and shook her, violently. Takako opened her mouth. Her eyes were open.
“It’s no good, I’m already ...”
Takako spoke deliriously.
“No—it isn’t no good. It isn’t that it’s no good.” Hirata answered her
clearly, then lifted her up and carried her. His arms felt stronger than usual
—he felt Takako’s lightness. Hirata naturally forgave what he could carry
in his arms.
Takako wept cold tears. A second self watched the self who lay there, not
even trying to escape from Hirata’s arms. Her husband had mistaken the
identity other partner—he thought it was Chiba when it was actually young
Fujiki—but Takako knew that to correct his mistake by telling him about
Fujiki would only enrage him again, only confirm that she had been having
an affair. Hirata’s misunderstanding about the identity of her partner left her
a means of emotional escape. He still didn’t know for sure.
Takako grew numb as Hirata began to caress her. She felt as if her affair
with Fụjiki had never happened. And—like the pain of a single pin piercing
her body—the pain she felt knowing that her husband thought she had
loved Chiba flickered brilliantly. She found this strange.
“Wat are you thinking about?” Hirata shook her roughly.
“Oh—you’re cruel, you’re cruel,” she blurted.
Hirata fell asleep just as he was. Takako stared at the chrysanthemums in
the alcove. The flowers were perfectly ordinary, but there were dozens of
them in the wide-mouthed vase, and in the dim light of the alcove on that
drizzly day they seemed imbued with the beauty of ghosts. Takako was
reminded of the time a few days back when she had peered through the
break in the bamboo fence at the Chibas’ garden and seen the
chrysanthemums and other flowers toppled messily over, but blooming.
