The Italian Teacher(97)
They must have a long talk when she comes. But he sounds moronic. Well, she can talk; that’ll suffice. Suddenly he needs Barrows to know—she, whose opinion matters more to him than anyone’s—he needs her to know that she adores an artist, and it’s me.
Barrows sends increasingly detailed messages: I’m about to leave New York, just arrived in London, checking into the hotel, will be at your place around midday before the conference opens, so looking forward. By email he explains how to find Jing’s house, sending instructions three times. “We can have lunch and talk. I might have to just listen sometimes!”
Jing goes to her office to leave Pinch and his friend in private. An hour before Barrows arrives, he props himself up in bed, bravely refraining from painkillers to keep his mind clear. As arranged, the front door is left unlocked so she can let herself in.
When I tell her about the paintings, she’ll see that I achieved something with my life. Even now, he thinks, shaking his head, even now, I need to impress Barrows!
“Hellooooo?”
“Here! Up here!” he calls out, cringing at his slobbery voice.
Clomp, clomp up the stairs.
“Hey, it’s you,” he says, chest tightening. Yes, yes, that is Barrows. Hair still long, entirely gray now. She doesn’t dye, and good for her—natural, dignified. “Forgive the sight of me,” he tells her. “I look like a ghoul. It’s the chemo. Does it to everyone when you’re on this dose.” (Untrue; they stopped his chemo weeks ago.) “I should keep the lights low so nobody has to see!”
“You look fine, Charles.”
“Fine is one thing that I do not look. But thank you.”
She pulls up a chair.
He asks her to speak of her conference, which relieves him of talking for a while and allows him to muster saliva. He scarcely hears, so preoccupied is he with this imminent confession. He’ll go over everything, explain what he did, how and why.
Speaking of her own work, she is distant, pleased with herself. Was she always like this? Barrows keeps diverting back to the subject of Bear. “I was thinking of our crazy trip to France,” she says. “At the time, did you realize why I was going there? I think you did, right? My big notion of writing something about him.”
“About my father? No, I wasn’t aware.”
“Didn’t you sort of bring me for that reason?” she responds, an arch smile. “To show off your famous father?”
“Did I? Maybe.”
“Anyway, I never got enough material. Because of that argument.”
“What was our argument even about?” he wonders, aiming to shift to warmer matters.
“About you being obnoxious, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“Oh,” he responds, taken aback. “Yes, it probably was. Anyway, I’m sorry to hear that. Actually,” he adds, interrupting her, “I’m very sorry to do this, Barrows, but could you possibly go?”
“Are you not feeling well?”
“Very much not. But that’s the norm. I don’t mean to be rude. And I know I am. But it’s a matter of urgency—I’d quite like to be alone. And my time is limited these days. Sorry; I shouldn’t be doing this.”
She rises, gathers her belongings. “I traveled quite a ways to get here.”
“No, you’re right. I apologize.” He looks directly at her.
She leans down. A kiss on his cheek.
“I wish you such good luck, Barrows.”
That night, Jing asks how it went with his friend.
“Quite well.” And he means it. Pinch isn’t downcast about the meeting. He is relieved. Because Barrows was not the person he imagined. Anyway, not that person to him. Not anymore.
84
Jing enters his bedroom. Pinch reaches out, eyes shut, seeking her hand. He urges her to sit on his bed and describe his dogs.
As her words reverberate, he drifts into fevered sleep. Phones are ringing, the house bustling with policemen—he wakes, inhaling turpentine, smelling Bear’s clothing. He sniffs again, the dust of Natalie’s clay, dirty doorknobs, her gray fingertips. How amazing my mother and father were! All those years, all their bullying doubts, all in the paltry hope that strangers might someday stand before their work and look, probably no longer than a few seconds. That’s all they were fighting for. What driven lives!
And his own life? Viewed at any point along the way, it seemed to Pinch to have so little direction. But from the present vantage, what happened feels inevitable—not because events were beyond his control but because they were within it. He couldn’t have been other than he was. That doesn’t hurt anymore. Just another ant, marching up and down.
Or is this the painkiller talking? He smiles in the dark, unsure if the thin light framing his curtain means almost morning or nearly night.
He recalls a conversation with Natalie when, in sullen adolescence, he read her a line of German philosophy that claimed evil outweighs good by a comparison of “the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is eating the other.” Natalie recoiled. That, she retorted, overlooks so much: sensory experience, change, ideas, and a few allies (how few!), all of which combine into more than the waiting darkness. Don’t you think, Pinchy?
“I brought you a leaf,” Jing says, placing it on the bedspread.