“How splendid. And your husband, is he also a zoo-keeper?”
“Oh no. He works for an electronics firm.”
“Really?”
The woman began to give me advice concerning the care of babies. Meanwhile, I could see over her shoulder the boy wandering away from the table towards Mariko’s tree.
“And it’s an idea to let the child hear a lot of good music,” the woman was saying. “I’m sure that makes a lot of difference. A child should hear good music amongst his earliest sounds.”
“Yes, I’m very fond of music.”
The boy was standing at the foot of the tree, looking up at Mariko with a puzzled expression.
“Our older son doesn’t have as fine an ear for music as Akira,” the woman went on. “My husband says this is because he didn’t hear enough good music when he was a baby, and I tend to think he’s right. In those days, the radio was broadcasting so much military music. I’m sure it did no good at all.”
As the woman continued to talk, I could see the boy trying to find a foothold in the tree-trunk. Mariko had come lower and appeared to be advising him. Beside me, the American woman kept laughing loudly, occasionally uttering single words of Japanese. The boy finally managed to hoist himself off the ground; he had one foot pressed into a crevice and was holding on to a branch with both hands. Although only a few centimetres off the ground, he seemed in a state of high tension. It was hard to say if she did so deliberately, but as she lowered herself, the little girl trod firmly on the boy’s fingers. The boy gave a shriek, falling clumsily.
The mother turned in alarm. Sachiko and the American woman, neither of whom had seen the incident, also turned towards the fallen boy. He was lying on his side making a loud noise. His mother ran to him and kneeling beside him began to feel his legs. The boy continued his noises. Across the clearing, passengers waiting for the cable-car were all looking our way. After a minute or so, the boy came sobbing to the table, guided by his mother.
“Tree-climbing is so dangerous,” the woman said, angrily.
“He didn’t fall far,” I assured her. “He was hardly on the tree at all.”
“He might have broken a bone. I think children should be discouraged from climbing trees. It’s so silly.”
“She kicked me,” the boy sobbed. “She kicked me off the tree. She tried to kill me.”
“She kicked you? The little girl kicked you?”
I saw Sachiko cast a glance towards her daughter. Mariko was once more high up the tree.
“She tried to kill me.”
“The little girl kicked you?”
“Your son just slipped,” I interrupted quickly. “I saw it all. He hardly fell any distance.”
“She kicked me. She tried to kill me.”
The woman also turned and glanced towards the tree.
“He just slipped,” I said again.
“You shouldn’t be doing such silly things, Akira,” the woman said, angrily. “It’s very very dangerous to climb trees.”
“She tried to kill me.”
“You’re not to go up trees.”
The boy continued to sob.
In Japanese cities, much more so than in England, the restaurant owners, the teahouse proprietors, the shopkeepers all seem to will the darkness to fall; long before the daylight has faded, lanterns appear in the windows, lighted signs above doorways. Nagasaki was already full of the colours of night-time as we came back out into the street that evening; we had left Inasa in the late afternoon and had been eating supper on the restaurant floor of the Hamaya department store. Afterwards, reluctant to end the day, we found ourselves strolling through the sidestreets, in little hurry to reach the tram depot. In those days, I remember it had become the vogue for young couples to be seen in public holding hands — something Jiro and I had never done — and as we walked we saw many such couples seeking their evening’s entertainment. The sky, as often on those summer evenings, had become a pale purple colour.
Many of the stalls sold fish, and at that time of the evening, when the fishing boats were coming into the harbour, one would often see men pushing their way through the crowded sidestreets, carrying on their shoulders baskets heavy with freshly caught fish. It was in one such sidestreet, filled with litter and casually strolling people, that we came across the kujibiki stand. Since it was never my habit to indulge in kujibiki and since it has no equivalents here in England — except perhaps in fairgrounds — I might well have forgotten the existence of such a thing were it not for my memory of that particular evening.
We stood at the back of the crowd and watched. A woman was holding up a young boy of around two or three; up on the platform, a man with a handkerchief tied around his head was stooping forward with the bowl so the child could reach. The boy managed to pick out a ticket, but did not seem to know what to do with it. He held it in his hand and looked emptily at the amused faces all around him. The man with the handkerchief bent lower and made some remark to the child which caused the people round about to laugh. In the end, the mother lowered her child, took the ticket from him, and handed it to the man. The ticket won a lipstick, which the woman accepted with a laugh.
Mariko was standing on her tip-toes, trying to see the prizes displayed at the back of the stall. Suddenly she turned to Sachiko and said: “I want to buy a ticket.”
“It’s rather a waste of money, Mariko.”
“I want to buy a ticket.” There was a curious urgency in her manner. “I want to try the kujibiki.”
“Here you are, Mariko-San.” I offered her a coin.
She turned to me, a little surprised. Then she took the coin and pushed her way through to the front of the crowd.
A few more contestants tried their luck; a woman won a piece of candy, a middle-aged man won a rubber ball. Then came Mariko’s turn.
“Now, little princess,” — the man shook the bowl with deliberation — “close your eyes and think hard about that big bear over there.”
“I don’t want the bear,” said Mariko.
The man made a face and the people laughed. “You don’t want that big furry bear? Well, well, little princess, what is it you want then?”
Mariko pointed to the back of the stall. “That basket,” she said.
“The basket?” The man shrugged. “All right, princess, close your eyes tight and think about your basket. Ready?”
Mariko’s ticket won a flowerpot. She came back to where we were standing and handed me her prize.
“Don’t you want it?” I asked. “You won it.”
“I wanted the basket. The kittens need a basket of their own now.”
“Well, never mind.”
Mariko turned to her mother. “I want to try once more.”
Sachiko sighed. “It’s getting late now.”
“I want to try. Just once more.”
Again, she pushed her way to the platform. As we waited, Sachiko turned to me and said:
“It’s funny, but I had a quite different impression of her. Your friend, Mrs Fujiwara, I mean.”
“Oh?”
Sachiko leaned her head to see past the spectators. “No, Etsuko,” she said, “I’m afraid I never saw her in quite the way you do. Your friend struck me as a woman with nothing left in her life.”
“But that’s not true,” I said.
“Oh? And what does she have to look forward to, Etsuko? What does she have to live for?”
“She has her shop. It’s nothing grand, but it means a lot to her.”
“Her shop?”
“And she has her son. Her son has a very promising career.”
Sachiko was looking again towards the stall. “Yes, I suppose so,” she said, with a tired smile. “I suppose she has her son.”