The Painting (38 page)

I have some sense of it, says Sato.

Hayashi reaches for the bucket of leftover clay and buries his feet.

Sato twirls a paintbrush and sets it back down.

The mountain monks, says Hayashi, pulling clay between two fingers, they are my family. He feels a tumult of emotion. Hayashi scrapes away the dried blue clay encrusted in his fingernails. Night begins to saturate the room. He digs his feet deeper into the clay. Hayashi glances at Sato, whose dark eyes dart furiously around the room, then looks away.

Sato tries to control his rising anger. So you would put your entire household in jeopardy because of this monk? What is so great about this man? Surely he isn’t one of the mountain monks who took care of you. Sato exhales loudly, filling the room with his disgust. I guess I don’t understand, he says. He’s tempted to blurt out the true contours of the danger, but there is Hayashi’s pale face, his hands, clenching and unclenching. What harm
would the truth bring to Ayoshi? He has seen brief flashes of Hayashi’s temper.

Hayashi’s face flushes and sets stubbornly. I appreciate your help, he says, rubbing his hands back and forth, unable to look at him. He breathes deeply and gathers his strength. It is what he wishes he’d said so long ago. Now it must be said. But I’d rather you not interfere with my affairs.

Sato rises and pulls his hands behind his back. Fine. Fine. Fine. Let’s talk about anything else but your affairs.

Hayashi lets his shoulders drop back down, away from his ears. Good, he says, relieved.

The weather? Shall we talk about the weather? How the season seems to be changing? Or what? The rice crop this year?

Hayashi frowns and narrows his eyes.

Or poetry? Perhaps the Heian period?

Hayashi feels his anger rise, and before he can contain it, he flings back, You can be a very disagreeable man.

Sato leaps out of his chair, smiling brightly, and claps his hands. Now we’re getting somewhere.

T
HE CEREMONY ENDED A
while ago, and the family helped carry the casket outside to the cemetery, then left for town to receive condolences from their neighbors. The temple is quiet, the scent of incense still heavy in the air. He will have to build the bonfire soon and cremate the body. But not now.

He pulls out the painting. He shouldn’t have stolen it, shouldn’t have snuck into the studio last night after he finished the teahouse, but there are so many paintings and he wants to know, who is this man who holds her, as if she is his, and he is hers? He told himself as he walked into the studio, he is just curious. He can’t stop staring at the blue and red swatches of kimonos splashed against each other, the pale limbs intertwined. He sees so much more this time as he traces the man’s hand skating on her thigh. Their thick sensuality, an escape, he knows now. Her hand on his chest and another wrapped behind his back. He knows the racing of the heart, the warm skin, the breath persecuting the ear.

He walks back to the center of the temple to sit and say his prayers, but fidgets and returns to the painting. His throat constricts; fury and despair and humiliation tangle there. Their faces, blissful; and this is what is confusing. This is the most confusing part of all. This is what is tightening his lungs: She seemed this way with him. Her face radiant, and he felt the flush of heat in his cheeks. Her voice swooning. So what does it mean or does it mean nothing at all? He can’t separate himself from this heart-stabbing question, but throws himself at it again and again. The first rip in the painting is done without thought. He tears through the clouds racing through blue sky, mutilates the searing sun, he cleaves until he reaches the top of her head, then stops. He drops it on the floor.

He stands there stunned, staring at the ruined painting, his mind lodging into the need to escape. Run to town, to the carriage with the black horses, and ride away from these people, from her; a thickness falls between him and the world, through which he sees that nothing at all belongs to him. In his innocence he has never had that thought, never desired to own anything. But here, in the valley below the mountain, it is different, and in the home of Hayashi, who owns so much, he feels utterly deprived. That wretched feeling burrows down and pulls up another thought, that he is unworthy and that is why he has nothing. He tries to soothe himself by remembering that Hayashi’s soul will be assessed after death and his lavishness will relegate him to rebirth as a beast or worse, the demonic regions of Jigoku. But even those thoughts bring no peace. He finishes ripping the painting, right down the middle of Ayoshi and that man. He is astonished at himself, at his actions. He did not know he could destroy so easily. He crumples up the man and shoves the paper inside the opening of a vase. He holds the image of her in front of him, imagining that her loving eyes are for him. But she’s not looking at him; her gaze drifts off to the side. He jams her image into a bag of rice.

S
HE COMPELS HER HAND
to draw his face slowly with a black-inked brush. The forced hand creates the oval outline, the hair, each strand, but even with that much done, she knows it is not Urashi’s face, and as she goes on, it’s not the line of his nose, the shape of his lip, the curve of an eyelid, the
fall of his dark hair; nothing about him rests on the paper. For weeks, she’s tried to find his features. Ayoshi sets the brush down. She remembers the woman’s face after the funeral service, the etchings of grief gone, a vision of tranquility. The woman walked with her children to the gate, the deep disturbance removed, her shoulders composed, her breathing steady.

She finds the monk in the temple polishing the Buddha statue. He feels the air shift the moment she walks in. At first he won’t look at her.

She won’t go away.

He finally turns.

She asks him to conduct a burial ceremony. How long has she known?

Of course, he says, his body softening. His eyes brighten. Of course. His tone is warm now, filled with understanding and a tinge of excitement.

There won’t be a body to wash, she says, her voice flat and empty. It is for Urashi, she says. The man in the paintings.

Whatever you need. He’s about to say more. She raises a finger, turns, and walks out, expecting to fall down.

H
AYASHI REMOVES ONE FOOT
and then the other from the bucket. He pauses for a moment, looking at his mangled feet, before he wraps them in cool, wet towels.

It can’t be that hard. Just tell the monk it is time.

Hayashi gazes at Sato from heavily veiled lids. Hayashi stands. He feels vulnerable and afraid. The thing he’s worked so hard to push aside is now in front of him again.

There are some things that can’t be ignored, says Sato.

Hayashi, his hands clasped in front of him, looks out the window. Ayoshi is walking briskly across the grounds from the temple to the house.

No, I suppose not, he says slowly.

S
HE FINDS HER BLACK
kimono made of exquisite silk. She selects a pair of new tabi socks and slips on her new wooden sandals. A virgin, she thinks, nothing worn before. Twisting her hair, she secures it at the nape of her neck with an ivory comb.

She walks across the pebbled path to the small sitting room for prayer. The monk has lit incense and candles. He bows and continues to light more incense. She sits on a long bench, and he stands at the front of the room and begins to read a sutra. Her head bows and the words of the prayer tumble from her mouth. After a while, the monk gives the signal for her to rise. She goes to the incense urn, bows, and offers another stick of incense from the monk’s box, lights it, and lets the smoke spiral up to her face, cleansing her as it seeps into the air. She returns to her seat.

Behind her she hears the door open and close, the footsteps of solid feet on solid ground. She keeps her head bowed, the monk still reciting. Before they parted for the last time, Urashi grabbed her wrist, and she searches now for his words, but they too have disappeared.

She opens her eyes. At the altar, Hayashi places a pinch of incense on the smoldering pile of ash in the urn. He bows and drops his head to his chest. What is he doing here? she thinks. She feels a rise of anger. An intrusion, she thinks, interfering in a private affair. To insert himself into this moment, this critical moment when the man whom she loved more than anyone is being buried. Hayashi doesn’t look at her as he resumes his place in the back row. She watches him mumbling the sutras as she is doing now. She takes a deep breath. What does it matter, really, if he is here? Who knows whom he is praying for? When she lowers her voice, she hears Hayashi’s deep tenor, and even through the prayer, she hears the rattle of sadness.

Kneeling now, she lets her head fall, sliding into the depth of herself, a weeping willow of a neck, and the tears come. When she is done, she looks up. Hayashi has gone. The monk finishes chanting the sutra alone, and she slips out the door, feeling the lightness of relief in her hollow inside.

FRANCE

S
HE’LL BE STANDING THERE
, he thinks, as he pins the cardboard cylinder to his side, not even a sliver of freezing air between him and the painting. He inserts the key to her apartment and gasps a nervous breath. Exhausted, yes, but a brilliant smile, a smile announcing she’s home, there she’ll be, a woman shimmering with happiness.

The hinge squeaks as the door slowly opens. He steps carefully over the threshold. The bleak room stares forlornly at him. He stands perfectly still, not certain what to do. It’s too soon, he thinks, much too soon, but he can’t endure doing nothing, so he sets the painting on the cot and begins to scour her musty-smelling apartment, searching underneath the black metal frame of the bed, along the damp windowsill, behind the drapes faded an ancient yellow, and hasn’t he done this before? What does he hope to find? He can’t say and he can’t stop because there might be something—what? what is it? whatever is he looking for? He peers into the empty kitchen cupboards, nothing, then rushes to the top drawer of her bureau. In his haste, the entire drawer comes out. There, tucked in the back, a torn piece of paper about the size of his thumb. His hand trembles as he feels a quickening in the air. Her handwriting. He has come to know the thin stretch of it, the way it almost refuses
to be known. He wants it to mean so much, to unlock the secret to her, so he can save her, and, in some illogical way, though he can’t explain it, save himself, too.

And so they went
. … And so they went? The rest of the letter is missing. Just this phrase. What more did she write? He rummages through the other drawers. He rakes through the room again, stumbles into the hallway, and digs through a random bag of garbage. The old woman down the hall cracks open her door and peers at him with an incredulous look on her face. He stands up. There is nothing more, he thinks. Only this fragment, this silly, meaningless fragment. He steps into Natalia’s apartment, opens the window, and leans his head out. The air is cold, and he watches the white plume of his breath. In the distance, the din of a crowd’s voice rises and falls like ocean waves. All of Paris seems to have congregated, he thinks, and why wouldn’t she be there? He grabs the painting, hobbles downstairs, and crosses by the Pantheon. Of course she’d be drawn to the sound, as the swell seems to have swept him into its strong current. It’s flowing down from the top of Montmartre.

It is near midnight, and Pierre will be expecting the final shipload that will never arrive. With his arms stretched out, Daudet will have a fantastic story, and the dim delivery boys will hand him the boxes. What does it matter which one of them has the splendors? Daudet or Pierre, men who have ravens picking at their hearts, incessantly squawking acquisition and possession, nothing will ever be enough, and in the end, the raven will win anyway.

Near the top of the hill, people huddle, wearing thick, colorful coats and scarves and holding lanterns that light their open, expectant faces. A huge bonfire roars, and from this vantage point, it looks as if they have come to witness the raging flames. Women and children and men too old to fight push to get a better view, the bodies pressing closer. As he reaches the very top, he sees the center of the curiosity, a reddish-purple balloon limping on the ground.

Moving in and out of the weave of the crowd, he hunts for Natalia until he finds himself standing in front of the balloon. A ring of National Guardsmen surrounds the basket fastened to the varnished balloon with
heavy twined rope. Another four soldiers feed a gigantic pile of coal to a hungry fire. The gas from the flames is filling up the balloon. Jorgen stands mesmerized.

The balloon leaps off the ground, a fiery animal now, flashing and coiling its dark red skin. A soldier loses his grip on the rope, and now the rope jumps wildly. The gathering
oohs
and
ahhs
, lurches forward, then back, following the beast as it blusters and roars.

Pierre must be craning his neck, looking for the carriages, for the goods stuffed inside coffins, for the things he promised to sell to the Meaux, the Savants, and the Gladstones; the foreigners are always willing to pay double for food from their home country.

What are we waiting for? someone shouts. The purple-red beast glows, hovering above the crowd, rising, rising to its full height.

It wants to fly, says a girl to her mother, tugging on her mother’s coat. Why don’t they let it go?

Hush, says her mother.

The soldiers are barely holding on, dangling from the ends of the wild, jerking ropes. Jorgen steps closer to the balloon and feels the heat of the coal fire. The throng at once draws closer, as if following some mysterious collective pattern.

Where is he? a woman says, looking around. The balloonist should have been here hours ago.

If he doesn’t show up, what will become of the mail? asks another woman. I’ve got four letters in the stack.

Probably got scared at the last minute, says a man with a black cap.

It’s just like our soldiers, says an old woman. The Prussians have surrounded the city. If you climb the slope from Passy to the Trocadero and stand with binoculars, you can see a squad of Bismarck’s cuirassiers with their square hats and waving plumes.