One Morning Like a Bird Read Online Free PDF Page A

groom’s face, a look of imbecilic happiness, even a kind of innocence, as if, five minutes earlier, he had suddenly imagined himself a man of boundless virtue, and immediately, without the slightest struggle or doubt, had started to believe it. It was then that Yuji should have rushed across the street and flung himself on Saburo’s back. When would he own such invincible rage again? Instead, he had watched them turn in at the old woman’s gate, heard the street mutter its approval of such a handsome pair, and without so much as a shrug retreated to his own house, climbed to the drying platform, and stared, an idiotic sneer on his face, across the fence to the neighbours’ garden.
        To be forgotten by someone like Saburo Kitamura! To be thrown aside like a broken sandal so that the present moment could be enjoyed without the inconvenience of remembering anything as unpleasant as spitting into a boy’s mouth. It was an insult both painful and shaming. Also, perhaps, a judgement, a moment of revelation that exposed him, if only to himself, as the kind of man even thugs and dullards could leave behind them in their dust . . .
        At the tram-stop, a dozen men and women are huddled, half-asleep, in their coats. ‘Stay here,’ says Kyoko, peering to see who among them might recognise her. ‘That’s far enough. Go home.’
        He does not wish to anger her – he’s seen her temper flash out more than once when he’s been slow to follow her direction. He lets her go, retreats a little, then crosses to the gateway of a school on the far side of the road, where he waits until the tram rattles into view, collects its load, and rattles off, its single headlamp throwing a limp yellow beam onto the track ahead.
        She will be gone for two days, sleep most of the third, be back on shift by the fifth. Five trips a month, Tokyo to the deep south, waiting tables in a swaying box as the country flashes by the window (a glimpse of mountains, a glimpse of the sea, towns and cities half known, half anonymous).
        Does Saburo approve, or is he just relieved not to have to send more money home? Even with his promotion, there won’t be much to spare after buying fur collars for himself and paying for studio portraits. The old woman takes in sewing, of course, in the season, but so do half the wives and widows in the city, there’s no money in it. It’s Kyoko who makes ends meet in that house, Kyoko with her cap and apron, her strong legs of a farmer’s daughter from Saitama Prefecture.
        He leaves the gateway and turns for home, feeling something awkward, something more difficult than his usual sly pleasure in harming an absent enemy, the usual uncomplicated interest he takes in that tight, sturdy body under the winter coat. But it’s not until he’s passing the university library, where a lone light burns feebly against the brightening sky, that he realises he has started to respect her. It startles him. He cannot believe he ever really intended to fall in love with her, this wife of a man he has never stopped being frightened of. And yet how interesting it is, how poetic, to think that he might !

6
    When Yuji arrives at the office – a rented room above a bicycle repair shop in the Hibiya district – Horikawa is sitting at his desk speaking on the telephone. He is also doing calculations on the sorobon , smoking a cigarette (Airship brand), picking at his breakfast rice, glancing at the racing pages of the paper and waggling a finger to welcome his visitor. His feet are hidden by the clutter under the desk but Yuji wonders if he might be doing other things with his toes, a little typing perhaps, some filing. No one else he has ever met can perform as many tasks simultaneously, and perform them well, for the calculations will all be correct, no rice will be spilt and the good horses will be sorted from the bad. So remarkable is this talent it’s generally agreed that he would, by now, have his own