The Complete Stories (51 page)
Read The Complete Stories Online
Authors: Bernard Malamud
She rose from the bench and they went together toward Via S. Agostino.
Fabio, the landlord, took one look and called her puttana.
“That’ll do from you,” said F, sternly.
“Pay your rent instead of pissing away the money.”
Her name, she told him as they were undressing in his studio, was Esmeralda.
His was Arturo.
The girl’s hair, when she tossed off her baggy hat, was brown and full. She had black eyes like plum pits, a small mouth on the sad side, Modigliani neck, strong though not exactly white teeth, and a pimply brow. She wore long imitation-pearl earrings and kept them on. Esmeralda unzipped her clothes and they were at once in bed. It wasn’t bad though she apologized for her performance.
As they lay smoking in bed—he had given her one of his six cigarettes—Esmeralda said, “The one I was looking for isn’t my cousin, he’s my pimp, or at least he was. If he’s there waiting for me I hope it’s a blizzard and he freezes to death.”
They had an espresso together. She said she liked the studio and offered to stay.
He was momentarily panicked. “I wouldn’t want it to interfere with my painting. I mean I’m devoted to that. Besides, this is a small place.”
“I’m a small girl, I’ll take care of your needs and won’t interfere with your work.”
He finally agreed.
Though he had qualms concerning her health, he let her stay, yet felt reasonably contented.
“Il Signor Ludovico Belvedere,” the landlord called up from the ground floor, “a gentleman on his way up the stairs to see you. If he buys one of your pictures, you won’t have any excuse for not paying last month’s rent, not to mention June or July.”
If it was really a gentleman, F went in to wash his hands as the stranger slowly, stopping to breathe, wound his way up the stairs. The
painter had hastily removed the canvas from the easel, hiding it in the kitchen alcove. He soaped his hands thickly, the smoke from the butt in his mouth drifting into a closed eye. F quickly dried himself with a dirty towel. It was, instead of a gentleman, Esmeralda’s seedy cugino, the pimp, a thin man past fifty, tall, with pouched small eyes and a pencil-line mustache. His hands and feet were small, he wore loose squeaky shoes with gray spats. His clothes though neatly pressed had seen better days. He carried a malacca cane and sported a pearl-gray hat. There was about him, though he seemed to mask it, a quality of having experienced everything, if not more, that gave F the momentary shivers.
painter had hastily removed the canvas from the easel, hiding it in the kitchen alcove. He soaped his hands thickly, the smoke from the butt in his mouth drifting into a closed eye. F quickly dried himself with a dirty towel. It was, instead of a gentleman, Esmeralda’s seedy cugino, the pimp, a thin man past fifty, tall, with pouched small eyes and a pencil-line mustache. His hands and feet were small, he wore loose squeaky shoes with gray spats. His clothes though neatly pressed had seen better days. He carried a malacca cane and sported a pearl-gray hat. There was about him, though he seemed to mask it, a quality of having experienced everything, if not more, that gave F the momentary shivers.
Bowing courteously and speaking as though among friends, he was not, he explained, in the best of moods—to say nothing of his health—after a week of running around desperately trying to locate Esmeralda. He explained they had had a misunderstanding over a few lire through an unfortunate error, no more than a mistake in addition—carrying a one instead of a seven. “These things happen to the best of mathematicians, but what can you do with someone who won’t listen to reason? She slapped my face and ran off. Through a mutual acquaintance I made an appointment to explain the matter to her, with proof from my accounts, but though she gave her word she didn’t appear. It doesn’t speak well for her maturity.”
He had learned later from a friend in the Santo Spirito quarter that she was at the moment living with the signore. Ludovico apologized for disturbing him, but F must understand he had come out of urgent necessity.
“Per piacere, signore, I request your good will. A great deal is at stake for four people. She can continue to serve you from time to time if that’s what she wants; but I hear from your landlord that you’re not exactly prosperous, and on the other hand she has to support herself and a starving father in Fiesole. I don’t suppose she’s told you about him but if it weren’t for me personally, he’d be lying in a common grave this minute growing flowers on his chest. She must come back to work under my guidance and protection not only because it’s mutually beneficial but because it’s a matter of communal responsibility; not only hers for me now that I’ve had a most serious operation, or both of us for her starving father, but also in reference to my aged mother, a woman of eighty-three who is seriously in need of proper nursing care. I understand you’re an American, signore. That’s one thing but Italy is a poor country. Here each of us is responsible for the welfare of four or five others or we all go under.”
He spoke calmly, philosophically, occasionally breathlessly, as if his recent operation now and then caught up with him. And his intense small eyes wandered in different directions as he talked, as though he suspected Esmeralda might be hiding.
F, after his first indignation, listened with interest although disappointed the man had not turned out to be a wealthy picture buyer.
“She’s had it with whoring,” he said.
“Signore,” Ludovico answered with emotion, “it’s important to understand. The girl owes me much. She was seventeen when I came across her, a peasant girl living a wretched existence. I’ll spare you the details because they’d turn your stomach. She had chosen this profession, the most difficult of all as we both know, but lacked the ability to handle herself. I met her by accident and offered to help her although this sort of thing wasn’t in my regular line of work. To make the story short, I devoted many hours to her education and found her a better clientele—to give you an example, recently one of her newest customers, a rich cripple she sees every week, offered to marry her, but I advised against it because he’s a contadino. I also took measures to protect her health and well-being. I advised her to go for periodic medical examinations, scared off badly behaved customers with a toy pistol, and tried in every way to reduce indignities and hazards. Believe me, I am a protective person and gave her my sincere affection. I treat her as if she were my own daughter. She isn’t by chance in the next room? Why doesn’t she come out and talk frankly?”
He pointed with his cane at the alcove curtain.
“That’s the kitchen,” said F. “She’s at the market.”
Ludovico, bereft, blew on his fingers, his eyes momentarily glazed as his glance mechanically wandered around the room. He seemed then to come to and gazed at some of F’s pictures with interest. In a moment his features were animated.
“Naturally, you’re a painter! Pardon me for overlooking it, a worried man is half blind. Besides, somebody said you were an insurance agent.”
“No, I’m a painter.”
The pimp borrowed F’s last cigarette, took a few puffs as he studied the pictures on the wall with tightened eyes, then put out the barely used butt and pocketed it.
“It’s a remarkable coincidence.” He had once, it turned out, been a frame maker and later part-owner of a small art gallery on Via Strozzi, and he was of course familiar with painting and the painting market. But the gallery, because of the machinations of his thieving partner,
had failed. He hadn’t reopened it for lack of capital. It was shortly afterward he had had to have a lung removed.
had failed. He hadn’t reopened it for lack of capital. It was shortly afterward he had had to have a lung removed.
“That’s why I didn’t finish your cigarette.”
Ludovico coughed badly—F believed him.
“In this condition, naturally, I find it difficult to make a living. Even frame making wears me out. That’s why it’s advantageous for me to work with Esmeralda.”
“Anyway, you certainly have your nerve,” the painter replied. “I’m not just referring to your coming up here and telling me what I ought to do vis-à-vis someone who happens to be here because she asked to be, but I mean actually living off the proceeds of a girl’s body. All in all, it isn’t much of a moral thing to do. Esmeralda might in some ways be indebted to you but she doesn’t owe you her soul.”
The pimp leaned with dignity on his cane.
“Since you bring up the word, signore, are you a moral man?”
“In my art I am.”
Ludovico sighed. “Ah, maestro, who are we to talk of what we understand so badly? Morality has a thousand sources and endless means of expression. As for the soul, who understands its mechanism? Remember, the thief on the cross was the one who rose to heaven with Our Lord.” He coughed at length. “Keep in mind that the girl of her free will chose her calling, not I. She was in it without finesse or proficiency, although she is of course adequate. Her advantage is her youth and a certain directness, but she needs advice and managerial assistance. Have you seen the hat she wears? Twice I tried to burn it. Obviously she lacks taste. The same is true for her clothes, but she’s very stubborn to deal with. Still, I devote myself to her and manage to improve conditions, for which I receive a modest but necessary commission. Considering the circumstances, how can this be an evil thing? The basis of morality is recognizing one another’s needs and cooperating. Mutual generosity is nothing to criticize other people for. After all, what did Jesus teach?”
Ludovico had removed his hat. He was bald with several gray hairs parted in the center.
He seemed, now, depressed. “You aren’t in love with her, are you, maestro? If so, say the word and I disappear. Love is love, after all. I don’t forget I’m an Italian.”
F thought for a minute.
“Not as yet, I don’t think.”
“In that case I hope you will not interfere with her decision?”
“What decision do you have in mind?”
“As to what she will do after I speak to her.”
“You mean if she decides to leave?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s up to her.”
The pimp ran a relieved hand over his perspiring head and replaced his hat. “The relationship may be momentarily convenient, but for a painter who has his work to think of you’ll be better off without her.”
“I didn’t say I wanted her to go,” said F. “All I said was I wouldn’t interfere with her decision.”
Ludovico bowed. “Ah, you have the objectivity of a true artist.”
On his way out, he tossed aside the alcove curtain with his cane and uncovered F’s painting on the kitchen table.
He seemed at first unable to believe his eyes. Standing back, he had a better look. “Straordinario,” he murmured, kissing his fingertips.
F snatched the canvas, blew off the dust, and carefully tucked it behind his bureau.
“It’s work in progress,” he explained. “I don’t like to show it yet.”
“Obviously it will be a very fine painting, one sees that at a glance. What do you call it?”
“‘Mother and Son.’”
“In spirit it’s pure Picasso.”
“Is it?”
“I refer to his remark: ‘You paint not what you see but what you know is there.’”
“That’s right,” F said, his voice husky.
“We all have to learn from the masters. There’s nothing wrong with trying to do better that which they do best themselves. Thus new masters are born.”
“Thank you.”
“When you finish let me know. I am acquainted with people who are interested in buying fine serious contemporary work. I could get you an excellent price, of course for the usual commission. Anyway, it looks as though you are about to give birth to a painting of extraordinary merit. Permit me to congratulate you on your talent.”
F blushed radiantly.
Esmeralda returned.
Ludovico fell to his knees.
“Go fuck yourself,” she said.
“Ah, signorina, my misfortune is your good luck. Your friend is a superb artist. You can take my word for it.”
How do you paint a Kaddish?
Here’s Momma sitting on the stoop in her cotton housedress, awkward at having her picture taken, yet with a dim smile on the dry old snapshot turning yellow that Bessie sent me years ago. Here’s the snap, here’s the painting of the same idea, why can’t I make one out of both? How do you make art of an old photo, so to say? A single of a double image, the one in and the one out?
The painting, 51 × 38, was encrusted in places (her hands and feet, his face), almost a quarter of an inch thick with paint, layer on layer giving it history, another word for thick past in the paint itself. The mystery was why in the five years he had been at it, on and off because he had to hide it away when it got to be too much for him, he hadn’t been able to finish it though most of it was done already, except Momma’s face. Five years’ work here, mostly as he had first painted it, though he often added dibs and dabs, touches of brush or palette knife on the dry forms. He had tried it every which way, with Momma alone, sitting or standing, with or without him; and with Bessie in or out, but never Poppa, that living ghost; and I’ve made her old and young, and sometimes resembling Annamaria Oliovino, or Teresa, the chambermaid in Milan; even a little like Susskind, when my memory gets mixed up, who was a man I met when I first came to Rome. Momma apart and him apart, and then trying to bring them together in the tightly woven paint so they would be eternally mother and son as well as unique forms on canvas. So beautifully complete the idea of them together that the viewer couldn’t help but think no one has to do it again because it’s been done by F and can’t be done better; in truth, a masterwork. He had painted her sad and happy, tall, short, realistic, expressionistic, cubistic, surrealistic, even in action splotches of violet and brown. Also in black and white, stark like Kline or Motherwell. Once he had molded a figure in clay from the old photo and tried to copy it, but that didn’t work either.
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