TFOA Chapter 6

Caution. Eleven o'clock in the morning. The rooftops beyond the fields and river. It must be exactly eleven o'clock in the morning, a landscape painting of when the golden sunlight pours down on the earth. Absolutely, absolutely use bright colors.

It had been such a long time since he'd received a painting commission.

Benjamin gathered his art supplies. Painting knives and paints. Pencils. A blanket. The canvas that his client had said was just the right size. An outdoor easel.

When was the last time he'd received a painting commission? It felt like ages ago.

And when was the last time he'd gone outside during broad daylight to paint? It had been ages for that too.

For someone who mainly painted landscapes, he rarely left his house.

Landscapes were things you could think about and paint plenty without them necessarily being spread out before your eyes.

But this commission couldn't be painted that way. His demanding client had emphasized three times that he absolutely had to go out and paint it.

He walked the path to find the angle that would show the fields she'd mentioned and her house in the center of the fields.

The middle of the stone path. The center of the blue wheat fields.

The spot where the grass came up to about knee-height in the thicket was where he could capture the landscape she wanted.

Benjamin walked into the middle of the thicket, trampling on the annoyingly overgrown weeds.

After finding a suitable spot, he set up his easel.

—Scritch, scritch.

He established the central line of a long trapezoid with the house at its center.

The fields where blue-green grass rippled. Across the way, the sea was visible.

He was balancing the horizon line of the fields with the gently stretching waterline when—

"Ah. Please erase the sea."

His client, wearing a straw hat, suddenly poked her head out.

Benjamin frowned at the shadow that had suddenly intruded.

"I hate the sea, you see."

She had forcibly dragged him out of the house, insisting that he not use his imagination but paint the landscape exactly as it appeared to his eyes, and now she was asking him to erase the sea that was clearly visible. What was her intention?

He sighed and erased the horizon line.

"Looking from here, the area around our house seems quite empty. It'll look better when the crops grow in, right?"

"......"

"Oh right. Please paint our house's roof red. Where my friend lives, red is a symbol of wealth. I may be poor as dirt right now, but I need to look like I'm loaded so those jerks won't come sniffing around."

She began rattling off additions to the still-blank canvas.

From the moment he'd erased the sea, her chattering had been annoying him, so he decided to let her words go in one ear and out the other.

The condition that he absolutely had to use bright colors had bothered him from the start.

That's why he had to be out here under the blazing sun. Even the white canvas was so dazzling that he had to squint while sketching.

Her conspicuously pale white skin, stark even under the broad shadow of her straw hat, irritated him too.

"You're noisy."

Benjamin finally broke his silence.

He didn't hope this would make the woman quiet down. He just hoped, even if only for a brief moment, that she wouldn't interfere with him.

In a few days anyway, this woman wouldn't be speaking to him either.

All the villagers avoided him. He knew the reason.

This woman was probably just being friendly to him now because she didn't know anything, but soon she'd avoid him like the others.

She might even cancel the painting commission...

"Really? Then I'll speak more quietly."

She said that and then began voicing her opinions about oil paints again.

He just decided to give up.

He only wished that foreigner would quickly learn what kind of person he was.

The next day, the painter came out to the same spot at the same time with his easel. He rubbed his stinging eyes.

What kind of suffering was this, all because of a commission demanding he absolutely use bright paint colors when he had no desire to?

It was an ambiguous time, nearly afternoon, but the fields were full of sharp smells.

Benjamin sat in front of his easel, wrapped in a blanket.

Then, when he was getting absorbed in his work, that woman would always appear.

Hair like lemon slices soaked in honey. A sky-blue dress that fluttered as if made from torn curtains. A straw hat.

Today, as if she'd planted seedlings in the morning, her hands and face were completely covered in dirt.

"Hello, painter? Did you get some paint on the canvas today?"

"......"

"Hmm. Still sketching, I see. Good. This is what you call craftsmanship, isn't it?"

She crouched down beside the canvas and aligned her gaze roughly with the direction Benjamin was looking.

The third day. Benjamin came out to the fields with a tired face from his disrupted sleep schedule.

Benjamin set up his easel and placed the canvas on it.

The sketch was now almost complete. In a few more days, he'd be able to spread the paint that woman kept nagging about. Just the base coat, though.

The time when his pencil scratched busily.

The foreigner appeared as expected, her apron bulging with red chicory.

"On my way here, I found a whole patch of radicchio blooming up ahead! Does this taste good roasted in the oven? It's delicious even raw."

Niksi munched on the plant that looked somewhere between red cabbage and regular cabbage.

"Want some?"

"No."

When he resolved not to engage in conversation, she always made it so he had to speak.

Benjamin firmly refused the red plant thrust in front of him.

As if she'd expected this, Niksi put it in her own mouth.

—Crunch.

It made a fresh sound.

The fourth day. The sketch was finished.

He fixed the ever-changing grasses in what he thought was their most beautiful form, and gave the canvas center slight curves so her house would appear beautifully embraced by the fields.

Of course, during those four days, her house had been a two-story house with a roof, then a grand mansion, then a great cathedral...

"Oh? Painter! Our house looks like our house now. Just yesterday it looked so grand."

"You told me to paint what I could see."

It was demoted back to her little log cabin.

Niksi looked disappointed that she couldn't brag to Jackie about her house being as grand as a palace.

When looking at just one line, you couldn't understand what was being drawn, but when those meaningless lines came together, they formed a single landscape.

Niksi sat with her chin propped up, looking at the canvas.

When had he noticed the slightly crooked pillar? The painter angled his pencil and sketched over where the pillar stood.

Thick joints, but hands full of scars. His right hand.

His rolled-up shirt. Hair the color of light beige, like milk tea after lightly rinsing tea leaves.

Eyes that narrowed when he concentrated, and violet-colored irises.

With his appearance that would suit working in a nighttime cafe in Paris, he was quite out of place in this rural village.

Niksi asked bluntly.

"How did you end up coming here?"

"......"

"Yes. The tight-lipped painter will never answer, right? I already knew that."

Silence settled between them. The friction sound of pencil against canvas filled that quiet.

"But why do you live away from the village? Isn't it inconvenient?"

"......"

"I find it quite inconvenient. At first, I deliberately found a house away from the village because I wanted to live quietly, but when night comes, it's too quiet and scary, you know?"

"......"

The bell in the bell tower visible far beyond the ridge of the fields rang, announcing noon.

It was time for her lunch bet with Gilbert, who was just coming down from the strawberry field. Niksi got up from her seat.

Whether the painter didn't eat lunch or preferred eating at late hours, he showed no signs of getting up.

'Does he eat lunch alone at home? I've only seen the painter in the village twice.'

The first day they'd met on the road, and the next day she'd met him at Raoul's bar. That was all.

"...I noticed last time that you don't seem to have any close friends. Haven't you been in the village very long?"

I've never seen you in the village, never seen you socializing with people. And you don't seem to have a friendly personality either. So the painter has...

"No friends."

Clatter. The painter finished his work earlier than usual and stood up.

The sketch was finished, but he hadn't brought paints, so he was simply getting up to prepare for applying the base coat properly tomorrow. But—

"Oh. Are you angry?"

"......What?"

At that perfect timing, Niksi said something nonsensical.

Because of that, he ended up looking like he'd gotten up in a huff at being asked if he had no friends.

The painter held his head.

"......No."

"That's not something to be embarrassed about. I didn't have friends in the past either."

"I said no."

He spat out a blunt answer as if exasperated.

Benjamin applied gesso to the canvas.

It was essential work to smooth the rough surface of the canvas.

He'd applied it once already, but because he'd erased so much to satisfy his demanding client, the canvas had become rough again.

Today, no matter what she said, he was determined not to respond.

For him, the hour of her chattering was more painful than the time spent forcing his unmoving hand to paint through the night.

He wanted to cut ties with her without taking payment.

'If only it weren't for that painting.'

If only the painting weren't Christ at Emmaus.

After a week or so, she should have stopped hovering around him. Why did she keep lingering near him? He couldn't make sense of it.

'Hasn't she heard my story from the villagers yet?'

He applied gesso over the canvas until the black sketch became faint. The white surface hardened and dried.

When passing through the village entrance, he'd seen her getting along quite amicably with the villagers.

Among them was Helen, who despised him.

If that was the case, she must have heard what kind of person he was.

A few kind-hearted people in the village thought of him as just a soldier who'd participated in the Battle of Gergaung and then deserted.

The war had ended half a year ago anyway, so their opinion was to let bygones be bygones.

But there was also opposing opinion. Those who hated him.

For example, people who had lost loved ones because of the war.

Layers upon layers of paint. When it accumulated enough that the sketch was no longer visible, he began to see her yellow hair in the distance.

"Painter! You finally picked up your palette!"

She was wearing an apron with a bulging front, as if carrying something.

As she approached, the smell of steamed potatoes wafted over.

Without even looking, he could tell what was making her pocket bulge.

"Want some? I just steamed them."

"......"

"They're really delicious. I could eat them three times a day without getting tired of them! I never knew I liked potatoes before, but the potatoes here are so delicious."

The potato pressed right up against the painter's chin.

He wanted to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn't.

If he stayed still, that hand pushing so forcefully toward his mouth would pry it open.

"I hate potatoes."

He said that and felt a weak pang of self-disgust at his broken resolve.

"You really dislike a lot of things. So what do you like?"

"......"

"Right. I have to guess this one, don't I?"

"......"

"How about omelets?"

"......"

"If not food, then... dogs!"

"......"

"Then cats?"

He remained silent to the end.

Niksi sighed. Good Lord. He doesn't even like cats or dogs? How could someone be so cold-blooded?

After that, her twenty questions continued until the gesso was applied twice more and dried.

Having not answered anything, he broke his long silence at the final trick question of Christ at Emmaus.

"Don't like it."

"Huh? Didn't you ask me to show it to you because you liked it?"

"No."

"Then why? You're a really strange person."

Niksi muttered as if observing an interesting object. Benjamin pressed his brow and opened his mouth.

"......What does what I like have to do with you?"

"Hmm? I just want to be friends with you. Being friends is better than not being friends, right?"

"If you're planning to stay here long, it would be better not to talk to me."

Niksi blinked.

"Why?"

He stood up from his seat. It was because he'd been smelling the volatile gesso fumes for too long and had a headache.

Benjamin looked up and gazed across the wheat field, making eye contact with a brown-haired man in the distance.

It was Gilbert, one of the few kind-hearted people in the village.

Gilbert smiled like a mischievous boy catching cicadas when their eyes met.

Yes, she'd find out soon anyway, even if he didn't tell her.

So Benjamin didn't explain the reason.

"Then can I talk to you when other people aren't around?"

"No. Don't talk to me even when other people aren't around."

Of course, having no way to know the answer, Niksi could only scratch her head, unable to figure out the reason.

What was it? A shy painter, maybe? That's all she could think of.

"Well... if that's really what you want, I understand. I'll do that."

After that, Benjamin never saw Niksi at that time, in that field.