?And after all that fuss you made about the rooms. Perhaps you should see a doctor.?
?Maybe I will.? Niki went back to her newspaper.
I laid down the clippers I had been using and turned to her. ?You know, its strange. I had that dream again this morning.?
?What dream??
?I was telling you about it yesterday, but I don?t suppose you were listening. I dreamt about that little girl again.?
?What little girl??
?The one we saw playing on the swing the other day. When we were in the village having coffee.?
Niki shrugged. ?Oh, that one,? she said, not looking up. ?Well, actually, it isn?t that little girl at all. That?s what I realized this morning It seemed to be that little girl, but it wasn?t.??
Niki looked at me again. Then she said ?I suppose you mean it was her. Keiko.?
?Keiko?? I laughed a little. ?What a strange idea. Why should it be Keiko? No, it was nothing to do with Keiko.?
Niki continued to look at me uncertainly. ?It was just a little girl I knew once,? I said to her. ?Along time ago.? ?Which little girl???
?No one you know. I knew her a long time ago.? Niki gave another shrug. ?1 can?t even get to sleep in the first place. I think I only slept about four hours last night.?
?That?s rather disturbing, Niki. Especially at your age.
Perhaps you should see a doctor. You can always go and see Dr Ferguson.?
Niki made another of her impatient gestures and went back to her father?s newspaper article. I watched her for a moment.
?In fact, I realized something else this morning,? I said.
?Something else about the dream.?
My daughter did not seem to hear.
?You see,?? I said, ?the little girl isn?t on a swing at all. It seemed like that at first. But it?s not a swing she?s on.? Niki murmured something and carried on reading.
Chapter Seven
As the summer grew hotter, the stretch of wasteground outside our apartment block became increasingly unpleasant. Much of the earth lay dried and cracked, while water which had accumulated during the rainy season remained in the deeper ditches and craters. The ground bred all manner of insects, and the mosquitoes in particular seemed everywhere. In the apartments there was the usual complaining, but over the years the anger over the wasteground had become resigned and cynical.
I crossed that ground regularly that summer to reach Sachiko?s cottage, and indeed it was a loathsome journey; insects often caught in one?s hair, and there were grubs and midges visible amidst the cracked surface. I still remember those journeys vividly, and they ? like those misgivings about motherhood, like Ogata-San?s visit ? serve today to bring a certain distinctness to that summer. And yet in many ways, that summer was much like any other. I spent many moments ? as I was to do throughout succeeding years ? gazing emptily at the view from my apartment window. On clearer days, I could see far beyond the trees on the opposite bank of the river, jle outline of hili1 visible against the clouds. It was not an unpleasant view, and on occasions it brought me a rare sense of relief from the emptiness of those long afternoons I spent in that apartment.
Apart from the matter of the wasteground, there were other topics which preoccupied the neighbourhood that summer. The newspapers were full of talk about the occupation coming to an end and in Tokyo politicians were busy in argument with each other. In the apartments, the issue was discussed frequently enough, but with much the same cynicism as coloured talk concerning the wasteground. Received with more urgency were the reports of the child murders that were alarming Nagasaki at the time. First a boy, then a small girl had been found battered to death. When a third victim, another little girl, had been found hanging from a tree there was near-panic amongst the mothers in the neighbourhood Understandably, little comfort was taken from the fact that the incidents had taken place on the other side of the city: children became a rare sight around the housing precinct, particularly in the evening hours.
I am not sure to what extent these reports worried Sachiko at the time. Certainly she seemed less inclined to leave Marjko unattended, but then I suspect this had more to do with other developments in her life; she had received a reply 1mm her uncle, expressing his willingness to take her back into his household, and soon after this news, I noticed a change come over Sachiko?s attitude to the little girl: she seemed somehow more patient and relaxed with the child.
Sachiko had betrayed much relief about her uncle?s letter, and at first I had little reason to doubt she would return to his house. However, as the? days went by, my suspicions grew about her intentions. For one thing, I discovered some days after the arrival of the letter that Sachiko had not yet mentioned the matter to Mariko. And then, as the weeks went on, not only did Sachiko make no preparations for moving, she had not, sol discovered, sent a reply toter uncle.
Had Sachiko not been so peculiarly reluctant to talk about her uncle?s household, I doubt if it would have occurred to me to ponder such a topic. As it was, I grew curious, and despite Sachiko?s reticence I managed to gather certain impressions; for one thing, the uncle was not, it seemed, related by blood, but was a relative of Sachiko?s husband; Sachiko had never known him prior to arriving at his house several months earlier. The uncle was wealthy, and since his house was an unusually large one ? and his daughter and a housemaid the only other occupants ? there had been plenty of room for Sachiko and her little girl. Indeed, one thing Sachiko did mention more than once was her recollection of how large parts of that house had remained empty and silent.
In particular, I became curious about the uncle?s daughter, who I gathered to be an unmarried woman of roughly Sachiko?s age. Sachiko would say little about her cousin, but then I do recall one conversation we had around that time. I had by then formed an idea that Sachiko?s slowness in returning to her uncle had to do with some tension which existed between herself and the cousin. I must have tentatively put this to Sachiko that morning, for it provoked one of the few occasions upon which she talked explicitly about the time she had spent at her uncle?s house. The conversation comes back to me quite vividly; it was one of those dry windless mornings of
