TFOA Chapter 5

Benjamin was having a hellish time lately.

It was because of his neighbor across the river who wanted to commission a painting from him.

Neighbor was putting it nicely - she was no different from a pesky fly.

"Hey, Mr. Painter. Don't you feel like painting today?"

The pesky neighbor came again and bothered him.

Nine times out of ten he responded with silence, but she never seemed to tire and came chattering all day long.

"How do you see and paint pictures while staying in the room? Do you paint what's in your head?"

"Are you going to sell all these paintings? What a shame. If there was a painting of the fields with our house in it, I would have bought it right away."

"Come to think of it, all your paintings are dark colors. They say paintings contain the artist's heart - are you perhaps depressed? This painting is... oh, I know. This is a painting of the bridge at the village entrance, right?"

"Ha."

Benjamin sighed deeply.

At his reaction, Niksi, who had been sitting on the windowsill, brightened her eyes and quickly stood in front of him.

"Now you feel like painting my picture?"

Benjamin stood up. The blanket covering his shoulders fell to the floor.

Still not answering her question, he walked to the kitchen.

"Huh? I'd like you to paint the Auvers scenery. Right here, our house as seen from outside the window."

Niksi used both hands to frame the view with her index fingers and thumbs, capturing the scenery where her house was visible outside the window.

Benjamin was already facing the crisis of having to block his only window.

She sang the tiresome song of begging him to paint every single day. When he curled up by the north window to nap, she somehow spotted him from her house and waved frantically.

When he tried to ignore her and sleep, she brought a mirror larger than herself and flashed it at his window.

Thanks to this, his house, dark 365 days a year, flashed with light and blonde hair.

"Huh? I'll pay you well. How about 260 euros? It's all my fortune."

Benjamin poured hot water into a cup while letting her words go in one ear and out the other. Inside was a coffee pouch of finely ground roasted coffee beans.

The kitchen was quickly filled with a gentle coffee aroma. Niksi sat on the table.

260 euros. It certainly wasn't a small amount. About two months' worth of food expenses.

Benjamin removed the coffee pouch and threw the coffee grounds into a small container.

"Don't you like it? Then hmm... I'll add 50 more euros...! I've been saving it as emergency money, so I really don't have any more!"

"Didn't you say yesterday that all your fortune was 500 euros?"

"Huh? That. I spent half of it today buying sweet potato seedlings to plant in the field."

'So she's spending all her remaining fortune on a painting? Reckless.'

He swallowed his thoughts while taking a sip of coffee.

The reckless woman wiped sweat from her forehead and began chattering again.

"I didn't know planting sweet potatoes would be so hard. I thought my back was going to break in half."

He knew that too. He had seen her bustling around in the field in front of her house through his window since sunrise.

"If you need more money, just wait until those sweet potatoes are fully grown. It'll probably be a bumper crop. This genius chemist is planting them."

Whether she spoke or not, he mixed egg white with paint and walked back to the canvas.

She followed with a playful laugh.

He sat in front of the canvas.

Since there was only one chair where he sat, Niksi naturally sat on the windowsill.

Sunlight poured behind her.

"What are you painting?"

Her curiosity was as tenacious as stubborn weeds.

"A painting."

Benjamin answered briefly.

"...I know that. Unless my eyes are crooked."

Niksi grumbled.

She had learned several things while asking him for a painting commission for a week.

First. The reason for applying egg white to paint was to increase paint adhesion.

Additionally, the canvas and paint he used were cheap.

Second. His paintings were as dark as his gloomy personality.

When he picked up bright green paint to express water moss, she was so moved that she exclaimed 'Finally a bright color!'

Finally, third. He had hand tremors.

Was it because of the hand tremors? Though the painter sat in front of the canvas all day, he couldn't complete even one small canvas.

This work was also still a painting made with cheap paint mixed with egg white, gloomy and dark, and slow in progress.

She had memorized the painting that seemed unchanged for three straight days.

Niksi blankly stared at the umber brush strokes.

Looking carefully, it seemed like a painting she'd seen somewhere before.

What was it? Was it a painting hanging in the Colonel's room?

"That painting looks familiar. Who was it... Remb... ran..."

"Rembrandt."

"Ah, right. I think the title was..."

She remembered because the Colonel, notorious for being petty, said he would donate his precious painting to a famous museum.

Though Niksi had no interest in art, the Colonel bragged about it being such an amazing painting...

'That amazing painting was revealed to be fake, and the Colonel went berserk.'

"Emmaus..."

"Christ at Emmaus."

Benjamin said.

"Wow. You just said eight characters. You know?"

Niksi let out a brief exclamation and replied.

"Anyway, it's the same as that work. Except Christ looks less like Christ."

"It's a copy."

"Is that so? You must really like this painter."

He remained silent.

Silence meant affirmation. Niksi shrugged indifferently.

The Colonel, this tight-lipped painter. She just wondered if Rembrandt's works had something that captivated these unpleasant people.

"How do you know this work?"

"That? Someone I know had that painting."

Though it's now ashes.

She replied indifferently.

If that painting had been real, it would have been displayed in the center of the Rouvus Museum Museum. The Colonel had excitedly bragged that his name would be engraved under the painting.

—Whoosh!

Then, he turned his head with a sound.

It was the most noticeable movement since she had been pestering him for a painting commission.

"You said someone had that painting?"

Niksi blinked in surprise at his big movement.

"Yeah. Not now though."

"Then where is it now?"

"Huh? That, where I used to live. So... at the Rouvus Museum!"

She spoke following her stream of consciousness and then thought 'oops.'

That painting had already been torn in half and burned, no longer existing in this world.

But you can't take back words once they're out.

She rolled her eyes to gauge his reaction.

"It's at the Rouvus Museum... Didn't it disappear during the war..."

"Are you interested in that painting?"

The painter immediately put his brush on the canvas instead of answering.

After touching the same spot for a long time, he answered briefly.

"Yes."

Eventually he put down his palette. It was earlier than his usual work finishing time.

While Niksi observed him with her chin propped up, he emptied the water container and sprayed alcohol on the paint.

Moving the unfinished painting to cool shade, he muttered.

"It's a painting I wanted to see before I die."

Is he Nero? Niksi scratched her hair.

"Hey, painter. Where's *Patrasche? Haha."

"..."

"You don't understand jokes."

Since he finished his painting, it was time to be kicked out of the house.

Niksi got up. Today she had the great plan of 'gathering mugwort growing in his yard on the way home.'

Plus, there were unharvested wheat grains scattered in the nearby wild wheat fields.

If she picked up grains that hadn't rotted and gathered mugwort, she could make mugwort rice cakes for dinner.

"Bye painter. I hope you feel like painting tomorrow."

"The Rouvus Museum... how much donation is needed to enter?"

"Huh?"

Benjamin asked while organizing his painting supplies.

Museum. Donation.

The Rouvus Museum, built with Catholic donations, required quite a large donation for entry due to the lofty Pope's tastes.

They said they collected donations for those suffering after the war, but Niksi knew. That all those donations were filling the Pope's belly.

Only then understanding what he meant, Niksi awkwardly showed off her knowledge by holding up three fingers.

"It can't be 30 euros."

"Of course, add one more zero. 300 euros."

"I see."

It was a matter-of-fact answer, as if he hadn't expected anything different.

Without a chance to explain, the conversation ended, so Niksi left feeling only awkward.

'Oh right. I was going to pick the mugwort in the yard.'

She crouched in the corner of the yard. Winter mugwort was intense. Having survived winter, the fragrance was strong but also a bit tough.

The best would be to pick new shoots, but hungry Niksi didn't care.

Since she had to pick up wheat grains before sunset, she roughly gathered mugwort.

The abundantly picked mugwort piled up nicely in her sweater front.

This should be enough. Niksi turned around with a satisfied face, shaking dirt off her sleeves.

The door she thought would be closed was open. Benjamin was leaning against the doorframe with a weary expression, having apparently been watching for some time.

"Why? Now you feel like painting?"

Niksi patted her tingling legs from crouching.

The answer was predictably "No." "I don't want to." "Get lost." 'Silence' and so on, but.

"Yes."

"Yes, I didn't expect... What?"

"I said 'yes.'"

"Really?"

Niksi jumped up. Mugwort fell from her sweater front.

"Good! No taking it back. I can pay right away."

"No."

"What now..."

Did he want more money? Niksi looked up at him with an anxious face.

Benjamin had an uncharacteristically awkward expression.

'Damn. He definitely looks ready to ask for 30 more euros.'

Niksi swallowed dry saliva.

"You said someone you know had that painting."

"Huh? Right."

"You said the Rouvus Museum was in your hometown..."

"Yeah."

"Did someone you know donate it to the Rouvus Museum?"

"Right."

"Then. Staff entry would be possible."

"That... would be right?"

"No payment needed."

"What?"

No payment needed? Niksi tilted her head as if she couldn't understand.

Of course, she wasn't against free things.

She was at the point where if she ran out of money right now, she'd have to sustain her life by digging grass roots until the sweet potato harvest.

Niksi stared at him expectantly. Benjamin pressed his tired eyes with his hand, opened them again and spoke.

"Show me Christ at Emmaus."

What Niksi overlooked when she readily accepted the painter's proposal was that the travel cost to her hometown was about her entire fortune, and that painting wasn't at the Rouvus Museum.

"Damn it. I should have just given that bastard Jackie soap made by Helen as a gift. I could have claimed it was a local specialty!"

Niksi belatedly tugged at her hair, but the deal had already been struck.

Translator Note:

*"A Dog of Flanders" reference - Nello ("Nero" by her account) and his dog Patrasche die while viewing a Rubens painting. In Niksi's typical irreverent humor - she's mocking his melodramatic statement by comparing him to a fictional character known for dying while viewing art.