“There must be something in the refrigerator. Mind making dinner?”

  “All right. I’ve been a working mother. I can’t prepare anything fancy, but I’m pretty good at the simple stuff.”

  Natsue laughed with something like relief. Without saying a word, I went up to the studio.

  I painted another color on the white canvas—ultramarine. I was still using only one brush. The ultramarine didn’t spread much over the canvas. Next, green. It spread more but not by much. I put down my palette and stared at the canvas.

  Natsue was calling me from downstairs.

  The dining room table was covered with dishes. They seemed out of place almost, and I stood dazed for a moment. I found the whole thing quite funny.

  “So how long do you plan to stay here?”

  “I don’t know. I have a bad feeling about what’s happening here. When I get over that, I’ll go back to Tokyo.”

  I didn’t think deeply about what Natsue’s bad feeling might be—I didn’t even ask her about it. The funniness I felt was more interesting to me.

  I sat across the table from Natsue.

  “It’s so bizarre,” she said.

  “What is?”

  “That the man who paints those pictures also eats.”

  “He eats and shits. He fucks, too. It’s because he’s so normal and vulgar that he can paint pictures that make your heart go pitter-pat.”

  If I took my style to extremes, I would end up with pictures that only I could understand. By making sure I didn’t cross that line, I could preserve my connection to the world.

  The menu was mainly vegetables. I bought a lot of vegetables when I went shopping, but often ended up throwing them away.

  “When are you going to finish that white painting?”

  “Will you stop talking about painting?”

  There was a dish made with steamed eggplants, another made with pan-fried celery and garlic. Nothing out of the ordinary, but there was variety. I liked having stew brewed over three days, but this wasn’t bad either. After finishing the meal, I went straight to the second floor studio.

  I faced the canvas. The brush moved naturally. I mixed a color on the palette. It was a color but at the same time not a color. It was like a voice. While I thought such things, I kept brushing on the paint. In no time at all, the white almost entirely disappeared from the canvas. I became absorbed in the painting and forgot the time. When I wiped the sweat off my face, I finally returned to myself. It was already late at night.

  In the living room Natsue was sitting quietly, waiting. Her face was hard.

  “Just sitting here, I could feel it. There was this overwhelming thing cascading down from the second floor.”

  Natsue was wearing, not her bathrobe, but the suit she had come in. She tried to force a smile. I lit a cigarette.

  “I want a drink.”

  Liquor was the best way to bring me down from my high, though not always. Now was one of the times I needed it.

  Natsue brought in the cognac, together with two glasses. I squatted in front of the fireplace. The flames were burning brightly.

  “It’s quiet tonight,” I observed.

  “It’s the snow. It’s been snowing so hard you can’t see the tip of your nose.”

  I glanced at the window but didn’t stand up.

  4

  Hearing the sound of a car approaching, I got up off the sofa.

  Natsue had been in the cabin for three days now. She had been tense and afraid of something the whole time. I had watched her with something like amusement, not seeing why she should feel that way.

  Having faced the canvas, I had been loath to think about anything. I’d been lying on the sofa; I’d had Natsue sit next to me so I could touch her.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s the 2CV. I know the sound.”

  I stood by the window. The 2CV should have made me think of Akiko, but instead of her face, Oshita’s appeared in my mind. I couldn’t see his brother, but I knew that he was watching from somewhere.

  Save for a few shaded patches, the snow on the road had melted. There was some left on the grass and tree branches, and between them emerged the black and crimson form of the 2CV Charleston.

  Akiko was driving.

  I watched the car, with Natsue standing beside me. Akiko got out of the car; she was wearing a duffel coat the color of dead leaves. She struck me as being the way she was the first few times I saw her.

  “That girl.”

  Natsue had immediately recognized Akiko as the girl in the nude portrait. I was surprised to see Oshita get out as well. I hadn’t noticed anyone in the passenger seat.

  “This is bad.”

  “Oh, don’t fret. Just say I’m an old lady who buys and sells paintings.”

  Natsue’s voice sounded tense, but I didn’t bother to look in her direction. Instead I was watching to see if a subcompact would suddenly appear.

  Linking arms, Oshita and Akiko walked up to the cabin, laughing about something. I wanted to shout at them to hurry. Oshita had evidently been hiding in the car until he got out. If he could make it from the car to the cabin without being seen, there’d be no problem.

  I opened the front door.

  “Oshita. Why did you come here?”

  “We wanted to show you some pictures we made together,” he said, climbing the front porch steps. Akiko was smiling—her face looked radiant.

  “Anyway, come in.”

  They came in and bowed to Natsue. They didn’t seem to think it strange that another person was there.

  “You might find them boring, sensei. Akiko painted—her hand just flew—then I painted, then she painted again. We kept going back and forth. We have six altogether. Watercolors.”

  Akiko held out the sketchbook she had been holding under her arm as though she was giving me a present.

  “You were hiding in the car the whole time?”

  “Akiko thought it was funny. She said I was like a gangster making a getaway.”

  “Go back, right now. Actually no. Stay a while.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  They had become like an average young couple, exasperatingly so. It was as if they had snuck away from their parents on a date.

  “Your brother is watching the place.”

  “He’s watching? Here?”

  “Probably.”

  Oshita’s face hardened a bit. Akiko looked at Oshita.

  “It’s okay. I’ve kept out of sight.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “If it’s just my brother, I can handle him.”

  “He was with the police a few times. Anyway, the important thing is that he doesn’t find you. He may have seen the 2CV.”

  “He’s been watching the place that closely?” asked Akiko, with an expression of disbelief. She sounded like a young woman you would find anywhere.

  “Oshita knows what his brother is like.”

  Oshita flashed a crooked grin. I couldn’t tell if he thought he’d done something stupid. In the crooked grin was a hint of hatred.

  “Anyway, you should go back to Akiko’s cabin.”

  “We’ll do that.”

  “Wait. You wear my coat and I’ll wear yours. I’ll come out right behind you—that may fool whoever’s watching.”

  Without saying anything, Oshita took off his coat and I handed him mine. We both headed out. I was wearing Oshita’s coat.

  “This Oshita—” started Natsue.

  “I don’t have time to explain. Let me borrow your Mercedes. I’m following behind the 2CV.”

  “I’m coming too.”

  Natsue put on the entry hall sandals and shuffled out after me.

  After the 2CV drove off I followed behind. The Mercedes was nimbler than my subcompact.

  We quickly caught up with the 2CV. Akiko was driving. Oshita, keeping his head low, was nowhere in sight.

  I watched the rearview mirror—a familiar subcompact was tailing me. Had he seen Oshita? Or did he think I was Oshita?

  When we started climbing the slope, the 2CV started to lose speed. “Down shift, down shift,” I whispered. The 2CV finally shifted from third to second, gaining a bit of power.

  I put more distance between myself and the 2CV. The subcompact didn’t try to overtake our Mercedes. One kilometer ahead was the turn to the road that led to Akiko’s cabin. I reduced my speed at a patch where unmelted snow had collected. The subcompact started to close the gap. I turned up the collar of my coat. The road became narrower; the subcompact couldn’t overtake the Mercedes and get a look at my face.

  “Have you been sheltering this Oshita person?”

  “I just knew where he was hiding. I didn’t want to tell anyone.”

  “Was that girl there too?”

  “I never said she wasn’t.”

  “I don’t care, but who’s following us—the police?”

  “Oshita’s brother. He’s the one who ought to get his head examined.”

  The snow disappeared and the road became wider. I picked up speed and the subcompact fell behind. I came to the road to Akiko’s cabin. The 2CV was already out of sight; I picked up some more speed and drove past the turn-off. The subcompact followed along behind. The driver seemed not to have noticed that the 2CV had been hiding Oshita. He probably thought I was Oshita.

  For the next thirty minutes I drove on, accelerating and decelerating. Finding a slightly wider stretch of road, I stopped the Mercedes. The subcompact stopped right behind me. A man came jumping out of it.

  Seeing my face, he stopped dead in his tracks.

  “What else do you want from me?” I yelled at him.

  “That’s my brother’s coat.”

  The man was breathing heavily.

  “What did you do to my brother?”

  “This is my coat—and I don’t like your tone.”

  The man’s eyes suddenly became unfocused, wild. He rushed at me with a shout. In an instant, I sent him flying. The training I had been doing every morning had been for something after all. My body had moved faster than I had thought it would.

  Glancing back once at the man, who was on his backside, looking stunned, I returned to the Mercedes.

  “I don’t see any serious damage. Everything okay?” asked Natsue in those words, but she seemed to be concerned more about my body, naturally.

  Turning the car around, I headed back on the same road I had come on.

  “Seriously, I’d had a bad feeling. I was scared something was going to happen. I hope I’m proven wrong.”

  “Oshita is gone.”

  I accelerated and soon arrived back at the cabin.

  The phone rang. It was Oshita.

  “He mistook me for you.”

  “Really? So it was my brother after all.”

  “Sit tight. We don’t know everything yet.”

  “Got it.”

  “Don’t let Akiko get frightened.”

  “Don’t worry, she’s already—”

  He abruptly hung up.

  “Is there anything I can do?” asked Natsue. She was no longer trying just to dig information out of me.

  “Wait.”

  “For what?”

  We needed more time. If Oshita could spend a few more days with Akiko, he might be better able to endure the arrest and trial, and Akiko might be better able to endure the wait.

  Without quite realizing it, I had come to feel like their guardian. I didn’t think that odd. Yet, at the same time, it was I who had willfully brought about the cause of this mess. If I hadn’t taken Oshita to Akiko’s place, Oshita would probably have been in a hospital or police cell by then, and Akiko would still have been exasperating me with her talk.

  I had seen the sketchbook—a succession of pale, dribbling watercolors that couldn’t be called paintings. But for me the conversation between the two, of their innermost selves, came through with painful clarity.

  They’d found in each other someone they could talk to. That was something of a miracle.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve turned into this snob who can only sit on his ass and wait. And I know that, deep down, I’ve been hoping for this crazy shit to happen.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Natsue’s voice sounded parched.

  “I really don’t know.”

  Natsue didn’t say anything more.

  Perhaps Natsue had a better picture than me of how the situation would unfold. I smoked one cigarette after another. Oshita’s brother had not tried to follow us back to the cabin.

  One hour went by, then two. The spring snow started falling again. I couldn’t fool myself that just because a certain time had passed, nothing bad was going to happen. Instead, I had a strong premonition that something or someone was closing in.

  The phone rang. Natsue started.

  It was Oshita.

  “Something’s moving in the snow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think it’s people. They’re getting closer to the cabin, but keeping out of sight. It’s not just one or two of them. From what I can tell, there’s five.”

  I closed my eyes. Now that I thought about it, the police didn’t have to watch me at all. Oshita’s brother was doing that for them. The cops could step back and watch him instead, and it would be enough. In fact, they’d see the situation more objectively that way.

  The police had probably noticed that the 2CV had turned toward a cabin while I led Oshita’s brother on.

  “It must be the police.”

  “I think so, too.”

  Oshita’s voice was oddly calm.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Akiko was the first to notice. She’s locked all the windows. I don’t think it will make any difference.”

  I couldn’t tell if Oshita was composed or just incapable of seeing the trouble he was in.

  “There’s no way to escape?”

  “I don’t want to run.”

  “But—”

  “They’re going to come and arrest me. I can wait for that or I can...”

  Oshita didn’t finish his sentence.

  I remembered the moment when my hands were locked in handcuffs. This isn’t it, I’d thought. While musing that there had to be some other possible response, I’d accepted the chill of the cuffs without all that much discomfort.

  Oshita had hung up.

  “The cops have surrounded the cabin where Akiko and Oshita are.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “From the beginning they had their eye on the whole picture, not just on me. They’re pros all right.”

  “What next?”

  “Nothing I can do for them now.”

  “Right.”

  Natsue looked at me closely.

  “Was there something you were trying all along to bring about?”

  “I don’t know. Still, not knowing what I wanted, I stayed involved with those two, so I must have been seeing something. What I think now is that I was seeing what’s usually just a notion—why we paint—take on human form, come to life.”

  Natsue lit a cigarette.

  “And now things have gotten so out of hand it’s useless to have this discussion.”

  “Oshita thinks it’s only natural that the police should come into the cabin and arrest him. He also seems to be having a premonition that the nature of things can change.”

  I lit a cigarette and stood by the window. The snow was starting to pile up on the terrace.

  I wasn’t thinking about what I could do.

  “I’ve come from your heart.” Oshita’s words kept coming back to me, over and over. Where Oshita was now, I should be. But I had stepped back, and not just one step. I had retreated to a place where Oshita and Akiko could never touch me, no matter how far they reached out. From there I’d watched them.

  I’d produced a few paintings. They weren’t good enough that I could tell myself I’d done it all for the sake of art. The two had left behind in their sketchbook pale, dribbling watercolors that, no matter how childish, were the real thing—far more so than my own pictures.

  Natsue examined the pages of the sketchbook, one by one. There were six paintings altogether. Oshita and Akiko were saying something to each other in words that were not words.

  “Technically, it’s crap.”

  “Then what do you call pictures that have only technique?”

  “You’ve got a point. They’re real paintings. No question about it, they’re the real thing. I can’t say anything more than that, though.”

  “I’m getting old.”

  “Thirty-nine, was it?”

  “I’ve turned forty. It’s not age so much as this feeling I’ve been painting too much for too long. They have something I don’t have anymore. If you look at it that way, I’m a hack painter who’s tried to rip them off.”

  “And that’s being old?”

  “I think so.”

  I reached for the phone. The line was busy. Either Oshita or Akiko was talking to someone, or the receiver was off the hook.

  “What now?”

  “I’ll wait. A little longer. That’s all I can do.”

  “Do they love each other, I wonder?”

  “They love each other. They also hate each other. Their feelings for each other are the same as their feelings for themselves.”

  A car drove up on the road below. It looked like a patrol car. Two detectives got out and walked over.

  “Koichi Oshita has taken a hostage and is holed up in a cabin. The hostage is Akiko Tsukada, age nineteen. She’s renting the cabin from a friend. You may not know her.”

  I said nothing. I had no idea why the cops had come.

  “We’re in contact with the cabin by phone. Akiko Tsukada has come to the phone. She told us that if we don’t end our siege, Koichi Oshita will kill her.”

 

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