Кадзуо Исигуро - Klara and the Sun

‘Would you care to sign our petition?’ The man who had appeared in front of the Mother had a white-painted face and black hair. The Mother took a quick step back, as if the white-face material would come off on her, and said: ‘What’s it about?’

‘We’re protesting the proposal to clear the Oxford Building. There’s currently four hundred and twenty-three post-employed people living inside it, eighty-six of them children. Neither Lexdell nor the city have offered any reasonable plan regarding their relocation.’

I didn’t hear any more of what the black-and-white man was saying to the Mother because the Father moved in front of me and said to her:

‘Jesus, Chrissie, what have you been saying to our daughter?’ He was keeping his voice down, but he sounded annoyed. ‘She’s acting really strange. Did you by any chance tell her?’

‘I didn’t, Paul, no.’ The Mother’s voice was uncharacteristically uncertain. ‘At least, not about…all of that .’

‘So what exactly did you…’

‘We just talked about the portrait, that was all. We can’t keep everything hidden from her. She suspects so many things, and if we don’t speak to her about any of it, we’ll lose her trust.’

‘You told her about the portrait ?’

‘I only told her it wasn’t a painting. That it was a kind of sculpture. She remembers Sal’s doll, of course…’

‘Jesus Christ, I thought we agreed…’

‘Josie isn’t a small child, Paul. She can figure things out. And she’s right to expect us to talk to her honestly…’

‘Rick!’ I recognized Miss Helen’s voice behind me. ‘Rick! Come on! Vance is here, I’ve found him. Come and say hello. Oh, Chrissie, I want you to meet Vance. A dear old friend. Here he is.’

Mr Vance was wearing a high-rank suit with a buttoned-up white shirt and blue tie. He was as bald as Mr Capaldi and less in height than Miss Helen. He was looking all around himself as though puzzled.

‘Hello, nice to meet you,’ he said to the Mother. Then to Miss Helen: ‘So what’s happening here? Is everyone going to this show?’

‘Rick and I were waiting here for you, Vance. Exactly as you told us to. How wonderful to see you again! You’ve hardly changed.’

‘You’re looking very good too, Helen. But what’s going on here? Where’s your son?’

‘Ricky! Over here!’

I could now see Rick, standing a little way away, his hand raised in response. Then he started to move through the fragments towards us. I couldn’t tell if Mr Vance, who was looking in the correct direction, had identified Rick or not. In any case, at that moment, one of the theater’s waistcoat officials came and stood between Mr Vance and the approaching Rick.

‘Do you already have a ticket for this show?’ the waistcoat official asked. ‘Or maybe you do, but you’d be interested in an upgrade?’

Mr Vance stared at him, saying nothing. Then Rick came past the waistcoat official and Mr Vance said: ‘Hey! This is your boy? He looks terrific.’

‘Thank you, Vance,’ Miss Helen said quietly.

‘Hello, sir,’ Rick said, and his smile was like the one he’d had when first greeting the adults at Josie’s interaction meeting.

‘Hi, Rick. So I’m Vance. Old, old friend of your mother. Heard a lot about you.’

‘It’s kind of you to meet with us, sir.’

‘So here you are!’ Josie suddenly filled the space before me. Beside her was a girl of eighteen who I realized was Cindy, the waitress, far less simplified now than when I’d last seen her.

‘Yeah, I don’t think your store actually moved ,’ Cindy said. ‘But there’s a new store opened inside Delancey’s and maybe some of the AFs from your old store would have relocated there.’

‘Excuse me.’ A lady in a high-rank blue dress, who I estimated as forty-six years old, came in front of me, but facing Josie and Cindy. ‘We were just wondering if you were intending to bring this machine into the theater.’

‘Hey, what’s it to do with you if we were?’ Cindy said.

‘These are sought-after seats,’ the lady said. ‘They shouldn’t be taken by machines. If you take this machine into the theater, we’ll have to raise an objection.’

‘I don’t see why it’s any business of yours…’

‘It’s okay,’ Josie said. ‘Klara isn’t going into the show and neither am I…’

‘That’s beside the point,’ Cindy said. ‘I’m angry about this.’ Then to the lady she said: ‘I don’t know you! Who are you? Just coming up and speaking to us that way…’

‘So this is your machine?’ the lady asked Josie.

‘Klara’s my AF, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘First they take the jobs. Then they take the seats at the theater?’

‘Klara?’ The Father had brought his face close up to mine. ‘Are you still feeling okay?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Perhaps I was a little disoriented earlier. But now I’m fine.’

‘Good. Look, I have to be on my way very soon. So I’m wondering if you’d tell me now. Exactly what did we do back there? And what can we hope will happen as a result?’

‘Mr Paul trusted me and that was wonderful. Unfortunately, as I said before, I can’t tell you anything more without jeopardizing the very thing we achieved. But I believe there’s real hope now. Please be patient and wait for good news.’

‘As you please. I’ll call in at the apartment in the morning to say goodbye to Josie. So I may see you then.’

The Mother’s voice said somewhere behind me: ‘We’ll talk about this back at the apartment. We can’t talk here.’

‘But that’s all I wanted to say,’ Josie’s voice said. ‘I definitely don’t want you sealing it up, the way you did with Sal’s. I want it so Klara gets sole use of my room and she gets to come and go as she pleases.’

‘But why are we even talking about this? You’re going to get well, honey. We don’t have to think about any of this…’

‘Oh, Klara, here you are.’ Miss Helen had appeared beside me. ‘Klara, look, I’ve just been speaking with Chrissie. You’re to come with us for now.’

‘With you?’

‘Chrissie wants to take Josie back to the apartment and have a quiet word with her, just the two of them. So you stay with us for now. Chrissie will come and collect you in half an hour.’ Then leaning forward, she spoke quietly into my ear: ‘Can you see? Rick and Vance are really hitting it off! All the same, dear, Rick will really appreciate having you beside him as he goes through this. It could still be something of an ordeal.’

‘Yes, of course. But the Mother…’

‘She’ll come and collect you in very good time, don’t worry. She just needs a few minutes alone with Josie.’

‘What I want more than anything else,’ Mr Vance said with a laugh, coming towards us, ‘is for us to get out of this crush. Over there, that diner. That looks fine. Just somewhere we can sit down, look at one another and talk.’

There were arms encircling me, and I realized Josie was holding me in an embrace, not unlike the one she’d held me in that day at the store following the great decision. But this time, she spoke into my ear, so only I could hear:

‘Don’t worry. I’ll never let anything bad happen to you. I’ll talk to Mom. You go with Rick for now. Trust me.’

Then she released me, and Miss Helen was pulling me gently away.

‘Come along, Klara, dear.’

We emerged from the theater crowd, Mr Vance leading the way towards the diner, Miss Helen hurrying to walk alongside him. Rick and I followed the adults a few steps behind, and as the emptiness and cool air moved in around us, I felt my orientation returning. When I looked back, I was surprised to see how dark and quiet the street actually was, aside from the single dense cluster of people around the streetlight. In fact, as we moved ever further away, this crowd – of which I’d so recently been a part – appeared like one of those insect clouds I’d seen in the evening field, hovering against the sky, each creature within it busily changing position, anxious to find a better one, but never straying beyond the boundary of the shape they made together. I saw Josie, waving with a puzzled expression from the crowd’s edge, and the Mother, standing behind her, a hand on each of Josie’s shoulders, watching us with empty eyes.