The Italian Teacher(8)
9
As Natalie and Cecil tramp through the scorching city, Pinch tags along, either scurrying a few steps ahead or lingering a few behind. “Nothing is like the sky in Rome,” Cecil remarks, causing Pinch to look heavenward, wondering what is special about the bright blue and the brushstroke clouds, the only he has known.
Beforehand, Natalie spoke to Pinch about how desperately she sought Cecil’s advice on restarting her art after all these years. She has lost any idea of what her peers are making—and they have no knowledge that she exists. Pinch waits, seeing his mother nearing the subject, then backing away. Cecil himself hardly speaks of pottery, as if it were vulgar to mention one’s vocation. He inquires about life in Rome and life with Bear Bavinsky, whom he hopes to know better. Natalie claims that her husband is occupied with students, yet Pinch heard her telling Dad that the guest himself prefers time with her alone to discuss pottery.
As they wander across Piazza San Cosimato, Pinch stoops to a public drinking fountain, his rosy face under the gush of the spout. Cecil is checking if they’ll see Bear this evening, which is the Englishman’s last in Rome. How fascinating it’d be, Cecil remarks, to hear of Bear’s art.
“You’re not even going to ask what I’m doing,” Natalie blurts. “This whole time you haven’t.”
Pinch looks over, fountain water spattering gently. His mother’s neck is blotchy, flushed in patches as happens when she is rattled. Mom regrets this, he knows, but she can’t reel back her outburst.
“Suppose I didn’t want to intrude,” Cecil responds stiffly.
Natalie observes Pinch, his bangs soaking. She tells Cecil, “I was only joking. Ignore me.”
The two adults walk on, a step farther apart. Occasionally, Cecil veers away to peek through the dark doors of a church, not calling her to join him. They arrive back at the apartment and separate to wash for the big meal.
Bear, who barely had a chance to greet Cecil, has promised to treat their guest to a farewell banquet at the best trattoria in town. On the walk toward Largo Argentina, Bear raves about the pizzas. “Nothing better outside Napoli. I’m telling you: Got to try this.” They bundle inside, each ordering one of the much-touted pizzas—except for Bear himself, who opts for “il fried di fish.”
“Dad!” Pinch bellows, smiling. “You always do this!”
“La frittura di pesce, signore?” the waiter confirms. “Ottima scelta.”
Bear taps the boy’s chin playfully, asks the waiter for a couple of “bottiglia di bubbly vino,” then tells Cecil: “No matter how I try, I cannot learn this damn language. Something missing in this nut of mine,” he says, rapping his temple. “Thank God for my translator here.” He gives a cheek kiss to Pinch, who is lobster red from sun and pride. Dad does this—spreads his mood, the man’s pleasures clapping you on the shoulder. Even Cecil approaches jollity and confesses admiration for the painter’s work. Bear claims the same of Cecil’s pottery (though Pinch heard Dad say before that he hadn’t seen a single piece).
“What in hell are you doing living on a damn mountain?” Bear demands. “Move here to the Eternal City, brother!”
The merriment only increases when Bear solicits Cecil’s expert opinion on the recent ceramics by Picasso. The little Spaniard doesn’t even make his pots, Cecil says, but merely “adjusts” those of true artisans. Nothing delights Bear more than the disparagement of his overpraised rival. “Pablo hasn’t a drop of your talent,” Bear professes, slamming his open palm on the table for emphasis, causing the Englishman to cough in mortification and insist on his own mediocrity.
“What you’re producing is art, Cecil. Art to the highest degree,” Bear persists, grabbing Natalie’s hand across the table, pulling her into this estimation.
She withdraws her fingers, as if to fetch something from her purse, fumbling in there for cigarette and lighter.
“You’re not doing some second-rate craft!” Bear reiterates to Cecil.
“Oh, I don’t know. Potters get so exercised about art versus craft. But the older I get, the more I prefer craft. With craft, you know if a piece is right. Is the pot so cumbersome that the farmer’s wife couldn’t lift it? Is my glaze poisonous? A pot is either correct, or it is not. Whereas art is never quite good or bad. Art is simply a way of saying ‘opinion.’”
The notion that art is never good or bad is so alien to Bear that he fails to hear it. “Here’s the real problem,” he resumes. “Soon as a piece has a use, then the blowhards won’t accept it. If I took three Botticellis and hammered them into a side table, the critics would look at those exact pictures and call them second-rate. The same damn pictures!”
“Please don’t hammer Botticellis into a side table, dear man.”
“I’m telling you, there’s nothing critics hate more than a hinge,” Bear says. “And you, out there in the countryside, fighting that wood-fired kiln! Natty tells me it’s a ton of timber for each firing. That can’t be true.”
“Two tons actually. The real struggle is stoking for three days, round-the-clock.”
“I won’t stand for it! I’m forking out for a proper kiln, state-of-the-art. Picasso has one, I bet. Can’t picture him stoking a goddamn thing!”