...more

"Nope." "Come on, you're got to try harder than that. Bears are great. They say bears can talk to people. You think that's true?"

"No idea."

"You claim you were born in Hokkaido, though. You really don't know?"

As Etsuko's voice came through the fine, vibrating steel membrane, I gazed at the row of blue-black hunting guns lined up behind the glass doors. Flat-chested, childlike Etsuko, with her gangly arms and legs—every time I held her tight, she felt as though she'd break against me. But when she took into her head to resist, she offered no hold anywhere—I might as well have been underwater, tangled in seaweed. What is this about bears? I murmured to myself. I was going to have to do something, and soon. But that was probably just what Etsuko had in mind. This business of wanting to meet a bear was some sort of signal to me.

"The summer vacation will be over soon, won't it. How many more days?"

"I don't want to talk about it!"

I'd purposely brought up a taboo subject between us.

Waiting was my job. I was employed as a night watchman in a store that sold hunting guns. I was supposed to be on guard all night against burglary and fire. It wasn't work. I was just like the hygrometer or the thermometer on the wall of the ammunition room. A thermometer is no good for detecting fire, and I didn't have it in me to put up a fight against an intruder. All I did was wait for fire and burglars to show up.

Their dismal failure to do so kept me employed. Being homeless otherwise, I could at least eat and keep a roof over my head at night. During the day I went to school, to sleep on a classroom chair.

The shop owner had me deliver a birding shotgun to the house of Lieutenant Colonel Craigow, a U.S. Army doctor who lived in Harajuku. This wasn't exactly part of my job description, besides which it was a warm day in early May, and I sneezed miserably all the way there. Still, I got a little welcome when I arrived. The pale, skinny maid brought me something to drink and nibble on. She smiled bashfully when she saw me, the way someone might do after letting out a fart. To me, she looked like a sheep. She somehow reminded me of a white sheep munching on paper. An aging black-and-white spotted pointer opened the kitchen door by itself and came wandering in. I held out a cracker to make it beg, but it ignored me. The dog refused to eat the cracker till the maid spread cheese on it. Finally it shot me a suspicious glance and plunked itself down at the maid's feet, like a scholar slumped, chin in hand, at his desk. In fits and starts she told me that Craigow and his wife were leaving the next day on a long trip to the island of Angaur, and that she was supposed to look after their house alone for the next three months. When I went to leave, she asked whether I wouldn't stay a little longer. I started to light my pipe, and she offered me a cigarette. There was a strange weakness to her gestures. When she struck a match for me, her awkward way of holding it by the very end made her seem to be afraid of the flame. Suddenly it occurred to me that she might well be a pampered young lady. I ended up staying longer than I'd planned. When I left, she smiled that bashful smile again and asked me to come back once in a while, if I liked. I did just that. It was a lot better than going to the school, where there were only hard chairs.

That's how Etsuko and I became close. Still, I never imagined that I'd eventually fall in love with her. Honestly, she wasn't that attractive.