fashion, his cheeks flushed and glowing. The scene surprised and delighted Fusako, but she couldn’t help worrying a little about Noboru’s health.
“Stop worrying so much! Working up a good sweat’s the best way to kick a cold.” The remark may have been crude as an attempt at reassurance but at least it was “man talk,” something Fusako’s house hadn’t heard for a long time. The walls and the old beams in the ceiling seemed to shrink from the masculine utterance.
When the whole family had gathered to listen to the midnight bells and feast on special buckwheat noodles, the housekeeper told an anecdote from her past which she repeated every New Year’s Eve: “At the Macgregors’—that’s the folks I used to work for—New Year’s Eve always meant a big party with lots of company. And at twelve o’clock on the dot everybody started kissing everybody else like it wasn’t anything! One time I even had an old Irish gentleman with whiskers smooch me on the cheek—he just hung on there like he was a leech or something. . . .”
Ryuji embraced Fusako as soon as they were alone in the bedroom. Later, when the first pale promise of the dawn appeared, he proposed something childish: why didn’t they walk over to the park and watch the first sunrise of the New Year? Fusako was captivated by the lunacy of racing into the cold. She jumped out of bed and bundled into everything she could get on—tights, slacks, a cashmere sweater, and a gorgeous Danish ski sweater over that; and tiptoeing down the stairs, they unlocked the front door and stepped outside.
The dawn air felt good against their heated bodies. Racing into the deserted park, they laughed out loud and chased each other in and out among the fir trees, and took deep breaths, vying to see who could exhale the whitest steam into the cold, dark air. They felt as though thin crusts of ice were coating their love-staled mouths.
It was well past six when they leaned against the railing that overlooked the harbor: Venus had banked into the south. Though the lights of buildings and the red lamps blinking on distant masts were still bright, and though the beacon’s red and green blades of light still knifed through the darkness in the park, outlines of houses could be discerned and the sky was touched with reddish purple.
Small and distant, the first cock call of the year reached them on the chill morning wind, a tragic, fitful cry. “May this be a good year for us all.” Fusako spoke her prayer aloud. It was cold, and when she nestled her cheek against Ryuji’s he kissed the lips so close to his and said: “It will be. It has to be.”
Gradually a blurred form at the water’s edge was sharpening into a building. As Ryuji stared at a red bulb blooming above an emergency exit, he became painfully conscious of the texture of shore life. He would be thirty-four in May. It was time to abandon the dream he had cherished too long. Time to realize that no specially tailored glory was waiting for him. Time, no matter if the feeble eaves lamps still defied the green-gray light of morning by refusing to come awake, to open his eyes.
Though it was New Year’s Day, a submerged tremolo pervaded the harbor. Every few minutes a barge unraveled from the moored fleet and hacked dryly down the canal. As a rosy hue stained the surface of the water and seemed to inflate itself into round abundance, the poles of light slanting away from anchored ships began to dwindle. Twenty minutes past six: the mercury lamps in the park clicked out.
“Are you getting cold?” Ryuji asked.
“My gums are stinging, it’s so cold—but I don’t mind. The sun will be coming up any minute now.”
Are you getting cold? . . . Are you getting cold? Ryuji asked again and again, and all the time he was directing another question to himself: Are you really going to give it up? The feeling of the sea, the dark, drunken feeling that unearthly rolling always brings? The thrill of saying
“Stop worrying so much! Working up a good sweat’s the best way to kick a cold.” The remark may have been crude as an attempt at reassurance but at least it was “man talk,” something Fusako’s house hadn’t heard for a long time. The walls and the old beams in the ceiling seemed to shrink from the masculine utterance.
When the whole family had gathered to listen to the midnight bells and feast on special buckwheat noodles, the housekeeper told an anecdote from her past which she repeated every New Year’s Eve: “At the Macgregors’—that’s the folks I used to work for—New Year’s Eve always meant a big party with lots of company. And at twelve o’clock on the dot everybody started kissing everybody else like it wasn’t anything! One time I even had an old Irish gentleman with whiskers smooch me on the cheek—he just hung on there like he was a leech or something. . . .”
Ryuji embraced Fusako as soon as they were alone in the bedroom. Later, when the first pale promise of the dawn appeared, he proposed something childish: why didn’t they walk over to the park and watch the first sunrise of the New Year? Fusako was captivated by the lunacy of racing into the cold. She jumped out of bed and bundled into everything she could get on—tights, slacks, a cashmere sweater, and a gorgeous Danish ski sweater over that; and tiptoeing down the stairs, they unlocked the front door and stepped outside.
The dawn air felt good against their heated bodies. Racing into the deserted park, they laughed out loud and chased each other in and out among the fir trees, and took deep breaths, vying to see who could exhale the whitest steam into the cold, dark air. They felt as though thin crusts of ice were coating their love-staled mouths.
It was well past six when they leaned against the railing that overlooked the harbor: Venus had banked into the south. Though the lights of buildings and the red lamps blinking on distant masts were still bright, and though the beacon’s red and green blades of light still knifed through the darkness in the park, outlines of houses could be discerned and the sky was touched with reddish purple.
Small and distant, the first cock call of the year reached them on the chill morning wind, a tragic, fitful cry. “May this be a good year for us all.” Fusako spoke her prayer aloud. It was cold, and when she nestled her cheek against Ryuji’s he kissed the lips so close to his and said: “It will be. It has to be.”
Gradually a blurred form at the water’s edge was sharpening into a building. As Ryuji stared at a red bulb blooming above an emergency exit, he became painfully conscious of the texture of shore life. He would be thirty-four in May. It was time to abandon the dream he had cherished too long. Time to realize that no specially tailored glory was waiting for him. Time, no matter if the feeble eaves lamps still defied the green-gray light of morning by refusing to come awake, to open his eyes.
Though it was New Year’s Day, a submerged tremolo pervaded the harbor. Every few minutes a barge unraveled from the moored fleet and hacked dryly down the canal. As a rosy hue stained the surface of the water and seemed to inflate itself into round abundance, the poles of light slanting away from anchored ships began to dwindle. Twenty minutes past six: the mercury lamps in the park clicked out.
“Are you getting cold?” Ryuji asked.
“My gums are stinging, it’s so cold—but I don’t mind. The sun will be coming up any minute now.”
Are you getting cold? . . . Are you getting cold? Ryuji asked again and again, and all the time he was directing another question to himself: Are you really going to give it up? The feeling of the sea, the dark, drunken feeling that unearthly rolling always brings? The thrill of saying
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