Paint the Wind, page 26
“I can come home sooner if we get some help, someone to cook and clean.”
His lips thinned in disapproval. “Still the debutante. You know we can’t afford a servant.”
“Then I imagine I’ll be here for a while.”
He left soon after, with no mention of when he’d be back. Flowers arrived from Berta, along with a note from Salon Pisko letting me know that seven of the Faces of Vienna series had sold and at least three buyers had expressed interest in the maternal paintings. While Sophie slept, I made notes in my journal. The proceeds from the sales would help keep us solvent.
Elise came to visit again, this time bearing gifts for both Sophie and me—a beautiful embroidered dress for her with a matching bonnet, a sketchpad and a painted silk scarf for me. During her visit, we danced around the topic of Oscar.
“He was quite overcome with awe and fear when he returned home after he brought you here.”
“He was magnificent, Elise, keeping me calm with stories and songs. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met him at the café. I would have been alone in my apartment. We don’t have a telephone. I’d have been down on the street attempting to hail a carriage while praying my water didn’t break.”
“Why did you agree to meet him?”
I sensed her guardedness, her wish to protect her brother from hurt. I’m sure she had borne the brunt of his pain after they had left Skiathos.
“I will admit to you that when I went to meet him, I was torn between my marriage vows and my love for Oscar. But I came to a decision once I was with him and was on the verge of telling him that this time, I had chosen him.”
“But you didn’t tell him.”
“No. When I went into labor, every cogent thought flew out of my mind.”
“He needs to know, Maya, and not from me.”
“I know, but he can’t come here. My mother knows he is your brother, but I do not need her disparaging yet another choice in my life. Can he wait until I return home?”
“And then what, Maya? Will you be any more free to talk with him? Where will Andreas be?”
I buried my head in my hands.
“Give me time, Elise. I’m exhausted, and I’m now a mother with a daughter to protect.”
“I don’t mean to push you beyond the limits of your capacity to balance all the elements of your complicated life, Maya. I understand that the tightrope you are walking now requires you to juggle knives as you traverse the wire. But Oscar is fast approaching his own limit, not knowing what you want. He’s making plans to leave for Berlin.”
“I cannot lose him, Elise! I will pull myself from this bed and go to him. There’s a park around the corner. I’ll meet him there tomorrow morning at eleven. Promise me you’ll see that he gets there. Come for me, and I’ll tell my mother you and I are walking.”
“I promise.”
The next morning, I bathed and dressed after feeding Sophie. She was too young to take outside, even swaddled in quilts and protected in the new pram my mother had bought. I told Mama I needed some fresh air and that Elise was coming to accompany me on a brief walk.
“You never could sit still for long. It will be good for you to have a break, but don’t overextend yourself. Between us, Gertraud and I can manage Sophie.”
Elise arrived promptly at quarter to eleven and led me to a secluded bench within the park. When Oscar arrived, she slipped away with a promise to return in fifteen minutes. I took Oscar’s hand as we sat together.
“You were my savior once again.”
“You’re well? Elise tells me your daughter is beautiful.”
“I can’t thank you enough for the instrumental role you played in the birth of my daughter. But I haven’t come here to talk about that. I’ve come to finish the conversation we began at Café Central before Sophie’s arrival took us by surprise.
“I love you, Oscar. I did not have to struggle over the decision. How I become a part of your life, I still have to determine. But I am not looking merely for words from you. I want all of you. I want what we began in the shepherd’s hut. Will you have me? I do not come unencumbered.”
“I love you, Maya, and I already feel connected to your daughter, given my role in her birth. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but I can wait.”
He pulled me onto his lap, and I leaned against his chest. His arms around me and his heartbeat echoing mine gave me the strength I knew I would need in the coming days.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sophie and I stayed at my parents’ house for two weeks. I wasn’t ready to leave, but between the impatience of my father to sleep in his own bed and the urging of my husband for me to sleep in his, it became clear that the only way to restore equilibrium was for me to bundle up my daughter and go home.
Gertraud made soups and baked breads to stock my larder. My mother had bought out the children’s shop on the Ringstrasse, and my grandmother had unearthed from her cedar chest the christening gown all of her children had been baptized in. I wrote an effusive thank-you note, recognizing that it had been a miracle Omama had even acknowledged Sophie, but I didn’t mention it was unlikely we’d be bringing Sophie to church. My ostracism from Mama’s family was loosening. I had actually produced a child within a marriage, however nonconforming the rest of my life had been, and for that, apparently, people were willing to forgive—to a point. Even Papa allowed himself to be mesmerized by his granddaughter.
He came home unexpectedly one evening for fresh clothes, and Mama and I were in the drawing room making a list of the gifts Sophie had received in her young life. Sophie slept contentedly in a basket at my feet. It was one of the few brief periods between feedings when I could actually do something with my hands. Papa stood in the doorway, watching us silently, before announcing himself.
I stood to greet him. It was the first time we’d had contact since the day he left Skiathos nearly two and a half years earlier. I was glad I wasn’t holding Sophie. I’d already learned that my moods transmitted themselves directly to her when she was in my arms. The tension and suppressed anger engulfing me at the sight of my father likely would have caused her to scream inconsolably.
“Papa.”
“Maya, you’re up from your childbed. Good, good. Mama tells me that you and the babe are well, Efcharisto stan Theo.” Thanks be to God.
Sophie murmured in her basket, and I watched Papa struggle to remain stoic and unmoved by the scene before him. But he could not resist the pull of his grandchild, her tiny fist pummeling the air above the basket. He took one step into the room and then another. Surprising both my mother and me, and I think himself, he knelt down on the floor and gazed at Sophie, who opened her eyes at that moment.
“She has your mother’s eyes.”
He turned his head away from me as he stood up, avoiding my own eyes, but I saw the tears.
He left the room murmuring about his clothes, and Mama followed him up the stairs. I wasn’t ready to sit down again to finish the list. Instead, I paced across the Persian carpet, keeping my steps light in order not to disturb Sophie.
I had understood somewhere in my milk-fogged brain that I might encounter my father, given that I was staying in his house, but I had been lulled by his absence. His unexpected appearance had caught me unprepared, but it seemed that he, too, was surprised to find me up and about. The shock of facing each other apparently muffled our reactions. While the air between us had rippled with tension, no words of anger had crossed our lips—but no words of forgiveness either. I had no expectation of his ever forgiving me, but I also knew I could not find it in my own heart to forgive him.
During my time on Skiathos, I had understood that my father’s love was lost to me, but that night had given me hope that even if he no longer loved me, he would love my daughter.
I did not see him again before I left to return home to Andreas.
My departure took place in my father’s largest carriage because of all the infant paraphernalia that needed to be transported. Sophie slept contentedly in my arms the entire ride. Andreas, who had come to retrieve us, sat opposite us and flicked his eyes from his sleeping daughter to his exhausted wife. Sleep interrupted every two hours by a hungry infant is no sleep at all. My mother, who had insisted on accompanying us, spent the entire ride observing Andreas; from her expression, it appeared she found him lacking.
When the carriage stopped in front of our building, its soporific effect on Sophie also ceased, and she woke with a howl. I managed to get her, screaming, into the lift, but not before the concierge stuck her head out the door of her apartment and fixed a look of intense disapproval on my struggles to calm Sophie. I left Mama and Andreas behind to deal with the luggage and the pram, and urged the lift up the four stories to our door. With the screaming Sophie in one arm and my keys in the other, I struggled to get inside. I put Sophie momentarily on the carpet while I peeled off my coat and my blouse, cooing gently to her. Sweat poured down my neck and dampened my chemise under my arms. She was hysterical by the time I put her to my breast, and it took her a few minutes to settle down. At such a young age, could she already detect the change in her environment?
I smelled traces of turpentine and linseed oil, the onions and sausage Andreas must have cooked the night before, and his Turkish cigarettes. When I had lived here before, I had barely noticed the odors, but now they assaulted me, just as they had affected Sophie and warned her she was in a strange place. By the time Mama and Andreas came through the door, Sophie had calmed down, although she was by no means her usual placid self. I didn’t think I could place her in her basket and help with the unpacking, so I instead played the role of director, determining where the boxes and crates should go. Mama took over in the kitchen, unpacking the hamper of food Gertraud had prepared and muttering that she should have sent Gertraud ahead to scour the place.
It was true. Andreas, living on his own for two weeks, had left a trail of debris in the kitchen and beyond. As I walked through the apartment, determining where to store things, I found dirty plates on the floor by the bed, newspapers strewn on tables and chairs, empty bottles of wine and beer everywhere. I avoided the studio. I couldn’t bear to see if he had done any work, and I didn’t want to contemplate when or how I’d find time to paint myself. When Sophie finally fell asleep in my arms, I gingerly set her down in the pram and rocked it for a few minutes until I was sure she was asleep.
Only then did I put on an apron, open all the windows, and set about establishing some semblance of order in my home. Andreas’s discomfort with my mother’s presence and the piles of Sophie’s belongings was so pronounced that I suggested he retreat to the studio. He did so with alacrity, relieved to be free from the unfamiliar faces and things around him.
Mama and I worked together in synchrony. Before Sophie’s birth, I had rarely witnessed her doing any kind of serious domestic chores, but she rivaled YiaYia in terms of both her competence during my labor and later her ability to manage the household around the demands of a newborn. Now, she rolled up her sleeves and donned one of my aprons as she scrubbed and swept and made room in my armoire for Sophie’s clothes and nappies. She found an enameled tub for soaking dirty nappies and placed it in the bathroom, along with an array of laundry powders to clean them and creams for Sophie’s tender skin.
By the time the bells in the nearby church were tolling the noon hour, the apartment was orderly, the table was set in the parlor, and Gertraud’s chicken and dumpling soup was simmering on the stove. Sophie still slept, which was something of a miracle. I knocked on the studio door to call Andreas to the midday meal. When he didn’t respond, I opened the door to find him sprawled on the divan asleep. A half-empty bottle of whiskey was on the floor next to him. I closed the door and joined Mama for the last of our meals together.
“You’ll let me know if you need anything? I’m happy to come back or send Gertraud once or twice a week to clean and put in some food.”
“Thank you for the offer, Mama. I will think about it. For now, I’d like to get settled into a rhythm that I can sustain on my own.”
“Don’t overdo it. You are still in a weakened state and need to rest. If you don’t want Gertraud, surely Andreas can afford to hire someone for a few hours a day. He’s a successful artist.”
“We’ll see. Until I start selling more of my work, we’ll need to be frugal.”
My mother stayed to do the washing up and helped me bathe Sophie after she woke and fed again. After Mama left and I closed the door behind her, I pressed my forehead to the wood. I was relieved to be once again mistress of my home and my life, but I was also frightened to hold the life of my daughter in my uncertain hands.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sophie was asleep when Andreas emerged from the studio.
“If you are hungry, there’s soup.”
“I’ll eat out.”
I studied him. Despite his complaints while I stayed at my parents’ that he wanted me home, now that I was here, it appeared he couldn’t get away fast enough. I didn’t have the energy to persuade him to stay. At some point, he would learn that Sophie’s quiet moments would be the only opportunity he had for my attention. I didn’t ask him when he’d be back.
After he left, I thought about napping, as I often had at Mama’s, but the pull of the studio was stronger than the pull of my bed, and I opened the door. On my easel was the last of my pregnancy self-portraits. It had not been completed in time for the Salon Pisko show, and, of course, I’d gone into labor the next day. I stood in front of it, examining the face of a woman on the verge of motherhood but not quite sure what the future held. I was glad of the record, because already, after only two weeks, I had forgotten how worries about the unknown had hovered around my dreams. I was no longer the expectant mother. I was the mother.
I took the painting off the easel and placed it against the wall.
Then I wandered around the room, fingering tubes of pigment and running my hands through the brushes stored in a glass jar. I thought about putting a record on the gramophone, but I didn’t want to wake Sophie. Curiosity finally pulled me to Andreas’s corner of the studio.
A canvas was propped on his easel, and I walked around it to look, hoping I’d find that he’d started a new project. But what I saw confused me. The painting was vastly different from Andreas’s work. It was vaguely reminiscent of paintings by the old masters that I’d studied in my art history class. It appeared to be an exercise in copying, a practice I’d often engaged in when I’d been a student sketching at the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The chiaroscuro was definitely an imitation of Caravaggio’s style, but the subject wasn’t one I recognized as a Caravaggio masterpiece. Perhaps Andreas was experimenting as a source of inspiration. I’d ask him about it when he got home.
I was interrupted in my musing. Sophie’s cries let me know she had woken up.
Andreas came home after I’d gone to bed. He grunted and turned away from me when Sophie cried and I lifted her from her basket by my side of the bed. The exertion of the move back home had extracted more from me physically than I realized, and I dozed intermittently as Sophie nursed. I woke with a jolt when I realized she had fallen asleep on my chest. I eased her back into her basket and hoped she’d sleep for a few more hours. When she did wake again, it was nearly dawn, and I took her with me out of the bedroom in order not to wake Andreas. She was soaked through and needed a fresh nappy. I made a pot of coffee and sat at the table sipping it while Sophie cooed and pedaled her tiny legs. Was she going to be like I was as a girl, never willing to be still?
When she finally slept again, I managed to dress and brush my hair. Mama had wisely suggested that I wash my hair before I left my parents’ house. Even less than twenty-four hours later, I understood how bound I was to Sophie’s schedule, Sophie’s needs. Everything else slipped from importance, including Andreas.
He slept past noon, apparently deaf to Sophie’s wails. When he finally emerged, he spent a scant thirty minutes with me eating Gertraud’s warmed-over soup, and then disappeared into the studio. I wanted to ask him about the painting on the easel, but Sophie’s hunger interrupted us. As he had the evening before, he left for the coffeehouse and did not return until late.
Our days took on this pattern for about a week. As I began to understand Sophie’s rhythms and she blessedly settled into longer periods of sleep, my energy began to return. I wasn’t ready to face the studio, but I did have more stamina for expressing my own needs to Andreas.
Over a midday meal I’d been able to cook, I questioned him.
“You were so eager to have me return home, and yet I barely see you, except across the table at midday. That appears to be the only time you have available for me. I spend hours in the evening alone. If you were here, I’d want to hear about your day, your work.”
“Are you truly interested? Then I’ll tell you. I’m in conversations with an agent who may have some commissions for me.”
“Is that what the painting in the studio is? It is so unlike your style, I thought perhaps it was simply an experiment copying the look of Caravaggio.”
He became very still. “When did you see it?” He sounded deeply suspicious, as if I’d violated his artistic privacy.
“I went in the first day I was home. I missed the studio. I missed working. Your painting was there, not covered up. You haven’t been reluctant to show me your work in the past—not since you painted my first portrait. Has something changed?”
He waved his hand as if to brush my concerns away. “It’s not important. You were right. I was simply trying out my hand at understanding Caravaggio’s technique of chiaroscuro. One can always learn from the masters, even as we break away from their traditional concepts of beauty and truth. That was clever of you to recognize the elements of Caravaggio.”
He got up to return to the studio for the rest of the day. The conversation was the longest we’d had since my return. The next time I went into the studio, however, the painting was gone.
