The Italian Teacher(72)

“Yes, Dad specializes in feuds. You’ll find half the locals won’t say bonjour if you’re linked to Monsieur Bavinsky. Who’s the current lady friend?”

“Lady friends, plural. A German woman in Prades. And a French widow who keeps bringing yogurts. I’m telling you, Charles, it’s a whorehouse up here. I keep asking myself how you became such a slouch in the love department with a father like him.”

“A question I’ve asked myself more than once, Mars.”

Bear’s current nemesis seems to be the Catalan people as a whole. He has deemed them loutish and pigheaded after clashing with a local couple who sneaked onto the property to collect wild morels. Marsden has been commanded to procure donkeys to guard the land and, ideally, to attack poachers.

“I pointed out there’s no such thing as a guard donkey. Then the Catalan couple turned up again, and Bear marched out there himself—remember, he’s almost blind without his glasses, so I’m panicking that he’s about to fall down the ravine. I run after, grabbing the back of his shirt while he’s barking in broken French at these poor people with their mushroom baskets. They’re talking about ‘notre terroir’ or something, but your father can’t understand. He’s shouting: ‘Parlez fran?ais! Parlez fran?ais!’ Meanwhile, the Catalan guy is going, ‘Monsieur, je vous parle en fran?ais!’”

“At which point you released the guard donkeys, which ran down the ravine and bit the marauding Catalans?”

“No, both sides just kept screaming. Which prompts an observation: Your father, who can’t string together a sentence in French or Spanish or Catalan, gabs with everybody around here, while you—man of a million languages—have no interest in speaking to anyone!”

“All I want is to talk to people. I just have to find the right ones. And how will I know what language they speak? I must be prepared!”

Both laugh, neither certain if that was a joke.

What Pinch refrains from telling his friend is how trying life has become in London without the possibility of escapes to the cottage. Each day he feels smaller. “But no sign of Dad noticing anything missing from his studio?”

“That I know of? Nothing.”

Another week passes, Pinch imprisoned at his flat, his job. This isn’t sustainable.

When his home phone rings late at night, he rushes past his yapping dogs and picks up. It’s Marsden, whispering, having stepped out of the cottage, ostensibly to get the firewood for tomorrow but actually zigzagging around the dark lawn for a cell-phone signal. “I’m such an idiot,” he whispers.

“Why are you an idiot?” Pinch asks, heart pounding. “What happened?”

It’s the staircase in the hillside. What began as whimsy, Marsden explains, drifted into obsession. He’s been spending hours out there digging away, his palms a road map of dirt and blisters, nails cracked, joints creaking. Often, after toiling until dusk, he is scotched by a giant boulder, drops to the turf in frustration, hands on the soggy moss. As if repudiating a lifetime of half-finished pursuits, Marsden has decided he is going to complete this.

Pinch interrupts, “But what happened? Is there a problem?”

“I kept leaving Bear alone during the day. He got bored. I came home tonight and found him wearing glasses. One of his lady friends took him to Prades to buy replacements.”

“Which means he’ll be going back in the studio now,” Pinch says grimly.

“Worse. He’s already started an inventory of his paintings.”

“And he knows?”

“He’s only just started. But I thought you should be warned. Charles, I’m so sorry. I messed this up.”

“You couldn’t be expected to watch him all day long, Mars. And he doesn’t know yet. Maybe he’ll get distracted and move onto something else.”

“Or you could just tell him. Maybe you should? Oh,” he adds, “oh shit.”

“What? Mars?”

A muffled exchange follows.

“Mars?”

A deeper voice comes onto the line. “That you, kiddo?”

“Dad.”

“What’s the secret chatter about?”

“We were just catching up.”

“I want to see you, son. Call in sick tomorrow.”

“Come there tomorrow? Are you serious?”

“Fly out. Get a rental car. Get up here.”

“Why, Dad? You have to tell me.”

“Who says there’s a reason?”

“Could you put Marsden back on?”

No answer.

“Hello, Dad? . . . Mars? . . . Anyone there?”

But the line is dead.





58


Pinch pulls over on a narrow French country road, delaying the last mile around the mountain, perhaps the final time he travels the route. He fumbles to open a bottle of water, takes a little sip, hardly able to swallow.

Minutes later he is there: his father walking from the cottage, Pinch hastening out of the car. Bear grips his shoulder, leans in. “Got a surprise for you.”

When Marsden joins them, Bear leads everyone inside for a drink. Walking in his father’s wake, Pinch stares hard at Marsden, mouthing, “He knows?”

Eyes wide, Marsden shrugs.