Free The Painting by Nina Schuyler Page A

down anyway. They make her feel like a prisoner, and she is, isn’t she? Stuck here. The man is walking down the pebbled path, and she’s about to head back, but there is something familiar about his gait. Not an old man’s walk, but a smooth swagger, almost arrogant, as if he were not of this world, but hovering an inch above it. She steps outside onto the grass in her paint smock and watches him approach.
    He didn’t shut the gate properly and now it swings open and slams shut, back and forth, metal crashing against metal. She has not seen him in years. The last time must have been when she was fifteen. Her childhood friend. A rebellious boy who turned each prohibition into a license to act. Whatever is he doing here? A shiver runs along her scalp, and a pang of panic. He left for England to study, and several years later, she met her lover. She is so different now.
    Sato, she says.
    Ayoshi, he says. Congratulations on your fortuitous marriage. I hear your husband is a famous potter.
    They walk to the house. He tells her his life is wonderful, traveling to London, New York, Paris, Shanghai, all the places they talked about when they were young, all the places they dreamed of seeing.
    She steps into the kitchen. The degree to which he has aged, she thinks. The thicket of gray hairs, the crumpled, nearly emaciated body, the wrinkled suit, the lines of worry crisscrossing his forehead. A tremor ran through his hand as he pulled his handkerchief out of his front breast pocket. The water boils. She picks up the kettle and wonders what he thinks about her, what he has heard.
    She turns to peek at him through the doorway and pours hot water onto her thigh. Stifling a scream, she calls out for the maid.
    Are you all right? he asks from the other room.
    Fine. Tea will be ready in a minute, she says. The maid hands her a cold cloth, and Ayoshi presses it to her leg. She tells the maid to see to the visitor. She must change her clothes.
    He walks outside and opens the door to the Buddhist temple. The smell ofburning incense jolts the air, along with the scent of reed from the tatami mats and barley and wheat from the offerings.
    He turns and sees one of her paintings hanging on the wall. He remembers her paintings from years ago. Even then, she was one of the few who used shadow. This painting is particularly dark, with lots of brown and black. A face half hidden in shade. A woman’s face. He steps closer. A woman stands alone under an umbrella in the evening rain. The sky steel metal, and the rain a silvery thick sheet. The woman’s parasol is golden, tinged at the edges with brown, as if faded from harsh light. She wears a black kimono, the kind worn at a funeral. Her glossy hair is pulled up high with engraved ivory chopsticks. It is the expression on the woman’s face that is spellbinding. On the side of the face that is lit, a swirl of haunted sorrow in the eye. And the woman is not looking at the viewer, but at something behind her, over her shoulder. She’s become quite good, very good, he thinks. Exquisite. I could probably fetch quite a sum for this one. He runs through his list of clients. There’s a man in England. What was his name? The tall one who soaks his biscuits in melted butter.
    He hears her calling his name.
    A S HE WALKS FROM the south garden to the horse stables, Hayashi hears her calling a strange man’s name. He is late for his meeting in town, and the gardener is waiting for him at the stables to drive him in the cart, the horse now properly shoed, bridled, and hoofing the ground. There is no way he could walk to town today. She is standing on the porch, looking out toward the forest and to the gardens. He hasn’t seen her all day, tucked away in the studio. She’s wearing her silk kimono; she never paints in such fine fabric. Who is she calling for?
    You will be late, Hayashi-san, says the gardener.
    He climbs into the cart, his feet aching; he could barely make it up the hill after feeding the