Paint the wind, p.10
Paint the Wind, page 10
“Of course! Dr. Schindler prescribed laudanum to calm her nerves. Take a good look at what you’ve done to your mother, and then go to your room.”
I climbed the stairs quickly once Papa released my arm. After I was in my room, I heard the key turn in the door. He had locked me in like a prisoner. I threw myself face down on the bed and sobbed for the loss of my freedom, but also for the loss of my parents’ love. Even though I had anticipated their anger, being confronted with the reality of it was devastating. My mother was clearly ill, barely recognizable, and my behavior had driven her to despair. I punched the down pillow. Why was the price so high?
I slept fitfully, not bothering to undress. In the morning, Papa unlocked the door and told me to come to breakfast.
“Tidy yourself. You’re no longer living in a slum.”
I did the minimum, tucking in my blouse but leaving my hair loose. Before I left my room, I removed Andreas’s onyx ring from my finger. I placed it instead on a narrow gold chain that I fastened around my neck and then tucked under my blouse.
Mama was not in the dining room, and Gertraud slipped back to the kitchen as soon as I arrived, avoiding my gaze.
“Sit down and listen. I’ve decided, and your mother agrees, that you cannot remain in Vienna. The scandal is only simmering right now, because most people we know haven’t yet seen the exhibition, but it’s only a matter of time before the whole city is aware of your escapade. Once that happens, who knows who will be poking around here trying to identify you and write sordid details about your relationship with that painter? I regret ever inviting him to our home. I’ve already removed the portraits from the parlor.
“So you can’t stay here, and sending you off to one of your aunts’ will damage your mother’s already fraught connections with her sisters. The only salvageable solution is for you to go to your grandparents’ on Skiathos.”
I nearly dropped my coffee cup. “Skiathos!” The distance it would put between me and Andreas, between me and my short-lived freedom, enraged me. I started to protest, but Papa slammed his fist on the table, causing the jar of plum preserves to jump.
“You have no say in this, Maya. Your ability to make wise decisions is clearly impaired. You and I will depart for Trieste this afternoon, and from there board a ship to Greece. I hesitated telling you even this much for fear you would try to get word to that predator. You will remain in your room until we leave. Pack your belongings. Gertraud will bring you a tray for lunch. I suggest you have a bath. It will be a long trip, and not a luxurious cruise.”
He dismissed me with a wave of his hand and turned to his newspaper. I rose and left the room. As I turned for the stairs, I glanced at the front door. How far would I get if I left at that moment, with no coat, no money, and no doubt a guard at the front steps? Was there any way to reach Andreas? I might be able to post a letter at the train station if we were traveling to Trieste by rail, but Papa hadn’t said, and we could just as likely be going by carriage. Nevertheless, I resolved to be ready if an opportunity presented itself once our journey was underway.
Once again, I acted the dutiful daughter and did as Papa said. An empty suitcase was waiting in my bedroom, probably retrieved from storage by Gertraud. Alone, I packed and then took a bath. I was dressed in traveling clothes and sitting on my bed when I heard a hesitant knock on my door.
“Maya, may I come in?”
It was Mama. I answered and heard the key turn, opening the door.
She appeared much the same as she had the night before, although her hair was now neatly braided and she was wearing a fresh nightgown. She was also much more talkative.
“I want to speak to you before you leave with Papa. I need to understand why you found the need to defy everything we thought you held dear—our love for you, the life Papa built for us, even your place at university, which you fought so persistently for. What possessed you to throw away a future we had supported? We accepted that you were not going to be happy following the path of other young Viennese girls. While we—especially, I—hope you will one day marry, we recognized your intelligence and drive and understood we could not hold you back, even knowing what a challenging life you would have trying to satisfy your insatiable desire to be an educated, independent woman. We supported you. It is incomprehensible to me that my brilliant daughter did not foresee the chaos her decision to model would unleash. I am not even speaking of the pain you have inflicted on us and the scandal that will keep the tongues of Viennese society wagging. I’m talking about your life, your ambition, your desire to accomplish something with the many gifts you have. Maya, I know you are furious with us right now, but I beg you to think about what you truly want while you are away. Do you want to be labeled as Brenner’s whore for the rest of your life, dismissed as an object of someone else’s vision?”
“I’m not his whore. I’m his collaborator, his muse, his inspiration.” I sputtered the words, taken aback by my mother’s observations. Clearly the laudanum had worn off, and she had come to my room primed for battle.
“Oh, please, Maya. I’ve seen the paintings.”
“But Papa said . . .”
“Papa is not aware that I went to the exhibition. I needed to see for myself with the eyes of a woman, not an enraged father who believes his daughter is still a child.”
I was speechless.
“You were no longer a virgin when he painted those nudes. You were his lover.”
“His lover, not his whore.”
She shrugged. “There is more than one way to define a whore. Are you pregnant?”
“No!”
“Well, at least there is that. I am still devastated for you, but perhaps not for the same reasons as Papa. Nevertheless, I agree with him that the best course of action is for you to leave Vienna right now. Everything needs to cool off—everyone’s reaction to the exhibition, your affair with Brenner, your headstrong tendency to act without understanding the consequences.”
“You don’t understand. Without me, his art will suffer. This decision of yours and Papa’s will destroy his life as well as mine.”
“No, Maya, it is you who do not understand. I do not care what happens to Andreas Brenner. He exploited you for his own gain. I know you think I am old-fashioned and hidebound in my adherence to society’s dictates. But would someone with such conventional views have not only allowed you to attend university but also encouraged you? It is I who convinced your father of the rightness and wisdom of such an unorthodox path for his daughter. I will tell you now why I championed you, and why it is breaking my heart that you have thrown away that opportunity. And for what—lust and a fleeting moment of notoriety?”
She took a breath, giving me a moment to reflect on what she was saying, a perspective that was very much in line with my own fears about what would ensue after the unveiling of the portraits.
“Let me tell you why I fought for you. Before I met your father, I was a student of music. I had private instruction because my parents forbid me to study at the Vienna Conservatory. I played and composed for the piano. I even gave a recital of my original work that was well reviewed. But it was 1875. If you think society’s constraints now are unbearable, Vienna at that time was bound tightly by rules defining the proper role for women, especially women of our class. My parents were adamant that my music would never be a profession, but merely an adornment. I was furious. I was fortunate to have a sympathetic aunt, your Grosstante Irmgard. She whisked me away to Greece to calm the waters in my parents’ house. I cried, I ranted, and then I fell on the steps of Sounion and fell in love with your father.”
“But your dream of composing!”
“I put it aside when you were born. I couldn’t reconcile my life as a wife and mother with my ambition to bring my music to the world. Perhaps I didn’t try hard enough, but I was bombarded with expectations from my family to live a certain kind of life, and Viennese society left little room for loosening the bonds that restricted women’s lives. I also knew I had a role to play in fostering Papa’s success in business. I didn’t want you to face the same challenges. That is why I persuaded Papa to allow you to attend university, and that is also why I cannot fathom why you squandered that precious seat in the lecture hall and the library.”
Any resistance I had to my parents’ decision to send me away was seeping out of me like air from a balloon. Listening to my mother had drained me far more than my father’s fury. Her disappointment in me for my seeming rejection of the life she thought I wanted and that she had fought for me to have had thrown me into turmoil.
I wanted to protest, “It’s not the same! I haven’t given up my dreams or discarded my ambition to further Andreas’s career!” But I couldn’t, in all honesty, say that. All my illusions about the power I held in my relationship with Andreas and his art seemed ridiculous in the light of my mother’s observations. I didn’t want to believe how blind I had been.
All I could do was apologize to my mother again. I took her hands in mine.
“Thank you, Mama. I am truly sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.”
She kissed me. “I know, Schatz. Use your time away wisely. I won’t come down to bid you farewell. I cannot bear to watch you ride away.”
And then she left me.
As I hoped, we traveled by train to Trieste, but my plan to mail a letter to Andreas from the station was thwarted by my father’s vigilance. He never left my side, except when I insisted on using the ladies’ room, and even then he waited immediately outside the door. I had thought I might ask someone to post the letter for me, but the restroom was empty except for an elderly woman who did not understand German and waved me away in apparent fear. Did I seem dangerously unstable in my desperation to get word to Andreas? It had been less than twenty-four hours since my father had come for me at the studio, but I was already on the verge of despair. In another day, I’d be on a ship and completely beyond reach.
I washed my hands and face and rejoined my father. We had barely spoken since leaving the house, and I had no desire to provoke him into another tirade about my behavior by even acknowledging him. Andreas and I had departed from the same station for Meran just over a week ago. I forced myself not to dwell on that memory, if only to spare myself the pain of more loss than I was already experiencing.
Each time I thought I might be able to wrest myself from my father’s side, not only to slip the letter into a post box but also to escape into the city, I found the watchful, hulking presence of Antonio, along with others recruited from my father’s warehouse. He had left nothing to chance. A chill rose in my spine. I would never again be able to leave unobstructed as I had on Christmas Day when I walked out of the café.
We boarded the train. I knew it was pointless to search the platform for Andreas. He was not coming to rescue me. I was on my own.
My father had reserved a sleeping compartment for our ten-hour journey and arranged for dinner to be brought to us. He was allowing no possibility for me to leave the train along the way. We ate in silence as the train sped south, first toward Graz.
I had put down my napkin when my father spoke as if he were musing to himself and not actually addressing me.
“He’s a Jew, you know.” He took a sip of cognac and waited for me to react.
I was confused. “Who is?”
“Brenner, of course. I did some investigating before I found him. His birth name is Aaron Bochner. Comes from a village outside Warsaw. Apparently, he saw the wisdom of removing the taint of Judaism from his name if he was going to convince Viennese society to hire him as a portraitist.”
Andreas’s reluctance to share with me any details of his past or his family now made more sense, although several of his fellow artists were also Jewish and they hadn’t changed their names or hidden their backgrounds. Was it to further his career, or was it shame? I might have understood the former, but why had he held his origins secret from me?
“Your silence indicates you didn’t know. For all your physical intimacy, it’s clear he was a stranger to you. Your recklessness astounds me, Maya. I’ve always thought you were astute, especially when it came to people, but I can see I was mistaken. What other lies of his did you believe? That he loved you? That he would marry you?”
I remained impassive, listening to my father’s cruel words. He had never spoken to me like this, which reinforced how angry he was with me. I saw no point in arguing with him.
“I’m tired, Papa. I’m going to get ready for bed.”
Our compartment had a private lavatory, so I couldn’t even gain a few minutes’ respite to use the toilet at the end of the railway car. When I had finished washing up, I crawled into the narrow berth and turned my back on my father. Sometime later, I heard water splashing into the sink, and then the light dimmed. Before long, I could hear my father’s snores. I was exhausted, but even the rhythmic pulse of the train rolling over the tracks was not enough to lull me into sleep.
Early the next morning, a porter rang a bell as he moved up the corridor outside our compartment. The train would arrive in Trieste within a half hour.
“Dress warmly,” my father said sharply. “We’ll sail shortly after we arrive, and the weather will be frigid on the open sea.”
He was right. During the crossing, we encountered not only frigid temperatures but also rough seas and high winds. I spent most of the voyage in my cabin, curled into a ball on my berth with a basin close by.
The trip took more than two weeks. I lost weight, didn’t have a bath or wash my hair, and was barely able to hold down a bowl of soup.
By the time we arrived on Skiathos, I was a shadow of my former self.
Chapter Fourteen
At the port in Skiathos Town, my father hired a fleet of donkeys to carry the supplies he had brought for my grandparents up into the hills above the harbor to their home.
Our arrival in the neighborhood drew notice immediately. Kerchiefed women retrieving water at the fountain stopped their conversation to watch us. Two old men smoking on a bench outside a taverna nodded as my father acknowledged them, greeting them as Theío, or uncle. The neighborhood was smaller than I remembered, but most of the landmarks remained—the cobbled square, the church, the mayor’s house. My grandparents’ home was on the outskirts of the town, with commanding views of both the harbor and the cove to the south.
Like my father, my pappou had gone to sea as a young man and prospered, returning intermittently with money to support his widowed mother and provide dowries for his sisters. One year he had returned with a wife, my yiayia. As a child, I had only vaguely been aware that my grandmother was not like her sisters-in-law or the other women on the island. It had not seemed at all unusual, for example, that my grandparents’ house was filled with books, just as my home in Vienna had been. My childhood summers on Skiathos had been paradise. I never questioned if my grandmother was homesick for a life very different from the one she had adopted in marrying my grandfather.
After his seafaring days were over, my grandfather built a trading company with a fleet of ships and a large warehouse at the port. He also took over the farm that had been in his family for generations, growing olives that were crushed into oil before being exported and raising goats and sheep whose milk my yiayia transformed into feta and yogurt.
We arrived at the gate to their house, one of the largest on the island, and my father called out “Mitera! Pateras!” A window on the upper story was thrown open, and my yiayia’s face appeared, accompanied by a shriek of joy. She left the window, and I could hear her calling out to someone in the house as she descended to greet us. Bursting out of the door, she ran to my father, who had dismounted his donkey. It was the first time I had seen him smile in all the days since he had pulled me away from Andreas.
He embraced and kissed her.
She held his face in her hands and studied him with wonder, as if he were a ghost, presumed dead and now returning to her. Although I had not been back in ten years, I had always assumed that my father had visited his parents on some of his voyages, but perhaps not.
It was only after welcoming her son that my grandmother noticed me.
“Is this Maya, my little engoni, now a grown woman?”
She held out her arms, and I bent down to receive her hug. She was much shorter than I, sleight of build but strong, I discovered, as she wrapped her sinewy arms around me.
“Come, come inside and tell me everything. I’ve sent our workman Dimitri down to the warehouse to fetch Pappou.”
My father insisted on unpacking the donkeys first, concerned with the threatening skies. Our trek up from Skiathos Town had been dry, but he had warned me that January was notoriously wet and cold in the Sporades. I helped to haul the sacks of food and boxes that I assumed contained objects unavailable on the island. My grandmother directed us where to stack them. By the time everything was inside, my grandfather had arrived and we went through another round of welcomes.
My grandfather was more subdued than my grandmother, expressing a gruff pleasure in seeing us but astute enough to know we hadn’t arrived unannounced in the middle of winter for a social visit. When we were settled in front of the fire with hot cups of green mountain tea laced with honey in our hands, my grandfather wasted no time.
“So why are you here? We are grateful for the money and gifts you send to us, of course, but you yourself have been a stranger. I’m old, but I’m not stupid. There’s only one reason why you’ve brought Maya. Is she in trouble?”
My father stiffened. My grandmother sighed and shook her head.
“She’s not with child, if that is what you mean.”
“Then why have you brought her?”
They were talking about me as if I wasn’t in the room. I wanted to speak up and began to open my mouth, but my father put his hand on my arm to stop me.
“She’s become involved with people we consider a bad influence, and we think it’s best if she’s away from Vienna for a while.”
I realized my father wasn’t planning on revealing everything. His motivation in withholding the details, I concluded, was not to protect me or to prevent the scandal from spreading to Skiathos but rather to protect himself. He didn’t want his parents to judge him as unable to control his daughter.
