2.
Utako’s tears still weren’t dry, so they took a taxi from Odawara Station.
The corners of her eyes were red. It wasn’t as though she had cried, she
hadn’t really, but she looked as though she had. Perhaps the constant strain
on her mind and body had affected her eyelids. It seemed one had only to
say something a little unpleasant and her eyes would fill with tears.
Jiro wanted to see Utako’s face as it used to be. It was painful for him to
look at her haggard features. And so from searching out the Utako he had
known in the Utako before him, from trying not to see the Utako before
him, his own eyes came to have a fatigued look to them. He didn’t want her
to feel that he was staring at her, but he didn’t know where else to look.
Jiro hoped he might sense more of the old Utako in her features once
they moved from the train to the taxi. She would probably look different in
the cab, where it was just the two of them.
Jiro’s desire to see the face he had known was so great that reasonings as
minute as this came naturally to him.
When after time has passed a sound from long ago rings out a second
time, joy and sorrow together become a poem. This was something a poet
had written, but Jiro felt unconvinced. What exactly a poem?
As the cab passed the castle remains at Odawara, Jiro looked at the grove
of trees that grew there.
‘'Jiro—do you know who took the child?” Utako said quietly. In order to
speak quietly she had drawn closer to him.
Jiro didn’t know how to answer.
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“What? You knew?” Utako was surprised. “How did you find out?”
