Кадзуо Исигуро - Klara and the Sun

I knew already that Sunday breakfasts could become tense. On other mornings, even when the Mother stayed beyond her quick coffee, there was still the feeling that every exchange could be the last till the evening, and while this sometimes made both Josie and the Mother speak sharply to each other, the breakfast couldn’t become loaded with signals. But on a Sunday, when the Mother wasn’t about to go anywhere, there was the feeling that each question she asked could lead to an uncomfortable conversation. When I was still new in the house, I believed there were particular danger topics for Josie, and that if only the Mother could be prevented from finding routes to these topics, the Sunday breakfasts would remain comfortable. But on further observation, I saw that even if the danger topics were avoided – topics like Josie’s education assignments, or her social interaction scores – the uncomfortable feeling could still be there because it really had to do with something beneath these topics; that the danger topics were themselves ways the Mother had devised to make certain emotions appear inside Josie’s mind.

So I became concerned when, on that Sunday morning of the trip to Morgan’s Falls, the Mother asked Josie why she liked to play a particular oblong game in which the characters continually died in car accidents. Josie had at first replied cheerfully: ‘It’s just the way the game’s set up, Mom. You get more and more of your people in the superbus, but if you haven’t figured out the routes, you can lose all your best people in a crash.’

‘Why would you play a game like that, Josie? A game in which something awful like that happens?’

Josie continued for a while to answer the Mother patiently, but before long the smile left her voice. In the end she was repeating that it was just a game she enjoyed, while the Mother asked more and more questions about it and seemed to become angry.

Then the Mother’s anger seemed all at once to vanish. She still didn’t become cheerful, but she looked at Josie in a gentle way, and her kind smile transformed her entire face.

‘I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t be bringing this up today. I’m being so unfair.’

And she stepped off her highstool, went to the one Josie was on and held Josie in an embrace that seemed to go on and on, until the Mother was obliged to introduce a rocking motion to disguise how long it was lasting. Josie, I could see, didn’t mind at all how long the hug lasted, and when they separated – I didn’t turn from the refrigerator until I was sure they had – the rift between them had been mended.

So the breakfast I’d feared might pose a last obstacle to our going to Morgan’s Falls ended in harmony, and my mind became filled with excitement. Only in the final moments, after the Mother and Melania Housekeeper had already gone out to the car, did I see Josie, as she placed her arms through the sleeves of her padded jacket, pause and allow weariness to pass through her. She finished putting on the jacket, and noticing me across the hall, smiled brightly. Then we heard the car outside and the wheels moving over the loose stones. Melania Housekeeper came back into the house holding her keys and gestured for us to go out. But now that I was aware, I was able to see another tiny signal, something in Josie’s hurried step as she walked ahead of me out onto the loose stones.

The Mother was behind the wheel, watching us through the windshield, and a fear came into my mind. But Josie betrayed no more signs – she even managed a skip of happiness as she crossed the loose stones – and opened the front passenger door by herself.

I’d never been inside a car before, but Rosa and I had watched so many people get in and out of vehicles, their postures and maneuvers, how they sat once the vehicles began to move, that there was nothing that came as a surprise to me as I navigated into my rear seat. The cushion was softer than I’d expected, and the seat in front, the one Josie was now in, was very close so I could hardly see at all in front of me, but I created no delay. I had no time to make detailed observations of the car’s interior because I became aware that the uncomfortable atmosphere had returned. In the front, Josie was silent, looking away from the Mother beside her, gazing towards the house and Melania Housekeeper coming across the loose stones carrying the shapeless bag that contained, among other things, Josie’s emergency medicines. The Mother had both hands on the steering wheel as though eager to set off, and her head was turned in the same direction as Josie’s, but I could tell the Mother wasn’t looking at Melania Housekeeper’s approach, or at the house, but straight at Josie herself. The Mother’s eyes had grown large, and because the Mother’s face was especially thin and bony, the eyes appeared even larger than they were. Melania Housekeeper put the shapeless bag in the trunk and thumped down the lid. Then she opened the rear door on her side and slid into the seat next to mine. She said to me:

‘AF. Strap on belt. Or you get damaged.’

I was trying to understand the belt system, which I’d seen so many car passengers operating, when the Mother said:

‘You think you have me fooled, don’t you, girl?’

There was a silence, then Josie asked: ‘What are you saying, Mom?’

‘You can’t hide it. You’re sick again.’

‘I’m not sick, Mom. I’m fine.’

‘Why do you do this to me, Josie? Always. Why does it have to be this way?’

‘I don’t know what you’re saying, Mom.’

‘You think I don’t look forward to a trip like this? My one free day with my daughter. A daughter I happen to love very dearly, who tells me she’s fine when she’s really feeling sick?’

‘That’s not true, Mom. I really am fine.’

But I could hear the change in Josie’s voice. It was as if the effort she’d been making until this point had been abandoned, and she was suddenly exhausted.

‘Why do you pretend, Josie? You think it doesn’t hurt me?’

‘Mom, I swear I’m fine. Please drive us. Klara’s never been to a waterfall and she’s so looking forward to it.’

‘ Klara ’s looking forward to it?’

‘Mom, please.’

‘Melania,’ the Mother said, ‘Josie needs assistance. Get out the car. Go round her side, please, and help her. She may fall if she tries to get out herself.’

There was silence again.

‘Melania? What’s up back there? Are you sick too?’

‘Maybe Miss Josie make it.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I help her. AF too. Miss Josie all right. Maybe.’

‘Let me get this right. Is this your assessment? That my daughter is well enough to spend the day out? At the falls? This gives me concern about you, Melania.’

Melania Housekeeper was silent, but still she didn’t move.

‘Melania? Am I to understand you’re refusing to get out to help Josie disembark?’

Melania Housekeeper was looking out between the front seats at the road ahead. Her face looked puzzled, like something further up the hill was hard to identify. Then suddenly she opened her door and got out.

‘Mom,’ Josie said. ‘Please can we go? Please don’t do this.’

‘Do you think I like this? Any of this? Okay, you’re sick. That’s not your fault. But not telling anyone. Keeping it to yourself this way, so we all get in the car, the whole day before us. That’s not nice, Josie.’

‘It’s not nice you telling me I’m sick when I’m easily strong enough…’

Melania Housekeeper opened the door beside Josie from the outside. Josie fell silent, then her face, full of sadness, looked round the edge of the car seat at me.

‘I’m sorry, Klara. We’ll go another time. I promise. I’m really so sorry.’