The Japanese Lover(7)

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Alma Belasco was so accustomed to giving orders and keeping her distance, and Irina so accustomed to receiving orders and being discreet, that they would never have come to appreciate each other were it not for Seth Belasco, Alma’s favorite grandson, who made it his job to pull down the barriers between them. Seth met Irina shortly after his grandmother moved to Lark House. The young woman fascinated him from the start, although he could not have said why. Despite her name, she had little in common with the East European beauties who in the previous decade had taken the men’s clubs and model agencies by storm; in fact, from a distance Irina could be taken for a scruffy-looking young boy. She was so inclined to remain invisible that it took a good pair of eyes to even notice her. Her baggy clothes and knitted hat pulled down low did not exactly make her stand out. Seth was attracted by her mysterious intelligence, her impish, heart-shaped face with a deep dimple in the chin, her startled greenish eyes, her slender neck that emphasized her vulnerability, and her skin, so white it seemed to glow in the darkness. Even her childlike hands and chewed nails moved him. He felt a previously unknown and disturbing desire to protect her and shower her with affection. In the winter, Irina wore so many layers of clothes that it was impossible to judge the rest of her appearance, but several months later, when summer forced her to abandon the protective coverings, she turned out to be well proportioned and attractive, in her own raggedy way. The knitted cap was replaced by gypsy head scarves that could not completely cover her head, so that a few locks of almost albino blond hair constantly framed her face.

At first, the only link Seth could establish with her was thanks to his grandmother, since none of his usual seduction techniques appeared to work. Later on, he discovered the irresistible power of writing. He told her that with his grandmother’s aid he was compiling a century and a half of the history not only of the Belasco family but of San Francisco itself, from its foundation to the present day. He had been mulling over this vast saga for fifteen years: a raucous torrent of images, anecdotes, and ideas. If he could not get it all down on paper it would drown him. This was something of an exaggeration—the torrent was little more than a tiny trickle—but his description so caught Irina’s imagination that Seth had no choice but to set to work. In addition to visiting his grandmother, who contributed her oral history, he began to collect information from books and the Internet, and to collect photographs and letters written at different time periods. This won him Irina’s admiration, but not Alma’s. She accused him of having grandiose ideas and sloppy habits, a fatal combination for a writer. If Seth had paused to reflect, he would have admitted that both the book and his grandmother were nothing more than pretexts to see Irina, this creature straight out of a Nordic saga who had materialized where least expected: in an old people’s home. But however long and hard he reflected, he would have been at a loss to explain the irresistible attraction she exerted on him: her tiny orphan’s bone structure and consumptive pallor were the exact opposite of his ideal woman. He usually went for the healthy, tanned, cheerful girls who were so common in California and in his past. Irina showed no sign of being aware of the effect she had on him; she treated him with the casual kindness usually reserved for other people’s pets. Her polite indifference, which he would once have seen as a challenge, left him in a constant state of shy paralysis.

Seth’s grandmother began to dig among her memories to help her grandson with a book that, by his own admission, he had already spent ten years writing in fits and starts. No one was better qualified to aid him in this way than Alma, who had the spare time and was not yet afflicted with any signs of senile dementia. Alma took Irina with her to visit the ancestral Belasco residence at Sea Cliff, to go through her boxes that no one had touched since she had left. Her old bedroom remained under lock and key, entered only for cleaning purposes. Alma had disposed of almost all her possessions: she gave her jewelry to her daughter-in-law and granddaughter, with the exception of a diamond wedding ring reserved for Seth’s future wife; her books to hospitals and schools; clothes and furs, which no one dared wear anymore in California for fear of animal-rights protesters who might launch a knife attack, to charity shops; she distributed other things to whoever wanted them, keeping only what mattered to her: letters, diaries, press cuttings, documents, and photographs. “I have to sort out all this stuff, Irina, I don’t want anyone rummaging in my private life when I am really old.” To begin with she tried to do it all on her own, but as she began to trust Irina she began to delegate to her. The young woman ended up in charge of everything, apart from the letters in yellow envelopes that arrived from time to time, which Alma always made vanish immediately. Irina was under strict instructions not to touch them.

Alma doled out her memories to her grandson in a sparing manner, one by one, to keep him hanging on for as long as possible, because she was afraid that if he became bored of fluttering around Irina, the famous manuscript would be returned to a bottom drawer and she would see far less of the young man. Irina’s presence was essential to the sessions with Seth, otherwise he became distracted waiting for her to appear. Alma laughed to herself when she thought how the family would react if Seth, the heir to the Belasco dynasty, were to get together with an immigrant who lived by caring for old people and washing dogs. She herself did not consider it such a bad idea, as Irina was far more intelligent than Seth’s previous athletic but short-lived girlfriends; yet Irina was a rough diamond, and required polishing. Alma set herself the task of providing her with a veneer of culture, taking her to concerts and museums, lending her grown-up books to read instead of those absurdly lengthy novels about fantasy worlds and supernatural creatures that she so enjoyed, and teaching her proper manners, including how to handle cutlery at table. Irina had learned none of this from her peasant grandparents in Moldova or from her alcoholic mother in Texas, but she was quick-witted and grateful. It would be easy to refine her, and it would be a subtle way of paying her back for attracting Seth to Lark House.