Alma lived with her cat in one of the independent apartments, with a minimum of furniture and personal belongings. She drove around in a tiny car, completely ignoring all traffic regulations, which she chose to regard as optional. One of Irina’s duties was to pay the parking fines that regularly arrived. Alma’s upbringing meant that she was polite, but the only friends she had made at Lark House were Victor, the gardener, with whom she spent many long hours working on the raised beds where they planted vegetables and flowers, and Dr. Catherine Hope, against whom all resistance failed. Alma rented a studio in a warehouse space divided by wooden partitions that she shared with other artisans. She continued with her silk-screening, as she had done for sixty years, although she no longer sought artistic inspiration in her work, but simply to avoid dying of boredom before her time. She spent several hours a week there, assisted by Kirsten, who despite her Down syndrome was able to fulfill all her tasks. Kirsten knew the color combinations and tools that Alma used. She prepared the fabrics, kept the studio neat and tidy, and cleaned the brushes. The two women worked harmoniously together, without the need for words, intuiting each other’s intentions. When Alma’s hands began to shake and she could no longer grip a brush, she hired a couple of students to copy onto silk the designs she drew on paper, while her faithful helper watched them as keenly as a prison guard. Kirsten was the only person who allowed herself to greet Alma with a hug, or to interrupt her with wet kisses whenever she felt a sudden wave of tenderness.
Without ever seriously intending to, Alma had become famous for her original, brightly colored kimonos, tunics, kerchiefs, and scarves. She herself never wore them: she preferred black, white, or gray loose-fitting trousers and linen blouses that Lupita dismissed as the rags of a tramp, never once suspecting how much those rags cost. Alma’s silk screens were sold in art galleries at exorbitant prices to raise funds for the Belasco Foundation. Her collections were inspired by her journeys around the world—animals from the Serengeti National Park, Ottoman ceramics, Ethiopian lettering, Inca hieroglyphics, Greek bas-reliefs—which she quickly renewed as soon as her rivals began to copy them. She had refused to sell her brand or to work with fashion designers; each of her original creations was reproduced in a limited edition that she closely supervised and then signed. In her heyday she’d had around fifty people working for her and had produced a considerable volume of work in a big industrial warehouse south of Market Street in San Francisco. Since she had no need to sell anything to earn her living, she had never advertised, but her name had become a watchword for exclusivity and excellence. When she turned seventy she decided to cut back on production, to the severe detriment of the Belasco Foundation, which had counted on this income.
Established in 1955 by her father-in-law, the legendary Isaac Belasco, the foundation created green spaces in at-risk neighborhoods. Although the goals of this initiative had primarily been aesthetic, ecological, and recreational, it also produced unexpected social benefits. Wherever a garden, park, or square sprang up, delinquency rates declined, as gang members and addicts who had been previously ready to kill each other for a packet of heroin or a few more inches of turf now found a common interest in looking after this corner of the city that belonged to them. In some they had painted murals, in others built sculptures and children’s playground equipment; in all of them, artists and musicians gathered to entertain the public. In every generation, the Belasco Foundation had been headed by the firstborn male member of the family. This tacit rule did not change with female liberation, because none of the daughters bothered to question it. One day the responsibility would fall on Seth, the founder’s great-grandson, who could not refuse it even though he had no wish whatsoever to receive such an honor.
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