By Nguyen Xuan Hai

She walked out of the inner room. A flimsy piece of gauze was all that covered her naked body. Then the gauze dropped lightly to the floor, drifting slowly as if caught in a breeze. She followed the direction his finger was pointing and walked slowly towards a bed with an immaculate white sheet spread over it. In front of her was a piece of canvas stretched over a wooden frame, resting on an easel. He stared into her eyes without blinking. The moment seemed to last forever and she began to grow confused. He could see her nervousness and ran his eyes over her body. She felt the warmth of his glance spreading over her flesh and began to tremble.

She was a country girl from a poor village. Her family had no money and after finishing the seventh grade, she had to drop out of school to help her mother in the fields and selling their vegetables in the market.

When she was 18, she convinced her friends to help her carry vegetables to sell in the city, having heard the rumours that everything could be sold there for double the price. But the first day they arrived, they were chased away by the market vendors. Unable to set up a stall in the market, they were forced to go door to door to sell their vegetables. They made a bit more than they would in the village, but their feet ached and she felt dead tired. Many of her friends decided to throw in the towel and go home.

She decided to stay. She was young and in good health, she could handle trudging through the streets all day. She knocked on doors day in and day out until some families began placing monthly orders for vegetables with her. She would put her bundle of vegetables on their doorstep and then return to collect the money at lunch time.

He was one of her best customers. He never got up before nine o’clock, so she always left his vegetables by the green mailbox outside his gate. Whenever she returned to collect the money at noon, he was always there waiting for her. After he handed her the envelope he would smile and invite her in for a glass of water. She always said no until one day in the early summer.

It was scorching hot and she untied the scarf covering her face, mopping the sweat running down the back of her neck. Her whole body was soaked; the blue shirt clung to her skin like she was covered in glue. His look seemed more penetrating than usual. She had sold vegetables to him for months and he had always been a fair and polite customer.

The villagers had warned her about men in the city, their love-affairs and dishonesty, but he had always treated her with respect. Sometimes she found herself daydreaming about him, his pale skin and bright eyes. Red lips and fingers slender and delicate as a young girl’s. She was still caught in her musings on those hands when he said:

"I’ve got something to talk to you about today. Won’t you please come in for a moment?"

She followed him into the living room, surprised to see the easels and picture frames piled in disarray around the room. There were landscapes haphazardly piled on top of portraits, most of them of beautiful girls. She could even see the bare leg of a nude portrait, leaning against the wall. What a whore, she thought, feeling herself blush.

She had often heard the villagers use that word to describe girls like that, girls who took their clothes off for money. Yet, the girl in the picture was beautiful. She looked more closely at the portrait, comparing her own round full breasts with the small flat chest of the girl in the portrait. He asked her to take a seat and handed her a glass of cool water. His voice was as strong and light as the wind.

"I’m sorry for the mess, but these pictures are still half finished, so I can’t put them away."

"Oh, no. It doesn’t matter. My house is much messier."

"I’ve been observing you for a long time. I see that you are a woman with a good shape and beautiful eyes. I was dumbfounded when you took off your scarf today and I could finally see your face. I’ve spent my whole life looking for a face like yours. I’d like to make you a proposal," he said, clearing his throat. He sipped a glass of water as if preparing himself to go on.

"I’d like you to work as my model."

She glanced quickly at the picture of the naked woman and said in a low voice, "No, I can’t."

"I know what people think of painters when they see a picture like that. I know not all girls would want to model, but-"

He broke off, seeing the worried look in her eyes. He poured more water in her glass. Her thirst had dissipated, but she slowly slipped from her glass to fill the silence. Because it gave her something to do to dispel her nervousness.

After a moment he went over to his desk and opened a drawer. He took out a single sheet of paper and placed it in her hand.

"This is a contract I have signed with a number of girls for just this purpose. Please at least read it and look at the pictures I’ve painted of them. At least do this for me before you make your final decision. Then it’s up to you."

***

Five months after that suffocatingly hot afternoon, the terms of the contract meant nothing. She was mesmerised by the paintings, but also by his politeness to her. She didn’t know which attracted her more. She imagined herself in his paintings, wearing her ratty blue shirt.

After carefully looking at the pictures, she realised that what he said was right. Behind that transparent gauze her body suddenly became vibrantly beautiful and magic, brimming over with vitality. Sometimes it almost seemed the girls in the picture were moving, as if they could step out of the frame if he only waved them over.

Today she came to collect her money two hours earlier than usual, as he requested, so she had only sold half her usual quantity of vegetables. According to the contract she signed with him, she had to sit as a model three times a week for one hour per session. Each session began at 10 o’clock in the morning. The pay she got from him equaled what she would earn selling vegetables in a week.

The first day passed, then the second day, and before she knew it she had been modeling for him for three months. She had been nervous at first, but he had followed everything in the contract, down to the tiniest details. He had never made a move to so much as touch her. It was all very professional; they never even discussed their private lives. All he asked of her was to move according to his directions: sit down, turn right, look up, bend and so on and so forth.

However, the contract had been amended the week before at her own suggestion.

Standing in front of the nude painting, she had blurted out, "Is she your wife?"

"She is only my former model. In the contract, we had a term that stipulated she could be painted nude."

"So do you think I’m stronger and more attractive that she is?" She stunned him with her boldness.

"I always wanted to paint you like that," he replied softly.

"To tell the truth," she said blushing, "at times I’ve also wanted you to paint me like that."

After that day, he had become a different man. He was livelier and seemed lost in a dream. That day he asked her to come earlier and she could guess what it was about.

She had followed him in silence, when he finally asked her. He gave her a sheet of gauze and asked her to go into the room to take off her clothes. When she walked out of the other room, to her wonder, the gauze fell from her hands. He enjoyed looking at her in silence for quite a long time. She dared not speak of anything, not that she could think of anything to say. It was written in the contract now. Finally he picked up his paintbrush, which seemed to dance across the canvas of its own accord. He paused to look at her and his glance seemed anxious. He was probably afraid two hours wouldn’t be enough to finish, she thought. She looked at him with a passionate glance, forgetting for the moment that she was completely naked. It seemed that her love for him was suffocating her, that she would do anything he asked of her.

***

One afternoon a young girl dashed into her house and threw down a newspaper article in front of her mother.

"Mum, look. Do you think the girl in this picture looks like me?"

Her mother ran her fingers through her greying hair and looked at the picture in shock.

"Why would you ask me such a silly question?" she said, her voice cracking.

"My friends all bet that I sat as a model for the artist to paint. But I told them they were silly, that this was painted decades ago. And I’ve never seen any artist, you know that." The girl rushed upstairs, leaving the newspaper on the kitchen table. A moment later, she ran down the stairs, a backpack slung over her shoulder. She opened the door, calling over her shoulder:

"I’m going to take photos for the Lunar New Year calendar. I’ll be back in two or three hours at the latest."

Her daughter left, leaving the mother alone, looking down at the open newspaper. There she was, twenty years ago, staring out at the artist in her blue shirt. She could almost remember that hot day so long ago when she had untied her scarf and he had seen her face for the first time.

He had been a famous artist during the war, the article said, painting hundreds of works on his way to the front lines, stopping to sketch the liberation fighters. The article also revealed a little bit about his private life. He was a man who had always adored beauty, but to everyone’s surprise, he remained single.

There were always a lot of rumours about his intimate relationships with a number of beautiful women, but at the end of the day he never remained long with any of them. The journalist also said that the artist had chosen the picture ‘The Past Love’ to be printed with this article because he was trying to find the girl in the picture again before he opened his private gallery.

Having read the article, her eyes blurred with tears. Hidden at the bottom of her trunk was the painting this artist had made of her. She had only looked at the painting twice since she got it. The first time she had to wait for her entire family to go to sleep before she locked the door and admired the painting by the light of a kerosene lamp. The second time was last winter.

Before he died, her father had given her back the portrait and said, "The picture is very beautiful, daughter. But it does not belong to this family, to this village, so you’d better give it back to him."

That night, she took out the picture and looked at it in the harsh light of her room. The girl in the picture had brilliant black eyes full of charm. Her breasts were full and her nipples were like two dark smudges. Her husband had once burnt for her young beauty. He was a thrifty, taciturn trader, ten years her senior and had been married once before. Her daughter was born soon after they married.

The article led her memory in another direction. One day, her young daughter had gone to visit her grandparents. While she was rummaging around in a trunk for something, she had pulled out a bamboo frame and the small painting had fallen to the floor. Luckily her grandfather had snatched it up and hidden it before his young granddaughter could get a good look. That night, after returning home, her four-year-old daughter had boasted that she had seen a picture of her mother naked, lying on a sheet. Her husband had grown insane with jealousy. He demanded to see the picture and she refused. After that her husband beat her and insulted her day in and day out, but she still refused to tell him anything about the painting. Finally they filed for divorce. She took her daughter back to her parents’ house and she began supporting them by growing vegetables. With every passing day, her daughter began to look more and more like her mother had. Boys began noticing her beauty and suitors would knock on the door at all hours of the day and night. A band of photographers had invited her to model for the fashion magazines. Some photographers had even asked her to model for them nude. After only two years working as a model, her daughter had saved enough money to build a two-storey house on the patch of land left to her by her parents.

***

That night her daughter came home and threw down a pile of pictures in front of her mother. She bent down and fanned out the photos. There she was, prancing around in a bathing suit, practically naked. Without saying anything, she put the photos back in her bag and went upstairs. Her mother walked in silence to the altar and burnt incense to worship.

Later, her daughter asked, "What’s the date today? Why are you burning incense?"

Her mother did not answer. Instead she grabbed her daughter’s hand and led her over to the trunk. She threw open the lid and pulled out the painting, spreading it on the table. The daughter looked fixedly at the picture and asked, "Is it because of this picture that my father left you?"

She nodded. Her daughter asked cautiously, "So who is my real father?"

"Please don’t ask me such a question ever again. You’re my own," she broke off, the tears beginning to choke her. Her daughter felt remorse and promised never to ask the question again. She smoothed out the picture and they both stood, staring at it.

The mother took a deep breath and said, "Before your grandfather died, he gave this picture back to me. He asked me to return the picture to the man who painted it. And I think it’s the best that you return the picture to him."

"No, please don’t ask me to do this, Mum. Do you know what a beautiful picture it is? I have taken hundreds of nude photos, but none of them is as lively and beautiful as this painting."

Her face brightened with happiness.

"I read the article; he needs this picture now more than ever. Please take it to his gallery, won’t you?"

A week later at noon, her daughter came home with a newspaper in her hand, speaking in a voice, both happy and full of regret.

"Mum, can you imagine how much the picture you returned to the artist sold for? Here you are: the nude painting titled ‘The Past Love’ by the famous dying artist, has sold for US$15,000…"

She took the newspaper out of her daughter’s hands and sat there motionlessly, her heart aching.

***

Thirty years had gone by before she returned to that house with the green mailbox. Instead of a load of vegetables like in the past years, this morning she was carrying a load of flowers on her shoulder pole. Most families in her village now grew flowers instead. Every afternoon city folks came to the village to buy fresh flowers. But yesterday afternoon, she did not sell anything. Instead, she saved the flowers to sell them on the street. She was now almost fifty years old. Her skin was dark from the sun and she was thinner, but her face still showed traces of that young beautiful girl. She put down the baskets of flowers in front of the house and rung the bell. A young, pretty girl poked her head out and asked what she wanted. She replied that she had come to see the artist.

"Please tell him that I used to be a vegetable seller about thirty years ago."

The girl seemed surprised, but at her shyness and hesitation, the girl explained further.

"My family has lived here for two years. Maybe, you’ve got the wrong house. My father is a doctor, not an artist."

She turned her back on the house with the green mailbox, her feet dragging through the muddy fields. By the time she got home it was already dark and the flowers had all withered. Her daughter was waiting at the gate to welcome her home. Seeing her mothertired and sad face, the girl knew something was wrong.

"You went to the artist’s didn’t you? Why did you have to hide it from me?"

"I was going to see him first and tell you the story later," she said, a little embarrassed.

"No need to tell me anything. I know everything already," her daughter said, walking into the house.

"How do you know what happened?"

"The artist has revealed everything about his relationship with you in this article," the girl said, handing her the newspaper. "Now listen to me. I’m going to read you the how the picture called ‘The Past Love’ came into being."

Her mother quickly seized the newspaper and said:

"No. Let me read it by myself."

This is how it happened. It was not that she loved him unrequitedly. He loved her too. If he had not gone to the battle field, he would have expressed his love to her. When he returned from the war in the summer of 1975, he had been exposed to the toxic chemical Agent Orange from the defoliated forest. He should have gone to look for her, but he did not want her or any other girl to be unhappy because of that toxic chemical still inside his body. He knew he could support himself by selling his pictures, so he moved to his home in the village.

From his sketches, he had made two more pictures with the name ‘The Old Flame’. The nude picture her daughter had brought back to him, he also named ‘The Old Flame’ and showed it the last day of his exhibition. That afternoon, a man came and insisted on buying it at a very high price. It was to everyone’s surprise that the man offered him fifteen thousand dollars for the picture. All the reporters present at the exhibition rushed to interview him, but the man did not disclose his name...

She could not finish the article. Tears were running down her face onto the newspaper, blurring all the words. She sat there, thinking hard. Who was that mysterious man? Or was it the man who had abandoned her and her daughter because of that same picture?

She was still thinking about this when her daughter came in from the kitchen, carrying a tray of food. Seeing her tears, her daughter said in a low voice, "You went to look for him, but you did not find him. Am I right?"

She was silent, so the girl continued, "I intended to ask you to come and see him the other day so that you could ask him to split the money from the picture with you. But today I dropped that idea. Having read the article, I feel pity for the artist. Serious disease, living in poverty, yet he dared to donate all his money to a fund for victims of Agent Orange."

She interrupted her daughter, "Is that true?"

Her daughter came closer to her side, pointing to the part of the interview, "What a bore you are! You haven’t read this part, have you?"

She raised the newspaper and looked at it. "‘The Old Flame’ is my last nude painting. But for thirty years it has belonged to another person. That person has given it back to me as a gift for this exhibition.

"I know that this person has borne a lot of grievances and injustices because of this picture. Fifteen thousand US dollars is a big sum of money. It should belong to the person who has kept it for these thirty years. However, I know that if I donate this sum to the fund for Agent Orange victims, this person would agree with me."

The girl put down the newspaper in front of her mother. Her voice became soft, "Mum, I’m sorry because I thought wrong about you and him. You and I will go and look for the artist tomorrow. He wanted to meet us so much, but I lied the other day and said my parents had gone to work in a far away place and were not at home." (VNS)

Translated by Manh Chuong