—that even the tiles on the roofs looked crimson, that even the back of my
neck looked crimson. I replied that Yumiura was famous for its sunsets, and
it was true—even now I can’t forget them. That was the day we met—that
day, with its beautiful sunset. The harbor was small, shaped like a bow—it
looked like it had been carved out of the coast, there just under the
mountains—and that’s why it was named Yumiura, the bow-inlet. The
colors of the sunset all collect there, in that scooped-out place. The high,
rippled clouds in the sky at sunset that day seemed to be closer to the
ground than the clouds one sees elsewhere, and the horizon out on the
ocean seemed strangely close—it looked like the flocks of black birds that
were migrating wouldn’t have enough room to make it to the other side of
the clouds. The colors of the sky didn’t really seem to be reflected in the
ocean, it seemed like that crimson had poured down only into the small
ocean of the harbor and nowhere else. There was a festival boat decorated
with flags on which people were beating drums and playing flutes, and
there was a child on the boat— and you said that if you lit a match near that
child’s red kimono the whole ocean and the sky would burst instantly into
flame, with a whoosh. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I think maybe I do. . . .”
“Since my husband and I married, my memory for things has gotten so
bad it’s pathetic. I guess there’s no such thing as being so happy that you
can decide not to forget. I know that people as happy and as busy as
yourself don’t have the time to sit around thinking of dull days from the
past, and of course you really don’t need to. . . . But Yumiura was the nicest
town I’ve ever been in—in my whole life.”
“Did you spend much time in Yumiura?” Kozumi asked.
“Oh no—I got married and went to Numazu just six months after I met
you there. Our older child has graduated from college and he’s working
now, and the younger, our daughter—she’s old enough that we’re hoping to
find her a husband. I was born
