The Lake by Banana Yoshimoto Read Free Book Online Page B

it. He and I are the kind of people who need to take things slow anyway. Getting to know each other, talking things through, everything has to go nice and slow,” I said.
    At some point, as I was talking, it hit me how deeply concerned about Nakajima I was. That I wanted to know, sort of, except that at the same time I didn’t.
    That was why I felt this way. As if maybe, maybe, I was starting to commit.
    Maybe I’d begun to love him, maybe at some point I’d actually fallen for him in a big way. For the first time in my life I seemed to be in love, not just playing—a woman loving a man.
    I could tell because I was cautious, the way my mom had been with my dad.
    That’s how she was: the deeper she loved, the more hesitant she was.
    “How about money? Does he have his own?”
    “Yes. He says his father will keep supporting him until he finishes his Ph.D., and I guess he has whatever his mother left, too. He still has his own apartment, but since he spends nights at my place he puts money in my account for food and utilities and stuff. Every month. And he calculates it all incredibly precisely. Down to the hour, down to the yen.”
    “He’s good about those things, then.”
    “You’re pretty down-to-earth yourself, huh, asking about that?”
    “Well, anyway, it sounds to me like everything’s fine. You can go on living together like you are for the rest of your lives. It’s kind of weird, but then so are you.”
    “Yeah, I guess I’ll just let things progress this way for a while,” I said. Thinking to myself, Assuming there’s any progress . “But enough about that. You came out because you had something to talk about, right?”
    “Right. I wanted to apologize. For making you go on TV, about the mural.”
    “Oh, don’t worry about it. I don’t mind.”
    “You’re really famous now, huh?” Sayuri said. “Features on TV and everything.”
    I laughed. “I’m certainly not really famous.”
    “In this part of town, that’s enough to make you a celebrity. And a lot of people are hoping that now that you’re painting this mural, if your work attracts attention, maybe the building won’t be torn down after all.”
    “Hmm.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you involved.”
    “Which side are you on?”
    “Oh, I don’t want them to tear it down—of course not!” Sayuri said. “I live for this center. Lots of my students have been coming here for years. That’s not why I suggested you, though. I just wanted to have one of your pictures here, a huge one, where I work. That’s the truth. I had no intention of using you, or of making you create something only to have it destroyed.”
    I knew Sayuri meant it. That’s the kind of person she is.
    She was staring at the ground. I gazed at the fine hairs around her ears, her thick eyebrows, and I could feel how serious she was. No doubt all kinds of people had been pressing her to do all kinds of things, but she kept it all to herself, protecting me.
    “Really, I’m happy to do any number of interviews about the mural. Only, when it comes to these other things, I don’t really understand the issues,” I said. “Sorry.”
    “Thanks for being so willing to help. And on the off chance that this place should happen to be torn down sometime soon, and this wall goes with it, I’m really sorry,” Sayuri said. “I’ll do everything I can to protect it, as long as I’m here.”
    “It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t paint for the future. Besides, it’s not your fault.”
    “Either way, I’m planning to take a lot of pictures,” Sayuri said. “And I’ll have them keep copies in the district document center. That’s something I’m definitely going to do.”
    I would have been lying if I’d said I didn’t care at all whether the mural survived. But it’d be an even bigger lie to say I wanted it to survive forever. I just liked coming here and feeling things each day, and recording those feelings in a kind of big way in a picture.