“Oh, you’re terrible! I thought it was awful. Besides, I seem to recall that
you were looking, too, Mr. Numao.”
“I was. I heard it was a child, and I thought it might be one of ours. So I
pushed my way through the crowd, right, and when I got out ir front Miss
Tokiko was standing right there!”
“What happened to the child? Will he live?” Shizu asked.
“How would I know? I saw that it wasn’t one of our kids, and I just felt
so relieved that I.... I saw them put him in the ambulance, but that was it.”
“See what I mean? You see that it’s not one of your own children and you
feel relieved. You don’t think that’s terrible?” Tokiko said to Numao.
“I think you’re absolutely right,” Shizu said, siding with Tokiko. Then,
changing the subject, “Whenever someone from our house is out and I hear
an ambulance or something like that, I hate it.”
Tokiko came up to the second floor. The room seemed to get brighter.
When Tokiko still hadn’t spoken after a few moments, Toshiko spoke.
“We heard the ambulance siren here, too,” she said.
“Did you? That accident made me feel awful. I was on my way here to
tell you—well, that I’m going to be getting married before the end of the
year. It’s very sudden. . . . He’s quite a bit older than I am.”
“Well, that’s wonderful! I had no idea!” Toshiko said brightly. For a
moment it seemed that her pretty eyes might fill with tears. “Darling, if
Tokiko needs a room—how would it be if she took the eight-mat room next
door?”
Hidaka didn’t respond. The lovely shadow of Tokiko’s nose moved on
one of her cheeks, taking on peculiar shapes.
Various sounds indicated that the children from next door were going
home, and then came the low murmur of the couple talking downstairs. The
