Editorial
To
be an artist
Poems
Just
Like You
flower
of the night
Round
Table Talk
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Novel
Adonis
Blue (6)
Adonis
Blue (7)
Relay
Writing
Cafe
Evergreen
Chapter Four (2)
(Continued from the last page...)
One day Jeanne said while opening his stall on the street.
'I'm a bereft guy'
'How come' Tane asked putting a cigarette in his mouth.
'I don't even know my real name. Jeanne d'Arc was the only word left in my memory'
'Uh huh'
'I don't even know
if I had any parents'
'Me either'
Jeanne looked at
him.
'I grew up in an
orphanage. I've got nobody to look to. Only myself to trust. Only streets
are where I return to'
Tane kept puffing on the cigarette.
One time looking at a star-filled night sky Tane asked Jeanne drunkenly.
'Jeanne, should be
nice if we could live this way forever'
'Very like'
'I sell silver, you sell paintings. We get drink and smoke for the bucks. Well you can't get girls at that figure.
'Like some kind of
fat cats, going to school, leaving school and getting into some company
to be blackcoats, and being bound by beaten track - forget all.
If we can go along from hand to mouth, on the streets, free and easy in
our world, all the world's in peace'
'Oh yeah?'
'That's a real happy bloke'
Tane doesn't get
drunk very easily, but a drink puts him in a good humour and lets him
talk big.
'I'm a NG'
Tane laughed.
'Not but you are. You're a good bloke.
Ya got a gift for painting, and good looks.
If I got a looks like ya I'd have stood to gain more'
'Tane'
'Tsup'
'I...killed people'
'So'
'She was floating
on the middle of the river.
It was a morning.
Until then I didn't realise she was knocked up'
'You did it?'
Tane was gazing at stars on his back.
'It was the morning
after we argued over breaking up and I left.
I saw people crowd at the riverbank and try to pull her out.
She's already dead, but only her stomach twitches at intervals'
'That's not saying
you did it'
'It's no less than I did. She drowned herself that night'
'Ya know, men never
know women's hearts of darkness for life'
Tane lit another cigarette.
'The reason of her
death's not necessarily the talk of breakup with ya.
Rather she's dead, nobody knows except her.
Women always hold
shadows or darkness unseen from men.
Women's bottom of darkness, is too deep for men to reach'
Jeanne held his tongue.
'Did you love the
woman?' asked Tane.
'Um' Jeanne shook
his head.
'That's the first memory in my head. Nothing before that'
Tane took a long
look at the smoke rising from the cigarette, and said.
'Jeanne, I've wanted to ask ya one thing'
'What's that'
'You're in love, aren't you'
Jeanne felt sober
in an instant, and gazed at the starry sky.
Clouds surrounded only the crescent moon whose outlines looked obscure.
'Since I first saw
you, there's been someone in your heart'
Tane blew cigarette smoke towards the night sky.
'But I guess it isn't her'
'The
one I met last' Jeanne drained the last of his can quickly.
'That was...the first and the last'
'A good starry sky,
huh?' Tane closed his eyes.
From then on, Jeanne had never seen that nightmare.
One night, there
was a banquet held near the stalls the two boys were keeping.
Seeing a nun rushing towards them, Tane's eyes lit up.
'She's a Sister. She was in my orphanage.
Sorry, but I'll go and talk to her.
Let's call it quits for today and you go sleep first somewhere around'
Tane left the finished
stall and ran to her party.
Jeanne hadn't seen such an expression of Tane before.
Phew, even he's got folks, Jeanne thought and slept alone on the park
bench.
On the following
morning, Jeanne awoke from his sleep.
The sun had already risen high.
His painting materials
and Tane's stock in trade were both left where he had placed them last
night.
'Tane'
Jeanne stood up, and walked round the park.
Tane wasn't anywhere.
Did he follow his
Sisters?
A flash of such a thought crossed his mind.
He's got his family.
There're people who've raised and cherish you.
That was a feeling Jeanne couldn't sense.
Jeanne lounged about
the park awhile.
Blown blossom petals
are fluttering in the wind.
Birds are flittering
between trees and twittering chirpily.
It's a quiet morning no different from usual.
Reaching a small
hill in the large park, he came to a stand.
It's Tane.
Tane was hanging from a branch of a giant tea tree with a noose around his neck.
Jeanne, who had left a number of people adoring him by then, was left by someone he adored for the first time.
He buried the remains
of Tane under the big tree, and drew a painting of the blossoms.
All the while petals
of the blossoms floated down and fell onto him but he kept painting with
rapt attention.
'Suicide, is a bad
offence, ya know?'
He said so
though there was no one to tell.
As he finished painting, he abandoned all his palette and other painting materials as well as Tane's stock in trade there, and left the site.
He headed for that
place.
Time was already imminent.
(Continued to Epilogue...)
