than ten years earlier, in the years before the war, yet the maid looked fairly
young.
“I suppose Mr. Kishiyama’s daughters must be grown up by now,” she
said.
“The elder daughter is married—she had a child last year. The younger
daughter is off studying in the United States. I served as the go-between at
the elder daughter’s wedding reception.”
“Really? Then his wife must be living on her own now—she must be
lonely.”
The maid left the room and returned with a photograph and a scrapbook
of notes and sketches. The photograph was one of the Kishiyama family,
taken at the spa to commemorate a visit. The daughters had bobbed hair,
and the maid was in the picture, too. It was a small photograph, but even so
one could make out the faces of the people in it.
“Everyone’s so young, even Kishiyama… The older daughter really was
beautiful, wasn’t she?” Kishiyama had written in the scrapbook, in his odd
handwriting,” All things join the flow of water.” There was a blank space to
the left of this, so I wrote, “Solitary shadow in stillness hoping for snow,”
and then at the bottom added, “Transcribed by Kishiyama.” The words
were not Kishiyama’s own, but came from a Chinese poem he had written
out for me. I finished writing and then savored the words. At any rate, it
looked now as though Kishiyama and I had come together, had written
together. Kishiyama had died seven or eight years earlier, so the sight of
our characters lined up there, side by side, came to seem somewhat eerie.
Kishiyama had died mysteriously at an airfield down in Kyushu—a field
that was being used at the time as a base for the Special Attack Corps, the
Kamikaze.
“Well, what do you say? The actor is waiting in Mr. Kishiyama’s room
right now, extremely pleased at the prospect of meeting you. . . .” said the
