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mother dead, Satsu would act in her place, I supposed. I watched my sister scrub the iron pot that had cooked our soup; but even though it was right before her—even though her eyes were pointed at the thing—I could tell she wasn’t seeing it. She went on scrubbing it long after it was clean. Finally I said to her:
    â€œSatsu-san, I don’t feel well.”
    â€œGo outside and heat the bath,” she told me, and brushed her unruly hair from her eyes with one of her wet hands.
    â€œI don’t want a bath,” I said. “Satsu, Mommy is going to die—”
    â€œThis pot is cracked. Look!”
    â€œIt isn’t cracked,” I said. “That line has always been there.”
    â€œBut how did the water get out just then?”
    â€œYou sloshed it out. I watched you.”
    For a moment I could tell that Satsu was feeling something very strongly, which translated itself onto her face as a look of extreme puzzlement, just as so many of her feelings did. But she said nothing further to me. She only took the pot from the stove and walked toward the door to dump it out.

 
    Â chapter two
    T he following morning, to take my mind off my troubles, I went swimming in the pond just inland from our house amid a grove of pine trees. The children from the village went there most mornings when the weather was right. Satsu came too sometimes, wearing a scratchy bathing dress she’d made from our father’s old fishing clothes. It wasn’t a very good bathing dress, because it sagged at her chest whenever she bent over, and one of the boys would scream, “Look! You can see Mount Fuji!” But she wore it just the same.
    Around noontime, I decided to return home for something to eat. Satsu had left much earlier with the Sugi boy, who was the son of Mr. Tanaka’s assistant. She acted like a dog around him. When he went somewhere, he looked back over his shoulder to signal that she should follow, and she always did. I didn’t expect to see her again until dinnertime, but as I neared the house I caught sight of her on the path ahead of me, leaning against a tree. If you’d seen what was happening, you might have understood it right away; but I was only a little girl. Satsu had her scratchy bathing dress up around her shoulders and the Sugi boy was playing around with her “Mount Fujis,” as the boys called them.
    Ever since our mother first became ill, my sister had grown a bit pudgy. Her breasts were every bit as unruly as her hair. What amazed me most was that their unruliness appeared to be the very thing the Sugi boy found fascinating about them. He jiggled them with his hand, and pushed them to one side to watch them swing back and settle against her chest. I knew I shouldn’t be spying, but I couldn’t think what else to do with myself while the path ahead of me was blocked. And then suddenly I heard a man’s voice behind me say:
    â€œChiyo-chan, why are you squatting there behind that tree?”
    Considering that I was a little girl of nine, coming from a pond where I’d been swimming; and considering that as yet I had no shapes or textures on my body to conceal from anyone . . . well, it’s easy to guess what I was wearing.
    When I turned—still squatting on the path, and covering my nakedness with my arms as best I could—there stood Mr. Tanaka. I could hardly have been more embarrassed.
    â€œThat must be your tipsy house over there,” he said. “And over there, that looks like the Sugi boy. He certainly looks busy! Who’s that girl with him?”
    â€œWell, it might be my sister, Mr. Tanaka. I’m waiting for them to leave.”
    Mr. Tanaka cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, and then I heard the sound of the Sugi boy running away down the path. My sister must have run away too, for Mr. Tanaka told me I could go home and get some clothes now. “When you see that sister of