The letter I wrote was quite a long one. Both my mother and I thought that surely this time Sensei would send some word. Then, two days after mailing the letter, another telegram arrived, addressed to me. It contained only the words: "You need not come." I showed it to my mother.
"He is probably meaning to write and say something in the letter."
My mother seemed to interpret it, to the very end, as Sensei's arranging food and clothing for me. I too wondered if perhaps that was so, but judging from Sensei's usual character, it struck me as strange. "Sensei will look for a position for me." To me, this seemed an impossibility.
"At any rate, my letter cannot have reached him yet, so this telegram must have been sent before it."
I said this obvious thing to my mother. She pondered with an air of reason and answered, "I suppose so." Even though it was clear that the fact Sensei had sent the telegram before reading my letter was of no help whatsoever in interpreting him.
That day happened to be when the attending physician was to bring the head doctor from town, so my mother and I had no further chance to speak of the matter. The two doctors, after their consultation, gave the patient an enema and the like, then went home.
Since being ordered by the doctor to lie quiet, my father had had both his needs attended to by others while still in bed. Fastidious as he was, Father loathed this at first most intensely, but being unable to move his body, he reluctantly relieved himself on the bedding. Whether because the sickness dulled his mind by degrees, or for some other reason, as days passed he came to think nothing of such lazy excretion. Occasionally he would soil the mattress or sheets, and while those beside him frowned, he himself remained perfectly unconcerned. To be sure, the quantity of urine, by the nature of his disease, had become extremely small. The doctor worried over this. His appetite too gradually failed. Now and then he would crave something, but it was only his tongue that craved; below the throat, scarcely any passed. Even the newspapers he once liked he no longer had the spirit to take up. The reading glasses by his pillow stayed sheathed in their black case, always. When Sakusan—a man with whom he had been close since childhood, now living some a mile away—came to visit, Father turned his dim eyes toward him and said, "Ah, Sakusan."
"Sakusan, you came, good of you. You are hearty, I envy you. I am done for."
"Nonsense. Why, both your boys finished university. A little illness is nothing to complain of. Look at me. My wife's dead, no children. Just alive, that's all. Hearty or not, what joy is there?"
The enema was given two or three days after Sakusan's visit. Father rejoiced, saying the doctor had made him much easier. His humor mended, as if he had found some courage regarding his own life. Whether drawn in by this, or to hearten the sick man, my mother, who was beside him, spoke of Sensei's telegram as if my situation in Tokyo were just as Father hoped. I, sitting nearby, felt a creeping discomfort, but could not cut my mother's words, so listened in silence. The patient looked pleased.
"That is excellent," said my sister's husband.
"What sort of position, is it yet unknown?" asked my brother.
I had by now lost the courage to deny it. Giving a vague reply I myself could not explain, I purposely left my seat.
