battle in the streets? They could even be planning to use their Spanish as code when they storm the Tokyo Garrison in Ichigaya to avenge M.…”
New posters about the tenth anniversary of M's death were appearing in the streets every day. And one day a few of Mr. Shumuta's students deserted while they were at the club. This gave rise to new thoughts about the group. Although I wasn't there at the time, I happened to be present at a conversation about the incident between Mr. Minami and Mr. Shumuta and learned some of the details.
One afternoon early in November when I arrived at the club with Eeyore and we went downstairs, no one was swimming in the Members Pool. As we were on our way there after taking a shower, a student who was working at the club part-time came running over to let us know that it was closed. There had been an accident that morning, he said, and the wall of glass brick facing on the street had been broken. Peering through the glass on this side, I could see that the far corner of the exterior wall across the pool was caved in as though it had been tunneled. Three men in coveralls seemed to be inspecting the hole; they were probably estimating the cost of repair. Meanwhile, Mr. Shumuta was moving his hard, inflated-rubber-tire body busily back and forth, talking volubly in what appeared to be high spirits.
With no idea of what had happened, I took Eeyore to the main pool and waited for the break between swimming-school classes to let him practice his slow-motion underwater approach to swimming. Then I sat him down on a bench alongside the pool and swam some laps myself, kicking hard to save time.
When we went upstairs to the sauna, Mr. Minami and Mr. Shumuta were in the middle of a conversation they appeared to be enjoying. I sat down apart from them and began lathering Eeyore's body with soap to avoid having to say hello.
“Glass brick has gone way down! I thought we'd be looking at ten thousand but it's only a fraction of that and they're not even charging for the repair—I started feeling guilty …” As he spoke, Mr. Shumuta's head moved back and forth on a neck that was thick as a bull's and soaking wet with what was clearly sweat and not hot water from the tub.
“The important thing is that no one was injured,” Minami said woodenly, as though he were trying to distance himself from Mr. Shumuta.
“That's because they've been tempered! It would take a lot more than that to hurt them. Even if they couldn't avoid injury they wouldn't get into that much trouble. Light stuff, nothing major! Those bodies have been tempered! Now they're like me—an ordinary person would have lost a foot in that accident I had!”
“They say that two of them lifted the bench and the third guided it from the back and they slammed it into that wall to open an exit for themselves. Then apparently they used the bench as a bridge to the outside over the broken glass. They had a perfect plan, like pros!”
“Pros at running away are no use to anyone.”
“So what now? Did you inform the police?”
“ Sensei, this is none of the police's business! Whoever wants to run away should do it. Boys like that would be of no use to us even if we brought them back. At my place, we have strict rules about how we live but nobody's watching to see that people don't run away.”
“Then why did they wait until they got to the pool to escape? I mean, shattering a glass wall with a bench and fleeing in a bathing suit is a dangerous stunt; one false move and they could have been seriously injured—”
“Those bodies don't make false moves.” Mr. Shumuta laughed his hearty laugh again. “I'm not sure why they didn't have the good sense to change clothes. Were they afraid of running into me upstairs? Or did that wild hair they caught when they were down at the pool feel like it just couldn't wait?”
“Probably both.” In Minami's curiously clipped reply there was no trace of the young girl's bashfulness that normally
New posters about the tenth anniversary of M's death were appearing in the streets every day. And one day a few of Mr. Shumuta's students deserted while they were at the club. This gave rise to new thoughts about the group. Although I wasn't there at the time, I happened to be present at a conversation about the incident between Mr. Minami and Mr. Shumuta and learned some of the details.
One afternoon early in November when I arrived at the club with Eeyore and we went downstairs, no one was swimming in the Members Pool. As we were on our way there after taking a shower, a student who was working at the club part-time came running over to let us know that it was closed. There had been an accident that morning, he said, and the wall of glass brick facing on the street had been broken. Peering through the glass on this side, I could see that the far corner of the exterior wall across the pool was caved in as though it had been tunneled. Three men in coveralls seemed to be inspecting the hole; they were probably estimating the cost of repair. Meanwhile, Mr. Shumuta was moving his hard, inflated-rubber-tire body busily back and forth, talking volubly in what appeared to be high spirits.
With no idea of what had happened, I took Eeyore to the main pool and waited for the break between swimming-school classes to let him practice his slow-motion underwater approach to swimming. Then I sat him down on a bench alongside the pool and swam some laps myself, kicking hard to save time.
When we went upstairs to the sauna, Mr. Minami and Mr. Shumuta were in the middle of a conversation they appeared to be enjoying. I sat down apart from them and began lathering Eeyore's body with soap to avoid having to say hello.
“Glass brick has gone way down! I thought we'd be looking at ten thousand but it's only a fraction of that and they're not even charging for the repair—I started feeling guilty …” As he spoke, Mr. Shumuta's head moved back and forth on a neck that was thick as a bull's and soaking wet with what was clearly sweat and not hot water from the tub.
“The important thing is that no one was injured,” Minami said woodenly, as though he were trying to distance himself from Mr. Shumuta.
“That's because they've been tempered! It would take a lot more than that to hurt them. Even if they couldn't avoid injury they wouldn't get into that much trouble. Light stuff, nothing major! Those bodies have been tempered! Now they're like me—an ordinary person would have lost a foot in that accident I had!”
“They say that two of them lifted the bench and the third guided it from the back and they slammed it into that wall to open an exit for themselves. Then apparently they used the bench as a bridge to the outside over the broken glass. They had a perfect plan, like pros!”
“Pros at running away are no use to anyone.”
“So what now? Did you inform the police?”
“ Sensei, this is none of the police's business! Whoever wants to run away should do it. Boys like that would be of no use to us even if we brought them back. At my place, we have strict rules about how we live but nobody's watching to see that people don't run away.”
“Then why did they wait until they got to the pool to escape? I mean, shattering a glass wall with a bench and fleeing in a bathing suit is a dangerous stunt; one false move and they could have been seriously injured—”
“Those bodies don't make false moves.” Mr. Shumuta laughed his hearty laugh again. “I'm not sure why they didn't have the good sense to change clothes. Were they afraid of running into me upstairs? Or did that wild hair they caught when they were down at the pool feel like it just couldn't wait?”
“Probably both.” In Minami's curiously clipped reply there was no trace of the young girl's bashfulness that normally
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