Portrait of a Girl (38 page)

Nika also took a walk. She went down to the lake, to the place Gian had first taken her and where Segantini had first seen her. But the lake was not a mirror today; the surface was choppy; you could still see down to the bottom, but you couldn’t see the reflection of your own face.

Segantini wasn’t coming to the friends’ get-together. His staying away had nothing to do with her; he couldn’t have known that Nika would be there too. Nika sat down on the bench she had sat on when he sent her away. He had been quite cruel in pushing her to follow her own path. She had gone her own way, just as he had, but she had done it in her own fashion.

Suddenly she felt as if Segantini were standing at the shore of the lake. There were rings in the water, just like the time he’d picked up a flat pebble and thrown it so skillfully that it hopped across the water with several jumps.

“You were right,” she whispered, hardly caring that she was speaking to nothing more than the wind. “Although I didn’t forgive you for a long time. The locket led me to my family, but they didn’t want me. The hope of finding my family was what had helped me survive for so many years! What happens when you realize that your hope will never be fulfilled?”

She thought she heard Segantini laugh, “That’s life.”

Nika was lost in thought.

“I have to go,” she seemed to hear him say.

“Wait!” she cried. “Only a minute more!” But it was as if Segantini was no longer listening.

The ghostly image she had seen so clearly faded. “Stick to art, Nika.” His words floated across to her. “It consoles the one who creates it as well as those who look at it.”

Nika sobbed.

“Signor Segantini, I wanted so much to tell you that I’m happy. You climbed up into the light. But I long for the darkroom where my pictures are created, pictures that capture the face of the world in my way.”

She got up and walked slowly back to the hotel. “I look for the darkness in the light, and in the darkness, I look for the light,” she said. She hoped he could hear her.

Even as Nika thought she saw him once more clearly before her, Giovanni Segantini lay dying in an alpine hut up on the Schafberg above Pontresina.

Before he’d left for the Schafberg on September 18, he’d had a strange dream. With his senses alert, he had dreamed that he had died and that he was being carried out of his house on a bier just as he had painted it in his picture
La Morte
.

His son Mario and Baba had accompanied him to the Schafberg. The painting,
La Natura
, on which he wanted to work, was brought up in a wooden crate. The day after his arrival, Segantini immediately set to work on it at a spot not far from the hut in which they were staying.

On Thursday of that week, he complained of severe abdominal pains. By Friday, he felt no better. But he did not want Baba to send for the doctor. On Saturday, his condition was so much worse, however, that Mario rushed down to Pontresina to tell Dr. Bernhard. The doctor set off immediately, but a snowstorm made the climb in the dark even more difficult.

Dr. Bernhard reached the hut after midnight, around one o’clock. He saw at once that the situation was hopeless. An operation up there was out of the question, and transporting the patient down to the valley was impossible. They had to give up.

Segantini died of peritonitis on September 28, 1899, in the presence of his family.

He was only forty-one years old.

“What is that light spot there on the wall?” Nika asked when she came to pick up Achille Robustelli from his office.

“I’ll tell you at supper,” Achille said.

“I could send you a beautiful photograph to hang there to cover the spot.”

“What kind of photograph?”

“Well, any photograph you would like. Perhaps a picture of Venice so that you won’t forget your old Italian homeland. I’m a professional photographer.” She laughed. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll tell you at supper how that came to be.”

Afterword

The events and characters in this novel have been freely invented. However, several of the characters are based on actual people: the painter, Giovanni Segantini, and his family; Baba; Dr. Bernhard; Count Primoli; and the hotelier family Badrutt. These individuals really existed. But in the novel, their actions, their words, thoughts, and fantasies are my invention. Nevertheless, I have tried to adapt the fictional actions of these personalities to the historical facts.

The character Nika and her story are completely fictitious, as well as the idea that she was the inspiration for Segantini’s painting,
La Vanità
. There were many
Verdingkinder
, contract children, in Switzerland during the period in which the novel is set—and long thereafter. I chose the village Mulegns because the post coach made its noonday stop there. I don’t know whether there actually were any
Verdingkinder
in Mulegns or how they were treated.

Occasionally, for dramatic purposes, I have compressed time and made place changes. The representation of historical events, therefore, might sometimes differ slightly from the facts, to conform to the novel’s inner logic. However, it would make me happy if my book were to help keep alive the memory of the historical figures who appear in it.

In my work, I have drawn upon many sources, not just the paintings of Giovanni Segantini and their documentation, his writings, letters, and (unfinished) autobiography. Some of the other sources that were especially important for me are listed below.

Karl Abraham,
Giovanni Segantini: Ein psychoanalytischer Versuch
(Leipzig and Vienna, 1911); Peter Böckli,
Bis zum Tod der Gräfin: Das Drama um den Hotelpalast des Grafen de Renesse in Maloja
(Zurich, 2000); and Claudia Hagmayer’s dissertation,
Bis dass der Tod euch scheided: Witwen in der Schweiz um 1900
(Zurich, 1994). Of particular importance for me was the article by Tina Grütter, “Selbstbildnis eines radikalen Pantheisten: Das Gemälde
La morte
von Giovanni Segantini,” which appeared in the
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
of May 8/9, 2004. Tina Grütter’s interpretation and discovery that Segantini’s self-portrait in
L’Eroe Morto
also appears in
La Morte
decisively altered my perception of that painting—and so I would like to express my gratitude to Tina Grütter for this far-reaching observation.

In conclusion, many friends contributed to the successful completion of my book by their critical and repeated readings of the manuscript: Lia Franken, Katrin Eckert, Ursula Hasler, Katrin Wiederkehr, Vera Wäckerlig, and Peter Lohmann, to name only a few.

I have only praise for the commitment, the care, and the patience of my publisher and my editor, Hannelore Harmann. To them, too, I extend my warmest gratitude.

About the Author

Photo © 2012 Matthias Mettner

German author Dörthe Binkert’s acclaimed first novel,
She Wore Only White
, merged history and fiction in the resplendent tale of a young woman fleeing her past on a transatlantic voyage to America. Binkert, who has published nonfiction as well as fiction, has a PhD in literature, and spent decades working as an editor and editor in chief for several major German publishing houses. Now a freelance writer, she lives in Zurich, Switzerland.

About the Translator

Margot Bettauer Dembo is a German-to-English translator. She has translated the work of Judith Hermann, Zsuzsa Bank, and Joachim Fest, among others. She was awarded the Goethe-Institut/Berlin Translator’s Prize in 1994 and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator’s Prize in 2003. Dembo also worked as a translator for two feature documentary films,
The Restless Conscience
, nominated for an Academy Award, and
The Burning Wall
.