I looked again at my hands, resting on my knees. Then I looked up at her. She was waiting for me to continue.

"Anyway, things are different now. I'm the manager of a bar, and my job's to invest capital and show a profit. I'm not an artist or someone about to create anything. I'm not a patron of the arts. Like it or not, this isn't the place to look for art. And for the manager, it's a lot easier to have a neatly turned out, polite group than a herd of Charlie Parkers!"

She ordered another c.o.c.ktail. And lit another cigarette. We were silent for a long while. She seemed lost in thought. I listened to the ba.s.sist play a long solo in "Embraceable You." The pianist added the occasional accompanying chord, while the drummer wiped away his sweat and had a drink. A regular at the bar came up to me, and we chatted for a while.

"Hajime," Shimamoto said a long time later. "Do you know any good rivers? A pretty river in a valley, not too big, one that flows fairly swiftly right into the sea?"

Taken by surprise, I looked at her. "A river?" What was she talking about? Her face was utterly expressionless. She was quiet, as if gazing at some faraway landscape. Maybe it was me who was far away-far from her world, at least with an unimaginable distance separating us. The thought made me sad. There was something in her eyes that called up sadness.

"What's with this river all of a sudden?" I asked.

"It just suddenly occurred to me," she answered. "Do you know any river like that?"

When I was a student, I traveled around the country quite a bit lugging a sleeping bag. So I'd seen quite a few j.a.panese rivers. But I couldn't come up with the kind of river she described.

"I think there might be a river like that on the j.a.pan Sea coast," I said after a great deal of thought. "I don't remember what it's called. But I'm sure it's in Ishikawa Prefecture. It wouldn't be hard to find. It's probably the closest to what you're after."

I recalled that river clearly. I went there on fall break when I was a soph.o.m.ore or a junior in college. The fall foliage was beautiful, the surrounding mountains looking as though they were dyed in blood. The mountains ran down to the sea, the rush of the water was gorgeous, and sometimes you could hear the cry of deer in the forest. The fish I ate were out of this world.

"Do you think you could take me there?" Shimamoto asked.

"It's all the way over in Ishikawa," I said in a dry voice. "Enoshima I could see, but we'd have to fly, then drive for at least an hour. And stay overnight. I'm sure you understand that's something I can't do at the moment."

Shimamoto shifted slowly on her stool and turned to face me. "Hajime, I know I shouldn't be asking this favor of you. I know that. Believe me, I realize it's a burden to you. But there's no one else I can ask. I have to go there, and I don't want to go alone."

I looked into her eyes. Her eyes were like a deep spring in the shade of cliffs, which no breeze could ever reach. Nothing moved there, everything was still. Look closely, and you could just begin to make out the scene reflected in the water's surface.

"Forgive me." She smiled, as if all the strength had left her. "Please don't think I came here just to ask you that I wanted only to see you and talk. I didn't plan to bring this up."

I made a quick mental calculation of the time. "If we left really early in the morning and did a round trip by plane, we should be able to make it back by not too late at night. Of course, it depends on how much time we spend there."

"I don't think it'll take too long," she said. "Can you really spare the time? The time to fly over there and back with me?"

I thought a bit. "I think so. I can't say anything definitely yet But I can probably make the time. Call me here tomorrow night, all right? I'll be here at this time. I'll figure out our plan by then. What's your schedule?"

"I don't have any schedule. Any time that's fine with you is fine with me."

I nodded.

"I'm really sorry," she said. "Maybe I shouldn't have met you again, after all. I know I'll only end up ruining everything."

She left just a little before eleven. I held an umbrella over her and flagged down a cab. The rain was still falling.

"Goodbye. And thank you," she said.

"Goodbye," I said.

I went back into the bar and returned to the same seat at the counter. Her c.o.c.ktail gla.s.s was still there. As was the ashtray, with several crushed-out Salems. I didn't have the waiter take them away. For the longest time, I gazed at the faint color of lipstick on the gla.s.s and on the cigarettes.

Yukiko was waiting up for me when I got home. She'd thrown a cardigan over her pajamas and was watching a video of Lawrence of Arabia Lawrence of Arabia. The scene where Lawrence, after all sorts of trials and tribulations, has finally made it across the desert and reached the Suez Ca.n.a.l. She'd already seen the film three times. It's a great film, she told me. I can watch it over and over. I sat down next to her, and had some wine as we watched the rest of the movie.

Next Sunday there's a get-together at the swimming club, I told her. One of the members owned a large yacht, which we'd been on several times offsh.o.r.e, fishing and drinking. It was a little too cold to go out in a yacht in February, but my wife knew nothing about boats, so she didn't have any objections. I hardly ever went out on Sundays, and she seemed to think it was good for me to meet people in other fields and be outdoors.

"I'll be leaving really early in the morning. And I'll be back by eight, I think. I'll have dinner at home," I said.

"All right. My sister's coming over that Sunday anyway," she said. "If it isn't too cold, maybe we could take a picnic to Shinjuku Gyoen. Just us four girls."

"Sounds good," I said.

The next afternoon I went to a travel agency and made plane and rental car reservations. There was a flight arriving back in Tokyo at six-thirty in the evening. Looked like I would be back in time for a late dinner. Then I went to the bar and waited for Shimamoto's call. She phoned at ten. "I'm a little busy, but I think I can make the time," I told her. "Is next Sunday okay?"

That's fine with me, she replied.

I told her the flight time and where to meet me at Haneda Airport.

"Thank you so much," she said.

After hanging up, I sat at the counter for a while, with a book. The bustle of the bar bothered me, though, and I couldn't concentrate. I went to the rest room and washed my face and hands with cold water, stared at my reflection in the mirror. I've lied to Yukiko, I told myself. Sure, I'd lied to her before, when I slept with other women. But I never felt I was deceiving her. Those were just harmless flings. But this time was wrong. Not that I was planning to sleep with Shimamoto. But even so, it was wrong. For the first time in a long while, I looked deep within my own eyes in the mirror. Those eyes told me nothing of who I was. I laid both hands on the sink and sighed deeply.

10.

The river flowed swiftly past cliffs, in places forming small waterfalls, in others coming to a halt in pools. The surface of these pools faintly reflected the weak sun. An old iron bridge downstream spanned the river. The bridge was so narrow one car could barely squeeze across it. Its darkened, impa.s.sive metal frame sank deep into the chilled February silence. The only people who pa.s.sed over the bridge were the hotel's guests and employees, and the people in charge of caring for the woods. When we walked over it we pa.s.sed no one going the other way, and looking back, we saw no one. After arriving at the hotel, we had had a light lunch, then we crossed the bridge and walked along the river. Shimamoto had on a heavy pea coat, the collar turned up, and a m.u.f.fler wrapped around her up to her nose. She had on casual clothes, good for walking in the mountains, much different from her usual attire. Her hair was tied in back, and she wore a pair of rugged-looking work boots. A green nylon shoulder bag was slung over one shoulder. Dressed like that, she looked just like a high school girl. On either side of the river, hard patches of snow remained. Two crows squatted on top of the bridge, gazing down at the river below, every once in a while releasing grating, scolding caws. Those shrill calls echoed in the leaf-blanketed woods, crossed the river, and rang unpleasantly in our ears.

A narrow, unpaved path continued along the river, a terribly silent, deserted path leading who knows where. No houses appeared beside the path, only the occasional bare field. Snow-covered furrows inscribed bright white lines across the barren land. Crows were everywhere. As if signaling their comrades down the line of our approach, the crows let out short, sharp caws as we pa.s.sed. They stood their ground, not trying to fly away. From close proximity I could see their sharp, weapon-like beaks and the vivid coloring of their claws.

"Do we still have time?" Shimamoto asked. "Can we walk a little farther?"

I looked at my watch. "We're okay. We should be able to stay here another hour."

"It's so quiet," she said, looking around slowly. Every time she opened her mouth, her hard white breath drifted into the air.

"Is this river what you were looking for?"

She smiled at me. "It's like you could read my mind," she replied. And reached out with her gloved hand to grasp mine, also in a glove.

"I'm glad," I said. "If we came all this way and you said this wasn't the place, then what'd we do?"

"Hey, have more confidence in yourself. You'd never make that kind of mistake," she said. "But you know, walking like this, just the two of us, I remember the old days. When we used to walk home together from school."

"Your leg isn't like it was, though."

She grinned at me. "You seem almost disappointed."

"Maybe so." I laughed.

"Really?"

"I'm just kidding. I'm very happy your leg's better. Just a bout of nostalgia, I guess."

"Hajime," she said, "I hope you understand how very grateful I am to you for doing this."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "It's like going on a picnic. Except we took a plane."

Shimamoto walked on for a while, looking ahead. "But you had to lie to your wife."

"I guess so," I said.

"And that couldn't have been easy. I'm sure you didn't want to lie to her."

I didn't know how to respond. From the woods nearby, a crow let out another sharp caw.

"I've messed up your life. I know I have," Shimamoto said in a small voice.

"Hey, let's stop talking about it," I said. "We've come all the way here, so let's talk about something more cheerful."

"Like what?"

"Dressed like that, you look just like a high school girl."

"Thanks," she said. "I wish I were."

We walked slowly upstream. For a while we proceeded in silence, concentrating on our walking. She couldn't walk very fast but was able to handle a slow but steady pace. She held my hand tight. The path was frozen solid, and our rubber soles hardly made a sound.

Just as she had implied, if only we could have walked this way when we were teenagers, or even in our twenties, how wonderful that would have been! A Sunday afternoon, just the two of us strolling along a river like this ... I would have been ecstatic. But we were no longer high school kids. I had a wife and children, and a job. And I'd had to lie to my wife in order to be here. I had to drive back to the airport, take the flight that arrived in Tokyo at six-thirty, then hurry back to my home, where my wife would be waiting for me.

Finally Shimamoto stopped, rubbed her gloved hands together, and gazed all around. She looked upstream, then downstream. On the opposite sh.o.r.e there was a range of mountains, on the left-hand side a line of bare trees. We were utterly alone. The hot-springs hotel, where we'd had lunch, and the iron bridge, lay hidden in the shadow of the mountains. Every once in a while, as if remembering its duty, the sun showed its face through a break in the clouds. All we could hear were the screeches of the crows and the rush of water. Someday, somewhere, I will see this scene, I felt. The opposite of deja vu-not the feeling that I'd already seen what was around me, but the premonition that I would some-day. This premonition reached out its long hand and grabbed my mind tight. I could feel myself in its grip. There at its fingertips was me. Me in the future, grown old. Of course, I couldn't see what I looked like.

"This spot will be all right," she said.

"To do what?" I asked.

She smiled her usual faint smile. "To do what I'm about to do," she replied.

We went down to the riverbank. There was a small pool of water, covered by a thin sheet of ice. On the bottom of the pool several fallen leaves lay still, like the bodies of flat dead fish. I picked up a round stone and rolled it in my hand. Shimamoto took off her gloves and put them in her coat pocket. She undid her shoulder bag, opened it, and removed a small bag made out of a pretty cloth. Inside the bag was an urn. She undid the fastening on the lid and carefully opened the urn. For a while she gazed at what was inside.

I stood beside her, watching, without a word.

Inside the urn were white ashes. Very carefully, so that none would spill out she poured the ashes onto her left palm. There was barely enough to cover her hand. Ash left after a cremation, I figured. It was a quiet windless afternoon, and the ash didn't stir. Shimamoto returned the empty urn to her bag, stuck her index finger into the ash, put the finger to her mouth, and licked it. She looked at me and tried to smile. But she couldn't. Her finger remained near her lips.

As she crouched by the river and scattered the ashes, I stood next to her, watching. In an instant the small amount of ash was carried away. She and I stood on the sh.o.r.e, gazing at the water. She stared at her palm, then finally brushed off the remaining ash and put on her gloves.

"Will it really reach the sea?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. But I wasn't sure. The ocean was a fair distance away. Perhaps the ash would settle somewhere. But even so, some of it would, eventually, reach the sea.

She took a piece of board that lay nearby and began digging in a soft spot of ground. I helped her. When we'd dug a small hole, she buried the urn wrapped in cloth. Crows cawed in the distance, observing our actions from beginning to end. No matter; look if you want to, I thought. We're not doing anything bad. All we did was scatter some burned ash in the river.

"Do you think it will turn to rain?" Shimamoto asked, tapping the tip of her boot on the ground.

I looked at the sky. "I think it'll hold out for a while," I said.

"No, that's not what I mean. What I mean is, will the child's ashes flow to the sea, mix with the seawater, evaporate, form into clouds, and fall as rain?"

I looked up at the sky one more time. And then at the river flowing.

"You never know," I replied.

We headed in our rental car back to the airport. The weather was deteriorating fast. The sky was covered with heavy clouds, no blue visible. It looked like it would snow at any minute.

"Those were my baby's ashes. The only baby I ever had," Shimamoto said, as if talking to herself.

I looked at her, then looked ahead. Trucks sprayed up muddy melted snow, and I had to turn on the wipers every once in a while.

"My baby died the day after it was born," she said. "It lived just one day. I held it only a couple of times. It was a beautiful baby. So very soft ... They didn't know the cause, but it couldn't breathe well. When it died it was already a different color."

I couldn't say a thing. I reached out my hand and placed it on hers.

"It was a baby girl. Without a name."

"When was that?"

"This time last year. In February."

"Poor thing," I said.

"I didn't want to bury it anywhere. I couldn't stand the thought of it in some dark place. I wanted to keep it beside me for a while, then let it flow into the sea and turn into rain."

She was silent for a long, long time. I kept on driving, not saying a word. She probably didn't feel like talking, so I thought it might be best to leave her alone. But soon I noticed that something was wrong-her breathing sounded strange, a mechanical rasping. At first I thought it was the car engine, but then I realized the sound was coming from beside me. It was as if she had a hole in her windpipe and air was leaking out each time she took a breath.

Waiting for a signal to change, I looked at her. She was white as a sheet and strangely stiff. She rested her head against the headrest and stared straight ahead. She didn't move a muscle, only from time to time would blink, as if forced to. I drove on for a little while and found a place to pull over-the parking lot of a boarded-up bowling alley. On top of the building, which looked like an airplane hangar, stood a billboard with a gigantic bowling pin on it. Alone in the huge parking lot, we seemed to be in some wilderness at the edge of civilization.

"Shimamoto-san." I turned to her. "Are you all right?"

She didn't answer. She just sat back against the seat, making that unearthly sound. I put my hand to her cheek. It was as cold as the scenery that surrounded us. Not a trace of warmth. I touched her forehead, but it showed no signs of fever. I felt like I was choking. Was she dying, right here and now? Her eyes were listless as I looked deep into them. I could see nothing; they were as cold and dark as death.

"Shimamoto-san!" I yelled out, but got no response. Her eyes were unfocused. She might not even be conscious. I had to get her to an emergency room, and fast. We'd definitely miss our plane, but there was no time to worry about that. Shimamoto might die, and there was no way I was going to let that happen.

When I started the car again, though, she was trying to say something. I cut the engine, put my ear to her lips, but couldn't make out her words. They were less like words than wind whistling through a crack in a wall. Straining as hard as she could, she repeated her words again and again. Finally a single word came through. "Medicine."

"You want to take some medicine?" I asked.

She gave a tiny nod. So slight a nod I might not have caught it. But it was all she could manage. I rummaged around in her coat pocket. Purse, handkerchief, key holder with a lot of keys, but no medicine. I opened her shoulder bag. Inside was a small packet of medicine, with four capsules. I showed her the capsules. "Is this it?"