Pictures of Fidelman by Bernard Malamud Read Free Book Online

continued to eat lunch with him at Guido’s, and more often than not, supper, although she said practically nothing during meals and afterwards let her eye roam over the faces of the men at the other tables. But there were times after they had eaten when she would agree to go for a short walk with Fidelman, if there was no serious wind; and once in a while they entered a movie in the Trastevere, for she hated to cross any of the bridges of the Tiber, and then only in a bus, sitting stiffly, staring ahead. As they were once riding Fidelman seized the opportunity to hold her tense fist in his, but as soon as they were safely across the river she tore it out of his grasp. He was by now giving her presents—tubes of paints, the best brushes, a few yards of Belgian linen, which she accepted without comment; she also borrowed small sums from him, nothing startling—a hundred lire today, five hundred tomorrow. And she announced one morning that he
would thereafter, since he used so much of both, have to pay additional for water and electricity—he already paid extra for the heatless heat. Fidelman, though always worried about money, assented. He would give his last lira to lie on her soft belly, but she offered niente, not so much as a caress; until one day he was permitted to look on as she sketched herself nude in his presence. Since it was bitter cold the pittrice did this in two stages. First she removed her sweater and brassiere, and viewing herself in a long faded mirror, quickly sketched the upper half of her body before it turned blue. He was dizzily enamored of her form and flesh. Hastily fastening the brassiere and pulling on her sweater, Annamaria stepped out of her sandals and peeled off her culottes, and white panties torn at the crotch, then drew the rest of herself down to her toes. The art student begged permission to sketch along with her but the pittrice denied it, so he had, as best one can, to commit to memory her lovely treasures—the hard, piercing breasts, narrow shapely buttocks, vine-hidden labia, the font and sweet beginning of time. After she had drawn herself and dressed, and when Augusto appeared and they had retired behind her bolted door, Fidelman sat motionless on his high stool before the glittering blue-skied windows, slowly turning to ice to faint strains of Bach.
     
    The art student increased his services to Annamaria; her increase was scorn, or so it seemed. This severely
bruised his spirit. What have I done to deserve such treatment? That I pay my plenty of rent on time? That I buy her all sorts of presents, not to mention two full meals a day? That I live in flaming hot and freezing cold? That I passionately adore each sweet-and-sour bit of her? He figured it bored her to see so much of him. For a week Fidelman disappeared during the day, sat in cold libraries or moved around in frosty museums. He tried painting after midnight and into the early morning hours but the pittrice found out and unscrewed the bulbs before she went to bed. “Don’t waste my electricity, this isn’t American.” He screwed in a dim blue bulb and worked silently from 1 a.m. to five. At dawn he discovered he had painted a blue picture. Fidelman wandered in the streets of the city. At night he slept in the studio and could hear her sleeping in her room. She slept restlessly, dreamed badly, and often moaned. He dreamed he had three eyes and was missing an ear, or nose.
    For two weeks he spoke to no one but a dumpy four-and-a-half foot female on the third floor, and to her usually to say no. Fidelman, having often heard the music of Bach drifting up from below, had tried to picture the lady piano player, imagining a quiet blonde with a slender body, a woman of grace and beauty. It had turned out to be Clelia Montemaggio, a middle-aged old maid music teacher, who sat at the old upright piano, her apartment door open to let out the cooking smells, particularly fried fish on Friday. Once
when coming up from taking down