I called my mother aside and asked about my father’s condition.
“Father seems so lively, going out into the garden and doing things—is it all right for him to be like that?”
“He seems to be completely fine. He’s probably gotten much better.”
My mother was unexpectedly unconcerned. As is common with women who live deep in forests and fields far removed from the city, my mother was utterly ignorant when it came to such matters. Even so, I secretly felt a strange unease, recalling how terribly alarmed and worried she had been when Father collapsed before.
“But didn’t the doctor declare it hopeless back then?”
“That’s why I think there’s nothing as strange as the human body. The doctor spoke so gravely, yet here he is, hale and hearty. At first I was worried too, and thought I should keep him from moving about. But you know his temperament. He does take care of himself, but he’s stubborn. Once he’s convinced he’s fine, he won’t listen to a word I say.”
I remembered the sight of my father, forcibly made to leave his sickbed and have his beard shaved, when I had returned before. Thinking of his words then—“I’m perfectly all right; it’s just that your mother makes too much of it”—I could not bring myself to blame only my mother. I was about to say, “But you should still keep a closer eye on him,” yet in the end I held back and said nothing. I merely told her what I knew of the nature of Father’s illness. But most of it was merely what I had learned from the doctor and the doctor’s wife. Mother showed no particular sign of being moved. She only said, “Oh, so it’s the same illness after all. How unfortunate. How old was the other one when he passed?” and the like.
Having no choice, I left my mother be and went directly to my father. Father listened to my warnings more seriously than my mother had. “You’re right. Just as you say. But my body is, in the end, my own body, and as for how to care for it, from years of experience I ought to know best,” he said. Hearing this, my mother gave a wry smile. “There, you see,” she said.
“But even so, Father has made his own quiet resolution. He was overjoyed that I graduated and came home this time, precisely because of that. He said himself that he’d thought he’d never see me graduate while he lived, so he’s happy I brought my diploma while he’s still well.”
“My, he may say that with his mouth, but in his heart he still thinks he’s fine.”
“Do you think so?”
“He means to live another ten or twenty years yet. Though now and then he does say things that make even me uneasy. Like, ‘At this rate I probably haven’t long; when I’m gone, what will you do? Will you stay here alone in this house?’”
I suddenly imagined the old, spacious country house after Father was gone and Mother left behind alone. Once Father alone was taken from this house, could it go on as before? What would my brother do? What would my mother say? And I, thinking thus—could I leave this earth behind and live at ease in Tokyo? With my mother before my eyes, I happened to recall the doctor’s warning—that while Father was still well, I should take what I could be given, and have it given to me.
“You see, those who keep saying they’ll die never do, so there’s no need to worry. Your father, for all his talk of dying, who knows how many more years he’ll live yet. Rather, it’s the hale and silent ones you should fear.”
I listened in silence to these commonplace words of my mother’s, which might have come from reason or from statistics.
