When he awoke, Tatsuo pressed his ear against the pillow and listened to the river. The sound it made was the sound of spring. For the brief period from now to about the middle of May, the waters of the Itachi would gradually swell. This year, however, Tatsuo had discovered something new in the reverberations of the rushing stream: a faint popping sound, as of tiny particles bursting. It was similar to how, on winter nights, he’d been able to sense that snow had quietly begun to fall. As he lay there focusing on the sound the river made, he was reminded of the susurration of falling snow, and he was aware, just before he dozed off again, of an itchy, discomforting sort of sensation deep inside.
It was Sunday. Today he was to go to the house of his father’s old friend Ōmori Kametarō in Takaoka City, to exchange a draft note for cash. When Chiyo had told Ōmori on the telephone that she’d call on him Sunday, he had interrupted to ask that she send Tatsuo instead. Tatsuo had reluctantly agreed after Chiyo explained that all he had to do was pick up the money and come back home, but he couldn’t help wondering why this man Ōmori, whom he’d never even met, had specified that he be the one to go.
“If you don’t get up now you’ll be late.”
Chiyo pulled back Tatsuo’s quilt. Awakened again, he slowly got up and went to the basin to wash his face with well water. He touched his nose repeatedly. It seemed to him that it was suddenly bigger, and it also seemed harder than before. When he told his mother this, she pinched his nose and laughed.
“Last time you said your nipples hurt. Like a little girl. Now it’s your nose!”
Chiyo reminded him several times to watch his manners at Ōmori’s house and to be careful to use formal speech. They left the house together, boarded the streetcar at Yukimi Bridge, and rode to Toyama Station, where Chiyo bought him a ticket for Takaoka. A voice over the loudspeaker was announcing the departure times of trains to Tokyo and Osaka and other distant cities, and though it was Sunday the station was jammed with people. It was only about an hour’s ride to Takaoka, but Tatsuo felt as if he were embarking on an epic journey, and he was tense and nervous.
“Wrap the money in this, and hold on tight to it.” Chiyo stuffed a large purple kerchief in Tatsuo’s pocket and gave him a stern look.
“Your father may not live through the year. We’re going to use the money to pay the hospital and to send you to high school. That’s the truth, and if Mr. Ōmori asks you, all you have to do is answer him honestly.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to find a job, so there’s nothing to worry about. I enjoy working.”
“Right.”
Chiyo had never been one to speak in such clear-cut terms before. Tatsuo dreaded taking a train alone all the way to Takaoka, and on such an important mission, but seeing that his mother was not her normal self today somehow helped him steel his resolve.
It was shortly after noon when he reached Takaoka. Following the map his mother had drawn, he headed west along the street in front of the station. There was a strong wind, and particles of dust danced in the spring sunlight.
He had no trouble finding the place. Turning left where the shopping street ended, he saw a house with a black fence around it and a sign mounted on the roof that read Ōmori Enterprises. When he opened the glass door and announced himself, a man appeared from behind a curtain separating the spacious business office from the living quarters.
“So you made it! Well done.”
Ōmori showed Tatsuo to the reception area, where they sat down facing each other. A burnished suit of samurai armor gleamed darkly in a big glass case in the corner.
Ōmori’s face had a squashed look, as if his narrow eyes had been squeezed into the space between his thick brows and lips. His completely hairless crown was shiny and pink.
“Well done,” he said again. He stared at Tatsuo for some moments, then smiled and said, “You look just like your father.”
Tatsuo was very tense. His heart was in his throat, and he had no idea what to say in this sort of situation. He settled for pulling from his pocket the envelope with the draft note inside and presenting it to Ōmori.
“You mother explained everything to me,” Ōmori said softly, and pushed the envelope back to Tatsuo’s side of the table. “The note isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. You can keep it.”
Tatsuo sat there in silence, completely at a loss. His mother had instructed him to tell Ōmori the truth about how they were going to use the money, but he was having trouble getting any words out at all. His eyes fell upon a huge clock, almost as tall as he was, standing against the wall next to the suit of armor. Engraved in gold beneath the face of the clock was a congratulatory message and the name Mizushima Shigetatsu.
“Oh, that!” Ōmori said, in a suddenly booming voice. “Your father gave that to me when I started my business here. Many years before you were born.” He paused, then lowered his voice again. “There’s no point in exchanging cash for a worthless piece of paper, when I can simply advance you whatever amount you need. I’ll loan you the money.”
Tatsuo wasn’t quite sure what the man meant. All he wanted was to escape for home as soon as possible. Ōmori went into the living quarters for a moment, returned with a fountain pen and writing paper, and removed some money from his safe.
“This is to be a loan to you. Agreed?”
Tears welled up in Tatsuo’s eyes. They were not tears of joy, but neither were they tears of sadness. He did his best to hold them back, and said, “Is it all right if I don’t repay you till I’m grown up?”
“Of course. And if I’m dead by then, there’s no need to pay it back at all. But I do want to have a record of the transaction.”
Ōmori drew up two copies of the loan agreement. In large letters he added clauses stating that there was to be no interest or time limit, and that in the event of the lender’s death, the debt would be canceled automatically. He stamped the papers with his personal seal. Tatsuo, with Ōmori’s guidance, signed his name, pressed his thumb into an inkpad, and put his thumbprint on the papers.
“I’m really impressed that you managed to come here all by yourself, a boy your age. Stay awhile and make yourself at home. Not that there’s much to offer you—I’m afraid my wife is off at a blossom-viewing party with the workers from our store.”
Ōmori paused, then said, “Mizushima Shigetatsu was a man who became so successful so quickly it was almost frightening. And then, at a certain point, his luck ran out. He was a clever, generous man, a truly good person, but his luck just ran out on him. If you think about it, about what luck can do, it’s enough to give you the chills. I don’t imagine you can really understand this at your age, but that stuff they call luck can even make the difference between a fool and a genius.”
He stood up. “Your father and I have been friends since we were about your age. Let me show you something,” he said, and walked back into the living quarters. Tatsuo sat looking at his own red thumbprint on the paper in front of him.
Ōmori returned with an old sepia photograph.
“Look at this. That’s your father and me.”
Two young men sat beneath a cherry tree with their arms around each other’s shoulders. One was wearing a hat, puttees, and army boots. The other was bare-chested and had a hand towel draped over his head. Ōmori pointed at the shirtless young man and said, “That’s your father, when he was eighteen.”
“Really?” Tatsuo gazed at the picture of the young man with the shaved head whose features, it was true, closely resembled his own. His father at eighteen, squinting into the bright spring sunlight illuminating his pale skin. A young Ōmori, the same age, glared at the camera from beneath a thick pair of eyebrows.
Ōmori lowered his voice to a near-whisper. “That was taken the day after we both had our first experience with women.” He was about to add something else, but stopped and merely drank the photo in.
Tatsuo left a short time later. Ōmori accompanied him to the station and bought him a chocolate bar. Then, suddenly speaking quite formally, he said, “Well, then, until we meet again,” and bowed deeply. Tatsuo said goodbye and returned the bow, bending so low that his student cap slipped off and fell to the ground.
The cherry blossoms at Toyama Castle were only about three-quarters open, but the water plants in the muddy, stagnant water of the moat were already a bright, glistening green.
Chiyo had stopped to rest in front of the main gate of the castle after walking there from the newspaper building. Having heard that the newspaper was hiring people for its cafeteria, she’d gone for an interview. She was uncertain, however, as to whether or not she’d be able to accept the job even if it was offered to her. Ten days ago, Shigetatsu had suffered another seizure, leaving the entire right side of his body paralyzed. Until then he’d managed to go to the toilet and wash up on his own, but now someone would have to be with him all the time. They couldn’t afford a nurse, but neither could Chiyo be at his side twenty-four hours a day. The bill collectors refrained from coming to the hospital, but they would show up at the house every three days or so, demanding payment in voices loud enough to be heard by all the neighbors. Two or three of the more unsavory types even made a habit of coming in the middle of the night to scream their demands. She wanted to sell the house and land as soon as possible, as well as the office near the station, in order to settle the larger debts. It was hard enough just meeting daily expenses. With Shigetatsu confined to bed, Chiyo would have to go to work, and yet she was really in no position to do so.
She walked through the gate and on to the long, elevated gravel path that bisected the moat and led to the castle. A number of children with fishing poles ran past her. From beneath the cherry trees on every side came the cheerful voices of young couples, and parents with their kids.
The roof tiles on the castle tower shone with startling brilliance under the gloomy sky. Chiyo sat down beneath a large old cherry tree. From where she sat she could see a kimono-clad woman of thirty or so standing next to the ancient stone wall. The woman seemed to be waiting for someone, and judging from the hint of irritation on her face she had probably been there for some time. Chiyo sighed and sat watching the woman as falling petals drifted down through her field of vision. The pattern on the woman’s kimono coat, a row of small flowers—narcissuses, perhaps, although she couldn’t be sure at that distance—stood out in pale relief beneath the cloudy sky and seeped quietly into Chiyo’s heart.
Once, on a winter’s day fifteen years earlier, she had waited for Shigetatsu at Toyama Station. The appointed hour had long since come and gone, and Chiyo had thought of walking away any number of times. She knew, however, that Shigetatsu was not the sort of man who would continue to pursue her if she were to leave now. She walked out of the waiting room to the wicket and stood gazing at a train that had just pulled in. All the trains from Fukui had been delayed and arrived bearing thick layers of snow on their roofs. Snow clung to the windows and sides of the cars as well, testimony to the severity of the blizzard they’d encountered along the way. A group of women carrying large wicker suitcases passed in through the wicket as two or three men in heavy overcoats, who might have been demobilized soldiers, hurried out. The sound of a baby crying somewhere echoed through the station. The platform was dark and wet, with fallen clumps of snow here and there. Chiyo looked at her watch, and just as she was doing so, someone clapped her on the shoulder. She turned to see Shigetatsu standing there with an angry look on his face.
“You weren’t in the waiting room. I figured you’d gone home.”
Shigetatsu had bought tickets for Niigata, but when Chiyo, allowing herself to show him her vulnerable, childlike side for the first time, pouted and pressed him to take her to Echizen, he promptly changed their destination. It was no great surprise when the train came to a stop some distance short of Daijōji. They were snowed in, a blizzard was raging, and there was no telling when the train would start up again. With the engine idling, the heat inside the cars faltered; and as the temperature dropped, the smell of fish emanating from the bundles carried by the woman in front of them grew stronger. Countless fish scales adhered to the woman’s trousers and rubber boots.
“You cold?” Shigetatsu whispered in Chiyo’s ear. When she replied that her legs were, a little, he took his overcoat down from the rack above and spread it over her lap. The pure-wool overcoat was such a vivid shade of greenish brown that it attracted stares, but it looked nothing short of splendid on Shigetatsu, with his powerful physique and dark, penetrating eyes. Perhaps it had been precisely what some might call the arrogance of this man, an arrogance that permitted him to wear such a gaudy overcoat without the least trace of embarrassment, that had drawn Chiyo to him—in spite of his being old enough to be her father.
She snapped out of her reverie when she noticed the woman in the kimono walking toward her. Standing a short distance from Chiyo was a man in his mid-twenties with a sickly complexion. The woman passed right in front of her as she approached the man, saying, “What could I do? The baby’s running a fever.”
After removing his suit jacket and handing it to the woman, the man extracted a necktie from the breast pocket and put it on. Chiyo had detected a note of deep sorrow in the few words she’d heard the woman speak. She stood up and walked back the way she’d come. Under the trees, someone was singing. A woman sat on a mat left behind by a group of cherry-blossom viewers, cradling a crying infant. Chiyo hurried past. It was a sound she hated. There had been a baby crying that night on the train with Shigetatsu.
The train had been stalled for nearly forty minutes before they began moving again through the snowy fields. With the sudden lurch forward, a baby in the rear of the car had started squalling.
Each time the train shook or swayed, the fish scales on the woman’s boots sparkled. Though there was no logical connection, those flashes of iridescence brought Chiyo a sudden sense-memory of the soft, radiant skin of the baby she’d given up all those years before, and she gasped and shifted uneasily in her seat.
“We’ll stay in Fukui tonight and move on to Cape Echizen tomorrow. That all right with you?”
Chiyo had said that she wanted to go to Echizen, but she didn’t recall saying anything about the cape. She glanced at Shigetatsu to try and read his expression. He had turned his face to the dark window, but his features were clearly reflected in it, and he was peering back at her. Their eyes met in the glass. And it was at that moment that her vague, uncertain feelings toward him began to crystallize into something substantial, something she could identify as love.
They took a room in Fukui that night. Shigetatsu was unusually taciturn. After dinner they sat at the kotatsu facing each other. Chiyo listened from time to time to the sound of the snow beating against the roof and walls and windows.
“Kind of gloomy, isn’t it?” said Shigetatsu. “Why don’t we call in a geisha or something?”
Chiyo wasn’t keen on the idea, but Shigetatsu clapped his hands to summon the clerk.
The clerk smilingly informed them that it was too late at night, that the only geisha who’d come at this hour were the sort who were accomplished at one thing only. But then, a short time after he’d left, he returned to say that a woman had offered to play the shamisen for them.
“Sounds good,” said Shigetatsu, reaching under the kotatsu table to take Chiyo’s ankle in his hands. “Send her on in.”
The clerk left again and came back with a small woman of about fifty. Her eyes were a cloudy white: she was blind.
The woman bowed her head, then lifted her face toward the ceiling and sat perfectly still for some time. This made Chiyo uncomfortable; to her it looked as if she was reading all the smells in the room. After playing a brief introductory tune, wielding her plectrum with an energy one would scarcely have judged her capable of, the woman spoke for the first time. “Shall I sing as well?”
“No, that’s all right. Just go on playing whatever you like.” To the clerk, Shigetatsu added, “I guess I won’t be needing that saké I ordered.”
When the clerk withdrew, the woman took several slow, deep breaths, then licked the tip of her plectrum and began flailing furiously at the strings again. The timbre of the notes was so clean and sharp as to give Chiyo goosebumps, and before she knew it she was completely drawn into the dark, powerful melody. Shigetatsu too, still gripping Chiyo’s ankle, sat as if transfixed by the blind woman’s flickering plectrum.
She played well into the night. As she plucked away at the strings, beads of sweat trickled down her face and neck, and she moved her lips almost imperceptibly. It seemed to Chiyo as if she were muttering, “Not yet, not yet. More, more!” The yellow light of the electric lamp seemed to grow dimmer as the sound of the shamisen intensified. Just as drops of water from the sea at Echizen, though translucent in themselves, combine to produce an opaque, leaden gray, so each flick of the blind woman’s wrist made the bleak atmosphere of the room a little bit darker and colder.
“I haven’t played this much at one sitting since the war ended,” the woman remarked, when the clerk came to fetch her.
Shigetatsu handed her the payment, telling her exactly how much it was and explaining that he was giving the clerk some money as well, so she wouldn’t need to.
The next afternoon the two of them went to Cape Echizen. They watched the raging sea and the torn and tattered sky sink ever deeper into darkness, until it was impossible to distinguish the boundary between them. Gusts of wind rebuffed the falling snow and sent it swirling back toward the clouds.
“Why’d you want to come to a place like this?”
Chiyo, with her face half buried in her muffler, smiled and whispered in Shigetatsu’s ear: “I didn’t.”
“You said you wanted to go to Cape Echizen, didn’t you?”
“No. All I said was I wanted to go to Echizen.”
Houses lined the seacoast, standing dark and silent in the wind-driven snow, their corniced roofs mottled with patches of white.
Chiyo thought she detected the sound of a shamisen mixed in with the roar of the waves. She tilted her heard, wondering if the sound wasn’t merely a trick of the sea, a chance effect produced by wind slicing into the waves. But Shigetatsu said, “You’re right. I can hear it too.”
They stood side by side, watching the waves.
“That’s one wild-looking sea, isn’t it?” he said. His eyes shone with the same narrow, piercing light that Chiyo had observed the night before, when he sat listening to the blind woman’s shamisen.
Chiyo suddenly recalled something she’d once been told. “There are supposed to be narcissuses here!” she cried with girlish enthusiasm. “Blooming all along the shore, and in the middle of winter, no less!” She swept her eyes over the shoreline but couldn’t see so much as a single flower.
The snow was falling in larger flakes now. At last they turned and walked away, their shoulders hunched against the cold.
Do you want to go fishing after school? I know a good spot on the Jinzū River.
So read the note that was passed to Tatsuo. He turned and saw Sekine Keita lifting his eyebrows at him, his face hidden from the teacher behind his textbook.
It was Saturday, and classes ended shortly after noon. As Tatsuo was leaving the schoolyard, Sekine rode up to him on his bicycle.
“You don’t want to go?”
“I can’t. There’s something I’ve got to do.”
“What?”
“None of your business.”
Tatsuo kept walking, and Sekine rode his bike in circles around him.
“What are you mad about?”
“I’m not mad. Don’t you have to study?”
Sekine dismounted and began walking alongside Tatsuo, pushing his bicycle. A fishing pole was tied to the rack above the rear wheel.
“My father says I can’t go to high school. After we graduate, he wants to send me to Kanazawa.”
“Kanazawa?”
“Yeah. He’s got a friend there who has a clothing store. He says I have to stay there and study tailoring for three years. We had a big fight about it last night. My father... That’s what happens when you’ve got no education. He kicked me in the butt. Hard. I got him back, though. Threw him right down on the floor with a beautiful judo move.”
“Really?”
“That’s why I’m not going home today. When I left this morning I told him he wouldn’t be seeing me for a while. Just a little show of resistance, you know. Teach him he can’t be doing stupid things like that, kicking people.”
Sekine took a small box from his school bag and held it up. It was the box he’d shown him before, the one with Eiko’s photograph inside.
“You can have this. Eiko’s picture.”
“How come?”
“You’re jealous, right? Because I had it?”
“What d’you mean? I’m not jealous.” Even as Tatsuo hastened to deny the accusation, he could feel his face flushing red. Sekine smiled and lowered his voice.
“Eiko didn’t really give it to me. I stole it.”
“You stole it?”
“Don’t tell anybody. It was when I was on clean-up duty and had to stay after school. I looked in Eiko’s desk, and her notebook was inside. I guess she forgot it that day. I flipped through it and found the picture.”
“So you stole it. I knew there was something fishy going on.”
“Well, sure. I mean, think about it,” Sekine said, studying the smile on Tatsuo’s face. “Why would Eiko give her picture to me? Anyway, I’ll let you have it if you confess the truth. Do you like her too?”
Tatsuo didn’t say anything. Sekine gave him a playful rap on the side of his head.
“Well? You want the picture or not? If you tell me you want it, I’ll give it to you. Really.”
“I want it.”
“Do you like Eiko?”
Tatsuo nodded, his eyes fixed on the little box. Sekine handed it to him, and he opened it. Sure enough, Eiko’s photo was inside.
“Why are you giving this to me, though?”
“As a token of our friendship. We’re always going to be friends, right? I want you to be my friend forever, even when we’re grown up. Okay?”
“Sure.” Tatsuo nodded emphatically, but Sekine, who suddenly seemed embarrassed, was looking away. Sekine asked again if he didn’t want to go fishing, but Tatsuo had to relieve his mother at the hospital.
“All right. I’ll go by myself. I found a secret spot along the Jinzū.”
“Where?”
“Nobody else knows about it. I’ll take you there next time.”
Sekine got on his bike and pedaled off at a furious pace. Once he was out of sight, Tatsuo opened the little box, and as he walked to the streetcar stop he looked at the photo again and again.
Shigetatsu was now completely bedridden. Loss of motor functions was no longer even the worst of his problems. After the second seizure, he had rapidly begun to lose the ability to speak. “Aphasia,” the doctor called it. He said that Shigetatsu’s condition would continue to deteriorate, and hinted that there was now little hope of recovery.
That night in the hospital room, Tatsuo began speaking to his virtually mute father. When he told him about the photograph Ōmori had shown him, Shigetatsu merely twisted his face in a queer sort of smile. Though Tatsuo wasn’t sure his father understood what he was saying, he patiently continued stringing the words together.
“I’m going to see the fireflies with old Ginzō. He says there’ll be an incredible swarm of them this year. When d’you think that will be?”
Shigetatsu opened his mouth and seemed to be groping desperately for words. Finally he peered into Tatsuo’s eyes and said, “Shoo... shoo...”
“Shoo?” Tatsuo wondered if his father wanted him to leave. Shigetatsu’s left hand was clamped to his belt, however.
“Do you want me to go home?”
Shigetatsu shook his head back and forth, then seemed to be racking his brains again. Seeing his father in this condition filled Tatsuo with a nameless sort of dread.
“I’m going to see the fireflies. Way upstream on the Itachi River. Millions of fireflies, like a snowstorm.”
“Firefly... Firefly... Tatsuo.” Shigetatsu managed to grind out these words only with the utmost effort.
“Ginzō says there’s so many of them it’s like a snowstorm.”
“Snow... Firefly... ”
Shigetatsu was smiling, but his eyes were brimming with tears. He kept saying the same words over and over, with the same weepy smile on his face.
“Snow... Firefly... Snow...”
Tatsuo stood up, trying to free himself from his father’s grip. He was amazed that the old man still had the strength to hold on so tightly. And now Shigetatsu started sobbing. He pulled Tatsuo close and rubbed his face against his stomach. Tatsuo was frightened and mortified. All he wanted was to flee as quickly as possible, to get away from this man sprawled sideways in his hospital bed, clinging to him and weeping.
“I have homework to do,” he lied. “Mother’ll be back soon. I’ve got to go.”
He grabbed his father’s wrist and twisted forcefully away from him. Shigetatsu’s fingers finally released their grip.
When he got off the streetcar, Tatsuo stood at the foot of Yukimi Bridge and gazed at the river. In the moonlight, he was sure he could make out something twinkling in the darkness of the weeds along the riverbank, a string of tiny lights. Though he knew it wasn’t the season for fireflies yet, he made his way down the embankment, treading carefully through the undergrowth as the night mist soaked his trousers to the knees. There was nothing to be found on the bank. He’d been taken in by a trick of the moonlight glittering on a small feeder creek that branched through the weeds.
He stood there on the riverbank for a long time. Turning to look upstream, he saw the familiar yellow, blinking lights under the bridge. The image of his father’s tear-stained face weighed upon him, as did Ōmori’s resounding words—“If you think about what luck can do, it’s enough to give you the chills.”
The following day Tatsuo heard from a classmate who lived nearby that Sekine Keita had drowned in the Jinzū River. The boy said he’d gotten the news from their teacher the first thing that morning and was going from door to door informing other students from their class. He told Tatsuo that the funeral would be at noon the next day, and hurried off.
“It’s not true. It can’t be true.”
Tatsuo unlocked his bicycle with trembling hands and rode to Sekine’s house. A sheet of paper with the words In Mourning hung over the window of the tailor shop, and a lot of people were going in and out. Tatsuo went up to a classmate standing next to the entrance.
“Is it true? Sekine’s dead?”
The classmate nodded silently.
“How did it happen?”
“It was in the newspaper. They found him floating in a spillway next to the Jinzū River.”
“A spillway?”
“They figure he must have gone there to fish and fallen in. He was alone, though, so nobody’s sure what happened.”
Tatsuo knew about the spillway, a deep channel fed by overflow from the Jinzū River. That must have been Sekine’s secret fishing spot.
When he got home, he guzzled down cup after cup of well water. Then, without even knowing why, he crawled into the closet. He hid there for a long time, though he was alone in the house. Hunched up inside the narrow space, he glowered sullenly at the light that spilled past the edge of the sliding door. He felt as if he could hear Sekine’s voice welling up in the darkness. I want you to be my friend forever, even when we’re grown up. He wondered whether his friend would still be alive if he’d gone fishing with him, and he saw him disappearing down the road, pedaling his old, beat-up bicycle as fast as he could.
It was about ten days later that people began to gossip about Sekine’s father. It was said that he’d taken to yelling angrily at people, telling them they had no education. The first person to report his strange behavior was a regular customer who’d gone to order some clothing. Although Sekine’s father had been looking haggard and despondent, according to this man the quality of his work had been as good as ever. But this time, when the man made a rather difficult request, Sekine’s father had given him a wild, sidelong look, thrown his measuring tape at him, and sputtered, “You’ve got no education!”
After hearing this, neighbors began looking in on Mr. Sekine daily. They often found him in a clearly unbalanced state, sitting with his face to the wall and muttering, “No education!”
For a while this phrase became a running joke among the students in Tatsuo’s class. If someone couldn’t answer a question the teacher asked, for example, or absentmindedly left something behind, someone else was sure to point at him or her and say, “You’ve got no education!” Tatsuo, however, never joined in the laughter.
One day after even the late-blooming cherry blossoms had fallen and sunlight of a sort that could no longer be called springlike began to warm the streets of the town, Tatsuo climbed on his bicycle and rode to the Jinzū River spillway where Sekine’s body had been discovered. When he peered into the water, he gave an involuntary cry of surprise: fish of all sizes were swimming about among the tangle of dark water plants.
He sat at the edge of the spillway and took out the photo of Eiko that Sekine had given him. Also in the little box, folded up beneath the photo, was the loan agreement he and Ōmori had signed. It struck him as a strange and mysterious coincidence that both the photo of Eiko and the one Ōmori had shown him depicted their subjects beneath a huge old cherry tree. He set the box on the grass and lay on his side, studying the photo. He never tired of taking it out and gazing at Eiko’s smiling face. Even when she smiled, her lips looked plump and soft. If he were Sekine, he thought, he’d probably be bold enough to approach Eiko directly and invite her to the firefly hunt.
Near the middle of the spillway a butterfly was resting on a piece of straw caught between the surface leaves of a water plant. A breeze played with the butterfly’s delicately striped black-and-yellow wings. Tatsuo rolled on to his stomach at the edge of the water and slowly stretched out his hand. His fingers had nearly reached the butterfly when he lost his balance and almost fell in. He hastily repositioned himself. The butterfly sat as still as if it were dead, but change his position as he might, Tatsuo couldn’t quite reach it. He gave up and got to his feet, an unnameable mixture of rage and sorrow welling up inside him. This might be the very butterfly that had murdered Sekine. He threw a stone at the killer, and it flew off, skimming the surface of the water.
“You’ve got no education,” Tatsuo muttered. He lay on his back in the grass and gazed up at the brilliant sky. A black kite described a calm, steady circle high above him.