The San Francisco Cookie Mystery (Part 6) | Contents
The sun was already starting to set on the path back home. The winter solstice had passed, so the days should be getting longer, but it didn’t feel like it at all.
The road we were taking was a narrow path lined with old houses on both sides, avoiding the usual bypass. The bypass had heavy traffic, making it difficult to hear each other’s voices over the sound of passing cars. Osanai-san was holding the paper bag that Kengo had given her, and she occasionally sniffed it or lifted it up to look underneath, as if she were wary of it being poisoned.
Since the road was narrow, there weren’t many cars passing by, and there were few pedestrians. I took the opportunity to speak.
“I can’t believe there would be such words written. It was completely out of my expectations.”
“…Yeah.”
Seemingly giving up on inspecting the fried bread, Osanai-san replied with a sigh.
“In the end, it turned out that I solved it.”
“I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do.”
“I was the one who said there were words written on the frame. It’s not your fault, Kobato-kun. But that aside…”
Osanai-san buried her face halfway into her scarf and looked at me with a resentful expression.
“I’ll make you pay for this.”
There was nothing I could do, but the debt seemed to be getting bigger.
I clasped my hands behind my head and looked up at the winter sky.
“It should have gone smoothly…”
The original plan was like this. Osanai-san would look at the painting, but claim that she couldn’t think of anything at all, then call it a day, letting things take their course. I’d intended to proceed according to the plan we’d made at the family restaurant.
This plan, if executed, would have left Kengo tormented by guilt for a long time. But in the end, everything should have gone well. Because Shima Taiga’s sculptural work “The Sight and the Outer, or fortune-cookie” was not a forgery.
The credits clearly stating the original made Kengo understand that the painting was a study. However, that was a hasty conclusion. If he’d read the interview and looked at this year’s San Francisco Biennale’s Black Bear Award “Gaze and Shell”, he would have understood.
That painting was a fortune cookie.
“Hey, Osanai-san. You looked at the painting, right?”
Osanai-san looked a bit angry as expected, but she nodded clearly.
The reason I’d asked Koumura-sensei to show me the frame was to draw the attention of both him and Kengo. By approaching him, I would Osanai-san from his view. And while I was pretending to examine the frame, Osanai-san should have touched and examined the painting.
“Did you find anything?”
“I found something that you probably expected to find.”
“A cut.”
“Yup.”
That painting was a fortune cookie. The visible part was the outer cookie, and inside it was a hidden message.
The outer layer was a copy of de Staël. Shima Taiga put what he loved and chased after on the surface. Inside it was the subject of love, the innermost part of Shima Taiga himself. To put it simply, the canvas was double-layered, and there was another painting inside the first one. In a single work, he expressed both what was on the surface and what lay deeper. This was probably Shima Taiga’s “The Sight and the Outer,” the theme he had been pursuing.
The fortune cookie must be broken to take out the message.
That painting was an interactive and one-time work that revealed the second layer by tearing apart the first layer of de Staël. The reason de Staël remained unbroken for thirty years was either because no one understood Shima Taiga’s intention or because, even if they did understand, no one was willing to go along with that idea.
Some day, would there be someone who wants to tear apart de Staël and see the inner Shima Taiga? To be honest, I thought that to be dubious. No one will tear apart the first layer, probably forever. Because… the innermost part of a person is something that doesn’t matter. No one would do that, risking the crime of property damage.
Anyway, if the intention of the work was to have someone tear apart the first layer, it wasn’t hard to imagine that there would be a cut to psychologically and physically encourage that.
“How was the cut made?”
“In the middle. I checked to see if it was there, but it was long enough not to miss it. About twenty centimeters, I think.”
“Did you see the inside… the cut? The inner painting?”
As I asked, Osanai-san suddenly looked up at the sky. Night was approaching, and the sky was turning a deep blue from the east. Shivering slightly, Osanai-san replied.
“Yes.”
“What was it like?”
“Hmm… I guess I was a bit surprised. But looking back, it might have been surprisingly ordinary.”
That wasn’t very clear.
“Don’t beat around the bush. What was drawn there?”
“…I don’t know. If you want to see it, Kobato-kun, go see it yourself. What I can tell you is that the painful truth is closer to us than the expression of the sculptural work. For example…”
Osanai-san searched for words, tilted her head, glanced at the souvenir from Kengo, and said in a whisper that seemed to be carried away by the wind.
“Be careful of Koumura-sensei. He said he didn’t realize that Shima Taiga’s painting was a copy of de Staël. I think you also realized it, but that’s a lie. He can read French, but he doesn’t know where in France Antibes is, and he didn’t realize that Shima Taiga’s painting was de Staël’s painting of Antibes. That’s a lie.”
The moon was already out in the sky.
“He thought that Shima Taiga had committed forgery, so he kept it for thirty years. He didn’t know it was a sculptural work, but he kept it to shoot Shima from behind at the right moment. It’s a wonderful plan. But Doujima-kun, Kobato-kun, and I shattered it to pieces. I don’t think that means something will happen, but be careful. Well, my house is over there. Goodbye.”