The Japanese Lover(46)
Alma Belasco had been an active, energetic woman who was as intolerant of her own failings as of those of others, but as she grew older she was softening, and had more patience with her fellows and with herself. “If nothing hurts, that means I woke up dead,” she would tell herself as she opened her eyes and had to stretch her muscles to ward off cramps. Her body was starting to become frail: she needed to find ways to avoid stairs or to guess the meaning of a sentence she hadn’t truly heard. Everything cost her more effort and time, and there were things she simply could no longer do, such as driving at night, putting gas in the car, opening a bottle of water, carrying bags of food. That was why she needed Irina. By contrast, her mind was sharp; she could remember the present just as well as the past, provided that she didn’t fall into the temptation of jumbling things up; neither her memory nor her reasoning failed her. She could still draw and had the same intuition for color; she went to the workshop but did not paint much because it tired her; she preferred to delegate this to Kirsten and the assistants. She never mentioned her limitations, confronting them without fuss, but Irina was aware of them. Alma detested old people’s obsession with their ailments, their aches and pains, a subject of no possible interest to others, not even doctors.
“There’s a widespread belief no one dares mention in public that we old people are redundant, we take up space and use resources that productive people need,” she used to say.
She did not recognize many of the people in the photographs, fleeting faces from the past who could be done without. In others, the ones Irina stuck in the albums, she could appreciate the stages of her life, the passing years with their birthdays, parties, holidays, graduations, and weddings. These were happy moments, as nobody took pictures of the unhappy ones. She herself hardly featured in them, but by early autumn Irina was better able to appreciate the woman Alma had once been. Nathaniel’s photographic portraits of her, part of the Belasco Foundation’s legacy, were discovered by San Francisco’s small artistic world, and a newspaper dubbed Alma the best-photographed woman in the city.
At Christmas the previous year, an Italian publisher had brought out a selection of Nathaniel’s photographs in a luxury edition. A few months later an astute American agent organized one exhibition in New York and another in the most prestigious gallery on San Francisco’s Geary Street. Alma refused to take part in these projects or to speak to the press. She said she preferred to be seen as the model of those years and not as the old lady of today, but confessed to Irina that this was out of not vanity but caution. She didn’t have the strength to reexamine that period in her past; she was afraid of what the camera might reveal that was invisible to the naked eye. Yet Seth’s insistence finally overcame her resistance. Her grandson had visited the gallery several times and been impressed. There was no way he was going to let Alma miss the exhibition: to him it seemed like an insult to Nathaniel’s memory.
“Do it for Grandfather, who’ll be turning in his grave if you don’t go. I’ll come to fetch you tomorrow. Tell Irina to come with us. The pair of you will be surprised.”
He was right. Irina had leafed through the Italian edition, but nothing prepared her for the impact of those enormous portraits. Seth drove the three of them there in the family’s heavy Mercedes-Benz, since it was impossible for them to fit either in Alma’s car or on his motorbike. They went at a dead hour of the afternoon, when they thought they would find the gallery empty. The only people they saw were a hobo stretched out on the sidewalk by the entrance, and a couple of Australian tourists to whom the Chinese porcelain doll of a gallery assistant was trying to sell something. She barely glanced at the new arrivals.
Nathaniel Belasco had photographed his wife between 1977 and 1983, using one of the first twenty-by-twenty-four Polaroids capable of capturing the tiniest details with the utmost precision. Nathaniel was not among the famous professional photographers of his generation, and he himself claimed to be only an amateur, but he was one of the few who could afford such a good camera. Besides, he had an exceptional model. Irina was touched by the trust Alma obviously had in her husband; she felt almost ashamed when she saw the portraits, as if she were profaning a starkly intimate ritual. There was no distance between artist and model; they were joined in a tight bond, and out of this symbiosis were born photographs that were sensual without having any sexual overtones. Alma was naked in several poses, and appeared lost in herself, unaware she was being observed. Some of the images had an ethereal, translucent quality, where the female figure disappeared into the dream of the man behind the camera; others were more realistic, and Alma faced Nathaniel with the calm curiosity of a woman alone in front of a mirror, at ease with herself, not holding back in any way, with veins visible in her legs, her Caesarean scar, and a face showing all her fifty years. Irina would not have been able to express the disquiet they aroused in her, but she understood Alma’s reticence at being seen in public under her husband’s clinical gaze. The two of them appeared united by a feeling that was much more complex and perverse than married love. On the gallery’s white walls, Alma was displayed as a submissive giant. That woman frightened Irina; she was a stranger to her. She felt a choking sensation, and Seth, who possibly shared her emotion, took her hand. For once she did not pull away.
The tourists left without buying anything, and the Chinese doll turned eagerly toward them. She introduced herself as Meili, and immediately overwhelmed them with a prepared spiel about the Polaroid camera, Nathaniel’s technique and intention, light and shadow, the influence of Flemish painting. Alma listened to all this with great amusement, nodding her silent agreement. Meili did not make the connection between this white-haired old woman and the model on the walls.