The Painting (35 page)

He rushes to the door. No one is there. He gazes into the darkness and feels his stomach squeeze. Who was she daydreaming about today? When he asked her to fetch water for the woman, was she thinking about that man? Then he stops himself. Enough of this, he says out loud. He shuts the door, intending to sit again, but instead, he paces. Her paintings, he thinks, those horrible paintings.

S
ATO FINDS HER RESTING
in the Western room, curled up on the couch. On the table in front of her, her paper and black ink for calligraphy. The light sprinkles on the floor like diamonds. Stripes of shadow lie on the wall. She pulls a thread from the couch and molds it into a ball.

He drags a chair next to the couch.

I’m too tired for whatever trouble you’re bringing, she says, propping herself on an elbow.

He studies her.

She dips her brush in the ink, scrapes it against the edge of the plate, and writes his name. She chooses the kanji, a person with a saw about to make something.

Here, she says.

Is that a compliment? he asks.

She shrugs. Depends how you use the saw.

This flirtation with the monk.

She sits up.

Whatever is going on, it must stop.

She looks at her paper, not meeting his eyes.

I don’t think you realize—

It’s stopped, she says, her voice pinched tight.

The way he broods for you? The way he can’t stay away from you—

She doesn’t say anything.

And you from him? His tone is threatening and possessive.

That’s not true, she says.

He sniffs and looks out the window. The wind wrestles with the trees, and when they hear the hammer pounding, she freezes. The monk is finishing the teahouse. She draws in a deep breath.

Sato’s face darkens. I’m worried for your safety.

She laughs unpleasantly. You think Hayashi cares?

Sato is silent for a moment. Some men act irrationally when they discover their wives have affection for another man.

Hayashi searches me out only when his feet hurt too badly.

Sato stands. What does the monk know about the world? What has he seen?

She doesn’t answer, but studies Sato, weighing the urgent tone of his voice. He professes to want nothing, but Sato wants something.

Hayashi is not stupid, he says.

She wraps her arms around her shins. No. Not stupid.

He sighs and falls back into her chair. What am I going to do with you?

What would you like to do with me?

You know.

Say it.

I’d like you to come with me when I leave. That’s what I want. You’re dying here, shriveling into something unrecognizable. You’re not the person I once knew. That person was brilliant and talented. She seized hold of life. What happened to her? You’ve let yourself grow small. You’re going to disappear. The next time I come visit, you will have vanished. No one will know whom I’m asking for. Ayoshi? they will say. Who?

It’s so easy with Hayashi, she says, before she knows what she is saying.

Of course it is, he says. How does he challenge you? He doesn’t. That’s why it’s so easy.

Who says I want to be challenged? she says.

You used to want more.

With you, I’d have more? she asks, and the moment she says it, she knows this is what she would most like to know.

He considers her critically. I understand you, more than anyone.

Ayoshi doesn’t say anything for a long time.

He sighs, gets up, and leaves the room. She sits there, watching the shadows move on the wall.

T
HE MONK WORKS THROUGH
the night to finish the teahouse, five lanterns perched along the edges of the roof. At the deepest part of the night, far past midnight, he finishes laying the final tile.

Sato stands at the window and watches the monk put away his tools. Finally, whispers Sato.

The branches stir, cutting the moon into a series of dark lines. He thinks of all the stories that people tell about the moon, the myths, the dreams, the power that people give to the globe reflecting the sun’s light. Under a full moon in Shanghai, a woman read the Chien Tung fortune-telling sticks for him. She stared at him with ebony eyes, her eyelids painted bright blue. There is much more than has been revealed to you, she said. The material world is giving you such abundance, tremendous abundance, but it is sullying your spirit. He laughed, kissed her brown stained fingertips, and slipped her extra coins.

Sato hears a ship call out in the night and imagines it passing through black waters. On that ship or some other, he has boxes of gunpowder and rifles bought in China and sold to the English to be used against a group of insurgents in India.

Strange how much time has passed since he’s been on a ship. Usually the waves creep into his body, venture into his veins. Walking on land, he feels the sea and is buoyant, the sea lulling him, lifting him, and he never quite touches down.

But now the rocking in his body is gone, and he’s never been so fully weighted on his feet. It is time to leave. He walks back to his bed and lies down. And if Ayoshi comes with him? If she finally gathers the nerve to leave
her dismal husband? He could give her so much, show her the red cliffs in San Francisco, take her to Twining at the Strand in London for English tea. He’d sell her paintings, fetch such prices. A perfect fit, he thinks.

I
T IS SO QUIET
. The monk finished hammering about an hour ago, far past midnight. Now everyone is sleeping. Then why is he so restless? He gets up again and paces. He feels his mind pulling at something. The room darkens, the clouds dashing over the slice of moon, and for a moment, everything feels bleak. The teahouse is finished; there is no further need. It is time for him to go.

H
AYASHI JERKS AWAKE TO
the sound of a sad, helpless cry. He sits up and looks first around the room, then to the other side of the bed, thinking she might be hurt. There is Ayoshi, curled up into a ball, like something without its hard shell. He waits to see if she called out. But she is sleeping soundly. When has she ever needed him? he thinks. When has she ever asked him for anything? As he touches her arm, he hears the cry again, a ship moaning. Ayoshi stirs. He pulls away his hand.

Ayoshi wakes. Are you all right?

Yes, he says, I’m sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep.

He looks at her in the dim light and sees in her face something he’s never seen before, a certain gleam of fright in her eyes.

Shall I get you a glass of water? she asks.

I heard that ship. The horn of the ship. Sad isn’t it? he says. The sound of a ship, coming or going. It’s just that—I find some sounds haunting.

I
N THE EARLY MORNING
sun, Ayoshi steps outside to look at the finished teahouse. It is magnificent, she thinks. She slips off her geta, crouches down, passing through the small entryway. There is the scent of fresh pine and spring reeds. From the small window, she looks out onto the rock garden, white pebbles with large black stones arranged by the monk for contemplation. She sits at the tea table and stares at the blank wall. Presses her hands to her face. It is so easy to hate this world, she thinks.

The teahouse door snaps open. The monk stands in the doorway. Her body stiffens. I’m sorry, he says. I didn’t know anyone was in here.

You did a beautiful job, she says, half rising.

He bows and turns to leave.

Please stay, she says. A moment.

The room is small. He stands by the door, not moving.

Can’t you sit with me for a moment?

He mechanically steps to the far end of the table and sits, folding his hands.

You’ve been well?

Yes, he says, looking at her, then out the window. And you?

She nods, her throat tightening.

You’re probably leaving soon? she says.

Yes.

He says it so nonchalantly, as if nothing transpired between them, she thinks. She feels herself seeking the fire of his skin, the urgent silk of his fingertips, his lips.

He stands. She rises quickly and moves beside him, brushing her fingertips against his cheek. He jerks away, his eyes flickering.

I’m sorry I showed you the painting, she says. She reaches for him. I’m so sorry.

It’s what you paint. He stiffens again. You shouldn’t apologize. He pauses. You said it’s someone you once knew?

A long time ago, she says, startled by her words.

He nods, looking down at her tabi socks.

They stand there, not speaking.

I knew him in Hokkaido, she says. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

He waves her off. It’s better this way.

What way?

I should go. The family is coming today for a formal burial, he says. I don’t care if Hayashi tries to stop me. I don’t care if the government sends its soldiers here to kill me. It’s what must be done.

Enri—

He rushes from the teahouse. She turns to follow him, but stops herself,
listening to his footsteps rush across the pebbled path, until they become fainter and fainter, then nothing at all.

H
AYASHI IS ON HIS
way to the kitchen when he sees the monk hurry from the teahouse, his face flushed. He must have forgotten something, he thinks. Some final touch to make it perfect. Hayashi smiles knowingly and is about to continue down the hallway when Ayoshi steps from the teahouse. Her head is downcast. And he’s ready to erase this—what is this?—not willing to believe what is slowly creeping into mind. Won’t let himself think these horrible, blasphemous thoughts, and he casts around for something else. Perhaps the monk wanted to show her a new design of a shelf or the way he wove the floorboards so tightly together. So proud, he is, of his creation. Hayashi presses his fingertips to the cold window. Or maybe during a moment his hammer was silent, she stepped inside to admire the construction, not realizing he was inside.

He treads down the hallway and into the kitchen, and the ugly, intolerable thoughts keep snaking in. The maid brings him a bowl of soup. It isn’t clear, he thinks, so why stretch it into something where it shouldn’t go? Where it must not go. He is an honored guest.

More tea, sir? asks the maid.

What? he looks at her, baffled.

More tea?

Fine. I’m fine. He focuses on his soup, the long stretch of green seaweed, the small diced cubes of tofu in a light brown watery mix. The maid asks if there is anything else he might need.

What?

Do you need anything else?

No, thank you. He stirs his soup with a chopstick, watching the murky swirl.

H
AYASHI SITS AT HIS
potter’s wheel. Will he let this new shape appear? He stares at the lump of clay in front of him. How long has he been sitting here? He plunges his hands into the lump, closes his eyes, and begins to
pull a shape from the thick soft mud. The rest of the world begins to fall away, and then he hears the loud gong of the temple bell.

Oh, no, he whispers, feeling an overwhelming sense of dread.

He quickly wipes his hands and steps outside. He must find the monk. Tell him to stop ringing that bell. The whole town will hear it. There is a woman and her children. She looks like she’s dressed for a formal funeral in her black kimono. Dear woman, please go home. He never did tell the monk how badly the meeting went. And that bell is so loud. Like a siren to the government officials, a blatant snubbing of their demand. What if they come charging up here, the army fully outfitted with their Western guns?

The family huddles together, waiting for the monk to appear. The oldest boy, with his hair combed and wet to keep it in place, stands beside his mother, his arms crossed, nodding at something she is saying. The two youngest clutch the cloth of her kimono. He must stop this, but he can’t move, can’t prevent what has begun, what has always happened after a death, a funeral, a formal Buddhist funeral. And he glides back years to the gathering of townspeople at the temple, this very temple, where the people came to bury the members of his family. He could not attend their funeral, too badly burned, but the old woman who helped heal him went. Wearing her musty kimono, she walked to where the family house once stood, picked through the ashes with chopsticks, and found the bones of his family. Put them in bronze urns and carried them to the Buddhist priest. There were no bodies to wash, nothing to cleanse to prepare for the passage, no placing of a white kimono on top of a body, along with leggings, sandals, and money for the deceased to pay the toll across the River of the Three Hells. Only the blackened bones that the priest scrubbed until they shone almost white. The priest placed them into the tall golden urns, starting with the lower body bones and then the upper and finally the pieces of the skull so his mother and father and little sister were not uncomfortably upside down in their final resting place.

As Hayashi walks toward the family, he’s not sure what he’s going to do until he’s standing in front of the woman, her eyes red from crying, her face soft and tender from grief. He bows low to her and gives her condolences. The monk appears in his robe, his expression solemn and still, and Hayashi sees
the slightly raised eyebrow, the monk waiting to see what he’ll do. And Hayashi is amazed he is now part of the small gathering following the monk into the temple, taking a seat behind the small family, watching the monk stand at the front, next to the casket, open his book, and begin chanting the sutras. Hayashi floats in the sound, so lovely, and now the boy’s voice, so sweet, and the woman’s tender and soft, he drifts there, letting the sound, almost, but not quite, smother the increasing panic in his limbs.

Soon the woman will walk back to town, her children in tow, and her step will have a looseness, the blood returned to her face, not quite smiling, but her draperies, her infirmities undoing their hold. Her neighbors will see the relief. And the story will come out she went to the temple on the hill, a monk lives there, a traditional funeral can still be conducted there; the word will spread and more people will come. The officials will hear if they haven’t already heard the bell.

It’s Hayashi’s turn. He stands, balancing awkwardly, chanting louder, louder than the woman, as he walks to the front with his incense, hoping to stem the fear chattering through his limbs.