"I did. And it's true-he was different once."

"So what was he like?"

"He was the sort of strong, dependable person you and I would both like him to be."

"Why did he suddenly change, then?"

"The change wasn't sudden-it came over him gradually."

"And you were with him all the time it was happening?"

"Naturally. We were married."

"Then surely you must have a good idea of what brought about the change."

"But that's just the problem. It's painful to hear you say this, because I've racked my brains, but I just don't know. I don't know how many times I've begged him to talk about it."

"And what does he say?"

"He says there's nothing to talk about, and nothing to worry about, it's simply that this is how he's turned out. That's all he'll say."

I did not speak. Sensei's wife also fell silent. There was no sound from the maid's room. All thoughts of burglars had vanished from my mind.

Then she broke the silence. "Perhaps you think it's my fault?"

"Not at all."

"Don't feel you have to hide anything, please. It would be like a knife in the heart to have such a thing thought of me," she continued. "I'm doing all I can for him. I'm doing my very best."

"Please don't worry. Sensei knows that. Believe me. I give you my word."

She took up the fire tongs and sat smoothing the ash in the brazier. Then she poured water from the jug into the iron kettle, immediately quieting its singing.

"I finally couldn't stand it anymore and said to him, 'If there's any fault in me, then please tell me honestly. If I can correct it, I will.' And he replied, 'You don't have any fault. The fault is in me.' When I heard that, it made me unbearably sad. It made me cry. And I longed more than ever to know how I might be to blame."

Tears brimmed in her eyes.

CHAPTER 19.

At first I had thought of Sensei's wife as a perspicacious woman. But as we talked, she gradually changed before my eyes; then my heart, rather than my mind, began to respond to her.

Nothing, it seemed, troubled her relationship with her husband-indeed, what could?-and yet something was wrong. But try as she might to learn what the problem might be, she could find nothing. Precisely this made her suffer.

At first she had thought that since Sensei viewed the world through jaundiced eyes, he must view her in that way too. But that answer failed to convince her. In fact, she thought the opposite must be true-that his dislike of her had set him against the world at large. Search as she might, however, she could find nothing that really confirmed this hypothesis. Sensei was in every way a model husband, kind and tender. So she lived with this kernel of doubt sown away in her, below the daily warmth that flowed between them.

That evening she brought out her misgivings and laid them before me. "What do you think?" she asked. "Do you think he's become like this because of me, or is it because of what you call his outlook on life or some such thing? Tell me honestly."

I had no intention of being dishonest with her. But I sensed that the root of her problem was something I could not know, and so no answer that I gave could possibly satisfy her. "I really don't know," I replied.

Her face briefly registered the unhappiness of one whose hopes have been dashed.

I quickly went on. "But I can guarantee that Sensei doesn't dislike you. I'm only telling you what I heard from his own lips. He's not a man to lie, is he?"

She made no reply at first, then said, "Actually, I've thought of something . . ."

"You mean something to do with why he's become like this?"

"Yes. If it really is the cause, then I can cease to feel responsible, and that in itself would be such a relief . . ."

"What is it?"

She hesitated, fixing her gaze on the hands in her lap. "I'll tell you, and you must be the judge, please."

"I will if it's within my power to do so, certainly."

"I can't tell you everything. He'd be angry if I did. I'll just tell you the part that wouldn't make him angry."

I swallowed tensely.

"When Sensei was a university student, he had a very close friend. This friend died just as they were about to graduate. It was very sudden." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Actually, it wasn't from natural causes."

Her tone provoked me to ask how he had died.

"This is as much as I can say. But that's when it began. After that Sensei's personality slowly changed. I don't know why his friend died, and I don't think Sensei does either. But seeing how he began to change afterward, somehow I can't help feeling that perhaps he may have known something after all."

"Is it this friend's grave in Zshigaya?"

"I'm not to speak of that either. But tell me, can someone change so much with the loss of a single friend? That's what I so long to know. What do you think?"

On the whole, I tended to think not.

CHAPTER 20.

I tried to comfort Sensei's wife as much as my understanding of the facts allowed, and she in turn seemed to try to be comforted. We continued to mull over the question of Sensei together. But I was unable to grasp the real source of the problem. Her distress grew out of vague perplexity and doubts. She didn't know much about what had happened, and what she did know she could not reveal to me fully. Thus were comforter and comforted equally at sea, adrift on shifting waves. Lost as she was, she clung to what frail judgment I could offer.

At around ten, when Sensei's footsteps sounded in the entrance hall, she rose to her feet, all thoughts of me and our conversation seeming instantly forgotten. She was there to greet him as he slid open the lattice door, leaving me to follow her out. The maid, who must have been dozing in her room, failed to appear.

Sensei was in rather a good mood, but his wife was even more vivacious. I gazed at her, astonished at the change. Her beautiful eyes had recently shone with tears, and her fine brow had been furrowed with suffering. Surely it had not been deceit, yet one could be forgiven for wondering if her earlier conversation had been a mere feminine ploy, a toying with my feelings. I was not inclined to be critical, however. My primary feeling was relief at seeing her instantaneously brighten. After all, I decided, there was no real need to worry about her. Surely it had not been deceit, yet one could be forgiven for wondering if her earlier conversation had been a mere feminine ploy, a toying with my feelings. I was not inclined to be critical, however. My primary feeling was relief at seeing her instantaneously brighten. After all, I decided, there was no real need to worry about her.

Sensei greeted me with a smile. "Thank you very much," he said. "I trust no burglar appeared?" Then he added, "You must have felt the exercise was a bit pointless, if no one broke in."

"I do apologize," his wife said to me as I was leaving. Her tone made me feel this was less an apology for taking up my precious time than an almost humorous regret for the fact that there had been no burglar. She wrapped the cakes she had brought out with the tea and handed them to me.

Slipping the package into my kimono sleeve, I set off, winding hurriedly through the chilly, largely unpeopled lanes toward the bright and lively town.

I have drawn the events of that night from deep in my memory because their details are necessary to my story now. At the time, however, as I headed for home with her cakes tucked into my sleeve, I was not inclined to think much about the conversation that had taken place that evening.

The next day after morning cla.s.ses, when I returned to my lodgings for lunch, my eyes fell on the little parcel of cakes lying on my desk. I immediately unwrapped it, picked up a piece of chocolate-coated sponge cake, and popped it into my mouth. And as my tongue registered the taste, I felt a conviction that, when all was said and done, the couple who had given me this cake was happy.

Autumn ended uneventfully, and winter arrived. I came and went as usual from Sensei's house, and at some point I asked his wife if she could help me take care of my clothing-around this time I began to wear rather better clothes. She kindly a.s.sured me that it would be a fine opportunity to alleviate the boredom of her childless life.

She remarked that a garment I had given her to mend was of hand-woven cloth. "I've never worked with such good material before," she said, "but it does make it hard to sew, I must say. The needle just won't go through. I've broken two already."

For all her complaints, however, she did not seem to resent the work.

CHAPTER 21.

That winter I was obliged to return home. A letter arrived from my mother, explaining that my father's illness had taken a turn for the worse. Although there was no immediate cause for concern, she wrote, considering his age she felt I should arrange to come back if possible.

My father had long suffered from a kidney ailment, and as is often the case with men of middle age and older, his illness was chronic. But he and the rest of the family believed that his condition would remain stable as long as he was careful-indeed, he boasted to visitors that it was entirely due to his rigorous care of his health that he had managed to live so long.

My mother told me, however, that when he was out in the garden, he had suddenly felt dizzy and fainted. The family at first mistook it for a slight stroke and treated him accordingly. Only later had the doctor concluded that the problem was related to his kidney disease.

The winter vacation would soon begin, and feeling that I could safely wait out the term, I let the matter slide from one day to the next. But as the days pa.s.sed, images of my bedridden father and my anxious mother kept rising before my eyes, provoking such an ache in my heart that finally I decided I must go home. To avoid having to wait while the money was sent from home, I went to visit Sensei to borrow the amount for my fare. Besides, I wanted to bid him farewell.

Sensei was suffering from a slight cold. He did not feel inclined to come to the living room, so he asked me into his study. Soft sunlight, of a kind rarely seen in winter, was shining through the study's gla.s.s door onto the cloth draped over his desk. In this sunny room Sensei had set a metal basin containing water over the coals of a brazier, so that by inhaling the steam, he could soothe his lungs.

"Serious illness doesn't bother me, but I do hate these petty colds," he remarked with a wry smile.

Sensei had never had a real illness of any sort, so I found this amusing. "I can put up with a cold," I said, "but I wouldn't want anything worse. Surely you'd be the same, Sensei. Just try getting really ill, and you'll soon see."

"You think so? If I were to actually get sick, I'd prefer it to be fatal."

I paid this remark no particular attention but instead proceeded to tell him about my mother's letter and asked for a loan.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "I have enough on hand to cover the amount, I think, so you must take it here and now." He called his wife and asked her to bring the money.

She produced it from the drawer of some cupboard in the far room and presented it to me, placed formally on a sheet of white paper. "This must be very worrying for you," she said.

"Has it happened before?" Sensei inquired.

"The letter didn't say. Is it likely to continue?"

"Yes."

This was how I first learned that his wife's mother had died of the same illness.

"It's not an easy illness," I ventured.

"Indeed not. I wish I could offer myself in his place. Does he feel any nausea?"

"I don't know. The letter didn't mention it, so I guess that's not a real problem."

"If he's not nauseous, then things are still all right," said Sensei's wife.

That evening I left Tokyo by train.

CHAPTER 22.

My father's illness was not as serious as I had feared. When I arrived, he was sitting up cross-legged in bed.

"I'm staying put here just to please everyone, since they worry about me," he said. "I could perfectly well get up." Nevertheless, the next day he had my mother put away his bedding and refused to listen to her protests.

"Your father seems to have suddenly got his strength back now that you've come home," she remarked to me, as she reluctantly folded the silk quilt. And from what I could observe, he was not simply putting on a brave face.

My elder brother had a job in distant Kyushu and could not easily get away to visit his parents in any situation short of a real emergency. My sister had married someone in another part of the country, so could not be summoned home on short notice either. Of the three children, I was the one most easily called on, being still a student. The fact that I had followed my mother's wishes and left my studies early to come home pleased my father greatly.

"It's a shame you've had to leave cla.s.ses early for such a trivial illness," he said. "Your mother shouldn't go exaggerating things in letters like that."

This bravado was not confined to words, for there he was, with his sickbed folded away, behaving as if his health were back to normal.

"Don't be too rash, or you'll have a relapse," I warned him, but he treated this with happy disregard.

"Come on now, I'm fine. All I have to do is take the usual care."

And he appeared to be fine. He came and went around the house without becoming breathless or feeling dizzy. True, his color was awful, but this symptom was nothing new, so we paid it little attention.

I wrote to Sensei, thanking him for his kind loan and promising to call in and repay him when I returned to Tokyo in January. I went on to report that my father's illness was less critical than feared, that we had no immediate cause for concern, and that he had neither dizziness nor nausea. I ended by briefly asking after Sensei's cold-which was not something that I took very seriously.

I wrote this letter without any expectation that Sensei would reply. Then I told my parents about him, and as I spoke, the image of Sensei's distant study hovered before me.

"Why not take some of our dried mushrooms to him when you go back?" my mother suggested.

"Fine. But I'm not sure Sensei eats such things, actually."