“Oh—I see now. If the single letters ‘w’ and ‘t’ and so on are enough to
get things done, the sounds ‘I’ and ‘a’ and ‘m’ must not be meaningless
either. It’s the same with baby talk. The baby understands that its mother
loves it. That’s how it is in your ^What a Mother Can Read, isn’t it? Words
have their origin in baby talk, so words have their origin in love. If you
were to decide to write ‘t’ every time you wanted to say thank you—and if
every once in a while you wrote ‘t’ for Tomiko—just think how happy she
would be.”
“That single letter ‘t’ would probably have more love in it than al the
novels you’ve written during the past forty years, and it would probably
have more power.”
“Why don’t you speak? You could at least say ‘aaa’—even if you drool.
Why don’t you practice writing ‘a’?”
I was at the point of calling into the kitchen to ask Tomiko to bring a
pencil and some paper when I suddenly realized what I was doing.
“What am I doing? I’m afraid I’ve gotten a little drunk—forgive me.”
Even after Tomiko returned I felt as though I had been babbling. All I
had done was circle the perimeter of old Akifusa’s silence.
Tomiko used the telephone at a nearby fi.sh store to call the driver who
had brought me.
“My father is saying that he hopes you’ll come talk with him again from
time to time.”
“Yes, of course.”
Having given her this rather offhand answer, I got into the car.
“Two of you have come, I see.”
“It’s still early in the evening and we do have a passenger, so I doubt
she’ll show up—but just in case…”
