Kazuhiro had gone, but he could easily turn up again. Takeru was scared. He was worried for Joel too. Kazuhiro had backed down that day, overawed by the larger man, but he was a very jealous person and might start thinking there was something between Joel and Takeru’s mother. After that day, Takeru thought he saw Kazuhiro’s car several times in the area. Perhaps it was just a similar car, or maybe it was his imagination, but still he didn’t think Kazuhiro was somebody who’d give up easily.
Joel continued to pass food to Takeru through the windows, and sometimes brought it to the apartment. The days were shorter now, and the weather was getting cold. Joel had brought over some blankets, but even with them it was cold inside the apartment. Takeru wandered the streets in search of warmth—supermarkets, convenience stores. He didn’t like to visit the same places all the time, so sometimes he went a long way away. Public libraries were perfect to spend time in, but he had to be careful not to go during school hours. If people started noticing him, he moved on before they asked any questions.
He often went to a big supermarket a twenty-minute walk down the main road. They had started playing Christmas songs. He couldn’t remember exactly when. He was always hungry; his stomach rumbled. He couldn’t think clearly about anything—his mind rotated like an empty dryer. He probably went to the supermarket because the old woman was there. It was a large store, and next to an in-store bakery at the back was an area for shoppers to sit and relax. There were three sets of tables and chairs in the middle, and against the bakery wall was a false-leather banquette and four identical Formica tables. By the plate glass on the opposite side were a vending machine, an ice machine, a photocopier, and a blood-pressure gauge that you could use for free. Takeru always sat on the banquette, reading an old manga book. Nobody complained. He’d often see men on their own there, middle-aged or older, unmarried, he guessed, eating lunch from boxes or snacks they’d bought in the store. He’d see mothers with children and heavy bags, chatting happily, telling their chubby children not to climb on the seats with their shoes on. He’d see high-school boys and girls, drinks from the vending machine on the table in front of them, fiddling with their phones, talking about friends who weren’t there. He’d see junior-high girls, who had obviously not bought anything, sitting with their books spread out, preparing for tests. Takeru would watch them all vaguely, and then the old woman would arrive.
“Here she is,” the junior-high girls would whisper to each other, snickering over their textbooks.
Takeru vaguely supposed they said the same sort of thing when he arrived: Here he comes! The boy in the cap. Look at him! He’s still wearing that same Pokemon T-shirt in the middle of winter! And he still stinks of sweat!
The old woman was tiny, her back bent over double. She always wore a drab shirt and trousers, and was always pushing her shopping cart. To Takeru the bag in the cart looked like a little suitcase. She’d put the cart beside a table and sit down. Whenever someone came to sit nearby she’d stand up and try to push the cart closer to the table. “Sorry,” she’d say. “In the way.” As far as Takeru could see, there was plenty of space between the tables for people to get by, but despite what was obviously serious pain in her back, she always got up and tried to move the tightly packed cart. (In reality she didn’t move it at all.) “Sorry. In the way.” It was as if she were talking about herself. For Takeru there was something a little uncomfortable about her words, something unsettling. Was it because she was giving ground she didn’t need to? Yet at the same time, and more powerfully, Takeru felt as though he was floating on something very soft, wrapped in a deep sense of relief. At times like this it seemed almost as if he had been forgiven. Being near the old woman must have made him feel that way, watching her give people space she didn’t have to. But it’s odd: unsettled and relieved—completely opposite emotions caused by exactly the same thing. Takeru probably no longer had the strength to think things through.
He liked watching the old woman put her hand slowly inside the cart to pull out a small white plastic bag. She’d take some manju or mochi from the bag that she’d bought at the store. Takeru enjoyed watching her slowly chew and swallow. He liked swinging his legs and waiting, wondering when she would finish. All he could have wanted was to watch from the side. He couldn’t have been after anything more.
But one day their eyes met.
The old woman was about to eat a piece of mochi, but she returned it to its plastic container. She picked up another piece in her thin, veined hand and held it out to Takeru.
“Want one?” she asked.
He finished it before realizing he’d even started. He had no clear recollection of having eaten it at all. Suddenly he was worried that he hadn’t thanked her.
“Thank you,” he said.
“That’s okay!”
Later, the old woman’s voice would blend with Bunji’s. It would never be drowned out. The two voices would become one. So perhaps even then, in the voice of the old woman, Takeru was hearing Bunji.
It’s okay!
It’s okay! Bunji’s voice was already saying that all the time, even when the words seemed negative on their surface: Don’t! Don’t! You mustn’t!
The voice affirmed everything about Takeru. Although it had no basis whatsoever for doing so, it accepted everything about him. This unsettled him, frightened him.
Takeru stared at the old woman. Her wrinkled face looked as though it could either be smiling or crying. Takeru decided to think she was always smiling.
He never went to the seating area in the supermarket with the intention of getting fed, but from then on the old woman always shared her snacks with him. And every time he thanked her, she’d say:
“That’s okay!”
Takeru knew it wouldn’t last long. He’d known ever since he first saw her. Didn’t she keep saying, “In the way. Sorry,” in that quiet voice, always worried that her shopping cart was an obstruction? She wasn’t just talking about her cart—she was talking about herself. So, although she said, “That’s okay” to Takeru, she would obstinately refuse to accept the same thing being said to her. That’s why she had to speak in such a quiet voice—so nobody would respond with tolerance or forgiveness, so that when she said, “Sorry. In the way,” nobody would reply, “That’s okay.” And nobody ever did.
When people looked at her bent, shuffling figure there was always a shade of irritation or embarrassment in their eyes. The old woman had forgiven Takeru, but there was no forgiveness for her. It seemed forbidden—forbidden both by her and by something else as well. It was as if, in order to forgive someone, she’d had to forfeit, in equal measure, the opportunity of being forgiven herself. But is the world where humans live so petty? The world—full of what Takeru only knew as the big thing—can it be so mean as to think a bent, wrinkled old woman, unsteady on her feet, is in the way? It can’t be. But if it isn’t, that means the old woman wished it upon herself, that her “In the way. Sorry” was a curse she used to punish herself. But even if that were the case, what had she done that had to be punished?
No. It couldn’t be a punishment simply for sharing her manju with Takeru.
In Takeru’s vague, unreliable memory it was the last day he ever saw the old woman. She gave him a treat as always—a manju, but then she bent forward over her cart, brought out another plastic container, and put it on the table. Inside were two more manju.