Read Online The Painting by Nina Schuyler - Free Book Online

him.
    She steps in through the doorway and surveys the boxes. A scent follows her. Not perfume, he thinks, but something slightly sweet. She tells him she’s left some lunch downstairs for him.
    That’s not necessary, he says, bristling.
    Oh, I know, she says, now twirling her hat. She steps farther into the room. It’s filthy in here. Look at all that dust. How do you breathe?
    She rushes to the window and opens it. There. Soon it will be autumn and the air will turn cool. I love the cold air, don’t you? Most people hate it, but I don’t. Well, I’m off to see Edmond. He’s doing much better. Much, much better. He laughed yesterday. I forgot what I said that made him laugh, but he did. It was a wonderful sound, a melody I’d almost forgotten. Pierre and I are his only family, you know. Our parents died a while ago. Pierre never goes. I don’t think he can stand to see Edmond in pain. It’s too much for him.
    Too busy making money or tending to his whores, thinks Jorgen. He’s seen Pierre go out at night and come back with one of those women on his arm, the squeals and laughter haunting the house. He looks at Natalia’s drab brown skirt, her white starched blouse, the red kerchief tucked in her breast pocket, the gold cross hanging prominently around her slender, pale neck. She is talking again about how well Edmond is doing, how soon he will be joining her for morning mass. How ignorant she is, he thinks, how blind. Such a pure, simple woman, she can’t even see her brother is going to die. It’ll be a shock for her when he goes, but maybe she’ll grow up, and life won’t seem so wonderful and she’ll halt that damn humming.
    She turns and is about to go. Oh yes, she says, delicately tapping her hat on her head. Did you recall your name? Because if you haven’t, I’ve got one for you. Do you want to hear it? She smiles at him demurely.
    They are about the same age, he thinks. She might be slightly younger thanhis twenty-six years, but she seems like such a young girl, so protected in the swathes of her innocence, abandoning herself to such silly hopes. She’s grinning now, unable to contain herself, intoxicated by her secret.
    Donatien, she says, her voice boasts proudly. And she tells him what it means.
    No, he says, holding his temper. He’s tired of her presence, wishing she would leave. He will give her this, but no more. Nothing more. He doesn’t want her prying or her curiosity honed on him.
    He tells her his name.
    Well, Jorgen, she says, her smile slightly fading. Good, and she pulls a bright yellow scarf from her bag and wraps it around her neck. A name is a good thing to have.
    She turns to go, and he hears her run down the stairs. He holds his breath, waiting for the front door to open and close, then releases a long sigh. The top of his right shoulder aches. The crutches, he thinks. He sits at the desk and stares at the boxes. A fly buzzes around his head and lands on his hand. She let it in, he thinks, when she reopened that window. Batting it away, he rises again and snatches more things from the boxes to sell. Three bottles of good wine from the south of France, a block of cheddar cheese from Holland, a ten-pound bag of walnuts, and two wool scarves because it’s certain to turn bitter cold soon and someone will pay double, maybe triple for such a wrap. Looking at his pile of goods, he feels his heart race.
    He reaches into the bulging bag and pulls out the thin paper. It came from the Japanese box. A painting, but on such feeble paper, as if not really a painting at all, a hint of a painting, a sketch, though it can’t be because of the colors. Cryptic black lines mar the right corner. He pulls out the invoice slip. Only the Japanese bowl is noted, nothing about a painting. He smoothes the paper onto the table and studies it. Two people, a man and a woman, standing under a tree. The man is wearing some kind of strange, long dress, just like the woman. Her black hair is pulled up in a