The Italian Teacher(19)
After dark, Bear comes home, sometimes near midnight. When possible, Pinch finds excuses to stay up, claiming he was reading or listening to the radio. But it’s so late that Pinch has time only for a bit of clumsy flattery before being bundled to his room. He sits on the bed, painting ready in case Dad passes the open door. At his window, Pinch contemplates the rustling darkness out there, the guest bedroom reflected back, himself in pajamas, forehead against the pane, which mists at each breath. He wonders what time it is in Rome, which seems like another planet, one he was never meant to inhabit. In the fogged window, he writes his initials, thoughts wandering back to the Roman studio, his mother. But an artist can’t worry about other people. Think of the middle-aged French stockbroker who left his wife and kids to paint in the tropics, never bothering to see them again, scarring them forever. Who doubts Gauguin was right to go? Yes, you must act, if you are to become someone. Pinch’s innards contract at the thought of telling Natalie, she taking the call in their Italian neighbors’ living room, returning to the studio alone.
The next night, when Carol is fixing her husband a whiskey sour at the cocktail trolley in the den, Bear sits at the kitchen table, leafing through the newspaper, Pinch watching, needing to take advantage of this rare moment alone. “There was a man on my plane, Dad. I forgot to tell you,” Pinch says, too loudly, then lowering the volume. “He was talking about your paintings the whole flight.”
Bear lets the page flop like a dog’s ear, chuckling at this yarn. “That so, Charlie?”
Caught out, Pinch looks away, persisting with the fib, his voice dwindling. “He was saying how the Museum of Modern Art wants to buy more of your paintings.”
“News to me.”
“Yes, he said that.”
Bear flaps the newspaper upright again.
There was so much time for this vacation, but Pinch is hurtling toward the final days now. And Pinch hasn’t worked up the courage to ask his father. He planned to explain everything at Dad’s barn: how strange Mom has become, how she talks to strangers, how people nod to shut her up and look past the foreign woman, staring at her son.
“You think there’s still time to maybe see your studio, Dad?”
“I cannot wait to show you, kiddo.”
“You do recollect,” Carol says, handing over his tumbler, ice cubes clinking. “You recall that Charlie here leaves in three days, right?”
“He’s got a week or more! Ain’t that so, Charlie?”
“I leave on Monday.”
“Well I never!” Ben casts aside the paper, pages flying across the carpet, and he focuses on his son. “Now I’m really mad: You, about to go, and I got this nonsense in the city!”
“You’re away tomorrow?” Pinch asks, panicking.
“Should be back Sunday, kiddo.”
“Oh, honey,” Carol interjects. “Bring the poor boy, why don’t you?”
“To the Petros opening? I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Charlie, you’d go blind from boredom.”
Pinch nods fast, then shakes his head faster, then stops, flushing.
“Can I come? Please?”
“Not sure we can arrange it this late,” Bear responds, tapping his pipe into the ashtray. “Aw, hell—why can’t I bring my own son? To hell with those people!”
“You two boys could stay the night in the city,” Carol suggests.
“Carousing till all hours,” Bear adds, jabbing Pinch’s ribs. “What do you say, Charlie boy? You and me, kiddo. We on?”
18
On the Larchmont train platform, Bear spreads himself across a bench, placing Pinch alongside him, one hand on the teen’s head, the other flipping through Partisan Review, a wreath of pipe smoke expanding from him. Pinch—tingling where his father’s fingers press—views the tracks, filling them with the night ahead. Painters and sculptors. Modern art itself, into which he’ll walk this very night. He leaps to his feet, earning hardly a glance from Bear, who returns to his reading.
After boarding, Pinch dithers about his seat. Across from Dad or beside him? Finally, he inserts himself next to his father and, in sidelong glances, contemplates the man’s face, the lines across his stony brow, crinkles bracketing determined blue eyes. Pinch is caught looking and turns away.
From his blazer pocket, he fishes a folded page full of technical questions about painting, amassed these past years of studying The Materials of the Artist, jotted in careful fountain pen, all for this precise moment. Yet Pinch is rattled by other thoughts—about living here, painting at the barn, apprenticing with Dad. Might I?
“I hope you’re not too disappointed with me, Charlie boy,” Bear says, rolling up his magazine, swatting his son’s knee. “This damned picture refused to get finished. That’s been lousy for you, I know. Me coming home late, mind elsewhere. It can be like that when I’m working: I’m not really where I’m at. You follow?”
“Oh yes. That’s fine,” Pinch says urgently.
“Some folks would sit here tut-tutting.”
“No, I understand, Dad. I didn’t mind.”
Bear squeezes Pinch’s fingers, shakes his head. “Events like tonight—I got to put up with them.” Pinch doesn’t know whether to clutch his father’s hand back or stay limp. Bear, noticing the page on his son’s lap, reads aloud the heading: “Questions for My Dad.” He smiles, clearly touched. “Well, your dad is right here, Charlie. Ready and waiting. Fire away, my one and only.”