CHAPTER 26

In the first days of summer, when the boughs of the late-flowering double cherries were misted with the first unfurling of green leaf, I finally achieved my freedom. Like a bird released from its cage, I spread my wings wide in delight and let my gaze roam over the world before me. I immediately went to visit Sensei. Along the way my eyes drank in the vivid sight of a citrus hedge, its white buds bursting forth from the blackened branches, and a pomegranate tree, the glistening yellowish leaves sprouting from its withered trunk and glowing softly in the sunlight. It was as if I were seeing such things for the first time.

When he saw my happy face, Sensei said, “So you’ve finished the thesis, have you? Well done.”

“Thanks to you,” I replied, “I’ve finally made it. There’s nothing left to do.”

Indeed I had the delightful feeling just then that I had completed all the work I had to do in life and could proceed to enjoy myself to my heart’s content. I was well satisfied with the paper I had written and confident of its worth. I chattered happily on to Sensei about it.

As usual, Sensei listened with the occasional interjection of “I see” or “Is that so?” but made no further response. This lack of enthusiasm left me not so much dissatisfied as somehow deflated. But I was so full of energy that day that I attempted a counterattack. I invited him to come out with me into the world that was everywhere bursting into fresh green leaf.

“Let’s go for a walk somewhere, Sensei. It’s wonderful out there.”

“Where to?”

I did not care where. All I wanted was to take him out beyond the city limits.

An hour later we had indeed left the city behind us and were walking aimlessly through a quiet neighborhood that was something between village and town. I plucked a soft young leaf from a citrus hedge, cupped it between my palms, and made it whistle as one does with a grass blade. I was good at this, having picked it up by imitating a friend of mine from Kagoshima. I gaily played as I strolled along, while Sensei walked beside me, ignoring me, face averted.

At length the little path opened out at a point below a large house shrouded by the fresh young leaves of an overgrown garden. We quickly realized that this was no private dwelling—the sign attached to the front gate bore the name of a plant nursery. Gazing at the gently sloping path, Sensei suggested we go in for a look. “Yes,” I agreed, “it’s a nurseryman’s plantation, isn’t it?”

Rounding a bend in the path, we came upon the house on our left. The sliding doors were all wide open, and there was no sign of life in the empty interior. The only movement was of the goldfish that swam about in a large tub that stood by the eave.

“All’s quiet, isn’t it. Do you think anyone would mind if we went farther?”

“I don’t think it would matter.”

On through the garden we went, still seeing no sign of anyone. Azaleas bloomed all around us like flames.

Sensei pointed to a tall bush of orange azaleas. “This one would be the sort they call kirishima.”

A plantation of peonies extended a good thirty yards across, but the season was too early for flowers. Sensei stretched himself out on an old bench by the peony bed, while I sat at the end of the bench, smoking a cigarette. He lay there looking at the brilliantly clear blue sky. I was entranced by all the young leaves that surrounded me. Looking carefully, I discovered that the color of each was subtly different. Even on a single maple tree, no branch held two leaves of exactly the same hue. A passing breeze lifted Sensei’s hat from where he had hung it, on the tip of a slender little cedar sapling, and tossed it to the ground.