“Tomatoes are good.”
“Then it’s all right? She’ll get better?”
“This sickness may prove fatal. It’s best that you should know it.”
This was the first time in my life that I had become aware of the existence of the wall of despair built of all the many things in the world before which human strength is helpless.
“Two years? Three years?” I whispered, trembling.
“I can’t say. In any case, nothing can be done about it.”
Dr. Miyake departed, mumbling something about reservations for that day at Nagaoka Hot Spring. I saw him as far as the gate. Dazedly I walked back to Mother’s bed. I forced a smile, as much as to say that nothing was wrong, but Mother asked, “What did the doctor tell you?”
“He says that everything will be all right if your temperature only goes down.”
“What about my chest?”
“Apparently it’s nothing serious. It’s like when you were sick before. I’m sure of that. Just as soon as the weather turns a bit cooler, you’ll quickly get back your strength.”
I tried to believe my own lies. I tried to forget the terrifying word “fatal.” I couldn’t believe it was the truth. I had the feeling that were Mother to die, my own flesh would melt away with her. From now on, I thought, I will forget everything else except preparing all kinds of delicious things for Mother. Fish, soup, liver, broth, tomatoes, eggs, milk, salad—I will sell everything I own to buy food for Mother.
I went to the Chinese room and dragged the reclining chair out to a spot on the veranda from where I could see Mother. She did not look the least like a sick person. Her eyes were beautifully clear and her complexion fresh. Her fever only comes in the afternoon.
“How well Mother looks!” I thought. “I am sure she must be all right.” In my heart I had blotted out Dr. Miyake’s diagnosis.
My mind faded off into a reverie on how much better it would be when it was October and the chrysanthemums were in bloom. Before I knew it I had dozed off and was standing in a landscape which occasionally comes to me in dreams, although I have never actually seen it. I was beside a lake in the forest so long familiar to me, and the sight of that landscape came with a thrill of recognition. I was walking next to a boy in Japanese clothes, silently, with no sound of footsteps. The whole landscape seemed veiled in a kind of green fog. A delicate white bridge lay submerged at the bottom of the lake.
The boy spoke. “The bridge has sunk! We can’t go anywhere today. Let’s stop at the hotel here. I’m sure there must be an empty room.”
There was a hotel on the edge of the lake. Its stone walls dripped with the green fog. On a stone gate the words “Hotel Switzerland” were carved in gilt letters. As I read the letters SWI, I suddenly thought of Mother. I wondered uneasily how she was, whether she, too, were staying at this hotel. I passed with the young man through the gate into the front garden. Huge red flowers like hydrangeas were blooming with a burning intensity in the foggy garden. When I was a child, the bedcovers had a pattern of crimson hydrangeas which had always made me feel peculiarly unhappy. But, I thought now, there really are such things as red hydrangeas.
“You aren’t cold?”
“No. Just a little. My ears are wet with the fog, and the insides are cold.” I laughed and asked him, “I wonder what has happened to Mother?”
The boy answered with a smile at once heart-breakingly sad and
full of compassion, “She is in her grave.”
A cry escaped my lips. That was it. Mother was no longer with us. And hadn’t a funeral already taken place? At this realization of Mother’s death, my body shook with an indescribable loneliness and my eyes opened.
It was already dusk on the veranda. It was raining. A green-colored desolation lingered over everything, just as in the dream.
“Mother?” I called.
She answered in a calm voice. “What are you doing there?”
I leaped up with joy and rushed to her side. “I was sleeping.”
“I wondered what you were doing. That was a long nap, wasn’t it?” She seemed amused with me.
I was so overjoyed at Mother’s charm, at her being alive, that my eyes filled with tears of gratitude.
“And what are my lady’s commands for dinner this evening?” I asked rather archly.
“Please don’t bother. I don’t need anything. Today my temperature went up to 103 degrees.”
From happiness I was suddenly plunged into blank despair. At a loss what to do, I let my glance wander vacantly around the dimly lit room. I wanted to die.