“It’s just a nude.”

  “So let me have it. Don’t worry—I’ve already spoken with the gallery.”

  “What should I be worrying about?”

  “Right. It shouldn’t be your concern. I’ve decided to start selling your paintings through the gallery you’ve always dealt with. I don’t care if you give it to the gallery directly, of course. You make more by letting me sell it, attaching whatever conditions you have. But it’s all the same to you, isn’t it?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to thank you for some reason. I feel totally at peace. I can say the normal, conventional thing now.”

  “What happened to the tortured genius? Is it because of that painting?”

  “I have no idea. Anyway I’m not painting now.”

  “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  Hanging up the phone, I built up the fire in the fireplace and stretched out on the sofa.

  Nothing new was coming into view. I could see everything, I could see nothing. I’d never been that way since I’d started painting.

  2

  I was out of breath.

  It was probably not because of the deep snow but of the five days in the womb. The pain was mixed with an odd feeling of pleasure. While I ran I imagined death, but of course I didn’t die. Instead my shoulders went up and down like pistons, while I blew out white clouds that looked like steam. This imaginary death of mine was sweetly seductive. For a moment I saw it as something refreshing.

  I sweated more than usual. While taking a shower, I tried to recall this death I had imagined, but it was nothing more than a vague, distant thought.

  I drank a beer.

  I heard the sound of chains and then Natsue’s Mercedes stopped in the snow. I opened the front door for her. Natsue stood in the entryway for a moment, making no move to come in. She looked stunned, as though she had never thought I would make such a gesture.

  “You said you were in a cocoon,” said Natsue, taking off her coat and sitting on the living room sofa.

  “Do you want something to drink?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I feel like fucking you. That ripe body of yours makes me hot.”

  “What a way to talk. I don’t care what you feel. There are other ways of saying such things. You haven’t changed at all in that respect.”

  “Which is better, the old me or the new rational, conventional me?”

  “Neither. You’ve changed more than I’d imagined. That’s scary somehow. I said it was scary on the phone—and now that I’ve seen you, it’s just as I’d expected. It all comes from that painting.”

  “Ever since I finished it, I’ve lost the urge to paint. When I don’t feel like painting I’m just a wooden puppet.”

  Natsue put a cigarette between her lips and lit it with a Cartier lighter.

  “Do you still have money?”

  “I have so much I’m sick of it.”

  “I thought being in a cocoon would cost something, but I see I was wrong.”

  “I use it when I use it. I feel like spending it now, but there’s nothing I particularly want.”

  I made a move toward the bedroom.

  “Let me shower at least,” Natsue said, extinguishing her cigarette. Instead of getting up, she stared into the fireplace.

  “I even scare myself. I love your talent so much I think I’d do anything for it.”

  “No you wouldn’t.”

  “You’re right. A philistine like me wouldn’t.” Natsue laughed and got up. She wasn’t a philistine. No philistine would have tried to get closer to me through selling my paintings. She couldn’t even tell herself that as long as I turned out paintings, she couldn’t care less what I was up to.

  “Have those detectives bothered you since the last time?”

  “I’ve forgotten the last time.”

  I had no intention of telling anyone that Oshita had come. No one would understand if I said he had come from my heart—or that he’d come again.

  Natsue went into the bathroom.

  I went into the bedroom, took off my clothes on the bed, and waited for her. I couldn’t see anything, and I could see everything. I closed my eyes. I tried to recall the death I had imagined, but couldn’t.

  Wrapped in a bath towel, Natsue came into the room.

  I gazed at her naked figure for a while before reaching out my hand. I touched her yielding flesh. Natsue breathed more heavily. Her face softened. Then she made a sudden cry, as though she were still resisting me.

  Natsue’s body began to tremble. The bed began to tremble. The whole room began to tremble. But nothing came down collapsing.

  Natsue’s voice became louder, then fell silent. I could hear her heavy breathing. The trembling began again. Her voice faded into the distance. Then, once more, she started to breathe hard.

  When I came to my senses, I saw Natsue crying beneath me. Her contorted face showed its age, but she was sobbing like a young girl.

  “Please, finish.”

  I didn’t know how much time had passed. Looking at Natsue’s face, I felt oddly sad. I thrust hard, trying to shake off that feeling. I climaxed amidst ragged breaths and screams.

  Natsue didn’t move for some time. Then she curled into a fetal position. I could see deep folds on her breasts and stomach, rising and falling in time with her breathing, still heavy.

  I lit a cigarette and flopped on my back.

  The tobacco smoke curled up, momentarily obscuring the light from outside that was streaming through the curtains like the branches of a tree.

  “I thought I was going to die,” Natsue gasped. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “It was strange, wasn’t it.”

  “You were like another man. I thought I was being fucked by a stranger—you really frightened me.”

  “I believe I’m the same man. But I’ve somehow emptied out. That’s the only difference.”

  “It’s because of that painting.”

  “Probably.”

  “Did you have a model in mind?”

  It had apparently never occurred to Natsue that the model was only a fifteen-minute drive away. I wondered whether she thought I had no need of a model because I already had one in my head. That wasn’t quite it, I thought.

  “I think I painted myself.”

  “I see. I’ll take it and sell it for you. That’s the best way to put some distance between you and that painting.”

  “Do that, will you?”

  Getting out of bed, I took a shower. Then Natsue joined me. We washed each other with soap.

  Outside, snow was falling.

  I remembered the caretaker’s wife saying that there would be a lot of snow this year. I somehow hoped the snow would keep falling and bury everything. Maybe I wanted to be buried too.

  “I’m going back. I have several appointments starting tomorrow morning.”

  Natsue heaved a sigh.

  “I’ll have someone come for the painting,” she said.

  “You can put it in the back seat of your Mercedes. I’ll get it.”

  Without waiting for Natsue’s reply, I went up to the second floor and came down with the nude of Akiko.

  It was just small enough to fit into the back seat of the Mercedes. Without a backward glance at the painting, I returned to the cabin and threw a log on the fire.

  “You want it gone don’t you,” said Natsue, blowing out a stream of cigarette smoke.

  I didn’t know whether or not that would happen, even after Natsue drove off.

  I stared into the flames for a while, then went upstairs to convince myself that the painting was indeed gone and came back to the fire.

  The studio had been devoid of any presence.

  The door chime was ringing. It seemed to have rung several times before I had noticed. I heard the voice of a man, calling my name.

  It was the two detectives.

  “We’re sorry to bother you, sensei. We still don’t know the whereabouts of Koichi Oshita, but we know he’s returned to Nagano.”

  The middle-aged detective had apparently taken over the speaking role. The young one hardly said anything anymore.

  “Again, our apologies for disturbing you, but we found tire tracks from a car that was parked here.”

  “It’s Natsue Kosugi’s.”

  “Did she come to get a painting?”

  The two may have been staking out the cabin, starting long before Natsue arrived. Perhaps they’d tailed her car.

  “A painting of yours has been submitted to some kind of exhibit in New York. It was in the newspaper. There was a photo of the painting with the article. For an amateur like me, it was a bit hard to understand, to be honest.”

  “So the Oshita kid killed Nomura?”

  “Haven’t you seen the papers? A warrant has been issued for his arrest. We have plenty of evidence on him.”

  I didn’t take a newspaper. There was a television in the cabin, but I never turned it on.

  “The judge ruled him mentally incompetent when he came to trial before, deciding Oshita had had a relapse of his old illness. But that’s not the case this time. Oshita ran away of his own free will and he knows what he’s doing.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Ms. Kosugi doesn’t manage a gallery, does she? She seems to be in another line of business and has a lot of contacts.”

  “She’s representing me. I don’t know what sort of business she’s in.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s all I know.”

  The detective smiled. Telling me to contact him if Oshita showed up, he gave me another slip of paper with his number on it and left.

  Alone again, I went up to the studio.

  I put a white canvas on the easel. I felt that something might be coming to me, but I told myself to keep it separate from painting. It would be better for me if I didn’t grab a brush right away and turn everything into a picture.

  At around three I left to go shopping in town.

  Pulling out of the supermarket parking lot, I became aware of a four-wheel-drive minivan. It was the same color as the one driven by Oshita. But in the wintertime there were a lot of minivans like it around the place.

  Filling my basket full of groceries, I carried it to the checkout. The checkout area was crowded.

  Oshita—walking right in front of me. I almost called out to him. He was dressed like a skier, but he wasn’t Oshita.

  After paying at the register, I crammed the groceries into plastic bags and, holding the bags with both hands, carried them to the car.

  I drove directly to Akiko’s cabin. On the way, I noticed that no one was following me. This was the first time I thought I might be tailed.

  “You didn’t forget your modeling job. I have to give you credit. I thought you’d get wrapped up in your own painting and forget about me.”

  “It’s not my job to be your model.”

  “Anyway, you didn’t forget about me.”

  “Do you think I can?”

  Akiko shrugged.

  After putting the groceries into the refrigerator, I glanced at the sketches on the dining room table.

  She had drawn my face several times. The sketches were simple, just lines on paper. The faces were not completely articulated, but I had no doubt I was seeing myself.

  “Not bad.”

  “I feel as though I’ve come to understand something. It just hit me, all of a sudden.”

  “No problem with that.”

  I put a cigarette in my mouth and fumbled for my lighter, deep in my pocket. But it was missing.

  3

  After three days of running, I was back in form.

  I saw various things around me on my runs. By the time running was no longer painful, I clearly understood what I had done to myself. I also became aware of how the white world around me changed subtly depending on the look and condition of the fallen snow, and how much snow had dropped off tree branches since the previous day. I paid attention to these things, without making a conscious effort to see them.

  But though my powers of observation returned, I remained as empty as before. The white canvas in my studio stayed white. I thought that white was still the best color for it.

  After taking a shower, I drank a can of beer and burned log after log until evening, while thinking of nothing in particular. For lunch I had bought bread, eggs and vegetables. The same for dinner. Then I left for Akiko’s cabin.

  My face had appeared on Akiko’s canvas. It was usually impossible to switch from an abstract to a representational style on the same canvas, but Akiko had done it in one leap. She had not only expressed me with abstract colors and lines, but made my face take shape on the canvas.

  “What were you thinking?” I asked, looking at the painting.

  “I don’t know. Somehow it turned out that way.”

  “Didn’t you think it strange?”

  “Yes, it’s strange, but not creepy. It feels true.”

  Mixing representative and abstract styles was something I had no experience with or had ever even thought about. The moment my eye saw a form it could recognize, it ceased to be an abstract for me.

  “It’s amazing.”

  Painters are always looking at canvases. What separates abstract and representative painting is whether the painter can turn his eyes to something outside the canvas as well.

  “Are you going to keep painting it this way?”

  “Yes, I want to see what kind of picture I get.”

  I could understand her sort of absorption. I didn’t want to know what Akiko was trying to heal herself of by painting this way. Everyone has some healing to do.

  “What’s wrong, sensei?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re like a calm sea these days—maybe even a lake.”

  “I’m more like a swamp. No waves on the surface, even when there’s a bit of wind.”

  “Everyone has times like that.”

  “So they do. I’m having one right now.”

  Akiko didn’t ask about her nude portrait.

  Maybe it was hanging in a Tokyo gallery. Or maybe a stranger had already bought it.

  Akiko had modified the wooden sticks I had whittled so she could use them more easily. She had made them thinner and more flexible.

  When I saw Akiko standing in front of the canvas, I felt as though she were spinning an endless thread tinged with color. She gathered it and scattered it, making various shapes. This thread, I thought, was affecting the core of her being somehow. She was spinning her own life away. How, I wondered, could someone so young do that?

  I wasn’t aware of spinning my own life away. That was what I was doing, but I didn’t want to think about it. Once you start thinking that, the canvas will eventually steal your life. Somewhere inside of me, I feared this. I wasn’t painting to die. I was painting to live. At least that was what I wanted to think.

  Watching Akiko spin her life away, I often had the urge to reach out and stop her. But I didn’t because I also had a dark desire to see her fall apart.

  From destruction comes creation. I believed that, but I also didn’t want to destroy my own life. After facing the canvas for an hour, Akiko became tired and listless. Even so she radiated a sense of fulfillment. She had the same peaceful expression on her face she had after sex. Her eyes gazed into space, seeing nothing.

  This Akiko was different from the one I had first met. She exuded something like madness. I had brought it forth, this madness, but Akiko had nurtured it. The madness was a kind I couldn’t begin to fathom.

  I had drowned myself in drink and killed someone, but I had never tried to destroy myself. I looked upon my own madness with disinterest as something that didn’t amount to much.

  I decided not to return to the cocoon again. Akiko and I ate dinner and had sex, then I went back to my cabin and slept. I didn’t know why, but I sensed that Akiko needed time alone.

  Just as before, I drove on the snow-covered road late at night, back to my cabin.

  A figure suddenly appeared on the front porch. I wasn’t surprised. Every night, as I returned, I’d thought in the back of my mind that something like this might happen.

  “Yo,” I said, opening the door.

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Since this evening.”

  Oshita’s voice was dark and rusty. It was the voice of an old man.

  He had been waiting there for more than five hours. The thermometer by the door read minus six degrees Celsius. Oshita was dressed in his usual ski-wear, but it looked dirtier than before.

  “Where did you park your car?” I asked, thinking of the cops on stakeout. It was already mid-January, though, and perhaps not even cops had that much free time.

  “I came by train, not car. I took a taxi here from the station.”

  “Ah.”

  “I went back to Tokyo.”

  A warrant had been issued for his arrest. Was it still easy for a man to elude detection?

  “Come in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What, do you think I’m going to leave you outside in this cold?”

  “I was thinking of digging a snow cave.”

  “You mean digging a hole in the snow like some stranded explorer?”

  Oshita nodded. He didn’t think I was joking.

  “At any rate, I’m back.”

  When I stepped into the entryway, Oshita followed me, quietly.

  Instead of turning on the fan heater, I put logs in the fireplace. I always turned on the fan heater to warm up the room on my return, but not this time.

  Oshita’s outdoorsy appearance somehow seemed better suited to the way I was warming the room, using only logs.

  He was carrying one small bag and nothing else. He silently put it in a corner of the room.

 

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