Idiots First by Bernard Malamud Read Free Book Online Page A

garbage.
    Annamaria furiously got the two bags and handed them to her.
    In bed she was so cold her teeth chattered.
    Tense with desire Fidelman warmed her.
    â€œAngelo mio,” she murmured. “Amore, possess me.”
    He was about to when she rose in a hurry. “The cursed door again!”
    Fidelman gnashed his teeth. “I heard nothing.”
    In her torn yellow silk robe she hurried to the front door, opened and shut it, quickly locked and bolted it, did the same in her room and slid into bed.
    â€œYou were right, it was nobody.”
    She embraced him, her hairy armpits perfumed. He responded with postponed passion.

    â€œEnough of antipasto,” Annamaria said. She reached for his member.
    Overwrought, Fidelman though fighting himself not to, spent himself in her hand. Although he mightily willed resurrection, his wilted flower bit the dust.
    She furiously shoved him out of bed, into the studio, flinging his clothes after him.
    â€œPig, beast, onanist!”
    4.
    At least she lets me love her. Daily Fidelman shopped, cooked, and cleaned for her. Every morning he took her shopping sack off the hook, went to the street market and returned with the bag stuffed full of greens, pasta, eggs, meat, cheese, wine, bread. Annamaria insisted on three hearty meals a day although she had once told him she no longer enjoyed eating. Twice he had seen her throw up her supper. What she enjoyed he didn’t know except it wasn’t Fidelman. After he had served her at her table he was allowed to eat alone in the studio. At two every afternoon she took her siesta, and though it was forbidden to make noise, he was allowed to wash the dishes, dust and clean her room, swab the toilet bowl. She called, Fatso, and in he trotted to get her anything she had run out of—drawing pencils, sanitary belt, safety pins. After she waked from her nap, rain or shine, snow or hail, he was now compelled to leave the studio so she could work in peace and quiet. He wandered, in the tramontana, from one cold two-bit movie to another. At seven he was back to prepare her supper, and twice a week Augusto’s, who sported
a new black hat and spiffy overcoat, and pitied the art student with both wet blue eyes but wouldn’t look at him. After supper, another load of dishes, the garbage downstairs, and when Fidelman returned, with or without Augusto Annamaria was already closeted behind her bolted door. He checked through the keyhole on Mondays and Fridays but she and the old gent were always fully clothed. Fidelman had more than once complained to her that his punishment exceeded his crime, but the pittrice said he was a type she would never have any use for. In fact he did not exist for her. Not existing how could he paint, although he told himself he must? He couldn’t. He aimlessly froze wherever he went, a mean cold that seared his lungs, although under his overcoat he wore a new thick sweater Bessie had knitted for him, and two woolen scarves around his neck. Since the night Annamaria had kicked him out of bed he had not been warm; yet he often dreamed of ultimate victory. Once when he was on his lonely way out of the house—a night she was giving a party for some painter friends, Fidelman, a drooping butt in the corner of his mouth, carrying the garbage bags, met Clelia Montemaggio coming up the stairs.
    â€œYou look like a frozen board,” she said. “Come in and enjoy the warmth and a little Bach.”
    Unable to unfreeze enough to say no, he continued down with the garbage.
    â€œEvery man gets the woman he deserves,” she called after him.
    â€œWho got,” Fidelman muttered. “Who gets.”
    He considered jumping into the Tiber but it was full of ice that winter.

    One night at the end of February, Annamaria, to Fidelman’s astonishment—it deeply affected him—said he might go with her to a party at Giancarlo Balducci’s studio on the Via dell’Oca; she needed