二十二

Father’s illness was not as serious as we had feared. Even so, when I arrived he was sitting cross-legged on the floor by his sickbed, saying, “Everyone worries so, so I’m just putting up with lying here like this. There’s no reason I couldn’t get up, really.” But from the next day on, ignoring Mother’s attempts to stop him, he finally had the bedding put away. As Mother reluctantly folded the thickly woven quilt, she said, “Your father’s gotten awfully stubborn all of a sudden, now that you’re back.” To me, Father’s behavior did not seem particularly like an attempt to put on a brave front.

My brother held a post in far-off Kyushu. Unless something truly urgent arose, he was a man with little freedom to come see our parents. My sister had married into a family in another province. She, too, was not a woman who could be easily summoned home at a moment’s notice. Among the three siblings, the most convenient was naturally me, a student. That I had thrown aside my schoolwork at Mother’s bidding and returned before the holiday was a great satisfaction to Father.

“It’s a pity to make you miss school for such a trifling illness. It’s all because your mother wrote such an alarmist letter.”

So Father said. And not only said it—he had the sickbed he’d been lying on put away, and showed his usual vigor.

“If you’re too reckless and it turns back on you, that won’t do.”

Father took my caution with an amused but very lighthearted air.

“Nonsense, I’m fine. Just keep careful like always and this is nothing.”

In fact Father did seem fine. He moved freely about the house, with no shortness of breath, no dizziness. Only his complexion was far worse than an ordinary person’s, but that was no new symptom, so we thought nothing of it in particular.

I wrote to the teacher to express my thanks for his kindness. I told him I would bring it when I went up to Tokyo for the New Year and asked him to wait until then. I went on to write that Father’s condition was not as grave as expected, that at this rate we could be easy for a while, and that there was no dizziness or nausea whatsoever. At the end I added a brief note asking after his cold. I had, in fact, thought little of the teacher’s cold.

When I sent that letter, I certainly did not expect a reply. After sending it, as I talked with Father and Mother about the teacher, I pictured his study far away.

“When you go to Tokyo this time, take some dried shiitake or such for him.”

“Yes, but I wonder if the teacher would eat dried shiitake like that.”

“It’s not delicious, but surely no one dislikes it.”

To me it felt strange to connect shiitake with the teacher.

When the teacher’s reply came, I was a little surprised. Especially surprised that its contents held no special business. I thought the teacher had simply written back out of kindness. Thinking that, the single short letter became a great joy to me. Though of course it was the first letter I had ever received from him.

Speaking of “first,” it might seem as though there had been frequent exchanges of letters between the teacher and me, but I should note that was by no means the case. In his lifetime I received only two letters from the teacher. One was this brief reply I speak of, and the other was a very long letter he wrote specifically to me shortly before his death.

Father’s illness being of a nature that required him to avoid exertion, even after the bedding was put away he hardly went outdoors. Once on a very calm afternoon he did step down into the garden, and then, anxious lest something happen, I stayed close by his side. Even when I worried and tried to get him to lean a hand on my shoulder, Father only laughed and would not.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”