At last they made it out of the park.
“Keep going straight. . . Just keep going straight. . . .’ ’ Hirata said each
time they approached an intersection, glancing nervously to the left and
right.
To think that he had chosen this taxi himself, this senile driver—Hirata
started thinking that his lụck must have run out. Mirroring his unease, his
broad round face grew distorted.
Hirata, a fundamentally light-hearted and selfish man, was sometimes
overcome by this feeling of unease. It had been happening ever since he
had grown suspicious of Takako.
From the very first—soon after he had moved into his present house and
married her—Hirata had been fond of Chiba, had been attracted by his
personality, and though Chiba was five years his junior he had looked ụp to
him. He had been pleased to see that Takako liked Chiba, too—at least until
recently. Now he found himself suspicious of them.
No—it wasn’t them he was uneasy about. Chiba was entirely without
guilt. It was Takako he suspected.
At times Takako’s eyes would refuse to settle on anything, and she would
seem to be gazing off into the distance. The glint in her eyes had changed.
After the pheasant dinner, over which he’d introduced Takako to Chiba,
Hirata had said brightly,
“Well, what do you think—he’s a nice guy, isn’t he? Maybe you were
really meant to go next door but you got the houses mixed up and married
me— what do you think?” The question had been an expression of his
pride and pleasure at having made Takako his, but in retrospect it seemed to
have been an unlucky thing to say.
At the time, Takako had only asked how old Chiba was.
“I think maybe five or six years younger than me. But he’s smart.”
