Winter sleep, p.15
Winter Sleep, page 15
The logs were starting to burn.
“Keep an eye on the fire. If it looks like it’s going out, stir the logs and give it some more air.”
Oshita nodded.
I went to the kitchen, took out some celery stalks that had been soaking in water and shook the water off. I brought them in, together with salt, two glasses and a bottle of whiskey.
Oshita was sitting by the fireplace, watching the flames. The fire was burning well. After two or three logs had burned to embers, the fire seldom went out. You just had to watch it until it reached that stage.
I added another log. Without the fan heater, the room temperature did not rise right away. Oshita was still wearing his ski clothes, including the muffler around his neck. The only things he had taken off were his gloves.
“Drink something. When the weather’s like this, it’s better to warm yourself up from the inside.”
I poured some whiskey. I then twisted off a stalk of celery, sprinkled it with salt and bit into it. I liked to eat it that way.
“Wow. That looks good. You mind if I have one?”
“Not at all.”
“Let me wash my hands first.”
“The washroom is over there. Beyond that is the bathroom. Run the faucet with the red mark a while and you’ll get hot water.”
“I like cold water better. I always wash my hands with cold water. You mind if I borrow some soap?”
Oshita went into the washroom and didn’t come out for a long time.
When he finally emerged I looked at his hands. They were red from the cold. He warmed them over the fireplace, rubbing them again and again.
“I like a fire.”
“What do you like about it?”
“It never stays the same shape.”
“True, now that you mention it.”
Oshita didn’t say why that was good, however.
He reached for the whiskey. His fingers still looked numb from the cold.
“Do you eat celery right down to the leaves?”
“That’s what I do.”
“Then I’ll do it too.”
Oshita made a sound as he bit into the celery. I didn’t like the yellowish stalk—it was too soft. Also it didn’t smell very much like celery.
Oshita didn’t seem to care for it either.
4
When I came back from my run Oshita was still by the fire.
The night before, he had quickly gotten drunk and had slept in front of the fireplace. He hadn’t finished his celery. Even so, he hadn’t slept very soundly. When I woke up in the morning, the entire cabin was warm and the fire was burning brightly. When the flames started to die, he stirred up the fire and added new logs.
To sleep by the fireplace, all he needed was one blanket.
After taking a shower, I brought in two beers and gave one to Oshita.
“What do you see when you run, sensei?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t think you’re running for your health.”
“You’re right. I don’t do it for my health.”
“I’ve never even thought of doing it.”
“I’ve always wanted to be running.”
I was wearing a bathrobe and had draped a bath towel over my head.
I was no longer so worried that the detectives might come. As the days passed, the target of their investigation may have shifted away from me.
“You look good—like a boxer before a fight.”
“You mean after a fight.”
“Because you’re drinking beer?”
“Maybe.”
Oshita laughed. I couldn’t remember if I had ever seen him laughing. His smiling face betrayed a deep sadness that made it unbearable to look at.
From the start I had never felt anything odd about Oshita’s being there, by the fireplace. He was a man who had truly come from my heart.
“I saw your painting.”
“I don’t care about my paintings once I finish them.”
“Even that one?”
Oshita seemed to be talking about the nude of Akiko.
“Where was it?”
“You say that like it was alive. That painting really has a life of its own, doesn’t it?”
Oshita laughed again.
“It was in a Tokyo gallery. Maybe I should say it was living in a gallery. I went there to look at another painting of yours, and then I saw it. Someone was negotiating to buy it, but the gallery manager said the painting would choose its owner. He said he’d been asked to be careful who he sold it to, and the customer got mad.”
Natsue had probably said that.
I had never intended to paint a picture that would choose its owner. That was how Natsue felt about it.
“I was about to sit in front of that painting. But I knew that if I sat down I would just die there. Somehow I was able to stop myself.”
I lit a cigarette. The beer was seeping through my body.
“That painting sucks the life out of people. I can see why the gallery manager said it chooses its owner.”
“It seems you didn’t see what lies beyond it.”
“Really.”
“Maybe I should say I couldn’t show it.”
“No, it’s because I didn’t have the power to see it. I bet that’s why. I’d get knocked out before I could really look at it.”
“Say that after you’ve painted your own pictures.”
“I have.” Oshita opened his bag, which was in a corner of the room, and took out his sketchbooks.
Inside were watercolors. He had filled two sketchbooks with them. There was not a single white page left.
He couldn’t draw at all. But talent at drawing was irrelevant to Oshita’s pictures. He wasn’t painting them to show to people. He wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t. He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t. So he painted. It was simple.
“Why did you paint these?”
“I shouldn’t have?”
“I’m asking what reason.”
“I wanted to paint. No other reason.”
“That’s all right.”
I looked at the paintings one by one. They were nothing more than cries for help and screams of pain. But they didn’t cry out very distinctly. I didn’t sense any voice.
“Now that you’ve shown them to me, what do you want me to say?”
“I don’t care if they’re good or bad, to tell you the truth. When I first saw your paintings, I felt that you were painting my heart. So I thought I could paint my heart too, why not.”
“You haven’t painted it.”
“You’re right. I can’t say that I have.”
“So this is just wastepaper.”
“Shall we burn it?”
“Let me say something first. I don’t feel like telling you your paintings are good or bad. They’re on another level entirely, I know that.”
I wanted to drink a second beer, but I restrained myself.
“Don’t think that you’re alone. Don’t think that you’re lonely or sad. If you ask me why you can’t paint, I’d say it’s because you’re just trying to paint your loneliness and sadness.”
“I know. I know that about myself.”
“There’s something beyond loneliness and sadness, but you’re not trying to see what it is.”
“Is there something?”
“If you don’t paint it, I can’t say what it is.”
“Are you sure?”
“Do you want me to look inside your heart?”
“But you’ve painted my heart. I knew it the first time I saw that painting.”
“Even so, it’s not something I can tell you. Only someone who paints can understand. You only understand it by painting.”
“What should I do then?”
“Keep at it. Just keep painting.”
I put a cigarette in my mouth.
I didn’t want any more beer. Instead I wanted my paints and brushes.
“I’m me. I’m not you. You say you came from my heart, but you can’t paint like me. You’re not me. You’re you.”
“I’m starting to get you. Somehow I’m starting to get you.”
“Don’t be tormented, kid.”
“I’m not tormented so much as I’m hurting.”
“So don’t hurt.”
“You’re mean, sensei.”
“I can’t help you. No one can. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Of course.”
“I painted a picture and you felt it was your own heart. Was that enough for you? Did it help you?”
“Not really.”
“You’ll have to paint, then.”
“I got you.”
Oshita ripped his sketchbooks and tossed them in the fireplace. The flames leapt up, burned brightly for a time and then died back down.
“Why did you kill Nomura?”
“He scribbled on my paintings.”
“I see.”
“He asked me how they were any different from my previous ones.”
Perhaps to Nomura they had all looked the same. He should have made the comparisons on scratch paper. Writing directly on Oshita’s paintings was like trampling on his heart.
“Try painting here for a while,” I said.
Oshita nodded. The flames were eating into the next painting.
5
Oshita was running right behind me.
Only at the start, however. He slowly fell behind until I could no longer sense his presence. I didn’t look around, and of course, I didn’t stop to wait for him.
On the way back I ran past Oshita, who was squatting in the snow, up to his knees. I just glanced at him.
Returning to the cabin, I stretched, took a shower and gulped down a beer. All out of habit. Though I knew it, I had no desire to change. Just as I finished the beer Oshita came back, walking.
“Take a shower and have a beer. That’s what I’ve done.”
“Got it. You’re strong, you know that?”
“It’s just habit.”
“You need stamina to paint, right?”
“It’s irrelevant.”
I went to the kitchen and made some toast. I seldom fixed lunch for myself. I made coffee with milk—just enough for myself. There was none for Oshita.
Coming out of the shower, Oshita looked enviously at me and the toast I was eating.
“If you want something to eat, make it yourself. The food’s in the refrigerator.”
Oshita nodded. Tomorrow I wouldn’t have to tell him. Another man was now doing exactly what I was doing, only a little later. In other words, there was now another me.
We both used running clothes, bath towels and silverware, but I was the only one who actually existed.
I killed time until after three o’clock. Oshita killed time as well. When I put on a leather jacket, Oshita put on a down jacket. Sitting in the passenger seat of my car he said nothing.
We arrived at Akiko’s cabin. I wasn’t going to introduce Oshita to Akiko; I was going to introduce another me. I had the feeling that when the two met something would change.
Opening the door to Akiko’s cabin Oshita seemed a little tense.
Akiko did not ask who Oshita was. Instead she silently faced the canvas, using whittled sticks to bring my face to life from a mass of colors, forms and lines.
Oshita watched quietly. From the moment Akiko stood in front of the canvas, his tension seemed to disappear.
Akiko seemed to pant with exertion as she wielded the sticks. I could almost hear the sound of her voice as she drew a line, applied a color.
“No, that’s not right.”
One hour had passed when Oshita suddenly blurted out.
“You shouldn’t use that color there.”
Akiko turned around. Her glance passed over me and drilled into Oshita.
“What do you mean?”
“That color doesn’t belong there. I just feel it.”
“Fuck off, all right? This is my painting. I don’t need you or anyone else telling me what to do with it.”
“But there are colors you shouldn’t use.”
“I’m the one who decides that.”
Akiko didn’t seem curious as to why Oshita was there. She was just reacting to what she had been told.
“Why don’t you try yourself? There’s a fresh canvas over there.”
“I’ve never painted with oils.”
“So I’ll tell you what colors to use.”
“I haven’t painted with oils, but I’ve seen a lot of paintings. I’ve looked at sensei’s paintings for hours at a time.”
“So?”
“There are things you understand just by looking.”
“So you say. Then tell me why I’m wrong.”
“I can’t put it in words. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong.”
I listened to the two go back and forth, without saying a word. There were no “wrong” colors. The very word “wrong” didn’t apply to colors. At the same time, I didn’t think their talk was pointless. A sympathetic current ran between them. When Oshita said “wrong” Akiko asked “where.” They were both talking nonsense. They were emitting electric signals, that was perhaps the best way to put it. They didn’t know they were sending them to each other.
“I’ll draw one myself,” said Oshita.
Akiko stared at Oshita, then nodded.
Oshita opened his sketchbook and started drawing with a pen. Akiko watched him. Perhaps together they could produce an amazing picture, I thought. But it wouldn’t be Akiko’s picture or Oshita’s.
A mirror receives light and sends a reflection to the empty sky. Because the sky is empty, the light has nowhere to go. Say there is another, identical reflection, however, and light from the first reflection collides with it. Akiko and Oshita were like those two reflections.
When it got dark outside they were still hard at it, one at the canvas, the other at the sketchbook.
I went down to the kitchen and started preparing a meal for three. I cut steaks, washed vegetables for a salad and set out the pickles. I didn’t make soup but instead cut a lot of cheese slices.
Even after I finished, they still didn’t come down.
“Let’s eat dinner,” I called out, climbing the stairs to the second floor.
“I have to make it,” said Akiko, springing up. Looking surprised, Oshita glanced outside. He wasn’t aware that it had gotten dark.
“I’ve already done it. All we have to do is fry the meat.”
I had even taken the cork out of the wine bottle and cut the bread so it could be toasted quickly.
Going into the kitchen Akiko looked about blankly. Seeing that she was going to be no help, I fried the meat—three slices in one pan. I told Akiko and Oshita to toast the bread.
It was a peculiar meal. The sound of knives and forks clattering on plates, as three people sat silently at a round table, felt curiously loud.
I ate quietly; I had nothing to say. The other two had things on their minds, but couldn’t find words to express them. A change was coming over me. I felt something welling up in what I had thought was my emptiness. But whatever it was still lacked strength, stability.
“I’m calling it the day.”
The dinner finished, I said this to mean I would leave the washing to Akiko.
“I’ll do the dishes,” Oshita said. I nodded and went back to my cabin alone.
Thirty minutes later Oshita returned. Akiko had driven him back in her 2CV. I was drinking cognac alone.
“I feel like I can paint now.”
Akiko had made a U-turn and driven off. Oshita could hardly stand the time it took to take off his shoes. He opened his sketchbook like some kid.
I didn’t tell him, no, he couldn’t. Pictures it took two to paint weren’t pictures at all. Both Akiko’s and Oshita’s paintings were not really paintings, but something else. Looking at Akiko’s painting, I finally understood why I was sometimes puzzled by her work. She needed someone like Oshita to paint with her. Being in the same place side by side didn’t necessarily mean you were painting together. I could do that, and I would still be painting alone.
Somehow Oshita and Akiko complemented each other.
Sipping cognac, I stared into the fire. Oshita sat on the sofa, apparently deep in thought.
I was starting to get drunk. But before I could get properly tanked, I put the cork in the cognac bottle.
“Why is your face in that picture?”
Oshita’s voice came from behind my back, as I added a log to the fireplace.
“Ask Akiko.”
“Yes, I will.”
“I’m going to bed. You can sleep on the carpet by the fireplace if you want. There are futons in the closet in the Japanese-style room.”
“This is fine.”
Oshita smiled like a boy. For a moment I felt something like envy.
The next day it was more of the same.
This went on for several days. It was like having my shadow around, one I could see clearly all the time.
The call from Natsue came on the fifth day of Oshita’s stay.
“I’ll come pick you up.”
She seemed to be calling from her car.
“What do you mean?”
“I need your help. I want you to decide whether to sell the painting.”
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
“I can’t decide. It’s only with your paintings that I can’t decide.”
The painting of Akiko. It might be fun, I thought, to find out what sort of person wanted to buy it.
6
“You won’t mind if I resell it?”
The man was about fifty. Save for his piercing eyes, there was nothing remarkable about him. I didn’t know his name or station. I had hardly glanced at the business card he’d handed me.
“I wouldn’t be buying it just to resell it. But once I start living with it, I feel as though it might put a curse on me. What I’m saying is, I’d like your permission in advance to sell it if I feel threatened by it.”
