“Well, at any rate, gingko leaves must be very sensitive to changes in
something. I’m sure they just fall very easily.”
Hearing her husband talk in this way, Ikuko concluded that he must be in
a good mood. So she brought up a topic of her own.
“Today—well, it’s rather an unpleasant thing to have to talk about, but
something happened today that made me see what a truly good person
Yuko is. It’s incredible, really. I don’t know, maybe she’s becoming an even
better person now that she’s about to get married. That could be it. At any
rate, I don’t want you getting angry at her when she comes back, all right?”
Ikuko’s words anticipated Soeda’s response, and checked it.
It had happened that afternoon while Ikuko was out shopping with the
maid, at a time when their daughter was home alone. Yuko had carried a
chair out to a sunny spot in the hall and was knitting a cardigan.
“Miss—I’ve got good soap and cosmetics out there, good wool too. Will
you buy something?” Yuko heard a woman’s voice and was surprised to see
that the woman was standing quite close by. A hedge of full-blown
sasanqua led in from the gate, and one had to pass through a wicket by the
front door to enter the garden. But still the woman had come in—she was
suddenly inside. Had the wicket been open? Had the woman opened it
herself because it was low? Then Yuko saw that the young woman was
carrying a baby on her back, and she relaxed her guard. The woman’s
sunburned face looked slightly swollen, but her hair was neatly arranged.
She was small and plump, she had coated her lips thickly with a restrained
shade of lipstick, and a weak smile hovered on her round face. She carried
a somewhat large piece of cloth which she had folded to form a bag. There
was in her none of the intimidating grimness of a peddler-by-force, but
Yuko felt unsettled even so, and answered oddly.
“I have wool here, too. I don’t need any more.”
“I bet the wool I’ve got is better than that.”
