CHAPTER 43

My father was clearly afraid of his illness, yet he wasn’t the type to plague the doctor with difficult questions when he came to visit. For his part, the doctor kept his opinions to himself and made no pronouncements.

My father was apparently giving some thought to what would happen once he died, or at any rate he was imagining the posthumous household.

“Giving your children an education has its good and bad points, I must say. You go to the trouble of training them, and then they don’t come home again. It seems to me an education is the easy way to split up a family.”

Thanks to my brother’s education, he was living far away, and my own education had resulted in my decision to live in Tokyo. My father’s grumblings were perfectly understandable. He must certainly have been feeling forlorn at the thought of my mother left all alone in this big old country house they’d lived in so long together.

My father was of the firm belief that there could be no change in the house, and that my mother would remain there until the day she died. The thought of leaving her to live out her lonely existence in this echoing shell of a place filled him with anxiety, and yet he was insisting I find a job in Tokyo. I found this contradiction rather funny, but it also pleased me, since it meant I could go back to live in the city.

In their company I was forced to pretend that I was doing my very best to look for a job. I wrote to Sensei, explaining the situation at home in great detail. I asked if he could recommend me for any position, and I assured him that I’d be happy to do whatever was in my power. As I wrote, I was aware that he was unlikely to take any notice of my request, and that even if he wished to help me, he lacked the contacts to be able to do so. But I did think that the letter would at least elicit a response from him.

Before I sealed it, I said to my mother, “I’ve written to Sensei, just as you wanted. Here, have a look.”

As I’d anticipated, she didn’t read it. “Have you? Well, then, be quick and send it off. You should have done this long ago, without having to be told.”

She still thought of me as a child, and indeed I still felt like one. “But a letter by itself isn’t enough,” I said. “Nothing will happen unless I’m there in person. I really ought to go back to Tokyo around September.”

“That may well be true, but you never know what fine offer may come up in the meantime, so it’s best to put in an early request.”

“Yes,” I replied. “Anyway, I’ll tell you more when Sensei’s answer comes. He’ll certainly reply.” I was in no doubt that he would. Sensei was a meticulous man.

I waited expectantly for a letter from him. But I had assumed wrongly. A week passed, and still nothing arrived.

“He must have gone off somewhere to escape the summer heat,” I told my mother, forced to defend him with some explanation. This justification was intended not only for her but for myself. I needed a hypothesis that would somehow justify Sensei’s silence, to spare myself a growing unease.

From time to time I forgot my father’s illness and felt inclined to escape back to Tokyo early. My father himself forgot that he was ill, in fact. Anxious though he was about the future, he made no moves to deal with the problem. Time passed, and I found no opportunity to bring up the matter of the division of property with him as Sensei had advised.