The Italian Teacher(11)

“Birdie?” her father says. “I rushed over to get you, sweetie.”

This is her last day before flying home, and Bear promised they’d spend it together, wanting to make up for how busy he’d been. Alas, he was detained by work this morning; couldn’t be avoided. Pinch understands. Natalie has explained how every one of Dad’s brushstrokes is the intersection of him and that instant—the slightest interruption, and art is obliterated from the record. Nobody hates this bullying fact more than Dad himself, who’d rather be horsing around here.

Bear walks from the room, and his daughter looks at the empty doorframe, then anxiously at her brother. On her behalf, Pinch sneaks into the hallway, listening hard: the back-and-forth squeak of floorboards in the master bedroom, where Dad must be pacing, his indignation seeping down the hallway. Pinch wants to warn Birdie that their father has important work, that he interrupted it for her, that he can’t be made to wait. “Birdie,” he says tentatively.

“When I’m ready!” she snaps, pushing the air to reproach him, returning fiercely to her sketch, though she tucks her hair behind her ear, listening desperately for Bear.

Another squeak of the floorboards. And another. In this direction now. Dad is coming back.

Both kids look up. He stands there. “Well, one thing’s for sure: My rivals don’t suffer foolishness like this!” Bear says, as if lighthearted. “Honey, I can’t be wasting time.” He taps his watch face. “I took the day off.”

“You did not. You said you would.”

“What am I doing here?” he responds, frustration rising. Now I’m slave to a teenage girl?”

Pinch holds still, muscles tight.

“Last chance,” Bear says.

“For what? We were supposed to have a whole day.”

“It didn’t work out that way. But I’m still looking forward. Or trying to. Don’t you want your painting lesson?”

She pretends not to hear.

“Well. That’s that.”

“Wait, Daddy!” Birdie exclaims, clutching the pencil against her chest. “I said I was almost done.”

“If I knew you didn’t want my company, I’d have gone straight to the art store instead of wasting this trip home.”

“Why are you getting sore, Daddy?”

“I’m not getting anything. Except the hell out of here.”

“But we’re supposed to eat ice creams!” She leaps to her feet, fighting back tears, and storms down the hall.

“Oh, come on now, Birdie. You’re off for a sulk?” Bear shrugs to his son. “I will never understand. Well, Charlie, it’s just the two of us. Now, I need supplies, and you look like a first-class translator. What do you say—you and me, off to Poggi’s?” He gooses his son in the thigh, causing a squeal of joy.

Pinch darts to the front door, adding nervously, “Should we ask her too?”

“I asked twice already. She doesn’t like us fellas today.”

Birdie must’ve been listening, for she slams the door of Pinch’s bedroom.

In silence, father and son walk past the second-century ramparts of Castel Sant’Angelo, over a reconstructed Ancient Roman bridge lined with marble angels bearing whips and nails and lances. “What choice did she leave me?” Bear asks belatedly. “Played it the only way I could. That fair, Charlie?”

Pinch can’t find the right answer, so nods fast, hating to forsake his best friend of these past two weeks—yet hating even more to imperil a rare outing with Dad. All morning, Birdie was saying how she’d give Bear a piece of her mind. But, Pinch wonders, for what? She only wanted this; precisely what he is guiltily enjoying.

Dad slaps his hand on Pinch’s shoulder, and they walk the rest of the way like that: Bear guiding the boy, stopping him before traffic, leading him via a diversion to admire the elephant obelisk in Piazza della Minerva, explaining the wizardry of Bernini’s chisel work with such exaltation that Pinch forgets his guilt. When they find that the art store is closed until four, Bear promises his son “the best lunch place in this whole damn city,” grabbing Pinch’s waistband, lifting him off the ground for a few steps, plopping him down, which sends the kid into wild giggles.

At lunch, Bear feasts on course after course, until all that remains on their ravaged paper tablecloth are tomato-sauce specks, a finger-smudged bottle of purple vinegar, and a single slice of bread, which Bear flings into his mouth as they leave, munching as he points them toward “the best coffee in Rome.” On the way, they pass the Chiesa di San Luigi dei Francesi. “Won’t find much better art in the world than in that church,” Bear says.

“Could we go in?”

Bear leads his little son through the doors, down the nave, under gold medallions, glinting starbursts, and muscly sculpted saints who behold the frail human worshippers below with pity. Bear—of Ukrainian-Catholic stock, but a dedicated idolater—directs Pinch to three paintings in a back corner: Saint Matthew the Evangelist’s calling into the faith, his inspiration by an angel, and his martyrdom. “Look at this church, made of money and schifezza,” Bear says, loudly enough that people glance over, frowning. “But these paintings here? When Caravaggio painted a saint, he never modeled from nobles or clergymen. Those are street bums. Hobos and whores. Imagine what the cardinals said!”