TFOA Chapter 21

The bean that seemed like it would never die turned out to be truly disposable after all—by the next morning, it had dried up completely and died.

It seemed like any moment now, the noisy neighbor would come over with an axe, claiming she'd use it as firewood.

Benjamin stared at the single bean sitting brazenly on his kitchen table.

As if cursed, no matter how many times he cleaned it away, one would always come rolling out from somewhere.

Anyone could see it was a suspicious experimental crop that had far exceeded the boundaries of what could be called a bean, yet remarkably, there hadn't been any news of stomach upsets or sudden deaths in the village.

"Niksi! Can't you make our grapevines grow that big too?"

"Our cow too!"

The evening before, once everyone had gotten a bit tipsy, the villagers had asked Niksi to make their crops grow large as well.

Niksi, who they'd expected to readily agree, surprisingly refused outright.

"I can't. I used up all the stem cell samples I brought from Paris."

To get more, she'd have to go all the way to Paris, and she didn't want to re-enlist!

Still, when the villagers seemed disappointed, she said, "Well, it would take time since I don't have proper equipment, but it's possible if I have DNA samples to extract stem cells from. But there's a condition."

"A condition?"

"I need DNA samples from species with tenacious reproductive ability and vitality. The kind that would survive even a nuclear bomb."

Reproductive ability and tenacious vitality that could survive even nuclear bombs.

Simultaneously, one creature came to everyone's minds.

A creature with two long antennae—one they didn't even want to think about.

For a moment, they became terrified of what DNA might have been extracted to create the beans they were eating.

That's how the villagers stopped bringing up the topic of giant crops with Niksi.

—Clatter, thump.

Benjamin shoved the space-hogging bean into a corner of his cupboard.

Today was the day he had to go to a city in the outskirts and return.

He needed to deliver the original text he'd been translating and buy the sleeping pills he'd lost.

He scrambled some eggs adequately and added tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms.

Thus was completed a half-hearted omelet that just needed to go in his mouth.

"You finished early this time. I was so used to you consistently missing deadlines that I'd even prepared a manual for how to make excuses to clients, Benjamin."

The man joked while fiddling with his mustache.

This was the owner of the largest bookstore in a city on the outskirts of Auvers—a place that could only be reached after a four-hour carriage ride from the nearest train station.

"It wasn't every day."

It wasn't every day he missed deadlines. Maybe one time out of ten.

And only when the backwater village of Auvers was isolated by snow or rain, or when his hands simply refused to move.

"Here. Payment."

Benjamin handed the man a brown envelope containing the original text and manuscript pages, then received several bills in return.

Since the book he'd translated this time was an academic text, the payment was quite substantial. If he was frugal, it was enough to live on for about two months.

"A few more Bible translation commissions came in. Will you take them?"

"No."

"Why? Do you have some other important work?"

If he bought paint and sleeping pills, he could barely scrape by until the end of spring.

Benjamin put the money in his pocket.

"I got a painting commission."

Just buying a couple of paint tubes as thick as his fingers had made his wallet noticeably thinner.

'If I buy medicine here too, my living expenses will last about ten days... no, maybe a week.'

Maybe he should have taken that Bible translation job after all. Benjamin put the paint in a paper bag.

But this was a painting commission he'd finally received.

Even with hands that wouldn't move as he wanted, he didn't know when he'd finish the painting, but right now he wanted to focus only on painting.

'I'll have to give up the medicine. Besides, that drug is hard to come by easily now anyway.'

Giving up sleep required quite a significant resolve from him.

When people can't sleep, they either become violent or start painting the transience of life, and Benjamin was seriously the type who would dream of life's meaninglessness and bidding farewell to the world.

After considering it two or three times, he finally decided to give up the medicine.

'Then with this, I can buy four eggs, one bag of onions, and a handful of button mushrooms for a week...'

On the way back to the train station.

Benjamin looked toward a place that unusually smelled of flowers.

There stood a quaint flower shop painted yellow.

<5 euros per stem!>

In front of the crudely scribbled sign in cursive, a long container was placed, and in it were stuck some rather pathetic-looking tulips.

They looked like they'd meet their final fate of withering and dying by the day after tomorrow.

Since the war had ended, the time when white chrysanthemums sold well had also passed.

In short, the flowers in the flower shop weren't particularly needed.

The same was true for a painter who was debating whether to give up button mushrooms or tomatoes.

"Where have you been, painter?"

Gilbert and Niksi were the first to spot Benjamin getting off the carriage.

They were carrying armfuls of crops like onions, potatoes, and carrots, as if they'd ransacked some store.

Benjamin tried hard to suppress the nausea from carriage sickness.

He kept his mouth firmly shut and headed toward his house.

The painter ignoring them wasn't a matter of just a day or two, so Niksi and Gilbert followed behind the painter like puppies following their mother.

"We searched all over Auvers and couldn't find you, so we were about to file a missing person report."

"See, Niksi? I said he'd be back before sunset."

"But what's with the tulip?"

Niksi pointed to the pink tulip sticking out of the paper bag Benjamin was carrying.

To say he'd picked it up on the way, tulips were a rare species to see in Auvers.

Moreover, the pink flower in the painter's arms looked exactly like a delicate princess kidnapped by a stone statue.

In other words, it was thoroughly mismatched.

"Gil, Gil. What I'm looking at is a flower, right?"

"It should be, right? Since it looks like a tulip to my eyes too."

"I thought the painter's emotions had completely dried up... Did you go to the Netherlands?"

"Oh. That was quite a decent hypothesis. If Mr. Richter had been to the Netherlands, he might have received a tulip as a souvenir."

"Right? There's no way the painter would have bought a flower with his own hands. The painter doesn't know about mood changes..."

"Be quiet."

A painter with dried-up sensitivity couldn't have bought flowers himself!

'What exactly do they think of me?'

Benjamin rubbed his throbbing head at their harsh evaluation.

"Niksi, how about this? Mr. Richter bought the tulip to give to someone else."

"The painter?"

Niksi whispered to Gilbert.

"I haven't seen anyone he could give it to."

"Um, Niksi, that's a bit..."

"......"

"Did you hear? Sorry."

Actually, Benjamin hadn't heard. But from Niksi's apology, he'd unintentionally figured out what she had whispered.

The flower in his arms rustled.

This withering flower cost exactly the price of giving up tomatoes and button mushrooms. Thanks to it, he'd have to eat omelets with only onions for a week.

"It's true I bought it to give to someone."

"Eh."

'Could it be me?'

Niksi's eyes lit up.

Seeing her transparent intentions, Benjamin quickly added, "My sibling."

"Sibling? You had a sibling? I haven't seen one."

"That... Niksi..."

"Dead."

"Oh. Sorry."

All three walked side by side as if on cue.

In the distance, they could see the crossroads sign where the three people's paths would split.

"Well, they'll meet in the next life!"

"Protestant."

"Really sorry. I almost started a religious reformation. What I mean is, so your sibling will be reborn into a happy life, not you!"

"My sibling was Protestant too."

"Really sorry. I'll make the sign of the cross."

"Niksi, that's Catholic."

The more Niksi spoke, the more Benjamin's expression seemed to sour.

Gilbert, the village head who had the duty to care for two persons of interest, drew a straight line across his mouth with his hand, signaling Niksi to shut up.

On the way to Benjamin's house, the village head and the farmer followed behind the painter as if that path led to their own homes too.

"You went to the city for work, right? I heard from Raul that you do translation work on original texts."

"What! Then the reason the painting has been delayed all this time was because of that?"

'Should I go back and sell the paint?' Benjamin thought.

"I do it to make a living. The painting is..."

Benjamin stopped mid-sentence and looked at Niksi.

"As someone said, I haven't completed a single one."

"By the way, what kind of translation? French and German?"

"English."

"Wow, that's amazing!"

While Gilbert exclaimed in admiration, Niksi seriously pondered whether 'multilingualism was indeed a basic accomplishment of Auvers people.'

When they reached the crossroads sign, the sun had already set completely.

'Wait. Then if I gave him money, he could have painted faster? No, wait. I received a promise for a painting in exchange for showing him one painting at the Louvre Museum...'

The painter's convictions weren't shallow enough to succumb to capitalism. Even if Niksi bet her entire fortune, he wouldn't bat an eye.

"Starting tomorrow."

"Huh?"

"I'll start again tomorrow. Your commission."

Benjamin shook the paint in his paper bag.

His hands, which had been numb for a while, felt better now, and he'd bought the necessary paint, so it seemed he could start.

"Really? Yahoo!"

She jumped with joy at the fact that she'd finally escape from that white canvas. Because of this, the onions she'd been holding scattered in all directions.

"Ah, my lifelines...!"

She hurriedly ran to catch the onions rolling down the hillside path.

"...Lifelines?"

"Those are the crops I received yesterday as payment for sharing the beans."

'Well, they were certainly extraordinary.'

Benjamin handed Gilbert a potato rolling at his feet.

A few hours earlier, Niksi had shed tears of emotion upon receiving agricultural products as thank-you gifts from the villagers.

"With these, I can put food in my mouth until the fresh onion harvest!"

"Huh? What about money? You definitely said you could make it until summer."

"I spent it all. I pre-ordered sunflower seedlings. To plant in summer."

What a reckless neighbor she was.

If she harvested sunflowers all summer as she said, she'd make some money, but that was the same as living hand to mouth.

Sunflowers weren't crops that grew 365 days a year.

So Gilbert resolved that before she starved to death, he'd soon have to teach her how to survive by scavenging the mountains.

It seemed he'd have to take her along when he went to dig for yams soon.

"By the way, Mr. Richter, have you had dinner?"

He shook his head.

'Hmm. Should I take this person along too?'

Gilbert responded sociably, "I see~"

Benjamin's dinner menu was an omelet with only onions. Probably tomorrow's lunch and dinner, and the day after tomorrow's lunch and dinner too.

It was the ordinary diet of a poor artist.

"...Then you."

Benjamin asked back.

Gilbert's eyes widened. Him asking a question back! It was the first time.

"Not yet...!"

Even if he had eaten, he felt he should say he hadn't.

"Then perhaps..."

Just as Gilbert was about to skillfully continue,

"I haven't had dinner yet either! Want to eat together?"

Niksi, covered in dirt from wherever the onions had rolled, came running while shaking an onion.

Benjamin turned around briskly and walked determinedly toward his house. It was an escape.

Gilbert reflexively grabbed Benjamin's shoulder.

Benjamin turned around with a haggard face.

The eyes of the young village head, which shone especially clearly today, couldn't have been more terrifying.

"Then would you like to have dinner with us?"

At Benjamin's house.

After Niksi confidently declared she would cook, Benjamin's kitchen was devastated.

Amazingly, only her salad turned out reasonably well. It was deplorable.

Benjamin's only crime was failing to stop her.

He was genuinely curious how scrambled eggs, which only needed stirring to be made, could end up looking like beetle shells.

"Strange, right? The theory is perfect!"

"Please take that woman away."

Unable to watch anymore, Benjamin dragged over Gilbert, who had been looking at paintings.

Gilbert, who had been acting slyly saying he was busy too, quietly rolled up his sleeves when he witnessed the tragic disaster in the kitchen.

"Alright, first let's distinguish whether what you're holding is salt or sugar, shall we? Niksi, Mr. Richter, please sit over there."

After Niksi was forcibly evicted from the kitchen by Gilbert's hands, Benjamin and Niksi sat at the table as he commanded.

Gilbert began trimming the ingredients that had survived from the dark green pit of despair soup Niksi had made.

A few minutes later, finally, the aroma of food fit for human consumption wafted from the kitchen.

A gratin made by stuffing cheese and bacon into onions that were burnt on the outside.

Sautéed vegetables made by finely chopping pumpkin and broccoli and cooking them in oil.

Finally, a vegetable soup with a deliciously golden color.

"Gilbert. Do you want to become mayor beyond village head?"

"Why?"

"I think you could conquer cities with your cooking."

Niksi's joke wasn't too bad, as Gilbert chuckled.

It certainly looked good and smelled appetizing.

The painter had always eaten food that just filled his stomach. It had been really long since he'd had cooking with this much care put into it.

'Did I eat a feast like this before the war?'

The tulip in the table vase swayed.

Benjamin absentmindedly spooned the vegetable soup in front of him.

"......"

"How is it, painter! It's really delicious, right?! You did well eating with us, didn't you?"

The soup had a strangely bitter taste. An uncommon sensation. But somehow familiar...

'Dandelion?'

"...So that soup back then was made by you."

Benjamin muttered. It was a small sound that Niksi and Gilbert couldn't hear.

That familiar taste of soup made thick with milk, then finished with a touch of bitterness from adding vegetables, dandelion stems, and some chopped sowthistle.

Long ago, when he had suffered serious injuries and drifted into Auvers.

It was the taste of that bland soup that was always placed in front of the empty house morning and evening, along with dry bread.

'Could it be that Gilbert made it?'

Well, he would most...

Benjamin looked at Gilbert thoughtfully.

'He would hate me the most.'

Niksi realized she was screwed only after eating that fantastic dinner.

She had forgotten that the ingredients consumed to show off her worst cooking skills were the food supplies she needed to last a month.

She couldn't spit back out what had already gone into her stomach, nor could she revive what had been charred and discarded.

'I'm screwed.'

Whether they knew of her sorrow or not, Gilbert and Benjamin were having a quiet conversation in the distance.

'When did they become close with each other when they were only close with me?'

A strange, hard-to-understand sadness washed over her.

Niksi lay sprawled on the floor that smelled of oil paint and thought.

Red chicory, chives, and kale still needed about three more weeks before harvest. To borrow money, she'd already used advance payment to buy fresh onion seedlings from the general store, so she couldn't borrow any.

The ingredients to live on were already in her stomach. To survive the next month, she'd need at least 20 euros, but if she was broke?

"......"

Niksi, who had no ethics whatsoever, made up her mind.

'Alright. I'm opening a gambling den.'