The Gilder (7 page)

“Yes, I am,” he said. “The real women, the
puttane,
are selling their wares down around the train station.”

Marina couldn’t put her finger on exactly what she found intriguing. The subtlety, perhaps, the absence of the in-your-face flamboyance that drag queens had. Still, she wasn’t quite sure she understood it
.
So, these were men who dressed up as women to be with men? So they were gay, right? But did they want to be with straight men or gay men? Who wanted to be with them? And how come Thomas seemed to know so much about them?

CHAPTER 4

T
wo weeks into the Italian class, Marina decided that “crash course” was a far more accurate description than “immersion,” which had led her to believe she would pass her days floating in the Italian language, lulled by its undulating rhythms. In actuality, it was more like boot camp, with the constant drills in verb conjugations and vocabulary. The class was composed of a couple of students, a handful of bored housewives, and a few antiques dealers. Fortunately, she caught on quickly. She loved that the rules of pronunciation made sense and that she was able to roll the letter
r
off her tongue with relative ease. The class met for four hours every morning followed by afternoon outings where they put their language to use. They learned how to shop and open bank accounts, visited museums, and even went to the movies. After the second week of outings, Marina decided her afternoon hours might be better spent with the English-Italian dictionary, making lists of words and phrases she would need for her gilding class. Although she was unable to find many of the technical terms in her pocket dictionary, she practiced phrases like: “I don’t understand,” “Please explain again,” and “Would you demonstrate that for me?”

The apartment was beginning to take shape. In the back room, she’d fashioned a workbench out of a piece of plywood and two sawhorses, and created shelving with plastic crates she’d found in the street one night on her way home from dinner with Thomas and Sarah. Marcello’s father had brought over a double bed, which she set up in the middle room, where it doubled as a couch, and Sarah had given her an old coffee table, some throw cushions, and the bare bones of a kitchen.

At first, Marina had to force herself out into the neighborhood and into the shops, where she practiced her Italian, laying out the words one by one, like newly minted coins, onto the counter at the bakery, the cheese shop, the pharmacy. She felt conspicuous in her new locale in a way she had not in the tourist-packed center of town. Now she truly was the stranger in the Italian word for foreigner—
straniero
. However, she soon discovered that people were charmed by her efforts to communicate, and gradually she grew less intimidated by the loud voices and wild gesticulations. She had yet to eat solo in one of the local restaurants, but every morning for breakfast, she went to the coffee bar on the corner of Via Luna, where she was greeted as
“la Signorina Americana.”

Often during the siesta after lunch, Sarah stopped by to help Marina with her Italian. She was a good instructor, patient, entertaining, creative. Along with the basic vocabulary for buying the necessities and navigating her new life, she taught Marina all the profanities she would ever need, including the appropriate gesture for each one. When they grew tired of verb conjugations or laughing too hard, they moved from the kitchen table to the living room and lounged on the bed, the only place to sit, and little by little, shared their life stories.

One afternoon, as Sarah lay sprawled across the bed, her head propped up on a pillow, her multicolored skirt draped over her legs like a quilt, she told Marina that her parents had been killed in a car accident when she was eighteen, and how instead of going right to college, she had gone on a tour of Europe with her Aunt Eileen and fallen in love with Florence, and how with her aunt’s blessing, she had taken the life insurance money, moved to Florence, and enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti. It was there at the art institute that she’d met Thomas, who occasionally modeled for her life drawing class.

Marina sat at the foot of the bed, her knees pulled up to her chest. She wanted to stretch out alongside Sarah, head to foot, and relax into the story, but remained immobilized as if by some magnetic force. All through college, she’d lounged around in dorm rooms with roommates and friends, often in various states of undress, and she’d never thought twice about it. What made this any different? True, Sarah was older and more sophisticated than any friend she’d ever had, but they’d grown close, seeing each other most every day, and she felt sure Sarah valued their friendship as much as she. Why couldn’t she just relax?

Sarah stared at the ceiling as if a film of her past were projected there, and twirled a lock of hair around her index finger as she spoke. “I’d been here about a year when Thomas walked into the class one morning and everyone started whispering. I didn’t know what the buzz was about, but it turned out he had a reputation at the school for being able to hold unusually difficult poses for a great length of time. Plus, he was really good-looking.”

“Was he a photographer then?” asked Marina in an effort to let go of her internal struggle and engage with Sarah’s story.

“He was just starting to be successful, but he still modeled for some of his favorite professors, the ones who had helped him along the way. Anyway, he came in, stripped off his clothes just like that”—she snapped her fingers—“and then did some incredibly difficult poses, holding them forever. At the end, he walked around and looked at our work. I was mortified, of course. When he got to my easel, he stopped and flipped through my sketches.”

Sarah sat up suddenly and leaned toward Marina, her face glowing. “I thought he was terribly arrogant. I wanted to slap his hand away, but I just stood there. You won’t believe what he said.”

“What?” asked Marina, captured as much by the proximity of the freckles dusting the bridge of Sarah’s nose as by her story.

“I’d done all these drawings of his hands. He just stared at me with those cool gray eyes and said, ‘I guess you liked my hands better than my balls.’ ”

“You’re kidding!” Marina opened her eyes wide, both in astonishment and to better study Sarah’s face, the crinkle at the corners of her eyes, the twitch of her lips as she suppressed a smile. “What did you say?”

Sarah shrugged. “I don’t know, something about liking hands. I was just trying not to die of embarrassment. I know my face was bright red. Then he turned and walked away. Oh, and I forgot.” She laid her hand on Marina’s forearm. “All he had on was his jeans, no shirt or anything. After he finished the pose, he just pulled on his jeans, right in front of everyone, no underwear.”

Marina couldn’t sit still another moment and, pulling her arm gently from under Sarah’s hand, got off the bed. “I need some water. Want some?”

Sarah shook her head.

“So then what? How did you get together?” Marina called from the kitchen, letting the water run at the kitchen sink until it ran cold. She drank half the glass, then refilled it before returning to the living room.

Sarah was now propped up against the wall, her legs tucked up under her skirt. “Wouldn’t you know it, he was waiting downstairs when I left. Supposedly wanting to apologize for embarrassing me. It was just a ploy to get my attention.” She looked at Marina and shrugged. “I guess it worked.”

Marina stood in the doorway and leaned against the doorjamb. “But what about your work, did you finish the program? Do you still draw?”

“I finished the degree, but I got involved with Thomas right away and just got wrapped up in his life, I guess.” Sarah was quiet for a moment. “Actually, I always wanted to be a sculptor.”

The gilding course was held in a crumbling palazzo on the other side of the river, the Oltrarno district, near Piazza Santo Spirito. A makeshift workshop with several large tables had been set up in the grand salon where large sections of the frescoed walls and ceiling had fallen away, giving the effect of a giant paint-by-numbers canvas waiting to be finished. Large, south-facing windows provided not only light, but also, on sunny days, a modicum of heat.

Marina found herself in a panic the first few days of class, when all she understood was a word or two in each sentence. However, she quickly realized that she could learn as much from watching as from anything that was said. The teacher, Sauro, was a local artisan, a third-generation master gilder who worked with his father in his grandfather’s workshop. This much she gleaned from the brochure that Sarah helped her translate. He was a round man with a cherubic face and gentle manner and seemed to understand that she was serious about her work, so he explained things slowly, checked her work closely, and made sure she followed his instructions. Marina hadn’t realized that the gilding course would emphasize restoration to such an extent but was pleased to be learning two skills for the price of one. She was intrigued by how well damage, even that which seemed irreparable, could be concealed beneath a fresh layer of gold. Because the other students were hobbyists or antiques shop owners who wanted to learn a few quick tricks, she imagined that the course would only scratch the surface of this fascinating art, and she was determined to learn as much as she could. She shared her workbench with two English girls who were simply fulfilling a requirement in their study-abroad semester and were more interested in chattering nonstop about their sex lives than learning how to mix rabbit glue, and a middle-aged Italian man who came to class impeccably dressed in a crisp shirt, cashmere sweater, pressed trousers, and gleaming loafers, and never wanted to get his hands dirty.

Toward the end of her first month in the course, Marina got up her nerve to ask Sauro if she could take home the small box she was gilding. She’d been trying to think of a way to accelerate her learning and figured that if she started working on her projects at home at night, she might get twice the work done. He was surprised by her request but, after a moment’s consideration, gave her permission to take the needed supplies. When she returned on Monday with the repair completed, she could tell he was not quite sure what to make of her. He took his time looking over her work, then nodded his head approvingly.
“Bravissima!”
he said, patting her back.

As the weeks went by, Marina saw that Sauro was impressed with the skills she’d brought with her—a steady hand with a carving knife and a solid understanding of design. He continued to take her seriously and gave her increasingly difficult moldings to duplicate, suggested carving knives she hadn’t considered, and corrected her technique.

“Practice, practice, practice, the gold can only hide so much,” he said again and again in a way that made it sound like a nursery rhyme. One day, after watching her unpack a carving that she’d taken home to work on overnight, he took her aside and showed her an intricately carved frame that was in desperate condition, and suggested she make it a separate, extracurricular project she could keep at home. That way, he explained, she wouldn’t have to carry her in-class project back and forth every day. “When you are finished,” he instructed her, “you must bring it to my studio and meet my teachers.”

Marina had left the front door ajar for Sarah while she worked at her bench in the back room, and when she heard the gentle rap, she called out, “I’m back here.”

A moment later, she was startled to see Thomas in the doorway.

“Hey, the place looks great.” He stood in the doorway, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

Marina put down her burnishing tool and straightened up. “Hi. I thought you were Sarah.”

“Marcello needed to talk to her about something, so I thought I’d come see where she’s been disappearing to all the time.”

Marina flushed. “Would you like something to drink? A coffee? Come in the kitchen, I’ll make us one.”

Thomas stepped into the room. “Sure, but first I want to see what you’re working on. Sarah’s been bragging about your progress.”

Marina hesitated, then stepped out of the way as Thomas approached the workbench.

“Let’s see what you have here,” he said, looking at her rather than the workbench.

“It’s no big deal.” Marina pointed to a spot on the frame. “You see here? This piece was missing. I had to carve a piece to match, glue it in, and then regild the area.”

“Impressive.” Thomas nodded, although he didn’t seem particularly interested, scanning the room as if searching for something.

Marina moved to the door. “I’ll make that coffee.”

She could sense him pause in the living room before he followed her into the kitchen. Again he stood in the doorway. She filled the coffeepot with water and measured out the rich, dark grounds.

Marina glanced at him and, surprising herself, wondered if he had on any underwear. She turned away and picked up an already clean mug from the draining board and gave it a rinse. “Sit down. This’ll just take a second,” she said over her shoulder.

She had spent a fair amount of time around Thomas, mostly over dinners at Anita’s with Sarah, but had been unable to develop a comfortable rapport with him. She always had the sense he was watching her, even when he appeared not to be. With Sarah present, she had been able to shrug it off as a photographer’s quirk, but alone with Thomas, it felt implacable.