The Japanese Lover(73)
Since lovemaking between them was so infrequent as to be almost nonexistent, Alma imagined her husband must have had other women, because the idea that he lived a life of chastity was absurd; Nathaniel however had respected the agreement to be discreet and avoid humiliating her. For her part, Alma had allowed herself a few flings on her travels, where opportunities always arose. It was a matter of giving a signal, and generally finding it was accepted, and yet these moments of release not only gave her less pleasure than she hoped but left her confused. She was of an age to enjoy an active sex life, she thought, and that was as important for her well-being and health as exercise and a balanced diet: she shouldn’t let her body dry up. But considered like that, sexuality became just another chore rather than a gift for the senses. For her, eroticism needed time and trust, which were not easy to come by in a night of fake or stiffly awkward romance with someone she would never see again. In the midst of the sexual revolution, in the time of free love, when in California couples were swapped and half the world slept with the other half, Alma still could not get Ichimei out of her mind. She asked herself more than once if this was not simply an excuse to disguise her frigidity, but when at last she encountered Ichimei once more she no longer posed herself that question, nor sought comfort in the arms of strangers.
September 12, 1978
You explained to me that inspiration is born of stillness, and creativity comes from movement. Painting is movement, Alma: that’s why I like your recent designs so much. They seem effortless, although I know how much stillness is needed to control the brush as you do. I especially like your autumn trees, gracefully letting their leaves fall. That is how I would like to shed my own leaves in this autumn of life, easily and elegantly. Why be so attached to what we are bound to lose anyway? I suppose I mean youth, which has been so present in our conversations. On Thursday I prepared a bath for you with the salts and seaweed I was sent from Japan.
Ichi
SAMUEL MENDEL
Alma and Samuel Mendel met up in Paris in spring 1967. For Alma it was the penultimate stage in a two-month journey to Kyoto, where she studied sumi-e painting, using obsidian ink on white paper, under the strict supervision of a master calligrapher who made her repeat the same line a thousand times over until she achieved the perfect combination of lightness and strength. Only then could she move on to the next stroke. She had been to Japan a number of times. The country fascinated her, above all Kyoto and some of the local mountain villages, where she found traces of Ichimei everywhere. The free, fluid lines of sumi-e, painted with the brush held vertically, allowed her to express herself with great economy and originality, omitting detail, focusing purely on the essential, a style Vera Neumann had already developed into birds, butterflies, flowers, and abstract drawings. By this time Vera had an international business, selling millions and employing hundreds of artists. Art galleries bore her name, and twenty thousand shops all around the world offered her clothing, as well as decorative and domestic objects. Such mass production was not Alma’s intention; she remained faithful to her choice of exclusivity. After two months of black brushstrokes, she was preparing to return to San Francisco to experiment in color.
It was the first time her brother, Samuel, had returned to Paris since the war. In her voluminous baggage, Alma carried a trunk containing her scrolled drawings and hundreds of slides of calligraphy and painting to act as inspiration. Samuel’s luggage was minimal. He arrived from Israel wearing camouflage pants, a leather jacket, and army boots, together with a small knapsack containing two changes of clothes. Even at the age of forty-five he went on living like a soldier, with his shaven head and a complexion so toughened by the sun it was as hard as leather. For both brother and sister this was an excursion into the past. They had cultivated their friendship over a period of time thanks to the frequent exchange of letters they found themselves inspired to write. Alma had practice from childhood, when she used to completely confide her thoughts to her diary. Samuel, however taciturn and suspicious in person, was often voluble and friendly on the page.
In Paris they rented a car and Samuel drove to the village where he had died for the first time, guided by Alma, who had never forgotten the route she had taken with her aunt and uncle in the 1950s. Since then Europe had risen from the ashes, and it was hard to recognize the place, once a mass of ruins and rubble, now completely rebuilt and surrounded by vineyards and lavender fields, glorious in this most beautifully radiant season of the year. Even the cemetery was enjoying a new prosperity, with marble angels and headstones, wrought-iron crucifixes and railings, shady trees and sparrows, doves, and silence. The caretaker, a friendly young woman, led them along narrow paths between the graves searching for the memorial plaque placed there by the Belascos many years before. It was still intact: Samuel Mendel, 1922–1944, pilot in the Royal Air Force. Below it was a smaller plaque, also made of bronze: Died in combat for France and freedom. Samuel removed his beret and scratched his head with amusement.
“The metal looks newly polished.”
“My grandfather cleans and maintains the soldiers’ graves,” the caretaker said. “He put the second plaque there. You know, my grandfather was in the Resistance.”
“I don’t believe it! What’s his name?”
“Clotaire Martineaux.”
“I’m afraid I didn’t know him,” Samuel replied.