Free Pictures of Fidelman by Bernard Malamud Page B

Fidelman.
    “I’m not in the least bit sexy,” Teresa weeps.
    Considering her body with half-closed eyes, Fidelman tells her to go borrow a long slip.
    “Get one from one of the girls and I’ll draw you sexy.
    She returns in a frilly white slip and looks so attractive that instead of painting her, Fidelman, with a lump in his throat, gets her to lie down with him on a dusty mattress in the room. Clasping her slip-encased form, the copyist shuts both eyes and concentrates on his elusive Venus. He feels about to recapture a rapturous experience and is looking forward to it but at the last minute it turns into a limerick he didn’t know he knew:

    “Whilst Titian was mixing rose madder,
His model was crouched on a ladder;
Her position to Titian suggested coition,
So he stopped mixing madder and had’er.”

    Angelo, entering the storeroom just then, lets out a bellow. He fires Teresa on her naked knees pleading with him not to, and Fidelman has to go back to latrine duty the rest of the day.
    “You might as well keep me doing this permanently,” Fidelman, disheartened, tells the padrone in his office afterward. “I’ll never finish that cursed picture.”
    “Why not? What’s eating you? I’ve treated you like a son.”
    “I’m blocked, that’s what.”
    “Get to work, you’ll feel better.”
    “I just can’t paint.”
    “For what reason?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Because you’ve had it too good here.” Angelo angrily strikes Fidelman across the face. When the copyist sobs, he boots him hard in the rear.
    That night Fidelman goes on a hunger strike but the padrone, hearing of it, threatens force-feeding.
    After midnight Fidelman steals some clothes from a sleeping whore, dresses quickly, ties on a kerchief, makes up his eyes and lips, and walks out the door past Scarpio sitting on a bar stool, enjoying the night breeze. Having gone a block, fearing he will be chased,
Fidelman breaks into a high-heeled run but it’s too late. Scarpio has recognized him in afterthought and yells for the portiere. Fidelman kicks off his slippers and runs furiously but the skirt impedes him. The major-domo and portiere catch up with him and drag him, kicking and struggling, back to the hotel. A carabiniere, hearing the commotion, appears on the scene, but seeing how Fidelman is dressed, will do nothing for him. In the cellar Angelo hits him with a short rubber hose until he collapses.
     
    Fidelman lies in bed three days, refusing to eat or get up.
    “What’ll we do now?” Angelo, worried, whispers. “How about a fortune teller? Either that or let’s bury him.”
    “Astrology is better,” Scarpio says. “I’ll check his planets. If that doesn’t work we’ll try psychology. He’s a suggestible type.”
    “Well, make it fast.”
    Scarpio tries astrology but it doesn’t work: a mix-up of Venus with Mars he can’t explain; so the next morning he tries psychology. He comes into Fidelman’s room with a thick book under his arm. The art copyist is still in bed, smoking a butt.
    “Do you believe in psychoanalysis?”
    “Sort of.”
    “Maybe we’d better try that. I’m here to help you. Don’t get up.”

    Scarpio opens the book to its first chapter. “The thing to do is associate freely.”
    “What’s the point of this?”
    “It might loosen you up. Do you have any memories of your mother? For instance, did you ever see her naked?”
    “She died young,” Fidelman says, on the verge of tears. “I was raised by my sister Bessie.”
    “Go on, I’m listening,” says Scarpio.
    “I can’t. My mind goes blank.”
    Scarpio turns to the next chapter, flips through several pages, then rises with a sigh.
    “It might be a medical matter. Take a physic tonight.”
    “I already have.”
    The major-domo shrugs. “Life is complicated. Anyway, keep track of your dreams. Write them down as soon as you have them.”
    Fidelman puffs his butt.
    That night he dreams of Bessie about to bathe. He is peeking at her