'Really?'
She nods. 'Sometimes they eat. When they want to.'
'You mean no one else eats as much as I do?'
'Can you get by without eating for one whole day?'
I shake my head.
'Folks here often go a whole day without eating, no problem. They actually forget to eat, sometimes for days at a time.'
'I'm not used to things here yet, so I have to eat.'
'I suppose so,' she says. 'That's why I'm cooking for you.'
I look in her face. 'How long will it take for me to get used to this place?'
'How long?' she parrots, and slowly shakes her head. 'I have no idea. It's not a question of time. When that time comes, you'll already be used to it.'
We're sitting across from each other, her hands neatly lined up on the table, palms down. Her ten little resolute fingers are there, real objects before me. Directly across from her, I catch each tiny flutter of her eyelashes, count each blink of her eyes, watch the strands of hair swaying over her forehead. I can't take my eyes off her.
'That time?' I say.
'It isn't like you'll cut something out of yourself and throw it away,' she says. 'We don't throw it away-we accept it, inside us.'
'And I'll accept this inside of me?'
'That's right.'
'And then?' I ask. 'After I accept it, then what happens?'
She inclines her head slightly as she thinks, an utterly natural gesture. The strands of hair sway again. 'Then you'll become completely yourself,' she says.
'So you mean up till now I haven't been completely me?'
'You are totally yourself even now,' she says, then thinks it over. 'What I mean is a little different. But I can't explain it well.'
'You can't understand until it actually happens?'
She nods.
When it gets too painful to watch her anymore, I close my eyes. Then I open them right away, to make sure she's still there. 'Is it sort of a communal lifestyle here?'
She considers this. 'Everyone does live together, and share certain things. Like the shower rooms, the electrical station, the market. There are certain simple, unspoken agreements in place, but nothing complicated. Nothing you need to think about, or even put into words. So there isn't anything I need to teach you about how things are done. The most important thing about life here is that people let themselves be absorbed into things. As long as you do that, there won't be any problems.'
'What do you mean by absorbed?'
'It's like when you're in the forest, you become a seamless part of it. When you're in the rain, you're a part of the rain. When you're in the morning, you're a seamless part of the morning. When you're with me, you become a part of me.'
'When you're with me, then, you're a seamless part of me?'
'That's true.'
'What does it feel like? To be yourself and part of me at the same time?'
She looks straight at me and touches her hairpin. 'It's very natural. Once you're used to it, it's quite simple. Like flying.'
'You can fly?'
'Just an example,' she says, and smiles. It's a smile without any deep or hidden meaning, a smile for the sake of smiling. 'You can't know what flying feels like until you actually do it. It's the same.'
'So it's a natural thing you don't even have to think about?'
She nods. 'Yes, it's quite natural, calm, quiet, something you don't have to think about. It's seamless.'
'Am I asking too many questions?'
'Not at all,' she replies. 'I only wish I could explain things better.'
'Do you have memories?'
Again she shakes her head and rests her hands on the table, this time with the palms faceup. She glances at them expressionlessly.
'No, I don't. In a place where time isn't important, neither is memory. Of course I remember last night, coming here and making vegetable stew. And you ate it all, didn't you? The day before that I remember a bit of. But anything before that, I don't know. Time has been absorbed inside me, and I can't distinguish between one object and whatever's beside it.'
'So memory isn't so important here?'
She beams. 'That's right. Memory isn't so important here. The library handles memories.'
After the girl leaves, I sit by the window holding my hand out in the morning sun, its shadow falling on the windowsill, a distinct five-finger outline. The bee stops buzzing around and quietly lands above the windowpane. It seems to have some serious thinking to do. And so do I.
When the sun is a little bit past its highest point, she comes to where I'm staying, knocks lightly, and opens the door. For a moment I can't tell who I'm looking at-the young girl or her. A slight shift in light, or the way the wind blows, is all it takes for her to change completely. It's like in one instant she transforms into the young girl, a moment later changing back into Miss Saeki. Not that this really takes place. The person in front of me is, without a doubt, Miss Saeki and no other.
'Hello,' she says in a natural tone of voice, just like when we passed in the corridor of the library. She's wearing a long-sleeved navy blue blouse and a matching knee-length skirt, a thin silver necklace, and small pearl earrings-exactly as I'm used to seeing her. Her high heels make short, dry clicks as she steps onto the porch, a sound that's slightly out of place here. She stands gazing at me from the doorway, as if she's checking to see whether it's the real me or not. Of course it's the real me. Just like she's the real Miss Saeki.
'How about coming in for a cup of tea?' I say.
'I'd like that,' she says. And, like she's finally worked up the nerve, she steps inside.
I go to the kitchen and turn on the stove to boil water, trying to get my breathing back to normal.
She sits down at the dining table in the same chair the girl had just been sitting in. 'It feels like we're back in the library, doesn't it?' she says.
'Sure does,' I agree. 'Except for no coffee, and no Oshima.'
'And not a book in sight,' she says.
I make two cups of herbal tea and carry them out to the table, sitting across from her. Birds chirp outside the open window. The bee's still napping above the windowpane.
Miss Saeki's the first one to speak. 'I want you to know it wasn't easy for me to come here. But I had to see you, and talk with you.'
I nod. 'I'm glad you came.'
Her trademark smile plays around her lips. 'There's something I have to tell you.' Her smile's nearly identical to the young girl's, though with a bit more depth, a slight nuance that moves me.
She wraps her hands around the teacup. I'm gazing at the tiny pearl piercings in her ears. She's thinking, and it's taking her longer than usual.
'I burned up all my memories,' she says, deliberately choosing her words. 'They went up in smoke and disappeared into the air. So I won't be able to remember things for very long. All sorts of things-including my time with you. That's why I wanted to see you and talk with you as soon as I could. While I can still remember.'
I crane my neck and look up at the bee above the window, its little black shadow a single dot on the sill.
'The most important thing,' she says quietly, 'is you've got to get out of here. As fast as you can. Leave here, go through the woods, and back to the life you left. The entrance is going to close soon. Promise me you will.'
I shake my head. 'You don't understand this, Miss Saeki, but I don't have any world to go back to. No one's ever really loved me, or wanted me, my entire life. I don't know who to count on other than myself. For me, the
