Almost Transparent Blue Read Online Free PDF

don't you get how she felt?
    We stayed at this inn but it was ¥2000 without meals, really high."
    I turned off the stereo. Reiko's feet stuck out from under the blanket, the soles were black with dirt.
    "And then on the day of the funeral, you know, Kei phoned me, said to come back over for a while because she was lonely. When I said how can I leave, she said she'd just kill herself and so I was really freaked and I went. She was listening to an old radio in that dirty six-mat room. She said she couldn't get the FEN station, well, how can you expect to get the GI broadcasts way over in Toyama? And then she asked me all sorts of stuff about my mom, really dumb stuff. She was laughing in this fakey way, it was a bad scene, honestly. When she'd died—Kei asked how my mom's face had looked when she'd died, and is it really true they put makeup on people before putting them in coffins, stuff like that, you know. When I said, Yeah, they put makeup on her, she asked, What brand? Max Factor? Revlon? Kanebo? How was I supposed to know something like that? And then she started sniffling, said she'd been really lonely, then she bawled, you know."
    "But, well, I think I understand how she felt, waiting around on that kind of a day, yeah, I know it'd be lonely."
    The sugar had sunk to the bottom of the coffee ; I swallowed without thinking.
    All at once the inside of my mouth was coated with sugar and I felt sick.
    "Yeah, I see that, too. I know, but listen, my own mom was really dead. Kei was crying and mumbling and then she dragged the bedding out of the closet and she stripped. I mean, I'd just said good-bye to my dead mother and there I was being grabbed by this naked half-blood chick. It was kind of, Ryū, you know what I mean? It would have been O.K., I guess, if we'd done it, but it was kind of, you know, kind of . . . "
    "You didn't, huh?"
    "How could I? Kei was bawling, and I actually got uptight, hey, you know the soap operas on TV? Somehow I felt I was in one of those soap operas, I got worried maybe they could hear us in the next room, I was ashamed. I wonder what Kei was thinking then—anyway, it's been no good between us ever since."
    The only sound was Reiko's breathing. The dusty blanket moved up and down in time with it. Sometimes drunks peered in through the open door.
    "Anyway, ever since, it's been weird. Yeah, we fought a lot before.
    "But now somehow, you know, it's different. Somehow, something's different.
    "And even though we'd talked about Hawaii before and been making plans for a long time, you saw how it was today?
    "Yeah, even sex is no good anymore, I'd be better off going to one of those Turkish baths."
    "Your mother, was she sick?"
    "I guess you could say that, her body was just worn out. Her eyes were all tired, like, and she'd gotten a lot smaller than she used to be. When she died. Yeah, it was pretty sad about my mom, I felt it didn't have anything much to do with me, but it was pretty sad.
    "Did you know? She went around peddling that old-time Toyama medicine.
    When I was little I went around a lot with her. She'd walk around all day with that bundle as big as an icebox on her back. There're regular customers for it all over the country, you know? And do you know those paper balloons, the kind you can blow into and puff up, she used to give them out free. I used to play around a lot with those.
    "It's really funny, when I think about it now. It was really something—I could play all day with a thing like that. If I tried it now, I'd be bored stiff, but even back then I was bored, really, I don't remember having any fun. One time I was waiting for my mom in this inn, you know, and the electric light was out, and I realized the sun had set and it was getting dark. I couldn't say anything to the maids there, I wasn't even in grade school, I was scared. I went over to one corner of the room where a little light came in from the street—I can't forget it, I really was scared, that little street, and the