The Italian Teacher(81)
Two hours later, someone is fiddling with the lock to his front door. He recognizes the voices of Jing and his landlord, a bizarre mix of unrelated parts of his life. Immediately he downgrades his fear from existential to social. Are my trousers stained? Will they smell urine?
His landlord grimaces, but Jing appears unbothered. She takes control, calls the ambulance, demanding that they drug him before attempting a move. She is formidable. “Oh, right,” Pinch mutters, disappearing into the fog of a serious painkiller, “you studied medicine once.”
He needs only a day in the ward. The doctor prescribes analgesics and muscle relaxants, and speaks of a possible operation. Edgily, Pinch explains that he drives long distances, must visit France regularly. Can’t be trapped here.
“Listen to your back,” the doctor says.
Once home, he finds himself on that same bed. He lies in a drugged torpor, replaying the humiliation in Francesca’s office, squeezing his eyes shut to blacken the event, which runs on a loop.
Daily, Jing stops by to walk and feed the dogs and to pick up his groceries and tidy. She expects no gratitude and ignores it when offered. Once, Pinch is in a bleak mood and snaps at her, deploring himself afterward. The next day she returns, seemingly unbothered, claiming to have nothing better to do after work. But she does have another concern: Salvatore is demanding a big settlement in the divorce, claiming she forced him out at Utz, which is nonsense. He’s pushing for her to sell their marital home and pay him a lump sum, probably so he doesn’t have to work anytime soon. Jing bought that place with her own money, and resides there today—she’d be cast from her own house.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Jing, but your husband disgusts me.”
“Thank you.”
“He doesn’t even speak Italian. Did you know that? It appalls me how few of our colleagues take languages seriously. I know hardly anybody else who takes advantage of the free classes.”
“I’m doing Beginner French.”
“We’re almost the only ones. Nowadays,” he adds bitterly, “the main reason people get hired at Utz is they’re good-looking.”
“It is lucky,” Jing comments, “that they do not have this policy when we apply.”
He laughs, then winces. “Don’t be funny, please.”
But he finds very few causes of amusement. His infirmity drags on. Each night, he lies rigid in bed, in the clutch of pain.
“Do you need me to come over there?” Marsden asks, calling from Toronto.
“I’m fine.”
“Could you do something to distract yourself? Your dad said you painted before. Couldn’t you get back to that?” Marsden asks. “I could send you a set of pastels or watercolors. Let me. You should, Charles. You should do this.”
Pinch boils at the suggestion, which he takes as patronizing, an allusion to what Bear said during their final exchange. Pinch wants to retort that he’s not some pitiful amateur—a work of mine once hung in Nebraska of all places! But in his current state, to characterize himself as a painter would be absurd. Nothing sadder than those who declare themselves artists when not a soul cares what they create. Effort and humiliation feel so close. “You’re trying to cheer me up. You’re trying to be kind. I know, Mars. But it’s having the opposite effect. Actually, I should probably go.”
When the phone rings minutes later, Pinch snatches it up, needing to redo that conversation. But it’s a disgruntled sibling, bullying him for details about the will. Pinch ends the call in haste, turns off the ringer, lowers the volume on the answering machine to zero.
In coming weeks, the tape clicks on at all hours. He is besieged by those savages. He pictures them breaking into his cottage, bashing down the door to the studio, pillaging everything, smashing Natalie’s pottery. In the shadows of his bedroom, Utz students are snickering as he enters the classroom and fellow teachers are gossiping: “He threw himself at Francesca! Revolting, right?”
He turns on the bed, punishing himself by torquing his back—immediately repenting, begging his pillow, surrendering anything. Let them slice me apart; just stop this. The orthopedic surgeon remains so cautious, telling him to wait and see.
Eventually Pinch does improve slightly and is able to distract himself by reading his Advanced Latin textbook from university and by leafing through the daily papers (La Repubblica, Die Zeit, Le Monde, El Paìs), which Jing collects from a local newsagent. When Tony falls ill (“In solidarity with me,” Pinch says, stroking him), Jing transports the dog to the veterinary clinic. He never returns. Harold cannot manage without his lifelong ally. The animal sleeps all day and doesn’t last till year’s end. Pinch wasn’t present to comfort either of his dogs when they were put down. He won’t forgive himself for that. He cannot stop imagining them, each there alone, looking around for him.
Eyes brimming, he lies on the living room floor, studying the plaster medallion on his ceiling. He distracts himself by eavesdropping on the married couple who moved into the apartment below and used to have intrusively loud sex, until it was their newborn making the late-night screams. Pinch still hasn’t figured which language that family speaks. Someday he hopes to meet them and to say hello to their little kid, whose feeding times and sleep times he knows through the walls.
One morning he ventures outside for a slug-slow shuffle around the block. When returning to his building, the woman from the apartment below is struggling to hoist her pram up the stairs. Pinch stands there, so wanting to help, explaining at length about his back.