The young woman was small in the photograph, but her eyes sparkled
brightly and she had a beautiful face. Kozumi stared at the picture,
attempting to make himself remember having met a young woman like this
some thirty years earlier on a trip and having asked her to marry him.
“I’ll bring my daughter sometime, if you don’t mind—then if you like
you can see how I used to be.” It sounded as though there were tears mixed
in with the woman’s voice. “I’ve told my son and daughter everything, so
they know all about you. They speak of you as though you were an old
friend. I had really terrible morning sickness both times, sometimes I got a
little crazy—but then as the morning sickness started getting better, around
the time when the child started moving—it’s odd but somehow I’d start
wondering if the child might not be yours. Sometimes in the kitchen I’d
sharpen a knife. . . . I’ve told my children about all that, too.” “You . . .
don’t ever do that.”
Kozumi was unable to continue.
At any rate, it appeared that the woman had suffered extremely because
of Kozumi. Even her family had. . . . Or perhaps on the other hand a life of
extreme suffering had been made easier for her by virtue of her memories
of Kozumi. Even her family had been affected . . . .
But that past—her unexpected meeting with Kozumi in the town called
Yumiura—had evidently gone on living strongly inside the woman, while
in Kozumi, who had committed a sort of sin, it had been extinguished,
utterly lost.
“Shall I leave the picture with you?” she asked, to which Kozumi replied
by shaking his head. “No, don’t.”
The small woman walked with short steps through the gate and then
vanished beyond it.
Kozumi took a detailed map of Japan and a book in which the names of
all the cities, towns, and villages in the country were listed down from a
