Nobody in the world is more spoiled than Gustav Klimt. Alma thought she would choke on the hypocrisy of it all. At Carl’s behest, she, Mama, and Gretl went to the Rialto market to buy Klimt farewell presents. Then her family treated Klimt to a heavy lunch. Her head muddled from Asti Spumante, Alma sat at the far end of the table from Klimt and hardly glanced up from the plate of octopus risotto she couldn’t bring herself to eat. Then, after the bitter, scalding espresso she made herself swallow in one gulp, her family saw Klimt off to the train station.
Her face rigid from the effort of not letting him see her cry, she and Gretl surrendered their offerings of wine and cheese, chocolates and pastilles, bread rolls and the thick, greasy sausage Alma hoped he would gag on. Aware of Mama and Carl’s eyes on her, Alma shook Klimt’s hand. Her fingers quivered in his too-tight grip as he gazed into her eyes soulfully, as though their abrupt parting devastated him. Could he truly be so two-faced?
“Keep a place in your heart for me, Alma,” he whispered. “Just a tiny one.”
Did he think he could string her along with promises he could never keep? Did he think so little of her, as though she had no pride at all?
“This has to stop,” she said, drawing her spine upright. Remember, you stand as tall as he.
“Yes,” he said, twisting his face as though she had struck him. “It was stillborn.”
With a curt nod, she stepped away from him and stood with her family while watching him board the train.
When the locomotive departed in a belch of black smoke, Carl clapped her shoulder, nearly knocking her sideways. “Well done, Alma. Tonight we’ll toast your prudence and good sense!”
Parasol clenched in her fist, Alma marched along the lido where listless waves smacked the sandy shore. Ahead of her, Gretl and Carl shared some joke and laughed as though all was well in the world. Mama walked close beside her, as if not trusting her enough to let her out of her sight. Alma poured her entire effort into appearing stoical. If she shed a single tear, she feared Mama would start off on her again. He doesn’t really love you, Alma. Don’t deceive yourself!
Up and down the beach, Italian families took pleasure in their Sunday promenade, the little girls decked out in their white dresses and lacy veils, having celebrated their first communion. It still wasn’t warm enough for proper swimming—only a few intrepid souls braved the water, their heads bobbing like jetsam. The sea is so vast, Alma thought, and human beings are so terribly small and ineffectual. Why do we even create? What would become of her energy, her dreams, her passions—would they just wither away as she learned to be sensible?
A young Venetian lady strummed a mandolin and sang in an achingly beautiful voice. Although Alma didn’t understand the lyrics, the mournful melody touched her deepest pain, and she thought she might break down for all the world to see. She had been kissed and then told it meant absolutely nothing. She had been awakened only to be brusquely commanded to go back to sleep. She was of no consequence. Just a naïve, easily led girl.
“Alma, there’s something I must tell you,” Mama said.
She braced herself for yet another lecture, but what Mama said next made the horizon dip and fall.
“I’m expecting a baby in August,” her mother said, as matter-of-factly as if telling her they would board the eight-thirty express train to Trieste in the morning.
A baby in August—it was already May. Alma’s birthday was in August. Her new sibling would be twenty years younger than she was—it seemed absurd. How is it possible that I was too dim to even notice? Alma’s eyes passed surreptitiously over her mother’s stoutish figure. Mama had always been thick around the waist and corseted herself accordingly, but it was true she seemed a little more cumbersome now, especially in the way she walked.
“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Alma asked, her temples pounding.
Mama’s eyes drifted off over the Adriatic. “I was pregnant twice last year, but I lost those babies. I wanted to make sure this wouldn’t be a miscarriage before I said anything.”
How unnerving it was to be confronted with this window into Mama’s private female travails. To think an unborn baby was something you could simply lose. Alma imagined a phantom infant flying off into the ether, borne on angel wings like a macabre cherub. Once more she felt throttled by her own ignorance. When will I ever stop feeling like a backward child?
“Gretl already knows,” Mama said, twisting the blade.
How long had Gretl been holding this knowledge over her head, Alma wondered wretchedly.
“Your sister saw me getting sick one morning,” her mother explained, “while you were playing the piano.”
So it was her music that had kept her ignorant. Alma asked herself, with a guilty start, if this was such a bad thing.
“But Mama, you’re forty,” she blurted out.
“Forty-one,” her mother said irritably. “Even women as ancient as I can have babies, you know.”
“But it’s dangerous.”
The tears Alma had been holding back all day fell freely. To lose a would-be lover was one thing, but to lose her mother? The older the woman, the riskier the birth. She was seized with hatred for Carl for doing this to Mama. Surely her mother shouldn’t have to endure childbirth at her age. But, you fool, that’s what men do. Men make love to women, who have their babies. Alma was forced to admit that she didn’t care for babies at all. She realized she wanted the impossible—to love the way a man would love, with no fear of betraying her own body in the process.
Alma enclosed her mother in a tight embrace, as if that could keep her safe.
“I shall have a quiet summer,” Mama said, hugging her back. “While you and Gretl go to the mountains, I shall stay behind in Vienna and rest.”
“What’s all this?” Carl’s booming voice made Alma grit her teeth. “Is that girl in hysterics again? Let your poor mother breathe.”
Shaking in anger, Alma couldn’t even look him in the eye.
“I was telling Alma about the baby,” Mama said brightly, taking her husband’s arm.
Gretl rolled her eyes. “Alma with her head in the clouds. Always the last to know.”