Upon taking her Exclusively Reserved Seat, the Woman in the Purple Skirt reached inside the tote bag on her lap and took out a large, bright red apple—the apple that Supervisor Tsukada had given her. She brought it up to her face, opened her mouth wide, and took a large bite.
Immediately she took another bite, and then another one. Three bites in quick succession. She was about to take a fourth bite when some children called out from beyond the fence. “Hey! There she is!” “She’s eating an apple!” Suddenly there they were, laughing and pointing at her. With a chorus of whoops, they hopped over the metal wicket gates at the park’s entrance. Forming a circle not too far from her bench, they started cheerfully playing rock-paper-scissors. For three rounds, the game ended in a tie, and on the fourth round someone who’d thrown out scissors lost. “Aw! Son of a bitch!” he cursed, looking upset, of course, but also, predictably, rather pleased. He trotted up to the Woman in the Purple Skirt, arm raised.
Wham! The impact as he brought his hand down on the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s shoulder knocked the apple out of her grasp, and it fell to the ground.
The boy let out a little cry, and turned pale. Surely he should have known this would happen if he hit her so hard? The boy stared at the apple as it rolled along the ground, and the other children too stared.
The apple rolled right up to the garbage can, where it finally came to a standstill. The leader, the one who had whacked the Woman in the Purple Skirt, seemed to return to his senses, and ran after it. He picked up the apple, which now had some dirt on it, and brought it back to her with a look of apology on his face.
“Sorry.” The boy held out the apple to her, timidly.
Immediately the other children, all of whom had been looking on, ran up to the Woman in the Purple Skirt, one after another, and stood before her, heads bowed. Sorry! We didn’t mean it! Truly, we are very sorry! We apologize! We made a mistake! So sorry!
The sight of all the children, heads bobbing, was so bizarre, I half thought they were starting another of their games.
But I was wrong. That wasn’t the case at all. The children were apologizing from the bottom of their hearts. The eyes of the boy who had whacked her were even pooling with tears.
“It’s quite all right!” The Woman in the Purple Skirt waved her hand slightly in front of her breast to show no hard feelings.
It’s quite all right! Had she really said that? The surprise of it seemed to stun the children.
She actually said something!
Yeah, amazing, isn’t it?
The children exchanged glances, and looked curiously at the Woman in the Purple Skirt.
“I’ll go and wash it!” The boy who had whacked her dashed off toward the water fountain. And the other children ran off after him.
“You don’t have to do that. It’s quite all right!” The Woman in the Purple Skirt stood up from her bench and went over to the water fountain.
Together the children washed the apple meticulously, passing it one to the other, each taking it in turn. Finally, the apple, now washed absolutely clean, was pressed into the hands of the Woman in the Purple Skirt. When she returned to her seat, the children followed, gathering around her. Then she took a bite of the apple.
“It tastes good.” The Woman in the Purple Skirt handed it to a boy who stood next to her. The boy who had whacked her on the shoulder. After taking a bite, he announced: “It does taste good.” He then passed the apple to the girl standing next to him. She too took a bite, and then passed it on to another girl, who was standing next to her.
“It tastes good.”
“So sweet.”
“And juicy.”
“It’s delicious.”
Round and round the apple went, counterclockwise, with the Woman in the Purple Skirt standing in the middle of the children. One boy took a bite, and then a girl took a bite next to his, and then another girl next to her bite, and then a boy next to hers, and another boy next to his, and yet another boy took a bite out of the place next to his, and then the Woman in the Purple Skirt took a bite next to the place he had bitten into. After two rounds of this, the apple was reduced to its core.
Once they had finished the apple, the Woman in the Purple Skirt and the children began to play a game of tag. This was the first time the Woman in the Purple Skirt had ever been made a member of the children’s little gang. The game of tag continued on and on, till well after nightfall, and each and every one of them had a go at being “it.”
The Woman in the Purple Skirt was the last one to be “it.”
Scattering all over the park, the children ran hither and thither like little mice, their darting, unpredictable movements keeping them easily out of reach. Even for someone like her, with her background in competitive sports, it seemed impossible to catch them. Round and round she went for a while, trying her very best to tag them, looking as if she were putting her heart and soul into it, but then, at a certain point, unaccountably, she suddenly stopped running.
Turning her back on the children as they darted around her, the Woman in the Purple Skirt started looking at the flower beds, then cast a glance up at the park’s clock and walked very slowly all around, as if she were
