Books: Storm in an Espresso Cup

PRAISE A FINE DAY (179 pp.)—Sigrid de Lima—Random House ($3.50).

Time was when a fictional hero sold his soul to the Devil; nowadays the Devil often seems to sell his to the hero. Manhattan-born Sigrid de Lima, 37, has attempted a novel in the older fashion, but before Praise a Fine Day ends, her nameless painter-hero appears more devilish than the odd bargain he makes and breaks.

The expatriate American hero-heel, who tells this story in first-person flashback, has a code of sorts. He believes that arty ends justify ratty means. Setting up his easel on Rome’s Spanish Steps, he sketches the pigeons until the inevitable tourist sucker expresses interest. Eventually, the painter cadges a meal at the Caffe Greco, or his rent money, or a small “loan” to tide him over till the next patron of the arts appears.

Hinting at bigger game, his landlady introduces him to Isaak and Mara Sapphir. A wealthy Egyptian Jew, Isaak is paunchy, balding and married—but not to Mara. She is his Polish mistress, and pregnant. A homeless refugee, she wants to bear her baby in New York as a U.S. citizen. For going through with a temporary marriage that gives Mara the chance to become an American, Isaak offers the painter $3,200, a new wardrobe, and all travel expenses.

This strange menage a trois tours France, and at first everything is reasonably decorous. But the inevitable happens: the painter falls for Mara’s catlike face and supple body. Readers who follow the story this far will know that he is the sort of coward who kills the thing he loves with a kiss.

On the whole. Author de Lima’s narrative offers more tricks than treats. She raises the question of artist v. society, love v. vocation, honor v. survival, but her hero is not big enough to embody these dilemmas. His conscience is not so much troubled as missing. Still, her book is a feast of the visual imagination. Herself the wife of a painter, she stipples Praise with vivid vignettes. And when it comes to dialogue, her ear is as good as her eye. Author de Lima raises a storm, all right, even if it is only a tempest in an espresso cup.