The Painting

by Nina Schuyler

  Hayashi gazes at Sato from heavily veiled lids. Hayashi stands. He feels vulnerable and afraid. The thing he’s worked so hard to push aside is now in front of him again.

  There are some things that can’t be ignored, says Sato.

  Hayashi, his hands clasped in front of him, looks out the window. Ayoshi is walking briskly across the grounds from the temple to the house.

  No, I suppose not, he says slowly.

  SHE FINDS HER BLACK kimono made of exquisite silk. She selects a pair of new tabi socks and slips on her new wooden sandals. A virgin, she thinks, nothing worn before. Twisting her hair, she secures it at the nape of her neck with an ivory comb.

  She walks across the pebbled path to the small sitting room for prayer. The monk has lit incense and candles. He bows and continues to light more incense. She sits on a long bench, and he stands at the front of the room and begins to read a sutra. Her head bows and the words of the prayer tumble from her mouth. After a while, the monk gives the signal for her to rise. She goes to the incense urn, bows, and offers another stick of incense from the monk’s box, lights it, and lets the smoke spiral up to her face, cleansing her as it seeps into the air. She returns to her seat.

  Behind her she hears the door open and close, the footsteps of solid feet on solid ground. She keeps her head bowed, the monk still reciting. Before they parted for the last time, Urashi grabbed her wrist, and she searches now for his words, but they too have disappeared.

  She opens her eyes. At the altar, Hayashi places a pinch of incense on the smoldering pile of ash in the urn. He bows and drops his head to his chest. What is he doing here? she thinks. She feels a rise of anger. An intrusion, she thinks, interfering in a private affair. To insert himself into this moment, this critical moment when the man whom she loved more than anyone is being buried. Hayashi doesn’t look at her as he resumes his place in the back row. She watches him mumbling the sutras as she is doing now. She takes a deep breath. What does it matter, really, if he is here? Who knows whom he is praying for? When she lowers her voice, she hears Hayashi’s deep tenor, and even through the prayer, she hears the rattle of sadness.

  Kneeling now, she lets her head fall, sliding into the depth of herself, a weeping willow of a neck, and the tears come. When she is done, she looks up. Hayashi has gone. The monk finishes chanting the sutra alone, and she slips out the door, feeling the lightness of relief in her hollow inside.

  FRANCE

  SHE’LL BE STANDING THERE, he thinks, as he pins the cardboard cylinder to his side, not even a sliver of freezing air between him and the painting. He inserts the key to her apartment and gasps a nervous breath. Exhausted, yes, but a brilliant smile, a smile announcing she’s home, there she’ll be, a woman shimmering with happiness.

  The hinge squeaks as the door slowly opens. He steps carefully over the threshold. The bleak room stares forlornly at him. He stands perfectly still, not certain what to do. It’s too soon, he thinks, much too soon, but he can’t endure doing nothing, so he sets the painting on the cot and begins to scour her musty-smelling apartment, searching underneath the black metal frame of the bed, along the damp windowsill, behind the drapes faded an ancient yellow, and hasn’t he done this before? What does he hope to find? He can’t say and he can’t stop because there might be something—what? what is it? whatever is he looking for? He peers into the empty kitchen cupboards, nothing, then rushes to the top drawer of her bureau. In his haste, the entire drawer comes out. There, tucked in the back, a torn piece of paper about the size of his thumb. His hand trembles as he feels a quickening in the air. Her handwriting. He has come to know the thin stretch of it, the way it almost refuses to be known. He wants it to mean so much, to unlock the secret to her, so he can save her, and, in some illogical way, though he can’t explain it, save himself, too.

  And so they went. … And so they went? The rest of the letter is missing. Just this phrase. What more did she write? He rummages through the other drawers. He rakes through the room again, stumbles into the hallway, and digs through a random bag of garbage. The old woman down the hall cracks open her door and peers at him with an incredulous look on her face. He stands up. There is nothing more, he thinks. Only this fragment, this silly, meaningless fragment. He steps into Natalia’s apartment, opens the window, and leans his head out. The air is cold, and he watches the white plume of his breath. In the distance, the din of a crowd’s voice rises and falls like ocean waves. All of Paris seems to have congregated, he thinks, and why wouldn’t she be there? He grabs the painting, hobbles downstairs, and crosses by the Pantheon. Of course she’d be drawn to the sound, as the swell seems to have swept him into its strong current. It’s flowing down from the top of Montmartre.

  It is near midnight, and Pierre will be expecting the final shipload that will never arrive. With his arms stretched out, Daudet will have a fantastic story, and the dim delivery boys will hand him the boxes. What does it matter which one of them has the splendors? Daudet or Pierre, men who have ravens picking at their hearts, incessantly squawking acquisition and possession, nothing will ever be enough, and in the end, the raven will win anyway.

  Near the top of the hill, people huddle, wearing thick, colorful coats and scarves and holding lanterns that light their open, expectant faces. A huge bonfire roars, and from this vantage point, it looks as if they have come to witness the raging flames. Women and children and men too old to fight push to get a better view, the bodies pressing closer. As he reaches the very top, he sees the center of the curiosity, a reddish-purple balloon limping on the ground.

  Moving in and out of the weave of the crowd, he hunts for Natalia until he finds himself standing in front of the balloon. A ring of National Guardsmen surrounds the basket fastened to the varnished balloon with heavy twined rope. Another four soldiers feed a gigantic pile of coal to a hungry fire. The gas from the flames is filling up the balloon. Jorgen stands mesmerized.

  The balloon leaps off the ground, a fiery animal now, flashing and coiling its dark red skin. A soldier loses his grip on the rope, and now the rope jumps wildly. The gathering oohs and ahhs, lurches forward, then back, following the beast as it blusters and roars.

  Pierre must be craning his neck, looking for the carriages, for the goods stuffed inside coffins, for the things he promised to sell to the Meaux, the Savants, and the Gladstones; the foreigners are always willing to pay double for food from their home country.

  What are we waiting for? someone shouts. The purple-red beast glows, hovering above the crowd, rising, rising to its full height.

  It wants to fly, says a girl to her mother, tugging on her mother’s coat. Why don’t they let it go?

  Hush, says her mother.

  The soldiers are barely holding on, dangling from the ends of the wild, jerking ropes. Jorgen steps closer to the balloon and feels the heat of the coal fire. The throng at once draws closer, as if following some mysterious collective pattern.

  Where is he? a woman says, looking around. The balloonist should have been here hours ago.

  If he doesn’t show up, what will become of the mail? asks another woman. I’ve got four letters in the stack.

  Probably got scared at the last minute, says a man with a black cap.

  It’s just like our soldiers, says an old woman. The Prussians have surrounded the city. If you climb the slope from Passy to the Trocadero and stand with binoculars, you can see a squad of Bismarck’s cuirassiers with their square hats and waving plumes.

  I think the balloon is pretty, says a girl.

  It is, says a woman pulling her scarf tighter. Look at it. And those gathered hush and tip up their faces to the black sky and the balloon.

  Down the hill the carriage is arriving, and Pierre will make his accounting. Will he shout and curse and run up the stairs? Where is the Dane? And when there is no answer, will he run into the inventory room and down the hallway to Jorgen’s old bedroom and find his few belongings, a couple pairs of stained pants and shirts, an empty cot. No note
. No footprints, no tread of a dirty shoe sole, no fingerprints smeared on the window glass. A thief, he will say of Jorgen, a spy, running to the police.

  The balloon has reached its full height and lofts in the wind. The balloon must take off now, announces an official. Do we have a volunteer?

  His money is gone. And so they went. Natalia is not in Paris, but perhaps she’s in the forest just outside the city. She’s pitched her tent for the night and maybe she’s killed a rabbit for supper. Roasting it now over a small fire of alder branches. He can almost picture it, almost put himself right there, next to her.

  Why did he come here if not for this? She must be right outside the city and there is no other way out, except this balloon. What is the crowd murmuring? A communal chant, a nursery rhyme of song. The bodies pressed tight, the chatter forming a single buoyant voice, And so he went.

  I’ll go, he says, separating himself from the crowd.

  The crowd parts and a hush follows.

  I’ll go.

  The National Guardsmen holding down the swaying balloon look at each other with raised eyebrows. Jorgen stands in front of a particularly tall soldier with a long red nose and hollowed-out cheeks.

  Let him do it, says a woman.

  An old man turns to the woman. What does this young man know about this? he asks. Look at his condition.

  Well, who then? You?

  He’ll be fine, says someone else.

  Jorgen looks at the balloon filled with coal gas. Nearly seven tons of coal burned, and it would be foolish to waste it. Why not let me go? he says to the tall guard. He watches the soldier’s expression as he struggles to make a decision, and Jorgen imagines him thinking, This foolish man may or may not make it, but the French have lost so many men already, what is another? And the letters, the letters of sorrow, of longing, of business, of hope, of love and official news and love and love, at least they should try to ensure they reach the recipients’ hands.

  The soldier steps aside.

  Jorgen’s hand rests on the hard wicker of the basket. He places his other hand on the side of the rim. One of the soldiers hoists his crutches into the basket. Jorgen straddles the basket, his stump in, then his leg, and there, at the bottom of the basket, several stacks of mail and a cage containing five pigeons. Jorgen smiles. Hello, he says, thinking this is a good sign. There is a perfectly white one with a hint of pale blue around its eyes.

  There’s a bottle of champagne, and a 150-meter trail rope, which the soldier says works as a ballast, and a six-hooked anchor. If you see the big blue ocean in the distance, throw out the anchor or that will be the last of you. If a Prussian starts shooting, duck below the rim of the basket and pray.

  Jorgen sets his cardboard cylinder on the floor next to the pigeons.

  You’ll need another coat and a blanket, says the soldier, handing him both. Jorgen puts on the heavy coat made of virgin lamb’s wool dyed black to stay hidden in the precarious basket.

  Here’s a flask, says another soldier. Pray for a strong and steady eastern wind. He tells Jorgen the pigeons have messages wrapped in their tail feathers. Let them go when you’re clear of Paris, he says.

  A young woman comes up to the basket, removes the blue paper flower from her hat, and pins it on his coat lapel. She kisses both cheeks, Thank you, monsieur. You have a letter to my mother, who lives in England. The woman says her mother is quite ill. The letter, she says, will mean so much to her.

  Another woman, her hair in long brown braids as thick as tree branches, offers him a kerchief of pastries. She bows her head and removes from her neck a gold chain. Her talisman, she says, putting it over his head.

  An older man in gray earmuffs steps up and shakes his hand. Good luck, boy, he says. You’ll need it.

  More women and men line up to hand him their charms and well-wishes, but the soldiers push them aside.

  It’ll be too heavy, says the tall soldier. Enough. Get back.

  Throw out some mail if you need altitude, but not that stack, says a soldier, pointing to the one tied with red rope. It’s official.

  Be careful, shouts a woman. You have a message to my daughter in Norway.

  And one to my husband in England.

  Don’t throw out the pink envelope, shouts another woman.

  He pulls in the anchor and feels the basket jolt and lift up from the ground. The throng cheers again and up he goes. He looks at the faces turned up, filled with surprise and wonder. The pigeons coo and squawk and the cylinder rolls and bumps against the cage. The crowd shouts and the ligaments of the beast wave furiously in the air. He lifts up, up, screeches beyond the dark rooftops, up to the treetops, the balloon brushes through the branches. There are the big towers and church domes, a tall building lit very white and proud. Up and up to the cloud layer; he is so light.

  The balloon comes back down and settles at a height where he can see Paris below, the tiny globes of yellow streetlights, the small cooking fires in the park, the shadowy figures, the houses with people sleeping, and he imagines the rooms inside, the photographs and paintings, the stained-glass windows that in the morning will toss warm colorful light, and he feels like crying, and he is crying, not for the loss, but for the delicacy of life, for this small city, for every city dotted with people. And there, as he flies farther, he sees Prussians surrounding Paris, a ring of bonfires, and they are not far away, just beyond the wall. It is only a matter of time. She’s out there, he knows it. He can feel it.

  Natalia! he shouts. His voice is a pinprick, swallowed by the expanse of night sky. Such a small sound against the vastness.

  AS HE WAITS FOR the carriages outside, Pierre glances up and sees the garish-colored balloon. My God, he says out loud. One of the clerks comes out on the porch and stands next to him to watch. Whoever would do such a thing is a fool. No steering capability, at the whim of the wind.

  Beautiful, murmurs the clerk.

  Victor Hugo called these balloon expeditions an example of human audacity, says Pierre, but it’s not that at all. It’s human stupidity. What are the chances? A death ride, a goddamn suicide mission.

  But look at it, sir, says the clerk, his voice full of awe.

  Yes, says Pierre, thinking of the letters floating overhead, and he recalls an old friend with whom he’d gone to the university, a smart man, they’d played polo together, and he’d heard the fellow was ill. The man lives in Nice. He often thought of writing a letter, but never did. Now he feels a surprising need to write to the man and see how he’s doing. What do you need? Is anyone looking after you? After this damn war is over, I will be down your way to attend to you and anything else. He’d tuck inside a few francs.

  He looks down the dark alley, turns his ear, searching for the sound of a carriage rolling. Nothing but street urchins playing in garbage bins.

  Pierre pulls out a bill and holds it up. The wind turns the money, blowing it east. Right direction, but damn cold, and with the cloud layer, there might be snow tonight. He heard the reports of the men in the balloons, the ones who survived, the sense of awe and wonder from the view of the sky. That is where Natalia should have gone, he thinks, not the land, but up in a balloon to touch the lips of her God. Damn her, he whispers. Damn her for going.

  PARIS IS BEHIND HIM, and he rises higher. The air turns bitter cold. He pulls the two coats tighter and drinks from the flask. A hamlet up ahead, surrounded by darkness. Perhaps she is there, tucked away in a warm house, waiting for the right time to return to Paris. Or maybe she’s there, he thinks, spotting a white barn, hiding in the loft, sleeping in yellow straw. The pigeons coo, and he crouches down and blows warm air on their wings. As he moves away from the lights of town, hundreds of stars flash against the darkness.

  His leg begins to ache so he sits among the cushion of letters. She wrote, And so they went. He finishes the line for himself, for there was nothing else to do. His hands are frozen and he thinks the pigeons must be suffering. He opens the cage, clutches a bird, and tosses it into the night.
He hears the wings flapping, like the sound of a skirt brushing against legs. Another and another, he lets them fly away.

  Nestling into the bottom of the basket, he hooks the painting under his arm. He pulls out one of the letters, and with a pencil, he begins to write on the back of the envelope.

  My dear Natalia,

  I am above the world looking down, and part of me feels as close to God as I ever will get. A vision that each of us should receive at least once in a lifetime, this view of human lives. Such ants we are, swarming the earth, what do we think we are doing? But I set these thoughts aside and think of you. Don’t stop thinking of me so I can find you. It is not to sea that I am heading but land, sweet land, and to you.

  He stuffs the letter back under the string. The big lofting balloon enters a pocket of cold air, and he wraps himself tighter into his coat. His eyes hurt and even the skin under his fingernails aches. In the air, the smell of cold purity, of nothingness so high in the clouds, buries in his lungs. He shoves his hands into the sleeves of his coat, feeling the smoothness of silk inside. The balloon sweeps through a gray foggy mass. He feels a spray of mist and he quickly wipes his face, for fear the mist will freeze into a mask. He pushes his hand deeper into the coat pockets and finds a hard candy, puts it in his mouth, and sucks sweetness. In his other pocket, he fingers a smooth stone he found by the Seine. An amber color, it caught his eye in the dying sun, a piece of sunlight, he thought at the time; he takes it and rubs it against his cheek. He can no longer see the land below. He has no idea which way he is going or how much time has passed. Even if he stood up and surveyed below, he couldn’t tell, land or the deep sea.

  He throws out the birdcage and nudges down deeper. His teeth chatter uncontrollably, and he burrows his face into the double layer of thick coats and the blanket, while his mind clenches with fear. He tries to remember the last image he had on earth. What was it? Unhinging the cold crush on his brain, he finds a woman holding the hand of a small girl. And the girl? The girl in a pink coat, cherry-colored cheeks, a white ribbon in her hair, hair the brown of soil after a rain; the woman, her mother, a replica of the girl, in a long black coat with a fur collar encircling her pale neck, a beauty mark above her upper lip.