CHAPTER 40

A hush fell over our big old echoing house and its few inhabitants. I unpacked my wicker trunk and tried to read, but for some reason I felt restless. I had been far more happily focused and able to study back in my second-floor room in hectic Tokyo, turning the pages as the distant streetcars rattled in my ears.

Now as I read, I was inclined to drop my head onto the desk and nap; sometimes I brought out a pillow and indulged in a real sleep. I would awaken to the pounding song of cicadas. That sound, which seemed like a continuation of my dreams, suddenly tormented my ears with painful intensity. As I lay motionless, listening, sad thoughts would sometimes settle over me.

Abandoning reading for my writing brush, I wrote brief post-cards or long letters to various friends. Some had stayed on in Tokyo, while others had returned to distant homes. Some replied; from others I heard nothing. Needless to say, I did not neglect Sensei—I sent him three closely written pages describing all that had happened since my return. As I sealed the envelope, I wondered whether he was still in Tokyo.

Customarily, whenever Sensei and his wife went away, a woman in her fifties with a plain widow’s haircut came and looked after the house. I once asked him what relation she was to them, to which he replied, “What do you think?” I had had the mistaken impression that she was a relative of his. “I have no relatives,” he responded, when I told him this. He had absolutely no communication with anyone related to him back in his hometown. The woman who looked after the house turned out to be someone from his wife’s family.

As I slipped my letter into the post, an image of this woman, her narrow obi informally knotted at her back, rose unbidden in my mind. If this letter arrived after Sensei and his wife had left for their summer retreat, would she have the good sense and kindness to send it straight on to him? I wondered. I was well aware that the letter did not contain anything of real importance; it was just that I was lonely and anticipating his reply. But nothing came.

My father was not as keen on playing shōgi as he had been the previous winter. The dust-covered shōgi board had been set aside in a corner of the alcove. Since the news of the emperor’s illness reached us, he had grown thoughtful and preoccupied. He waited each day for the newspaper to be delivered and was the first to read it. Once done he would bring its pages over for me, wherever I happened to be.

“Here, look at this. More details on His Majesty’s condition.” This was how he always referred to the emperor. “It’s a presumptuous thing to say, but His Majesty’s illness is a little like my own.”

My father’s expression was clouded with apprehension. At his words, I felt a sudden flicker of anxiety that he might die at any time.

“But I’m sure it will be all right,” he went on. “Mere nobody that I am, I’m still doing fine, after all.” Even as he was congratulating himself on his state of health, he seemed to anticipate the danger that threatened to descend at any moment.

“Father is actually afraid of his illness, you know,” I told my mother. “He’s not really determined to live another ten or twenty years as you say he is.”

Bewilderment and distress appeared on her face. “Try to interest him a bit in playing shōgi again, will you?” she said.

I retrieved the shōgi board from the alcove and wiped off the dust.