The pittrice occasionally took time out to see what Fidelman was up to, although not much, and then editing his efforts. She changed lines and altered figures, or swabbed paint over whole compositions that didn’t appeal to her. There was not much that did, but Fidelman was grateful for any attention she gave his work, and even kept at it to incite her criticism. He could feel his heartbeat in his teeth whenever she stood close to him modifying his work, he deeply breathing her intimate smell of sweating flowers. She wore perfume only when Augusto came and it disappointed Fidelman that the old man should evoke the use of bottled fragrance; yet he was cheered that her natural odor which he, so to say, got for free, was so much more exciting than the stuff she doused herself with for her decrepit Romeo. He had noticed she had a bit of soft belly but he loved the pliant roundness and often
daydreamed of it. Thinking it might please her, for he pleased her rarely (he reveried how it would be once she understood the true depth of his love for her), the art student experimented with some of the things Annamaria had done—spontaneous holes, for instance, several studies of “Lines Ascending,” and two lyrical abstract expressionistic pieces based on, interwoven with, and ultimately concealing a Star of David, although for these attempts he soon discovered he had earned, instead of her good will, an increased measure of scorn.
However, Annamaria continued to eat lunch with him at Guido’s, and more often than not, supper, although she said practically nothing during meals and afterwards let her eye roam over the faces of the men at the other tables. But there were times after they had eaten when she would agree to go for a short walk with Fidelman, if there was no serious wind; and once in a while they entered a movie in the Trastevere, for she hated to cross any of the bridges of the Tiber, and then only in a bus, sitting stiffly, staring ahead. As they were once riding Fidelman seized the opportunity to hold her tense fist in his, but as soon as they were safely across the river she tore it out of his grasp. He was by now giving her presents—tubes of paints, the best brushes, a few yards of Belgian linen, which she accepted without comment; she also borrowed small sums from him, nothing startling—a hundred lire today, five hundred tomorrow. And she announced one morning that he
would thereafter, since he used so much of both, have to pay additional for water and electricity—he already paid extra for the heatless heat. Fidelman, though always worried about money, assented. He would give his last lira to lie on her soft belly, but she offered niente, not so much as a caress; until one day he was permitted to look on as she sketched herself nude in his presence. Since it was bitter cold the pittrice did this in two stages. First she removed her sweater and brassiere, and viewing herself in a long faded mirror, quickly sketched the upper half of her body before it turned blue. He was dizzily enamored of her form and flesh. Hastily fastening the brassiere and pulling on her sweater, Annamaria stepped out of her sandals and peeled off her culottes, and white panties torn at the crotch, then drew the rest of herself down to her toes. The art student begged permission to sketch along with her but the pittrice denied it, so he had, as best one can, to commit to memory her lovely treasures—the hard, piercing breasts, narrow shapely buttocks, vine-hidden labia, the font and sweet beginning of time. After she had drawn herself and dressed, and when Augusto appeared and they had retired behind her bolted door, Fidelman sat motionless on his high stool before the glittering blue-skied windows, slowly turning to ice to faint strains of Bach.
The art student increased his services to Annamaria; her increase was scorn, or so it seemed. This severely
bruised his spirit. What have I done to deserve such treatment? That I pay my plenty of rent on time? That I buy her all sorts of presents, not to mention two full meals a day? That I live in flaming hot and freezing cold? That I passionately adore each sweet-and-sour bit of her? He figured it bored her to see so much of him. For a week Fidelman disappeared during the day, sat in cold libraries or moved around in frosty museums. He tried painting after midnight and into the early morning hours but the pittrice found out and unscrewed the bulbs before she went to bed. “Don’t waste my electricity, this isn’t American.” He screwed in a dim blue bulb and worked silently from 1 a.m. to five. At dawn he discovered he had painted a blue picture. Fidelman wandered in the streets of the city. At night he slept in the studio and could hear her sleeping in her room. She slept restlessly, dreamed badly, and often moaned. He dreamed he had three eyes and was missing an ear, or nose.
For two weeks he spoke to no one but a dumpy four-and-a-half foot female on the third floor, and to her usually to say no. Fidelman, having often heard the music of Bach drifting up from below, had tried to picture the lady piano player, imagining a quiet blonde with a slender body, a woman of grace and beauty. It had turned out to be Clelia Montemaggio, a middle-aged old maid music teacher, who sat at the old upright piano, her apartment door open to let out the cooking smells, particularly fried fish on Friday. Once
when coming up from taking down the garbage, Fidelman had paused to listen to part of a partita at her door and she had lassoed him in for an espresso and pastry. He ate and listened to Bach, her plump bottom moving spryly on the bench as she played not badly.
“Lo spirito,” she called to him raptly over her shoulder, “l’architettura!”
Fidelman nodded. Thereafter whenever she spied him in the hall she attempted to entice him with cream-filled pastries and J.S.B., whom she played apparently exclusively.
“Come een,” she called in English, “I weel play for you. We weel talk. There is no use for too much solitude.” But the art student, burdened by his, spurned hers.
Unable to work, he wandered in the streets in a desolate mood, his spirit dusty in a city of fountains and leaky water taps. Water, water everywhere, spouting, flowing, dripping, whispering secrets, love love love, but not for him. If Rome’s so sexy, where’s mine? Fidelman’s Romeless Rome. It belonged least to those who yearned most for it. With slow steps he climbed the Pincio, if possible to raise his spirits gazing down at the rooftops of the city, spires, cupolas, towers, monuments, compounded history and past time. It was in sight, possessable, all but its elusive spirit; after so long he was still straniero. He was then struck by a thought: if you could paint this sight, give it its quality in yours, the spirit belonged to you. History become aesthetic! Fidelman’s scalp thickened.
A wild rush of things he might paint swept sweetly through him: saints in good and bad health, whole or maimed, in gold and red; nude gray rabbis at Auschwitz, black or white Negroes—what not when any color dripped from your brush? And if these, so also ANNAMARIA ES PULCHRA. He all but cheered. What more intimate possession of a woman! He would paint her, whether she permitted or not, posed or not—she was his to paint, he could with eyes shut. Maybe something will come, after all, of my love for her. His spirits elevated, Fidelman ran most of the way home.
It took him eight days, a labor of love. He tried her as nude and although able to imagine every inch of her, could not commit it to canvas. Then he suffered until it occurred to him to paint her as “Virgin with Child.” The idea astonished and elated him. Fidelman went feverishly to work and caught an immediate likeness in paint. Annamaria, saintly beautiful, held in her arms the infant resembling his little nephew Georgie. The pittrice, aware, of course, of his continuous activity, cast curious glances his way, but Fidelman, painting in the corner by the stone sink, kept the easel turned away from her. She pretended unconcern. Done for the day he covered the painting and carefully guarded it. The art student was painting Annamaria in a passion of tenderness for the infant at her breast, her face responsive to its innocence. When, on the ninth day, in trepidation Fidelman revealed his work, the pittrice’s eyes clouded and her underlip
curled. He was about to grab the canvas and smash it up all over the place when her expression fell apart. The art student postponed all movement but trembling. She seemed at first appalled, a darkness descended on her, she was undone. She wailed wordlessly, then sobbed, “You have seen my soul.” They embraced tempestuously, her breasts stabbing him, Annamaria bawling on his shoulder. Fidelman kissed her wet face and salted lips, she murmuring as he fooled with the hook of her brassiere under her sweater, “Aspetta, aspetta, caro, viene Augusto.” He was mad with expectation and suspense.
Augusto, who usually arrived punctually at four, did not appear that Friday afternoon. Uneasy as the hour approached, Annamaria seemed relieved as the streets grew dark. She had worked badly after viewing Fidelman’s painting, sighed frequently, gazed at him with sweet-sad smiles. At six she gave in to his urging and they retired to her room, his unframed “Virgin with Child” already hanging above her bed, replacing a gaunt self-portrait. He was curiously disappointed in the picture—surfacy thin—and made a mental note to borrow it back in the morning to work on it more. But the conception, at least, deserved the reward. Annamaria cooked supper. She cut his meat for him and fed him forkfuls. She peeled Fidelman’s orange and stirred sugar in his coffee. Afterwards, at his nod, she locked and bolted the studio and bedroom doors and they undressed and slipped under her blankets.
How good to be for a change on this side of the locked door, Fidelman thought, relaxing marvelously. Annamaria, however, seemed tensely alert to the noises of the old building, including a parrot screeching, some shouting kids running up the stairs, a soprano singing “Ritorna, vincitor!” But she calmed down and hotly embraced Fidelman. In the middle of a passionate kiss the doorbell rang.
Annamaria stiffened in his arms. “Diavolo! Augusto!”
“He’ll go away,” Fidelman advised. “Both doors locked.”
But she was at once out of bed, pulling on her culottes. “Get dressed,” she said.
He hopped up and hastily got into his pants.
Annamaria unlocked and unbolted the inner door and then the outer. It was the postman waiting to collect ten lire for an overweight letter from Naples.
After she had read the long letter and wiped away a tear they undressed and got back into bed.
“Who is he to you?” Fidelman asked.
“Who?”
“Augusto.”
“An old friend. Like a father. We went through much together.”
“Were you lovers?”
“Look, if you want me take me. If you like to ask questions go back to school.”
He determined to mind his business.
“Warm me,” Annamaria said, “I’m freezing.”
Fidelman stroked her slowly. After ten minutes she said, “‘Gioco di mano, gioco di villano.’ Use your imagination.”
He used his imagination and she responded with excitement. “Dolce tesoro,” she whispered, flicking the tip of her tongue into his ear, then with little bites biting his ear lobe.
The doorbell rang loudly.
“For Christ’s sake, don’t answer,” Fidelman groaned. He tried to hold her down but she was already up, hunting her robe.
“Put on your pants,” she hissed.
He had thoughts of waiting for her in bed but it ended with his dressing fully. She sent him to the door. It was the crippled portinaia, the art student having neglected to take down the garbage.
Annamaria furiously got the two bags and handed them to her.
In bed she was so cold her teeth chattered.
Tense with desire Fidelman warmed her.
“Angelo mio,” she murmured. “Amore, possess me.”
He was about to when she kicked her legs together and hastily rose. “The cursed door again!”
Fidelman gnashed his teeth. “I heard nothing.”
In her torn yellow silk robe she hurried to the front door, opened and shut it, quickly locked and bolted it, did the same in her room and slid into bed.
“You were right, it was nobody.”
She embraced him, her hairy armpits perfumed. He responded with postponed passion.
“Enough of antipasto,” Annamaria said. She reached for his member.
Overwrought, Fidelman, though fighting himself not to, spent himself in her hand. Although he mightily willed resurrection, his wilted flower bit the dust.
She furiously shoved him out of bed, into the studio, flinging his clothes after him.
“Pig, beast, onanist!”
At least she lets me love her. Daily Fidelman shopped, cooked, and cleaned for her. Every morning he took her shopping sack off the hook, went down to the street market and returned with the bag stuffed full of greens, pasta, eggs, meat, cheese, wine, bread. Annamaria insisted on three hearty meals a day although she had once told him she no longer enjoyed eating. Twice he had seen her throw up her supper. What she enjoyed he didn’t know except it wasn’t Fidelman. After he had served her at her table he was allowed to eat alone in the studio. At two every afternoon she took her siesta and though it was forbidden to make noise, he was allowed to wash the dishes, dust and clean her room, swab the toilet bowl. She called “Fatso” and in he trotted to get her anything she had run out of—drawing pencils, sanitary belt, safety pins. After she waked from her nap, rain or shine, please or no please, he was now compelled to leave the studio so she could work
in peace and quiet. He wandered, in the tramontana, from one cold two-bit movie to another. At seven he was back to prepare her supper, and twice a week Augusto’s, who sported a new black hat and spiffy overcoat, and pitied the art student with both wet blue eyes but wouldn’t look at him. After supper, another load of dishes, the garbage downstairs, and when Fidelman returned, with or without Augusto Annamaria was already closeted behind her bolted door. He checked through the keyhole on Mondays and Fridays but she and the old gent were always fully clothed. Fidelman had more than once complained to her that his punishment exceeded his crime, but the pittrice said he was a type she would never have any use for. In fact he did not exist for her. Not existing how could he paint, although he told himself he must? He couldn’t. He aimlessly froze wherever he went, a mean cold that seared his lungs though under his overcoat he wore a new thick sweater Bessie had knitted for him, and two woolen scarves around his neck. Since the night Annamaria had kicked him out of bed he had not been warm; yet he often dreamed of ultimate victory. Once when he was on his lonely way out of the house—a night she was giving a party for some painter friends, Fidelman, a drooping butt in the corner of his mouth, carrying the garbage bags, met Clelia Montemaggio coming up the stairs.