azalea blossoms everywhere on my trip—but there were none in the garden
here.
“I don’t think Mr. Kishiyama looked at the garden. He would keep his
face turned toward it, I’m sure, but that was all. He liked this room
precisely because he could stay here without having to look at anything.”
If Uryu was going to start talking like this, I would be able to talk too. I
looked at the traveling actor again, thinking better of him. A knit shirt
could be seen at the chest of his thin kimono. It was a shirt with no opening
at the front, the kind one puts on over one’s head. Such shirts are
fashionable these days, but I found it slightly irritating. Uryu adjusted his
collar and turned to face the garden. I was startled to see how beautiful his
long, thin neck was in profile. It would have been long even for a woman’s
neck, yet somehow it didn’t seem to be unnaturally long or thin—it was
naturally and beautifully shaped. Its curvature was exquisite.
“The suggestion that he liked it here because he didn’t have to look at
anything is interesting, but then from what I hear you’re an actor—could it
be that you only like to show? Isn’t there anything that you like to look at?”
“Well—I do like looking at natures green. At trees . . .”
“Trees?” I nodded. “Yes, I have a fondness for big trees myself.”
“I like forests and woods.”
“But the idea of not looking at anything—a person who did that would
be rather like the Boddhidharma, wouldn’t he. Nine years facing the wall.”
“Yes, though the elderly are like that too, of course. Old people who’ve
grown weak with age, who are near death, a natural death... “
“I guess so.”
“Among my relatives in the country, there’s a man ninety-seven years
old, the oldest man in the village. Even his son is over seventy now. I went
to visit in May and whether the old man was sleeping all day or whether he
