DTLD 10

Chapter 10

 There’s No Reason

“Hello, Mr. Robert.”

It was a languid afternoon with the sun stretched long and low. Sacha, having caught her breath, greeted him as if nothing were amiss when Mr. Robert opened the door for her. A shadow fell at the feet of the man who came out. He must have been drinking coffee—a strong coffee scent wafted from inside. Instinctively, Sacha took a step closer and sniffed. The startled man, still holding the door handle, retreated exactly as far as Sacha had approached.

“I came to pick up the empty basket, since you must have finished the cookies I gave you last time.”

Flustered, Sacha spoke while tapping the ground with one toe. Mr. Robert seemed to consider for a moment, then opened his mouth.

“If you wait here, I’ll bring it out.”

The man, who had looked ready to go back inside at once, lingered a little longer instead—like someone with more he wanted to say.

Were the cookies not to his taste? Sacha felt anxious and was about to ask, but stopped herself, afraid it would be rude to step closer so abruptly. She was cautious, worried he might find her unannounced visit unpleasant. Mr. Robert was different from the people of Manoli in many ways. Careful, prudent… he seemed to place importance on manners. If she approached rashly, she might be branded an ill-mannered child and fall out of his favor.

Sacha pricked up her ears. The call coming from the garden was that of a white-browed robin.

“Then, while you fetch the basket from inside, may I look around the garden?”

Mr. Robert nodded. Sacha cheered inwardly but outwardly pretended to be a well-behaved girl, standing with her hands folded—until he went into the manor.

And some time later, when he returned with the empty basket, the girl was sitting on an upturned apple crate. What on earth was she looking at so intently? The man, raising an eyebrow, glanced over her small shoulder. Pink geraniums were blooming in clusters. That was all—just common wildflowers.

“If you like them, pick some to take home.”

He said it casually. He’d expected the child before him to smile happily and pick a basketful of flowers. But Sacha, in fact, looked bewildered, like someone receiving a suggestion she’d never considered.

Wasn’t it flowers she’d wanted to take? Puzzled by the misaligned expectation, he studied Sacha Vinoc’h’s green eyes just as intently as Sacha Vinoc’h had been observing the wildflowers and the robin in his garden.

“If you want, you may come see them again.”

“Whenever I want?”

Don’t be rude. Sacha’s mantra, repeated diligently, came undone. Her green eyes sparkled like glass beads reflecting light in every direction.

The Hawthorn Manor stood on the hill, so the village scenery was visible at a glance below. Beyond the highest fence in the village, the view was pastoral yet mysterious, as if stepping into another world. It was clearly a garden tended by someone with deep artistic sensibilities.

“You’re saying I may visit the garden whenever I want, any time? Did you really mean that?”

It was a piece of luck too good to believe! Sacha forgot even the fact that she shouldn’t approach him rashly, and thrust her head right up under Mr. Robert’s chin. At that, he seemed to deliberate, then added a condition.

“As long as it’s not too late at night.”

By then, the two of them had grown far too close. The man, realizing it, quickly drew back.

Mr. Robert was like a wary cat. It felt a little rude to compare such a big man to such a cute animal, but.

Sacha had a habit of associating everything with colors. He resembled Leto, one of the Manoli cats—the slender one that nimbly leapt over walls. A proud cat with near-black ash-gray fur and peacock-colored eyes, an exquisite blend of green and blue.

“Then what can I do for you in return?”

“Do I need to be paid even for letting someone look at a garden?”

It was nothing much—just a garden. What did he mean by going that far? Sacha shook her head firmly. This wasn’t just any garden. It was a garden built with an enormous amount of money. Of course, the money probably hadn’t been Mr. Robert’s, but still.

“My grandmother says that if you receive something from someone, you must always repay it.”

“Goodness.”

Mr. Robert crossed his arms and leaned slantwise against the gate. That made it a little easier to look at Sacha. What on earth could one take from a little kid like this? His deliberating eyebrows rose. He had nothing in particular he wanted to receive from Sacha.

“Then how about charging me an admission fee?”

“An admission fee!”

A cynical response burst out on its own. If he were to collect a garden admission fee from a country girl, there would be nothing more absurd.

“I don’t need money. If you really feel uneasy about it, then paint me a picture worth hanging on a wall.”

He said it abruptly. He looked as though he regretted it the moment he’d spoken. But there were only the two of them in the garden, so there was no pretending not to hear. Unable to contain her curiosity, Sacha promptly asked.

“How did you know I paint?”

“There’s a useless amount of paint at home. I was going to take it to the general store instead of throwing it away, and the shopkeeper told me. The only kid in this village who paints is you.”

He said it as if dangling bait. Sure enough, Sacha, who’d taken the bait whole, went wide-eyed.

“You were going to throw away paint?”

Mr. Robert said he’d gather up the art supplies he didn’t use and told her to come by the next morning to collect them. Sacha doubted whether this unexpected stroke of luck had really come to her. Afraid she’d wake from a dream if she fell asleep, she lay with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling all night. And the moment she finished breakfast, she shot out of the house like a bullet.

Sacha, who had parked her bicycle beneath the hawthorn tree in front of the manor, took out the basket she’d hung on the handlebars. It was the apple basket Grandmother Lolo had prepared for her to give Mr. Robert as thanks. A sweet, fragrant smell rose from the plump, ripe red apples.

‘What lovely weather.’

Humming a tune as she arrived, Sacha set down the apple basket she’d been carrying with both hands and pressed the Hawthorn Manor’s doorbell. After a short wait, Mr. Robert came out and opened the door, just as he had yesterday. He was wearing a butter-colored shirt and a brown vest. Perhaps because he had glasses on, unlike yesterday, he gave off a far more intellectual air.

“Good morning!”

Sacha greeted him cheerfully, the way she did her grandmothers. The man, perhaps feeling awkward, rubbed his face several times with his large hand, his cheek twitching. Lowering his hand, Mr. Robert pointed at the large basket Sacha was holding.

“Is that for me?”

“Grandmother told me to give it to you. To thank you for the gift of the art supplies you weren’t using.”

Sacha chattered, her cheeks round as apples. He took the basket full of apples with one hand. Then he set it down on the table beside the entrance, the one used for holding calling cards.

“Do you like apples? You can make juice or jam with them. If you make jam, you can make pies with it, and you can bake cakes too.”

Sacha stuck close to his side and told him all the various ways to eat apples. It was because she recalled the rumor that Mr. Robert had once bought a whole box of fruit and, unable to finish it, thrown it away.

“I understand, so come in.”

Mr. Robert opened the door and took the lead, telling her to come in. Sacha trailed along behind him. The manor’s exterior was much the same as when she’d come as a child. Only the interior had changed—far more refined and elegant, perhaps because it had been renovated along with the garden.

Sacha kept getting distracted, her attention caught by things like the glass lamps of unusual colors and the frames hanging on the corridor walls. Meanwhile, Mr. Robert had gone on far ahead. Only when Sacha fell too far behind did he lightly knock on the wall a couple of times with the back of his hand to make a sound.

Passing through a corridor with electric lights, Sacha found a room with its door open. Perhaps it was where Mr. Robert had been working before answering the doorbell—the desk was cluttered. She wanted to look around the room more, but Mr. Robert walked straight past it and headed elsewhere.

For a so-called atelier no longer in use, it was an excessively large and fine room. It couldn’t even be compared to old Mr. Bertrand’s general store, where art supplies were gathered in one corner and sold.

“Which of these should I take?”

Sacha asked carefully. In truth, inwardly she hoped that the paint basket on the vine-patterned carpet might be hers. Though it looked too new to be likely….

“All of it.”

The words, landing a beat late, overturned her expectations completely and then some. Sacha stared blankly at Mr. Robert. He explained again with patience.

“Everything here is stuff I don’t use, Sacha. Anything in this room—take as much as you want.”

He handed her an empty basket, placed as if prepared for her, and told her to fill it as she pleased. Sacha quickly took the basket before Mr. Robert could change his mind and retract his words. The man, watching Sacha happily choose paints and brushes, asked.

“Why don’t you go to Laurant? With skill like yours, you might be able to find a decent patron.”

He didn’t bother asking where he’d seen her paintings. After all, Sacha’s paintings hung all over Manoli.

Sacha gave away her Manoli landscapes to the villagers the moment she finished them, and in return she would receive a basket of bread or fresh fruit. She’d never once thought of selling her paintings for money.

“I don’t paint to earn money.”

“Then why do you paint?”

Mr. Robert furrowed his brow as if he couldn’t understand. The glasses nestled in the crease between his brows bobbed. Sacha burst out laughing. Her lark-like laughter spread brightly on the early afternoon sunlight.

“I just do. I paint because I want to. Does there have to be a reason?”

Mr. Robert, shaking his head, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Light passing through the transparent lenses pooled and blurred on the wooden floor. Sacha pushed the last paint she’d chosen deep into her skirt pocket, as if hiding it. The mysterious peacock-colored paint, the same color as Mr. Robert’s eyes behind his glasses.