Portrait of a Girl (31 page)

Achille looked up startled. “What isn’t true, my darling Andrina? What are you talking about?”

Andrina, hands on hips, gasping, seemed to be struggling for words.

“What’s the matter? Tell me.”

“Nika is working in the dining room, did I hear that right?”

Robustelli nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Why does that upset you?”

Andrina dropped into the chair in front of his desk, throwing her arms up theatrically, as if she wanted to ask imaginary bystanders what they thought of such an answer. “What am I upset about? Can’t you see? And haven’t I said it a thousand times? This girl comes over the mountains, nobody knows from where or why, settles in our house, eats the soup my mother cooks, turns my helpless brother Gian’s head, yet aims for higher things. She gets right to work on the famous Segantini, and now she doesn’t want to get her hands dirty in the garden anymore. She intends to hobnob instead with the aristocracy at their tables in the dining room under the crystal chandeliers. And Signor Robustelli thinks, why not?”

Andrina had worked herself into such a fury while she was speaking that she jumped up to face him, looking as if she wanted to pounce.

“Sit down!” Achille said. “In the first place, I was only complying with Segantini’s wish. After all, he is a friend of the director of this hotel. Segantini wants to help the young woman. The girl is coming along wel
l . . .
”

“Exactly. That’s it! The witch’s eyes make you all dreamy while she coldly pursues her goals. And you? Didn’t it occur to you that there might be other people who deserve to be promoted to the dining room?” Andrina raised her head high and looked out the window.

Achille sighed. This would certainly mean suffering through several days of abstinence.

“Andrina, please calm dow
n . . .
”

“Yes? But you like he
r . . .
”

“I just made an observation that anyone can confirm. Right now, I need Nika more urgently to serve in the dining room than in the garden. And quite apart from that, I can’t simply do as I like or as you like. I’m neither the director nor the owner of this hotel.”

“Then become director!” Andrina hissed. “Then you can do as you like.”

She hadn’t expected that her outburst would make him so angry, for he rarely got angry. But now she cringed as he struck the top of his desk with his hand.

“That’s enough! I’d like to see how happy you’d be if I were hotel director in a hotel with a dozen rooms in some little village.”

She’d gone too far. This wouldn’t get her anywhere.

“I can see that you don’t want to understand,” she said, feeling insulted. “Tonight, by the way, we can’t get together. It’s my father’s birthday.” And with that, she swept out.

Lost in thought, Achille opened his desk drawer. He took out the silver cigarette case and took out a cigarette, tapped it on his desktop, and lit it unhurriedly. Segantini had wanted Nika in the garden so that he could see her whenever he chose to. Why did he bring Nika back to work inside the hotel? So that Segantini could no longer meet with her? So that he, Achille, would have her nearby? Was Andrina right? Couldn’t he just as well have assigned her, Andrina, to the service staff preparing for the big ball?

He flipped the cigarette case open and shut, irresolutely. It hadn’t been easy to mollify Andrina when she heard that Nika was getting one of the attic rooms. Wasn’t it all too understandable that she would feel rejected all over again now? And she happened to fly off the handle easily; that was her temperament, Achille thought, trying to calm his uneasy soul. And from the first moment on, she hadn’t been able to stand the
straniera
.

He drew on his cigarette and blew the smoke out in rings. It was better not to think about it too much. The conflict would blow over once he had introduced Andrina to his mother.

“Si, signore?” Nika asked. She was bent over with a dustpan and broom. She straightened up and found herself gazing into the brown eyes of a young man who had addressed her with “scusi, signorina.”

“May I?” he asked, smiling, and took the dustpan and broom out of her hand. “I was the one who dropped the glass.” He bent down, swept up the fragments, and returned the dustpan to her.

Nika looked at him in confusion.

“Haven’t I seen you outside working in the hotel garden?” he continued.

His voice caused her to feel a pleasant, warm thrill, but the waiter who had sent her to clean up the minor accident had emphasized that it was not permitted to speak privately with the guests. Employees of the hotel weren’t even allowed to speak to the guests’ servants. Still she had to give him an answer. Nika decided she would nod. In this way, she had answered and still not spoken.

Fabrizio Bonin noticed her embarrassment. He stepped back as if to go, but paused and said, “I’m glad that you’re now working inside. That way I’ll see you more often.” He smiled and turned back to his friend. Nika hurried off with the glass shards.

“You have excellent taste,” James said. He was amused. He had by now become quite close to Fabrizio, but had never before spoken with him about women.

“Let’s say I have my own personal taste. I don’t fall in love easily. I hate flirting, and most of the women other men think pretty or desirable, I find neither beautiful nor compelling. You see,” Fabrizio laughed and raised his wine glass, which the waiter had hurriedly refilled, “life is hard for me.”

James toasted him. “Cheer up. I love flirting and I think many women are pretty, but I’m just as alone as you are!”

Nika threw the shards into the trash bin and slipped into a nearby ladies’ room. She locked the door and looked at herself in the mirror. She had gained weight, for Benedetta had served her generously, and her body, even though slender, had assumed a softer outline. She was suntanned from working in the garden, in contrast to the ladies who were guests at the hotel and always carried parasols to keep their skin from darkening. But her hair was beautiful. She examined her facial features. They were unconventional, not quite regular, and her eyes were an unusual color. She moved closer to the reflection in the mirror, noted the little brown spots in the blue-green irises. It looked as if sparks were flying up inside. She felt ashamed remembering what Segantini had said about vanity, and guiltily she closed her eyes.

The young man in the dining room had brown eyes. Everything about him seemed so carefree, so natural. As if life was easy and cheerful. Why had he spoken to her? The hotel, after all, was full of ladies walking around, bored, just waiting for a man to speak to them.

One last time Nika looked deep into her own eyes in the mirror. Yes, she would have liked to talk a little longer to the young man. She felt that in his company time would fly by, for it was almost as if he lent you wings.

“And does the
straniera
still give you a part of her earnings?” Andrina asked her mother. She had come home on one of her rare visits.

“Why should she?” Benedetta said. “Nika doesn’t live here with us anymore. She’s sleeping and eating in the hotel now. Under those circumstances, why should I wheedle any money out of her? Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“No,” Andrina said curtly. “Your coffee tastes like anything but coffee. Achille has coffee sent from Ital
y . . .
”

“Which Achille?” Benedetta asked; she was hard of hearing in one ear.

“Signor Robustelli, good Lord. Get used to him.” Andrina stretched. “We’re going to get married. He is going to introduce me to his mother.”

Benedetta turned her back to her daughter and poured herself a cup of coffee. “So, you won’t have any of my coffee. And I hope you don’t expect me to approve of the man who sent my son to his death from his elegant, immaculate desk.”

“My God, you are narrow-minded! He’s not responsible for Luca’s death! He only made the connection for him!”

“He recommended him.” Benedetta put a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. Normally she did that only on Sundays, but she needed something sweet now. Her daughter was becoming more of a stranger the longer she worked in the hotel.

Andrina was angry. “But recommending someone doesn’t mean that you killed them or are responsible when something bad happens!”

“But it was common knowledge that it was dangerous. I knew it. And you knew it too. There were so many workers who had died already. At the Gotthard Pass alone. That was no secret. My Luca gave his life like those others so that people like Robustelli can travel in comfort across the Alps. Even though it would be better if they didn’t bother us and stayed where they belonged.”

Andrina jumped up from her chair. “And I’m going to marry him in spite of that! I’ll have a great future. In contrast to you. I’m leaving now.”

Andrina was furious. Not just with her mother who couldn’t see beyond her own front door, beyond Maloja and Stampa, but also with Achille Robustelli whom she’d just defended so passionately. It was incomprehensible, all the things he was doing for Nika. For this girl her brothers had dragged in, and who seemed to be everywhere now, spinning her web. And to think that she, Andrina, was the one who had brought her to the hotel! She could have kicked herself for it. And now on top of everything else, the
straniera
was living in a single room, working among the guests, while she, Andrina, was still cleaning rooms. But she didn’t want to talk to Achille again about it, not before he introduced her to his mother. She was determined to make a good impression. But she simply wasn’t going to put up with all this.

Signora Robustelli was a small, round woman dressed in black. She was impressed by the hotel her son was managing, even though the area, in spite of its fashionable clientele, seemed a bit rough and isolated.

“I am not the hotel director,” Achille emphasized. “I’m only the assistant manager and responsible for the personnel.”

“But it’s the same thing almost,” his mother said. Don’t you feel lonely here? The village has only a few houses. And it’s just a village, not a city like Bergamo.”

“This is a grand hotel, Mama—there’s nothing like it even in Milan. I employ one hundred and fifty people, and hundreds of people from the best circles of Europe come here. I have an incredible amount of work to do but enjoy it very much. Why should I feel lonely?”