefly from his newspaper. “Why, what do you mean? I thought we would go there together.” He went back to reading.

“Kate and her husband left quite suddenly, did you know?”

“No,” Edward replied. “How should I have known? Kate is, after all, your department.”

James refused to be deterred.

“It’s boring to go there just with you, my dear fellow. And Mathilde is in the hospital. It would have been a very special event for her.”

“Oh, you’re suddenly worrying about what might make her happy?” Edward let the paper fall to his lap.

“Don’t act so sanctimonious,” James said. “You don’t know anything. She sent me away when I tried to visit her in the hospital.”

“Well, and so?” Edward said. “You could have tried to find out why she did that.”

“She’s engaged. And Kate knew it. That surprises you, eh?”

Upon hearing this, Edward folded up the paper and got up from the flowered easy chair to open the window. He leaned far out. Then he turned back to James.

“And that’s why she sent you away?”

“No.”

“Well, whatever. I thought I’d ask Betsy whether she’d like to go with me to the opening,” Edward said. “She’s intelligent, entertaining, and attractive. And since she’s been in mourning, she might now feel like participating again in a big social event.”

“Good Heavens!” James, who’d stretched out on Edward’s bed with his arms crossed under his head, jumped up suddenly. “I don’t recognize you! You were already paying her compliments that evening at Segantini’s. You don’t have designs on her, do you?”

Edward said nothing.

“Eddie?” James said.

“It’s my affair.” Edward closed the window and leaned with his back against it so that he could face James directly. “If I remember correctly, Jamie, you made more advances to her that evening than I did.”

“You remember that?”

“In any case, this time I’m ahead of you. Maybe you spent a bit too much time with Kate.”

“Even at school you were a moralizing prig,” James said, his tone deprecating. “Why didn’t you become a preacher? Or a teacher?”

“Because I didn’t want to have anything to do with pupils like you,” James said.

On July 29, 1896, before the eyes of countless, elegantly dressed guests, the hotel owner, Caspar Badrutt, danced the opening dance with a genuine English princess. And with that, the fashionable Palace Hotel opened for business, another attraction for the mountain village of St. Moritz, which had succeeded in becoming a sought-after destination for the entire world.

The hotel was extraordinary. Famous Zurich architects had constructed it to resemble an English Tudor-style castle complete with a square corner tower, crenellations, and palatial great halls. Fires crackled in open fireplaces in the wood-paneled rooms, even though the hotel, of course, also had central heating. The elevators had been shipped by sea from New York, the furniture from Berlin. Beautiful, flickering light from innumerable brass candelabras and crystal chandeliers flooded the dining room, the great halls, the parlors, the smoking room, the library, and the billiard room. And, on this ceremonial opening evening, vintage champagne was poured into Bohemian crystal goblets as buffet tables groaned under hot and cold delicacies.

“Doesn’t it seem to you that we’re a bit like onlookers among all these maharajas, princesses, princes, and steel barons?” Betsy asked. She was wearing a very elegant amethyst-colored evening dress that she had ordered by mail from Zurich. Her necklace, although more modest than many of the diamonds on show, outdid most of those creations because it had been chosen with exquisite taste.

“Not a bit,” James replied, not bothered at all. He had the least money of the three in their group, and was skillfully making his way through the crowd carrying his Rhine salmon and a glass of champagne. “Come,” he said, “I just discovered Segantini and his wife. Let’s say hello to them.”

Betsy, who remembered her rash remarks at Segantini’s house, didn’t think this was such a good idea. On the whole, having been infected with mistrust by Kate, she was keeping her distance from James who, quite unsuspecting, was surprised at her coolness. He tried to push his way through the crush of people to Segantini. Betsy, on the other hand, took Edward’s arm and pulled him in another direction.

But before James reached Segantini, he ran into Fabrizio Bonin, who introduced his new acquaintance to Count Primoli. They were soon deeply involved in conversation. Although they had started by talking about Segantini, the subject quickly turned to a discussion of the new art of photography. Both of them knew something about it, although Primoli was much the better informed.

“Tilda,” Betsy said, “there’s nothing further we can do. Your mother is coming, and she isn’t bringing your Aunt Frieda but rather your fiancé, Adrian. I couldn’t stop her. After all, she is your mother.” Her tone of voice always became harsher than usual whenever she felt helpless.

Mathilde made a face.

“Really, Tilda! Your mother is worried about you and about your engagement. That’s easy to understand. So just prepare yourself. They’re arriving tomorrow.”

From the start, Betsy had thwarted every evasive maneuver on the part of her niece, and she was exhausted from the effort. She reached for Mathilde’s wine glass. They had been having lunch together, and a glass of the local wine was part of Mathilde’s diet, for they said it had special healing powers. “It’s not too strong, not very acidic, and even tolerated in cases of gastroenteritis,” Dr. Bernhard had said. “Red wine stimulates the heart and promotes the coughing up of sputum, and for that reason, my dear Miss Schobinger, you not only may but you should have a couple of little glasses every day.”

Now Betsy hoped for a supportive effect from the highly praised wine and that it would stave off any despair on Mathilde’s part. For the time had come for Betsy to confess to her niece that she had withheld the telegram Adrian had sent her. It had arrived right after Mathilde had been diagnosed, and Betsy had wanted to protect Mathilde, since she was still shocked by her diagnosis and also still in a state of agitation about James.

“But Edward is coming to see me tomorrow!” Mathilde said, her voice almost despairing.

Betsy looked at her nonplussed. “And? If James were coming, I could understand your excitement, but Edwar
d . . .
Oh well, so you’ll have two visitors tomorrow. I can send a message to Edward asking that he come to see you in the morning. Your mother and Adrian won’t arrive till evening. By the way, how are things with James?”

Mathilde made an indefinable sound, something between anger, disappointment, and sadness. “I won’t be seeing him anymore.”

“Oh. Maybe that will make it easier for me to tell you,” Betsy said. “There was a telegram from Adrian that I kept from you. It arrived shortly after you were admitted to the clinic.”

“What?” Mathilde cried indignantly. “You simply didn’t give it to me? I’m not a little girl anymore!”

“No, but you were all mixed up because of the diagnosis and also because of James. Remember, you told me you loved him?”

Mathilde smoothed the tablecloth to the right and to the left of her plate and fanned her face with her napkin for air.

“But since Adrian is coming tomorrow, you should know what he wrote you, and how he feels about you.” Betsy paused and sat down, “Even though you may not yet know how you feel about him.”

Betsy’s gentian-blue eyes looked questioningly into Mathilde’s forget-me-not-blue ones. If she was to believe what Kate had told her, then Mathilde had kept something much more important from her aunt than the aunt had kept from her niece.

Mathilde lowered her eyes and reached for the telegram without further explanations.

DEAR MATHILDE, YOUR ILLNESS SHOULD NOT AND WILL NOT BE A REASON FOR DISSOLVING OUR RELATIONSHIP STOP EVEN IF MY PARENTS THINK SO STOP I LOVE YOU AND AM AT YOUR SIDE STOP ADRIAN
.

Mathilde bit her lip. Thanks to all the fresh air, and the plentiful food and wine, her cheeks were usually a rosy pink, but now angry red spots spread over her neck and face.

“That’s why I didn’t give you the telegram right away.”

Mathilde only nodded.

When Betsy could no longer bear the silence, she said cautiously, “His parents own a bank. He is their only son and heir. They want to be certai
n . . .
”

“. . .
that I won’t die,” Mathilde said. “I might of course die.”

She was silent again.

“But look, Tilda, Adrian will stand by you. And that’s what he wanted to tell you in the telegram. It wasn’t very clever of him to let you know right off what his parents were thinking, but he wanted, above all, to tell you that he loves you and will stand by you. That you are more important to him than his parents and the bank.” Betsy took a deep breath. It would be good, she thought, if Mathilde turned to Adrian again after all that had, presumably, happened. At least that would be the easiest way out. “You can count on him,” she therefore said encouragingly. “And that is really something wonderful. Look at him with fresh eyes after this business with James. Take the time to think it through. Maybe you’ll see then that he is the right man for you.”

Mathilde looked at her aunt thoughtfully.

“I think I have to lie down,” she said. “I’m not feeling well.”

Betsy took her upstairs to her room.

“Aunt Betsy?”

Betsy, already at the door, turned around to look at her niece.

“I’d like to see James,” Mathilde said.

Edward and James had each received a letter from Betsy. Holding the envelopes in wonderment, they waited for the messenger who had brought them their missives to leave.

“And what did she write you?” Edward was the first to ask. He had been disappointed to find she was merely asking him to visit Mathilde in the morning tomorrow because she was expecting company from Zurich in the evening.

James looked up from the note he had received. “I don’t quite understand what Betsy is saying here,” he said and frowned. “On the one hand, she says Mathilde would like to see me, but then Betsy has also asked me to meet with her separately. Odd. It all seems quite rushed, and I really don’t know whether she wants me to visit her first or first go to the hospital.” He looked puzzled.

“In any event, she’s expecting company from Zurich tomorrow,” Edward said.

“Who? Betsy or Mathilde?”

“Mathilde, of course.”

“Why
of course
?”

“Because, Jamie, this is all about Mathilde. After all she’s the one who is ill and needs to be visited,” Edward said, slowly losing patience.

“And does it say in your note who is coming to visit?” James asked with a note of irritability in his voice, for he realized that it could all get very complicated.

“No, it says nothing about that here. Her parents, I assume.”

“It might also be her fiancé. What do you think?”

Edward paced back and forth. It was what he did whenever he felt something he didn’t want to express. “Yes. Naturally. She’s engaged, you said.” He kept pacing back and forth.