Utako served the food after the maid withdrew. The natural intimacy of
this seemed almost strange to Jiro.
Jiro had been disturbed by those words of Utako’s, certainly, but it
wasn’t as though they had passed the night as they had because he felt
disillusioned by the skinniness of her body, and he wasn’t at all afraid that
there would be troublesome complications. At least—he couldn’t say for
certain that any of this was true, but he didn’t think it was.
Of course if he had come with a woman he had only met recently and
spent a night like that, this morning would undoubtedly have been
awkward. Certainly there wouldn’t have been the intimacy he felt with
Utako.
But this too was difficult to say.
“When we split up back then, you know—I really thought it was over. I
gave up completely. But it looks like there was still something important
there between us. I hope we can take care of what’s important.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
“It’s like a riddle.”
“A riddle that can’t be solved? Or a riddle that can be solved?” Utako
tilted her head slightly to one side, as if she were trying to decide which it
was.
“When two people meet again after so many years, after having broken
up—just learning that they didn’t hate one another is enough to make them
happy. Unbelievably happy.”
“It’s true, isn’t it?”
They boarded a bus that left a little after two and got off at Odawara.
Riding on a train bound for Tokyo—heading in the opposite direction
from the day before—they looked once more at the first snow on Fuji.
