Walking away, Kizu felt agitated. The wisdom gained with age allowed him to avoid trying to pin down this nameless unease; Kizu realized that di- verting his attention was a better course of action. After this, whenever he saw the young man leading an adult swimming class, a disquiet jolted him, and he averted his eyes.
The first time Kizu spoke to the young man was in the athletic club's so-called drying room. Things changed quickly at this club, with a third of the train- ing equipment, for instance, being replaced within the first six months after Kizu joined. Still, there was one place that was clearly a holdover from the past, a dim room about fifteen by eighteen feet that had just one small door and, in the middle, an elliptical wooden enclosure, in complete contrast to the ultramodern facilities on the other floors of the club. Inside the enclosure, dark stones were piled up and heated, like a sauna. In fact it was a kind of sauna room, though kept at a lower temperature than the modern saunas next door to the public baths.
Members sat on wide two-tiered wooden levels, leaning back against the unpainted wooden wall, drying their chilled bodies after swimming.
Children in the swimming school, of course, used the drying room, but vet- eran members plopped themselves down on oversized yellow towels and sweated in the room before they went swimming, loosening up their muscles this way instead of doing warm-up exercises.
The first time the young man spoke to Kizu, the two of them, as long- time members were wont to do, were already stretched out for some time in the darkened drying room. In the dull light, Kizu didn't realize that the per- son lying down in the far corner was this young man because-no doubt to increase the amount he sweated-he was completely wrapped in a towel from his head on down, with just his knees and the lower half of his legs sticking out.
Kizu had been in the drying room for quite some time when seven or eight young girls in their late teens took over the upper and lower tiers on the right side, directly opposite the entrance. The girls chattered away boister- ously; Kizu was already aware that they were members of the swim team at a Catholic girls high school. They were discussing the program they were preparing for their school's festival, based on the book of Jonah. They were already in a lively mood as they voiced their opinions and complaints in loud voices. One small girl, apparently an underclassman, spoke out in an espe- cially conspicuous way.
"We're the swim team," she complained, "so we should have been allowed to do the scenes where Jonah's thrown into the water, or where he's spit up from the whale's belly and swims to shore. But Sister's script has us doing the part in the storm where Jonah's grilled by all the sailors, and where he builds that hut on the outskirts of Nineveh and complains to God. What's a castor oil plant, anyway? Sounds pretty weird to me! We have to construct the set without even knowing what it looks like!"
Kizu finally spoke up. It had been through the auspices of the girls' swim coach, also an instructor of art and design, that Kizu had been introduced to the athletic club and joined for a year, and the girls had surely heard from their coach about his work in the United States.
Kizu told them how he had done the illustrations for a children's ver- sion of Bible stories. As part of his research for the book, he traveled to the Middle East, where he saw actual castor oil plants growing. "Come here this time next week," Kizu told them, "and I'll bring a colored sketch for you to look at. In the book of Jonah," he went on, "the castor oil plant is an impor- tant minor prop-no, maybe a major prop-expressing God's love." The stu- dents welcomed his proposal.
This decided, the occupying force of girls, their clumsy attempts at working up a good sweat over, left the drying room with hearty farewells more befitting an athletic meet. A jostle of muscular legs was visible just outside the cloudy heat-resistant glass of the door's window.
At this point the young man, oversized towel heavy with sweat wrapped around his waist, spoke up, his voice different from the times Kizu had over- heard it in the club.
"Professor, you seem to be quite well versed in the Bible."
Kizu was seated on the lower tier, in the back left-hand corner, the young man on the upper tier directly facing him. Perhaps not wanting to look down on Kizu, the young man clambered down to the lower tier and turned his face, the same color as a boiled crab's shell, toward Kizu, who replied, "Not at all-it's just as I told the girls. It's not like I attend church."
"I was about to tell the girls, but in the bookshelf in the third-floor mem- bers' lounge there's a copy of your children's book," the young man said. "The club's Culture Society collects and displays books written by the club's mem- bers. When I was a child-and until much later, in fact-I was amazed at how realistically people and objects are depicted in Renaissance paintings, and I find your illustrations in the children's book very similar. Children find this espe- cially appealing, I imagine. When I read your book, I could get a clear picture of how big Nineveh was and what the boat that went to Tarshish looked like."
The artist found the young man's observations interesting-since Kizu was young at the time he did these illustrations he'd been very conscious of his painting style, insisting on its anachronistic character-but what most impressed him was the young man's way of talking. Kizu recalled a certain Mexican stage actor with unusual looks. You would normally expect anyone aware that they had such extraordinary features to be a bit more reticent.
Kizu was silent and the young man went on. "I'm not a Christian either.
But ever since I was a child, the book of Jonah has bothered me."
"Since you've read my children's book it's obvious to you," Kizu said, "that I made the book of Jonah the centerpiece of the project."
"If I went to a church," the young man went on, "I'm sure I could hear a detailed explanation, but I don't get on well with clergy, so I've never found an answer to my concerns."
"Maybe it's not my place to ask, but what exactly are these concerns?"
Kizu didn't ask this expecting any specific answer to issue from the youth's somewhat cruel-looking mouth, but the young man responded eagerly, as if he'd been waiting for the chance.
"I don't know, I just feel anxious, wondering if the book of Jonah really ends where it does. I know it's a childish question, but I can't help wonder- ing if the Jonah we have now is complete, or whether it might originally have had a different ending."
"That's an interesting point," Kizu remarked. "Now that you mention it, I've felt somewhat the same, as if it's vague and doesn't go anywhere."
Cutting to the chase, the young man said, "Would it be possible, Pro- fessor, for me to come over to your home to hear more about this? The club office manager told me you have American citizenship and are living in extraterritorial, non-Japanese housing."
It's not extraterritorial; I'm not a diplomat. But if you're interested in the book of Jonah, I do have a few reference works, and I'd be happy to show them to you. I'm here at the club on Tuesdays and Fridays, but most other afternoons I'm free. Tell the office I said it's all right for you to get my address and phone number."
The young man was clearly elated by the news.
"I'm sorry to be so forward; you must think I'm pushy. I'll phone you later this week."
The sauna wasn't especially hot, but Kizu had reached his limit and decided to leave. He made his way around the heat source in the center of the room, pushed the unpainted door open, and went outside. Through the heat- resistant glass his eyes met those of the young man, who was leaning in his direction as if bowing. A faint smile came to Kizu's face, and he looked down and descended to the swimming pool.
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