Still Life and Other Stories. Junzo Shono

tried to drive it away.

      Evening came, and Mrs. Aoki found herself in the kitchen once again. Like a person who has come down with a fever, a feeling of listless fatigue weighed heavy on every corner of her body.

      In the street out front the boys jabbered back and forth as they played catch.

      “They’re incredibly fast!”

      “Mexican Indians.”

      “They can chase antelopes all day and not even get winded.”

      “The tribe’s name is Tarahumara. Ta-ra-hu-ma-ra.”

      “I sure wish they’d come to Japan sometime.”

      Disjointed snatches of the boys’ conversation came to her between pops of the ball.

      Will he come home? she wondered miserably. I just want him to come home safe and sound—that’s all. I don’t care if he doesn’t have a job, I don’t care about anything else, just so long as he doesn’t abandon this family.

      She took a match and lit the gas burner, then reached up to get a pan from the shelf.

      “Just so long as he comes home . . .”

      A quiet hush hung over the pool.

      The ropes separating the lanes had been removed, and in the middle of the pool bobbed a lone man, only his head showing above water. The interscholastic swim meet would begin tomorrow, so today’s practice had been cut two hours short and the swimmers sent home early. Now the coach was picking up debris from the bottom of the pool with his toes.

      The evening breeze sent a rush of tiny waves rippling across the surface of the water from time to time.

      Soon a train slid into view along the tracks beyond the pool, and the eyes of the passengers returning from work took in the quiet scene. The usual girl’s swim team was gone, and a man’s head bobbed all alone on the surface of the water.

PART TWO