The Painting (7 page)

Tired of the noise, he shuts the window. He hears her come up the stairs, her voice singsong, a hello, hello ringing. He’ll tell her he’s too busy to talk. Look at all these boxes, he’ll say. And your brother, you must know, is a difficult man. He pokes the end of his crutch at the thin paper lying on the floor, sweeping it up in one big arc. Her song is coming closer. He’s about to throw the paper away, but there is something printed on it. She is coming down the hallway. He doesn’t have time to look. That humming is outside the door. He plucks the paper off the end of his crutch and tucks it into his bag of goods.

Hello there, she says, peeking her head into the room. I won’t stay long. I wanted to see if you were doing all right.

Busy, but fine, he says, his tone subtly defensive. He leans against his crutch and studies the toe of his black boot.

Good. My brother. He has a rather brisk manner.

I’ve no complaints. He closes his mouth hard and begins unpacking another box.

I’m sure it will be fine, she says, gripping and twisting her hat in her hands. I just came by to see if you needed anything.

He does not feel he owes her anything. For this job, this shelter. Happenstance, he thinks. Pierre needed a worker and he was available; he will do a fine job, and actually, her brother is getting a good deal, given the small wage Pierre is paying him.

She steps in through the doorway and surveys the boxes. A scent follows her. Not perfume, he thinks, but something slightly sweet. She tells him she’s left some lunch downstairs for him.

That’s not necessary, he says, bristling.

Oh, I know, she says, now twirling her hat. She steps farther into the room. It’s filthy in here. Look at all that dust. How do you breathe?

She rushes to the window and opens it. There. Soon it will be autumn and the air will turn cool. I love the cold air, don’t you? Most people hate it, but I don’t. Well, I’m off to see Edmond. He’s doing much better. Much, much better. He laughed yesterday. I forgot what I said that made him laugh, but he did. It was a wonderful sound, a melody I’d almost forgotten. Pierre and I are his only family, you know. Our parents died a while ago. Pierre never goes. I don’t think he can stand to see Edmond in pain. It’s too much for him.

Too busy making money or tending to his whores, thinks Jorgen. He’s seen Pierre go out at night and come back with one of those women on his arm, the squeals and laughter haunting the house. He looks at Natalia’s drab brown skirt, her white starched blouse, the red kerchief tucked in her breast pocket, the gold cross hanging prominently around her slender, pale neck. She is talking again about how well Edmond is doing, how soon he will be joining her for morning mass. How ignorant she is, he thinks, how blind. Such a pure, simple woman, she can’t even see her brother is going to die. It’ll be a shock for her when he goes, but maybe she’ll grow up, and life won’t seem so wonderful and she’ll halt that damn humming.

She turns and is about to go. Oh yes, she says, delicately tapping her hat on her head. Did you recall your name? Because if you haven’t, I’ve got one for you. Do you want to hear it? She smiles at him demurely.

They are about the same age, he thinks. She might be slightly younger than
his twenty-six years, but she seems like such a young girl, so protected in the swathes of her innocence, abandoning herself to such silly hopes. She’s grinning now, unable to contain herself, intoxicated by her secret.

Donatien, she says, her voice boasts proudly. And she tells him what it means.

No, he says, holding his temper. He’s tired of her presence, wishing she would leave. He will give her this, but no more. Nothing more. He doesn’t want her prying or her curiosity honed on him.

He tells her his name.

Well, Jorgen, she says, her smile slightly fading. Good, and she pulls a bright yellow scarf from her bag and wraps it around her neck. A name is a good thing to have.

She turns to go, and he hears her run down the stairs. He holds his breath, waiting for the front door to open and close, then releases a long sigh. The top of his right shoulder aches. The crutches, he thinks. He sits at the desk and stares at the boxes. A fly buzzes around his head and lands on his hand. She let it in, he thinks, when she reopened that window. Batting it away, he rises again and snatches more things from the boxes to sell. Three bottles of good wine from the south of France, a block of cheddar cheese from Holland, a ten-pound bag of walnuts, and two wool scarves because it’s certain to turn bitter cold soon and someone will pay double, maybe triple for such a wrap. Looking at his pile of goods, he feels his heart race.

He reaches into the bulging bag and pulls out the thin paper. It came from the Japanese box. A painting, but on such feeble paper, as if not really a painting at all, a hint of a painting, a sketch, though it can’t be because of the colors. Cryptic black lines mar the right corner. He pulls out the invoice slip. Only the Japanese bowl is noted, nothing about a painting. He smoothes the paper onto the table and studies it. Two people, a man and a woman, standing under a tree. The man is wearing some kind of strange, long dress, just like the woman. Her black hair is pulled up in a bun with two pieces of white wood holding it together. The man has black hair pulled into a ponytail on top of his head. The woman’s eyes are long thin lines. How can she see? And what is the man doing? Jorgen lifts the painting up toward his face, and his
hand begins to tremble. The man is parting the skirts of the woman, and there is the pink white flesh, and the groping hands.

Another thing to sell, he thinks, quickly slipping the painting between two pieces of cardboard. Some stupid Frenchman is sure to want it. And technically, he isn’t stealing; her brother doesn’t even know it exists. He carries the cardboard into his room and slides it under his cot.

N
ATALIA SITS BESIDE HER
brother in the hospital. A young man moans in the same cot where Jorgen once lay. This new soldier has a bullet lodged in his side, and the one-room hospital is flooded with a fresh round of wounded soldiers, as if a great storm had washed them in through the dingy doors and strewn them against the walls, in the cots, the hallways, and in any available chair. From the flotsam, a horrible smell of stale bodies and dried blood and pungent clouds of ammonia cleaners. She tells Edmond the Dane is living in the boardinghouse, working for Pierre.

He fought for France, says Edmond. I guess that’s good enough.

What do you mean? she asks, smiling at him gently. She leans forward in her chair, trying to think what else she can do to ease his pain.

Well, what do we know about him? He looks at her with clear green eyes.

She pulls her cardigan sweater tighter around her front. Whatever do you mean?

I don’t want to worry you, he says. But you should be more careful. Natalia, are you listening to me?

He was kind to you, she says.

Natalia.

I think you’re being overly cautious, she says, pulling her kerchief a little tighter around her neck, feeling a sudden chill in the room.

She leans over and brushes his dark hair from his sweaty forehead. Her body momentarily blocks the light shining in from the window onto his outstretched body. Almost instantly, he shivers and tells her to lean back so he can feel the sun’s warmth on the heavy blanket. Without the sun, he is a block of ice.

I want to die during the night. I can’t stand it sometimes. The cold.

Don’t talk like that.

It’s true. I’m not scared of dying. Not anymore.

Please. Stop. Let’s talk of something else. Talk about the light coming through the window. Talk more about that. Or the time when we were young, and we went to the house at the lake. Remember the small rowboat, the white one with the long oars, and how early that one morning you paddled us out to the center. The mist rising off the water. So quiet. You wanted to fish for carp.

She scoops his hand and it lies listlessly in hers.

I just wonder why he would leave his country and fight for France. It makes me wonder what mess he left behind.

She lets go of his hand. The soldier behind her whimpers. I wanted to help, she says, and he needed somewhere to go. He has no one.

Why doesn’t he go back to his own country? To his family?

You saw for yourself what bad shape he is in, she says. She feels her impatience, the stirrings of doubt. Maybe he doesn’t want to go home because he’s ashamed of his condition. Or he doesn’t have the money to return. Or he’s stayed to help France in any way he can.

You’re too good. Not everyone is like you.

But you’re good, too, Edmond. You’re superbly good.

He shakes his head. I’m just asking you to be more careful, Natalia, he says, pulling the blanket up to his chin. I can’t stand to be cold. Shivers are racing up and down my spine. I am so cold.

She presses a warm cloth to his forehead and tells him she will bring him more blankets. He nods and closes his eyes. When he settles into his sleep, she presses the cloth to her worry-lined forehead.

O
N THE SECOND FLOOR
of the storage facility at the end of the long hallway is Jorgen’s room, with barely enough space for a cot and a slim chest of chipped drawers. The floor is drab, beige tile with black scuff marks, and several squares of tile have loosened. Dust balls have shuffled into crevices and hang from the ceiling. The white paint on the walls is peeling off in strips, and beneath, he sees, the room was once painted blue.

He parts the curtain and stares out the window. The fires are still burning; there are more of them dotting the countryside, many more than when he was part of the battlefield. He is mesmerized by them, their flicker and lashes at the sky, and at the same time, he can’t stand to look at them. He wants to step away from the window and divert his attention to something else, but what? What is there for him to do but count and recount, unpack and shelve? How long he stands there, he doesn’t know, but he feels himself slipping into self-pity and despair, and if he allowed himself to look down at his empty trouser leg, he knows he’d fall deeper into self-loathing. When there’s a knock on his door, he’s almost happy for the distraction.

You finished unpacking the boxes?

It’s Pierre, his voice a cold clip. He lets himself in. His sharp, twitching eyes dart around the room. His bald head makes his nose seem even longer, and his ears flare out.

Jorgen tells him he will finish the rest by tonight. Pierre says he must have the inventory done by tonight to prepare for tomorrow’s shipment.

I have many, many customers, he says, taking a pen out of his pocket and twirling it round and round. The war has made everyone quite hungry. You will let me know promptly if you can’t keep up with the work. I can find someone else to replace you if there is a problem.

There won’t be a problem.

He turns to go, but stops. I only hired you because of my sister. And even that link, I must say, is rather tenuous.

When Pierre leaves, Jorgen sits on the cot and removes his dirty trousers. Where his thigh once was, there is a smooth stump, the skin translucent pink. He runs his hand over it, barely touching it for fear of inciting the shooting pain. Pathetic, pitiful, unworthy, nothing but a stump, he thinks, removing the rest of his clothes. Reaching up to the wall, he tears off a strip of white paint. Blue, the color of cornflowers, stares at him. He quickly looks away. He jumps at the sound of cannons going off. The window rattles. His bed shakes and shimmies as never before. The war is getting closer, he thinks, the Prussians pressing toward Paris. And this is what Bismarck wants; with the defeat of France, he will have his unification of the German federation.
Another explosion reverberates. Jorgen smiles, the sounds and vibrations comforting him, for he is near the war, its dull angry roar.

He pulls on clean trousers and a shirt, grabs his crutches, and heads to the main storage room. The statue of Zeus is gone. Despite its crack, someone wanted it. Pierre must have packed it. Other things are missing, now in the homes of rich Parisians—bottles of wine, at least a dozen cans of meat, a Persian rug that was leaning up against the wall, and silverware. The bowl from Japan is gone.

When he finishes his work, he stumbles down the hallway toward his room. His heavy boot slams down on the wood floor. He stops halfway to catch his breath. Everything tires him. He almost feels the thing holding him back from the pulse of life. If he could stop himself from pushing against it, he would be fine; he could stay enclosed and what would it matter? But he can’t seem to help himself. He was going to fight for France, to redeem himself, or at least lose himself in the war, to die a hero. That would have been reparations enough for what he did. And now look at him.

Night roosts in his small room, and he lights a candle, a small flicker. He reaches under his bed and pulls out the gray cardboard sheets. The light shudders, like the pain in his stump, always there, always hunting him, but he won’t give in to it, though there are times when the throbbing extends to his toes, which are no longer there, or courses up the trunk of his body, sending fire flames into his brain.

He slowly removes the top cardboard. There is the painting, only from this view and in this light, it looks different somehow. He sets the candle on the cot and lowers himself so he is only an inch away. At first he thinks it’s the flickering candlelight, but as he leans forward, he sees the colors pulsate; they are tugging at him, swaying in front of him, the bright green of the hilltop, the purple plums in the tree, the blue of his dress, and the woman, dressed in dark red. His heart swells and softens. It is too much, he thinks, too much. He slams down the cardboard cover and slides it under his bed.

JAPAN

H
OW LONG HAS IT
been since he’s seen her? he thinks, his chopsticks poised midair, as if caught in two opposing winds.

He hears the man working at the sushi counter say her name again, then describe her, her flash of brown eyes, her graceful walk, as if floating on warm air. He just arrived from Hong Kong, where he purchased ten cases of brandy. By the time the bottles were packed into crates, he sold them for three times the price to a rich man in London. His next trip, as soon as he’s taken care of business here, is to Shanghai to buy bolts of silk for a man in Italy who makes fine women’s dresses. But if it is Ayoshi, how long has it been since he’s seen her? As he rises from the table, the cook behind the counter stops talking and turns toward him, as do several patrons.